Areopagiticus

Those who are rightly governed, on the other hand, do not need to fill their porticoes[*](Since Solon's time, Athenian laws were posted on pillars in the “King's Portico,” by the market-place. See Aristot. Ath. Pol. 7.) with written statutes, but only to cherish justice in their souls; for it is not by legislation, but by morals, that states are well directed, since men who are badly reared will venture to transgress even laws which are drawn up with minute exactness, whereas those who are well brought up will be willing to respect even a simple code.[*](Cf. Plat. Rep. 425a ff.)

Therefore, being of this mind, our forefathers did not seek to discover first how they should penalize men who were lawless, but how they should produce citizens who would refrain from any punishable act; for they thought that this was their duty, while it was proper for private enemies alone to be zealous in the avenging of crime.[*](The initiative in bringing criminals to justice was left largely to private citizens, any one of whom might bring charges before a court.)

Now our forefathers exercised care over all the citizens, but most of all over the young. They saw that at this age men are most unruly of temper and filled with a multitude of desires,[*](Cf. Plat. Laws 808d.) and that their spirits are most in need of being curbed by devotion to noble pursuits and by congenial labor; for only such occupations can attract and hold men who have been educated liberally and trained in high-minded ways.

However, since it was not possible to direct all into the same occupations, because of differences in their circumstances, they assigned to each one a vocation which was in keeping with his means; for they turned the needier towards farming and trade, knowing that poverty comes about through idleness, and evil-doing through poverty.

Accordingly, they believed that by removing the root of evil they would deliver the young from the sins which spring from it. On the other hand, they compelled those who possessed sufficient means to devote themselves to horsemanship,[*](That is, in training for the races at the festivals.) athletics,[*](There were three gymnasiums in Athens: the Lyceum, the Academy, and the Cynosarges.) hunting,[*](In Aristoph. Kn. 1382 ff., the reformed Demos declares that it will henceforth make all these demagogues take to hunting and give up concocting “decrees” for the Assembly.) and philosophy,[*](The cultivated life. See Isoc. 4.47 ff.) observing that by these pursuits some are enabled to achieve excellence, others to abstain from many vices.

But when they had laid down these ordinances they were not negligent regarding what remained to be done, but, dividing the city into districts and the country into townships, they kept watch over the life of every citizen,[*](The supervision of the young through guardians appointed by districts survives in the later period. See Aristot. Ath. Pol. 42.) haling the disorderly before the Council, which now rebuked, now warned, and again punished them according to their deserts. For they understood that there are two ways both of encouraging men to do wrong and of checking them from evil-doing;

for where no watch is kept over such matters and the judgements are not strict, there even honest natures grow corrupt; but where, again, it is not easy for wrongdoers either to escape detection or, when detected, to obtain indulgence, there the impulse to do evil disappears. Understanding this, they restrained the people from wrongdoing in both ways—both by punishment and by watchfulness; for so far from failing to detect those who had gone astray, they actually saw in advance who were likely to commit some offence.

Therefore the young men did not waste their time in the gambling-dens or with the flute-girls or in the kind of company in which they now spend their days,[*](The same picture of degeneracy is found in Isoc. 15.287. Cf. Theopompus in Athen. 532d.) but remained steadfastly in the pursuits to which they had been assigned, admiring and emulating those who excelled in these. And so strictly did they avoid the market-place that even when they were at times compelled to pass through it, they were seen to do this with great modesty and sobriety of manner.[*](Cf. Aristoph. Cl. 991; Plat. Theaet. 173c-d.)

To contradict one's elders or to be impudent to them[*](Cf. Aristoph. Cl. 998.) was then considered more reprehensible than it is nowadays to sin against one's parents; and to eat or drink in a tavern was something which no one, not even an honest slave, would venture to do;[*](The same expression is used in Isoc. 15.286.) for they cultivated the manners of a gentleman, not those of a buffoon; and as for those who had a turn for jesting and playing the clown, whom we today speak of as clever wits, they were then looked upon as sorry fools.[*](Cf. Isoc. 15.284.)

But let no one suppose that I am out of temper with the younger generation: I do not think that they are to blame for what goes on, and in fact I know that most of them are far from pleased with a state of affairs which permits them to waste their time in these excesses; so that I cannot in fairness censure them, when it is much more just to rest the blame upon those who directed the city a little before our time;[*](He is thinking of Ephialtes and those who, following in his footsteps, made Athens more “democratic.” Aristotle says that following the Archonship of Ephialtes “the administration of the state became more and more lax,” Aristot. Ath. Pol. 26.)

for it was they who led on our youth to this spirit of heedlessness and destroyed the power of the Areopagus. For while this Council maintained its authority, Athens was not rife with law-suits,[*](It was not yet the “litigious Athens,” ridiculed in Aristophanes' Wasps.) or accusations,[*](By the sycophants especially. See Isoc. 15.8, note.) or tax-levies,[*](Special taxes levied for war purposes on the well-to-do citizens.) or poverty,[*](Athens was impoverished by her wars, Isoc. 8.19.) or war; on the contrary, her citizens lived in accord with each other and at peace with mankind, enjoying the good will of the Hellenes and inspiring fear in the barbarians;

for they had saved the Hellenes from destruction and had punished the barbarians so severely that the latter were well content if only they might suffer no further injury.[*](Cf. Isoc. 7.80 and Isoc. 4.117-118.) And so, because of these things, our forefathers lived in such a degree of security that the houses and establishments in the country were finer and more costly than those within the city-walls,[*](Demosthenes contrasts the magnificence of the temples and public buildings in Athens with the unpretentiousness of private houses in the “good old days” when the house of a Miltiades or of an Aristides was no finer than any other, Dem. 3.25 ff.) and many of the people never visited Athens even for the festivals, preferring to remain at home in the enjoyment of their own possessions rather than share in the pleasures dispensed by the state.

