Laws by Plato

LAWS

by

Plato

Translated by Benjamin Jowett

BOOK I.

PERSONS OF THE DIALOGUE: An Athenian Stranger, Cleinias (a Cretan),
Megillus (a Lacedaemonian).

ATHENIAN: Tell me, Strangers, is a God or some man supposed to be the
author of your laws?

CLEINIAS: A God, Stranger; in very truth a God: among us Cretans he is
said to have been Zeus, but in Lacedaemon, whence our friend here comes, I
believe they would say that Apollo is their lawgiver: would they not,
Megillus?

MEGILLUS: Certainly.

ATHENIAN: And do you, Cleinias, believe, as Homer tells, that every ninth
year Minos went to converse with his Olympian sire, and was inspired by
him to make laws for your cities?

CLEINIAS: Yes, that is our tradition; and there was Rhadamanthus, a
brother of his, with whose name you are familiar; he is reputed to have
been the justest of men, and we Cretans are of opinion that he earned this
reputation from his righteous administration of justice when he was alive.

ATHENIAN: Yes, and a noble reputation it was, worthy of a son of Zeus. As
you and Megillus have been trained in these institutions, I dare say that
you will not be unwilling to give an account of your government and laws;
on our way we can pass the time pleasantly in talking about them, for I am
told that the distance from Cnosus to the cave and temple of Zeus is
considerable; and doubtless there are shady places under the lofty trees,
which will protect us from this scorching sun. Being no longer young, we
may often stop to rest beneath them, and get over the whole journey
without difficulty, beguiling the time by conversation.

CLEINIAS: Yes, Stranger, and if we proceed onward we shall come to groves
of cypresses, which are of rare height and beauty, and there are green
meadows, in which we may repose and converse.

ATHENIAN: Very good.

CLEINIAS: Very good, indeed; and still better when we see them; let us
move on cheerily.

ATHENIAN: I am willing--And first, I want to know why the law has ordained
that you shall have common meals and gymnastic exercises, and wear arms.

CLEINIAS: I think, Stranger, that the aim of our institutions is easily
intelligible to any one. Look at the character of our country: Crete is
not like Thessaly, a large plain; and for this reason they have horsemen
in Thessaly, and we have runners--the inequality of the ground in our
country is more adapted to locomotion on foot; but then, if you have
runners you must have light arms--no one can carry a heavy weight when
running, and bows and arrows are convenient because they are light. Now
all these regulations have been made with a view to war, and the
legislator appears to me to have looked to this in all his arrangements:--
the common meals, if I am not mistaken, were instituted by him for a
similar reason, because he saw that while they are in the field the
citizens are by the nature of the case compelled to take their meals
together for the sake of mutual protection. He seems to me to have thought
the world foolish in not understanding that all men are always at war with
one another; and if in war there ought to be common meals and certain
persons regularly appointed under others to protect an army, they should
be continued in peace. For what men in general term peace would be said by
him to be only a name; in reality every city is in a natural state of war
with every other, not indeed proclaimed by heralds, but everlasting. And
if you look closely, you will find that this was the intention of the
Cretan legislator; all institutions, private as well as public, were
arranged by him with a view to war; in giving them he was under the
impression that no possessions or institutions are of any value to him who
is defeated in battle; for all the good things of the conquered pass into
the hands of the conquerors.

ATHENIAN: You appear to me, Stranger, to have been thoroughly trained in
the Cretan institutions, and to be well informed about them; will you tell
me a little more explicitly what is the principle of government which you
would lay down? You seem to imagine that a well-governed state ought to be
so ordered as to conquer all other states in war: am I right in supposing
this to be your meaning?

CLEINIAS: Certainly; and our Lacedaemonian friend, if I am not mistaken,
will agree with me.

MEGILLUS: Why, my good friend, how could any Lacedaemonian say anything
else?

ATHENIAN: And is what you say applicable only to states, or also to
villages?

CLEINIAS: To both alike.

ATHENIAN: The case is the same?

CLEINIAS: Yes.

ATHENIAN: And in the village will there be the same war of family against
family, and of individual against individual?

CLEINIAS: The same.

ATHENIAN: And should each man conceive himself to be his own enemy:--what
shall we say?

CLEINIAS: O Athenian Stranger--inhabitant of Attica I will not call you,
for you seem to deserve rather to be named after the goddess herself,
because you go back to first principles,--you have thrown a light upon the
argument, and will now be better able to understand what I was just
saying,--that all men are publicly one another's enemies, and each man
privately his own.

(ATHENIAN: My good sir, what do you mean?)--

CLEINIAS:...Moreover, there is a victory and defeat--the first and best of
victories, the lowest and worst of defeats--which each man gains or
sustains at the hands, not of another, but of himself; this shows that
there is a war against ourselves going on within every one of us.

ATHENIAN: Let us now reverse the order of the argument: Seeing that every
individual is either his own superior or his own inferior, may we say that
there is the same principle in the house, the village, and the state?

CLEINIAS: You mean that in each of them there is a principle of
superiority or inferiority to self?

ATHENIAN: Yes.

CLEINIAS: You are quite right in asking the question, for there certainly
is such a principle, and above all in states; and the state in which the
better citizens win a victory over the mob and over the inferior classes
may be truly said to be better than itself, and may be justly praised,
where such a victory is gained, or censured in the opposite case.

ATHENIAN: Whether the better is ever really conquered by the worse, is a
question which requires more discussion, and may be therefore left for the
present. But I now quite understand your meaning when you say that
citizens who are of the same race and live in the same cities may unjustly
conspire, and having the superiority in numbers may overcome and enslave
the few just; and when they prevail, the state may be truly called its own
inferior and therefore bad; and when they are defeated, its own superior
and therefore good.

CLEINIAS: Your remark, Stranger, is a paradox, and yet we cannot possibly
deny it.

ATHENIAN: Here is another case for consideration;--in a family there may
be several brothers, who are the offspring of a single pair; very possibly
the majority of them may be unjust, and the just may be in a minority.

CLEINIAS: Very possibly.

ATHENIAN: And you and I ought not to raise a question of words as to
whether this family and household are rightly said to be superior when
they conquer, and inferior when they are conquered; for we are not now
considering what may or may not be the proper or customary way of
speaking, but we are considering the natural principles of right and wrong
in laws.

CLEINIAS: What you say, Stranger, is most true.

MEGILLUS: Quite excellent, in my opinion, as far as we have gone.

ATHENIAN: Again; might there not be a judge over these brethren, of whom
we were speaking?

CLEINIAS: Certainly.

ATHENIAN: Now, which would be the better judge--one who destroyed the bad
and appointed the good to govern themselves; or one who, while allowing
the good to govern, let the bad live, and made them voluntarily submit? Or
third, I suppose, in the scale of excellence might be placed a judge, who,
finding the family distracted, not only did not destroy any one, but
reconciled them to one another for ever after, and gave them laws which
they mutually observed, and was able to keep them friends.

CLEINIAS: The last would be by far the best sort of judge and legislator.

ATHENIAN: And yet the aim of all the laws which he gave would be the
reverse of war.

CLEINIAS: Very true.

ATHENIAN: And will he who constitutes the state and orders the life of man
have in view external war, or that kind of intestine war called civil,
which no one, if he could prevent, would like to have occurring in his own
state; and when occurring, every one would wish to be quit of as soon as
possible?

CLEINIAS: He would have the latter chiefly in view.

ATHENIAN: And would he prefer that this civil war should be terminated by
the destruction of one of the parties, and by the victory of the other, or
that peace and friendship should be re-established, and that, being
reconciled, they should give their attention to foreign enemies?

CLEINIAS: Every one would desire the latter in the case of his own state.

ATHENIAN: And would not that also be the desire of the legislator?

CLEINIAS: Certainly.

ATHENIAN: And would not every one always make laws for the sake of the
best?

CLEINIAS: To be sure.

ATHENIAN: But war, whether external or civil, is not the best, and the
need of either is to be deprecated; but peace with one another, and good
will, are best. Nor is the victory of the state over itself to be regarded
as a really good thing, but as a necessity; a man might as well say that
the body was in the best state when sick and purged by medicine,
forgetting that there is also a state of the body which needs no purge.
And in like manner no one can be a true statesman, whether he aims at the
happiness of the individual or state, who looks only, or first of all, to
external warfare; nor will he ever be a sound legislator who orders peace
for the sake of war, and not war for the sake of peace.

CLEINIAS: I suppose that there is truth, Stranger, in that remark of
yours; and yet I am greatly mistaken if war is not the entire aim and
object of our own institutions, and also of the Lacedaemonian.

ATHENIAN: I dare say; but there is no reason why we should rudely quarrel
with one another about your legislators, instead of gently questioning
them, seeing that both we and they are equally in earnest. Please follow
me and the argument closely:--And first I will put forward Tyrtaeus, an
Athenian by birth, but also a Spartan citizen, who of all men was most
eager about war: Well, he says,

'I sing not, I care not, about any man,

even if he were the richest of men, and possessed every good (and then he
gives a whole list of them), if he be not at all times a brave warrior.' I
imagine that you, too, must have heard his poems; our Lacedaemonian friend
has probably heard more than enough of them.

MEGILLUS: Very true.

CLEINIAS: And they have found their way from Lacedaemon to Crete.

ATHENIAN: Come now and let us all join in asking this question of
Tyrtaeus: O most divine poet, we will say to him, the excellent praise
which you have bestowed on those who excel in war sufficiently proves that
you are wise and good, and I and Megillus and Cleinias of Cnosus do, as I
believe, entirely agree with you. But we should like to be quite sure that
we are speaking of the same men; tell us, then, do you agree with us in
thinking that there are two kinds of war; or what would you say? A far
inferior man to Tyrtaeus would have no difficulty in replying quite truly,
that war is of two kinds,--one which is universally called civil war, and
is, as we were just now saying, of all wars the worst; the other, as we
should all admit, in which we fall out with other nations who are of a
different race, is a far milder form of warfare.

CLEINIAS: Certainly, far milder.

ATHENIAN: Well, now, when you praise and blame war in this high-flown
strain, whom are you praising or blaming, and to which kind of war are you
referring? I suppose that you must mean foreign war, if I am to judge from
expressions of yours in which you say that you abominate those

'Who refuse to look upon fields of blood, and will not draw near and
strike at their enemies.'

And we shall naturally go on to say to him,--You, Tyrtaeus, as it seems,
praise those who distinguish themselves in external and foreign war; and
he must admit this.

CLEINIAS: Evidently.

ATHENIAN: They are good; but we say that there are still better men whose
virtue is displayed in the greatest of all battles. And we too have a poet
whom we summon as a witness, Theognis, citizen of Megara in Sicily:

'Cyrnus,' he says, 'he who is faithful in a civil broil is worth his
weight in gold and silver.'

And such an one is far better, as we affirm, than the other in a more
difficult kind of war, much in the same degree as justice and temperance
and wisdom, when united with courage, are better than courage only; for a
man cannot be faithful and good in civil strife without having all virtue.
But in the war of which Tyrtaeus speaks, many a mercenary soldier will
take his stand and be ready to die at his post, and yet they are generally
and almost without exception insolent, unjust, violent men, and the most
senseless of human beings. You will ask what the conclusion is, and what I
am seeking to prove: I maintain that the divine legislator of Crete, like
any other who is worthy of consideration, will always and above all things
in making laws have regard to the greatest virtue; which, according to
Theognis, is loyalty in the hour of danger, and may be truly called
perfect justice. Whereas, that virtue which Tyrtaeus highly praises is
well enough, and was praised by the poet at the right time, yet in place
and dignity may be said to be only fourth rate (i.e., it ranks after
justice, temperance, and wisdom.).

CLEINIAS: Stranger, we are degrading our inspired lawgiver to a rank which
is far beneath him.

ATHENIAN: Nay, I think that we degrade not him but ourselves, if we
imagine that Lycurgus and Minos laid down laws both in Lacedaemon and
Crete mainly with a view to war.

CLEINIAS: What ought we to say then?

ATHENIAN: What truth and what justice require of us, if I am not mistaken,
when speaking in behalf of divine excellence;--that the legislator when
making his laws had in view not a part only, and this the lowest part of
virtue, but all virtue, and that he devised classes of laws answering to
the kinds of virtue; not in the way in which modern inventors of laws make
the classes, for they only investigate and offer laws whenever a want is
felt, and one man has a class of laws about allotments and heiresses,
another about assaults; others about ten thousand other such matters. But
we maintain that the right way of examining into laws is to proceed as we
have now done, and I admired the spirit of your exposition; for you were
quite right in beginning with virtue, and saying that this was the aim of
the giver of the law, but I thought that you went wrong when you added
that all his legislation had a view only to a part, and the least part of
virtue, and this called forth my subsequent remarks. Will you allow me
then to explain how I should have liked to have heard you expound the
matter?

CLEINIAS: By all means.

ATHENIAN: You ought to have said, Stranger--The Cretan laws are with
reason famous among the Hellenes; for they fulfil the object of laws,
which is to make those who use them happy; and they confer every sort of
good. Now goods are of two kinds: there are human and there are divine
goods, and the human hang upon the divine; and the state which attains the
greater, at the same time acquires the less, or, not having the greater,
has neither. Of the lesser goods the first is health, the second beauty,
the third strength, including swiftness in running and bodily agility
generally, and the fourth is wealth, not the blind god (Pluto), but one
who is keen of sight, if only he has wisdom for his companion. For wisdom
is chief and leader of the divine class of goods, and next follows
temperance; and from the union of these two with courage springs justice,
and fourth in the scale of virtue is courage. All these naturally take
precedence of the other goods, and this is the order in which the
legislator must place them, and after them he will enjoin the rest of his
ordinances on the citizens with a view to these, the human looking to the
divine, and the divine looking to their leader mind. Some of his
ordinances will relate to contracts of marriage which they make one with
another, and then to the procreation and education of children, both male
and female; the duty of the lawgiver will be to take charge of his
citizens, in youth and age, and at every time of life, and to give them
punishments and rewards; and in reference to all their intercourse with
one another, he ought to consider their pains and pleasures and desires,
and the vehemence of all their passions; he should keep a watch over them,
and blame and praise them rightly by the mouth of the laws themselves.
Also with regard to anger and terror, and the other perturbations of the
soul, which arise out of misfortune, and the deliverances from them which
prosperity brings, and the experiences which come to men in diseases, or
in war, or poverty, or the opposite of these; in all these states he
should determine and teach what is the good and evil of the condition of
each. In the next place, the legislator has to be careful how the citizens
make their money and in what way they spend it, and to have an eye to
their mutual contracts and dissolutions of contracts, whether voluntary or
involuntary: he should see how they order all this, and consider where
justice as well as injustice is found or is wanting in their several
dealings with one another; and honour those who obey the law, and impose
fixed penalties on those who disobey, until the round of civil life is
ended, and the time has come for the consideration of the proper funeral
rites and honours of the dead. And the lawgiver reviewing his work, will
appoint guardians to preside over these things,--some who walk by
intelligence, others by true opinion only, and then mind will bind
together all his ordinances and show them to be in harmony with temperance
and justice, and not with wealth or ambition. This is the spirit,
Stranger, in which I was and am desirous that you should pursue the
subject. And I want to know the nature of all these things, and how they
are arranged in the laws of Zeus, as they are termed, and in those of the
Pythian Apollo, which Minos and Lycurgus gave; and how the order of them
is discovered to his eyes, who has experience in laws gained either by
study or habit, although they are far from being self-evident to the rest
of mankind like ourselves.

CLEINIAS: How shall we proceed, Stranger?

ATHENIAN: I think that we must begin again as before, and first consider
the habit of courage; and then we will go on and discuss another and then
another form of virtue, if you please. In this way we shall have a model
of the whole; and with these and similar discourses we will beguile the
way. And when we have gone through all the virtues, we will show, by the
grace of God, that the institutions of which I was speaking look to
virtue.

MEGILLUS: Very good; and suppose that you first criticize this praiser of
Zeus and the laws of Crete.

ATHENIAN: I will try to criticize you and myself, as well as him, for the
argument is a common concern. Tell me,--were not first the syssitia, and
secondly the gymnasia, invented by your legislator with a view to war?

MEGILLUS: Yes.

ATHENIAN: And what comes third, and what fourth? For that, I think, is the
sort of enumeration which ought to be made of the remaining parts of
virtue, no matter whether you call them parts or what their name is,
provided the meaning is clear.

MEGILLUS: Then I, or any other Lacedaemonian, would reply that hunting is
third in order.

ATHENIAN: Let us see if we can discover what comes fourth and fifth.

MEGILLUS: I think that I can get as far as the fourth head, which is the
frequent endurance of pain, exhibited among us Spartans in certain hand-
to-hand fights; also in stealing with the prospect of getting a good
beating; there is, too, the so-called Crypteia, or secret service, in
which wonderful endurance is shown,--our people wander over the whole
country by day and by night, and even in winter have not a shoe to their
foot, and are without beds to lie upon, and have to attend upon
themselves. Marvellous, too, is the endurance which our citizens show in
their naked exercises, contending against the violent summer heat; and
there are many similar practices, to speak of which in detail would be
endless.

ATHENIAN: Excellent, O Lacedaemonian Stranger. But how ought we to define
courage? Is it to be regarded only as a combat against fears and pains, or
also against desires and pleasures, and against flatteries; which exercise
such a tremendous power, that they make the hearts even of respectable
citizens to melt like wax?

MEGILLUS: I should say the latter.

ATHENIAN: In what preceded, as you will remember, our Cnosian friend was
speaking of a man or a city being inferior to themselves:--Were you not,
Cleinias?

CLEINIAS: I was.

ATHENIAN: Now, which is in the truest sense inferior, the man who is
overcome by pleasure or by pain?

CLEINIAS: I should say the man who is overcome by pleasure; for all men
deem him to be inferior in a more disgraceful sense, than the other who is
overcome by pain.

ATHENIAN: But surely the lawgivers of Crete and Lacedaemon have not
legislated for a courage which is lame of one leg, able only to meet
attacks which come from the left, but impotent against the insidious
flatteries which come from the right?

CLEINIAS: Able to meet both, I should say.

ATHENIAN: Then let me once more ask, what institutions have you in either
of your states which give a taste of pleasures, and do not avoid them any
more than they avoid pains; but which set a person in the midst of them,
and compel or induce him by the prospect of reward to get the better of
them? Where is an ordinance about pleasure similar to that about pain to
be found in your laws? Tell me what there is of this nature among you:--
What is there which makes your citizen equally brave against pleasure and
pain, conquering what they ought to conquer, and superior to the enemies
who are most dangerous and nearest home?

MEGILLUS: I was able to tell you, Stranger, many laws which were directed
against pain; but I do not know that I can point out any great or obvious
examples of similar institutions which are concerned with pleasure; there
are some lesser provisions, however, which I might mention.

CLEINIAS: Neither can I show anything of that sort which is at all equally
prominent in the Cretan laws.

ATHENIAN: No wonder, my dear friends; and if, as is very likely, in our
search after the true and good, one of us may have to censure the laws of
the others, we must not be offended, but take kindly what another says.

CLEINIAS: You are quite right, Athenian Stranger, and we will do as you
say.

ATHENIAN: At our time of life, Cleinias, there should be no feeling of
irritation.

CLEINIAS: Certainly not.

ATHENIAN: I will not at present determine whether he who censures the
Cretan or Lacedaemonian polities is right or wrong. But I believe that I
can tell better than either of you what the many say about them. For
assuming that you have reasonably good laws, one of the best of them will
be the law forbidding any young men to enquire which of them are right or
wrong; but with one mouth and one voice they must all agree that the laws
are all good, for they came from God; and any one who says the contrary is
not to be listened to. But an old man who remarks any defect in your laws
may communicate his observation to a ruler or to an equal in years when no
young man is present.

CLEINIAS: Exactly so, Stranger; and like a diviner, although not there at
the time, you seem to me quite to have hit the meaning of the legislator,
and to say what is most true.

ATHENIAN: As there are no young men present, and the legislator has given
old men free licence, there will be no impropriety in our discussing these
very matters now that we are alone.

CLEINIAS: True. And therefore you may be as free as you like in your
censure of our laws, for there is no discredit in knowing what is wrong;
he who receives what is said in a generous and friendly spirit will be all
the better for it.

ATHENIAN: Very good; however, I am not going to say anything against your
laws until to the best of my ability I have examined them, but I am going
to raise doubts about them. For you are the only people known to us,
whether Greek or barbarian, whom the legislator commanded to eschew all
great pleasures and amusements and never to touch them; whereas in the
matter of pains or fears which we have just been discussing, he thought
that they who from infancy had always avoided pains and fears and sorrows,
when they were compelled to face them would run away from those who were
hardened in them, and would become their subjects. Now the legislator
ought to have considered that this was equally true of pleasure; he should
have said to himself, that if our citizens are from their youth upward
unacquainted with the greatest pleasures, and unused to endure amid the
temptations of pleasure, and are not disciplined to refrain from all
things evil, the sweet feeling of pleasure will overcome them just as fear
would overcome the former class; and in another, and even a worse manner,
they will be the slaves of those who are able to endure amid pleasures,
and have had the opportunity of enjoying them, they being often the worst
of mankind. One half of their souls will be a slave, the other half free;
and they will not be worthy to be called in the true sense men and
freemen. Tell me whether you assent to my words?

CLEINIAS: On first hearing, what you say appears to be the truth; but to
be hasty in coming to a conclusion about such important matters would be
very childish and simple.

ATHENIAN: Suppose, Cleinias and Megillus, that we consider the virtue
which follows next of those which we intended to discuss (for after
courage comes temperance), what institutions shall we find relating to
temperance, either in Crete or Lacedaemon, which, like your military
institutions, differ from those of any ordinary state.

MEGILLUS: That is not an easy question to answer; still I should say that
the common meals and gymnastic exercises have been excellently devised for
the promotion both of temperance and courage.

ATHENIAN: There seems to be a difficulty, Stranger, with regard to states,
in making words and facts coincide so that there can be no dispute about
them. As in the human body, the regimen which does good in one way does
harm in another; and we can hardly say that any one course of treatment is
adapted to a particular constitution. Now the gymnasia and common meals do
a great deal of good, and yet they are a source of evil in civil troubles;
as is shown in the case of the Milesian, and Boeotian, and Thurian youth,
among whom these institutions seem always to have had a tendency to
degrade the ancient and natural custom of love below the level, not only
of man, but of the beasts. The charge may be fairly brought against your
cities above all others, and is true also of most other states which
especially cultivate gymnastics. Whether such matters are to be regarded
jestingly or seriously, I think that the pleasure is to be deemed natural
which arises out of the intercourse between men and women; but that the
intercourse of men with men, or of women with women, is contrary to
nature, and that the bold attempt was originally due to unbridled lust.
The Cretans are always accused of having invented the story of Ganymede
and Zeus because they wanted to justify themselves in the enjoyment of
unnatural pleasures by the practice of the god whom they believe to have
been their lawgiver. Leaving the story, we may observe that any
speculation about laws turns almost entirely on pleasure and pain, both in
states and in individuals: these are two fountains which nature lets flow,
and he who draws from them where and when, and as much as he ought, is
happy; and this holds of men and animals--of individuals as well as
states; and he who indulges in them ignorantly and at the wrong time, is
the reverse of happy.

MEGILLUS: I admit, Stranger, that your words are well spoken, and I hardly
know what to say in answer to you; but still I think that the Spartan
lawgiver was quite right in forbidding pleasure. Of the Cretan laws, I
shall leave the defence to my Cnosian friend. But the laws of Sparta, in
as far as they relate to pleasure, appear to me to be the best in the
world; for that which leads mankind in general into the wildest pleasure
and licence, and every other folly, the law has clean driven out; and
neither in the country nor in towns which are under the control of Sparta,
will you find revelries and the many incitements of every kind of pleasure
which accompany them; and any one who meets a drunken and disorderly
person, will immediately have him most severely punished, and will not let
him off on any pretence, not even at the time of a Dionysiac festival;
although I have remarked that this may happen at your performances 'on the
cart,' as they are called; and among our Tarentine colonists I have seen
the whole city drunk at a Dionysiac festival; but nothing of the sort
happens among us.

ATHENIAN: O Lacedaemonian Stranger, these festivities are praiseworthy
where there is a spirit of endurance, but are very senseless when they are
under no regulations. In order to retaliate, an Athenian has only to point
out the licence which exists among your women. To all such accusations,
whether they are brought against the Tarentines, or us, or you, there is
one answer which exonerates the practice in question from impropriety.
When a stranger expresses wonder at the singularity of what he sees, any
inhabitant will naturally answer him:--Wonder not, O stranger; this is our
custom, and you may very likely have some other custom about the same
things. Now we are speaking, my friends, not about men in general, but
about the merits and defects of the lawgivers themselves. Let us then
discourse a little more at length about intoxication, which is a very
important subject, and will seriously task the discrimination of the
legislator. I am not speaking of drinking, or not drinking, wine at all,
but of intoxication. Are we to follow the custom of the Scythians, and
Persians, and Carthaginians, and Celts, and Iberians, and Thracians, who
are all warlike nations, or that of your countrymen, for they, as you say,
altogether abstain? But the Scythians and Thracians, both men and women,
drink unmixed wine, which they pour on their garments, and this they think
a happy and glorious institution. The Persians, again, are much given to
other practices of luxury which you reject, but they have more moderation
in them than the Thracians and Scythians.

MEGILLUS: O best of men, we have only to take arms into our hands, and we
send all these nations flying before us.

ATHENIAN: Nay, my good friend, do not say that; there have been, as there
always will be, flights and pursuits of which no account can be given, and
therefore we cannot say that victory or defeat in battle affords more than
a doubtful proof of the goodness or badness of institutions. For when the
greater states conquer and enslave the lesser, as the Syracusans have done
the Locrians, who appear to be the best-governed people in their part of
the world, or as the Athenians have done the Ceans (and there are ten
thousand other instances of the same sort of thing), all this is not to
the point; let us endeavour rather to form a conclusion about each
institution in itself and say nothing, at present, of victories and
defeats. Let us only say that such and such a custom is honourable, and
another not. And first permit me to tell you how good and bad are to be
estimated in reference to these very matters.

MEGILLUS: How do you mean?

ATHENIAN: All those who are ready at a moment's notice to praise or
censure any practice which is matter of discussion, seem to me to proceed
in a wrong way. Let me give you an illustration of what I mean:--You may
suppose a person to be praising wheat as a good kind of food, whereupon
another person instantly blames wheat, without ever enquiring into its
effect or use, or in what way, or to whom, or with what, or in what state
and how, wheat is to be given. And that is just what we are doing in this
discussion. At the very mention of the word intoxication, one side is
ready with their praises and the other with their censures; which is
absurd. For either side adduce their witnesses and approvers, and some of
us think that we speak with authority because we have many witnesses; and
others because they see those who abstain conquering in battle, and this
again is disputed by us. Now I cannot say that I shall be satisfied, if we
go on discussing each of the remaining laws in the same way. And about
this very point of intoxication I should like to speak in another way,
which I hold to be the right one; for if number is to be the criterion,
are there not myriads upon myriads of nations ready to dispute the point
with you, who are only two cities?

MEGILLUS: I shall gladly welcome any method of enquiry which is right.

ATHENIAN: Let me put the matter thus:--Suppose a person to praise the
keeping of goats, and the creatures themselves as capital things to have,
and then some one who had seen goats feeding without a goatherd in
cultivated spots, and doing mischief, were to censure a goat or any other
animal who has no keeper, or a bad keeper, would there be any sense or
justice in such censure?

MEGILLUS: Certainly not.

ATHENIAN: Does a captain require only to have nautical knowledge in order
to be a good captain, whether he is sea-sick or not? What do you say?

MEGILLUS: I say that he is not a good captain if, although he have
nautical skill, he is liable to sea-sickness.

ATHENIAN: And what would you say of the commander of an army? Will he be
able to command merely because he has military skill if he be a coward,
who, when danger comes, is sick and drunk with fear?

MEGILLUS: Impossible.

ATHENIAN: And what if besides being a coward he has no skill?

MEGILLUS: He is a miserable fellow, not fit to be a commander of men, but
only of old women.

ATHENIAN: And what would you say of some one who blames or praises any
sort of meeting which is intended by nature to have a ruler, and is well
enough when under his presidency? The critic, however, has never seen the
society meeting together at an orderly feast under the control of a
president, but always without a ruler or with a bad one:--when observers
of this class praise or blame such meetings, are we to suppose that what
they say is of any value?

MEGILLUS: Certainly not, if they have never seen or been present at such a
meeting when rightly ordered.

ATHENIAN: Reflect; may not banqueters and banquets be said to constitute a
kind of meeting?

MEGILLUS: Of course.

ATHENIAN: And did any one ever see this sort of convivial meeting rightly
ordered? Of course you two will answer that you have never seen them at
all, because they are not customary or lawful in your country; but I have
come across many of them in many different places, and moreover I have
made enquiries about them wherever I went, as I may say, and never did I
see or hear of anything of the kind which was carried on altogether
rightly; in some few particulars they might be right, but in general they
were utterly wrong.

CLEINIAS: What do you mean, Stranger, by this remark? Explain. For we, as
you say, from our inexperience in such matters, might very likely not
know, even if they came in our way, what was right or wrong in such
societies.

ATHENIAN: Likely enough; then let me try to be your instructor: You would
acknowledge, would you not, that in all gatherings of mankind, of whatever
sort, there ought to be a leader?

CLEINIAS: Certainly I should.

ATHENIAN: And we were saying just now, that when men are at war the leader
ought to be a brave man?

CLEINIAS: We were.

ATHENIAN: The brave man is less likely than the coward to be disturbed by
fears?

CLEINIAS: That again is true.

ATHENIAN: And if there were a possibility of having a general of an army
who was absolutely fearless and imperturbable, should we not by all means
appoint him?

CLEINIAS: Assuredly.

ATHENIAN: Now, however, we are speaking not of a general who is to command
an army, when foe meets foe in time of war, but of one who is to regulate
meetings of another sort, when friend meets friend in time of peace.

CLEINIAS: True.

ATHENIAN: And that sort of meeting, if attended with drunkenness, is apt
to be unquiet.

CLEINIAS: Certainly; the reverse of quiet.

ATHENIAN: In the first place, then, the revellers as well as the soldiers
will require a ruler?

CLEINIAS: To be sure; no men more so.

ATHENIAN: And we ought, if possible, to provide them with a quiet ruler?

CLEINIAS: Of course.

ATHENIAN: And he should be a man who understands society; for his duty is
to preserve the friendly feelings which exist among the company at the
time, and to increase them for the future by his use of the occasion.

CLEINIAS: Very true.

ATHENIAN: Must we not appoint a sober man and a wise to be our master of
the revels? For if the ruler of drinkers be himself young and drunken, and
not over-wise, only by some special good fortune will he be saved from
doing some great evil.

CLEINIAS: It will be by a singular good fortune that he is saved.

ATHENIAN: Now suppose such associations to be framed in the best way
possible in states, and that some one blames the very fact of their
existence--he may very likely be right. But if he blames a practice which
he only sees very much mismanaged, he shows in the first place that he is
not aware of the mismanagement, and also not aware that everything done in
this way will turn out to be wrong, because done without the
superintendence of a sober ruler. Do you not see that a drunken pilot or a
drunken ruler of any sort will ruin ship, chariot, army--anything, in
short, of which he has the direction?

CLEINIAS: The last remark is very true, Stranger; and I see quite clearly
the advantage of an army having a good leader--he will give victory in war
to his followers, which is a very great advantage; and so of other things.
But I do not see any similar advantage which either individuals or states
gain from the good management of a feast; and I want you to tell me what
great good will be effected, supposing that this drinking ordinance is
duly established.

ATHENIAN: If you mean to ask what great good accrues to the state from the
right training of a single youth, or of a single chorus--when the question
is put in that form, we cannot deny that the good is not very great in any
particular instance. But if you ask what is the good of education in
general, the answer is easy--that education makes good men, and that good
men act nobly, and conquer their enemies in battle, because they are good.
Education certainly gives victory, although victory sometimes produces
forgetfulness of education; for many have grown insolent from victory in
war, and this insolence has engendered in them innumerable evils; and many
a victory has been and will be suicidal to the victors; but education is
never suicidal.

CLEINIAS: You seem to imply, my friend, that convivial meetings, when
rightly ordered, are an important element of education.

ATHENIAN: Certainly I do.

CLEINIAS: And can you show that what you have been saying is true?

ATHENIAN: To be absolutely sure of the truth of matters concerning which
there are many opinions, is an attribute of the Gods not given to man,
Stranger; but I shall be very happy to tell you what I think, especially
as we are now proposing to enter on a discussion concerning laws and
constitutions.

CLEINIAS: Your opinion, Stranger, about the questions which are now being
raised, is precisely what we want to hear.

ATHENIAN: Very good; I will try to find a way of explaining my meaning,
and you shall try to have the gift of understanding me. But first let me
make an apology. The Athenian citizen is reputed among all the Hellenes to
be a great talker, whereas Sparta is renowned for brevity, and the Cretans
have more wit than words. Now I am afraid of appearing to elicit a very
long discourse out of very small materials. For drinking indeed may appear
to be a slight matter, and yet is one which cannot be rightly ordered
according to nature, without correct principles of music; these are

necessary to any clear or satisfactory treatment of the subject, and music
again runs up into education generally, and there is much to be said about
all this. What would you say then to leaving these matters for the
present, and passing on to some other question of law?

MEGILLUS: O Athenian Stranger, let me tell you what perhaps you do not
know, that our family is the proxenus of your state. I imagine that from
their earliest youth all boys, when they are told that they are the
proxeni of a particular state, feel kindly towards their second country;
and this has certainly been my own feeling. I can well remember from the
days of my boyhood, how, when any Lacedaemonians praised or blamed the
Athenians, they used to say to me,--'See, Megillus, how ill or how well,'
as the case might be, 'has your state treated us'; and having always had
to fight your battles against detractors when I heard you assailed, I
became warmly attached to you. And I always like to hear the Athenian
tongue spoken; the common saying is quite true, that a good Athenian is
more than ordinarily good, for he is the only man who is freely and
genuinely good by the divine inspiration of his own nature, and is not
manufactured. Therefore be assured that I shall like to hear you say
whatever you have to say.

CLEINIAS: Yes, Stranger; and when you have heard me speak, say boldly what
is in your thoughts. Let me remind you of a tie which unites you to Crete.
You must have heard here the story of the prophet Epimenides, who was of
my family, and came to Athens ten years before the Persian war, in
accordance with the response of the Oracle, and offered certain sacrifices
which the God commanded. The Athenians were at that time in dread of the
Persian invasion; and he said that for ten years they would not come, and
that when they came, they would go away again without accomplishing any of
their objects, and would suffer more evil than they inflicted. At that
time my forefathers formed ties of hospitality with you; thus ancient is
the friendship which I and my parents have had for you.

ATHENIAN: You seem to be quite ready to listen; and I am also ready to
perform as much as I can of an almost impossible task, which I will
nevertheless attempt. At the outset of the discussion, let me define the
nature and power of education; for this is the way by which our argument
must travel onwards to the God Dionysus.

CLEINIAS: Let us proceed, if you please.

ATHENIAN: Well, then, if I tell you what are my notions of education, will
you consider whether they satisfy you?

CLEINIAS: Let us hear.

ATHENIAN: According to my view, any one who would be good at anything must
practise that thing from his youth upwards, both in sport and earnest, in
its several branches: for example, he who is to be a good builder, should
play at building children's houses; he who is to be a good husbandman, at
tilling the ground; and those who have the care of their education should
provide them when young with mimic tools. They should learn beforehand the
knowledge which they will afterwards require for their art. For example,
the future carpenter should learn to measure or apply the line in play;
and the future warrior should learn riding, or some other exercise, for
amusement, and the teacher should endeavour to direct the children's
inclinations and pleasures, by the help of amusements, to their final aim
in life. The most important part of education is right training in the
nursery. The soul of the child in his play should be guided to the love of
that sort of excellence in which when he grows up to manhood he will have
to be perfected. Do you agree with me thus far?

CLEINIAS: Certainly.

ATHENIAN: Then let us not leave the meaning of education ambiguous or ill-
defined. At present, when we speak in terms of praise or blame about the
bringing-up of each person, we call one man educated and another
uneducated, although the uneducated man may be sometimes very well
educated for the calling of a retail trader, or of a captain of a ship,
and the like. For we are not speaking of education in this narrower sense,
but of that other education in virtue from youth upwards, which makes a
man eagerly pursue the ideal perfection of citizenship, and teaches him
how rightly to rule and how to obey. This is the only education which,
upon our view, deserves the name; that other sort of training, which aims
at the acquisition of wealth or bodily strength, or mere cleverness apart
from intelligence and justice, is mean and illiberal, and is not worthy to
be called education at all. But let us not quarrel with one another about
a word, provided that the proposition which has just been granted hold
good: to wit, that those who are rightly educated generally become good
men. Neither must we cast a slight upon education, which is the first and
fairest thing that the best of men can ever have, and which, though liable
to take a wrong direction, is capable of reformation. And this work of
reformation is the great business of every man while he lives.

CLEINIAS: Very true; and we entirely agree with you.

ATHENIAN: And we agreed before that they are good men who are able to rule
themselves, and bad men who are not.

CLEINIAS: You are quite right.

ATHENIAN: Let me now proceed, if I can, to clear up the subject a little
further by an illustration which I will offer you.

CLEINIAS: Proceed.

ATHENIAN: Do we not consider each of ourselves to be one?

CLEINIAS: We do.

ATHENIAN: And each one of us has in his bosom two counsellors, both
foolish and also antagonistic; of which we call the one pleasure, and the
other pain.

CLEINIAS: Exactly.

ATHENIAN: Also there are opinions about the future, which have the general
name of expectations; and the specific name of fear, when the expectation
is of pain; and of hope, when of pleasure; and further, there is
reflection about the good or evil of them, and this, when embodied in a
decree by the State, is called Law.

CLEINIAS: I am hardly able to follow you; proceed, however, as if I were.

MEGILLUS: I am in the like case.

ATHENIAN: Let us look at the matter thus: May we not conceive each of us
living beings to be a puppet of the Gods, either their plaything only, or
created with a purpose--which of the two we cannot certainly know? But we
do know, that these affections in us are like cords and strings, which
pull us different and opposite ways, and to opposite actions; and herein
lies the difference between virtue and vice. According to the argument
there is one among these cords which every man ought to grasp and never
let go, but to pull with it against all the rest; and this is the sacred
and golden cord of reason, called by us the common law of the State; there
are others which are hard and of iron, but this one is soft because
golden; and there are several other kinds. Now we ought always to
cooperate with the lead of the best, which is law. For inasmuch as reason
is beautiful and gentle, and not violent, her rule must needs have
ministers in order to help the golden principle in vanquishing the other
principles. And thus the moral of the tale about our being puppets will
not have been lost, and the meaning of the expression 'superior or
inferior to a man's self' will become clearer; and the individual,
attaining to right reason in this matter of pulling the strings of the
puppet, should live according to its rule; while the city, receiving the
same from some god or from one who has knowledge of these things, should
embody it in a law, to be her guide in her dealings with herself and with
other states. In this way virtue and vice will be more clearly
distinguished by us. And when they have become clearer, education and
other institutions will in like manner become clearer; and in particular
that question of convivial entertainment, which may seem, perhaps, to have
been a very trifling matter, and to have taken a great many more words
than were necessary.

CLEINIAS: Perhaps, however, the theme may turn out not to be unworthy of
the length of discourse.

ATHENIAN: Very good; let us proceed with any enquiry which really bears on
our present object.

CLEINIAS: Proceed.

ATHENIAN: Suppose that we give this puppet of ours drink,--what will be
the effect on him?

CLEINIAS: Having what in view do you ask that question?

ATHENIAN: Nothing as yet; but I ask generally, when the puppet is brought
to the drink, what sort of result is likely to follow. I will endeavour to
explain my meaning more clearly: what I am now asking is this--Does the
drinking of wine heighten and increase pleasures and pains, and passions
and loves?

CLEINIAS: Very greatly.

ATHENIAN: And are perception and memory, and opinion and prudence,
heightened and increased? Do not these qualities entirely desert a man if
he becomes saturated with drink?

CLEINIAS: Yes, they entirely desert him.

ATHENIAN: Does he not return to the state of soul in which he was when a
young child?

CLEINIAS: He does.

ATHENIAN: Then at that time he will have the least control over himself?

CLEINIAS: The least.

ATHENIAN: And will he not be in a most wretched plight?

CLEINIAS: Most wretched.

ATHENIAN: Then not only an old man but also a drunkard becomes a second
time a child?

CLEINIAS: Well said, Stranger.

ATHENIAN: Is there any argument which will prove to us that we ought to
encourage the taste for drinking instead of doing all we can to avoid it?

CLEINIAS: I suppose that there is; you at any rate, were just now saying
that you were ready to maintain such a doctrine.

ATHENIAN: True, I was; and I am ready still, seeing that you have both
declared that you are anxious to hear me.

CLEINIAS: To be sure we are, if only for the strangeness of the paradox,
which asserts that a man ought of his own accord to plunge into utter
degradation.

ATHENIAN: Are you speaking of the soul?

