Laws

Ath. If anyone, while acting as ambassador or herald, conveys false messages from his State to another State, or fails to deliver the actual message he was sent to deliver, or is proved to have brought back, as ambassador or herald, either from a friendly or hostile nation, their reply in a false form,—against all such there shall be laid an indictment for breaking the law by sinning against the sacred messages and injunctions of Hermes[*](Son, and herald, of Zeus, and a master of speech (and of lies).) and Zeus, and an assessment shall be made of the penalty they shall suffer or pay, if convicted. Theft of property is uncivilized, open robbery is shameless: neither of these has any of the sons of Zeus practiced, through delight in fraud or force. Let no man, therefore, be deluded concerning this or persuaded either by poets or by any perverse myth-mongers into the belief that, when he thieves or forcibly robs, he is doing nothing shameful, but just what the gods themselves do.[*](Cp.Plat. Rep 378 ff., Plat. Rep. 388 ff. Hermes is specially in mind, as notorious for his thefts and frauds; cp. Homer Iliad 5. 390; 24. 395, etc.) That is both unlikely and untrue; and whoever acts thus unlawfully is neither a god at all nor a child of gods; and this the lawgiver, as it behoves him, knows better than the whole tribe of poets. He, therefore, that hearkens to our speech is blessed, and deserves blessing for all time; but he that hearkens not shall, in the next place, be holden by this law:—If anyone steals any piece of public property, he shall receive the same punishment, be it great or small. For he that steals a small thing steals with equal greed, though with less power, while he that takes a large thing which he has not deposited does wrong to the full; wherefore the law deems it right not to inflict a less penalty on the one offender than on the other on the ground that his theft is smaller, but rather because the one is possibly still curable, the other incurable.

Ath. So if anyone convict in a court of law either a resident alien or a slave of stealing any piece of public property, in his case, since he is probably curable, the court shall decide what punishment he shall suffer or what fine he shall pay. But in the case of a citizen, who has been reared in the way he is to be reared,—if he be convicted of plundering or doing violence to his fatherland, whether he has been caught in the act or not, he shall be punished by death,[*](But cp. Plat. Laws 857a, b.) as being practically incurable. Military organization is the subject of much consultation and of many appropriate laws. The main principle is this—that nobody, male or female, should ever be left without control, nor should anyone, whether at work or in play, grow habituated in mind to acting alone and on his own initiative, but he should live always, both in war and peace, with his eyes fixed constantly on his commander and following his lead; and he should be guided by him even in the smallest detail of his actions—for example, to stand at the word of command, and to march, and to exercise, to wash and eat, to wake up at night for sentry-duty and despatch-carrying, and in moments of danger to wait for the commander’s signal before either pursuing or retreating before an enemy; and, in a word, he must instruct his soul by habituation to avoid all thought or idea of doing anything at all apart from the rest of his company, so that the life of all shall be lived en masse and in common; for there is not, nor ever will be, any rule superior to this or better and more effective in ensuring safety and victory in war. This task of ruling, and being ruled by, others must be practiced in peace from earliest childhood;[*](Cp. Plat. Laws 803c, Plat. Laws 803d; Sophocles Ant. 668 ff.) but anarchy must be utterly removed from the lives of all mankind, and of the beasts also that are subject to man. Moreover, with a view to excellence in war, they shall dance all kinds of dances,[*](Cp. Plat. Laws 795d., Plat. Laws 829b, Plat. Laws 829c.) and with the same object they shall cultivate in general suppleness and dexterity, and endurance also in the matter of foods and drinks and cold and heat and hard beds; and, what is most important, they shall accustom themselves not to spoil the natural powers of head and feet by wrapping them in coverings of alien material, and thereby ruining the production and growth of their own natural hair and soles.

