Book IX sees Socrates deal with the figure of the tyrant in more depth.
This is a necessary digression, since by evaluating the life of the tyrant, his pleasures and pains, they may have a better idea of what constitutes the unjust life. Eventually they will use what they learn from the tyrant to compare his life with the philosopher's. The tyrant begins as the champion of the people, promising to release them from debt.
By the end of his reign, however, he has taxed them into poverty and enslaved them. Then, in an unexpected turn, the tyrant, for a while master of all men himself becomes a slave to all men. He is governed by insatiable appetites, is threatened on all sides and at every moment by betrayal and assassination, and can never leave his land for fear of being deposed.
The portrait is rather dismal; what would seem to be absolute freedom is in reality absolute slavery. Book IX concludes with the re-introduction of the question: does the unjust man who is perceived as just in public live better or worse than the just man perceived as unjust?
A discussion of the nature of pleasure ensues and the base pleasures are distinguished from the noble and, in fact, more enjoyable. Ultimately, Socrates answers, in the long run, injustice enjoys much less, if at all, and must inevitably reveal itself and be shunned or cast out.
The finale, and really the end of the State as such, is Socrates assertion that whether or not the ideal State becomes a reality, the philosopher must always live as though it were real inside him.