CLEINIAS: Yes.

ATHENIAN: And what would you say about the body, my friend? Are you not
surprised at any one of his own accord bringing upon himself deformity,
leanness, ugliness, decrepitude?

CLEINIAS: Certainly.

ATHENIAN: Yet when a man goes of his own accord to a doctor's shop, and
takes medicine, is he not aware that soon, and for many days afterwards,
he will be in a state of body which he would die rather than accept as the
permanent condition of his life? Are not those who train in gymnasia, at
first beginning reduced to a state of weakness?

CLEINIAS: Yes, all that is well known.

ATHENIAN: Also that they go of their own accord for the sake of the
subsequent benefit?

CLEINIAS: Very good.

ATHENIAN: And we may conceive this to be true in the same way of other
practices?

CLEINIAS: Certainly.

ATHENIAN: And the same view may be taken of the pastime of drinking wine,
if we are right in supposing that the same good effect follows?

CLEINIAS: To be sure.

ATHENIAN: If such convivialities should turn out to have any advantage
equal in importance to that of gymnastic, they are in their very nature to
be preferred to mere bodily exercise, inasmuch as they have no
accompaniment of pain.

CLEINIAS: True; but I hardly think that we shall be able to discover any
such benefits to be derived from them.

ATHENIAN: That is just what we must endeavour to show. And let me ask you
a question:--Do we not distinguish two kinds of fear, which are very
different?

CLEINIAS: What are they?

ATHENIAN: There is the fear of expected evil.

CLEINIAS: Yes.

ATHENIAN: And there is the fear of an evil reputation; we are afraid of
being thought evil, because we do or say some dishonourable thing, which
fear we and all men term shame.

CLEINIAS: Certainly.

ATHENIAN: These are the two fears, as I called them; one of which is the
opposite of pain and other fears, and the opposite also of the greatest
and most numerous sort of pleasures.

CLEINIAS: Very true.

ATHENIAN: And does not the legislator and every one who is good for
anything, hold this fear in the greatest honour? This is what he terms
reverence, and the confidence which is the reverse of this he terms
insolence; and the latter he always deems to be a very great evil both to
individuals and to states.

CLEINIAS: True.

ATHENIAN: Does not this kind of fear preserve us in many important ways?
What is there which so surely gives victory and safety in war? For there
are two things which give victory--confidence before enemies, and fear of
disgrace before friends.

CLEINIAS: There are.

ATHENIAN: Then each of us should be fearless and also fearful; and why we
should be either has now been determined.

CLEINIAS: Certainly.

ATHENIAN: And when we want to make any one fearless, we and the law bring
him face to face with many fears.

CLEINIAS: Clearly.

ATHENIAN: And when we want to make him rightly fearful, must we not
introduce him to shameless pleasures, and train him to take up arms
against them, and to overcome them? Or does this principle apply to
courage only, and must he who would be perfect in valour fight against and
overcome his own natural character,--since if he be unpractised and
inexperienced in such conflicts, he will not be half the man which he
might have been,--and are we to suppose, that with temperance it is
otherwise, and that he who has never fought with the shameless and
unrighteous temptations of his pleasures and lusts, and conquered them, in
earnest and in play, by word, deed, and act, will still be perfectly
temperate?

CLEINIAS: A most unlikely supposition.

ATHENIAN: Suppose that some God had given a fear-potion to men, and that
the more a man drank of this the more he regarded himself at every draught
as a child of misfortune, and that he feared everything happening or about
to happen to him; and that at last the most courageous of men utterly lost
his presence of mind for a time, and only came to himself again when he
had slept off the influence of the draught.

CLEINIAS: But has such a draught, Stranger, ever really been known among
men?

ATHENIAN: No; but, if there had been, might not such a draught have been
of use to the legislator as a test of courage? Might we not go and say to
him, 'O legislator, whether you are legislating for the Cretan, or for any
other state, would you not like to have a touchstone of the courage and
cowardice of your citizens?'

CLEINIAS: 'I should,' will be the answer of every one.

ATHENIAN: 'And you would rather have a touchstone in which there is no
risk and no great danger than the reverse?'

CLEINIAS: In that proposition every one may safely agree.

ATHENIAN: 'And in order to make use of the draught, you would lead them
amid these imaginary terrors, and prove them, when the affection of fear
was working upon them, and compel them to be fearless, exhorting and
admonishing them; and also honouring them, but dishonouring any one who
will not be persuaded by you to be in all respects such as you command
him; and if he underwent the trial well and manfully, you would let him go
unscathed; but if ill, you would inflict a punishment upon him? Or would
you abstain from using the potion altogether, although you have no reason
for abstaining?'

CLEINIAS: He would be certain, Stranger, to use the potion.

ATHENIAN: This would be a mode of testing and training which would be
wonderfully easy in comparison with those now in use, and might be applied
to a single person, or to a few, or indeed to any number; and he would do
well who provided himself with the potion only, rather than with any
number of other things, whether he preferred to be by himself in solitude,
and there contend with his fears, because he was ashamed to be seen by the
eye of man until he was perfect; or trusting to the force of his own
nature and habits, and believing that he had been already disciplined
sufficiently, he did not hesitate to train himself in company with any
number of others, and display his power in conquering the irresistible
change effected by the draught--his virtue being such, that he never in
any instance fell into any great unseemliness, but was always himself, and
left off before he arrived at the last cup, fearing that he, like all
other men, might be overcome by the potion.

CLEINIAS: Yes, Stranger, in that last case, too, he might equally show his
self-control.

ATHENIAN: Let us return to the lawgiver, and say to him:--'Well, lawgiver,
there is certainly no such fear-potion which man has either received from
the Gods or himself discovered; for witchcraft has no place at our board.
But is there any potion which might serve as a test of overboldness and
excessive and indiscreet boasting?

CLEINIAS: I suppose that he will say, Yes,--meaning that wine is such a
potion.

ATHENIAN: Is not the effect of this quite the opposite of the effect of
the other? When a man drinks wine he begins to be better pleased with
himself, and the more he drinks the more he is filled full of brave hopes,
and conceit of his power, and at last the string of his tongue is
loosened, and fancying himself wise, he is brimming over with lawlessness,
and has no more fear or respect, and is ready to do or say anything.

CLEINIAS: I think that every one will admit the truth of your description.

MEGILLUS: Certainly.

ATHENIAN: Now, let us remember, as we were saying, that there are two
things which should be cultivated in the soul: first, the greatest
courage; secondly, the greatest fear--

CLEINIAS: Which you said to be characteristic of reverence, if I am not
mistaken.

ATHENIAN: Thank you for reminding me. But now, as the habit of courage and
fearlessness is to be trained amid fears, let us consider whether the
opposite quality is not also to be trained among opposites.

CLEINIAS: That is probably the case.

ATHENIAN: There are times and seasons at which we are by nature more than
commonly valiant and bold; now we ought to train ourselves on these
occasions to be as free from impudence and shamelessness as possible, and
to be afraid to say or suffer or do anything that is base.

CLEINIAS: True.

ATHENIAN: Are not the moments in which we are apt to be bold and shameless
such as these?--when we are under the influence of anger, love, pride,
ignorance, avarice, cowardice? or when wealth, beauty, strength, and all
the intoxicating workings of pleasure madden us? What is better adapted
than the festive use of wine, in the first place to test, and in the
second place to train the character of a man, if care be taken in the use
of it? What is there cheaper, or more innocent? For do but consider which
is the greater risk:--Would you rather test a man of a morose and savage
nature, which is the source of ten thousand acts of injustice, by making
bargains with him at a risk to yourself, or by having him as a companion
at the festival of Dionysus? Or would you, if you wanted to apply a
touchstone to a man who is prone to love, entrust your wife, or your sons,
or daughters to him, perilling your dearest interests in order to have a
view of the condition of his soul? I might mention numberless cases, in
which the advantage would be manifest of getting to know a character in
sport, and without paying dearly for experience. And I do not believe that
either a Cretan, or any other man, will doubt that such a test is a fair
test, and safer, cheaper, and speedier than any other.

CLEINIAS: That is certainly true.

ATHENIAN: And this knowledge of the natures and habits of men's souls will
be of the greatest use in that art which has the management of them; and
that art, if I am not mistaken, is politics.

CLEINIAS: Exactly so.

BOOK II.

ATHENIAN: And now we have to consider whether the insight into human
nature is the only benefit derived from well-ordered potations, or whether
there are not other advantages great and much to be desired. The argument
seems to imply that there are. But how and in what way these are to be
attained, will have to be considered attentively, or we may be entangled
in error.

CLEINIAS: Proceed.

ATHENIAN: Let me once more recall our doctrine of right education; which,
if I am not mistaken, depends on the due regulation of convivial
intercourse.

CLEINIAS: You talk rather grandly.

ATHENIAN: Pleasure and pain I maintain to be the first perceptions of
children, and I say that they are the forms under which virtue and vice
are originally present to them. As to wisdom and true and fixed opinions,
happy is the man who acquires them, even when declining in years; and we
may say that he who possesses them, and the blessings which are contained
in them, is a perfect man. Now I mean by education that training which is
given by suitable habits to the first instincts of virtue in children;--
when pleasure, and friendship, and pain, and hatred, are rightly implanted
in souls not yet capable of understanding the nature of them, and who find
them, after they have attained reason, to be in harmony with her. This
harmony of the soul, taken as a whole, is virtue; but the particular
training in respect of pleasure and pain, which leads you always to hate
what you ought to hate, and love what you ought to love from the beginning
of life to the end, may be separated off; and, in my view, will be rightly
called education.

CLEINIAS: I think, Stranger, that you are quite right in all that you have
said and are saying about education.

ATHENIAN: I am glad to hear that you agree with me; for, indeed, the
discipline of pleasure and pain which, when rightly ordered, is a
principle of education, has been often relaxed and corrupted in human
life. And the Gods, pitying the toils which our race is born to undergo,
have appointed holy festivals, wherein men alternate rest with labour; and
have given them the Muses and Apollo, the leader of the Muses, and
Dionysus, to be companions in their revels, that they may improve their
education by taking part in the festivals of the Gods, and with their
help. I should like to know whether a common saying is in our opinion true
to nature or not. For men say that the young of all creatures cannot be
quiet in their bodies or in their voices; they are always wanting to move
and cry out; some leaping and skipping, and overflowing with sportiveness
and delight at something, others uttering all sorts of cries. But, whereas
the animals have no perception of order or disorder in their movements,
that is, of rhythm or harmony, as they are called, to us, the Gods, who,
as we say, have been appointed to be our companions in the dance, have
given the pleasurable sense of harmony and rhythm; and so they stir us
into life, and we follow them, joining hands together in dances and songs;
and these they call choruses, which is a term naturally expressive of
cheerfulness. Shall we begin, then, with the acknowledgment that education
is first given through Apollo and the Muses? What do you say?

CLEINIAS: I assent.

ATHENIAN: And the uneducated is he who has not been trained in the chorus,
and the educated is he who has been well trained?

CLEINIAS: Certainly.

ATHENIAN: And the chorus is made up of two parts, dance and song?

CLEINIAS: True.

ATHENIAN: Then he who is well educated will be able to sing and dance
well?

CLEINIAS: I suppose that he will.

ATHENIAN: Let us see; what are we saying?

CLEINIAS: What?

ATHENIAN: He sings well and dances well; now must we add that he sings
what is good and dances what is good?

CLEINIAS: Let us make the addition.

ATHENIAN: We will suppose that he knows the good to be good, and the bad
to be bad, and makes use of them accordingly: which now is the better
trained in dancing and music--he who is able to move his body and to use
his voice in what is understood to be the right manner, but has no delight
in good or hatred of evil; or he who is incorrect in gesture and voice,
but is right in his sense of pleasure and pain, and welcomes what is good,
and is offended at what is evil?

CLEINIAS: There is a great difference, Stranger, in the two kinds of
education.

ATHENIAN: If we three know what is good in song and dance, then we truly
know also who is educated and who is uneducated; but if not, then we
certainly shall not know wherein lies the safeguard of education, and
whether there is any or not.

CLEINIAS: True.

ATHENIAN: Let us follow the scent like hounds, and go in pursuit of beauty
of figure, and melody, and song, and dance; if these escape us, there will
be no use in talking about true education, whether Hellenic or barbarian.

CLEINIAS: Yes.

ATHENIAN: And what is beauty of figure, or beautiful melody? When a manly
soul is in trouble, and when a cowardly soul is in similar case, are they
likely to use the same figures and gestures, or to give utterance to the
same sounds?

CLEINIAS: How can they, when the very colours of their faces differ?

ATHENIAN: Good, my friend; I may observe, however, in passing, that in
music there certainly are figures and there are melodies: and music is
concerned with harmony and rhythm, so that you may speak of a melody or
figure having good rhythm or good harmony--the term is correct enough; but
to speak metaphorically of a melody or figure having a 'good colour,' as
the masters of choruses do, is not allowable, although you can speak of
the melodies or figures of the brave and the coward, praising the one and
censuring the other. And not to be tedious, let us say that the figures
and melodies which are expressive of virtue of soul or body, or of images
of virtue, are without exception good, and those which are expressive of
vice are the reverse of good.

CLEINIAS: Your suggestion is excellent; and let us answer that these
things are so.

ATHENIAN: Once more, are all of us equally delighted with every sort of
dance?

CLEINIAS: Far otherwise.

ATHENIAN: What, then, leads us astray? Are beautiful things not the same
to us all, or are they the same in themselves, but not in our opinion of
them? For no one will admit that forms of vice in the dance are more
beautiful than forms of virtue, or that he himself delights in the forms
of vice, and others in a muse of another character. And yet most persons
say, that the excellence of music is to give pleasure to our souls. But
this is intolerable and blasphemous; there is, however, a much more
plausible account of the delusion.

CLEINIAS: What?

ATHENIAN: The adaptation of art to the characters of men. Choric movements
are imitations of manners occurring in various actions, fortunes,
dispositions,--each particular is imitated, and those to whom the words,
or songs, or dances are suited, either by nature or habit or both, cannot
help feeling pleasure in them and applauding them, and calling them
beautiful. But those whose natures, or ways, or habits are unsuited to
them, cannot delight in them or applaud them, and they call them base.
There are others, again, whose natures are right and their habits wrong,
or whose habits are right and their natures wrong, and they praise one
thing, but are pleased at another. For they say that all these imitations
are pleasant, but not good. And in the presence of those whom they think
wise, they are ashamed of dancing and singing in the baser manner, or of
deliberately lending any countenance to such proceedings; and yet, they
have a secret pleasure in them.

CLEINIAS: Very true.

ATHENIAN: And is any harm done to the lover of vicious dances or songs, or
any good done to the approver of the opposite sort of pleasure?

CLEINIAS: I think that there is.

ATHENIAN: 'I think' is not the word, but I would say, rather, 'I am
certain.' For must they not have the same effect as when a man associates
with bad characters, whom he likes and approves rather than dislikes, and
only censures playfully because he has a suspicion of his own badness? In
that case, he who takes pleasure in them will surely become like those in
whom he takes pleasure, even though he be ashamed to praise them. And what
greater good or evil can any destiny ever make us undergo?

CLEINIAS: I know of none.

ATHENIAN: Then in a city which has good laws, or in future ages is to have
them, bearing in mind the instruction and amusement which are given by
music, can we suppose that the poets are to be allowed to teach in the
dance anything which they themselves like, in the way of rhythm, or
melody, or words, to the young children of any well-conditioned parents?
Is the poet to train his choruses as he pleases, without reference to
virtue or vice?

CLEINIAS: That is surely quite unreasonable, and is not to be thought of.

ATHENIAN: And yet he may do this in almost any state with the exception of
Egypt.

CLEINIAS: And what are the laws about music and dancing in Egypt?

ATHENIAN: You will wonder when I tell you: Long ago they appear to have
recognized the very principle of which we are now speaking--that their
young citizens must be habituated to forms and strains of virtue. These
they fixed, and exhibited the patterns of them in their temples; and no
painter or artist is allowed to innovate upon them, or to leave the
traditional forms and invent new ones. To this day, no alteration is
allowed either in these arts, or in music at all. And you will find that
their works of art are painted or moulded in the same forms which they had
ten thousand years ago;--this is literally true and no exaggeration,--
their ancient paintings and sculptures are not a whit better or worse than
the work of to-day, but are made with just the same skill.

CLEINIAS: How extraordinary!

ATHENIAN: I should rather say, How statesmanlike, how worthy of a
legislator! I know that other things in Egypt are not so well. But what I
am telling you about music is true and deserving of consideration, because
showing that a lawgiver may institute melodies which have a natural truth
and correctness without any fear of failure. To do this, however, must be
the work of God, or of a divine person; in Egypt they have a tradition
that their ancient chants which have been preserved for so many ages are
the composition of the Goddess Isis. And therefore, as I was saying, if a
person can only find in any way the natural melodies, he may confidently
embody them in a fixed and legal form. For the love of novelty which
arises out of pleasure in the new and weariness of the old, has not
strength enough to corrupt the consecrated song and dance, under the plea
that they have become antiquated. At any rate, they are far from being
corrupted in Egypt.

CLEINIAS: Your arguments seem to prove your point.

ATHENIAN: May we not confidently say that the true use of music and of
choral festivities is as follows: We rejoice when we think that we
prosper, and again we think that we prosper when we rejoice?

CLEINIAS: Exactly.

ATHENIAN: And when rejoicing in our good fortune, we are unable to be
still?

CLEINIAS: True.

ATHENIAN: Our young men break forth into dancing and singing, and we who
are their elders deem that we are fulfilling our part in life when we look
on at them. Having lost our agility, we delight in their sports and merry-
making, because we love to think of our former selves; and gladly
institute contests for those who are able to awaken in us the memory of
our youth.

CLEINIAS: Very true.

ATHENIAN: Is it altogether unmeaning to say, as the common people do about
festivals, that he should be adjudged the wisest of men, and the winner of
the palm, who gives us the greatest amount of pleasure and mirth? For on
such occasions, and when mirth is the order of the day, ought not he to be
honoured most, and, as I was saying, bear the palm, who gives most mirth
to the greatest number? Now is this a true way of speaking or of acting?

CLEINIAS: Possibly.

ATHENIAN: But, my dear friend, let us distinguish between different cases,
and not be hasty in forming a judgment: One way of considering the
question will be to imagine a festival at which there are entertainments
of all sorts, including gymnastic, musical, and equestrian contests: the
citizens are assembled; prizes are offered, and proclamation is made that
any one who likes may enter the lists, and that he is to bear the palm who
gives the most pleasure to the spectators--there is to be no regulation
about the manner how; but he who is most successful in giving pleasure is
to be crowned victor, and deemed to be the pleasantest of the candidates:
What is likely to be the result of such a proclamation?

CLEINIAS: In what respect?

ATHENIAN: There would be various exhibitions: one man, like Homer, will
exhibit a rhapsody, another a performance on the lute; one will have a
tragedy, and another a comedy. Nor would there be anything astonishing in
some one imagining that he could gain the prize by exhibiting a puppet-
show. Suppose these competitors to meet, and not these only, but
innumerable others as well--can you tell me who ought to be the victor?

CLEINIAS: I do not see how any one can answer you, or pretend to know,
unless he has heard with his own ears the several competitors; the
question is absurd.

ATHENIAN: Well, then, if neither of you can answer, shall I answer this
question which you deem so absurd?

CLEINIAS: By all means.

ATHENIAN: If very small children are to determine the question, they will
decide for the puppet show.

CLEINIAS: Of course.

ATHENIAN: The older children will be advocates of comedy; educated women,
and young men, and people in general, will favour tragedy.

CLEINIAS: Very likely.

ATHENIAN: And I believe that we old men would have the greatest pleasure
in hearing a rhapsodist recite well the Iliad and Odyssey, or one of the
Hesiodic poems, and would award the victory to him. But, who would really
be the victor?--that is the question.

CLEINIAS: Yes.

ATHENIAN: Clearly you and I will have to declare that those whom we old
men adjudge victors ought to win; for our ways are far and away better
than any which at present exist anywhere in the world.

CLEINIAS: Certainly.

ATHENIAN: Thus far I too should agree with the many, that the excellence
of music is to be measured by pleasure. But the pleasure must not be that
of chance persons; the fairest music is that which delights the best and
best educated, and especially that which delights the one man who is pre-
eminent in virtue and education. And therefore the judges must be men of
character, for they will require both wisdom and courage; the true judge
must not draw his inspiration from the theatre, nor ought he to be
unnerved by the clamour of the many and his own incapacity; nor again,
knowing the truth, ought he through cowardice and unmanliness carelessly
to deliver a lying judgment, with the very same lips which have just
appealed to the Gods before he judged. He is sitting not as the disciple
of the theatre, but, in his proper place, as their instructor, and he
ought to be the enemy of all pandering to the pleasure of the spectators.
The ancient and common custom of Hellas, which still prevails in Italy and
Sicily, did certainly leave the judgment to the body of spectators, who
determined the victor by show of hands. But this custom has been the
destruction of the poets; for they are now in the habit of composing with
a view to please the bad taste of their judges, and the result is that the
spectators instruct themselves;--and also it has been the ruin of the
theatre; they ought to be having characters put before them better than
their own, and so receiving a higher pleasure, but now by their own act
the opposite result follows. What inference is to be drawn from all this?
Shall I tell you?

CLEINIAS: What?

ATHENIAN: The inference at which we arrive for the third or fourth time
is, that education is the constraining and directing of youth towards that
right reason, which the law affirms, and which the experience of the
eldest and best has agreed to be truly right. In order, then, that the
soul of the child may not be habituated to feel joy and sorrow in a manner
at variance with the law, and those who obey the law, but may rather
follow the law and rejoice and sorrow at the same things as the aged--in
order, I say, to produce this effect, chants appear to have been invented,
which really enchant, and are designed to implant that harmony of which we
speak. And, because the mind of the child is incapable of enduring serious
training, they are called plays and songs, and are performed in play; just
as when men are sick and ailing in their bodies, their attendants give
them wholesome diet in pleasant meats and drinks, but unwholesome diet in
disagreeable things, in order that they may learn, as they ought, to like
the one, and to dislike the other. And similarly the true legislator will
persuade, and, if he cannot persuade, will compel the poet to express, as
he ought, by fair and noble words, in his rhythms, the figures, and in his
melodies, the music of temperate and brave and in every way good men.

CLEINIAS: But do you really imagine, Stranger, that this is the way in
which poets generally compose in States at the present day? As far as I
can observe, except among us and among the Lacedaemonians, there are no
regulations like those of which you speak; in other places novelties are
always being introduced in dancing and in music, generally not under the
authority of any law, but at the instigation of lawless pleasures; and
these pleasures are so far from being the same, as you describe the
Egyptian to be, or having the same principles, that they are never the
same.

ATHENIAN: Most true, Cleinias; and I daresay that I may have expressed
myself obscurely, and so led you to imagine that I was speaking of some
really existing state of things, whereas I was only saying what
regulations I would like to have about music; and hence there occurred a
misapprehension on your part. For when evils are far gone and
irremediable, the task of censuring them is never pleasant, although at
times necessary. But as we do not really differ, will you let me ask you
whether you consider such institutions to be more prevalent among the
Cretans and Lacedaemonians than among the other Hellenes?

CLEINIAS: Certainly they are.

ATHENIAN: And if they were extended to the other Hellenes, would it be an
improvement on the present state of things?

CLEINIAS: A very great improvement, if the customs which prevail among
them were such as prevail among us and the Lacedaemonians, and such as you
were just now saying ought to prevail.

ATHENIAN: Let us see whether we understand one another:--Are not the
principles of education and music which prevail among you as follows: you
compel your poets to say that the good man, if he be temperate and just,
is fortunate and happy; and this whether he be great and strong or small
and weak, and whether he be rich or poor; and, on the other hand, if he
have a wealth passing that of Cinyras or Midas, and be unjust, he is
wretched and lives in misery? As the poet says, and with truth: I sing
not, I care not about him who accomplishes all noble things, not having
justice; let him who 'draws near and stretches out his hand against his
enemies be a just man.' But if he be unjust, I would not have him 'look
calmly upon bloody death,' nor 'surpass in swiftness the Thracian Boreas;
' and let no other thing that is called good ever be his. For the goods of
which the many speak are not really good: first in the catalogue is placed
health, beauty next, wealth third; and then innumerable others, as for
example to have a keen eye or a quick ear, and in general to have all the
senses perfect; or, again, to be a tyrant and do as you like; and the
final consummation of happiness is to have acquired all these things, and
when you have acquired them to become at once immortal. But you and I say,
that while to the just and holy all these things are the best of
possessions, to the unjust they are all, including even health, the
greatest of evils. For in truth, to have sight, and hearing, and the use
of the senses, or to live at all without justice and virtue, even though a
man be rich in all the so-called goods of fortune, is the greatest of
evils, if life be immortal; but not so great, if the bad man lives only a
very short time. These are the truths which, if I am not mistaken, you
will persuade or compel your poets to utter with suitable accompaniments
of harmony and rhythm, and in these they must train up your youth. Am I
not right? For I plainly declare that evils as they are termed are goods
to the unjust, and only evils to the just, and that goods are truly good
to the good, but evil to the evil. Let me ask again, Are you and I agreed
about this?

CLEINIAS: I think that we partly agree and partly do not.

ATHENIAN: When a man has health and wealth and a tyranny which lasts, and
when he is pre-eminent in strength and courage, and has the gift of
immortality, and none of the so-called evils which counter-balance these
goods, but only the injustice and insolence of his own nature--of such an
one you are, I suspect, unwilling to believe that he is miserable rather
than happy.

CLEINIAS: That is quite true.

ATHENIAN: Once more: Suppose that he be valiant and strong, and handsome
and rich, and does throughout his whole life whatever he likes, still, if
he be unrighteous and insolent, would not both of you agree that he will
of necessity live basely? You will surely grant so much?

CLEINIAS: Certainly.

ATHENIAN: And an evil life too?

CLEINIAS: I am not equally disposed to grant that.

ATHENIAN: Will he not live painfully and to his own disadvantage?

CLEINIAS: How can I possibly say so?

ATHENIAN: How! Then may Heaven make us to be of one mind, for now we are
of two. To me, dear Cleinias, the truth of what I am saying is as plain as
the fact that Crete is an island. And, if I were a lawgiver, I would try
to make the poets and all the citizens speak in this strain, and I would
inflict the heaviest penalties on any one in all the land who should dare
to say that there are bad men who lead pleasant lives, or that the
profitable and gainful is one thing, and the just another; and there are
many other matters about which I should make my citizens speak in a manner
different from the Cretans and Lacedaemonians of this age, and I may say,
indeed, from the world in general. For tell me, my good friends, by Zeus
and Apollo tell me, if I were to ask these same Gods who were your
legislators,--Is not the most just life also the pleasantest? or are there
two lives, one of which is the justest and the other the pleasantest?--and
they were to reply that there are two; and thereupon I proceeded to ask,
(that would be the right way of pursuing the enquiry), Which are the
happier--those who lead the justest, or those who lead the pleasantest
life? and they replied, Those who lead the pleasantest--that would be a
very strange answer, which I should not like to put into the mouth of the
Gods. The words will come with more propriety from the lips of fathers and
legislators, and therefore I will repeat my former questions to one of
them, and suppose him to say again that he who leads the pleasantest life
is the happiest. And to that I rejoin:--O my father, did you not wish me
to live as happily as possible? And yet you also never ceased telling me
that I should live as justly as possible. Now, here the giver of the rule,
whether he be legislator or father, will be in a dilemma, and will in vain
endeavour to be consistent with himself. But if he were to declare that
the justest life is also the happiest, every one hearing him would
enquire, if I am not mistaken, what is that good and noble principle in
life which the law approves, and which is superior to pleasure. For what
good can the just man have which is separated from pleasure? Shall we say
that glory and fame, coming from Gods and men, though good and noble, are
nevertheless unpleasant, and infamy pleasant? Certainly not, sweet
legislator. Or shall we say that the not-doing of wrong and there being no
wrong done is good and honourable, although there is no pleasure in it,
and that the doing wrong is pleasant, but evil and base?

CLEINIAS: Impossible.

ATHENIAN: The view which identifies the pleasant and the pleasant and the
just and the good and the noble has an excellent moral and religious
tendency. And the opposite view is most at variance with the designs of
the legislator, and is, in his opinion, infamous; for no one, if he can
help, will be persuaded to do that which gives him more pain than
pleasure. But as distant prospects are apt to make us dizzy, especially in
childhood, the legislator will try to purge away the darkness and exhibit
the truth; he will persuade the citizens, in some way or other, by customs
and praises and words, that just and unjust are shadows only, and that
injustice, which seems opposed to justice, when contemplated by the unjust
and evil man appears pleasant and the just most unpleasant; but that from
the just man's point of view, the very opposite is the appearance of both
of them.

CLEINIAS: True.

ATHENIAN: And which may be supposed to be the truer judgment--that of the
inferior or of the better soul?

CLEINIAS: Surely, that of the better soul.

ATHENIAN: Then the unjust life must not only be more base and depraved,
but also more unpleasant than the just and holy life?

CLEINIAS: That seems to be implied in the present argument.

ATHENIAN: And even supposing this were otherwise, and not as the argument
has proven, still the lawgiver, who is worth anything, if he ever ventures
to tell a lie to the young for their good, could not invent a more useful
lie than this, or one which will have a better effect in making them do
what is right, not on compulsion but voluntarily.

CLEINIAS: Truth, Stranger, is a noble thing and a lasting, but a thing of
which men are hard to be persuaded.

ATHENIAN: And yet the story of the Sidonian Cadmus, which is so
improbable, has been readily believed, and also innumerable other tales.

CLEINIAS: What is that story?

ATHENIAN: The story of armed men springing up after the sowing of teeth,
which the legislator may take as a proof that he can persuade the minds of
the young of anything; so that he has only to reflect and find out what
belief will be of the greatest public advantage, and then use all his
efforts to make the whole community utter one and the same word in their
songs and tales and discourses all their life long. But if you do not
agree with me, there is no reason why you should not argue on the other
side.

CLEINIAS: I do not see that any argument can fairly be raised by either of
us against what you are now saying.

ATHENIAN: The next suggestion which I have to offer is, that all our three
choruses shall sing to the young and tender souls of children, reciting in
their strains all the noble thoughts of which we have already spoken, or
are about to speak; and the sum of them shall be, that the life which is
by the Gods deemed to be the happiest is also the best;--we shall affirm
this to be a most certain truth; and the minds of our young disciples will
be more likely to receive these words of ours than any others which we
might address to them.

CLEINIAS: I assent to what you say.

ATHENIAN: First will enter in their natural order the sacred choir
composed of children, which is to sing lustily the heaven-taught lay to
the whole city. Next will follow the choir of young men under the age of
thirty, who will call upon the God Paean to testify to the truth of their
words, and will pray him to be gracious to the youth and to turn their
hearts. Thirdly, the choir of elder men, who are from thirty to sixty
years of age, will also sing. There remain those who are too old to sing,
and they will tell stories, illustrating the same virtues, as with the
voice of an oracle.

CLEINIAS: Who are those who compose the third choir, Stranger? for I do
not clearly understand what you mean to say about them.

ATHENIAN: And yet almost all that I have been saying has been said with a
view to them.

CLEINIAS: Will you try to be a little plainer?

ATHENIAN: I was speaking at the commencement of our discourse, as you will
remember, of the fiery nature of young creatures: I said that they were
unable to keep quiet either in limb or voice, and that they called out and
jumped about in a disorderly manner; and that no other animal attained to
any perception of order, but man only. Now the order of motion is called
rhythm, and the order of the voice, in which high and low are duly
mingled, is called harmony; and both together are termed choric song. And
I said that the Gods had pity on us, and gave us Apollo and the Muses to
be our playfellows and leaders in the dance; and Dionysus, as I dare say
that you will remember, was the third.

CLEINIAS: I quite remember.

ATHENIAN: Thus far I have spoken of the chorus of Apollo and the Muses,
and I have still to speak of the remaining chorus, which is that of
Dionysus.

CLEINIAS: How is that arranged? There is something strange, at any rate on
first hearing, in a Dionysiac chorus of old men, if you really mean that
those who are above thirty, and may be fifty, or from fifty to sixty years
of age, are to dance in his honour.

ATHENIAN: Very true; and therefore it must be shown that there is good
reason for the proposal.

CLEINIAS: Certainly.

ATHENIAN: Are we agreed thus far?

CLEINIAS: About what?

ATHENIAN: That every man and boy, slave and free, both sexes, and the
whole city, should never cease charming themselves with the strains of
which we have spoken; and that there should be every sort of change and
variation of them in order to take away the effect of sameness, so that
the singers may always receive pleasure from their hymns, and may never
weary of them?

CLEINIAS: Every one will agree.

ATHENIAN: Where, then, will that best part of our city which, by reason of
age and intelligence, has the greatest influence, sing these fairest of
strains, which are to do so much good? Shall we be so foolish as to let
them off who would give us the most beautiful and also the most useful of
songs?

CLEINIAS: But, says the argument, we cannot let them off.

ATHENIAN: Then how can we carry out our purpose with decorum? Will this be
the way?

CLEINIAS: What?

ATHENIAN: When a man is advancing in years, he is afraid and reluctant to
sing;--he has no pleasure in his own performances; and if compulsion is
used, he will be more and more ashamed, the older and more discreet he
grows;--is not this true?

CLEINIAS: Certainly.

ATHENIAN: Well, and will he not be yet more ashamed if he has to stand up
and sing in the theatre to a mixed audience?--and if moreover when he is
required to do so, like the other choirs who contend for prizes, and have
been trained under a singing master, he is pinched and hungry, he will
certainly have a feeling of shame and discomfort which will make him very
unwilling to exhibit.

CLEINIAS: No doubt.

ATHENIAN: How, then, shall we reassure him, and get him to sing? Shall we
begin by enacting that boys shall not taste wine at all until they are
eighteen years of age; we will tell them that fire must not be poured upon
fire, whether in the body or in the soul, until they begin to go to work--
this is a precaution which has to be taken against the excitableness of
youth;--afterwards they may taste wine in moderation up to the age of
thirty, but while a man is young he should abstain altogether from
intoxication and from excess of wine; when, at length, he has reached
forty years, after dinner at a public mess, he may invite not only the
other Gods, but Dionysus above all, to the mystery and festivity of the
elder men, making use of the wine which he has given men to lighten the
sourness of old age; that in age we may renew our youth, and forget our
sorrows; and also in order that the nature of the soul, like iron melted
in the fire, may become softer and so more impressible. In the first
place, will not any one who is thus mellowed be more ready and less
ashamed to sing--I do not say before a large audience, but before a
moderate company; nor yet among strangers, but among his familiars, and,
as we have often said, to chant, and to enchant?

CLEINIAS: He will be far more ready.

ATHENIAN: There will be no impropriety in our using such a method of
persuading them to join with us in song.

CLEINIAS: None at all.

ATHENIAN: And what strain will they sing, and what muse will they hymn?
The strain should clearly be one suitable to them.

CLEINIAS: Certainly.

ATHENIAN: And what strain is suitable for heroes? Shall they sing a choric
strain?

CLEINIAS: Truly, Stranger, we of Crete and Lacedaemon know no strain other
than that which we have learnt and been accustomed to sing in our chorus.

ATHENIAN: I dare say; for you have never acquired the knowledge of the
most beautiful kind of song, in your military way of life, which is
modelled after the camp, and is not like that of dwellers in cities; and
you have your young men herding and feeding together like young colts. No
one takes his own individual colt and drags him away from his fellows
against his will, raging and foaming, and gives him a groom to attend to
him alone, and trains and rubs him down privately, and gives him the
qualities in education which will make him not only a good soldier, but
also a governor of a state and of cities. Such an one, as we said at
first, would be a greater warrior than he of whom Tyrtaeus sings; and he
would honour courage everywhere, but always as the fourth, and not as the
first part of virtue, either in individuals or states.

CLEINIAS: Once more, Stranger, I must complain that you depreciate our
lawgivers.

ATHENIAN: Not intentionally, if at all, my good friend; but whither the
argument leads, thither let us follow; for if there be indeed some strain
of song more beautiful than that of the choruses or the public theatres, I
should like to impart it to those who, as we say, are ashamed of these,
and want to have the best.

CLEINIAS: Certainly.

ATHENIAN: When things have an accompanying charm, either the best thing in
them is this very charm, or there is some rightness or utility possessed
by them;--for example, I should say that eating and drinking, and the use
of food in general, have an accompanying charm which we call pleasure; but
that this rightness and utility is just the healthfulness of the things
served up to us, which is their true rightness.

CLEINIAS: Just so.

ATHENIAN: Thus, too, I should say that learning has a certain accompanying
charm which is the pleasure; but that the right and the profitable, the
good and the noble, are qualities which the truth gives to it.

CLEINIAS: Exactly.

ATHENIAN: And so in the imitative arts--if they succeed in making
likenesses, and are accompanied by pleasure, may not their works be said
to have a charm?

CLEINIAS: Yes.

ATHENIAN: But equal proportions, whether of quality or quantity, and not
pleasure, speaking generally, would give them truth or rightness.

CLEINIAS: Yes.

ATHENIAN: Then that only can be rightly judged by the standard of
pleasure, which makes or furnishes no utility or truth or likeness, nor on
the other hand is productive of any hurtful quality, but exists solely for
the sake of the accompanying charm; and the term 'pleasure' is most
appropriately applied to it when these other qualities are absent.

CLEINIAS: You are speaking of harmless pleasure, are you not?

ATHENIAN: Yes; and this I term amusement, when doing neither harm nor good
in any degree worth speaking of.

CLEINIAS: Very true.

ATHENIAN: Then, if such be our principles, we must assert that imitation
is not to be judged of by pleasure and false opinion; and this is true of
all equality, for the equal is not equal or the symmetrical symmetrical,
because somebody thinks or likes something, but they are to be judged of
by the standard of truth, and by no other whatever.

CLEINIAS: Quite true.

ATHENIAN: Do we not regard all music as representative and imitative?

CLEINIAS: Certainly.

ATHENIAN: Then, when any one says that music is to be judged of by
pleasure, his doctrine cannot be admitted; and if there be any music of
which pleasure is the criterion, such music is not to be sought out or
deemed to have any real excellence, but only that other kind of music
which is an imitation of the good.

CLEINIAS: Very true.

ATHENIAN: And those who seek for the best kind of song and music ought not
to seek for that which is pleasant, but for that which is true; and the
truth of imitation consists, as we were saying, in rendering the thing
imitated according to quantity and quality.

CLEINIAS: Certainly.

ATHENIAN: And every one will admit that musical compositions are all
imitative and representative. Will not poets and spectators and actors all
agree in this?

CLEINIAS: They will.

ATHENIAN: Surely then he who would judge correctly must know what each
composition is; for if he does not know what is the character and meaning
of the piece, and what it represents, he will never discern whether the
intention is true or false.

CLEINIAS: Certainly not.

ATHENIAN: And will he who does not know what is true be able to
distinguish what is good and bad? My statement is not very clear; but
perhaps you will understand me better if I put the matter in another way.

CLEINIAS: How?

ATHENIAN: There are ten thousand likenesses of objects of sight?

CLEINIAS: Yes.

ATHENIAN: And can he who does not know what the exact object is which is
imitated, ever know whether the resemblance is truthfully executed? I
mean, for example, whether a statue has the proportions of a body, and the
true situation of the parts; what those proportions are, and how the parts
fit into one another in due order; also their colours and conformations,
or whether this is all confused in the execution: do you think that any
one can know about this, who does not know what the animal is which has
been imitated?

CLEINIAS: Impossible.

ATHENIAN: But even if we know that the thing pictured or sculptured is a
man, who has received at the hand of the artist all his proper parts and
colours and shapes, must we not also know whether the work is beautiful or
in any respect deficient in beauty?

CLEINIAS: If this were not required, Stranger, we should all of us be
judges of beauty.

ATHENIAN: Very true; and may we not say that in everything imitated,
whether in drawing, music, or any other art, he who is to be a competent
judge must possess three things;--he must know, in the first place, of
what the imitation is; secondly, he must know that it is true; and
thirdly, that it has been well executed in words and melodies and rhythms?

CLEINIAS: Certainly.