Ath. For when these extremities are conserved, they keep at its highest the power of the whole body, but they effect the opposite when spoiled; and of these two extremities, the one is the chief minister of the whole body, and the other the chief master, inasmuch as, by the ordinance of nature, it contains all the leading senses of the body. Such is the laudation of the military life to which, as we hold, the youth ought to hearken, and its laws are these:—He that is enrolled or put on some rota must perform military service. If anyone, through cowardice, fail to present himself without leave from the commanders, he shall be indicted for desertion before the military officers when they return from camp, and each class of those who have served shall sit by themselves as judge—that is, hoplites, cavalry, and each of the other branches,— and they shall summon hoplites before the hoplites, cavalrymen before the cavalry, and all others in like manner before soldiers of their own class; and any man that is convicted shall be debarred from ever competing for any distinction and from ever prosecuting another for shirking service, or acting as accuser in connection with such charges; and, in addition to this, what he ought to suffer or pay shall be determined by the court. Next, when the suits for shirking service have been fully decided, the officers shall again hold a review of each class of soldiers, and he who wishes shall be tried before a court of his own colleagues on his claim for an award of merit; but any proof or verbal testimony which the claimant produces must have reference, not to any previous war, but solely to that campaign in which they have just been engaged. The prize for each class shall be a wreath of olive leaves; and this the recipient shall hang up, along with an inscription, in whatever temple of the war-gods he chooses, to serve throughout his life as a proof that he has won the first, second or third prize, as the case may be. If a man goes on military service, but returns home without leave from the officers, he shall be liable to be indicted for desertion before the same court which deals with cases of shirking service, and the same penalties which have been already prescribed shall be imposed upon him, if he is convicted. Every man, when bringing an action against another, ought rightly to dread bringing upon him, whether intentionally or unintentionally, a wrongful punishment (for Justice is, and has been truly named,[*](Cp. Hes. WD 192 ff., Hes. WD 254 ff., ἡ δὲ τε παρθένος ἐστὶ Δίκη . . . κυδρή τ’ αἰδοίη τε θεοῖς κτλ.) the daughter of Reverence, and falsehood and wrong are naturally detested by Reverence and Justice); and he should beware also of trespassing against Justice in any matter, and especially in respect of loss of arms in battle, lest by mistakenly abusing such losses as shameful, when they are really unavoidable, he may bring undeserved charges against an undeserving man.

Ath. It is by no means easy to draw distinctions between such cases; but none the less the law ought to try by some means to distinguish case from case. In illustration we may cite the story of Patroclus:[*](Cp. Hom. Il. 16., 17. 125 ff., 18. 84 ff. Patroclus (son of Menoetios) was wearing the arms of Achilles (son of Peleus) when slain by Hector.) suppose that he had been brought to his tent without his arms and had recovered—as has happened in the case of thousands,—while the arms he had had (which, as the poet relates, had been given to Peleus by the gods, as a dowry with Thetis) were in the hands of Hector,—then all the base men of those days would have been free to abuse Menoetios’ son for loss of arms. Moreover, there are instances of men losing their arms through being flung down from cliffs, or on the sea, or in ravines, when overwhelmed by a sudden great rush of water, or from other mishaps, countless in number, which one could mention by way of consolation, and thereby justify an evil which lends itself to calumny. It is right, therefore, to separate, as best one can, the greater and more serious evil from its opposite. As a rule, indeed, the employment of the names in question by way of abuse admits of a distinction; for the term shield-flinger would not properly be applied in all cases, but rather the term arms-dropper. For the man who by a fair amount of violence is stripped of his arms will not be as much of a shield-flinger as the man who has voluntarily thrown them away—rather there is a vast difference between the two cases. So let the pronouncement of the law be this:—If a man is overtaken by his enemies and, having arms, instead of turning and defending himself, voluntarily drops his arms or flings them away, thereby gaining for himself a life that is shameful by speed of foot, rather than by bravery a noble and blessed death,—concerning the arms flung away in a loss of this sort a trial shall be held, but the judge shall pass over in his enquiry a case of the kind previously described. For the bad man one must always punish, in order to better him, but not the luckless man; for that profits not. What, then, would be a proper penalty for the man who has thrown away for naught such powerful weapons of defence? A god, it is said, once changed Kaineus the Thessalian[*](Cp. Ovid, Met. 8. 305 ff., 12. 189 ff. Timaeus 90 E.) from woman’s shape to man’s; but it is beyond human power to do the opposite of this; otherwise, the converse transformation—changing him from a man into a woman—would be, perhaps, the most appropriate of all penalties for a shield-flinger.