For even the public festivals, which might otherwise have drawn many to the city, were not conducted with extravagance or ostentation, but with sane moderation, since our people then measured their well-being, not by their processions or by their efforts to outdo each other in fitting out the choruses,[*](The training and fitting out of a chorus for a dramatic festival was one of the services (liturgies) rendered to the state by the more wealthy citizens. See Isoc. 8.128, note. Isocrates here complains of the expensive and ostentatious rivalry in such matters. See below: “garments spangled with gold.” The cost of such a service in some cases amounted to as much as five thousand drachmas.) or by any such empty shows, but by the sobriety of their government, by the manner of their daily life, and by the absence of want among all their citizens. These are the standards by which one should judge whether people are genuinely prosperous and not living in vulgar fashion.

For as things now are, who among intelligent men can fail to be chagrined at what goes on, when we see many of our fellow-citizens drawing lots in front of the law-courts to determine whether they themselves shall have the necessaries of life,[*](Six thousand citizens were selected by lot each year to constitute the “Heliastic” Court. These were divided into ten sections of five hundred each, one thousand being held in reserve as substitutes. The number of jurymen required varied from day to day, and each morning the required number was picked by lot. Service on the jury was at first without pay, but now (and since Pericles) the pay was three obols a day—a paltry sum, but fought for by the populace, to many of whom this meant “bread and butter.” Cf. Isoc. 8.130; Isoc. 15.152.) yet thinking it proper to support at their expense any of the Hellenes who will deign to row their ships;[*](At the beginning of the Peloponnesian War, Athenian triremes (ships of war) were commanded by citizens, but the crews (rowers) were made up of hirelings recruited from everywhere—the scum of the earth, according to Isoc. 8.79. At that time the soldiers were Athenian citizens. Later the reverse was true: the fleet was manned by citizens, while the land troops were mercenaries. See Isoc. 8.48.) appearing in the public choruses in garments spangled with gold, yet living through the winter in clothing which I refuse to describe and showing other contradictions of the same kind in their conduct of affairs, which bring great shame upon the city?

Nothing of the sort happened when the Areopagus was in power; for it delivered the poor from want by providing them with work and with assistance from the wealthy, the young from excesses by engaging them in occupations and by watching over them, the men in public life from the temptations of greed by imposing punishments and by letting no wrong-doer escape detection, and the older men from despondency by securing to them public honors and the devotion of the young. How then could there be a polity of greater worth than this, which so excellently watched over all the interests of the state?

I have now discussed most of the features of the constitution as it once was, and those which I have passed over may readily be judged from those which I have described, since they are of the same character. However, certain people who have heard me discuss this constitution, while praising it most unreservedly and agreeing that our forefathers were fortunate in having governed the state in this fashion,

have nevertheless expressed the opinion that you could not be persuaded to adopt it, but that, because you have grown accustomed to the present order, you would prefer to continue a wretched existence under it rather than enjoy a better life under a stricter polity; and they warned me that I even ran the risk, although giving you the very best advice, of being thought an enemy of the people and of seeking to turn the state into an oligarchy.[*](The ready retort of demagogues to any critic of ochlocracy. See Isoc. 15.318 and note; Aristoph. Pl. 570.)

Well, if I were proposing a course which was unfamiliar and not generally known, and if I were urging you to appoint a committee or a commission[*](The very word (suggrafei=s) which was used of the board of twenty men appointed to make recommendations of a change in the constitution before the establishment of the oligarchy of the Four Hundred, 411 B.C.) to consider it, which was the means through which the democracy was done away with before, there might be some reason for this charge. I have, however, proposed nothing of the kind, but have been discussing a government whose character is hidden from no one, but evident to all—

one which, as you all know, is a heritage from our fathers, which has been the source of numberless blessings both to Athens and to the other states of Hellas, and which was, besides, ordained and established by men who would be acknowledged by all the world to have been the best friends of the people[*](Those who did, not what the people liked, but what was for their good. So Solon is called dhmokw/tatos, Isoc. 7.16.) among the citizens of Athens; so that it would be of all things most absurd if I, in seeking to introduce such a polity, should be suspected of favoring revolution.

Furthermore, it is easy to judge of my purpose from the fact that in most of the discourses[*](See especially Isoc. 4.105 ff.; General Introduction p. xxxviii.) which I have written, you will find that I condemn oligarchies and special privileges, while I commend equal rights and democratic governments—not all of them, but those which are well-ordered, praising them not indiscriminately, but on just and reasonable grounds.