ATHENIAN: Then let us not faint in discussing the peculiar difficulty of
music. Music is more celebrated than any other kind of imitation, and
therefore requires the greatest care of them all. For if a man makes a
mistake here, he may do himself the greatest injury by welcoming evil
dispositions, and the mistake may be very difficult to discern, because
the poets are artists very inferior in character to the Muses themselves,
who would never fall into the monstrous error of assigning to the words of
men the gestures and songs of women; nor after combining the melodies with
the gestures of freemen would they add on the rhythms of slaves and men of
the baser sort; nor, beginning with the rhythms and gestures of freemen,
would they assign to them a melody or words which are of an opposite
character; nor would they mix up the voices and sounds of animals and of
men and instruments, and every other sort of noise, as if they were all
one. But human poets are fond of introducing this sort of inconsistent
mixture, and so make themselves ridiculous in the eyes of those who, as
Orpheus says, 'are ripe for true pleasure.' The experienced see all this
confusion, and yet the poets go on and make still further havoc by
separating the rhythm and the figure of the dance from the melody, setting
bare words to metre, and also separating the melody and the rhythm from
the words, using the lyre or the flute alone. For when there are no words,
it is very difficult to recognize the meaning of the harmony and rhythm,
or to see that any worthy object is imitated by them. And we must
acknowledge that all this sort of thing, which aims only at swiftness and
smoothness and a brutish noise, and uses the flute and the lyre not as the
mere accompaniments of the dance and song, is exceedingly coarse and
tasteless. The use of either instrument, when unaccompanied, leads to
every sort of irregularity and trickery. This is all rational enough. But
we are considering not how our choristers, who are from thirty to fifty
years of age, and may be over fifty, are not to use the Muses, but how
they are to use them. And the considerations which we have urged seem to
show in what way these fifty years' old choristers who are to sing, may be
expected to be better trained. For they need to have a quick perception
and knowledge of harmonies and rhythms; otherwise, how can they ever know
whether a melody would be rightly sung to the Dorian mode, or to the
rhythm which the poet has assigned to it?

CLEINIAS: Clearly they cannot.

ATHENIAN: The many are ridiculous in imagining that they know what is in
proper harmony and rhythm, and what is not, when they can only be made to
sing and step in rhythm by force; it never occurs to them that they are
ignorant of what they are doing. Now every melody is right when it has
suitable harmony and rhythm, and wrong when unsuitable.

CLEINIAS: That is most certain.

ATHENIAN: But can a man who does not know a thing, as we were saying, know
that the thing is right?

CLEINIAS: Impossible.

ATHENIAN: Then now, as would appear, we are making the discovery that our
newly-appointed choristers, whom we hereby invite and, although they are
their own masters, compel to sing, must be educated to such an extent as
to be able to follow the steps of the rhythm and the notes of the song,
that they may know the harmonies and rhythms, and be able to select what
are suitable for men of their age and character to sing; and may sing
them, and have innocent pleasure from their own performance, and also lead
younger men to welcome with dutiful delight good dispositions. Having such
training, they will attain a more accurate knowledge than falls to the lot
of the common people, or even of the poets themselves. For the poet need
not know the third point, viz., whether the imitation is good or not,
though he can hardly help knowing the laws of melody and rhythm. But the
aged chorus must know all the three, that they may choose the best, and
that which is nearest to the best; for otherwise they will never be able
to charm the souls of young men in the way of virtue. And now the original
design of the argument which was intended to bring eloquent aid to the
Chorus of Dionysus, has been accomplished to the best of our ability, and
let us see whether we were right:--I should imagine that a drinking
assembly is likely to become more and more tumultuous as the drinking goes
on: this, as we were saying at first, will certainly be the case.

CLEINIAS: Certainly.

ATHENIAN: Every man has a more than natural elevation; his heart is glad
within him, and he will say anything and will be restrained by nobody at
such a time; he fancies that he is able to rule over himself and all
mankind.

CLEINIAS: Quite true.

ATHENIAN: Were we not saying that on such occasions the souls of the
drinkers become like iron heated in the fire, and grow softer and younger,
and are easily moulded by him who knows how to educate and fashion them,
just as when they were young, and that this fashioner of them is the same
who prescribed for them in the days of their youth, viz., the good
legislator; and that he ought to enact laws of the banquet, which, when a
man is confident, bold, and impudent, and unwilling to wait his turn and
have his share of silence and speech, and drinking and music, will change
his character into the opposite--such laws as will infuse into him a just
and noble fear, which will take up arms at the approach of insolence,
being that divine fear which we have called reverence and shame?

CLEINIAS: True.

ATHENIAN: And the guardians of these laws and fellow-workers with them are
the calm and sober generals of the drinkers; and without their help there
is greater difficulty in fighting against drink than in fighting against
enemies when the commander of an army is not himself calm; and he who is
unwilling to obey them and the commanders of Dionysiac feasts who are more
than sixty years of age, shall suffer a disgrace as great as he who
disobeys military leaders, or even greater.

CLEINIAS: Right.

ATHENIAN: If, then, drinking and amusement were regulated in this way,
would not the companions of our revels be improved? they would part better
friends than they were, and not, as now, enemies. Their whole intercourse
would be regulated by law and observant of it, and the sober would be the
leaders of the drunken.

CLEINIAS: I think so too, if drinking were regulated as you propose.

ATHENIAN: Let us not then simply censure the gift of Dionysus as bad and
unfit to be received into the State. For wine has many excellences, and
one pre-eminent one, about which there is a difficulty in speaking to the
many, from a fear of their misconceiving and misunderstanding what is
said.

CLEINIAS: To what do you refer?

ATHENIAN: There is a tradition or story, which has somehow crept about the
world, that Dionysus was robbed of his wits by his stepmother Here, and
that out of revenge he inspires Bacchic furies and dancing madnesses in
others; for which reason he gave men wine. Such traditions concerning the
Gods I leave to those who think that they may be safely uttered (compare
Euthyph.; Republic); I only know that no animal at birth is mature or
perfect in intelligence; and in the intermediate period, in which he has
not yet acquired his own proper sense, he rages and roars without rhyme or
reason; and when he has once got on his legs he jumps about without rhyme
or reason; and this, as you will remember, has been already said by us to
be the origin of music and gymnastic.

CLEINIAS: To be sure, I remember.

ATHENIAN: And did we not say that the sense of harmony and rhythm sprang
from this beginning among men, and that Apollo and the Muses and Dionysus
were the Gods whom we had to thank for them?

CLEINIAS: Certainly.

ATHENIAN: The other story implied that wine was given man out of revenge,
and in order to make him mad; but our present doctrine, on the contrary,
is, that wine was given him as a balm, and in order to implant modesty in
the soul, and health and strength in the body.

CLEINIAS: That, Stranger, is precisely what was said.

ATHENIAN: Then half the subject may now be considered to have been
discussed; shall we proceed to the consideration of the other half?

CLEINIAS: What is the other half, and how do you divide the subject?

ATHENIAN: The whole choral art is also in our view the whole of education;
and of this art, rhythms and harmonies form the part which has to do with
the voice.

CLEINIAS: Yes.

ATHENIAN: The movement of the body has rhythm in common with the movement
of the voice, but gesture is peculiar to it, whereas song is simply the
movement of the voice.

CLEINIAS: Most true.

ATHENIAN: And the sound of the voice which reaches and educates the soul,
we have ventured to term music.

CLEINIAS: We were right.

ATHENIAN: And the movement of the body, when regarded as an amusement, we
termed dancing; but when extended and pursued with a view to the
excellence of the body, this scientific training may be called gymnastic.

CLEINIAS: Exactly.

ATHENIAN: Music, which was one half of the choral art, may be said to have
been completely discussed. Shall we proceed to the other half or not? What
would you like?

CLEINIAS: My good friend, when you are talking with a Cretan and
Lacedaemonian, and we have discussed music and not gymnastic, what answer
are either of us likely to make to such an enquiry?

ATHENIAN: An answer is contained in your question; and I understand and
accept what you say not only as an answer, but also as a command to
proceed with gymnastic.

CLEINIAS: You quite understand me; do as you say.

ATHENIAN: I will; and there will not be any difficulty in speaking
intelligibly to you about a subject with which both of you are far more
familiar than with music.

CLEINIAS: There will not.

ATHENIAN: Is not the origin of gymnastics, too, to be sought in the
tendency to rapid motion which exists in all animals; man, as we were
saying, having attained the sense of rhythm, created and invented dancing;
and melody arousing and awakening rhythm, both united formed the choral
art?

CLEINIAS: Very true.

ATHENIAN: And one part of this subject has been already discussed by us,
and there still remains another to be discussed?

CLEINIAS: Exactly.

ATHENIAN: I have first a final word to add to my discourse about drink, if
you will allow me to do so.

CLEINIAS: What more have you to say?

ATHENIAN: I should say that if a city seriously means to adopt the
practice of drinking under due regulation and with a view to the
enforcement of temperance, and in like manner, and on the same principle,
will allow of other pleasures, designing to gain the victory over them--in
this way all of them may be used. But if the State makes drinking an
amusement only, and whoever likes may drink whenever he likes, and with
whom he likes, and add to this any other indulgences, I shall never agree
or allow that this city or this man should practise drinking. I would go
further than the Cretans and Lacedaemonians, and am disposed rather to the
law of the Carthaginians, that no one while he is on a campaign should be
allowed to taste wine at all, but that he should drink water during all
that time, and that in the city no slave, male or female, should ever
drink wine; and that no magistrates should drink during their year of
office, nor should pilots of vessels or judges while on duty taste wine at
all, nor any one who is going to hold a consultation about any matter of
importance; nor in the day-time at all, unless in consequence of exercise
or as medicine; nor again at night, when any one, either man or woman, is
minded to get children. There are numberless other cases also in which
those who have good sense and good laws ought not to drink wine, so that
if what I say is true, no city will need many vineyards. Their husbandry
and their way of life in general will follow an appointed order, and their
cultivation of the vine will be the most limited and the least common of
their employments. And this, Stranger, shall be the crown of my discourse
about wine, if you agree.

CLEINIAS: Excellent: we agree.

BOOK III.

ATHENIAN: Enough of this. And what, then, is to be regarded as the origin
of government? Will not a man be able to judge of it best from a point of
view in which he may behold the progress of states and their transitions
to good or evil?

CLEINIAS: What do you mean?

ATHENIAN: I mean that he might watch them from the point of view of time,
and observe the changes which take place in them during infinite ages.

CLEINIAS: How so?

ATHENIAN: Why, do you think that you can reckon the time which has elapsed
since cities first existed and men were citizens of them?

CLEINIAS: Hardly.

ATHENIAN: But are sure that it must be vast and incalculable?

CLEINIAS: Certainly.

ATHENIAN: And have not thousands and thousands of cities come into being
during this period and as many perished? And has not each of them had
every form of government many times over, now growing larger, now smaller,
and again improving or declining?

CLEINIAS: To be sure.

ATHENIAN: Let us endeavour to ascertain the cause of these changes; for
that will probably explain the first origin and development of forms of
government.

CLEINIAS: Very good. You shall endeavour to impart your thoughts to us,
and we will make an effort to understand you.

ATHENIAN: Do you believe that there is any truth in ancient traditions?

CLEINIAS: What traditions?

ATHENIAN: The traditions about the many destructions of mankind which have
been occasioned by deluges and pestilences, and in many other ways, and of
the survival of a remnant?

CLEINIAS: Every one is disposed to believe them.

ATHENIAN: Let us consider one of them, that which was caused by the famous
deluge.

CLEINIAS: What are we to observe about it?

ATHENIAN: I mean to say that those who then escaped would only be hill
shepherds,--small sparks of the human race preserved on the tops of
mountains.

CLEINIAS: Clearly.

ATHENIAN: Such survivors would necessarily be unacquainted with the arts
and the various devices which are suggested to the dwellers in cities by
interest or ambition, and with all the wrongs which they contrive against
one another.

CLEINIAS: Very true.

ATHENIAN: Let us suppose, then, that the cities in the plain and on the
sea-coast were utterly destroyed at that time.

CLEINIAS: Very good.

ATHENIAN: Would not all implements have then perished and every other
excellent invention of political or any other sort of wisdom have utterly
disappeared?

CLEINIAS: Why, yes, my friend; and if things had always continued as they
are at present ordered, how could any discovery have ever been made even
in the least particular? For it is evident that the arts were unknown
during ten thousand times ten thousand years. And no more than a thousand
or two thousand years have elapsed since the discoveries of Daedalus,
Orpheus and Palamedes,--since Marsyas and Olympus invented music, and
Amphion the lyre--not to speak of numberless other inventions which are
but of yesterday.

ATHENIAN: Have you forgotten, Cleinias, the name of a friend who is really
of yesterday?

CLEINIAS: I suppose that you mean Epimenides.

ATHENIAN: The same, my friend; he does indeed far overleap the heads of
all mankind by his invention; for he carried out in practice, as you
declare, what of old Hesiod (Works and Days) only preached.

CLEINIAS: Yes, according to our tradition.

ATHENIAN: After the great destruction, may we not suppose that the state
of man was something of this sort:--In the beginning of things there was a
fearful illimitable desert and a vast expanse of land; a herd or two of
oxen would be the only survivors of the animal world; and there might be a
few goats, these too hardly enough to maintain the shepherds who tended
them?

CLEINIAS: True.

ATHENIAN: And of cities or governments or legislation, about which we are
now talking, do you suppose that they could have any recollection at all?

CLEINIAS: None whatever.

ATHENIAN: And out of this state of things has there not sprung all that we
now are and have: cities and governments, and arts and laws, and a great
deal of vice and a great deal of virtue?

CLEINIAS: What do you mean?

ATHENIAN: Why, my good friend, how can we possibly suppose that those who
knew nothing of all the good and evil of cities could have attained their
full development, whether of virtue or of vice?

CLEINIAS: I understand your meaning, and you are quite right.

ATHENIAN: But, as time advanced and the race multiplied, the world came to
be what the world is.

CLEINIAS: Very true.

ATHENIAN: Doubtless the change was not made all in a moment, but little by
little, during a very long period of time.

CLEINIAS: A highly probable supposition.

ATHENIAN: At first, they would have a natural fear ringing in their ears
which would prevent their descending from the heights into the plain.

CLEINIAS: Of course.

ATHENIAN: The fewness of the survivors at that time would have made them
all the more desirous of seeing one another; but then the means of
travelling either by land or sea had been almost entirely lost, as I may
say, with the loss of the arts, and there was great difficulty in getting
at one another; for iron and brass and all metals were jumbled together
and had disappeared in the chaos; nor was there any possibility of
extracting ore from them; and they had scarcely any means of felling
timber. Even if you suppose that some implements might have been preserved
in the mountains, they must quickly have worn out and vanished, and there
would be no more of them until the art of metallurgy had again revived.

CLEINIAS: There could not have been.

ATHENIAN: In how many generations would this be attained?

CLEINIAS: Clearly, not for many generations.

ATHENIAN: During this period, and for some time afterwards, all the arts
which require iron and brass and the like would disappear.

CLEINIAS: Certainly.

ATHENIAN: Faction and war would also have died out in those days, and for
many reasons.

CLEINIAS: How would that be?

ATHENIAN: In the first place, the desolation of these primitive men would
create in them a feeling of affection and goodwill towards one another;
and, secondly, they would have no occasion to quarrel about their
subsistence, for they would have pasture in abundance, except just at
first, and in some particular cases; and from their pasture-land they
would obtain the greater part of their food in a primitive age, having
plenty of milk and flesh; moreover they would procure other food by the
chase, not to be despised either in quantity or quality. They would also
have abundance of clothing, and bedding, and dwellings, and utensils
either capable of standing on the fire or not; for the plastic and weaving
arts do not require any use of iron: and God has given these two arts to
man in order to provide him with all such things, that, when reduced to
the last extremity, the human race may still grow and increase. Hence in
those days mankind were not very poor; nor was poverty a cause of
difference among them; and rich they could not have been, having neither
gold nor silver:--such at that time was their condition. And the community
which has neither poverty nor riches will always have the noblest
principles; in it there is no insolence or injustice, nor, again, are
there any contentions or envyings. And therefore they were good, and also
because they were what is called simple-minded; and when they were told
about good and evil, they in their simplicity believed what they heard to
be very truth and practised it. No one had the wit to suspect another of a
falsehood, as men do now; but what they heard about Gods and men they
believed to be true, and lived accordingly; and therefore they were in all
respects such as we have described them.

CLEINIAS: That quite accords with my views, and with those of my friend
here.

ATHENIAN: Would not many generations living on in a simple manner,
although ruder, perhaps, and more ignorant of the arts generally, and in
particular of those of land or naval warfare, and likewise of other arts,
termed in cities legal practices and party conflicts, and including all
conceivable ways of hurting one another in word and deed;--although
inferior to those who lived before the deluge, or to the men of our day in
these respects, would they not, I say, be simpler and more manly, and also
more temperate and altogether more just? The reason has been already
explained.

CLEINIAS: Very true.

ATHENIAN: I should wish you to understand that what has preceded and what
is about to follow, has been, and will be said, with the intention of
explaining what need the men of that time had of laws, and who was their
lawgiver.

CLEINIAS: And thus far what you have said has been very well said.

ATHENIAN: They could hardly have wanted lawgivers as yet; nothing of that
sort was likely to have existed in their days, for they had no letters at
this early period; they lived by habit and the customs of their ancestors,
as they are called.

CLEINIAS: Probably.

ATHENIAN: But there was already existing a form of government which, if I
am not mistaken, is generally termed a lordship, and this still remains in
many places, both among Hellenes and barbarians (compare Arist. Pol.), and
is the government which is declared by Homer to have prevailed among the
Cyclopes:--

'They have neither councils nor judgments, but they dwell in hollow caves
on the tops of high mountains, and every one gives law to his wife and
children, and they do not busy themselves about one another.' (Odyss.)

CLEINIAS: That seems to be a charming poet of yours; I have read some
other verses of his, which are very clever; but I do not know much of him,
for foreign poets are very little read among the Cretans.

MEGILLUS: But they are in Lacedaemon, and he appears to be the prince of
them all; the manner of life, however, which he describes is not Spartan,
but rather Ionian, and he seems quite to confirm what you are saying, when
he traces up the ancient state of mankind by the help of tradition to
barbarism.

ATHENIAN: Yes, he does confirm it; and we may accept his witness to the
fact that such forms of government sometimes arise.

CLEINIAS: We may.

ATHENIAN: And were not such states composed of men who had been dispersed
in single habitations and families by the poverty which attended the
devastations; and did not the eldest then rule among them, because with
them government originated in the authority of a father and a mother,
whom, like a flock of birds, they followed, forming one troop under the
patriarchal rule and sovereignty of their parents, which of all
sovereignties is the most just?

CLEINIAS: Very true.

ATHENIAN: After this they came together in greater numbers, and increased
the size of their cities, and betook themselves to husbandry, first of all
at the foot of the mountains, and made enclosures of loose walls and works
of defence, in order to keep off wild beasts; thus creating a single large
and common habitation.

CLEINIAS: Yes; at least we may suppose so.

ATHENIAN: There is another thing which would probably happen.

CLEINIAS: What?

ATHENIAN: When these larger habitations grew up out of the lesser original
ones, each of the lesser ones would survive in the larger; every family
would be under the rule of the eldest, and, owing to their separation from
one another, would have peculiar customs in things divine and human, which
they would have received from their several parents who had educated them;
and these customs would incline them to order, when the parents had the
element of order in their nature, and to courage, when they had the
element of courage. And they would naturally stamp upon their children,
and upon their children's children, their own likings; and, as we are
saying, they would find their way into the larger society, having already
their own peculiar laws.

CLEINIAS: Certainly.

ATHENIAN: And every man surely likes his own laws best, and the laws of
others not so well.

CLEINIAS: True.

ATHENIAN: Then now we seem to have stumbled upon the beginnings of
legislation.

CLEINIAS: Exactly.

ATHENIAN: The next step will be that these persons who have met together,
will select some arbiters, who will review the laws of all of them, and
will publicly present such as they approve to the chiefs who lead the
tribes, and who are in a manner their kings, allowing them to choose those
which they think best. These persons will themselves be called
legislators, and will appoint the magistrates, framing some sort of
aristocracy, or perhaps monarchy, out of the dynasties or lordships, and
in this altered state of the government they will live.

CLEINIAS: Yes, that would be the natural order of things.

ATHENIAN: Then, now let us speak of a third form of government, in which
all other forms and conditions of polities and cities concur.

CLEINIAS: What is that?

ATHENIAN: The form which in fact Homer indicates as following the second.
This third form arose when, as he says, Dardanus founded Dardania:--

'For not as yet had the holy Ilium been built on the plain to be a city of
speaking men; but they were still dwelling at the foot of many-fountained
Ida.'

For indeed, in these verses, and in what he said of the Cyclopes, he
speaks the words of God and nature; for poets are a divine race, and often
in their strains, by the aid of the Muses and the Graces, they attain
truth.

CLEINIAS: Yes.

ATHENIAN: Then now let us proceed with the rest of our tale, which will
probably be found to illustrate in some degree our proposed design:--Shall
we do so?

CLEINIAS: By all means.

ATHENIAN: Ilium was built, when they descended from the mountain, in a
large and fair plain, on a sort of low hill, watered by many rivers
descending from Ida.

CLEINIAS: Such is the tradition.

ATHENIAN: And we must suppose this event to have taken place many ages
after the deluge?

ATHENIAN: A marvellous forgetfulness of the former destruction would
appear to have come over them, when they placed their town right under
numerous streams flowing from the heights, trusting for their security to
not very high hills, either.

CLEINIAS: There must have been a long interval, clearly.

ATHENIAN: And, as population increased, many other cities would begin to
be inhabited.

CLEINIAS: Doubtless.

ATHENIAN: Those cities made war against Troy--by sea as well as land--for
at that time men were ceasing to be afraid of the sea.

CLEINIAS: Clearly.

ATHENIAN: The Achaeans remained ten years, and overthrew Troy.

CLEINIAS: True.

ATHENIAN: And during the ten years in which the Achaeans were besieging
Ilium, the homes of the besiegers were falling into an evil plight. Their
youth revolted; and when the soldiers returned to their own cities and
families, they did not receive them properly, and as they ought to have
done, and numerous deaths, murders, exiles, were the consequence. The
exiles came again, under a new name, no longer Achaeans, but Dorians,--a
name which they derived from Dorieus; for it was he who gathered them
together. The rest of the story is told by you Lacedaemonians as part of
the history of Sparta.

MEGILLUS: To be sure.

ATHENIAN: Thus, after digressing from the original subject of laws into
music and drinking-bouts, the argument has, providentially, come back to
the same point, and presents to us another handle. For we have reached the
settlement of Lacedaemon; which, as you truly say, is in laws and in
institutions the sister of Crete. And we are all the better for the
digression, because we have gone through various governments and
settlements, and have been present at the foundation of a first, second,
and third state, succeeding one another in infinite time. And now there
appears on the horizon a fourth state or nation which was once in process
of settlement and has continued settled to this day. If, out of all this,
we are able to discern what is well or ill settled, and what laws are the
salvation and what are the destruction of cities, and what changes would
make a state happy, O Megillus and Cleinias, we may now begin again,
unless we have some fault to find with the previous discussion.

MEGILLUS: If some God, Stranger, would promise us that our new enquiry
about legislation would be as good and full as the present, I would go a
great way to hear such another, and would think that a day as long as this
--and we are now approaching the longest day of the year--was too short
for the discussion.

ATHENIAN: Then I suppose that we must consider this subject?

MEGILLUS: Certainly.

ATHENIAN: Let us place ourselves in thought at the moment when Lacedaemon
and Argos and Messene and the rest of the Peloponnesus were all in
complete subjection, Megillus, to your ancestors; for afterwards, as the
legend informs us, they divided their army into three portions, and
settled three cities, Argos, Messene, Lacedaemon.

MEGILLUS: True.

ATHENIAN: Temenus was the king of Argos, Cresphontes of Messene, Procles
and Eurysthenes of Lacedaemon.

MEGILLUS: Certainly.

ATHENIAN: To these kings all the men of that day made oath that they would
assist them, if any one subverted their kingdom.

MEGILLUS: True.

ATHENIAN: But can a kingship be destroyed, or was any other form of
government ever destroyed, by any but the rulers themselves? No indeed, by
Zeus. Have we already forgotten what was said a little while ago?

MEGILLUS: No.

ATHENIAN: And may we not now further confirm what was then mentioned? For
we have come upon facts which have brought us back again to the same
principle; so that, in resuming the discussion, we shall not be enquiring
about an empty theory, but about events which actually happened. The case
was as follows:--Three royal heroes made oath to three cities which were
under a kingly government, and the cities to the kings, that both rulers
and subjects should govern and be governed according to the laws which
were common to all of them: the rulers promised that as time and the race
went forward they would not make their rule more arbitrary; and the
subjects said that, if the rulers observed these conditions, they would
never subvert or permit others to subvert those kingdoms; the kings were
to assist kings and peoples when injured, and the peoples were to assist
peoples and kings in like manner. Is not this the fact?

MEGILLUS: Yes.

ATHENIAN: And the three states to whom these laws were given, whether
their kings or any others were the authors of them, had therefore the
greatest security for the maintenance of their constitutions?

MEGILLUS: What security?

ATHENIAN: That the other two states were always to come to the rescue
against a rebellious third.

MEGILLUS: True.

ATHENIAN: Many persons say that legislators ought to impose such laws as
the mass of the people will be ready to receive; but this is just as if
one were to command gymnastic masters or physicians to treat or cure their
pupils or patients in an agreeable manner.

MEGILLUS: Exactly.

ATHENIAN: Whereas the physician may often be too happy if he can restore
health, and make the body whole, without any very great infliction of
pain.

MEGILLUS: Certainly.

ATHENIAN: There was also another advantage possessed by the men of that
day, which greatly lightened the task of passing laws.

MEGILLUS: What advantage?

ATHENIAN: The legislators of that day, when they equalized property,
escaped the great accusation which generally arises in legislation, if a
person attempts to disturb the possession of land, or to abolish debts,
because he sees that without this reform there can never be any real
equality. Now, in general, when the legislator attempts to make a new
settlement of such matters, every one meets him with the cry, that 'he is
not to disturb vested interests,'--declaring with imprecations that he is
introducing agrarian laws and cancelling of debts, until a man is at his
wits' end; whereas no one could quarrel with the Dorians for distributing
the land,--there was nothing to hinder them; and as for debts, they had
none which were considerable or of old standing.

MEGILLUS: Very true.

ATHENIAN: But then, my good friends, why did the settlement and
legislation of their country turn out so badly?

MEGILLUS: How do you mean; and why do you blame them?

ATHENIAN: There were three kingdoms, and of these, two quickly corrupted
their original constitution and laws, and the only one which remained was
the Spartan.

MEGILLUS: The question which you ask is not easily answered.

ATHENIAN: And yet must be answered when we are enquiring about laws, this
being our old man's sober game of play, whereby we beguile the way, as I
was saying when we first set out on our journey.

MEGILLUS: Certainly; and we must find out why this was.

ATHENIAN: What laws are more worthy of our attention than those which have
regulated such cities? or what settlements of states are greater or more
famous?

MEGILLUS: I know of none.

ATHENIAN: Can we doubt that your ancestors intended these institutions not
only for the protection of Peloponnesus, but of all the Hellenes, in case
they were attacked by the barbarian? For the inhabitants of the region
about Ilium, when they provoked by their insolence the Trojan war, relied
upon the power of the Assyrians and the Empire of Ninus, which still
existed and had a great prestige; the people of those days fearing the
united Assyrian Empire just as we now fear the Great King. And the second
capture of Troy was a serious offence against them, because Troy was a
portion of the Assyrian Empire. To meet the danger the single army was
distributed between three cities by the royal brothers, sons of Heracles,
--a fair device, as it seemed, and a far better arrangement than the
expedition against Troy. For, firstly, the people of that day had, as they
thought, in the Heraclidae better leaders than the Pelopidae; in the next
place, they considered that their army was superior in valour to that
which went against Troy; for, although the latter conquered the Trojans,
they were themselves conquered by the Heraclidae--Achaeans by Dorians. May
we not suppose that this was the intention with which the men of those
days framed the constitutions of their states?

MEGILLUS: Quite true.

ATHENIAN: And would not men who had shared with one another many dangers,
and were governed by a single race of royal brothers, and had taken the
advice of oracles, and in particular of the Delphian Apollo, be likely to
think that such states would be firmly and lastingly established?

MEGILLUS: Of course they would.

ATHENIAN: Yet these institutions, of which such great expectations were
entertained, seem to have all rapidly vanished away; with the exception,
as I was saying, of that small part of them which existed in your land.
And this third part has never to this day ceased warring against the two
others; whereas, if the original idea had been carried out, and they had
agreed to be one, their power would have been invincible in war.

MEGILLUS: No doubt.

ATHENIAN: But what was the ruin of this glorious confederacy? Here is a
subject well worthy of consideration.

MEGILLUS: Certainly, no one will ever find more striking instances of laws
or governments being the salvation or destruction of great and noble
interests, than are here presented to his view.

ATHENIAN: Then now we seem to have happily arrived at a real and important
question.

MEGILLUS: Very true.

ATHENIAN: Did you never remark, sage friend, that all men, and we
ourselves at this moment, often fancy that they see some beautiful thing
which might have effected wonders if any one had only known how to make a
right use of it in some way; and yet this mode of looking at things may
turn out after all to be a mistake, and not according to nature, either in
our own case or in any other?

MEGILLUS: To what are you referring, and what do you mean?

ATHENIAN: I was thinking of my own admiration of the aforesaid Heracleid
expedition, which was so noble, and might have had such wonderful results
for the Hellenes, if only rightly used; and I was just laughing at myself.

MEGILLUS: But were you not right and wise in speaking as you did, and we
in assenting to you?

ATHENIAN: Perhaps; and yet I cannot help observing that any one who sees
anything great or powerful, immediately has the feeling that--'If the
owner only knew how to use his great and noble possession, how happy would
he be, and what great results would he achieve!'

MEGILLUS: And would he not be justified?

ATHENIAN: Reflect; in what point of view does this sort of praise appear
just: First, in reference to the question in hand:--If the then commanders
had known how to arrange their army properly, how would they have attained
success? Would not this have been the way? They would have bound them all
firmly together and preserved them for ever, giving them freedom and
dominion at pleasure, combined with the power of doing in the whole world,
Hellenic and barbarian, whatever they and their descendants desired. What
other aim would they have had?

MEGILLUS: Very good.

ATHENIAN: Suppose any one were in the same way to express his admiration
at the sight of great wealth or family honour, or the like, he would
praise them under the idea that through them he would attain either all or
the greater and chief part of what he desires.

MEGILLUS: He would.

ATHENIAN: Well, now, and does not the argument show that there is one
common desire of all mankind?

MEGILLUS: What is it?

ATHENIAN: The desire which a man has, that all things, if possible,--at
any rate, things human,--may come to pass in accordance with his soul's
desire.

MEGILLUS: Certainly.

ATHENIAN: And having this desire always, and at every time of life, in
youth, in manhood, in age, he cannot help always praying for the
fulfilment of it.

MEGILLUS: No doubt.

ATHENIAN: And we join in the prayers of our friends, and ask for them what
they ask for themselves.

MEGILLUS: We do.

ATHENIAN: Dear is the son to the father--the younger to the elder.

MEGILLUS: Of course.

ATHENIAN: And yet the son often prays to obtain things which the father
prays that he may not obtain.

MEGILLUS: When the son is young and foolish, you mean?

ATHENIAN: Yes; or when the father, in the dotage of age or the heat of
youth, having no sense of right and justice, prays with fervour, under the
influence of feelings akin to those of Theseus when he cursed the
unfortunate Hippolytus, do you imagine that the son, having a sense of
right and justice, will join in his father's prayers?

MEGILLUS: I understand you to mean that a man should not desire or be in a
hurry to have all things according to his wish, for his wish may be at
variance with his reason. But every state and every individual ought to
pray and strive for wisdom.

ATHENIAN: Yes; and I remember, and you will remember, what I said at
first, that a statesman and legislator ought to ordain laws with a view to
wisdom; while you were arguing that the good lawgiver ought to order all
with a view to war. And to this I replied that there were four virtues,
but that upon your view one of them only was the aim of legislation;
whereas you ought to regard all virtue, and especially that which comes
first, and is the leader of all the rest--I mean wisdom and mind and
opinion, having affection and desire in their train. And now the argument
returns to the same point, and I say once more, in jest if you like, or in
earnest if you like, that the prayer of a fool is full of danger, being
likely to end in the opposite of what he desires. And if you would rather
receive my words in earnest, I am willing that you should; and you will
find, I suspect, as I have said already, that not cowardice was the cause
of the ruin of the Dorian kings and of their whole design, nor ignorance
of military matters, either on the part of the rulers or of their
subjects; but their misfortunes were due to their general degeneracy, and
especially to their ignorance of the most important human affairs. That
was then, and is still, and always will be the case, as I will endeavour,
if you will allow me, to make out and demonstrate as well as I am able to
you who are my friends, in the course of the argument.

CLEINIAS: Pray go on, Stranger;--compliments are troublesome, but we will
show, not in word but in deed, how greatly we prize your words, for we
will give them our best attention; and that is the way in which a freeman
best shows his approval or disapproval.

MEGILLUS: Excellent, Cleinias; let us do as you say.

CLEINIAS: By all means, if Heaven wills. Go on.

ATHENIAN: Well, then, proceeding in the same train of thought, I say that
the greatest ignorance was the ruin of the Dorian power, and that now, as
then, ignorance is ruin. And if this be true, the legislator must
endeavour to implant wisdom in states, and banish ignorance to the utmost
of his power.

CLEINIAS: That is evident.

ATHENIAN: Then now consider what is really the greatest ignorance. I
should like to know whether you and Megillus would agree with me in what I
am about to say; for my opinion is--

CLEINIAS: What?

ATHENIAN: That the greatest ignorance is when a man hates that which he
nevertheless thinks to be good and noble, and loves and embraces that
which he knows to be unrighteous and evil. This disagreement between the
sense of pleasure and the judgment of reason in the soul is, in my
opinion, the worst ignorance; and also the greatest, because affecting the
great mass of the human soul; for the principle which feels pleasure and
pain in the individual is like the mass or populace in a state. And when
the soul is opposed to knowledge, or opinion, or reason, which are her
natural lords, that I call folly, just as in the state, when the multitude
refuses to obey their rulers and the laws; or, again, in the individual,
when fair reasonings have their habitation in the soul and yet do no good,
but rather the reverse of good. All these cases I term the worst
ignorance, whether in individuals or in states. You will understand,
Stranger, that I am speaking of something which is very different from the
ignorance of handicraftsmen.

CLEINIAS: Yes, my friend, we understand and agree.

ATHENIAN: Let us, then, in the first place declare and affirm that the
citizen who does not know these things ought never to have any kind of
authority entrusted to him: he must be stigmatized as ignorant, even
though he be versed in calculation and skilled in all sorts of
accomplishments, and feats of mental dexterity; and the opposite are to be
called wise, even although, in the words of the proverb, they know neither
how to read nor how to swim; and to them, as to men of sense, authority is
to be committed. For, O my friends, how can there be the least shadow of
wisdom when there is no harmony? There is none; but the noblest and
greatest of harmonies may be truly said to be the greatest wisdom; and of
this he is a partaker who lives according to reason; whereas he who is
devoid of reason is the destroyer of his house and the very opposite of a
saviour of the state: he is utterly ignorant of political wisdom. Let
this, then, as I was saying, be laid down by us.

CLEINIAS: Let it be so laid down.

ATHENIAN: I suppose that there must be rulers and subjects in states?

CLEINIAS: Certainly.

ATHENIAN: And what are the principles on which men rule and obey in
cities, whether great or small; and similarly in families? What are they,
and how many in number? Is there not one claim of authority which is
always just,--that of fathers and mothers and in general of progenitors to
rule over their offspring?

CLEINIAS: There is.

ATHENIAN: Next follows the principle that the noble should rule over the
ignoble; and, thirdly, that the elder should rule and the younger obey?

CLEINIAS: To be sure.

ATHENIAN: And, fourthly, that slaves should be ruled, and their masters
rule?

CLEINIAS: Of course.

ATHENIAN: Fifthly, if I am not mistaken, comes the principle that the
stronger shall rule, and the weaker be ruled?

CLEINIAS: That is a rule not to be disobeyed.

ATHENIAN: Yes, and a rule which prevails very widely among all creatures,
and is according to nature, as the Theban poet Pindar once said; and the
sixth principle, and the greatest of all, is, that the wise should lead
and command, and the ignorant follow and obey; and yet, O thou most wise
Pindar, as I should reply him, this surely is not contrary to nature, but
according to nature, being the rule of law over willing subjects, and not
a rule of compulsion.

CLEINIAS: Most true.

ATHENIAN: There is a seventh kind of rule which is awarded by lot, and is
dear to the Gods and a token of good fortune: he on whom the lot falls is
a ruler, and he who fails in obtaining the lot goes away and is the
subject; and this we affirm to be quite just.

CLEINIAS: Certainly.

ATHENIAN: 'Then now,' as we say playfully to any of those who lightly
undertake the making of laws, 'you see, legislator, the principles of
government, how many they are, and that they are naturally opposed to each
other. There we have discovered a fountain-head of seditions, to which you
must attend. And, first, we will ask you to consider with us, how and in
what respect the kings of Argos and Messene violated these our maxims, and
ruined themselves and the great and famous Hellenic power of the olden
time. Was it because they did not know how wisely Hesiod spoke when he
said that the half is often more than the whole? His meaning was, that
when to take the whole would be dangerous, and to take the half would be
the safe and moderate course, then the moderate or better was more than
the immoderate or worse.'

CLEINIAS: Very true.

ATHENIAN: And may we suppose this immoderate spirit to be more fatal when
found among kings than when among peoples?

CLEINIAS: The probability is that ignorance will be a disorder especially
prevalent among kings, because they lead a proud and luxurious life.

ATHENIAN: Is it not palpable that the chief aim of the kings of that time
was to get the better of the established laws, and that they were not in
harmony with the principles which they had agreed to observe by word and
oath? This want of harmony may have had the appearance of wisdom, but was
really, as we assert, the greatest ignorance, and utterly overthrew the
whole empire by dissonance and harsh discord.

CLEINIAS: Very likely.

ATHENIAN: Good; and what measures ought the legislator to have then taken
in order to avert this calamity? Truly there is no great wisdom in
knowing, and no great difficulty in telling, after the evil has happened;
but to have foreseen the remedy at the time would have taken a much wiser
head than ours.

MEGILLUS: What do you mean?

ATHENIAN: Any one who looks at what has occurred with you Lacedaemonians,
Megillus, may easily know and may easily say what ought to have been done
at that time.

MEGILLUS: Speak a little more clearly.

ATHENIAN: Nothing can be clearer than the observation which I am about to
make.

MEGILLUS: What is it?

ATHENIAN: That if any one gives too great a power to anything, too large a
sail to a vessel, too much food to the body, too much authority to the
mind, and does not observe the mean, everything is overthrown, and, in the
wantonness of excess, runs in the one case to disorders, and in the other
to injustice, which is the child of excess. I mean to say, my dear
friends, that there is no soul of man, young and irresponsible, who will
be able to sustain the temptation of arbitrary power--no one who will not,
under such circumstances, become filled with folly, that worst of
diseases, and be hated by his nearest and dearest friends: when this
happens his kingdom is undermined, and all his power vanishes from him.
And great legislators who know the mean should take heed of the danger. As
far as we can guess at this distance of time, what happened was as
follows:--

MEGILLUS: What?

ATHENIAN: A God, who watched over Sparta, seeing into the future, gave you
two families of kings instead of one; and thus brought you more within the
limits of moderation. In the next place, some human wisdom mingled with
divine power, observing that the constitution of your government was still
feverish and excited, tempered your inborn strength and pride of birth
with the moderation which comes of age, making the power of your twenty-
eight elders equal with that of the kings in the most important matters.
But your third saviour, perceiving that your government was still swelling
and foaming, and desirous to impose a curb upon it, instituted the Ephors,
whose power he made to resemble that of magistrates elected by lot; and by
this arrangement the kingly office, being compounded of the right elements
and duly moderated, was preserved, and was the means of preserving all the
rest. Since, if there had been only the original legislators, Temenus,
Cresphontes, and their contemporaries, as far as they were concerned not
even the portion of Aristodemus would have been preserved; for they had no
proper experience in legislation, or they would surely not have imagined
that oaths would moderate a youthful spirit invested with a power which
might be converted into a tyranny. Now that God has instructed us what
sort of government would have been or will be lasting, there is no wisdom,
as I have already said, in judging after the event; there is no difficulty
in learning from an example which has already occurred. But if any one
could have foreseen all this at the time, and had been able to moderate
the government of the three kingdoms and unite them into one, he might
have saved all the excellent institutions which were then conceived; and
no Persian or any other armament would have dared to attack us, or would
have regarded Hellas as a power to be despised.

CLEINIAS: True.

ATHENIAN: There was small credit to us, Cleinias, in defeating them; and
the discredit was, not that the conquerors did not win glorious victories
both by land and sea, but what, in my opinion, brought discredit was,
first of all, the circumstance that of the three cities one only fought on
behalf of Hellas, and the two others were so utterly good for nothing that
the one was waging a mighty war against Lacedaemon, and was thus
preventing her from rendering assistance, while the city of Argos, which
had the precedence at the time of the distribution, when asked to aid in
repelling the barbarian, would not answer to the call, or give aid. Many
things might be told about Hellas in connexion with that war which are far
from honourable; nor, indeed, can we rightly say that Hellas repelled the
invader; for the truth is, that unless the Athenians and Lacedaemonians,
acting in concert, had warded off the impending yoke, all the tribes of
Hellas would have been fused in a chaos of Hellenes mingling with one
another, of barbarians mingling with Hellenes, and Hellenes with
barbarians; just as nations who are now subject to the Persian power,
owing to unnatural separations and combinations of them, are dispersed and
scattered, and live miserably. These, Cleinias and Megillus, are the
reproaches which we have to make against statesmen and legislators, as
they are called, past and present, if we would analyse the causes of their
failure, and find out what else might have been done. We said, for
instance, just now, that there ought to be no great and unmixed powers;
and this was under the idea that a state ought to be free and wise and
harmonious, and that a legislator ought to legislate with a view to this
end. Nor is there any reason to be surprised at our continually proposing
aims for the legislator which appear not to be always the same; but we
should consider when we say that temperance is to be the aim, or wisdom is
to be the aim, or friendship is to be the aim, that all these aims are
really the same; and if so, a variety in the modes of expression ought not
to disturb us.