Ath. As it is, to get the nearest possible approach to this, because of the man’s love of life at any price, and to secure that for the rest of his life he may run no risk, but may live saddled with this disgrace as long as possible,—the law dealing with such cases shall be this:—If any man be convicted on a charge of shamefully throwing away his military weapons, no general or other military officer shall ever employ him as a soldier or post him to any rank; otherwise, the examiner shall fine the officer who posts the coward 1000 drachmae, if he be of the highest property-class,—if of the second class, five minas,—if of the third, three minas,—if of the fourth, one mina. And the soldier who is convicted of the charge, in addition to being debarred, as his own nature requires, from manly risks, shall also pay back his wage—1000 drachmae, if he be of the highest class,—if of the second, five minas,— if of the third, three,—and if of the fourth, one mina, just as in the previous cases. Respecting examiners,[*](i.e. persons appointed to audit the accounts and scrutinize the conduct of public officials at the expiry of their term of office. Note the play on the literal sense of εὐθυντής, straightener (of crooked actions).) what would be a proper statement for us to make, seeing that some of the magistrates are appointed by the hazard of the lot and for a year, while others are appointed for several years and chosen out of a number of selected persons? Of such, who will be a competent examiner, in the event of any one of them acting at all crookedly through being burdened by the weight of his office and his own inability to support it worthily? It is by no means easy to find an officer of officers, who surpasses them in excellence, but still one must try to find some examiners of a divine quality. In fact, the case stands thus:—The dissolution of a polity, like that of a ship’s frame, depends upon many critical factors: these (in the case of a ship) though one in nature are separated into many parts, and we call them by many names—such as stays, under-girders, bracing-ropes. For the preservation, or dissolution and disappearance, of a polity the office of examiner is such a critical factor, and that of the gravest kind. For if those who act as examiners of the magistrates are better men than they, and if they act blamelessly with blameless justice, then the whole of the State and country flourishes and is happy; but if the examination of the magistrates is carried out otherwise, then the bond of justice which binds all political elements into one is dissolved, and in consequence every office is torn apart from every other, and they no longer tend all to the same end; and thus out of one State they make many,[*](Cp. Plat. Rep. 422e.) and by filling it with civil strife they speedily bring it to ruin. Wherefore it is most necessary that the examiners should be men of admirably complete virtue.

Ath.Let us contrive to bring them into being in some such way as this:—Every year, after the summer solstice,[*](Cp. Plat. Laws 767c, Plat. Laws 767d.) the whole State must assemble at the common precincts of Helios and Apollo, there to present before the god the names of three out of their own number,— each citizen proposing that man, not less than fifty years old, whom (with the exception of himself) he regards as in all respects the best. Of those so nominated they shall choose out those who have gained most votes—half of the total number nominated, if that number be even, but if it be an odd number, they shall reject the one who has least votes and retain the even half, marking them off according to the number of the votes received; and if several have an equal number of votes, thus causing the upper half-section to be too large, they shall remove the excess by rejecting those that are youngest; the rest being retained on the list, they shall vote again on these, and they shall continue the same process until three be left with an unequal number of votes. If, however, all of these, or two of them, have equal votes, they shall commit the matter to good luck and chance, and distinguish by lot between the first, the second, and the third, and crown them with olive-wreaths; and when they have thus awarded the distinctions, they shall make this public proclamation:—The State of the Magnetes,—which, by God’s grace, has again won salvation,—has presented to Helios the three best of its own men, and now it dedicates them, according to the ancient law, as a joint offering to Apollo and Helios of its choicest first fruits, for so long a time as they pursue their judicial task. Twelve such examiners shall be appointed in the first year, until each of them has come to the age of seventy-five; and thereafter three shall be added annually. And they, after dividing all the public offices into twelve sections, shall employ all tests, of a gentlemanly kind, in investigating them. So long as they are serving as examiners, they shall reside within the precincts of Apollo and Helios, where they were chosen. When they have judged—either each one singly or in consultation with one another—the State officials, they shall publish, by means of records placed in the market, a statement concerning what each official should suffer or pay according to the decision of the examiners. If any official claims that he has not been judged justly, he shall summon the examiners before the select judges;[*](Cp. Plat. Laws 855c, Plat. Laws 926d.) and if he be acquitted in respect of the examiners’ charges, he shall, if he wishes, prosecute the examiners themselves; but if he be convicted, in case the penalty imposed on him by the examiners be death, he shall simply be put to death (one death only being possible), but in the case of other penalties which admit of being doubled, he shall pay a double penalty. As regards the examinations of these examiners themselves, it is right for us to hear what they are to be, and how they are to be conducted.