The final book of the Thessaly trilogy: decades after The Just City and The Philosopher Kings, the community has relocated across the galaxy to the planet Plato, where first contact with an alien civilization and the sudden death of the immortal Athene force the philosophers and their children to confront necessity itself.
Books mentioned in Necessity (12)
The Republic by Plato: “"Athene was setting up Plato's Republic, on Thera, before the Trojan War, before the Thera eruption" — plus multiple further references ("having read The Republic", "In the Republic Plato slid easily between the city and the soul"). Distinct from the in-world place name "the Republic"/"the Republics" used elsewhere for the daughter…”
The Aeneid by Virgil: “"They had the oldest and most complete copy of the Aeneid," describing the library of rescued classical texts.”
Euthyphro by Plato: Epigraph: "Socrates: Tell me then, oh tell me—what is the great and splendid work which the gods achieve with the help of our devotions? Euthyphro: Many and fair are the works of the gods." —PLATO, Euthyphro
Ode on a Grecian Urn by John Keats: Epigraph: "What leaf-fringed legends haunt about thy shape..." —KEATS, "Ode on a Grecian Urn"
Metamorphoses by Ovid: Epigraph: "And now the work is done that cannot be erased by Jupiter's anger, fire and sword, nor the gnawing tooth of time..." —OVID, envoi to Metamorphoses
A New World by Ada Palmer: Epigraph: "Answer me, answer me / Somebody answer me..." —ADA PALMER, "A New World"
Iliad by Homer: “"Like the shield for Achilles," I said. "We'd recently read that part of the Iliad in the current rhapsode."”
Phaedo by Plato: “Phaedo of Elis, the friend of Sokrates for whom Plato named his most beautiful dialogue, on the immortality of the soul, was a slave.”
Apology by Plato: “it's like you said in the Apology, or was it the Crito, about agreeing to be bound by the laws of a city?”
Crito by Plato: “Named alongside the Apology in the same exchange: "it's like you said in the Apology, or was it the Crito, about agreeing to be bound by the laws of a city?"”
Love's Labour's Lost by William Shakespeare: “"Like Love's Labour's Lost," Athene said, comparing two fast-thinking philosophers finishing each other's arguments.”
Archaic Torso of Apollo by Rainer Maria Rilke: “"'You must change your life' is a quotation from Rainer Maria Rilke's 'Archaïscher Torso Apollos,' 1908," per the author's endnote; spoken in-story as "'You must change your life,' I said to Rainer in the Louvre in 1905."”