CLEINIAS: Let us resume the argument in that spirit. And now, speaking of
friendship and wisdom and freedom, I wish that you would tell me at what,
in your opinion, the legislator should aim.

ATHENIAN: Hear me, then: there are two mother forms of states from which
the rest may be truly said to be derived; and one of them may be called
monarchy and the other democracy: the Persians have the highest form of
the one, and we of the other; almost all the rest, as I was saying, are
variations of these. Now, if you are to have liberty and the combination
of friendship with wisdom, you must have both these forms of government in
a measure; the argument emphatically declares that no city can be well
governed which is not made up of both.

CLEINIAS: Impossible.

ATHENIAN: Neither the one, if it be exclusively and excessively attached
to monarchy, nor the other, if it be similarly attached to freedom,
observes moderation; but your states, the Laconian and Cretan, have more
of it; and the same was the case with the Athenians and Persians of old
time, but now they have less. Shall I tell you why?

CLEINIAS: By all means, if it will tend to elucidate our subject.

ATHENIAN: Hear, then:--There was a time when the Persians had more of the
state which is a mean between slavery and freedom. In the reign of Cyrus
they were freemen and also lords of many others: the rulers gave a share
of freedom to the subjects, and being treated as equals, the soldiers were
on better terms with their generals, and showed themselves more ready in
the hour of danger. And if there was any wise man among them, who was able
to give good counsel, he imparted his wisdom to the public; for the king
was not jealous, but allowed him full liberty of speech, and gave honour
to those who could advise him in any matter. And the nation waxed in all
respects, because there was freedom and friendship and communion of mind
among them.

CLEINIAS: That certainly appears to have been the case.

ATHENIAN: How, then, was this advantage lost under Cambyses, and again
recovered under Darius? Shall I try to divine?

CLEINIAS: The enquiry, no doubt, has a bearing upon our subject.

ATHENIAN: I imagine that Cyrus, though a great and patriotic general, had
never given his mind to education, and never attended to the order of his
household.

CLEINIAS: What makes you say so?

ATHENIAN: I think that from his youth upwards he was a soldier, and
entrusted the education of his children to the women; and they brought
them up from their childhood as the favourites of fortune, who were
blessed already, and needed no more blessings. They thought that they were
happy enough, and that no one should be allowed to oppose them in any way,
and they compelled every one to praise all that they said or did. This was
how they brought them up.

CLEINIAS: A splendid education truly!

ATHENIAN: Such an one as women were likely to give them, and especially
princesses who had recently grown rich, and in the absence of the men,
too, who were occupied in wars and dangers, and had no time to look after
them.

CLEINIAS: What would you expect?

ATHENIAN: Their father had possessions of cattle and sheep, and many herds
of men and other animals, but he did not consider that those to whom he
was about to make them over were not trained in his own calling, which was
Persian; for the Persians are shepherds--sons of a rugged land, which is a
stern mother, and well fitted to produce a sturdy race able to live in the
open air and go without sleep, and also to fight, if fighting is required
(compare Arist. Pol.). He did not observe that his sons were trained
differently; through the so-called blessing of being royal they were
educated in the Median fashion by women and eunuchs, which led to their
becoming such as people do become when they are brought up unreproved. And
so, after the death of Cyrus, his sons, in the fulness of luxury and
licence, took the kingdom, and first one slew the other because he could
not endure a rival; and, afterwards, the slayer himself, mad with wine and
brutality, lost his kingdom through the Medes and the Eunuch, as they
called him, who despised the folly of Cambyses.

CLEINIAS: So runs the tale, and such probably were the facts.

ATHENIAN: Yes; and the tradition says, that the empire came back to the
Persians, through Darius and the seven chiefs.

CLEINIAS: True.

ATHENIAN: Let us note the rest of the story. Observe, that Darius was not
the son of a king, and had not received a luxurious education. When he
came to the throne, being one of the seven, he divided the country into
seven portions, and of this arrangement there are some shadowy traces
still remaining; he made laws upon the principle of introducing universal
equality in the order of the state, and he embodied in his laws the
settlement of the tribute which Cyrus promised,--thus creating a feeling
of friendship and community among all the Persians, and attaching the
people to him with money and gifts. Hence his armies cheerfully acquired
for him countries as large as those which Cyrus had left behind him.
Darius was succeeded by his son Xerxes; and he again was brought up in the
royal and luxurious fashion. Might we not most justly say: 'O Darius, how
came you to bring up Xerxes in the same way in which Cyrus brought up
Cambyses, and not to see his fatal mistake?' For Xerxes, being the
creation of the same education, met with much the same fortune as
Cambyses; and from that time until now there has never been a really great
king among the Persians, although they are all called Great. And their
degeneracy is not to be attributed to chance, as I maintain; the reason is
rather the evil life which is generally led by the sons of very rich and
royal persons; for never will boy or man, young or old, excel in virtue,
who has been thus educated. And this, I say, is what the legislator has to
consider, and what at the present moment has to be considered by us.
Justly may you, O Lacedaemonians, be praised, in that you do not give
special honour or a special education to wealth rather than to poverty, or
to a royal rather than to a private station, where the divine and inspired
lawgiver has not originally commanded them to be given. For no man ought
to have pre-eminent honour in a state because he surpasses others in
wealth, any more than because he is swift of foot or fair or strong,
unless he have some virtue in him; nor even if he have virtue, unless he
have this particular virtue of temperance.

MEGILLUS: What do you mean, Stranger?

ATHENIAN: I suppose that courage is a part of virtue?

MEGILLUS: To be sure.

ATHENIAN: Then, now hear and judge for yourself:--Would you like to have
for a fellow-lodger or neighbour a very courageous man, who had no control
over himself?

MEGILLUS: Heaven forbid!

ATHENIAN: Or an artist, who was clever in his profession, but a rogue?

MEGILLUS: Certainly not.

ATHENIAN: And surely justice does not grow apart from temperance?

MEGILLUS: Impossible.

ATHENIAN: Any more than our pattern wise man, whom we exhibited as having
his pleasures and pains in accordance with and corresponding to true
reason, can be intemperate?

MEGILLUS: No.

ATHENIAN: There is a further consideration relating to the due and undue
award of honours in states.

MEGILLUS: What is it?

ATHENIAN: I should like to know whether temperance without the other
virtues, existing alone in the soul of man, is rightly to be praised or
blamed?

MEGILLUS: I cannot tell.

ATHENIAN: And that is the best answer; for whichever alternative you had
chosen, I think that you would have gone wrong.

MEGILLUS: I am fortunate.

ATHENIAN: Very good; a quality, which is a mere appendage of things which
can be praised or blamed, does not deserve an expression of opinion, but
is best passed over in silence.

MEGILLUS: You are speaking of temperance?

ATHENIAN: Yes; but of the other virtues, that which having this appendage
is also most beneficial, will be most deserving of honour, and next that
which is beneficial in the next degree; and so each of them will be
rightly honoured according to a regular order.

MEGILLUS: True.

ATHENIAN: And ought not the legislator to determine these classes?

MEGILLUS: Certainly he should.

ATHENIAN: Suppose that we leave to him the arrangement of details. But the
general division of laws according to their importance into a first and
second and third class, we who are lovers of law may make ourselves.

MEGILLUS: Very good.

ATHENIAN: We maintain, then, that a State which would be safe and happy,
as far as the nature of man allows, must and ought to distribute honour
and dishonour in the right way. And the right way is to place the goods of
the soul first and highest in the scale, always assuming temperance to be
the condition of them; and to assign the second place to the goods of the
body; and the third place to money and property. And if any legislator or
state departs from this rule by giving money the place of honour, or in
any way preferring that which is really last, may we not say, that he or
the state is doing an unholy and unpatriotic thing?

MEGILLUS: Yes; let that be plainly declared.

ATHENIAN: The consideration of the Persian governments led us thus far to
enlarge. We remarked that the Persians grew worse and worse. And we affirm
the reason of this to have been, that they too much diminished the freedom
of the people, and introduced too much of despotism, and so destroyed
friendship and community of feeling. And when there is an end of these, no
longer do the governors govern on behalf of their subjects or of the
people, but on behalf of themselves; and if they think that they can gain
ever so small an advantage for themselves, they devastate cities, and send
fire and desolation among friendly races. And as they hate ruthlessly and
horribly, so are they hated; and when they want the people to fight for
them, they find no community of feeling or willingness to risk their lives
on their behalf; their untold myriads are useless to them on the field of
battle, and they think that their salvation depends on the employment of
mercenaries and strangers whom they hire, as if they were in want of more
men. And they cannot help being stupid, since they proclaim by their
actions that the ordinary distinctions of right and wrong which are made
in a state are a trifle, when compared with gold and silver.

MEGILLUS: Quite true.

ATHENIAN: And now enough of the Persians, and their present mal-
administration of their government, which is owing to the excess of
slavery and despotism among them.

MEGILLUS: Good.

ATHENIAN: Next, we must pass in review the government of Attica in like
manner, and from this show that entire freedom and the absence of all
superior authority is not by any means so good as government by others
when properly limited, which was our ancient Athenian constitution at the
time when the Persians made their attack on Hellas, or, speaking more
correctly, on the whole continent of Europe. There were four classes,
arranged according to a property census, and reverence was our queen and
mistress, and made us willing to live in obedience to the laws which then
prevailed. Also the vastness of the Persian armament, both by sea and on
land, caused a helpless terror, which made us more and more the servants
of our rulers and of the laws; and for all these reasons an exceeding
harmony prevailed among us. About ten years before the naval engagement at
Salamis, Datis came, leading a Persian host by command of Darius, which
was expressly directed against the Athenians and Eretrians, having orders
to carry them away captive; and these orders he was to execute under pain
of death. Now Datis and his myriads soon became complete masters of
Eretria, and he sent a fearful report to Athens that no Eretrian had
escaped him; for the soldiers of Datis had joined hands and netted the
whole of Eretria. And this report, whether well or ill founded, was
terrible to all the Hellenes, and above all to the Athenians, and they
dispatched embassies in all directions, but no one was willing to come to
their relief, with the exception of the Lacedaemonians; and they, either
because they were detained by the Messenian war, which was then going on,
or for some other reason of which we are not told, came a day too late for
the battle of Marathon. After a while, the news arrived of mighty
preparations being made, and innumerable threats came from the king. Then,
as time went on, a rumour reached us that Darius had died, and that his
son, who was young and hot-headed, had come to the throne and was
persisting in his design. The Athenians were under the impression that the
whole expedition was directed against them, in consequence of the battle
of Marathon; and hearing of the bridge over the Hellespont, and the canal
of Athos, and the host of ships, considering that there was no salvation
for them either by land or by sea, for there was no one to help them, and
remembering that in the first expedition, when the Persians destroyed
Eretria, no one came to their help, or would risk the danger of an
alliance with them, they thought that this would happen again, at least on
land; nor, when they looked to the sea, could they descry any hope of
salvation; for they were attacked by a thousand vessels and more. One
chance of safety remained, slight indeed and desperate, but their only
one. They saw that on the former occasion they had gained a seemingly
impossible victory, and borne up by this hope, they found that their only
refuge was in themselves and in the Gods. All these things created in them
the spirit of friendship; there was the fear of the moment, and there was
that higher fear, which they had acquired by obedience to their ancient
laws, and which I have several times in the preceding discourse called
reverence, of which the good man ought to be a willing servant, and of
which the coward is independent and fearless. If this fear had not
possessed them, they would never have met the enemy, or defended their
temples and sepulchres and their country, and everything that was near and
dear to them, as they did; but little by little they would have been all
scattered and dispersed.

MEGILLUS: Your words, Athenian, are quite true, and worthy of yourself and
of your country.

ATHENIAN: They are true, Megillus; and to you, who have inherited the
virtues of your ancestors, I may properly speak of the actions of that
day. And I would wish you and Cleinias to consider whether my words have
not also a bearing on legislation; for I am not discoursing only for the
pleasure of talking, but for the argument's sake. Please to remark that
the experience both of ourselves and the Persians was, in a certain sense,
the same; for as they led their people into utter servitude, so we too led
ours into all freedom. And now, how shall we proceed? for I would like you
to observe that our previous arguments have good deal to say for
themselves.

MEGILLUS: True; but I wish that you would give us a fuller explanation.

ATHENIAN: I will. Under the ancient laws, my friends, the people was not
as now the master, but rather the willing servant of the laws.

MEGILLUS: What laws do you mean?

ATHENIAN: In the first place, let us speak of the laws about music,--that
is to say, such music as then existed--in order that we may trace the
growth of the excess of freedom from the beginning. Now music was early
divided among us into certain kinds and manners. One sort consisted of
prayers to the Gods, which were called hymns; and there was another and
opposite sort called lamentations, and another termed paeans, and another,
celebrating the birth of Dionysus, called, I believe, 'dithyrambs.' And
they used the actual word 'laws,' or nomoi, for another kind of song; and
to this they added the term 'citharoedic.' All these and others were duly
distinguished, nor were the performers allowed to confuse one style of
music with another. And the authority which determined and gave judgment,
and punished the disobedient, was not expressed in a hiss, nor in the most
unmusical shouts of the multitude, as in our days, nor in applause and
clapping of hands. But the directors of public instruction insisted that
the spectators should listen in silence to the end; and boys and their
tutors, and the multitude in general, were kept quiet by a hint from a
stick. Such was the good order which the multitude were willing to
observe; they would never have dared to give judgment by noisy cries. And
then, as time went on, the poets themselves introduced the reign of vulgar
and lawless innovation. They were men of genius, but they had no
perception of what is just and lawful in music; raging like Bacchanals and
possessed with inordinate delights--mingling lamentations with hymns, and
paeans with dithyrambs; imitating the sounds of the flute on the lyre, and
making one general confusion; ignorantly affirming that music has no
truth, and, whether good or bad, can only be judged of rightly by the
pleasure of the hearer (compare Republic). And by composing such
licentious works, and adding to them words as licentious, they have
inspired the multitude with lawlessness and boldness, and made them fancy
that they can judge for themselves about melody and song. And in this way
the theatres from being mute have become vocal, as though they had
understanding of good and bad in music and poetry; and instead of an
aristocracy, an evil sort of theatrocracy has grown up (compare Arist.
Pol.). For if the democracy which judged had only consisted of educated
persons, no fatal harm would have been done; but in music there first
arose the universal conceit of omniscience and general lawlessness;--
freedom came following afterwards, and men, fancying that they knew what
they did not know, had no longer any fear, and the absence of fear begets
shamelessness. For what is this shamelessness, which is so evil a thing,
but the insolent refusal to regard the opinion of the better by reason of
an over-daring sort of liberty?

MEGILLUS: Very true.

ATHENIAN: Consequent upon this freedom comes the other freedom, of
disobedience to rulers (compare Republic); and then the attempt to escape
the control and exhortation of father, mother, elders, and when near the
end, the control of the laws also; and at the very end there is the
contempt of oaths and pledges, and no regard at all for the Gods,--herein
they exhibit and imitate the old so-called Titanic nature, and come to the
same point as the Titans when they rebelled against God, leading a life of
endless evils. But why have I said all this? I ask, because the argument
ought to be pulled up from time to time, and not be allowed to run away,
but held with bit and bridle, and then we shall not, as the proverb says,
fall off our ass. Let us then once more ask the question, To what end has
all this been said?

MEGILLUS: Very good.

ATHENIAN: This, then, has been said for the sake--

MEGILLUS: Of what?

ATHENIAN: We were maintaining that the lawgiver ought to have three things
in view: first, that the city for which he legislates should be free; and
secondly, be at unity with herself; and thirdly, should have
understanding;--these were our principles, were they not?

MEGILLUS: Certainly.

ATHENIAN: With a view to this we selected two kinds of government, the one
the most despotic, and the other the most free; and now we are considering
which of them is the right form: we took a mean in both cases, of
despotism in the one, and of liberty in the other, and we saw that in a
mean they attained their perfection; but that when they were carried to
the extreme of either, slavery or licence, neither party were the gainers.

MEGILLUS: Very true.

ATHENIAN: And that was our reason for considering the settlement of the
Dorian army, and of the city built by Dardanus at the foot of the
mountains, and the removal of cities to the seashore, and of our mention
of the first men, who were the survivors of the deluge. And all that was
previously said about music and drinking, and what preceded, was said with
the view of seeing how a state might be best administered, and how an
individual might best order his own life. And now, Megillus and Cleinias,
how can we put to the proof the value of our words?

CLEINIAS: Stranger, I think that I see how a proof of their value may be
obtained. This discussion of ours appears to me to have been singularly
fortunate, and just what I at this moment want; most auspiciously have you
and my friend Megillus come in my way. For I will tell you what has
happened to me; and I regard the coincidence as a sort of omen. The
greater part of Crete is going to send out a colony, and they have
entrusted the management of the affair to the Cnosians; and the Cnosian
government to me and nine others. And they desire us to give them any laws
which we please, whether taken from the Cretan model or from any other;
and they do not mind about their being foreign if they are better. Grant
me then this favour, which will also be a gain to yourselves:--Let us make
a selection from what has been said, and then let us imagine a State of
which we will suppose ourselves to be the original founders. Thus we shall
proceed with our enquiry, and, at the same time, I may have the use of the
framework which you are constructing, for the city which is in
contemplation.

ATHENIAN: Good news, Cleinias; if Megillus has no objection, you may be
sure that I will do all in my power to please you.

CLEINIAS: Thank you.

MEGILLUS: And so will I.

CLEINIAS: Excellent; and now let us begin to frame the State.

BOOK IV.

ATHENIAN: And now, what will this city be? I do not mean to ask what is or
will hereafter be the name of the place; that may be determined by the
accident of locality or of the original settlement--a river or fountain,
or some local deity may give the sanction of a name to the newly-founded
city; but I do want to know what the situation is, whether maritime or
inland.

CLEINIAS: I should imagine, Stranger, that the city of which we are
speaking is about eighty stadia distant from the sea.

ATHENIAN: And are there harbours on the seaboard?

CLEINIAS: Excellent harbours, Stranger; there could not be better.

ATHENIAN: Alas! what a prospect! And is the surrounding country
productive, or in need of importations?

CLEINIAS: Hardly in need of anything.

ATHENIAN: And is there any neighbouring State?

CLEINIAS: None whatever, and that is the reason for selecting the place;
in days of old, there was a migration of the inhabitants, and the region
has been deserted from time immemorial.

ATHENIAN: And has the place a fair proportion of hill, and plain, and
wood?

CLEINIAS: Like the rest of Crete in that.

ATHENIAN: You mean to say that there is more rock than plain?

CLEINIAS: Exactly.

ATHENIAN: Then there is some hope that your citizens may be virtuous: had
you been on the sea, and well provided with harbours, and an importing
rather than a producing country, some mighty saviour would have been
needed, and lawgivers more than mortal, if you were ever to have a chance
of preserving your state from degeneracy and discordance of manners
(compare Ar. Pol.). But there is comfort in the eighty stadia; although
the sea is too near, especially if, as you say, the harbours are so good.
Still we may be content. The sea is pleasant enough as a daily companion,
but has indeed also a bitter and brackish quality; filling the streets
with merchants and shopkeepers, and begetting in the souls of men
uncertain and unfaithful ways--making the state unfriendly and unfaithful
both to her own citizens, and also to other nations. There is a
consolation, therefore, in the country producing all things at home; and
yet, owing to the ruggedness of the soil, not providing anything in great
abundance. Had there been abundance, there might have been a great export
trade, and a great return of gold and silver; which, as we may safely
affirm, has the most fatal results on a State whose aim is the attainment
of just and noble sentiments: this was said by us, if you remember, in the
previous discussion.

CLEINIAS: I remember, and am of opinion that we both were and are in the
right.

ATHENIAN: Well, but let me ask, how is the country supplied with timber
for ship-building?

CLEINIAS: There is no fir of any consequence, nor pine, and not much
cypress; and you will find very little stone-pine or plane-wood, which
shipwrights always require for the interior of ships.

ATHENIAN: These are also natural advantages.

CLEINIAS: Why so?

ATHENIAN: Because no city ought to be easily able to imitate its enemies
in what is mischievous.

CLEINIAS: How does that bear upon any of the matters of which we have been
speaking?

ATHENIAN: Remember, my good friend, what I said at first about the Cretan
laws, that they looked to one thing only, and this, as you both agreed,
was war; and I replied that such laws, in so far as they tended to promote
virtue, were good; but in that they regarded a part only, and not the
whole of virtue, I disapproved of them. And now I hope that you in your
turn will follow and watch me if I legislate with a view to anything but
virtue, or with a view to a part of virtue only. For I consider that the
true lawgiver, like an archer, aims only at that on which some eternal
beauty is always attending, and dismisses everything else, whether wealth
or any other benefit, when separated from virtue. I was saying that the
imitation of enemies was a bad thing; and I was thinking of a case in
which a maritime people are harassed by enemies, as the Athenians were by
Minos (I do not speak from any desire to recall past grievances); but he,
as we know, was a great naval potentate, who compelled the inhabitants of
Attica to pay him a cruel tribute; and in those days they had no ships of
war as they now have, nor was the country filled with ship-timber, and
therefore they could not readily build them. Hence they could not learn
how to imitate their enemy at sea, and in this way, becoming sailors
themselves, directly repel their enemies. Better for them to have lost
many times over the seven youths, than that heavy-armed and stationary
troops should have been turned into sailors, and accustomed to be often
leaping on shore, and again to come running back to their ships; or should
have fancied that there was no disgrace in not awaiting the attack of an
enemy and dying boldly; and that there were good reasons, and plenty of
them, for a man throwing away his arms, and betaking himself to flight,--
which is not dishonourable, as people say, at certain times. This is the
language of naval warfare, and is anything but worthy of extraordinary
praise. For we should not teach bad habits, least of all to the best part
of the citizens. You may learn the evil of such a practice from Homer, by
whom Odysseus is introduced, rebuking Agamemnon, because he desires to
draw down the ships to the sea at a time when the Achaeans are hard
pressed by the Trojans,--he gets angry with him, and says:

'Who, at a time when the battle is in full cry, biddest to drag the well-
benched ships into the sea, that the prayers of the Trojans may be
accomplished yet more, and high ruin fall upon us. For the Achaeans will
not maintain the battle, when the ships are drawn into the sea, but they
will look behind and will cease from strife; in that the counsel which you
give will prove injurious.'

You see that he quite knew triremes on the sea, in the neighbourhood of
fighting men, to be an evil;--lions might be trained in that way to fly
from a herd of deer. Moreover, naval powers which owe their safety to
ships, do not give honour to that sort of warlike excellence which is most
deserving of it. For he who owes his safety to the pilot and the captain,
and the oarsman, and all sorts of rather inferior persons, cannot rightly
give honour to whom honour is due. But how can a state be in a right
condition which cannot justly award honour?

CLEINIAS: It is hardly possible, I admit; and yet, Stranger, we Cretans
are in the habit of saying that the battle of Salamis was the salvation of
Hellas.

ATHENIAN: Why, yes; and that is an opinion which is widely spread both
among Hellenes and barbarians. But Megillus and I say rather, that the
battle of Marathon was the beginning, and the battle of Plataea the
completion, of the great deliverance, and that these battles by land made
the Hellenes better; whereas the sea-fights of Salamis and Artemisium--for
I may as well put them both together--made them no better, if I may say so
without offence about the battles which helped to save us. And in
estimating the goodness of a state, we regard both the situation of the
country and the order of the laws, considering that the mere preservation
and continuance of life is not the most honourable thing for men, as the
vulgar think, but the continuance of the best life, while we live; and
that again, if I am not mistaken, is a remark which has been made already.

CLEINIAS: Yes.

ATHENIAN: Then we have only to ask, whether we are taking the course which
we acknowledge to be the best for the settlement and legislation of
states.

CLEINIAS: The best by far.

ATHENIAN: And now let me proceed to another question: Who are to be the
colonists? May any one come out of all Crete; and is the idea that the
population in the several states is too numerous for the means of
subsistence? For I suppose that you are not going to send out a general
invitation to any Hellene who likes to come. And yet I observe that to
your country settlers have come from Argos and Aegina and other parts of
Hellas. Tell me, then, whence do you draw your recruits in the present
enterprise?

CLEINIAS: They will come from all Crete; and of other Hellenes,
Peloponnesians will be most acceptable. For, as you truly observe, there
are Cretans of Argive descent; and the race of Cretans which has the
highest character at the present day is the Gortynian, and this has come
from Gortys in the Peloponnesus.

ATHENIAN: Cities find colonization in some respects easier if the
colonists are one race, which like a swarm of bees is sent out from a
single country, either when friends leave friends, owing to some pressure
of population or other similar necessity, or when a portion of a state is
driven by factions to emigrate. And there have been whole cities which
have taken flight when utterly conquered by a superior power in war. This,
however, which is in one way an advantage to the colonist or legislator,
in another point of view creates a difficulty. There is an element of
friendship in the community of race, and language, and laws, and in common
temples and rites of worship; but colonies which are of this homogeneous
sort are apt to kick against any laws or any form of constitution
differing from that which they had at home; and although the badness of
their own laws may have been the cause of the factions which prevailed
among them, yet from the force of habit they would fain preserve the very
customs which were their ruin, and the leader of the colony, who is their
legislator, finds them troublesome and rebellious. On the other hand, the
conflux of several populations might be more disposed to listen to new
laws; but then, to make them combine and pull together, as they say of
horses, is a most difficult task, and the work of years. And yet there is
nothing which tends more to the improvement of mankind than legislation
and colonization.

CLEINIAS: No doubt; but I should like to know why you say so.

ATHENIAN: My good friend, I am afraid that the course of my speculations
is leading me to say something depreciatory of legislators; but if the
word be to the purpose, there can be no harm. And yet, why am I
disquieted, for I believe that the same principle applies equally to all
human things?

CLEINIAS: To what are you referring?

ATHENIAN: I was going to say that man never legislates, but accidents of
all sorts, which legislate for us in all sorts of ways. The violence of
war and the hard necessity of poverty are constantly overturning
governments and changing laws. And the power of disease has often caused
innovations in the state, when there have been pestilences, or when there
has been a succession of bad seasons continuing during many years. Any one
who sees all this, naturally rushes to the conclusion of which I was
speaking, that no mortal legislates in anything, but that in human affairs
chance is almost everything. And this may be said of the arts of the
sailor, and the pilot, and the physician, and the general, and may seem to
be well said; and yet there is another thing which may be said with equal
truth of all of them.

CLEINIAS: What is it?

ATHENIAN: That God governs all things, and that chance and opportunity co-
operate with Him in the government of human affairs. There is, however, a
third and less extreme view, that art should be there also; for I should
say that in a storm there must surely be a great advantage in having the
aid of the pilot's art. You would agree?

CLEINIAS: Yes.

ATHENIAN: And does not a like principle apply to legislation as well as to
other things: even supposing all the conditions to be favourable which are
needed for the happiness of the state, yet the true legislator must from
time to time appear on the scene?

CLEINIAS: Most true.

ATHENIAN: In each case the artist would be able to pray rightly for
certain conditions, and if these were granted by fortune, he would then
only require to exercise his art?

CLEINIAS: Certainly.

ATHENIAN: And all the other artists just now mentioned, if they were
bidden to offer up each their special prayer, would do so?

CLEINIAS: Of course.

ATHENIAN: And the legislator would do likewise?

CLEINIAS: I believe that he would.

ATHENIAN: 'Come, legislator,' we will say to him; 'what are the conditions
which you require in a state before you can organize it?' How ought he to
answer this question? Shall I give his answer?

CLEINIAS: Yes.

ATHENIAN: He will say--'Give me a state which is governed by a tyrant, and
let the tyrant be young and have a good memory; let him be quick at
learning, and of a courageous and noble nature; let him have that quality
which, as I said before, is the inseparable companion of all the other
parts of virtue, if there is to be any good in them.'

CLEINIAS: I suppose, Megillus, that this companion virtue of which the
Stranger speaks, must be temperance?

ATHENIAN: Yes, Cleinias, temperance in the vulgar sense; not that which in
the forced and exaggerated language of some philosophers is called
prudence, but that which is the natural gift of children and animals, of
whom some live continently and others incontinently, but when isolated,
was, as we said, hardly worth reckoning in the catalogue of goods. I think
that you must understand my meaning.

CLEINIAS: Certainly.

ATHENIAN: Then our tyrant must have this as well as the other qualities,
if the state is to acquire in the best manner and in the shortest time the
form of government which is most conducive to happiness; for there neither
is nor ever will be a better or speedier way of establishing a polity than
by a tyranny.

CLEINIAS: By what possible arguments, Stranger, can any man persuade
himself of such a monstrous doctrine?

ATHENIAN: There is surely no difficulty in seeing, Cleinias, what is in
accordance with the order of nature?

CLEINIAS: You would assume, as you say, a tyrant who was young, temperate,
quick at learning, having a good memory, courageous, of a noble nature?

ATHENIAN: Yes; and you must add fortunate; and his good fortune must be
that he is the contemporary of a great legislator, and that some happy
chance brings them together. When this has been accomplished, God has done
all that he ever does for a state which he desires to be eminently
prosperous; He has done second best for a state in which there are two
such rulers, and third best for a state in which there are three. The
difficulty increases with the increase, and diminishes with the diminution
of the number.

CLEINIAS: You mean to say, I suppose, that the best government is produced
from a tyranny, and originates in a good lawgiver and an orderly tyrant,
and that the change from such a tyranny into a perfect form of government
takes place most easily; less easily when from an oligarchy; and, in the
third degree, from a democracy: is not that your meaning?

ATHENIAN: Not so; I mean rather to say that the change is best made out of
a tyranny; and secondly, out of a monarchy; and thirdly, out of some sort
of democracy: fourth, in the capacity for improvement, comes oligarchy,
which has the greatest difficulty in admitting of such a change, because
the government is in the hands of a number of potentates. I am supposing
that the legislator is by nature of the true sort, and that his strength
is united with that of the chief men of the state; and when the ruling
element is numerically small, and at the same time very strong, as in a
tyranny, there the change is likely to be easiest and most rapid.

CLEINIAS: How? I do not understand.

ATHENIAN: And yet I have repeated what I am saying a good many times; but
I suppose that you have never seen a city which is under a tyranny?

CLEINIAS: No, and I cannot say that I have any great desire to see one.

ATHENIAN: And yet, where there is a tyranny, you might certainly see that
of which I am now speaking.

CLEINIAS: What do you mean?

ATHENIAN: I mean that you might see how, without trouble and in no very
long period of time, the tyrant, if he wishes, can change the manners of a
state: he has only to go in the direction of virtue or of vice, whichever
he prefers, he himself indicating by his example the lines of conduct,
praising and rewarding some actions and reproving others, and degrading
those who disobey.

CLEINIAS: But how can we imagine that the citizens in general will at once
follow the example set to them; and how can he have this power both of
persuading and of compelling them?

ATHENIAN: Let no one, my friends, persuade us that there is any quicker
and easier way in which states change their laws than when the rulers
lead: such changes never have, nor ever will, come to pass in any other
way. The real impossibility or difficulty is of another sort, and is
rarely surmounted in the course of ages; but when once it is surmounted,
ten thousand or rather all blessings follow.

CLEINIAS: Of what are you speaking?

ATHENIAN: The difficulty is to find the divine love of temperate and just
institutions existing in any powerful forms of government, whether in a
monarchy or oligarchy of wealth or of birth. You might as well hope to
reproduce the character of Nestor, who is said to have excelled all men in
the power of speech, and yet more in his temperance. This, however,
according to the tradition, was in the times of Troy; in our own days
there is nothing of the sort; but if such an one either has or ever shall
come into being, or is now among us, blessed is he and blessed are they
who hear the wise words that flow from his lips. And this may be said of
power in general: When the supreme power in man coincides with the
greatest wisdom and temperance, then the best laws and the best
constitution come into being; but in no other way. And let what I have
been saying be regarded as a kind of sacred legend or oracle, and let this
be our proof that, in one point of view, there may be a difficulty for a
city to have good laws, but that there is another point of view in which
nothing can be easier or sooner effected, granting our supposition.

CLEINIAS: How do you mean?

ATHENIAN: Let us try to amuse ourselves, old boys as we are, by moulding
in words the laws which are suitable to your state.

CLEINIAS: Let us proceed without delay.

ATHENIAN: Then let us invoke God at the settlement of our state; may He
hear and be propitious to us, and come and set in order the State and the
laws!

CLEINIAS: May He come!

ATHENIAN: But what form of polity are we going to give the city?

CLEINIAS: Tell us what you mean a little more clearly. Do you mean some
form of democracy, or oligarchy, or aristocracy, or monarchy? For we
cannot suppose that you would include tyranny.

ATHENIAN: Which of you will first tell me to which of these classes his
own government is to be referred?

MEGILLUS: Ought I to answer first, since I am the elder?

CLEINIAS: Perhaps you should.

MEGILLUS: And yet, Stranger, I perceive that I cannot say, without more
thought, what I should call the government of Lacedaemon, for it seems to
me to be like a tyranny,--the power of our Ephors is marvellously
tyrannical; and sometimes it appears to me to be of all cities the most
democratical; and who can reasonably deny that it is an aristocracy
(compare Ar. Pol.)? We have also a monarchy which is held for life, and is
said by all mankind, and not by ourselves only, to be the most ancient of
all monarchies; and, therefore, when asked on a sudden, I cannot precisely
say which form of government the Spartan is.

CLEINIAS: I am in the same difficulty, Megillus; for I do not feel
confident that the polity of Cnosus is any of these.

ATHENIAN: The reason is, my excellent friends, that you really have
polities, but the states of which we were just now speaking are merely
aggregations of men dwelling in cities who are the subjects and servants
of a part of their own state, and each of them is named after the dominant
power; they are not polities at all. But if states are to be named after
their rulers, the true state ought to be called by the name of the God who
rules over wise men.

CLEINIAS: And who is this God?

ATHENIAN: May I still make use of fable to some extent, in the hope that I
may be better able to answer your question: shall I?

CLEINIAS: By all means.

ATHENIAN: In the primeval world, and a long while before the cities came
into being whose settlements we have described, there is said to have been
in the time of Cronos a blessed rule and life, of which the best-ordered
of existing states is a copy (compare Statesman).

CLEINIAS: It will be very necessary to hear about that.

ATHENIAN: I quite agree with you; and therefore I have introduced the
subject.

CLEINIAS: Most appropriately; and since the tale is to the point, you will
do well in giving us the whole story.

ATHENIAN: I will do as you suggest. There is a tradition of the happy life
of mankind in days when all things were spontaneous and abundant. And of
this the reason is said to have been as follows:--Cronos knew what we
ourselves were declaring, that no human nature invested with supreme power
is able to order human affairs and not overflow with insolence and wrong.
Which reflection led him to appoint not men but demigods, who are of a
higher and more divine race, to be the kings and rulers of our cities; he
did as we do with flocks of sheep and other tame animals. For we do not
appoint oxen to be the lords of oxen, or goats of goats; but we ourselves
are a superior race, and rule over them. In like manner God, in His love
of mankind, placed over us the demons, who are a superior race, and they
with great ease and pleasure to themselves, and no less to us, taking care
of us and giving us peace and reverence and order and justice never
failing, made the tribes of men happy and united. And this tradition,
which is true, declares that cities of which some mortal man and not God
is the ruler, have no escape from evils and toils. Still we must do all
that we can to imitate the life which is said to have existed in the days
of Cronos, and, as far as the principle of immortality dwells in us, to
that we must hearken, both in private and public life, and regulate our
cities and houses according to law, meaning by the very term 'law,' the
distribution of mind. But if either a single person or an oligarchy or a
democracy has a soul eager after pleasures and desires--wanting to be
filled with them, yet retaining none of them, and perpetually afflicted
with an endless and insatiable disorder; and this evil spirit, having
first trampled the laws under foot, becomes the master either of a state
or of an individual,--then, as I was saying, salvation is hopeless. And
now, Cleinias, we have to consider whether you will or will not accept
this tale of mine.

CLEINIAS: Certainly we will.

ATHENIAN: You are aware,--are you not?--that there are often said to be as
many forms of laws as there are of governments, and of the latter we have
already mentioned all those which are commonly recognized. Now you must
regard this as a matter of first-rate importance. For what is to be the
standard of just and unjust, is once more the point at issue. Men say that
the law ought not to regard either military virtue, or virtue in general,
but only the interests and power and preservation of the established form
of government; this is thought by them to be the best way of expressing
the natural definition of justice.

CLEINIAS: How?

ATHENIAN: Justice is said by them to be the interest of the stronger
(Republic).

CLEINIAS: Speak plainer.

ATHENIAN: I will:--'Surely,' they say, 'the governing power makes whatever
laws have authority in any state'?

CLEINIAS: True.

ATHENIAN: 'Well,' they would add, 'and do you suppose that tyranny or
democracy, or any other conquering power, does not make the continuance of
the power which is possessed by them the first or principal object of
their laws'?

CLEINIAS: How can they have any other?

ATHENIAN: 'And whoever transgresses these laws is punished as an evil-doer
by the legislator, who calls the laws just'?

CLEINIAS: Naturally.

ATHENIAN: 'This, then, is always the mode and fashion in which justice
exists.'

CLEINIAS: Certainly, if they are correct in their view.

ATHENIAN: Why, yes, this is one of those false principles of government to
which we were referring.

CLEINIAS: Which do you mean?

ATHENIAN: Those which we were examining when we spoke of who ought to
govern whom. Did we not arrive at the conclusion that parents ought to
govern their children, and the elder the younger, and the noble the
ignoble? And there were many other principles, if you remember, and they
were not always consistent. One principle was this very principle of
might, and we said that Pindar considered violence natural and justified
it.

CLEINIAS: Yes; I remember.

ATHENIAN: Consider, then, to whom our state is to be entrusted. For there
is a thing which has occurred times without number in states--

CLEINIAS: What thing?

ATHENIAN: That when there has been a contest for power, those who gain the
upper hand so entirely monopolize the government, as to refuse all share
to the defeated party and their descendants--they live watching one
another, the ruling class being in perpetual fear that some one who has a
recollection of former wrongs will come into power and rise up against
them. Now, according to our view, such governments are not polities at
all, nor are laws right which are passed for the good of particular
classes and not for the good of the whole state. States which have such
laws are not polities but parties, and their notions of justice are simply
unmeaning. I say this, because I am going to assert that we must not
entrust the government in your state to any one because he is rich, or
because he possesses any other advantage, such as strength, or stature, or
again birth: but he who is most obedient to the laws of the state, he
shall win the palm; and to him who is victorious in the first degree shall
be given the highest office and chief ministry of the gods; and the second
to him who bears the second palm; and on a similar principle shall all the
other offices be assigned to those who come next in order. And when I call
the rulers servants or ministers of the law, I give them this name not for
the sake of novelty, but because I certainly believe that upon such
service or ministry depends the well- or ill-being of the state. For that
state in which the law is subject and has no authority, I perceive to be
on the highway to ruin; but I see that the state in which the law is above
the rulers, and the rulers are the inferiors of the law, has salvation,
and every blessing which the Gods can confer.

CLEINIAS: Truly, Stranger, you see with the keen vision of age.

ATHENIAN: Why, yes; every man when he is young has that sort of vision
dullest, and when he is old keenest.

CLEINIAS: Very true.

ATHENIAN: And now, what is to be the next step? May we not suppose the
colonists to have arrived, and proceed to make our speech to them?

CLEINIAS: Certainly.

ATHENIAN: 'Friends,' we say to them,--'God, as the old tradition declares,
holding in his hand the beginning, middle, and end of all that is, travels
according to His nature in a straight line towards the accomplishment of
His end. Justice always accompanies Him, and is the punisher of those who
fall short of the divine law. To justice, he who would be happy holds
fast, and follows in her company with all humility and order; but he who
is lifted up with pride, or elated by wealth or rank, or beauty, who is
young and foolish, and has a soul hot with insolence, and thinks that he
has no need of any guide or ruler, but is able himself to be the guide of
others, he, I say, is left deserted of God; and being thus deserted, he
takes to him others who are like himself, and dances about, throwing all
things into confusion, and many think that he is a great man, but in a
short time he pays a penalty which justice cannot but approve, and is
utterly destroyed, and his family and city with him. Wherefore, seeing
that human things are thus ordered, what should a wise man do or think, or
not do or think'?

CLEINIAS: Every man ought to make up his mind that he will be one of the
followers of God; there can be no doubt of that.

