And so it goes, at least according to Plato. As he explains it, the same dreary process repeats itself over and over, an endless cycle (in Greek, the term is anakuklosis) of political birth, decay, revolution, and renewal without end or purpose. This is the dismal cycle, the Republic explains, that all those condemned to live in the cave are fated to repeat. It is this cycle, that only rule by philosophers can ever interrupt or break.
