 The pleasures of the lowest soul are distinguished by their illusory quality. Desire delights not in true beings but in “idols [eidôlois] of true pleasure” and painted images, eskiagraphêmenais (586b). Skiagraphia was an impressionistic manner of painting that juxtaposed contrasting hues to create illusionistic shadow and intensify color (Keuls 1974, Demand 1975, Petraki 2018), and Plato disapproved of it (Parmenides 165c–d, Phaedo 69b). (In fact the Republic’s attacks on painting are sometimes interpreted narrowly as applying only to skiagraphia.) Thus where Book 9 examines the desirous part of the soul and finds its objects to be mere idols, Book 10 determines mimêsis to be a show of mere idols and concludes that it keeps company with the soul’s desirous part.