ATHENIAN: Then what life is agreeable to God, and becoming in His
followers? One only, expressed once for all in the old saying that 'like
agrees with like, with measure measure,' but things which have no measure
agree neither with themselves nor with the things which have. Now God
ought to be to us the measure of all things, and not man (compare Crat.;
Theaet.), as men commonly say (Protagoras): the words are far more true of
Him. And he who would be dear to God must, as far as is possible, be like
Him and such as He is. Wherefore the temperate man is the friend of God,
for he is like Him; and the intemperate man is unlike Him, and different
from Him, and unjust. And the same applies to other things; and this is
the conclusion, which is also the noblest and truest of all sayings,--that
for the good man to offer sacrifice to the Gods, and hold converse with
them by means of prayers and offerings and every kind of service, is the
noblest and best of all things, and also the most conducive to a happy
life, and very fit and meet. But with the bad man, the opposite of this is
true: for the bad man has an impure soul, whereas the good is pure; and
from one who is polluted, neither a good man nor God can without
impropriety receive gifts. Wherefore the unholy do only waste their much
service upon the Gods, but when offered by any holy man, such service is
most acceptable to them. This is the mark at which we ought to aim. But
what weapons shall we use, and how shall we direct them? In the first
place, we affirm that next after the Olympian Gods and the Gods of the
State, honour should be given to the Gods below; they should receive
everything in even numbers, and of the second choice, and ill omen, while
the odd numbers, and the first choice, and the things of lucky omen, are
given to the Gods above, by him who would rightly hit the mark of piety.
Next to these Gods, a wise man will do service to the demons or spirits,
and then to the heroes, and after them will follow the private and
ancestral Gods, who are worshipped as the law prescribes in the places
which are sacred to them. Next comes the honour of living parents, to
whom, as is meet, we have to pay the first and greatest and oldest of all
debts, considering that all which a man has belongs to those who gave him
birth and brought him up, and that he must do all that he can to minister
to them, first, in his property, secondly, in his person, and thirdly, in
his soul, in return for the endless care and travail which they bestowed
upon him of old, in the days of his infancy, and which he is now to pay
back to them when they are old and in the extremity of their need. And all
his life long he ought never to utter, or to have uttered, an unbecoming
word to them; for of light and fleeting words the penalty is most severe;
Nemesis, the messenger of justice, is appointed to watch over all such
matters. When they are angry and want to satisfy their feelings in word or
deed, he should give way to them; for a father who thinks that he has been
wronged by his son may be reasonably expected to be very angry. At their
death, the most moderate funeral is best, neither exceeding the customary
expense, nor yet falling short of the honour which has been usually shown
by the former generation to their parents. And let a man not forget to pay
the yearly tribute of respect to the dead, honouring them chiefly by
omitting nothing that conduces to a perpetual remembrance of them, and
giving a reasonable portion of his fortune to the dead. Doing this, and
living after this manner, we shall receive our reward from the Gods and
those who are above us (i.e. the demons); and we shall spend our days for
the most part in good hope. And how a man ought to order what relates to
his descendants and his kindred and friends and fellow-citizens, and the
rites of hospitality taught by Heaven, and the intercourse which arises
out of all these duties, with a view to the embellishment and orderly
regulation of his own life--these things, I say, the laws, as we proceed
with them, will accomplish, partly persuading, and partly when natures do
not yield to the persuasion of custom, chastising them by might and right,
and will thus render our state, if the Gods co-operate with us, prosperous
and happy. But of what has to be said, and must be said by the legislator
who is of my way of thinking, and yet, if said in the form of law, would
be out of place--of this I think that he may give a sample for the
instruction of himself and of those for whom he is legislating; and then
when, as far as he is able, he has gone through all the preliminaries, he
may proceed to the work of legislation. Now, what will be the form of such
prefaces? There may be a difficulty in including or describing them all
under a single form, but I think that we may get some notion of them if we
can guarantee one thing.

CLEINIAS: What is that?

ATHENIAN: I should wish the citizens to be as readily persuaded to virtue
as possible; this will surely be the aim of the legislator in all his
laws.

CLEINIAS: Certainly.

ATHENIAN: The proposal appears to me to be of some value; and I think that
a person will listen with more gentleness and good-will to the precepts
addressed to him by the legislator, when his soul is not altogether
unprepared to receive them. Even a little done in the way of conciliation
gains his ear, and is always worth having. For there is no great
inclination or readiness on the part of mankind to be made as good, or as
quickly good, as possible. The case of the many proves the wisdom of
Hesiod, who says that the road to wickedness is smooth and can be
travelled without perspiring, because it is so very short:

'But before virtue the immortal Gods have placed the sweat of labour, and
long and steep is the way thither, and rugged at first; but when you have
reached the top, although difficult before, it is then easy.' (Works and
Days.)

CLEINIAS: Yes; and he certainly speaks well.

ATHENIAN: Very true: and now let me tell you the effect which the
preceding discourse has had upon me.

CLEINIAS: Proceed.

ATHENIAN: Suppose that we have a little conversation with the legislator,
and say to him--'O, legislator, speak; if you know what we ought to say
and do, you can surely tell.'

CLEINIAS: Of course he can.

ATHENIAN: 'Did we not hear you just now saying, that the legislator ought
not to allow the poets to do what they liked? For that they would not know
in which of their words they went against the laws, to the hurt of the
state.'

CLEINIAS: That is true.

ATHENIAN: May we not fairly make answer to him on behalf of the poets?

CLEINIAS: What answer shall we make to him?

ATHENIAN: That the poet, according to the tradition which has ever
prevailed among us, and is accepted of all men, when he sits down on the
tripod of the muse, is not in his right mind; like a fountain, he allows
to flow out freely whatever comes in, and his art being imitative, he is
often compelled to represent men of opposite dispositions, and thus to
contradict himself; neither can he tell whether there is more truth in one
thing that he has said than in another. This is not the case in a law; the
legislator must give not two rules about the same thing, but one only.
Take an example from what you have just been saying. Of three kinds of
funerals, there is one which is too extravagant, another is too niggardly,
the third in a mean; and you choose and approve and order the last without
qualification. But if I had an extremely rich wife, and she bade me bury
her and describe her burial in a poem, I should praise the extravagant
sort; and a poor miserly man, who had not much money to spend, would
approve of the niggardly; and the man of moderate means, who was himself
moderate, would praise a moderate funeral. Now you in the capacity of
legislator must not barely say 'a moderate funeral,' but you must define
what moderation is, and how much; unless you are definite, you must not
suppose that you are speaking a language that can become law.

CLEINIAS: Certainly not.

ATHENIAN: And is our legislator to have no preface to his laws, but to say
at once Do this, avoid that--and then holding the penalty in terrorem, to
go on to another law; offering never a word of advice or exhortation to
those for whom he is legislating, after the manner of some doctors? For of
doctors, as I may remind you, some have a gentler, others a ruder method
of cure; and as children ask the doctor to be gentle with them, so we will
ask the legislator to cure our disorders with the gentlest remedies. What
I mean to say is, that besides doctors there are doctors' servants, who
are also styled doctors.

CLEINIAS: Very true.

ATHENIAN: And whether they are slaves or freemen makes no difference; they
acquire their knowledge of medicine by obeying and observing their
masters; empirically and not according to the natural way of learning, as
the manner of freemen is, who have learned scientifically themselves the
art which they impart scientifically to their pupils. You are aware that
there are these two classes of doctors?

CLEINIAS: To be sure.

ATHENIAN: And did you ever observe that there are two classes of patients
in states, slaves and freemen; and the slave doctors run about and cure
the slaves, or wait for them in the dispensaries--practitioners of this
sort never talk to their patients individually, or let them talk about
their own individual complaints? The slave doctor prescribes what mere
experience suggests, as if he had exact knowledge; and when he has given
his orders, like a tyrant, he rushes off with equal assurance to some
other servant who is ill; and so he relieves the master of the house of
the care of his invalid slaves. But the other doctor, who is a freeman,
attends and practices upon freemen; and he carries his enquiries far back,
and goes into the nature of the disorder; he enters into discourse with
the patient and with his friends, and is at once getting information from
the sick man, and also instructing him as far as he is able, and he will
not prescribe for him until he has first convinced him; at last, when he
has brought the patient more and more under his persuasive influences and
set him on the road to health, he attempts to effect a cure. Now which is
the better way of proceeding in a physician and in a trainer? Is he the
better who accomplishes his ends in a double way, or he who works in one
way, and that the ruder and inferior?

CLEINIAS: I should say, Stranger, that the double way is far better.

ATHENIAN: Should you like to see an example of the double and single
method in legislation?

CLEINIAS: Certainly I should.

ATHENIAN: What will be our first law? Will not the legislator, observing
the order of nature, begin by making regulations for states about births?

CLEINIAS: He will.

ATHENIAN: In all states the birth of children goes back to the connexion
of marriage?

CLEINIAS: Very true.

ATHENIAN: And, according to the true order, the laws relating to marriage
should be those which are first determined in every state?

CLEINIAS: Quite so.

ATHENIAN: Then let me first give the law of marriage in a simple form; it
may run as follows:--A man shall marry between the ages of thirty and
thirty-five, or, if he does not, he shall pay such and such a fine, or
shall suffer the loss of such and such privileges. This would be the
simple law about marriage. The double law would run thus:--A man shall
marry between the ages of thirty and thirty-five, considering that in a
manner the human race naturally partakes of immortality, which every man
is by nature inclined to desire to the utmost; for the desire of every man
that he may become famous, and not lie in the grave without a name, is
only the love of continuance. Now mankind are coeval with all time, and
are ever following, and will ever follow, the course of time; and so they
are immortal, because they leave children's children behind them, and
partake of immortality in the unity of generation. And for a man
voluntarily to deprive himself of this gift, as he deliberately does who
will not have a wife or children, is impiety. He who obeys the law shall
be free, and shall pay no fine; but he who is disobedient, and does not
marry, when he has arrived at the age of thirty-five, shall pay a yearly
fine of a certain amount, in order that he may not imagine his celibacy to
bring ease and profit to him; and he shall not share in the honours which
the young men in the state give to the aged. Comparing now the two forms
of the law, you will be able to arrive at a judgment about any other laws
--whether they should be double in length even when shortest, because they
have to persuade as well as threaten, or whether they shall only threaten
and be of half the length.

MEGILLUS: The shorter form, Stranger, would be more in accordance with
Lacedaemonian custom; although, for my own part, if any one were to ask me
which I myself prefer in the state, I should certainly determine in favour
of the longer; and I would have every law made after the same pattern, if
I had to choose. But I think that Cleinias is the person to be consulted,
for his is the state which is going to use these laws.

CLEINIAS: Thank you, Megillus.

ATHENIAN: Whether, in the abstract, words are to be many or few, is a very
foolish question; the best form, and not the shortest, is to be approved;
nor is length at all to be regarded. Of the two forms of law which have
been recited, the one is not only twice as good in practical usefulness as
the other, but the case is like that of the two kinds of doctors, which I
was just now mentioning. And yet legislators never appear to have
considered that they have two instruments which they might use in
legislation--persuasion and force; for in dealing with the rude and
uneducated multitude, they use the one only as far as they can; they do
not mingle persuasion with coercion, but employ force pure and simple.
Moreover, there is a third point, sweet friends, which ought to be, and
never is, regarded in our existing laws.

CLEINIAS: What is it?

ATHENIAN: A point arising out of our previous discussion, which comes into
my mind in some mysterious way. All this time, from early dawn until noon,
have we been talking about laws in this charming retreat: now we are going
to promulgate our laws, and what has preceded was only the prelude of
them. Why do I mention this? For this reason:--Because all discourses and
vocal exercises have preludes and overtures, which are a sort of artistic
beginnings intended to help the strain which is to be performed; lyric
measures and music of every other kind have preludes framed with wonderful
care. But of the truer and higher strain of law and politics, no one has
ever yet uttered any prelude, or composed or published any, as though
there was no such thing in nature. Whereas our present discussion seems to
me to imply that there is;--these double laws, of which we were speaking,
are not exactly double, but they are in two parts, the law and the prelude
of the law. The arbitrary command, which was compared to the commands of
doctors, whom we described as of the meaner sort, was the law pure and
simple; and that which preceded, and was described by our friend here as
being hortatory only, was, although in fact, an exhortation, likewise
analogous to the preamble of a discourse. For I imagine that all this
language of conciliation, which the legislator has been uttering in the
preface of the law, was intended to create good-will in the person whom he
addressed, in order that, by reason of this good-will, he might more
intelligently receive his command, that is to say, the law. And therefore,
in my way of speaking, this is more rightly described as the preamble than
as the matter of the law. And I must further proceed to observe, that to
all his laws, and to each separately, the legislator should prefix a
preamble; he should remember how great will be the difference between
them, according as they have, or have not, such preambles, as in the case
already given.

CLEINIAS: The lawgiver, if he asks my opinion, will certainly legislate in
the form which you advise.

ATHENIAN: I think that you are right, Cleinias, in affirming that all laws
have preambles, and that throughout the whole of this work of legislation
every single law should have a suitable preamble at the beginning; for
that which is to follow is most important, and it makes all the difference
whether we clearly remember the preambles or not. Yet we should be wrong
in requiring that all laws, small and great alike, should have preambles
of the same kind, any more than all songs or speeches; although they may
be natural to all, they are not always necessary, and whether they are to
be employed or not has in each case to be left to the judgment of the
speaker or the musician, or, in the present instance, of the lawgiver.

CLEINIAS: That I think is most true. And now, Stranger, without delay let
us return to the argument, and, as people say in play, make a second and
better beginning, if you please, with the principles which we have been
laying down, which we never thought of regarding as a preamble before, but
of which we may now make a preamble, and not merely consider them to be
chance topics of discourse. Let us acknowledge, then, that we have a
preamble. About the honour of the Gods and the respect of parents, enough
has been already said; and we may proceed to the topics which follow next
in order, until the preamble is deemed by you to be complete; and after
that you shall go through the laws themselves.

ATHENIAN: I understand you to mean that we have made a sufficient preamble
about Gods and demigods, and about parents living or dead; and now you
would have us bring the rest of the subject into the light of day?

CLEINIAS: Exactly.

ATHENIAN: After this, as is meet and for the interest of us all, I the
speaker, and you the listeners, will try to estimate all that relates to
the souls and bodies and properties of the citizens, as regards both their
occupations and amusements, and thus arrive, as far as in us lies, at the
nature of education. These then are the topics which follow next in order.

CLEINIAS: Very good.

BOOK V.

ATHENIAN: Listen, all ye who have just now heard the laws about Gods, and
about our dear forefathers:--Of all the things which a man has, next to
the Gods, his soul is the most divine and most truly his own. Now in every
man there are two parts: the better and superior, which rules, and the
worse and inferior, which serves; and the ruling part of him is always to
be preferred to the subject. Wherefore I am right in bidding every one
next to the Gods, who are our masters, and those who in order follow them
(i.e. the demons), to honour his own soul, which every one seems to
honour, but no one honours as he ought; for honour is a divine good, and
no evil thing is honourable; and he who thinks that he can honour the soul
by word or gift, or any sort of compliance, without making her in any way
better, seems to honour her, but honours her not at all. For example,
every man, from his very boyhood, fancies that he is able to know
everything, and thinks that he honours his soul by praising her, and he is
very ready to let her do whatever she may like. But I mean to say that in
acting thus he injures his soul, and is far from honouring her; whereas,
in our opinion, he ought to honour her as second only to the Gods. Again,
when a man thinks that others are to be blamed, and not himself, for the
errors which he has committed from time to time, and the many and great
evils which befell him in consequence, and is always fancying himself to
be exempt and innocent, he is under the idea that he is honouring his
soul; whereas the very reverse is the fact, for he is really injuring her.
And when, disregarding the word and approval of the legislator, he
indulges in pleasure, then again he is far from honouring her; he only
dishonours her, and fills her full of evil and remorse; or when he does
not endure to the end the labours and fears and sorrows and pains which
the legislator approves, but gives way before them, then, by yielding, he
does not honour the soul, but by all such conduct he makes her to be
dishonourable; nor when he thinks that life at any price is a good, does
he honour her, but yet once more he dishonours her; for the soul having a
notion that the world below is all evil, he yields to her, and does not
resist and teach or convince her that, for aught she knows, the world of
the Gods below, instead of being evil, may be the greatest of all goods.
Again, when any one prefers beauty to virtue, what is this but the real
and utter dishonour of the soul? For such a preference implies that the
body is more honourable than the soul; and this is false, for there is
nothing of earthly birth which is more honourable than the heavenly, and
he who thinks otherwise of the soul has no idea how greatly he undervalues
this wonderful possession; nor, again, when a person is willing, or not
unwilling, to acquire dishonest gains, does he then honour his soul with
gifts--far otherwise; he sells her glory and honour for a small piece of
gold; but all the gold which is under or upon the earth is not enough to
give in exchange for virtue. In a word, I may say that he who does not
estimate the base and evil, the good and noble, according to the standard
of the legislator, and abstain in every possible way from the one and
practise the other to the utmost of his power, does not know that in all
these respects he is most foully and disgracefully abusing his soul, which
is the divinest part of man; for no one, as I may say, ever considers that
which is declared to be the greatest penalty of evil-doing--namely, to
grow into the likeness of bad men, and growing like them to fly from the
conversation of the good, and be cut off from them, and cleave to and
follow after the company of the bad. And he who is joined to them must do
and suffer what such men by nature do and say to one another,--a suffering
which is not justice but retribution; for justice and the just are noble,
whereas retribution is the suffering which waits upon injustice; and
whether a man escape or endure this, he is miserable,--in the former case,
because he is not cured; while in the latter, he perishes in order that
the rest of mankind may be saved.

Speaking generally, our glory is to follow the better and improve the
inferior, which is susceptible of improvement, as far as this is possible.
And of all human possessions, the soul is by nature most inclined to avoid
the evil, and track out and find the chief good; which when a man has
found, he should take up his abode with it during the remainder of his
life. Wherefore the soul also is second (or next to God) in honour; and
third, as every one will perceive, comes the honour of the body in natural
order. Having determined this, we have next to consider that there is a
natural honour of the body, and that of honours some are true and some are
counterfeit. To decide which are which is the business of the legislator;
and he, I suspect, would intimate that they are as follows:--Honour is not
to be given to the fair body, or to the strong or the swift or the tall,
or to the healthy body (although many may think otherwise), any more than
to their opposites; but the mean states of all these habits are by far the
safest and most moderate; for the one extreme makes the soul braggart and
insolent, and the other, illiberal and base; and money, and property, and
distinction all go to the same tune. The excess of any of these things is
apt to be a source of hatreds and divisions among states and individuals;
and the defect of them is commonly a cause of slavery. And, therefore, I
would not have any one fond of heaping up riches for the sake of his
children, in order that he may leave them as rich as possible. For the
possession of great wealth is of no use, either to them or to the state.
The condition of youth which is free from flattery, and at the same time
not in need of the necessaries of life, is the best and most harmonious of
all, being in accord and agreement with our nature, and making life to be
most entirely free from sorrow. Let parents, then, bequeath to their
children not a heap of riches, but the spirit of reverence. We, indeed,
fancy that they will inherit reverence from us, if we rebuke them when
they show a want of reverence. But this quality is not really imparted to
them by the present style of admonition, which only tells them that the
young ought always to be reverential. A sensible legislator will rather
exhort the elders to reverence the younger, and above all to take heed
that no young man sees or hears one of themselves doing or saying anything
disgraceful; for where old men have no shame, there young men will most
certainly be devoid of reverence. The best way of training the young is to
train yourself at the same time; not to admonish them, but to be always
carrying out your own admonitions in practice. He who honours his kindred,
and reveres those who share in the same Gods and are of the same blood and
family, may fairly expect that the Gods who preside over generation will
be propitious to him, and will quicken his seed. And he who deems the
services which his friends and acquaintances do for him, greater and more
important than they themselves deem them, and his own favours to them less
than theirs to him, will have their good-will in the intercourse of life.
And surely in his relations to the state and his fellow citizens, he is by
far the best, who rather than the Olympic or any other victory of peace or
war, desires to win the palm of obedience to the laws of his country, and
who, of all mankind, is the person reputed to have obeyed them best
through life. In his relations to strangers, a man should consider that a
contract is a most holy thing, and that all concerns and wrongs of
strangers are more directly dependent on the protection of God, than
wrongs done to citizens; for the stranger, having no kindred and friends,
is more to be pitied by Gods and men. Wherefore, also, he who is most able
to avenge him is most zealous in his cause; and he who is most able is the
genius and the god of the stranger, who follow in the train of Zeus, the
god of strangers. And for this reason, he who has a spark of caution in
him, will do his best to pass through life without sinning against the
stranger. And of offences committed, whether against strangers or fellow-
countrymen, that against suppliants is the greatest. For the God who
witnessed to the agreement made with the suppliant, becomes in a special
manner the guardian of the sufferer; and he will certainly not suffer
unavenged.

Thus we have fairly described the manner in which a man is to act about
his parents, and himself, and his own affairs; and in relation to the
state, and his friends, and kindred, both in what concerns his own
countrymen, and in what concerns the stranger. We will now consider what
manner of man he must be who would best pass through life in respect of
those other things which are not matters of law, but of praise and blame
only; in which praise and blame educate a man, and make him more tractable
and amenable to the laws which are about to be imposed.

Truth is the beginning of every good thing, both to Gods and men; and he
who would be blessed and happy, should be from the first a partaker of the
truth, that he may live a true man as long as possible, for then he can be
trusted; but he is not to be trusted who loves voluntary falsehood, and he
who loves involuntary falsehood is a fool. Neither condition is enviable,
for the untrustworthy and ignorant has no friend, and as time advances he
becomes known, and lays up in store for himself isolation in crabbed age
when life is on the wane: so that, whether his children or friends are
alive or not, he is equally solitary.--Worthy of honour is he who does no
injustice, and of more than twofold honour, if he not only does no
injustice himself, but hinders others from doing any; the first may count
as one man, the second is worth many men, because he informs the rulers of
the injustice of others. And yet more highly to be esteemed is he who co-
operates with the rulers in correcting the citizens as far as he can--he
shall be proclaimed the great and perfect citizen, and bear away the palm
of virtue. The same praise may be given about temperance and wisdom, and
all other goods which may be imparted to others, as well as acquired by a
man for himself; he who imparts them shall be honoured as the man of men,
and he who is willing, yet is not able, may be allowed the second place;
but he who is jealous and will not, if he can help, allow others to
partake in a friendly way of any good, is deserving of blame: the good,
however, which he has, is not to be undervalued by us because it is
possessed by him, but must be acquired by us also to the utmost of our
power. Let every man, then, freely strive for the prize of virtue, and let
there be no envy. For the unenvious nature increases the greatness of
states--he himself contends in the race, blasting the fair fame of no man;
but the envious, who thinks that he ought to get the better by defaming
others, is less energetic himself in the pursuit of true virtue, and
reduces his rivals to despair by his unjust slanders of them. And so he
makes the whole city to enter the arena untrained in the practice of
virtue, and diminishes her glory as far as in him lies. Now every man
should be valiant, but he should also be gentle. From the cruel, or hardly
curable, or altogether incurable acts of injustice done to him by others,
a man can only escape by fighting and defending himself and conquering,
and by never ceasing to punish them; and no man who is not of a noble
spirit is able to accomplish this. As to the actions of those who do evil,
but whose evil is curable, in the first place, let us remember that the
unjust man is not unjust of his own free will. For no man of his own free
will would choose to possess the greatest of evils, and least of all in
the most honourable part of himself. And the soul, as we said, is of a
truth deemed by all men the most honourable. In the soul, then, which is
the most honourable part of him, no one, if he could help, would admit, or
allow to continue the greatest of evils (compare Republic). The
unrighteous and vicious are always to be pitied in any case; and one can
afford to forgive as well as pity him who is curable, and refrain and calm
one's anger, not getting into a passion, like a woman, and nursing ill-
feeling. But upon him who is incapable of reformation and wholly evil, the
vials of our wrath should be poured out; wherefore I say that good men
ought, when occasion demands, to be both gentle and passionate.

Of all evils the greatest is one which in the souls of most men is innate,
and which a man is always excusing in himself and never correcting; I
mean, what is expressed in the saying that 'Every man by nature is and
ought to be his own friend.' Whereas the excessive love of self is in
reality the source to each man of all offences; for the lover is blinded
about the beloved, so that he judges wrongly of the just, the good, and
the honourable, and thinks that he ought always to prefer himself to the
truth. But he who would be a great man ought to regard, not himself or his
interests, but what is just, whether the just act be his own or that of
another. Through a similar error men are induced to fancy that their own
ignorance is wisdom, and thus we who may be truly said to know nothing,
think that we know all things; and because we will not let others act for
us in what we do not know, we are compelled to act amiss ourselves.
Wherefore let every man avoid excess of self-love, and condescend to
follow a better man than himself, not allowing any false shame to stand in
the way. There are also minor precepts which are often repeated, and are
quite as useful; a man should recollect them and remind himself of them.
For when a stream is flowing out, there should be water flowing in too;
and recollection flows in while wisdom is departing. Therefore I say that
a man should refrain from excess either of laughter or tears, and should
exhort his neighbour to do the same; he should veil his immoderate sorrow
or joy, and seek to behave with propriety, whether the genius of his good
fortune remains with him, or whether at the crisis of his fate, when he
seems to be mounting high and steep places, the Gods oppose him in some of
his enterprises. Still he may ever hope, in the case of good men, that
whatever afflictions are to befall them in the future God will lessen, and
that present evils He will change for the better; and as to the goods
which are the opposite of these evils, he will not doubt that they will be
added to them, and that they will be fortunate. Such should be men's
hopes, and such should be the exhortations with which they admonish one
another, never losing an opportunity, but on every occasion distinctly
reminding themselves and others of all these things, both in jest and
earnest.

Enough has now been said of divine matters, both as touching the practices
which men ought to follow, and as to the sort of persons who they ought
severally to be. But of human things we have not as yet spoken, and we
must; for to men we are discoursing and not to Gods. Pleasures and pains
and desires are a part of human nature, and on them every mortal being
must of necessity hang and depend with the most eager interest. And
therefore we must praise the noblest life, not only as the fairest in
appearance, but as being one which, if a man will only taste, and not,
while still in his youth, desert for another, he will find to surpass also
in the very thing which we all of us desire,--I mean in having a greater
amount of pleasure and less of pain during the whole of life. And this
will be plain, if a man has a true taste of them, as will be quickly and
clearly seen. But what is a true taste? That we have to learn from the
argument--the point being what is according to nature, and what is not
according to nature. One life must be compared with another, the more
pleasurable with the more painful, after this manner:--We desire to have
pleasure, but we neither desire nor choose pain; and the neutral state we
are ready to take in exchange, not for pleasure but for pain; and we also
wish for less pain and greater pleasure, but less pleasure and greater
pain we do not wish for; and an equal balance of either we cannot venture
to assert that we should desire. And all these differ or do not differ
severally in number and magnitude and intensity and equality, and in the
opposites of these when regarded as objects of choice, in relation to
desire. And such being the necessary order of things, we wish for that
life in which there are many great and intense elements of pleasure and
pain, and in which the pleasures are in excess, and do not wish for that
in which the opposites exceed; nor, again, do we wish for that in which
the elements of either are small and few and feeble, and the pains exceed.
And when, as I said before, there is a balance of pleasure and pain in
life, this is to be regarded by us as the balanced life; while other lives
are preferred by us because they exceed in what we like, or are rejected
by us because they exceed in what we dislike. All the lives of men may be
regarded by us as bound up in these, and we must also consider what sort
of lives we by nature desire. And if we wish for any others, I say that we
desire them only through some ignorance and inexperience of the lives
which actually exist.

Now, what lives are they, and how many in which, having searched out and
beheld the objects of will and desire and their opposites, and making of
them a law, choosing, I say, the dear and the pleasant and the best and
noblest, a man may live in the happiest way possible? Let us say that the
temperate life is one kind of life, and the rational another, and the
courageous another, and the healthful another; and to these four let us
oppose four other lives--the foolish, the cowardly, the intemperate, the
diseased. He who knows the temperate life will describe it as in all
things gentle, having gentle pains and gentle pleasures, and placid
desires and loves not insane; whereas the intemperate life is impetuous in
all things, and has violent pains and pleasures, and vehement and stinging
desires, and loves utterly insane; and in the temperate life the pleasures
exceed the pains, but in the intemperate life the pains exceed the
pleasures in greatness and number and frequency. Hence one of the two
lives is naturally and necessarily more pleasant and the other more
painful, and he who would live pleasantly cannot possibly choose to live
intemperately. And if this is true, the inference clearly is that no man
is voluntarily intemperate; but that the whole multitude of men lack
temperance in their lives, either from ignorance, or from want of self-
control, or both. And the same holds of the diseased and healthy life;
they both have pleasures and pains, but in health the pleasure exceeds the
pain, and in sickness the pain exceeds the pleasure. Now our intention in
choosing the lives is not that the painful should exceed, but the life in
which pain is exceeded by pleasure we have determined to be the more
pleasant life. And we should say that the temperate life has the elements
both of pleasure and pain fewer and smaller and less frequent than the
intemperate, and the wise life than the foolish life, and the life of
courage than the life of cowardice; one of each pair exceeding in pleasure
and the other in pain, the courageous surpassing the cowardly, and the
wise exceeding the foolish. And so the one class of lives exceeds the
other class in pleasure; the temperate and courageous and wise and healthy
exceed the cowardly and foolish and intemperate and diseased lives; and
generally speaking, that which has any virtue, whether of body or soul, is
pleasanter than the vicious life, and far superior in beauty and rectitude
and excellence and reputation, and causes him who lives accordingly to be
infinitely happier than the opposite.

Enough of the preamble; and now the laws should follow; or, to speak more
correctly, an outline of them. As, then, in the case of a web or any other
tissue, the warp and the woof cannot be made of the same materials
(compare Statesman), but the warp is necessarily superior as being
stronger, and having a certain character of firmness, whereas the woof is
softer and has a proper degree of elasticity;--in a similar manner those
who are to hold great offices in states, should be distinguished truly in
each case from those who have been but slenderly proven by education. Let
us suppose that there are two parts in the constitution of a state--one
the creation of offices, the other the laws which are assigned to them to
administer.

But, before all this, comes the following consideration:--The shepherd or
herdsman, or breeder of horses or the like, when he has received his
animals will not begin to train them until he has first purified them in a
manner which befits a community of animals; he will divide the healthy and
unhealthy, and the good breed and the bad breed, and will send away the
unhealthy and badly bred to other herds, and tend the rest, reflecting
that his labours will be vain and have no effect, either on the souls or
bodies of those whom nature and ill nurture have corrupted, and that they
will involve in destruction the pure and healthy nature and being of every
other animal, if he should neglect to purify them. Now the case of other
animals is not so important--they are only worth introducing for the sake
of illustration; but what relates to man is of the highest importance; and
the legislator should make enquiries, and indicate what is proper for each
one in the way of purification and of any other procedure. Take, for
example, the purification of a city--there are many kinds of purification,
some easier and others more difficult; and some of them, and the best and
most difficult of them, the legislator, if he be also a despot, may be
able to effect; but the legislator, who, not being a despot, sets up a new
government and laws, even if he attempt the mildest of purgations, may
think himself happy if he can complete his work. The best kind of
purification is painful, like similar cures in medicine, involving
righteous punishment and inflicting death or exile in the last resort. For
in this way we commonly dispose of great sinners who are incurable, and
are the greatest injury of the whole state. But the milder form of
purification is as follows:--when men who have nothing, and are in want of
food, show a disposition to follow their leaders in an attack on the
property of the rich--these, who are the natural plague of the state, are
sent away by the legislator in a friendly spirit as far as he is able; and
this dismissal of them is euphemistically termed a colony. And every
legislator should contrive to do this at once. Our present case, however,
is peculiar. For there is no need to devise any colony or purifying
separation under the circumstances in which we are placed. But as, when
many streams flow together from many sources, whether springs or mountain
torrents, into a single lake, we ought to attend and take care that the
confluent waters should be perfectly clear, and in order to effect this,
should pump and draw off and divert impurities, so in every political
arrangement there may be trouble and danger. But, seeing that we are now
only discoursing and not acting, let our selection be supposed to be
completed, and the desired purity attained. Touching evil men, who want to
join and be citizens of our state, after we have tested them by every sort
of persuasion and for a sufficient time, we will prevent them from coming;
but the good we will to the utmost of our ability receive as friends with
open arms.

Another piece of good fortune must not be forgotten, which, as we were
saying, the Heraclid colony had, and which is also ours,--that we have
escaped division of land and the abolition of debts; for these are always
a source of dangerous contention, and a city which is driven by necessity
to legislate upon such matters can neither allow the old ways to continue,
nor yet venture to alter them. We must have recourse to prayers, so to
speak, and hope that a slight change may be cautiously effected in a
length of time. And such a change can be accomplished by those who have
abundance of land, and having also many debtors, are willing, in a kindly
spirit, to share with those who are in want, sometimes remitting and
sometimes giving, holding fast in a path of moderation, and deeming
poverty to be the increase of a man's desires and not the diminution of
his property. For this is the great beginning of salvation to a state, and
upon this lasting basis may be erected afterwards whatever political order
is suitable under the circumstances; but if the change be based upon an
unsound principle, the future administration of the country will be full
of difficulties. That is a danger which, as I am saying, is escaped by us,
and yet we had better say how, if we had not escaped, we might have
escaped; and we may venture now to assert that no other way of escape,
whether narrow or broad, can be devised but freedom from avarice and a
sense of justice--upon this rock our city shall be built; for there ought
to be no disputes among citizens about property. If there are quarrels of
long standing among them, no legislator of any degree of sense will
proceed a step in the arrangement of the state until they are settled. But
that they to whom God has given, as He has to us, to be the founders of a
new state as yet free from enmity--that they should create themselves
enmities by their mode of distributing lands and houses, would be
superhuman folly and wickedness.

How then can we rightly order the distribution of the land? In the first
place, the number of the citizens has to be determined, and also the
number and size of the divisions into which they will have to be formed;
and the land and the houses will then have to be apportioned by us as
fairly as we can. The number of citizens can only be estimated
satisfactorily in relation to the territory and the neighbouring states.
The territory must be sufficient to maintain a certain number of
inhabitants in a moderate way of life--more than this is not required; and
the number of citizens should be sufficient to defend themselves against
the injustice of their neighbours, and also to give them the power of
rendering efficient aid to their neighbours when they are wronged. After
having taken a survey of their's and their neighbours' territory, we will
determine the limits of them in fact as well as in theory. And now, let us
proceed to legislate with a view to perfecting the form and outline of our
state. The number of our citizens shall be 5040--this will be a convenient
number; and these shall be owners of the land and protectors of the
allotment. The houses and the land will be divided in the same way, so
that every man may correspond to a lot. Let the whole number be first
divided into two parts, and then into three; and the number is further
capable of being divided into four or five parts, or any number of parts
up to ten. Every legislator ought to know so much arithmetic as to be able
to tell what number is most likely to be useful to all cities; and we are
going to take that number which contains the greatest and most regular and
unbroken series of divisions. The whole of number has every possible
division, and the number 5040 can be divided by exactly fifty-nine
divisors, and ten of these proceed without interval from one to ten: this
will furnish numbers for war and peace, and for all contracts and
dealings, including taxes and divisions of the land. These properties of
number should be ascertained at leisure by those who are bound by law to
know them; for they are true, and should be proclaimed at the foundation
of the city, with a view to use. Whether the legislator is establishing a
new state or restoring an old and decayed one, in respect of Gods and
temples,--the temples which are to be built in each city, and the Gods or
demi-gods after whom they are to be called,--if he be a man of sense, he
will make no change in anything which the oracle of Delphi, or Dodona, or
the God Ammon, or any ancient tradition has sanctioned in whatever manner,
whether by apparitions or reputed inspiration of Heaven, in obedience to
which mankind have established sacrifices in connexion with mystic rites,
either originating on the spot, or derived from Tyrrhenia or Cyprus or
some other place, and on the strength of which traditions they have
consecrated oracles and images, and altars and temples, and portioned out
a sacred domain for each of them. The least part of all these ought not to
be disturbed by the legislator; but he should assign to the several
districts some God, or demi-god, or hero, and, in the distribution of the
soil, should give to these first their chosen domain and all things
fitting, that the inhabitants of the several districts may meet at fixed
times, and that they may readily supply their various wants, and entertain
one another with sacrifices, and become friends and acquaintances; for
there is no greater good in a state than that the citizens should be known
to one another. When not light but darkness and ignorance of each other's
characters prevails among them, no one will receive the honour of which he
is deserving, or the power or the justice to which he is fairly entitled:
wherefore, in every state, above all things, every man should take heed
that he have no deceit in him, but that he be always true and simple; and
that no deceitful person take any advantage of him.

The next move in our pastime of legislation, like the withdrawal of the
stone from the holy line in the game of draughts, being an unusual one,
will probably excite wonder when mentioned for the first time. And yet, if
a man will only reflect and weigh the matter with care, he will see that
our city is ordered in a manner which, if not the best, is the second
best. Perhaps also some one may not approve this form, because he thinks
that such a constitution is ill adapted to a legislator who has not
despotic power. The truth is, that there are three forms of government,
the best, the second and the third best, which we may just mention, and
then leave the selection to the ruler of the settlement. Following this
method in the present instance, let us speak of the states which are
respectively first, second, and third in excellence, and then we will
leave the choice to Cleinias now, or to any one else who may hereafter
have to make a similar choice among constitutions, and may desire to give
to his state some feature which is congenial to him and which he approves
in his own country.

The first and highest form of the state and of the government and of the
law is that in which there prevails most widely the ancient saying, that
'Friends have all things in common.' Whether there is anywhere now, or
will ever be, this communion of women and children and of property, in
which the private and individual is altogether banished from life, and
things which are by nature private, such as eyes and ears and hands, have
become common, and in some way see and hear and act in common, and all men
express praise and blame and feel joy and sorrow on the same occasions,
and whatever laws there are unite the city to the utmost (compare
Republic),--whether all this is possible or not, I say that no man, acting
upon any other principle, will ever constitute a state which will be truer
or better or more exalted in virtue. Whether such a state is governed by
Gods or sons of Gods, one, or more than one, happy are the men who, living
after this manner, dwell there; and therefore to this we are to look for
the pattern of the state, and to cling to this, and to seek with all our
might for one which is like this. The state which we have now in hand,
when created, will be nearest to immortality and the only one which takes
the second place; and after that, by the grace of God, we will complete
the third one. And we will begin by speaking of the nature and origin of
the second.

Let the citizens at once distribute their land and houses, and not till
the land in common, since a community of goods goes beyond their proposed
origin, and nurture, and education. But in making the distribution, let
the several possessors feel that their particular lots also belong to the
whole city; and seeing that the earth is their parent, let them tend her
more carefully than children do their mother. For she is a goddess and
their queen, and they are her mortal subjects. Such also are the feelings
which they ought to entertain to the Gods and demi-gods of the country.
And in order that the distribution may always remain, they ought to
consider further that the present number of families should be always
retained, and neither increased nor diminished. This may be secured for
the whole city in the following manner:--Let the possessor of a lot leave
the one of his children who is his best beloved, and one only, to be the
heir of his dwelling, and his successor in the duty of ministering to the
Gods, the state and the family, as well the living members of it as those
who are departed when he comes into the inheritance; but of his other
children, if he have more than one, he shall give the females in marriage
according to the law to be hereafter enacted, and the males he shall
distribute as sons to those citizens who have no children, and are
disposed to receive them; or if there should be none such, and particular
individuals have too many children, male or female, or too few, as in the
case of barrenness--in all these cases let the highest and most honourable
magistracy created by us judge and determine what is to be done with the
redundant or deficient, and devise a means that the number of 5040 houses
shall always remain the same. There are many ways of regulating numbers;
for they in whom generation is affluent may be made to refrain (compare
Arist. Pol.), and, on the other hand, special care may be taken to
increase the number of births by rewards and stigmas, or we may meet the
evil by the elder men giving advice and administering rebuke to the
younger--in this way the object may be attained. And if after all there be
very great difficulty about the equal preservation of the 5040 houses, and
there be an excess of citizens, owing to the too great love of those who
live together, and we are at our wits' end, there is still the old device
often mentioned by us of sending out a colony, which will part friends
with us, and be composed of suitable persons. If, on the other hand, there
come a wave bearing a deluge of disease, or a plague of war, and the
inhabitants become much fewer than the appointed number by reason of
bereavement, we ought not to introduce citizens of spurious birth and
education, if this can be avoided; but even God is said not to be able to
fight against necessity.

Wherefore let us suppose this 'high argument' of ours to address us in the
following terms:--Best of men, cease not to honour according to nature
similarity and equality and sameness and agreement, as regards number and
every good and noble quality. And, above all, observe the aforesaid number
5040 throughout life; in the second place, do not disparage the small and
modest proportions of the inheritances which you received in the
distribution, by buying and selling them to one another. For then neither
will the God who gave you the lot be your friend, nor will the legislator;
and indeed the law declares to the disobedient that these are the terms
upon which he may or may not take the lot. In the first place, the earth
as he is informed is sacred to the Gods; and in the next place, priests
and priestesses will offer up prayers over a first, and second, and even a
third sacrifice, that he who buys or sells the houses or lands which he
has received, may suffer the punishment which he deserves; and these their
prayers they shall write down in the temples, on tablets of cypress-wood,
for the instruction of posterity. Moreover they will set a watch over all
these things, that they may be observed;--the magistracy which has the
sharpest eyes shall keep watch that any infringement of these commands may
be discovered and punished as offences both against the law and the God.
How great is the benefit of such an ordinance to all those cities, which
obey and are administered accordingly, no bad man can ever know, as the
old proverb says; but only a man of experience and good habits. For in
such an order of things there will not be much opportunity for making
money; no man either ought, or indeed will be allowed, to exercise any
ignoble occupation, of which the vulgarity is a matter of reproach to a
freeman, and should never want to acquire riches by any such means.

Further, the law enjoins that no private man shall be allowed to possess
gold and silver, but only coin for daily use, which is almost necessary in
dealing with artisans, and for payment of hirelings, whether slaves or
immigrants, by all those persons who require the use of them. Wherefore
our citizens, as we say, should have a coin passing current among
themselves, but not accepted among the rest of mankind; with a view,
however, to expeditions and journeys to other lands,--for embassies, or
for any other occasion which may arise of sending out a herald, the state
must also possess a common Hellenic currency. If a private person is ever
obliged to go abroad, let him have the consent of the magistrates and go;
and if when he returns he has any foreign money remaining, let him give
the surplus back to the treasury, and receive a corresponding sum in the
local currency. And if he is discovered to appropriate it, let it be
confiscated, and let him who knows and does not inform be subject to curse
and dishonour equally him who brought the money, and also to a fine not
less in amount than the foreign money which has been brought back. In
marrying and giving in marriage, no one shall give or receive any dowry at
all; and no one shall deposit money with another whom he does not trust as
a friend, nor shall he lend money upon interest; and the borrower should
be under no obligation to repay either capital or interest. That these
principles are best, any one may see who compares them with the first
principle and intention of a state. The intention, as we affirm, of a
reasonable statesman, is not what the many declare to be the object of a
good legislator, namely, that the state for the true interests of which he
is advising should be as great and as rich as possible, and should possess
gold and silver, and have the greatest empire by sea and land;--this they
imagine to be the real object of legislation, at the same time adding,
inconsistently, that the true legislator desires to have the city the best
and happiest possible. But they do not see that some of these things are
possible, and some of them are impossible; and he who orders the state
will desire what is possible, and will not indulge in vain wishes or
attempts to accomplish that which is impossible. The citizen must indeed
be happy and good, and the legislator will seek to make him so; but very
rich and very good at the same time he cannot be, not, at least, in the
sense in which the many speak of riches. For they mean by 'the rich' the
few who have the most valuable possessions, although the owner of them may
quite well be a rogue. And if this is true, I can never assent to the
doctrine that the rich man will be happy--he must be good as well as rich.
And good in a high degree, and rich in a high degree at the same time, he
cannot be. Some one will ask, why not? And we shall answer--Because
acquisitions which come from sources which are just and unjust
indifferently, are more than double those which come from just sources
only; and the sums which are expended neither honourably nor
disgracefully, are only half as great as those which are expended
honourably and on honourable purposes. Thus, if the one acquires double
and spends half, the other who is in the opposite case and is a good man
cannot possibly be wealthier than he. The first--I am speaking of the
saver and not of the spender--is not always bad; he may indeed in some
cases be utterly bad, but, as I was saying, a good man he never is. For he
who receives money unjustly as well as justly, and spends neither nor
unjustly, will be a rich man if he be also thrifty. On the other hand, the
utterly bad is in general profligate, and therefore very poor; while he
who spends on noble objects, and acquires wealth by just means only, can
hardly be remarkable for riches, any more than he can be very poor. Our
statement, then, is true, that the very rich are not good, and, if they
are not good, they are not happy. But the intention of our laws was, that
the citizens should be as happy as may be, and as friendly as possible to
one another. And men who are always at law with one another, and amongst
whom there are many wrongs done, can never be friends to one another, but
only those among whom crimes and lawsuits are few and slight. Therefore we
say that gold and silver ought not to be allowed in the city, nor much of
the vulgar sort of trade which is carried on by lending money, or rearing
the meaner kinds of live stock; but only the produce of agriculture, and
only so much of this as will not compel us in pursuing it to neglect that
for the sake of which riches exist--I mean, soul and body, which without
gymnastics, and without education, will never be worth anything; and
therefore, as we have said not once but many times, the care of riches
should have the last place in our thoughts. For there are in all three
things about which every man has an interest; and the interest about
money, when rightly regarded, is the third and lowest of them: midway
comes the interest of the body; and, first of all, that of the soul; and
the state which we are describing will have been rightly constituted if it
ordains honours according to this scale. But if, in any of the laws which
have been ordained, health has been preferred to temperance, or wealth to
health and temperate habits, that law must clearly be wrong. Wherefore,
also, the legislator ought often to impress upon himself the question--
'What do I want?' and 'Do I attain my aim, or do I miss the mark?' In this
way, and in this way only, he may acquit himself and free others from the
work of legislation.

Let the allottee then hold his lot upon the conditions which we have
mentioned.

It would be well that every man should come to the colony having all
things equal; but seeing that this is not possible, and one man will have
greater possessions than another, for many reasons and in particular in
order to preserve equality in special crises of the state, qualifications
of property must be unequal, in order that offices and contributions and
distributions may be proportioned to the value of each person's wealth,
and not solely to the virtue of his ancestors or himself, nor yet to the
strength and beauty of his person, but also to the measure of his wealth
or poverty; and so by a law of inequality, which will be in proportion to
his wealth, he will receive honours and offices as equally as possible,
and there will be no quarrels and disputes. To which end there should be
four different standards appointed according to the amount of property:
there should be a first and a second and a third and a fourth class, in
which the citizens will be placed, and they will be called by these or
similar names: they may continue in the same rank, or pass into another in
any individual case, on becoming richer from being poorer, or poorer from
being richer. The form of law which I should propose as the natural sequel
would be as follows:--In a state which is desirous of being saved from the
greatest of all plagues--not faction, but rather distraction;--there
should exist among the citizens neither extreme poverty, nor, again,
excess of wealth, for both are productive of both these evils. Now the
legislator should determine what is to be the limit of poverty or wealth.
Let the limit of poverty be the value of the lot; this ought to be
preserved, and no ruler, nor any one else who aspires after a reputation
for virtue, will allow the lot to be impaired in any case. This the
legislator gives as a measure, and he will permit a man to acquire double
or triple, or as much as four times the amount of this (compare Arist.
Pol.). But if a person have yet greater riches, whether he has found them,
or they have been given to him, or he has made them in business, or has
acquired by any stroke of fortune that which is in excess of the measure,
if he give back the surplus to the state, and to the Gods who are the
patrons of the state, he shall suffer no penalty or loss of reputation;
but if he disobeys this our law, any one who likes may inform against him
and receive half the value of the excess, and the delinquent shall pay a
sum equal to the excess out of his own property, and the other half of the
excess shall belong to the Gods. And let every possession of every man,
with the exception of the lot, be publicly registered before the
magistrates whom the law appoints, so that all suits about money may be
easy and quite simple.

The next thing to be noted is, that the city should be placed as nearly as
possible in the centre of the country; we should choose a place which
possesses what is suitable for a city, and this may easily be imagined and
described. Then we will divide the city into twelve portions, first
founding temples to Hestia, to Zeus and to Athene, in a spot which we will
call the Acropolis, and surround with a circular wall, making the division
of the entire city and country radiate from this point. The twelve
portions shall be equalized by the provision that those which are of good
land shall be smaller, while those of inferior quality shall be larger.
The number of the lots shall be 5040, and each of them shall be divided
into two, and every allotment shall be composed of two such sections; one
of land near the city, the other of land which is at a distance (compare
Arist. Pol.). This arrangement shall be carried out in the following
manner: The section which is near the city shall be added to that which is
on the borders, and form one lot, and the portion which is next nearest
shall be added to the portion which is next farthest; and so of the rest.
Moreover, in the two sections of the lots the same principle of
equalization of the soil ought to be maintained; the badness and goodness
shall be compensated by more and less. And the legislator shall divide the
citizens into twelve parts, and arrange the rest of their property, as far
as possible, so as to form twelve equal parts; and there shall be a
registration of all. After this they shall assign twelve lots to twelve
Gods, and call them by their names, and dedicate to each God their several
portions, and call the tribes after them. And they shall distribute the
twelve divisions of the city in the same way in which they divided the
country; and every man shall have two habitations, one in the centre of
the country, and the other at the extremity. Enough of the manner of
settlement.

Now we ought by all means to consider that there can never be such a happy
concurrence of circumstances as we have described; neither can all things
coincide as they are wanted. Men who will not take offence at such a mode
of living together, and will endure all their life long to have their
property fixed at a moderate limit, and to beget children in accordance
with our ordinances, and will allow themselves to be deprived of gold and
other things which the legislator, as is evident from these enactments,
will certainly forbid them; and will endure, further, the situation of the
land with the city in the middle and dwellings round about;--all this is
as if the legislator were telling his dreams, or making a city and
citizens of wax. There is truth in these objections, and therefore every
one should take to heart what I am going to say. Once more, then, the
legislator shall appear and address us:--'O my friends,' he will say to
us, 'do not suppose me ignorant that there is a certain degree of truth in
your words; but I am of opinion that, in matters which are not present but
future, he who exhibits a pattern of that at which he aims, should in
nothing fall short of the fairest and truest; and that if he finds any
part of this work impossible of execution he should avoid and not execute
it, but he should contrive to carry out that which is nearest and most
akin to it; you must allow the legislator to perfect his design, and when
it is perfected, you should join with him in considering what part of his
legislation is expedient and what will arouse opposition; for surely the
artist who is to be deemed worthy of any regard at all, ought always to
make his work self-consistent.'

Having determined that there is to be a distribution into twelve parts,
let us now see in what way this may be accomplished. There is no
difficulty in perceiving that the twelve parts admit of the greatest
number of divisions of that which they include, or in seeing the other
numbers which are consequent upon them, and are produced out of them up to
5040; wherefore the law ought to order phratries and demes and villages,
and also military ranks and movements, as well as coins and measures, dry
and liquid, and weights, so as to be commensurable and agreeable to one
another. Nor should we fear the appearance of minuteness, if the law
commands that all the vessels which a man possesses should have a common
measure, when we consider generally that the divisions and variations of
numbers have a use in respect of all the variations of which they are
susceptible, both in themselves and as measures of height and depth, and
in all sounds, and in motions, as well those which proceed in a straight
direction, upwards or downwards, as in those which go round and round. The
legislator is to consider all these things and to bid the citizens, as far
as possible, not to lose sight of numerical order; for no single
instrument of youthful education has such mighty power, both as regards
domestic economy and politics, and in the arts, as the study of
arithmetic. Above all, arithmetic stirs up him who is by nature sleepy and
dull, and makes him quick to learn, retentive, shrewd, and aided by art
divine he makes progress quite beyond his natural powers (compare
Republic). All such things, if only the legislator, by other laws and
institutions, can banish meanness and covetousness from the souls of men,
so that they can use them properly and to their own good, will be
excellent and suitable instruments of education. But if he cannot, he will
unintentionally create in them, instead of wisdom, the habit of craft,
which evil tendency may be observed in the Egyptians and Phoenicians, and
many other races, through the general vulgarity of their pursuits and
acquisitions, whether some unworthy legislator of theirs has been the
cause, or some impediment of chance or nature. For we must not fail to
observe, O Megillus and Cleinias, that there is a difference in places,
and that some beget better men and others worse; and we must legislate
accordingly. Some places are subject to strange and fatal influences by
reason of diverse winds and violent heats, some by reason of waters; or,
again, from the character of the food given by the earth, which not only
affects the bodies of men for good or evil, but produces similar results
in their souls. And in all such qualities those spots excel in which there
is a divine inspiration, and in which the demigods have their appointed
lots, and are propitious, not adverse, to the settlers in them. To all
these matters the legislator, if he have any sense in him, will attend as
far as man can, and frame his laws accordingly. And this is what you,
Cleinias, must do, and to matters of this kind you must turn your mind
since you are going to colonize a new country.

CLEINIAS: Your words, Athenian Stranger, are excellent, and I will do as
you say.

BOOK VI.

ATHENIAN: And now having made an end of the preliminaries we will proceed
to the appointment of magistracies.

CLEINIAS: Very good.

ATHENIAN: In the ordering of a state there are two parts: first, the
number of the magistracies, and the mode of establishing them; and,
secondly, when they have been established, laws again will have to be
provided for each of them, suitable in nature and number. But before
electing the magistrates let us stop a little and say a word in season
about the election of them.

CLEINIAS: What have you got to say?

ATHENIAN: This is what I have to say;--every one can see, that although
the work of legislation is a most important matter, yet if a well-ordered
city superadd to good laws unsuitable offices, not only will there be no
use in having the good laws,--not only will they be ridiculous and
useless, but the greatest political injury and evil will accrue from them.

CLEINIAS: Of course.

ATHENIAN: Then now, my friend, let us observe what will happen in the
constitution of out intended state. In the first place, you will
acknowledge that those who are duly appointed to magisterial power, and
their families, should severally have given satisfactory proof of what
they are, from youth upward until the time of election; in the next place,
those who are to elect should have been trained in habits of law, and be
well educated, that they may have a right judgment, and may be able to
select or reject men whom they approve or disapprove, as they are worthy
of either. But how can we imagine that those who are brought together for
the first time, and are strangers to one another, and also uneducated,
will avoid making mistakes in the choice of magistrates?

CLEINIAS: Impossible.

ATHENIAN: The matter is serious, and excuses will not serve the turn. I
will tell you, then, what you and I will have to do, since you, as you
tell me, with nine others, have offered to settle the new state on behalf
of the people of Crete, and I am to help you by the invention of the
present romance. I certainly should not like to leave the tale wandering
all over the world without a head;--a headless monster is such a hideous
thing.

CLEINIAS: Excellent, Stranger.

ATHENIAN: Yes; and I will be as good as my word.

CLEINIAS: Let us by all means do as you propose.

ATHENIAN: That we will, by the grace of God, if old age will only permit
us.

CLEINIAS: But God will be gracious.

ATHENIAN: Yes; and under his guidance let us consider a further point.

CLEINIAS: What is it?

ATHENIAN: Let us remember what a courageously mad and daring creation this
our city is.

CLEINIAS: What had you in your mind when you said that?

ATHENIAN: I had in my mind the free and easy manner in which we are
ordaining that the inexperienced colonists shall receive our laws. Now a
man need not be very wise, Cleinias, in order to see that no one can
easily receive laws at their first imposition. But if we could anyhow wait
until those who have been imbued with them from childhood, and have been
nurtured in them, and become habituated to them, take their part in the
public elections of the state; I say, if this could be accomplished, and
rightly accomplished by any way or contrivance--then, I think that there
would be very little danger, at the end of the time, of a state thus
trained not being permanent.

CLEINIAS: A reasonable supposition.

ATHENIAN: Then let us consider if we can find any way out of the
difficulty; for I maintain, Cleinias, that the Cnosians, above all the
other Cretans, should not be satisfied with barely discharging their duty
to the colony, but they ought to take the utmost pains to establish the
offices which are first created by them in the best and surest manner.
Above all, this applies to the selection of the guardians of the law, who
must be chosen first of all, and with the greatest care; the others are of
less importance.

CLEINIAS: What method can we devise of electing them?

ATHENIAN: This will be the method:--Sons of the Cretans, I shall say to
them, inasmuch as the Cnosians have precedence over the other states, they
should, in common with those who join this settlement, choose a body of
thirty-seven in all, nineteen of them being taken from the settlers, and
the remainder from the citizens of Cnosus. Of these latter the Cnosians
shall make a present to your colony, and you yourself shall be one of the
eighteen, and shall become a citizen of the new state; and if you and they
cannot be persuaded to go, the Cnosians may fairly use a little violence
in order to make you.

CLEINIAS: But why, Stranger, do not you and Megillus take a part in our
new city?

ATHENIAN: O, Cleinias, Athens is proud, and Sparta too; and they are both
a long way off. But you and likewise the other colonists are conveniently
situated as you describe. I have been speaking of the way in which the new
citizens may be best managed under present circumstances; but in after-
ages, if the city continues to exist, let the election be on this wise.
All who are horse or foot soldiers, or have seen military service at the
proper ages when they were severally fitted for it (compare Arist. Pol.),
shall share in the election of magistrates; and the election shall be held
in whatever temple the state deems most venerable, and every one shall
carry his vote to the altar of the God, writing down on a tablet the name
of the person for whom he votes, and his father's name, and his tribe, and
ward; and at the side he shall write his own name in like manner. Any one
who pleases may take away any tablet which he does not think properly
filled up, and exhibit it in the Agora for a period of not less than
thirty days. The tablets which are judged to be first, to the number of
300, shall be shown by the magistrates to the whole city, and the citizens
shall in like manner select from these the candidates whom they prefer;
and this second selection, to the number of 100, shall be again exhibited
to the citizens; in the third, let any one who pleases select whom he
pleases out of the 100, walking through the parts of victims, and let them
choose for magistrates and proclaim the seven-and-thirty who have the
greatest number of votes. But who, Cleinias and Megillus, will order for
us in the colony all this matter of the magistrates, and the scrutinies of
them? If we reflect, we shall see that cities which are in process of
construction like ours must have some such persons, who cannot possibly be
elected before there are any magistrates; and yet they must be elected in
some way, and they are not to be inferior men, but the best possible. For
as the proverb says, 'a good beginning is half the business'; and 'to have
begun well' is praised by all, and in my opinion is a great deal more than
half the business, and has never been praised by any one enough.

CLEINIAS: That is very true.

ATHENIAN: Then let us recognize the difficulty, and make clear to our own
minds how the beginning is to be accomplished. There is only one proposal
which I have to offer, and that is one which, under our circumstances, is
both necessary and expedient.

CLEINIAS: What is it?

ATHENIAN: I maintain that this colony of ours has a father and mother, who
are no other than the colonizing state. Well I know that many colonies
have been, and will be, at enmity with their parents. But in early days
the child, as in a family, loves and is beloved; even if there come a time
later when the tie is broken, still, while he is in want of education, he
naturally loves his parents and is beloved by them, and flies to his
relatives for protection, and finds in them his only natural allies in
time of need; and this parental feeling already exists in the Cnosians, as
is shown by their care of the new city; and there is a similar feeling on
the part of the young city towards Cnosus. And I repeat what I was saying
--for there is no harm in repeating a good thing--that the Cnosians should
take a common interest in all these matters, and choose, as far as they
can, the eldest and best of the colonists, to the number of not less than
a hundred; and let there be another hundred of the Cnosians themselves.
These, I say, on their arrival, should have a joint care that the
magistrates should be appointed according to law, and that when they are
appointed they should undergo a scrutiny. When this has been effected, the
Cnosians shall return home, and the new city do the best she can for her
own preservation and happiness. I would have the seven-and-thirty now, and
in all future time, chosen to fulfil the following duties:--Let them, in
the first place, be the guardians of the law; and, secondly, of the
registers in which each one registers before the magistrate the amount of
his property, excepting four minae which are allowed to citizens of the
first class, three allowed to the second, two to the third, and a single
mina to the fourth. And if any one, despising the laws for the sake of
gain, be found to possess anything more which has not been registered, let
all that he has in excess be confiscated, and let him be liable to a suit
which shall be the reverse of honourable or fortunate. And let any one who
will, indict him on the charge of loving base gains, and proceed against
him before the guardians of the law. And if he be cast, let him lose his
share of the public possessions, and when there is any public
distribution, let him have nothing but his original lot; and let him be
written down a condemned man as long as he lives, in some place in which
any one who pleases can read about his offences. The guardian of the law
shall not hold office longer than twenty years, and shall not be less than
fifty years of age when he is elected; or if he is elected when he is
sixty years of age, he shall hold office for ten years only; and upon the
same principle, he must not imagine that he will be permitted to hold such
an important office as that of guardian of the laws after he is seventy
years of age, if he live so long.

These are the three first ordinances about the guardians of the law; as
the work of legislation progresses, each law in turn will assign to them
their further duties. And now we may proceed in order to speak of the
election of other officers; for generals have to be elected, and these
again must have their ministers, commanders, and colonels of horse, and
commanders of brigades of foot, who would be more rightly called by their
popular name of brigadiers. The guardians of the law shall propose as
generals men who are natives of the city, and a selection from the
candidates proposed shall be made by those who are or have been of the age
for military service. And if one who is not proposed is thought by
somebody to be better than one who is, let him name whom he prefers in the
place of whom, and make oath that he is better, and propose him; and
whichever of them is approved by vote shall be admitted to the final
selection; and the three who have the greatest number of votes shall be
appointed generals, and superintendents of military affairs, after
previously undergoing a scrutiny, like the guardians of the law. And let
the generals thus elected propose twelve brigadiers, one for each tribe;
and there shall be a right of counter-proposal as in the case of the
generals, and the voting and decision shall take place in the same way.
Until the prytanes and council are elected, the guardians of the law shall
convene the assembly in some holy spot which is suitable to the purpose,
placing the hoplites by themselves, and the cavalry by themselves, and in
a third division all the rest of the army. All are to vote for the
generals (and for the colonels of horse), but the brigadiers are to be
voted for only by those who carry shields (i.e. the hoplites). Let the
body of cavalry choose phylarchs for the generals; but captains of light
troops, or archers, or any other division of the army, shall be appointed
by the generals for themselves. There only remains the appointment of
officers of cavalry: these shall be proposed by the same persons who
proposed the generals, and the election and the counter-proposal of other
candidates shall be arranged in the same way as in the case of the
generals, and let the cavalry vote and the infantry look on at the
election; the two who have the greatest number of votes shall be the
leaders of all the horse. Disputes about the voting may be raised once or
twice; but if the dispute be raised a third time, the officers who preside
at the several elections shall decide.

The council shall consist of 30 x 12 members--360 will be a convenient
number for sub-division. If we divide the whole number into four parts of
ninety each, we get ninety counsellors for each class. First, all the
citizens shall select candidates from the first class; they shall be
compelled to vote, and, if they do not, shall be duly fined. When the
candidates have been selected, some one shall mark them down; this shall
be the business of the first day. And on the following day, candidates
shall be selected from the second class in the same manner and under the
same conditions as on the previous day; and on the third day a selection
shall be made from the third class, at which every one may, if he likes
vote, and the three first classes shall be compelled to vote; but the
fourth and lowest class shall be under no compulsion, and any member of
this class who does not vote shall not be punished. On the fourth day
candidates shall be selected from the fourth and smallest class; they
shall be selected by all, but he who is of the fourth class shall suffer
no penalty, nor he who is of the third, if he be not willing to vote; but
he who is of the first or second class, if he does not vote shall be
punished;--he who is of the second class shall pay a fine of triple the
amount which was exacted at first, and he who is of the first class
quadruple. On the fifth day the rulers shall bring out the names noted
down, for all the citizens to see, and every man shall choose out of them,
under pain, if he do not, of suffering the first penalty; and when they
have chosen 180 out of each of the classes, they shall choose one-half of
them by lot, who shall undergo a scrutiny:--These are to form the council
for the year.

The mode of election which has been described is in a mean between
monarchy and democracy, and such a mean the state ought always to observe;
for servants and masters never can be friends, nor good and bad, merely
because they are declared to have equal privileges. For to unequals equals
become unequal, if they are not harmonised by measure; and both by reason
of equality, and by reason of inequality, cities are filled with
seditions. The old saying, that 'equality makes friendship,' is happy and
also true; but there is obscurity and confusion as to what sort of
equality is meant. For there are two equalities which are called by the
same name, but are in reality in many ways almost the opposite of one
another; one of them may be introduced without difficulty, by any state or
any legislator in the distribution of honours: this is the rule of
measure, weight, and number, which regulates and apportions them. But
there is another equality, of a better and higher kind, which is not so
easily recognized. This is the judgment of Zeus; among men it avails but
little; that little, however, is the source of the greatest good to
individuals and states. For it gives to the greater more, and to the
inferior less and in proportion to the nature of each; and, above all,
greater honour always to the greater virtue, and to the less less; and to
either in proportion to their respective measure of virtue and education.
And this is justice, and is ever the true principle of states, at which we
ought to aim, and according to this rule order the new city which is now
being founded, and any other city which may be hereafter founded. To this
the legislator should look,--not to the interests of tyrants one or more,
or to the power of the people, but to justice always; which, as I was
saying, is the distribution of natural equality among unequals in each
case. But there are times at which every state is compelled to use the
words, 'just,' 'equal,' in a secondary sense, in the hope of escaping in
some degree from factions. For equity and indulgence are infractions of
the perfect and strict rule of justice. And this is the reason why we are
obliged to use the equality of the lot, in order to avoid the discontent
of the people; and so we invoke God and fortune in our prayers, and beg
that they themselves will direct the lot with a view to supreme justice.
And therefore, although we are compelled to use both equalities, we should
use that into which the element of chance enters as seldom as possible.

Thus, O my friends, and for the reasons given, should a state act which
would endure and be saved. But as a ship sailing on the sea has to be
watched night and day, in like manner a city also is sailing on a sea of
politics, and is liable to all sorts of insidious assaults; and therefore
from morning to night, and from night to morning, rulers must join hands
with rulers, and watchers with watchers, receiving and giving up their
trust in a perpetual succession. Now a multitude can never fulfil a duty
of this sort with anything like energy. Moreover, the greater number of
the senators will have to be left during the greater part of the year to
order their concerns at their own homes. They will therefore have to be
arranged in twelve portions, answering to the twelve months, and furnish
guardians of the state, each portion for a single month. Their business is
to be at hand and receive any foreigner or citizen who comes to them,
whether to give information, or to put one of those questions, to which,
when asked by other cities, a city should give an answer, and to which, if
she ask them herself, she should receive an answer; or again, when there
is a likelihood of internal commotions, which are always liable to happen
in some form or other, they will, if they can, prevent their occurring; or
if they have already occurred, will lose no time in making them known to
the city, and healing the evil. Wherefore, also, this which is the
presiding body of the state ought always to have the control of their
assemblies, and of the dissolutions of them, ordinary as well as
extraordinary. All this is to be ordered by the twelfth part of the
council, which is always to keep watch together with the other officers of
the state during one portion of the year, and to rest during the remaining
eleven portions.

Thus will the city be fairly ordered. And now, who is to have the
superintendence of the country, and what shall be the arrangement? Seeing
that the whole city and the entire country have been both of them divided
into twelve portions, ought there not to be appointed superintendents of
the streets of the city, and of the houses, and buildings, and harbours,
and the agora, and fountains, and sacred domains, and temples, and the
like?

CLEINIAS: To be sure there ought.

ATHENIAN: Let us assume, then, that there ought to be servants of the
temples, and priests and priestesses. There must also be superintendents
of roads and buildings, who will have a care of men, that they may do no
harm, and also of beasts, both within the enclosure and in the suburbs.
Three kinds of officers will thus have to be appointed, in order that the
city may be suitably provided according to her needs. Those who have the
care of the city shall be called wardens of the city; and those who have
the care of the agora shall be called wardens of the agora; and those who
have the care of the temples shall be called priests. Those who hold
hereditary offices as priests or priestesses, shall not be disturbed; but
if there be few or none such, as is probable at the foundation of a new
city, priests and priestesses shall be appointed to be servants of the
Gods who have no servants. Some of our officers shall be elected, and
others appointed by lot, those who are of the people and those who are not
of the people mingling in a friendly manner in every place and city, that
the state may be as far as possible of one mind. The officers of the
temples shall be appointed by lot; in this way their election will be
committed to God, that He may do what is agreeable to Him. And he who
obtains a lot shall undergo a scrutiny, first, as to whether he is sound
of body and of legitimate birth; and in the second place, in order to show
that he is of a perfectly pure family, not stained with homicide or any
similar impiety in his own person, and also that his father and mother
have led a similar unstained life. Now the laws about all divine things
should be brought from Delphi, and interpreters appointed, under whose
direction they should be used. The tenure of the priesthood should always
be for a year and no longer; and he who will duly execute the sacred
office, according to the laws of religion, must be not less than sixty
years of age--the laws shall be the same about priestesses. As for the
interpreters, they shall be appointed thus:--Let the twelve tribes be
distributed into groups of four, and let each group select four, one out
of each tribe within the group, three times; and let the three who have
the greatest number of votes (out of the twelve appointed by each group),
after undergoing a scrutiny, nine in all, be sent to Delphi, in order that
the God may return one out of each triad; their age shall be the same as
that of the priests, and the scrutiny of them shall be conducted in the
same manner; let them be interpreters for life, and when any one dies let
the four tribes select another from the tribe of the deceased. Moreover,
besides priests and interpreters, there must be treasurers, who will take
charge of the property of the several temples, and of the sacred domains,
and shall have authority over the produce and the letting of them; and
three of them shall be chosen from the highest classes for the greater
temples, and two for the lesser, and one for the least of all; the manner
of their election and the scrutiny of them shall be the same as that of
the generals. This shall be the order of the temples.

Let everything have a guard as far as possible. Let the defence of the
city be commited to the generals, and taxiarchs, and hipparchs, and
phylarchs, and prytanes, and the wardens of the city, and of the agora,
when the election of them has been completed. The defence of the country
shall be provided for as follows:--The entire land has been already
distributed into twelve as nearly as possible equal parts, and let the
tribe allotted to a division provide annually for it five wardens of the
country and commanders of the watch; and let each body of five have the
power of selecting twelve others out of the youth of their own tribe,--
these shall be not less than twenty-five years of age, and not more than
thirty. And let there be allotted to them severally every month the
various districts, in order that they may all acquire knowledge and
experience of the whole country. The term of service for commanders and
for watchers shall continue during two years. After having had their
stations allotted to them, they will go from place to place in regular
order, making their round from left to right as their commanders direct
them; (when I speak of going to the right, I mean that they are to go to
the east). And at the commencement of the second year, in order that as
many as possible of the guards may not only get a knowledge of the country
at any one season of the year, but may also have experience of the manner
in which different places are affected at different seasons of the year,
their then commanders shall lead them again towards the left, from place
to place in succession, until they have completed the second year. In the
third year other wardens of the country shall be chosen and commanders of
the watch, five for each division, who are to be the superintendents of
the bands of twelve. While on service at each station, their attention
shall be directed to the following points:--In the first place, they shall
see that the country is well protected against enemies; they shall trench
and dig wherever this is required, and, as far as they can, they shall by
fortifications keep off the evil-disposed, in order to prevent them from
doing any harm to the country or the property; they shall use the beasts
of burden and the labourers whom they find on the spot: these will be
their instruments whom they will superintend, taking them, as far as
possible, at the times when they are not engaged in their regular
business. They shall make every part of the country inaccessible to
enemies, and as accessible as possible to friends (compare Arist. Pol.);
there shall be ways for man and beasts of burden and for cattle, and they
shall take care to have them always as smooth as they can; and shall
provide against the rains doing harm instead of good to the land, when
they come down from the mountains into the hollow dells; and shall keep in
the overflow by the help of works and ditches, in order that the valleys,
receiving and drinking up the rain from heaven, and providing fountains
and streams in the fields and regions which lie underneath, may furnish
even to the dry places plenty of good water. The fountains of water,
whether of rivers or of springs, shall be ornamented with plantations and
buildings for beauty; and let them bring together the streams in
subterraneous channels, and make all things plenteous; and if there be a
sacred grove or dedicated precinct in the neighbourhood, they shall
conduct the water to the actual temples of the Gods, and so beautify them
at all seasons of the year. Everywhere in such places the youth shall make
gymnasia for themselves, and warm baths for the aged, placing by them
abundance of dry wood, for the benefit of those labouring under disease--
there the weary frame of the rustic, worn with toil, will receive a kindly
welcome, far better than he would at the hands of a not over-wise doctor.

The building of these and the like works will be useful and ornamental;
they will provide a pleasing amusement, but they will be a serious
employment too; for the sixty wardens will have to guard their several
divisions, not only with a view to enemies, but also with an eye to
professing friends. When a quarrel arises among neighbours or citizens,
and any one whether slave or freeman wrongs another, let the five wardens
decide small matters on their own authority; but where the charge against
another relates to greater matters, the seventeen composed of the fives
and twelves, shall determine any charges which one man brings against
another, not involving more than three minae. Every judge and magistrate
shall be liable to give an account of his conduct in office, except those
who, like kings, have the final decision. Moreover, as regards the
aforesaid wardens of the country, if they do any wrong to those of whom
they have the care, whether by imposing upon them unequal tasks, or by
taking the produce of the soil or implements of husbandry without their
consent; also if they receive anything in the way of a bribe, or decide
suits unjustly, or if they yield to the influences of flattery, let them
be publicly dishonoured; and in regard to any other wrong which they do to
the inhabitants of the country, if the question be of a mina, let them
submit to the decision of the villagers in the neighbourhood; but in suits
of greater amount, or in case of lesser, if they refuse to submit,
trusting that their monthly removal into another part of the country will
enable them to escape--in such cases the injured party may bring his suit
in the common court, and if he obtain a verdict he may exact from the
defendant, who refused to submit, a double penalty.

The wardens and the overseers of the country, while on their two years'
service, shall have common meals at their several stations, and shall all
live together; and he who is absent from the common meal, or sleeps out,
if only for one day or night, unless by order of his commanders, or by
reason of absolute necessity, if the five denounce him and inscribe his
name in the agora as not having kept his guard, let him be deemed to have
betrayed the city, as far as lay in his power, and let him be disgraced
and beaten with impunity by any one who meets him and is willing to punish
him. If any of the commanders is guilty of such an irregularity, the whole
company of sixty shall see to it, and he who is cognisant of the offence,
and does not bring the offender to trial, shall be amenable to the same
laws as the younger offender himself, and shall pay a heavier fine, and be
incapable of ever commanding the young. The guardians of the law are to be
careful inspectors of these matters, and shall either prevent or punish
offenders. Every man should remember the universal rule, that he who is
not a good servant will not be a good master; a man should pride himself
more upon serving well than upon commanding well: first upon serving the
laws, which is also the service of the Gods; in the second place, upon
having served ancient and honourable men in the days of his youth.
Furthermore, during the two years in which any one is a warden of the
country, his daily food ought to be of a simple and humble kind. When the
twelve have been chosen, let them and the five meet together, and
determine that they will be their own servants, and, like servants, will
not have other slaves and servants for their own use, neither will they
use those of the villagers and husbandmen for their private advantage, but
for the public service only; and in general they should make up their
minds to live independently by themselves, servants of each other and of
themselves. Further, at all seasons of the year, summer and winter alike,
let them be under arms and survey minutely the whole country; thus they
will at once keep guard, and at the same time acquire a perfect knowledge
of every locality. There can be no more important kind of information than
the exact knowledge of a man's own country; and for this as well as for
more general reasons of pleasure and advantage, hunting with dogs and
other kinds of sports should be pursued by the young. The service to whom
this is committed may be called the secret police or wardens of the
country; the name does not much signify, but every one who has the safety
of the state at heart will use his utmost diligence in this service.

After the wardens of the country, we have to speak of the election of
wardens of the agora and of the city. The wardens of the country were
sixty in number, and the wardens of the city will be three, and will
divide the twelve parts of the city into three; like the former, they
shall have care of the ways, and of the different high roads which lead
out of the country into the city, and of the buildings, that they may be
all made according to law;--also of the waters, which the guardians of
the supply preserve and convey to them, care being taken that they may
reach the fountains pure and abundant, and be both an ornament and a
benefit to the city. These also should be men of influence, and at leisure
to take care of the public interest. Let every man propose as warden of
the city any one whom he likes out of the highest class, and when the vote
has been given on them, and the number is reduced to the six who have the
greatest number of votes, let the electing officers choose by lot three
out of the six, and when they have undergone a scrutiny let them hold
office according to the laws laid down for them. Next, let the wardens of
the agora be elected in like manner, out of the first and second class,
five in number: ten are to be first elected, and out of the ten five are
to be chosen by lot, as in the election of the wardens of the city:--these
when they have undergone a scrutiny are to be declared magistrates. Every
one shall vote for every one, and he who will not vote, if he be informed
against before the magistrates, shall be fined fifty drachmae, and shall
also be deemed a bad citizen. Let any one who likes go to the assembly and
to the general council; it shall be compulsory to go on citizens of the
first and second class, and they shall pay a fine of ten drachmae if they
be found not answering to their names at the assembly. But the third and
fourth class shall be under no compulsion, and shall be let off without a
fine, unless the magistrates have commanded all to be present, in
consequence of some urgent necessity. The wardens of the agora shall
observe the order appointed by law for the agora, and shall have the
charge of the temples and fountains which are in the agora; and they shall
see that no one injures anything, and punish him who does, with stripes
and bonds, if he be a slave or stranger; but if he be a citizen who
misbehaves in this way, they shall have the power themselves of inflicting
a fine upon him to the amount of a hundred drachmae, or with the consent
of the wardens of the city up to double that amount. And let the wardens
of the city have a similar power of imposing punishments and fines in
their own department; and let them impose fines by their own department;
and let them impose fines by their own authority, up to a mina, or up to
two minae with the consent of the wardens of the agora.

In the next place, it will be proper to appoint directors of music and
gymnastic, two kinds of each--of the one kind the business will be
education, of the other, the superintendence of contests. In speaking of
education, the law means to speak of those who have the care of order and
instruction in gymnasia and schools, and of the going to school, and of
school buildings for boys and girls; and in speaking of contests, the law
refers to the judges of gymnastics and of music; these again are divided
into two classes, the one having to do with music, the other with
gymnastics; and the same who judge of the gymnastic contests of men, shall
judge of horses; but in music there shall be one set of judges of solo
singing, and of imitation--I mean of rhapsodists, players on the harp, the
flute and the like, and another who shall judge of choral song. First of
all, we must choose directors for the choruses of boys, and men, and
maidens, whom they shall follow in the amusement of the dance, and for our
other musical arrangements;--one director will be enough for the
choruses, and he should be not less than forty years of age. One director
will also be enough to introduce the solo singers, and to give judgment on
the competitors, and he ought not to be less than thirty years of age. The
director and manager of the choruses shall be elected after the following
manner:--Let any persons who commonly take an interest in such matters go
to the meeting, and be fined if they do not go (the guardians of the law
shall judge of their fault), but those who have no interest shall not be
compelled. The elector shall propose as director some one who understands
music, and he in the scrutiny may be challenged on the one part by those
who say he has no skill, and defended on the other hand by those who say
that he has. Ten are to be elected by vote, and he of the ten who is
chosen by lot shall undergo a scrutiny, and lead the choruses for a year
according to law. And in like manner the competitor who wins the lot shall
be leader of the solo and concert music for that year; and he who is thus
elected shall deliver the award to the judges. In the next place, we have
to choose judges in the contests of horses and of men; these shall be
selected from the third and also from the second class of citizens, and
three first classes shall be compelled to go to the election, but the
lowest may stay away with impunity; and let there be three elected by lot
out of the twenty who have been chosen previously, and they must also have
the vote and approval of the examiners. But if any one is rejected in the
scrutiny at any ballot or decision, others shall be chosen in the same
manner, and undergo a similar scrutiny.

There remains the minister of the education of youth, male and female; he
too will rule according to law; one such minister will be sufficient, and
he must be fifty years old, and have children lawfully begotten, both boys
and girls by preference, at any rate, one or the other. He who is elected,
and he who is the elector, should consider that of all the great offices
of state this is the greatest; for the first shoot of any plant, if it
makes a good start towards the attainment of its natural excellence, has
the greatest effect on its maturity; and this is not only true of plants,
but of animals wild and tame, and also of men. Man, as we say, is a tame
or civilized animal; nevertheless, he requires proper instruction and a
fortunate nature, and then of all animals he becomes the most divine and
most civilized (Arist. Pol.); but if he be insufficiently or ill educated
he is the most savage of earthly creatures. Wherefore the legislator ought
not to allow the education of children to become a secondary or accidental
matter. In the first place, he who would be rightly provident about them,
should begin by taking care that he is elected, who of all the citizens is
in every way best; him the legislator shall do his utmost to appoint
guardian and superintendent. To this end all the magistrates, with the
exception of the council and prytanes, shall go to the temple of Apollo,
and elect by ballot him of the guardians of the law whom they severally
think will be the best superintendent of education. And he who has the
greatest number of votes, after he has undergone a scrutiny at the hands
of all the magistrates who have been his electors, with the exception of
the guardians of the law,--shall hold office for five years; and in the
sixth year let another be chosen in like manner to fill his office.

If any one dies while he is holding a public office, and more than thirty
days before his term of office expires, let those whose business it is
elect another to the office in the same manner as before. And if any one
who is entrusted with orphans dies, let the relations both on the father's
and mother's side, who are residing at home, including cousins, appoint
another guardian within ten days, or be fined a drachma a day for neglect
to do so.

A city which has no regular courts of law ceases to be a city; and again,
if a judge is silent and says no more in preliminary proceedings than the
litigants, as is the case in arbitrations, he will never be able to decide
justly; wherefore a multitude of judges will not easily judge well, nor a
few if they are bad. The point in dispute between the parties should be
made clear; and time, and deliberation, and repeated examination, greatly
tend to clear up doubts. For this reason, he who goes to law with another,
should go first of all to his neighbours and friends who know best the
questions at issue. And if he be unable to obtain from them a satisfactory
decision, let him have recourse to another court; and if the two courts
cannot settle the matter, let a third put an end to the suit.

Now the establishment of courts of justice may be regarded as a choice of
magistrates, for every magistrate must also be a judge of some things; and
the judge, though he be not a magistrate, yet in certain respects is a
very important magistrate on the day on which he is determining a suit.
Regarding then the judges also as magistrates, let us say who are fit to
be judges, and of what they are to be judges, and how many of them are to
judge in each suit. Let that be the supreme tribunal which the litigants
appoint in common for themselves, choosing certain persons by agreement.
And let there be two other tribunals: one for private causes, when a
citizen accuses another of wronging him and wishes to get a decision; the
other for public causes, in which some citizen is of opinion that the
public has been wronged by an individual, and is willing to vindicate the
common interests. And we must not forget to mention how the judges are to
be qualified, and who they are to be. In the first place, let there be a
tribunal open to all private persons who are trying causes one against
another for the third time, and let this be composed as follows:--All the
officers of state, as well annual as those holding office for a longer
period, when the new year is about to commence, in the month following
after the summer solstice, on the last day but one of the year, shall meet
in some temple, and calling God to witness, shall dedicate one judge from
every magistracy to be their first-fruits, choosing in each office him who
seems to them to be the best, and whom they deem likely to decide the
causes of his fellow-citizens during the ensuing year in the best and
holiest manner. And when the election is completed, a scrutiny shall be
held in the presence of the electors themselves, and if any one be
rejected another shall be chosen in the same manner. Those who have
undergone the scrutiny shall judge the causes of those who have declined
the inferior courts, and shall give their vote openly. The councillors and
other magistrates who have elected them shall be required to be hearers
and spectators of the causes; and any one else may be present who pleases.
If one man charges another with having intentionally decided wrong, let
him go to the guardians of the law and lay his accusation before them, and
he who is found guilty in such a case shall pay damages to the injured
party equal to half the injury; but if he shall appear to deserve a
greater penalty, the judges shall determine what additional punishment he
shall suffer, and how much more he ought to pay to the public treasury,
and to the party who brought the suit.

In the judgment of offences against the state, the people ought to
participate, for when any one wrongs the state all are wronged, and may
reasonably complain if they are not allowed to share in the decision. Such
causes ought to originate with the people, and the ought also to have the
final decision of them, but the trial of them shall take place before
three of the highest magistrates, upon whom the plaintiff and the
defendant shall agree; and if they are not able to come to an agreement
themselves, the council shall choose one of the two proposed. And in
private suits, too, as far as is possible, all should have a share; for he
who has no share in the administration of justice, is apt to imagine that
he has no share in the state at all. And for this reason there shall be a
court of law in every tribe, and the judges shall be chosen by lot;--they
shall give their decisions at once, and shall be inaccessible to
entreaties. The final judgment shall rest with that court which, as we
maintain, has been established in the most incorruptible form of which
human things admit: this shall be the court established for those who are
unable to get rid of their suits either in the courts of neighbours or of
the tribes.

Thus much of the courts of law, which, as I was saying, cannot be
precisely defined either as being or not being offices; a superficial
sketch has been given of them, in which some things have been told and
others omitted. For the right place of an exact statement of the laws
respecting suits, under their several heads, will be at the end of the
body of legislation;--let us then expect them at the end. Hitherto our
legislation has been chiefly occupied with the appointment of offices.
Perfect unity and exactness, extending to the whole and every particular
of political administration, cannot be attained to the full, until the
discussion shall have a beginning, middle, and end, and is complete in
every part. At present we have reached the election of magistrates, and
this may be regarded as a sufficient termination of what preceded. And now
there need no longer be any delay or hesitation in beginning the work of
legislation.

CLEINIAS: I like what you have said, Stranger; and I particularly like
your manner of tacking on the beginning of your new discourse to the end
of the former one.

ATHENIAN: Thus far, then, the old men's rational pastime has gone off
well.

CLEINIAS: You mean, I suppose, their serious and noble pursuit?

ATHENIAN: Perhaps; but I should like to know whether you and I are agreed
about a certain thing.

CLEINIAS: About what thing?

ATHENIAN: You know the endless labour which painters expend upon their
pictures--they are always putting in or taking out colours, or whatever be
the term which artists employ; they seem as if they would never cease
touching up their works, which are always being made brighter and more
beautiful.

CLEINIAS: I know something of these matters from report, although I have
never had any great acquaintance with the art.

ATHENIAN: No matter; we may make use of the illustration notwithstanding:
--Suppose that some one had a mind to paint a figure in the most beautiful
manner, in the hope that his work instead of losing would always improve
as time went on--do you not see that being a mortal, unless he leaves some
one to succeed him who will correct the flaws which time may introduce,
and be able to add what is left imperfect through the defect of the
artist, and who will further brighten up and improve the picture, all his
great labour will last but a short time?

CLEINIAS: True.

ATHENIAN: And is not the aim of the legislator similar? First, he desires
that his laws should be written down with all possible exactness; in the
second place, as time goes on and he has made an actual trial of his
decrees, will he not find omissions? Do you imagine that there ever was a
legislator so foolish as not to know that many things are necessarily
omitted, which some one coming after him must correct, if the constitution
and the order of government is not to deteriorate, but to improve in the
state which he has established?

CLEINIAS: Assuredly, that is the sort of thing which every one would
desire.

ATHENIAN: And if any one possesses any means of accomplishing this by word
or deed, or has any way great or small by which he can teach a person to
understand how he can maintain and amend the laws, he should finish what
he has to say, and not leave the work incomplete.

CLEINIAS: By all means.

ATHENIAN: And is not this what you and I have to do at the present moment?

CLEINIAS: What have we to do?

ATHENIAN: As we are about to legislate and have chosen our guardians of
the law, and are ourselves in the evening of life, and they as compared
with us are young men, we ought not only to legislate for them, but to
endeavour to make them not only guardians of the law but legislators
themselves, as far as this is possible.

CLEINIAS: Certainly; if we can.

ATHENIAN: At any rate, we must do our best.

CLEINIAS: Of course.

ATHENIAN: We will say to them--O friends and saviours of our laws, in
laying down any law, there are many particulars which we shall omit, and
this cannot be helped; at the same time, we will do our utmost to describe
what is important, and will give an outline which you shall fill up. And I
will explain on what principle you are to act. Megillus and Cleinias and I
have often spoken to one another touching these matters, and we are of
opinion that we have spoken well. And we hope that you will be of the same
mind with us, and become our disciples, and keep in view the things which
in our united opinion the legislator and guardian of the law ought to keep
in view. There was one main point about which we were agreed--that a man's
whole energies throughout life should be devoted to the acquisition of the
virtue proper to a man, whether this was to be gained by study, or habit,
or some mode of acquisition, or desire, or opinion, or knowledge--and this
applies equally to men and women, old and young--the aim of all should
always be such as I have described; anything which may be an impediment,
the good man ought to show that he utterly disregards. And if at last
necessity plainly compels him to be an outlaw from his native land, rather
than bow his neck to the yoke of slavery and be ruled by inferiors, and he
has to fly, an exile he must be and endure all such trials, rather than
accept another form of government, which is likely to make men worse.
These are our original principles; and do you now, fixing your eyes upon
the standard of what a man and a citizen ought or ought not to be, praise
and blame the laws--blame those which have not this power of making the
citizen better, but embrace those which have; and with gladness receive
and live in them; bidding a long farewell to other institutions which aim
at goods, as they are termed, of a different kind.

Let us proceed to another class of laws, beginning with their foundation
in religion. And we must first return to the number 5040--the entire
number had, and has, a great many convenient divisions, and the number of
the tribes which was a twelfth part of the whole, being correctly formed
by 21 x 20 (5040/(21 x 20), i.e., 5040/420 = 12), also has them. And not
only is the whole number divisible by twelve, but also the number of each
tribe is divisible by twelve. Now every portion should be regarded by us
as a sacred gift of Heaven, corresponding to the months and to the
revolution of the universe (compare Tim.). Every city has a guiding and
sacred principle given by nature, but in some the division or distribution
has been more right than in others, and has been more sacred and
fortunate. In our opinion, nothing can be more right than the selection of
the number 5040, which may be divided by all numbers from one to twelve
with the single exception of eleven, and that admits of a very easy
correction; for if, turning to the dividend (5040), we deduct two
families, the defect in the division is cured. And the truth of this may
be easily proved when we have leisure. But for the present, trusting to
the mere assertion of this principle, let us divide the state; and
assigning to each portion some God or son of a God, let us give them
altars and sacred rites, and at the altars let us hold assemblies for
sacrifice twice in the month--twelve assemblies for the tribes, and twelve
for the city, according to their divisions; the first in honour of the
Gods and divine things, and the second to promote friendship and 'better
acquaintance,' as the phrase is, and every sort of good fellowship with
one another. For people must be acquainted with those into whose families
and whom they marry and with those to whom they give in marriage; in such
matters, as far as possible, a man should deem it all important to avoid a
mistake, and with this serious purpose let games be instituted (compare
Republic) in which youths and maidens shall dance together, seeing one
another and being seen naked, at a proper age, and on a suitable occasion,
not transgressing the rules of modesty.

The directors of choruses will be the superintendents and regulators of
these games, and they, together with the guardians of the law, will
legislate in any matters which we have omitted; for, as we said, where
there are numerous and minute details, the legislator must leave out
something. And the annual officers who have experience, and know what is
wanted, must make arrangements and improvements year by year, until such
enactments and provisions are sufficiently determined. A ten years'
experience of sacrifices and dances, if extending to all particulars, will
be quite sufficient; and if the legislator be alive they shall communicate
with him, but if he be dead then the several officers shall refer the
omissions which come under their notice to the guardians of the law, and
correct them, until all is perfect; and from that time there shall be no
more change, and they shall establish and use the new laws with the others
which the legislator originally gave them, and of which they are never, if
they can help, to change aught; or, if some necessity overtakes them, the
magistrates must be called into counsel, and the whole people, and they
must go to all the oracles of the Gods; and if they are all agreed, in
that case they may make the change, but if they are not agreed, by no
manner of means, and any one who dissents shall prevail, as the law
ordains.

Whenever any one over twenty-five years of age, having seen and been seen
by others, believes himself to have found a marriage connexion which is to
his mind, and suitable for the procreation of children, let him marry if
he be still under the age of five-and-thirty years; but let him first hear
how he ought to seek after what is suitable and appropriate (compare
Arist. Pol.). For, as Cleinias says, every law should have a suitable
prelude.

CLEINIAS: You recollect at the right moment, Stranger, and do not miss the
opportunity which the argument affords of saying a word in season.

ATHENIAN: I thank you. We will say to him who is born of good parents--O
my son, you ought to make such a marriage as wise men would approve. Now
they would advise you neither to avoid a poor marriage, nor specially to
desire a rich one; but if other things are equal, always to honour
inferiors, and with them to form connexions;--this will be for the
benefit of the city and of the families which are united; for the equable
and symmetrical tends infinitely more to virtue than the unmixed. And he
who is conscious of being too headstrong, and carried away more than is
fitting in all his actions, ought to desire to become the relation of
orderly parents; and he who is of the opposite temper ought to seek the
opposite alliance. Let there be one word concerning all marriages:--Every
man shall follow, not after the marriage which is most pleasing to
himself, but after that which is most beneficial to the state. For somehow
every one is by nature prone to that which is likest to himself, and in
this way the whole city becomes unequal in property and in disposition;
and hence there arise in most states the very results which we least
desire to happen. Now, to add to the law an express provision, not only
that the rich man shall not marry into the rich family, nor the powerful
into the family of the powerful, but that the slower natures shall be
compelled to enter into marriage with the quicker, and the quicker with
the slower, may awaken anger as well as laughter in the minds of many; for
there is a difficulty in perceiving that the city ought to be well mingled
like a cup, in which the maddening wine is hot and fiery, but when
chastened by a soberer God, receives a fair associate and becomes an
excellent and temperate drink (compare Statesman). Yet in marriage no one
is able to see that the same result occurs. Wherefore also the law must
let alone such matters, but we should try to charm the spirits of men into
believing the equability of their children's disposition to be of more
importance than equality in excessive fortune when they marry; and him who
is too desirous of making a rich marriage we should endeavour to turn
aside by reproaches, not, however, by any compulsion of written law.

Let this then be our exhortation concerning marriage, and let us remember
what was said before--that a man should cling to immortality, and leave
behind him children's children to be the servants of God in his place for
ever. All this and much more may be truly said by way of prelude about the
duty of marriage. But if a man will not listen, and remains unsocial and
alien among his fellow-citizens, and is still unmarried at thirty-five
years of age, let him pay a yearly fine;--he who of the highest class
shall pay a fine of a hundred drachmae, and he who is of the second class
a fine of seventy drachmae; the third class shall pay sixty drachmae, and
the fourth thirty drachmae, and let the money be sacred to Here; he who
does not pay the fine annually shall owe ten times the sum, which the
treasurer of the goddess shall exact; and if he fails in doing so, let him
be answerable and give an account of the money at his audit. He who
refuses to marry shall be thus punished in money, and also be deprived of
all honour which the younger show to the elder; let no young man
voluntarily obey him, and, if he attempt to punish any one, let every one
come to the rescue and defend the injured person, and he who is present
and does not come to the rescue, shall be pronounced by the law to be a
coward and a bad citizen. Of the marriage portion I have already spoken;
and again I say for the instruction of poor men that he who neither gives
nor receives a dowry on account of poverty, has a compensation; for the
citizens of our state are provided with the necessaries of life, and wives
will be less likely to be insolent, and husbands to be mean and
subservient to them on account of property. And he who obeys this law will
do a noble action; but he who will not obey, and gives or receives more
than fifty drachmae as the price of the marriage garments if he be of the
lowest, or more than a mina, or a mina-and-a-half, if he be of the third
or second classes, or two minae if he be of the highest class, shall owe
to the public treasury a similar sum, and that which is given or received
shall be sacred to Here and Zeus; and let the treasurers of these Gods
exact the money, as was said before about the unmarried--that the
treasurers of Here were to exact the money, or pay the fine themselves.

The betrothal by a father shall be valid in the first degree, that by a
grandfather in the second degree, and in the third degree, betrothal by
brothers who have the same father; but if there are none of these alive,
the betrothal by a mother shall be valid in like manner; in cases of
unexampled fatality, the next of kin and the guardians shall have
authority. What are to be the rites before marriages, or any other sacred
acts, relating either to future, present, or past marriages, shall be
referred to the interpreters; and he who follows their advice may be
satisfied. Touching the marriage festival, they shall assemble not more
than five male and five female friends of both families; and a like number
of members of the family of either sex, and no man shall spend more than
his means will allow; he who is of the richest class may spend a mina,--he
who is of the second, half a mina, and in the same proportion as the
census of each decreases: all men shall praise him who is obedient to the
law; but he who is disobedient shall be punished by the guardians of the
law as a man wanting in true taste, and uninstructed in the laws of bridal
song. Drunkenness is always improper, except at the festivals of the God
who gave wine; and peculiarly dangerous, when a man is engaged in the
business of marriage; at such a crisis of their lives a bride and
bridegroom ought to have all their wits about them--they ought to take
care that their offspring may be born of reasonable beings; for on what
day or night Heaven will give them increase, who can say? Moreover, they
ought not to begetting children when their bodies are dissipated by
intoxication, but their offspring should be compact and solid, quiet and
compounded properly; whereas the drunkard is all abroad in all his
actions, and beside himself both in body and soul. Wherefore, also, the
drunken man is bad and unsteady in sowing the seed of increase, and is
likely to beget offspring who will be unstable and untrustworthy, and
cannot be expected to walk straight either in body or mind. Hence during
the whole year and all his life long, and especially while he is begetting
children, he ought to take care and not intentionally do what is injurious
to health, or what involves insolence and wrong; for he cannot help
leaving the impression of himself on the souls and bodies of his
offspring, and he begets children in every way inferior. And especially on
the day and night of marriage should a man abstain from such things. For
the beginning, which is also a God dwelling in man, preserves all things,
if it meet with proper respect from each individual. He who marries is
further to consider, that one of the two houses in the lot is the nest and
nursery of his young, and there he is to marry and make a home for himself
and bring up his children, going away from his father and mother. For in
friendships there must be some degree of desire, in order to cement and
bind together diversities of character; but excessive intercourse not
having the desire which is created by time, insensibly dissolves
friendships from a feeling of satiety; wherefore a man and his wife shall
leave to his and her father and mother their own dwelling-places, and
themselves go as to a colony and dwell there, and visit and be visited by
their parents; and they shall beget and bring up children, handing on the
torch of life from one generation to another, and worshipping the Gods
according to law for ever.

In the next place, we have to consider what sort of property will be most
convenient. There is no difficulty either in understanding or acquiring
most kinds of property, but there is great difficulty in what relates to
slaves. And the reason is, that we speak about them in a way which is
right and which is not right; for what we say about our slaves is
consistent and also inconsistent with our practice about them.

MEGILLUS: I do not understand, Stranger, what you mean.

ATHENIAN: I am not surprised, Megillus, for the state of the Helots among
the Lacedaemonians is of all Hellenic forms of slavery the most
controverted and disputed about, some approving and some condemning it;
there is less dispute about the slavery which exists among the Heracleots,
who have subjugated the Mariandynians, and about the Thessalian Penestae.
Looking at these and the like examples, what ought we to do concerning
property in slaves? I made a remark, in passing, which naturally elicited
a question about my meaning from you. It was this:--We know that all would
agree that we should have the best and most attached slaves whom we can
get. For many a man has found his slaves better in every way than brethren
or sons, and many times they have saved the lives and property of their
masters and their whole house--such tales are well known.

MEGILLUS: To be sure.

ATHENIAN: But may we not also say that the soul of the slave is utterly
corrupt, and that no man of sense ought to trust them? And the wisest of
our poets, speaking of Zeus, says:

'Far-seeing Zeus takes away half the understanding of men whom the day of
slavery subdues.'

Different persons have got these two different notions of slaves in their
minds--some of them utterly distrust their servants, and, as if they were
wild beasts, chastise them with goads and whips, and make their souls
three times, or rather many times, as slavish as they were before;--and
others do just the opposite.

MEGILLUS: True.

CLEINIAS: Then what are we to do in our own country, Stranger, seeing that
there are such differences in the treatment of slaves by their owners?

ATHENIAN: Well, Cleinias, there can be no doubt that man is a troublesome
animal, and therefore he is not very manageable, nor likely to become so,
when you attempt to introduce the necessary division of slave, and
freeman, and master.

CLEINIAS: That is obvious.

ATHENIAN: He is a troublesome piece of goods, as has been often shown by
the frequent revolts of the Messenians, and the great mischiefs which
happen in states having many slaves who speak the same language, and the
numerous robberies and lawless life of the Italian banditti, as they are
called. A man who considers all this is fairly at a loss. Two remedies
alone remain to us,--not to have the slaves of the same country, nor if
possible, speaking the same language (compare Aris. Pol.); in this way
they will more easily be held in subjection: secondly, we should tend them
carefully, not only out of regard to them, but yet more out of respect to
ourselves. And the right treatment of slaves is to behave properly to
them, and to do to them, if possible, even more justice than to those who
are our equals; for he who naturally and genuinely reverences justice, and
hates injustice, is discovered in his dealings with any class of men to
whom he can easily be unjust. And he who in regard to the natures and
actions of his slaves is undefiled by impiety and injustice, will best sow
the seeds of virtue in them; and this may be truly said of every master,
and tyrant, and of every other having authority in relation to his
inferiors. Slaves ought to be punished as they deserve, and not admonished
as if they were freemen, which will only make them conceited. The language
used to a servant ought always to be that of a command (compare Arist.
Pol.), and we ought not to jest with them, whether they are males or
females--this is a foolish way which many people have of setting up their
slaves, and making the life of servitude more disagreeable both for them
and for their masters.

CLEINIAS: True.

ATHENIAN: Now that each of the citizens is provided, as far as possible,
with a sufficient number of suitable slaves who can help him in what he
has to do, we may next proceed to describe their dwellings.

CLEINIAS: Very good.

ATHENIAN: The city being new and hitherto uninhabited, care ought to be
taken of all the buildings, and the manner of building each of them, and
also of the temples and walls. These, Cleinias, were matters which
properly came before the marriages;--but, as we are only talking, there
is no objection to changing the order. If, however, our plan of
legislation is ever to take effect, then the house shall precede the
marriage if God so will, and afterwards we will come to the regulations
about marriage; but at present we are only describing these matters in a
general outline.

CLEINIAS: Quite true.

ATHENIAN: The temples are to be placed all round the agora, and the whole
city built on the heights in a circle (compare Arist. Pol.), for the sake
of defence and for the sake of purity. Near the temples are to be placed
buildings for the magistrates and the courts of law; in these plaintiff
and defendant will receive their due, and the places will be regarded as
most holy, partly because they have to do with holy things: and partly
because they are the dwelling-places of holy Gods: and in them will be
held the courts in which cases of homicide and other trials of capital
offences may fitly take place. As to the walls, Megillus, I agree with
Sparta in thinking that they should be allowed to sleep in the earth, and
that we should not attempt to disinter them (compare Arist. Pol.); there
is a poetical saying, which is finely expressed, that 'walls ought to be
of steel and iron, and not of earth;' besides, how ridiculous of us to be
sending out our young men annually into the country to dig and to trench,
and to keep off the enemy by fortifications, under the idea that they are
not to be allowed to set foot in our territory, and then, that we should
surround ourselves with a wall, which, in the first place, is by no means
conducive to the health of cities, and is also apt to produce a certain
effeminacy in the minds of the inhabitants, inviting men to run thither
instead of repelling their enemies, and leading them to imagine that their
safety is due not to their keeping guard day and night, but that when they
are protected by walls and gates, then they may sleep in safety; as if
they were not meant to labour, and did not know that true repose comes
from labour, and that disgraceful indolence and a careless temper of mind
is only the renewal of trouble. But if men must have walls, the private
houses ought to be so arranged from the first that the whole city may be
one wall, having all the houses capable of defence by reason of their
uniformity and equality towards the streets (compare Arist. Pol.). The
form of the city being that of a single dwelling will have an agreeable
aspect, and being easily guarded will be infinitely better for security.
Until the original building is completed, these should be the principal
objects of the inhabitants; and the wardens of the city should superintend
the work, and should impose a fine on him who is negligent; and in all
that relates to the city they should have a care of cleanliness, and not
allow a private person to encroach upon any public property either by
buildings or excavations. Further, they ought to take care that the rains
from heaven flow off easily, and of any other matters which may have to be
administered either within or without the city. The guardians of the law
shall pass any further enactments which their experience may show to be
necessary, and supply any other points in which the law may be deficient.
And now that these matters, and the buildings about the agora, and the
gymnasia, and places of instruction, and theatres, are all ready and
waiting for scholars and spectators, let us proceed to the subjects which
follow marriage in the order of legislation.

CLEINIAS: By all means.

ATHENIAN: Assuming that marriages exist already, Cleinias, the mode of
life during the year after marriage, before children are born, will follow
next in order. In what way bride and bridegroom ought to live in a city
which is to be superior to other cities, is a matter not at all easy for
us to determine. There have been many difficulties already, but this will
be the greatest of them, and the most disagreeable to the many. Still I
cannot but say what appears to me to be right and true, Cleinias.

CLEINIAS: Certainly.

ATHENIAN: He who imagines that he can give laws for the public conduct of
states, while he leaves the private life of citizens wholly to take care
of itself; who thinks that individuals may pass the day as they please,
and that there is no necessity of order in all things; he, I say, who
gives up the control of their private lives, and supposes that they will
conform to law in their common and public life, is making a great mistake.
Why have I made this remark? Why, because I am going to enact that the
bridegrooms should live at the common tables, just as they did before
marriage. This was a singularity when first enacted by the legislator in
your parts of the world, Megillus and Cleinias, as I should suppose, on
the occasion of some war or other similar danger, which caused the passing
of the law, and which would be likely to occur in thinly-peopled places,
and in times of pressure. But when men had once tried and been accustomed
to a common table, experience showed that the institution greatly conduced
to security; and in some such manner the custom of having common tables
arose among you.

CLEINIAS: Likely enough.

ATHENIAN: I said that there may have been singularity and danger in
imposing such a custom at first, but that now there is not the same
difficulty. There is, however, another institution which is the natural
sequel to this, and would be excellent, if it existed anywhere, but at
present it does not. The institution of which I am about to speak is not
easily described or executed; and would be like the legislator 'combing
wool into the fire,' as people say, or performing any other impossible and
useless feat.

CLEINIAS: What is the cause, Stranger, of this extreme hesitation?

ATHENIAN: You shall hear without any fruitless loss of time. That which
has law and order in a state is the cause of every good, but that which is
disordered or ill-ordered is often the ruin of that which is well-ordered;
and at this point the argument is now waiting. For with you, Cleinias and
Megillus, the common tables of men are, as I said, a heaven-born and
admirable institution, but you are mistaken in leaving the women
unregulated by law. They have no similar institution of public tables in
the light of day, and just that part of the human race which is by nature
prone to secrecy and stealth on account of their weakness--I mean the
female sex--has been left without regulation by the legislator, which is a
great mistake. And, in consequence of this neglect, many things have grown
lax among you, which might have been far better, if they had been only
regulated by law; for the neglect of regulations about women may not only
be regarded as a neglect of half the entire matter (Arist. Pol.), but in
proportion as woman's nature is inferior to that of men in capacity for
virtue, in that degree the consequence of such neglect is more than twice
as important. The careful consideration of this matter, and the arranging
and ordering on a common principle of all our institutions relating both
to men and women, greatly conduces to the happiness of the state. But at
present, such is the unfortunate condition of mankind, that no man of
sense will even venture to speak of common tables in places and cities in
which they have never been established at all; and how can any one avoid
being utterly ridiculous, who attempts to compel women to show in public
how much they eat and drink? There is nothing at which the sex is more
likely to take offence. For women are accustomed to creep into dark
places, and when dragged out into the light they will exert their utmost
powers of resistance, and be far too much for the legislator. And
therefore, as I said before, in most places they will not endure to have
the truth spoken without raising a tremendous outcry, but in this state
perhaps they may. And if we may assume that our whole discussion about the
state has not been mere idle talk, I should like to prove to you, if you
will consent to listen, that this institution is good and proper; but if
you had rather not, I will refrain.

CLEINIAS: There is nothing which we should both of us like better,
Stranger, than to hear what you have to say.

ATHENIAN: Very good; and you must not be surprised if I go back a little,
for we have plenty of leisure, and there is nothing to prevent us from
considering in every point of view the subject of law.

CLEINIAS: True.

ATHENIAN: Then let us return once more to what we were saying at first.
Every man should understand that the human race either had no beginning at
all, and will never have an end, but always will be and has been; or that
it began an immense while ago.

CLEINIAS: Certainly.

ATHENIAN: Well, and have there not been constitutions and destructions of
states, and all sorts of pursuits both orderly and disorderly, and diverse
desires of meats and drinks always, and in all the world, and all sorts of
changes of the seasons in which animals may be expected to have undergone
innumerable transformations of themselves?

CLEINIAS: No doubt.

ATHENIAN: And may we not suppose that vines appeared, which had previously
no existence, and also olives, and the gifts of Demeter and her daughter,
of which one Triptolemus was the minister, and that, before these existed,
animals took to devouring each other as they do still?

CLEINIAS: True.

ATHENIAN: Again, the practice of men sacrificing one another still exists
among many nations; while, on the other hand, we hear of other human
beings who did not even venture to taste the flesh of a cow and had no
animal sacrifices, but only cakes and fruits dipped in honey, and similar
pure offerings, but no flesh of animals; from these they abstained under
the idea that they ought not to eat them, and might not stain the altars
of the Gods with blood. For in those days men are said to have lived a
sort of Orphic life, having the use of all lifeless things, but abstaining
from all living things.

CLEINIAS: Such has been the constant tradition, and is very likely true.

ATHENIAN: Some one might say to us, What is the drift of all this?

CLEINIAS: A very pertinent question, Stranger.

ATHENIAN: And therefore I will endeavour, Cleinias, if I can, to draw the
natural inference.

CLEINIAS: Proceed.

ATHENIAN: I see that among men all things depend upon three wants and
desires, of which the end is virtue, if they are rightly led by them, or
the opposite if wrongly. Now these are eating and drinking, which begin at
birth--every animal has a natural desire for them, and is violently
excited, and rebels against him who says that he must not satisfy all his
pleasures and appetites, and get rid of all the corresponding pains--and
the third and greatest and sharpest want and desire breaks out last, and
is the fire of sexual lust, which kindles in men every species of
wantonness and madness. And these three disorders we must endeavour to
master by the three great principles of fear and law and right reason;
turning them away from that which is called pleasantest to the best, using
the Muses and the Gods who preside over contests to extinguish their
increase and influx.

But to return:--After marriage let us speak of the birth of children, and
after their birth of their nurture and education. In the course of
discussion the several laws will be perfected, and we shall at last arrive
at the common tables. Whether such associations are to be confined to men,
or extended to women also, we shall see better when we approach and take a
nearer view of them; and we may then determine what previous institutions
are required and will have to precede them. As I said before, we shall see
them more in detail, and shall be better able to lay down the laws which
are proper or suited to them.

CLEINIAS: Very true.

ATHENIAN: Let us keep in mind the words which have now been spoken; for
hereafter there may be need of them.

CLEINIAS: What do you bid us keep in mind?

ATHENIAN: That which we comprehended under the three words--first, eating,
secondly, drinking, thirdly, the excitement of love.

CLEINIAS: We shall be sure to remember, Stranger.

ATHENIAN: Very good. Then let us now proceed to marriage, and teach
persons in what way they shall beget children, threatening them, if they
disobey, with the terrors of the law.

CLEINIAS: What do you mean?

ATHENIAN: The bride and bridegroom should consider that they are to
produce for the state the best and fairest specimens of children which
they can. Now all men who are associated in any action always succeed when
they attend and give their mind to what they are doing, but when they do
not give their mind or have no mind, they fail; wherefore let the
bridegroom give his mind to the bride and to the begetting of children,
and the bride in like manner give her mind to the bridegroom, and
particularly at the time when their children are not yet born. And let the
women whom we have chosen be the overseers of such matters, and let them
in whatever number, large or small, and at whatever time the magistrates
may command, assemble every day in the temple of Eileithyia during a third
part of the day, and being there assembled, let them inform one another of
any one whom they see, whether man or woman, of those who are begetting
children, disregarding the ordinances given at the time when the nuptial
sacrifices and ceremonies were performed. Let the begetting of children
and the supervision of those who are begetting them continue ten years and
no longer, during the time when marriage is fruitful. But if any continue
without children up to this time, let them take counsel with their kindred
and with the women holding the office of overseer and be divorced for
their mutual benefit. If, however, any dispute arises about what is proper
and for the interest of either party, they shall choose ten of the
guardians of the law and abide by their permission and appointment. The
women who preside over these matters shall enter into the houses of the
young, and partly by admonitions and partly by threats make them give over
their folly and error: if they persist, let the women go and tell the
guardians of the law, and the guardians shall prevent them. But if they
too cannot prevent them, they shall bring the matter before the people;
and let them write up their names and make oath that they cannot reform
such and such an one; and let him who is thus written up, if he cannot in
a court of law convict those who have inscribed his name, be deprived of
the privileges of a citizen in the following respects:--let him not go to
weddings nor to the thanksgivings after the birth of children; and if he
go, let any one who pleases strike him with impunity; and let the same
regulations hold about women: let not a woman be allowed to appear abroad,
or receive honour, or go to nuptial and birthday festivals, if she in like
manner be written up as acting disorderly and cannot obtain a verdict. And
if, when they themselves have done begetting children according to the
law, a man or woman have connexion with another man or woman who are still
begetting children, let the same penalties be inflicted upon them as upon
those who are still having a family; and when the time for procreation has
passed let the man or woman who refrains in such matters be held in
esteem, and let those who do not refrain be held in the contrary of
esteem--that is to say, disesteem. Now, if the greater part of mankind
behave modestly, the enactments of law may be left to slumber; but, if
they are disorderly, the enactments having been passed, let them be
carried into execution. To every man the first year is the beginning of
life, and the time of birth ought to be written down in the temples of
their fathers as the beginning of existence to every child, whether boy or
girl. Let every phratria have inscribed on a whited wall the names of the
successive archons by whom the years are reckoned. And near to them let
the living members of the phratria be inscribed, and when they depart life
let them be erased. The limit of marriageable ages for a woman shall be
from sixteen to twenty years at the longest,--for a man, from thirty to
thirty-five years; and let a woman hold office at forty, and a man at
thirty years. Let a man go out to war from twenty to sixty years, and for
a woman, if there appear any need to make use of her in military service,
let the time of service be after she shall have brought forth children up
to fifty years of age; and let regard be had to what is possible and
suitable to each.

BOOK VII.

And now, assuming children of both sexes to have been born, it will be
proper for us to consider, in the next place, their nurture and education;
this cannot be left altogether unnoticed, and yet may be thought a subject
fitted rather for precept and admonition than for law. In private life
there are many little things, not always apparent, arising out of the
pleasures and pains and desires of individuals, which run counter to the
intention of the legislator, and make the characters of the citizens
various and dissimilar:--this is an evil in states; for by reason of their
smallness and frequent occurrence, there would be an unseemliness and want
of propriety in making them penal by law; and if made penal, they are the
destruction of the written law because mankind get the habit of frequently
transgressing the law in small matters. The result is that you cannot
legislate about them, and still less can you be silent. I speak somewhat
darkly, but I shall endeavour also to bring my wares into the light of
day, for I acknowledge that at present there is a want of clearness in
what I am saying.

CLEINIAS: Very true.

ATHENIAN. Am I not right in maintaining that a good education is that
which tends most to the improvement of mind and body?

CLEINIAS: Undoubtedly.

ATHENIAN: And nothing can be plainer than that the fairest bodies are
those which grow up from infancy in the best and straightest manner?

CLEINIAS: Certainly.

ATHENIAN: And do we not further observe that the first shoot of every
living thing is by far the greatest and fullest? Many will even contend
that a man at twenty-five does not reach twice the height which he
attained at five.

CLEINIAS: True.

ATHENIAN: Well, and is not rapid growth without proper and abundant
exercise the source endless evils in the body?

CLEINIAS: Yes.

ATHENIAN: And the body should have the most exercise when it receives most
nourishment?

CLEINIAS: But, Stranger, are we to impose this great amount of exercise
upon newly-born infants?

ATHENIAN: Nay, rather on the bodies of infants still unborn.

CLEINIAS: What do you mean, my good sir? In the process of gestation?

ATHENIAN: Exactly. I am not at all surprised that you have never heard of
this very peculiar sort of gymnastic applied to such little creatures,
which, although strange, I will endeavour to explain to you.

CLEINIAS: By all means.

ATHENIAN: The practice is more easy for us to understand than for you, by
reason of certain amusements which are carried to excess by us at Athens.
Not only boys, but often older persons, are in the habit of keeping quails
and cocks (compare Republic), which they train to fight one another. And
they are far from thinking that the contests in which they stir them up to
fight with one another are sufficient exercise; for, in addition to this,
they carry them about tucked beneath their armpits, holding the smaller
birds in their hands, the larger under their arms, and go for a walk of a
great many miles for the sake of health, that is to say, not their own
health, but the health of the birds; whereby they prove to any intelligent
person, that all bodies are benefited by shakings and movements, when they
are moved without weariness, whether the motion proceeds from themselves,
or is caused by a swing, or at sea, or on horseback, or by other bodies in
whatever way moving, and that thus gaining the mastery over food and
drink, they are able to impart beauty and health and strength. But
admitting all this, what follows? Shall we make a ridiculous law that the
pregnant woman shall walk about and fashion the embryo within as we
fashion wax before it hardens, and after birth swathe the infant for two
years? Suppose that we compel nurses, under penalty of a legal fine, to be
always carrying the children somewhere or other, either to the temples, or
into the country, or to their relations' houses, until they are well able
to stand, and to take care that their limbs are not distorted by leaning
on them when they are too young (compare Arist. Pol.),--they should
continue to carry them until the infant has completed its third year; the
nurses should be strong, and there should be more than one of them. Shall
these be our rules, and shall we impose a penalty for the neglect of them?
No, no; the penalty of which we were speaking will fall upon our own heads
more than enough.

CLEINIAS: What penalty?

ATHENIAN: Ridicule, and the difficulty of getting the feminine and
servant-like dispositions of the nurses to comply.

CLEINIAS: Then why was there any need to speak of the matter at all?

ATHENIAN: The reason is, that masters and freemen in states, when they
hear of it, are very likely to arrive at a true conviction that without
due regulation of private life in cities, stability in the laying down of
laws is hardly to be expected (compare Republic); and he who makes this
reflection may himself adopt the laws just now mentioned, and, adopting
them, may order his house and state well and be happy.

CLEINIAS: Likely enough.

ATHENIAN: And therefore let us proceed with our legislation until we have
determined the exercises which are suited to the souls of young children,
in the same manner in which we have begun to go through the rules relating
to their bodies.

CLEINIAS: By all means.

ATHENIAN: Let us assume, then, as a first principle in relation both to
the body and soul of very young creatures, that nursing and moving about
by day and night is good for them all, and that the younger they are, the
more they will need it (compare Arist. Pol.); infants should live, if that
were possible, as if they were always rocking at sea. This is the lesson
which we may gather from the experience of nurses, and likewise from the
use of the remedy of motion in the rites of the Corybantes; for when
mothers want their restless children to go to sleep they do not employ
rest, but, on the contrary, motion--rocking them in their arms; nor do
they give them silence, but they sing to them and lap them in sweet
strains; and the Bacchic women are cured of their frenzy in the same
manner by the use of the dance and of music.

CLEINIAS: Well, Stranger, and what is the reason of this?

ATHENIAN: The reason is obvious.

CLEINIAS: What?

ATHENIAN: The affection both of the Bacchantes and of the children is an
emotion of fear, which springs out of an evil habit of the soul. And when
some one applies external agitation to affections of this sort, the motion
coming from without gets the better of the terrible and violent internal
one, and produces a peace and calm in the soul, and quiets the restless
palpitation of the heart, which is a thing much to be desired, sending the
children to sleep, and making the Bacchantes, although they remain awake,
to dance to the pipe with the help of the Gods to whom they offer
acceptable sacrifices, and producing in them a sound mind, which takes the
place of their frenzy. And, to express what I mean in a word, there is a
good deal to be said in favour of this treatment.

CLEINIAS: Certainly.

ATHENIAN: But if fear has such a power we ought to infer from these facts,
that every soul which from youth upward has been familiar with fears, will
be made more liable to fear (compare Republic), and every one will allow
that this is the way to form a habit of cowardice and not of courage.

CLEINIAS: No doubt.

ATHENIAN: And, on the other hand, the habit of overcoming, from our youth
upwards, the fears and terrors which beset us, may be said to be an
exercise of courage.

CLEINIAS: True.

ATHENIAN: And we may say that the use of exercise and motion in the
earliest years of life greatly contributes to create a part of virtue in
the soul.

CLEINIAS: Quite true.

ATHENIAN: Further, a cheerful temper, or the reverse, may be regarded as
having much to do with high spirit on the one hand, or with cowardice on
the other.

CLEINIAS: To be sure.

ATHENIAN: Then now we must endeavour to show how and to what extent we
may, if we please, without difficulty implant either character in the
young.

CLEINIAS: Certainly.

ATHENIAN: There is a common opinion, that luxury makes the disposition of
youth discontented and irascible and vehemently excited by trifles; that
on the other hand excessive and savage servitude makes men mean and
abject, and haters of their kind, and therefore makes them undesirable
associates.

CLEINIAS: But how must the state educate those who do not as yet
understand the language of the country, and are therefore incapable of
appreciating any sort of instruction?

ATHENIAN: I will tell you how:--Every animal that is born is wont to utter
some cry, and this is especially the case with man, and he is also
affected with the inclination to weep more than any other animal.

CLEINIAS: Quite true.

ATHENIAN: Do not nurses, when they want to know what an infant desires,
judge by these signs?--when anything is brought to the infant and he is
silent, then he is supposed to be pleased, but, when he weeps and cries
out, then he is not pleased. For tears and cries are the inauspicious
signs by which children show what they love and hate. Now the time which
is thus spent is no less than three years, and is a very considerable
portion of life to be passed ill or well.

CLEINIAS: True.

ATHENIAN: Does not the discontented and ungracious nature appear to you to
be full of lamentations and sorrows more than a good man ought to be?

CLEINIAS: Certainly.

ATHENIAN: Well, but if during these three years every possible care were
taken that our nursling should have as little of sorrow and fear, and in
general of pain as was possible, might we not expect in early childhood to
make his soul more gentle and cheerful? (Compare Arist. Pol.)

CLEINIAS: To be sure, Stranger--more especially if we could procure him a
variety of pleasures.

ATHENIAN: There I can no longer agree, Cleinias: you amaze me. To bring
him up in such a way would be his utter ruin; for the beginning is always
the most critical part of education. Let us see whether I am right.

CLEINIAS: Proceed.

ATHENIAN: The point about which you and I differ is of great importance,
and I hope that you, Megillus, will help to decide between us. For I
maintain that the true life should neither seek for pleasures, nor, on the
other hand, entirely avoid pains, but should embrace the middle state
(compare Republic), which I just spoke of as gentle and benign, and is a
state which we by some divine presage and inspiration rightly ascribe to
God. Now, I say, he among men, too, who would be divine ought to pursue
after this mean habit--he should not rush headlong into pleasures, for he
will not be free from pains; nor should we allow any one, young or old,
male or female, to be thus given any more than ourselves, and least of all
the newly-born infant, for in infancy more than at any other time the
character is engrained by habit. Nay, more, if I were not afraid of
appearing to be ridiculous, I would say that a woman during her year of
pregnancy should of all women be most carefully tended, and kept from
violent or excessive pleasures and pains, and should at that time
cultivate gentleness and benevolence and kindness.

CLEINIAS: You need not ask Megillus, Stranger, which of us has most truly
spoken; for I myself agree that all men ought to avoid the life of
unmingled pain or pleasure, and pursue always a middle course. And having
spoken well, may I add that you have been well answered?

ATHENIAN: Very good, Cleinias; and now let us all three consider a further
point.

CLEINIAS: What is it?

ATHENIAN: That all the matters which we are now describing are commonly
called by the general name of unwritten customs, and what are termed the
laws of our ancestors are all of similar nature. And the reflection which
lately arose in our minds, that we can neither call these things laws, nor
yet leave them unmentioned, is justified; for they are the bonds of the
whole state, and come in between the written laws which are or are
hereafter to be laid down; they are just ancestral customs of great
antiquity, which, if they are rightly ordered and made habitual, shield
and preserve the previously existing written law; but if they depart from
right and fall into disorder, then they are like the props of builders
which slip away out of their place and cause a universal ruin--one part
drags another down, and the fair super-structure falls because the old
foundations are undermined. Reflecting upon this, Cleinias, you ought to
bind together the new state in every possible way, omitting nothing,
whether great or small, of what are called laws or manners or pursuits,
for by these means a city is bound together, and all these things are only
lasting when they depend upon one another; and, therefore, we must not
wonder if we find that many apparently trifling customs or usages come
pouring in and lengthening out our laws.

CLEINIAS: Very true: we are disposed to agree with you.

ATHENIAN: Up to the age of three years, whether of boy or girl, if a
person strictly carries out our previous regulations and makes them a
principal aim, he will do much for the advantage of the young creatures.
But at three, four, five, and even six years the childish nature will
require sports; now is the time to get rid of self-will in him, punishing
him, but not so as to disgrace him. We were saying about slaves, that we
ought neither to add insult to punishment so as to anger them, nor yet to
leave them unpunished lest they become self-willed; and a like rule is to
be observed in the case of the free-born. Children at that age have
certain natural modes of amusement which they find out for themselves when
they meet. And all the children who are between the ages of three and six
ought to meet at the temples of the villages, the several families of a
village uniting on one spot. The nurses are to see that the children
behave properly and orderly--they themselves and all their companies are
to be under the control of twelve matrons, one for each company, who are
annually selected to inspect them from the women previously mentioned
[i.e. the women who have authority over marriage], whom the guardians of
the law appoint. These matrons shall be chosen by the women who have
authority over marriage, one out of each tribe; all are to be of the same
age; and let each of them, as soon as she is appointed, hold office and go
to the temples every day, punishing all offenders, male or female, who are
slaves or strangers, by the help of some of the public slaves; but if any
citizen disputes the punishment, let her bring him before the wardens of
the city; or, if there be no dispute, let her punish him herself. After
the age of six years the time has arrived for the separation of the sexes
--let boys live with boys, and girls in like manner with girls. Now they
must begin to learn--the boys going to teachers of horsemanship and the
use of the bow, the javelin, and sling, and the girls too, if they do not
object, at any rate until they know how to manage these weapons, and
especially how to handle heavy arms; for I may note, that the practice
which now prevails is almost universally misunderstood.

CLEINIAS: In what respect?

ATHENIAN: In that the right and left hand are supposed to be by nature
differently suited for our various uses of them; whereas no difference is
found in the use of the feet and the lower limbs; but in the use of the
hands we are, as it were, maimed by the folly of nurses and mothers; for
although our several limbs are by nature balanced, we create a difference
in them by bad habit. In some cases this is of no consequence, as, for
example, when we hold the lyre in the left hand, and the plectrum in the
right, but it is downright folly to make the same distinction in other
cases. The custom of the Scythians proves our error; for they not only
hold the bow from them with the left hand and draw the arrow to them with
their right, but use either hand for both purposes. And there are many
similar examples in charioteering and other things, from which we may
learn that those who make the left side weaker than the right act contrary
to nature. In the case of the plectrum, which is of horn only, and similar
instruments, as I was saying, it is of no consequence, but makes a great
difference, and may be of very great importance to the warrior who has to
use iron weapons, bows and javelins, and the like; above all, when in
heavy armour, he has to fight against heavy armour. And there is a very
great difference between one who has learnt and one who has not, and
between one who has been trained in gymnastic exercises and one who has
not been. For as he who is perfectly skilled in the Pancratium or boxing
or wrestling, is not unable to fight from his left side, and does not limp
and draggle in confusion when his opponent makes him change his position,
so in heavy-armed fighting, and in all other things, if I am not mistaken,
the like holds--he who has these double powers of attack and defence ought
not in any case to leave them either unused or untrained, if he can help;
and if a person had the nature of Geryon or Briareus he ought to be able
with his hundred hands to throw a hundred darts. Now, the magistrates,
male and female, should see to all these things, the women superintending
the nursing and amusements of the children, and the men superintending
their education, that all of them, boys and girls alike, may be sound hand
and foot, and may not, if they can help, spoil the gifts of nature by bad
habits.

Education has two branches--one of gymnastic, which is concerned with the
body, and the other of music, which is designed for the improvement of the
soul. And gymnastic has also two branches--dancing and wrestling; and one
sort of dancing imitates musical recitation, and aims at preserving
dignity and freedom, the other aims at producing health, agility, and
beauty in the limbs and parts of the body, giving the proper flexion and
extension to each of them, a harmonious motion being diffused everywhere,
and forming a suitable accompaniment to the dance. As regards wrestling,
the tricks which Antaeus and Cercyon devised in their systems out of a
vain spirit of competition, or the tricks of boxing which Epeius or Amycus
invented, are useless and unsuitable for war, and do not deserve to have
much said about them; but the art of wrestling erect and keeping free the
neck and hands and sides, working with energy and constancy, with a
composed strength, for the sake of health--these are always useful, and
are not to be neglected, but to be enjoined alike on masters and scholars,
when we reach that part of legislation; and we will desire the one to give
their instructions freely, and the others to receive them thankfully. Nor,
again, must we omit suitable imitations of war in our choruses; here in
Crete you have the armed dances of the Curetes, and the Lacedaemonians
have those of the Dioscuri. And our virgin lady, delighting in the
amusement of the dance, thought it not fit to amuse herself with empty
hands; she must be clothed in a complete suit of armour, and in this
attire go through the dance; and youths and maidens should in every
respect imitate her, esteeming highly the favour of the Goddess, both with
a view to the necessities of war, and to festive occasions: it will be
right also for the boys, until such time as they go out to war, to make
processions and supplications to all the Gods in goodly array, armed and
on horseback, in dances and marches, fast or slow, offering up prayers to
the Gods and to the sons of Gods; and also engaging in contests and
preludes of contests, if at all, with these objects. For these sorts of
exercises, and no others, are useful both in peace and war, and are
beneficial alike to states and to private houses. But other labours and
sports and exercises of the body are unworthy of freemen, O Megillus and
Cleinias.

I have now completely described the kind of gymnastic which I said at
first ought to be described; if you know of any better, will you
communicate your thoughts?

CLEINIAS: It is not easy, Stranger, to put aside these principles of
gymnastic and wrestling and to enunciate better ones.

ATHENIAN: Now we must say what has yet to be said about the gifts of the
Muses and of Apollo: before, we fancied that we had said all, and that
gymnastic alone remained; but now we see clearly what points have been
omitted, and should be first proclaimed; of these, then, let us proceed to
speak.

CLEINIAS: By all means.

ATHENIAN: Let me tell you once more--although you have heard me say the
same before--that caution must be always exercised, both by the speaker
and by the hearer, about anything that is very singular and unusual. For
my tale is one which many a man would be afraid to tell, and yet I have a
confidence which makes me go on.

CLEINIAS: What have you to say, Stranger?

ATHENIAN: I say that in states generally no one has observed that the
plays of childhood have a great deal to do with the permanence or want of
permanence in legislation. For when plays are ordered with a view to
children having the same plays, and amusing themselves after the same
manner, and finding delight in the same playthings, the more solemn
institutions of the state are allowed to remain undisturbed. Whereas if
sports are disturbed, and innovations are made in them, and they
constantly change, and the young never speak of their having the same
likings, or the same established notions of good and bad taste, either in
the bearing of their bodies or in their dress, but he who devises
something new and out of the way in figures and colours and the like is
held in special honour, we may truly say that no greater evil can happen
in a state; for he who changes the sports is secretly changing the manners
of the young, and making the old to be dishonoured among them and the new
to be honoured. And I affirm that there is nothing which is a greater
injury to all states than saying or thinking thus. Will you hear me tell
how great I deem the evil to be?

CLEINIAS: You mean the evil of blaming antiquity in states?

ATHENIAN: Exactly.

CLEINIAS: If you are speaking of that, you will find in us hearers who are
disposed to receive what you say not unfavourably but most favourably.

ATHENIAN: I should expect so.

CLEINIAS: Proceed.

ATHENIAN: Well, then, let us give all the greater heed to one another's
words. The argument affirms that any change whatever except from evil is
the most dangerous of all things; this is true in the case of the seasons
and of the winds, in the management of our bodies and the habits of our
minds--true of all things except, as I said before, of the bad. He who
looks at the constitution of individuals accustomed to eat any sort of
meat, or drink any drink, or to do any work which they can get, may see
that they are at first disordered by them, but afterwards, as time goes
on, their bodies grow adapted to them, and they learn to know and like
variety, and have good health and enjoyment of life; and if ever
afterwards they are confined again to a superior diet, at first they are
troubled with disorders, and with difficulty become habituated to their
new food. A similar principle we may imagine to hold good about the minds
of men and the natures of their souls. For when they have been brought up
in certain laws, which by some Divine Providence have remained unchanged
during long ages, so that no one has any memory or tradition of their ever
having been otherwise than they are, then every one is afraid and ashamed
to change that which is established. The legislator must somehow find a
way of implanting this reverence for antiquity, and I would propose the
following way: People are apt to fancy, as I was saying before, that when
the plays of children are altered they are merely plays, not seeing that
the most serious and detrimental consequences arise out of the change; and
they readily comply with the child's wishes instead of deterring him, not
considering that these children who make innovations in their games, when
they grow up to be men, will be different from the last generation of
children, and, being different, will desire a different sort of life, and
under the influence of this desire will want other institutions and laws;
and no one of them reflects that there will follow what I just now called
the greatest of evils to states. Changes in bodily fashions are no such
serious evils, but frequent changes in the praise and censure of manners
are the greatest of evils, and require the utmost prevision.

CLEINIAS: To be sure.

ATHENIAN: And now do we still hold to our former assertion, that rhythms
and music in general are imitations of good and evil characters in men?
What say you?

CLEINIAS: That is the only doctrine which we can admit.

ATHENIAN: Must we not, then, try in every possible way to prevent our
youth from even desiring to imitate new modes either in dance or song? nor
must any one be allowed to offer them varieties of pleasures.

CLEINIAS: Most true.

ATHENIAN: Can any of us imagine a better mode of effecting this object
than that of the Egyptians?

CLEINIAS: What is their method?

ATHENIAN: To consecrate every sort of dance or melody. First we should
ordain festivals--calculating for the year what they ought to be, and at
what time, and in honour of what Gods, sons of Gods, and heroes they ought
to be celebrated; and, in the next place, what hymns ought to be sung at
the several sacrifices, and with what dances the particular festival is to
be honoured. This has to be arranged at first by certain persons, and,
when arranged, the whole assembly of the citizens are to offer sacrifices
and libations to the Fates and all the other Gods, and to consecrate the
several odes to Gods and heroes: and if any one offers any other hymns or
dances to any one of the Gods, the priests and priestesses, acting in
concert with the guardians of the law, shall, with the sanction of
religion and the law, exclude him, and he who is excluded, if he do not
submit, shall be liable all his life long to have a suit of impiety
brought against him by any one who likes.

CLEINIAS: Very good.

ATHENIAN: In the consideration of this subject, let us remember what is
due to ourselves.

CLEINIAS: To what are you referring?

ATHENIAN: I mean that any young man, and much more any old one, when he
sees or hears anything strange or unaccustomed, does not at once run to
embrace the paradox, but he stands considering, like a person who is at a
place where three paths meet, and does not very well know his way--he may
be alone or he may be walking with others, and he will say to himself and
them, 'Which is the way?' and will not move forward until he is satisfied
that he is going right. And this is what we must do in the present
instance: A strange discussion on the subject of law has arisen, which
requires the utmost consideration, and we should not at our age be too
ready to speak about such great matters, or be confident that we can say
anything certain all in a moment.

CLEINIAS: Most true.

ATHENIAN: Then we will allow time for reflection, and decide when we have
given the subject sufficient consideration. But that we may not be
hindered from completing the natural arrangement of our laws, let us
proceed to the conclusion of them in due order; for very possibly, if God
will, the exposition of them, when completed, may throw light on our
present perplexity.

CLEINIAS: Excellent, Stranger; let us do as you propose.

ATHENIAN: Let us then affirm the paradox that strains of music are our
laws (nomoi), and this latter being the name which the ancients gave to
lyric songs, they probably would not have very much objected to our
proposed application of the word. Some one, either asleep or awake, must
have had a dreamy suspicion of their nature. And let our decree be as
follows: No one in singing or dancing shall offend against public and
consecrated models, and the general fashion among the youth, any more than
he would offend against any other law. And he who observes this law shall
be blameless; but he who is disobedient, as I was saying, shall be
punished by the guardians of the laws, and by the priests and priestesses.
Suppose that we imagine this to be our law.

CLEINIAS: Very good.

ATHENIAN: Can any one who makes such laws escape ridicule? Let us see. I
think that our only safety will be in first framing certain models for
composers. One of these models shall be as follows: If when a sacrifice is
going on, and the victims are being burnt according to law--if, I say, any
one who may be a son or brother, standing by another at the altar and over
the victims, horribly blasphemes, will not his words inspire despondency
and evil omens and forebodings in the mind of his father and of his other
kinsmen?

CLEINIAS: Of course.

ATHENIAN: And this is just what takes place in almost all our cities. A
magistrate offers a public sacrifice, and there come in not one but many
choruses, who take up a position a little way from the altar, and from
time to time pour forth all sorts of horrible blasphemies on the sacred
rites, exciting the souls of the audience with words and rhythms and
melodies most sorrowful to hear; and he who at the moment when the city is
offering sacrifice makes the citizens weep most, carries away the palm of
victory. Now, ought we not to forbid such strains as these? And if ever
our citizens must hear such lamentations, then on some unblest and
inauspicious day let there be choruses of foreign and hired minstrels,
like those hirelings who accompany the departed at funerals with barbarous
Carian chants. That is the sort of thing which will be appropriate if we
have such strains at all; and let the apparel of the singers be, not
circlets and ornaments of gold, but the reverse. Enough of all this. I
will simply ask once more whether we shall lay down as one of our
principles of song--

CLEINIAS: What?

ATHENIAN: That we should avoid every word of evil omen; let that kind of
song which is of good omen be heard everywhere and always in our state. I
need hardly ask again, but shall assume that you agree with me.

CLEINIAS: By all means; that law is approved by the suffrages of us all.

ATHENIAN: But what shall be our next musical law or type? Ought not
prayers to be offered up to the Gods when we sacrifice?

CLEINIAS: Certainly.

ATHENIAN: And our third law, if I am not mistaken, will be to the effect
that our poets, understanding prayers to be requests which we make to the
Gods, will take especial heed that they do not by mistake ask for evil
instead of good. To make such a prayer would surely be too ridiculous.

CLEINIAS: Very true.

ATHENIAN: Were we not a little while ago quite convinced that no silver or
golden Plutus should dwell in our state?

CLEINIAS: To be sure.

ATHENIAN: And what has it been the object of our argument to show? Did we
not imply that the poets are not always quite capable of knowing what is
good or evil? And if one of them utters a mistaken prayer in song or
words, he will make our citizens pray for the opposite of what is good in
matters of the highest import; than which, as I was saying, there can be
few greater mistakes. Shall we then propose as one of our laws and models
relating to the Muses--

CLEINIAS: What? will you explain the law more precisely?

ATHENIAN: Shall we make a law that the poet shall compose nothing contrary
to the ideas of the lawful, or just, or beautiful, or good, which are
allowed in the state? nor shall he be permitted to communicate his
compositions to any private individuals, until he shall have shown them to
the appointed judges and the guardians of the law, and they are satisfied
with them. As to the persons whom we appoint to be our legislators about
music and as to the director of education, these have been already
indicated. Once more then, as I have asked more than once, shall this be
our third law, and type, and model--What do you say?

CLEINIAS: Let it be so, by all means.

ATHENIAN: Then it will be proper to have hymns and praises of the Gods,
intermingled with prayers; and after the Gods prayers and praises should
be offered in like manner to demigods and heroes, suitable to their
several characters.

CLEINIAS: Certainly.

ATHENIAN: In the next place there will be no objection to a law, that
citizens who are departed and have done good and energetic deeds, either
with their souls or with their bodies, and have been obedient to the laws,
should receive eulogies; this will be very fitting.

CLEINIAS: Quite true.

ATHENIAN: But to honour with hymns and panegyrics those who are still
alive is not safe; a man should run his course, and make a fair ending,
and then we will praise him; and let praise be given equally to women as
well as men who have been distinguished in virtue. The order of songs and
dances shall be as follows: There are many ancient musical compositions
and dances which are excellent, and from these the newly-founded city may
freely select what is proper and suitable; and they shall choose judges of
not less than fifty years of age, who shall make the selection, and any of
the old poems which they deem sufficient they shall include; any that are
deficient or altogether unsuitable, they shall either utterly throw aside,
or examine and amend, taking into their counsel poets and musicians, and
making use of their poetical genius; but explaining to them the wishes of
the legislator in order that they may regulate dancing, music, and all
choral strains, according to the mind of the judges; and not allowing them
to indulge, except in some few matters, their individual pleasures and
fancies. Now the irregular strain of music is always made ten thousand
times better by attaining to law and order, and rejecting the honeyed
Muse--not however that we mean wholly to exclude pleasure, which is the
characteristic of all music. And if a man be brought up from childhood to
the age of discretion and maturity in the use of the orderly and severe
music, when he hears the opposite he detests it, and calls it illiberal;
but if trained in the sweet and vulgar music, he deems the severer kind
cold and displeasing. So that, as I was saying before, while he who hears
them gains no more pleasure from the one than from the other, the one has
the advantage of making those who are trained in it better men, whereas
the other makes them worse.

CLEINIAS: Very true.

ATHENIAN: Again, we must distinguish and determine on some general
principle what songs are suitable to women, and what to men, and must
assign to them their proper melodies and rhythms. It is shocking for a
whole harmony to be inharmonical, or for a rhythm to be unrhythmical, and
this will happen when the melody is inappropriate to them. And therefore
the legislator must assign to these also their forms. Now both sexes have
melodies and rhythms which of necessity belong to them; and those of women
are clearly enough indicated by their natural difference. The grand, and
that which tends to courage, may be fairly called manly; but that which
inclines to moderation and temperance, may be declared both in law and in
ordinary speech to be the more womanly quality. This, then, will be the
general order of them.

Let us now speak of the manner of teaching and imparting them, and the
persons to whom, and the time when, they are severally to be imparted. As
the shipwright first lays down the lines of the keel, and thus, as it
were, draws the ship in outline, so do I seek to distinguish the patterns
of life, and lay down their keels according to the nature of different
men's souls; seeking truly to consider by what means, and in what ways, we
may go through the voyage of life best. Now human affairs are hardly worth
considering in earnest, and yet we must be in earnest about them--a sad
necessity constrains us. And having got thus far, there will be a fitness
in our completing the matter, if we can only find some suitable method of
doing so. But what do I mean? Some one may ask this very question, and
quite rightly, too.

CLEINIAS: Certainly.

ATHENIAN: I say that about serious matters a man should be serious, and
about a matter which is not serious he should not be serious; and that God
is the natural and worthy object of our most serious and blessed
endeavours, for man, as I said before, is made to be the plaything of God,
and this, truly considered, is the best of him; wherefore also every man
and woman should walk seriously, and pass life in the noblest of pastimes,
and be of another mind from what they are at present.

CLEINIAS: In what respect?

ATHENIAN: At present they think that their serious pursuits should be for
the sake of their sports, for they deem war a serious pursuit, which must
be managed well for the sake of peace; but the truth is, that there
neither is, nor has been, nor ever will be, either amusement or
instruction in any degree worth speaking of in war, which is nevertheless
deemed by us to be the most serious of our pursuits. And therefore, as we
say, every one of us should live the life of peace as long and as well as
he can. And what is the right way of living? Are we to live in sports
always? If so, in what kind of sports? We ought to live sacrificing, and
singing, and dancing, and then a man will be able to propitiate the Gods,
and to defend himself against his enemies and conquer them in battle. The
type of song or dance by which he will propitiate them has been described,
and the paths along which he is to proceed have been cut for him. He will
go forward in the spirit of the poet:

'Telemachus, some things thou wilt thyself find in thy heart, but other
things God will suggest; for I deem that thou wast not born or brought up
without the will of the Gods.'

And this ought to be the view of our alumni; they ought to think that what
has been said is enough for them, and that any other things their Genius
and God will suggest to them--he will tell them to whom, and when, and to
what Gods severally they are to sacrifice and perform dances, and how they
may propitiate the deities, and live according to the appointment of
nature; being for the most part puppets, but having some little share of
reality.

MEGILLUS: You have a low opinion of mankind, Stranger.

ATHENIAN: Nay, Megillus, be not amazed, but forgive me: I was comparing
them with the Gods; and under that feeling I spoke. Let us grant, if you
wish, that the human race is not to be despised, but is worthy of some
consideration.

Next follow the buildings for gymnasia and schools open to all; these are
to be in three places in the midst of the city; and outside the city and
in the surrounding country, also in three places, there shall be schools
for horse exercise, and large grounds arranged with a view to archery and
the throwing of missiles, at which young men may learn and practise. Of
these mention has already been made; and if the mention be not
sufficiently explicit, let us speak further of them and embody them in
laws. In these several schools let there be dwellings for teachers, who
shall be brought from foreign parts by pay, and let them teach those who
attend the schools the art of war and the art of music, and the children
shall come not only if their parents please, but if they do not please;
there shall be compulsory education, as the saying is, of all and sundry,
as far as this is possible; and the pupils shall be regarded as belonging
to the state rather than to their parents. My law would apply to females
as well as males; they shall both go through the same exercises. I assert
without fear of contradiction that gymnastic and horsemanship are as
suitable to women as to men. Of the truth of this I am persuaded from
ancient tradition, and at the present day there are said to be countless
myriads of women in the neighbourhood of the Black Sea, called
Sauromatides, who not only ride on horseback like men, but have enjoined
upon them the use of bows and other weapons equally with the men. And I
further affirm, that if these things are possible, nothing can be more
absurd than the practice which prevails in our own country, of men and
women not following the same pursuits with all their strength and with one
mind, for thus the state, instead of being a whole, is reduced to a half,
but has the same imposts to pay and the same toils to undergo; and what
can be a greater mistake for any legislator to make than this?

CLEINIAS: Very true; yet much of what has been asserted by us, Stranger,
is contrary to the custom of states; still, in saying that the discourse
should be allowed to proceed, and that when the discussion is completed,
we should choose what seems best, you spoke very properly, and I now feel
compunction for what I have said. Tell me, then, what you would next wish
to say.

ATHENIAN: I should wish to say, Cleinias, as I said before, that if the
possibility of these things were not sufficiently proven in fact, then
there might be an objection to the argument, but the fact being as I have
said, he who rejects the law must find some other ground of objection;
and, failing this, our exhortation will still hold good, nor will any one
deny that women ought to share as far as possible in education and in
other ways with men. For consider; if women do not share in their whole
life with men, then they must have some other order of life.

CLEINIAS: Certainly.

ATHENIAN: And what arrangement of life to be found anywhere is preferable
to this community which we are now assigning to them? Shall we prefer that
which is adopted by the Thracians and many other races who use their women
to till the ground and to be shepherds of their herds and flocks, and to
minister to them like slaves? Or shall we do as we and people in our part
of the world do--getting together, as the phrase is, all our goods and
chattels into one dwelling, we entrust them to our women, who are the
stewards of them, and who also preside over the shuttles and the whole art
of spinning? Or shall we take a middle course, as in Lacedaemon, Megillus-
-letting the girls share in gymnastic and music, while the grown-up women,
no longer employed in spinning wool, are hard at work weaving the web of
life, which will be no cheap or mean employment, and in the duty of
serving and taking care of the household and bringing up the children, in
which they will observe a sort of mean, not participating in the toils of
war; and if there were any necessity that they should fight for their city
and families, unlike the Amazons, they would be unable to take part in
archery or any other skilled use of missiles, nor could they, after the
example of the Goddess, carry shield or spear, or stand up nobly for their
country when it was being destroyed, and strike terror into their enemies,
if only because they were seen in regular order? Living as they do, they
would never dare at all to imitate the Sauromatides, who, when compared
with ordinary women, would appear to be like men. Let him who will, praise
your legislators, but I must say what I think. The legislator ought to be
whole and perfect, and not half a man only; he ought not to let the female
sex live softly and waste money and have no order of life, while he takes
the utmost care of the male sex, and leaves half of life only blest with
happiness, when he might have made the whole state happy.

MEGILLUS: What shall we do, Cleinias? Shall we allow a stranger to run
down Sparta in this fashion?

CLEINIAS: Yes; for as we have given him liberty of speech we must let him
go on until we have perfected the work of legislation.

MEGILLUS: Very true.

ATHENIAN: Then now I may proceed?

CLEINIAS: By all means.

ATHENIAN: What will be the manner of life among men who may be supposed to
have their food and clothing provided for them in moderation, and who have
entrusted the practice of the arts to others, and whose husbandry
committed to slaves paying a part of the produce, brings them a return
sufficient for men living temperately; who, moreover, have common tables
in which the men are placed apart, and near them are the common tables of
their families, of their daughters and mothers, which day by day, the
officers, male and female, are to inspect--they shall see to the behaviour
of the company, and so dismiss them; after which the presiding magistrate
and his attendants shall honour with libations those Gods to whom that day
and night are dedicated, and then go home? To men whose lives are thus
ordered, is there no work remaining to be done which is necessary and
fitting, but shall each one of them live fattening like a beast? Such a
life is neither just nor honourable, nor can he who lives it fail of
meeting his due; and the due reward of the idle fatted beast is that he
should be torn in pieces by some other valiant beast whose fatness is worn
down by brave deeds and toil. These regulations, if we duly consider them,
will never be exactly carried into execution under present circumstances,
nor as long as women and children and houses and all other things are the
private property of individuals; but if we can attain the second-best form
of polity, we shall be very well off. And to men living under this second
polity there remains a work to be accomplished which is far from being
small or insignificant, but is the greatest of all works, and ordained by
the appointment of righteous law. For the life which may be truly said to
be concerned with the virtue of body and soul is twice, or more than
twice, as full of toil and trouble as the pursuit after Pythian and
Olympic victories, which debars a man from every employment of life. For
there ought to be no bye-work interfering with the greater work of
providing the necessary exercise and nourishment for the body, and
instruction and education for the soul. Night and day are not long enough
for the accomplishment of their perfection and consummation; and therefore
to this end all freemen ought to arrange the way in which they will spend
their time during the whole course of the day, from morning till evening
and from evening till the morning of the next sunrise. There may seem to
be some impropriety in the legislator determining minutely the numberless
details of the management of the house, including such particulars as the
duty of wakefulness in those who are to be perpetual watchmen of the whole
city; for that any citizen should continue during the whole of any night
in sleep, instead of being seen by all his servants, always the first to
awake and get up--this, whether the regulation is to be called a law or
only a practice, should be deemed base and unworthy of a freeman; also
that the mistress of the house should be awakened by her hand-maidens
instead of herself first awakening them, is what the slaves, male and
female, and the serving-boys, and, if that were possible, everybody and
everything in the house should regard as base. If they rise early, they
may all of them do much of their public and of their household business,
as magistrates in the city, and masters and mistresses in their private
houses, before the sun is up. Much sleep is not required by nature, either
for our souls or bodies, or for the actions which they perform. For no one
who is asleep is good for anything, any more than if he were dead; but he
of us who has the most regard for life and reason keeps awake as long as
he can, reserving only so much time for sleep as is expedient for health;
and much sleep is not required, if the habit of moderation be once rightly
formed. Magistrates in states who keep awake at night are terrible to the
bad, whether enemies or citizens, and are honoured and reverenced by the
just and temperate, and are useful to themselves and to the whole state.

A night which is passed in such a manner, in addition to all the above-
mentioned advantages, infuses a sort of courage into the minds of the
citizens. When the day breaks, the time has arrived for youth to go to
their schoolmasters. Now neither sheep nor any other animals can live
without a shepherd, nor can children be left without tutors, or slaves
without masters. And of all animals the boy is the most unmanageable,
inasmuch as he has the fountain of reason in him not yet regulated; he is
the most insidious, sharp-witted, and insubordinate of animals. Wherefore
he must be bound with many bridles; in the first place, when he gets away
from mothers and nurses, he must be under the management of tutors on
account of his childishness and foolishness; then, again, being a freeman,
he must be controlled by teachers, no matter what they teach, and by
studies; but he is also a slave, and in that regard any freeman who comes
in his way may punish him and his tutor and his instructor, if any of them
does anything wrong; and he who comes across him and does not inflict upon
him the punishment which he deserves, shall incur the greatest disgrace;
and let the guardian of the law, who is the director of education, see to
him who coming in the way of the offences which we have mentioned, does
not chastise them when he ought, or chastises them in a way which he ought
not; let him keep a sharp look-out, and take especial care of the training
of our children, directing their natures, and always turning them to good
according to the law.

But how can our law sufficiently train the director of education himself;
for as yet all has been imperfect, and nothing has been said either clear
or satisfactory? Now, as far as possible, the law ought to leave nothing
to him, but to explain everything, that he may be an interpreter and tutor
to others. About dances and music and choral strains, I have already
spoken both as to the character of the selection of them, and the manner
in which they are to be amended and consecrated. But we have not as yet
spoken, O illustrious guardian of education, of the manner in which your
pupils are to use those strains which are written in prose, although you
have been informed what martial strains they are to learn and practise;
what relates in the first place to the learning of letters, and secondly,
to the lyre, and also to calculation, which, as we were saying, is needful
for them all to learn, and any other things which are required with a view
to war and the management of house and city, and, looking to the same
object, what is useful in the revolutions of the heavenly bodies--the
stars and sun and moon, and the various regulations about these matters
which are necessary for the whole state--I am speaking of the arrangements
of days in periods of months, and of months in years, which are to be
observed, in order that seasons and sacrifices and festivals may have
their regular and natural order, and keep the city alive and awake, the
Gods receiving the honours due to them, and men having a better
understanding about them: all these things, O my friend, have not yet been
sufficiently declared to you by the legislator. Attend, then, to what I am
now going to say: We were telling you, in the first place, that you were
not sufficiently informed about letters, and the objection was to this
effect--that you were never told whether he who was meant to be a
respectable citizen should apply himself in detail to that sort of
learning, or not apply himself at all; and the same remark holds good of
the study of the lyre. But now we say that he ought to attend to them. A
fair time for a boy of ten years old to spend in letters is three years;
the age of thirteen is the proper time for him to begin to handle the
lyre, and he may continue at this for another three years, neither more
nor less, and whether his father or himself like or dislike the study, he
is not to be allowed to spend more or less time in learning music than the
law allows. And let him who disobeys the law be deprived of those youthful
honours of which we shall hereafter speak. Hear, however, first of all,
what the young ought to learn in the early years of life, and what their
instructors ought to teach them. They ought to be occupied with their
letters until they are able to read and write; but the acquisition of
perfect beauty or quickness in writing, if nature has not stimulated them
to acquire these accomplishments in the given number of years, they should
let alone. And as to the learning of compositions committed to writing
which are not set to the lyre, whether metrical or without rhythmical
divisions, compositions in prose, as they are termed, having no rhythm or
harmony--seeing how dangerous are the writings handed down to us by many
writers of this class--what will you do with them, O most excellent
guardians of the law? or how can the lawgiver rightly direct you about
them? I believe that he will be in great difficulty.

CLEINIAS: What troubles you, Stranger? and why are you so perplexed in
your mind?

ATHENIAN: You naturally ask, Cleinias, and to you and Megillus, who are my
partners in the work of legislation, I must state the more difficult as
well as the easier parts of the task.

CLEINIAS: To what do you refer in this instance?

ATHENIAN: I will tell you. There is a difficulty in opposing many myriads
of mouths.

CLEINIAS: Well, and have we not already opposed the popular voice in many
important enactments?

ATHENIAN: That is quite true; and you mean to imply that the road which we
are taking may be disagreeable to some but is agreeable to as many others,
or if not to as many, at any rate to persons not inferior to the others,
and in company with them you bid me, at whatever risk, to proceed along
the path of legislation which has opened out of our present discourse, and
to be of good cheer, and not to faint.

CLEINIAS: Certainly.

ATHENIAN: And I do not faint; I say, indeed, that we have a great many
poets writing in hexameter, trimeter, and all sorts of measures--some who
are serious, others who aim only at raising a laugh--and all mankind
declare that the youth who are rightly educated should be brought up in
them and saturated with them; some insist that they should be constantly
hearing them read aloud, and always learning them, so as to get by heart
entire poets; while others select choice passages and long speeches, and
make compendiums of them, saying that these ought to be committed to
memory, if a man is to be made good and wise by experience and learning of
many things. And you want me now to tell them plainly in what they are
right and in what they are wrong.

CLEINIAS: Yes, I do.

ATHENIAN: But how can I in one word rightly comprehend all of them? I am
of opinion, and, if I am not mistaken, there is a general agreement, that
every one of these poets has said many things well and many things the
reverse of well; and if this be true, then I do affirm that much learning
is dangerous to youth.

CLEINIAS: How would you advise the guardian of the law to act?

ATHENIAN: In what respect?

CLEINIAS: I mean to what pattern should he look as his guide in permitting
the young to learn some things and forbidding them to learn others. Do not
shrink from answering.

ATHENIAN: My good Cleinias, I rather think that I am fortunate.

CLEINIAS: How so?

ATHENIAN: I think that I am not wholly in want of a pattern, for when I
consider the words which we have spoken from early dawn until now, and
which, as I believe, have been inspired by Heaven, they appear to me to be
quite like a poem. When I reflected upon all these words of ours, I
naturally felt pleasure, for of all the discourses which I have ever
learnt or heard, either in poetry or prose, this seemed to me to be the
justest, and most suitable for young men to hear; I cannot imagine any
better pattern than this which the guardian of the law who is also the
director of education can have. He cannot do better than advise the
teachers to teach the young these words and any which are of a like
nature, if he should happen to find them, either in poetry or prose, or if
he come across unwritten discourses akin to ours, he should certainly
preserve them, and commit them to writing. And, first of all, he shall
constrain the teachers themselves to learn and approve them, and any of
them who will not, shall not be employed by him, but those whom he finds
agreeing in his judgment, he shall make use of and shall commit to them
the instruction and education of youth. And here and on this wise let my
fanciful tale about letters and teachers of letters come to an end.

CLEINIAS: I do not think, Stranger, that we have wandered out of the
proposed limits of the argument; but whether we are right or not in our
whole conception, I cannot be very certain.

ATHENIAN: The truth, Cleinias, may be expected to become clearer when, as
we have often said, we arrive at the end of the whole discussion about
laws.

CLEINIAS: Yes.

ATHENIAN: And now that we have done with the teacher of letters, the
teacher of the lyre has to receive orders from us.

CLEINIAS: Certainly.

ATHENIAN: I think that we have only to recollect our previous discussions,
and we shall be able to give suitable regulations touching all this part
of instruction and education to the teachers of the lyre.

CLEINIAS: To what do you refer?

ATHENIAN: We were saying, if I remember rightly, that the sixty years old
choristers of Dionysus were to be specially quick in their perceptions of
rhythm and musical composition, that they might be able to distinguish
good and bad imitation, that is to say, the imitation of the good or bad
soul when under the influence of passion, rejecting the one and displaying
the other in hymns and songs, charming the souls of youth, and inviting
them to follow and attain virtue by the way of imitation.

CLEINIAS: Very true.

ATHENIAN: And with this view the teacher and the learner ought to use the
sounds of the lyre, because its notes are pure, the player who teaches and
his pupil rendering note for note in unison; but complexity, and variation
of notes, when the strings give one sound and the poet or composer of the
melody gives another--also when they make concords and harmonies in which
lesser and greater intervals, slow and quick, or high and low notes, are
combined--or, again, when they make complex variations of rhythms, which
they adapt to the notes of the lyre--all that sort of thing is not suited
to those who have to acquire speedy and useful knowledge of music in three
years; for opposite principles are confusing, and create a difficulty in
learning, and our young men should learn quickly, and their mere necessary
acquirements are not few or trifling, as will be shown in due course. Let
the director of education attend to the principles concerning music which
we are laying down. As to the songs and words themselves which the masters
of choruses are to teach and the character of them, they have been already
described by us, and are the same which, when consecrated and adapted to
the different festivals, we said were to benefit cities by affording them
an innocent amusement.

CLEINIAS: That, again, is true.

ATHENIAN: Then let him who has been elected a director of music receive
these rules from us as containing the very truth; and may he prosper in
his office! Let us now proceed to lay down other rules in addition to the
preceding about dancing and gymnastic exercise in general. Having said
what remained to be said about the teaching of music, let us speak in like
manner about gymnastic. For boys and girls ought to learn to dance and
practise gymnastic exercises--ought they not?

CLEINIAS: Yes.

ATHENIAN: Then the boys ought to have dancing masters, and the girls
dancing mistresses to exercise them.

CLEINIAS: Very good.

ATHENIAN: Then once more let us summon him who has the chief concern in
the business, the superintendent of youth [i.e. the director of
education]; he will have plenty to do, if he is to have the charge of
music and gymnastic.

CLEINIAS: But how will an old man be able to attend to such great charges?

ATHENIAN: O my friend, there will be no difficulty, for the law has
already given and will give him permission to select as his assistants in
this charge any citizens, male or female, whom he desires; and he will
know whom he ought to choose, and will be anxious not to make a mistake,
from a due sense of responsibility, and from a consciousness of the
importance of his office, and also because he will consider that if young
men have been and are well brought up, then all things go swimmingly, but
if not, it is not meet to say, nor do we say, what will follow, lest the
regarders of omens should take alarm about our infant state. Many things
have been said by us about dancing and about gymnastic movements in
general; for we include under gymnastics all military exercises, such as
archery, and all hurling of weapons, and the use of the light shield, and
all fighting with heavy arms, and military evolutions, and movements of
armies, and encampings, and all that relates to horsemanship. Of all these
things there ought to be public teachers, receiving pay from the state,
and their pupils should be the men and boys in the state, and also the
girls and women, who are to know all these things. While they are yet
girls they should have practised dancing in arms and the whole art of
fighting--when grown-up women, they should apply themselves to evolutions
and tactics, and the mode of grounding and taking up arms; if for no other
reason, yet in case the whole military force should have to leave the city
and carry on operations of war outside, that those who will have to guard
the young and the rest of the city may be equal to the task; and, on the
other hand, when enemies, whether barbarian or Hellenic, come from without
with mighty force and make a violent assault upon them, and thus compel
them to fight for the possession of the city, which is far from being an
impossibility, great would be the disgrace to the state, if the women had
been so miserably trained that they could not fight for their young, as
birds will, against any creature however strong, and die or undergo any
danger, but must instantly rush to the temples and crowd at the altars and
shrines, and bring upon human nature the reproach, that of all animals man
is the most cowardly!

CLEINIAS: Such a want of education, Stranger, is certainly an unseemly
thing to happen in a state, as well as a great misfortune.

ATHENIAN: Suppose that we carry our law to the extent of saying that women
ought not to neglect military matters, but that all citizens, male and
female alike, shall attend to them?

CLEINIAS: I quite agree.

ATHENIAN: Of wrestling we have spoken in part, but of what I should call
the most important part we have not spoken, and cannot easily speak
without showing at the same time by gesture as well as in