Laws

Ath. So much for that, then! Now, what are we to say about the origin of government? Would not the best and easiest way of discerning it be from this standpoint?

Clin. What standpoint?

Ath. That from which one should always observe the progress of States as they move towards either goodness or badness.

Clin. What point is that?

Ath. The observation, as I suppose, of an infinitely long period of time and of the variations therein occurring.

Clin. Explain your meaning.

Ath. Tell me now: do you think you could ever ascertain the space of time that has passed since cities came into existence and men lived under civic rule?

Clin. Certainly it would be no easy task.

Ath. But you can easily see that it is vast and immeasurable?

Clin. That I most certainly can do.

Ath. During this time, have not thousands upon thousands of States come into existence, and, on a similar computation, just as many perished? And have they not in each case exhibited all kinds of constitutions over and over again? And have they not changed at one time from small to great, at another from great to small, and changed also from good to bad and from bad to good?

Clin. Necessarily.

Ath. Of this process of change let us discover, if we can, the cause; for this, perhaps, would show us what is the primary origin of constitutions, as well as their transformation.

Clin. You are right; and we must all exert ourselves,—you to expound your view about them, and we to keep pace with you.

Ath. Do you consider that there is any truth in the ancient tales?

Clin. What tales?

Ath. That the world of men has often been destroyed by floods, plagues, and many other things, in such a way that only a small portion of the human race has survived.

Clin. Everyone would regard such accounts as perfectly credible.

Ath. Come now, let us picture to ourselves one of the many catastrophes,—namely, that which occurred once upon a time through the Deluge.[*](Deucalion’s Flood: cp. Polit. 270 C.)

Clin. And what are we to imagine about it?

Ath. That the men who then escaped destruction must have been mostly herdsmen of the hills, scanty embers of the human race preserved somewhere on the mountain-tops.

Clin. Evidently.

Ath. Moreover, men of this kind must necessarily have been unskilled in the arts generally, and especially in such contrivances as men use against one another in cities for purposes of greed and rivalry and all the other villainies which they devise one against another.

Clin. It is certainly probable.

Ath. Shall we assume that the cities situated in the plains and near the sea were totally destroyed at the time?

Clin. Let us assume it.

Ath. And shall we say that all implements were lost, and that everything in the way of important arts or inventions that they may have had,—whether concerned with politics or other sciences,— perished at that time? For, supposing that things had remained all that time ordered just as they are now, how, my good sir, could anything new have ever been invented?

Clin. Do you mean that these things were unknown to the men of those days for thousands upon thousands of years, and that one or two thousand years ago some of them were revealed to Daedalus, some to Orpheus, some to Palamedes, musical arts to Marsyas and Olympus, lyric to Amphion, and, in short, a vast number of others to other persons—all dating, so to say, from yesterday or the day before?

Ath. Are you aware, Clinias, that you have left out your friend who was literally a man of yesterday?

Clin. Is it Epimenides[*](Cp. Plat. Laws 642d.) you mean?

Ath. Yes, I mean him. For he far outstripped everybody you had, my friend, by that invention of his of which he was the actual producer, as you Cretans say, although Hesiod[*](Hes. WD 640f. νήπιοι, οὐδὲ ἴασιν ὅσῳ πλέον ἥμισυ παντός, οὐδʼ ὅσον ἐν μαλάχῃ τε καὶ ἀσφοδέλῳ μέγʼ ὄνειαρ. Hesiod’s allusion to the great virtue residing in mallow and asphodel is supposed to have suggested to Epimenides his invention of a herbal concoction, or elixir of life.) had divined it and spoken of it long before.

Clin. We do say so.

Ath. Shall we, then, state that, at the time when the destruction took place, human affairs were in this position: there was fearful and widespread desolation over a vast tract of land; most of the animals were destroyed, and the few herds of oxen and flocks of goats that happened to survive afforded at the first but scanty sustenance to their herdsmen?

Clin. Yes.

Ath. And as to the matters with which our present discourse is concerned—States and statecraft and legislation,—do we think they could have retained any memory whatsoever, broadly speaking, of such matters?

Clin. By no means.

Ath. So from those men, in that situation, there has sprung the whole of our present order—States and constitutions, arts and laws, with a great amount both of evil and of good?

Clin. How do you mean?

Ath. Do we imagine, my good Sir, that the men of that age, who were unversed in the ways of city life—many of them noble, many ignoble,—were perfect either in virtue or in vice?

Clin. Well said! We grasp your meaning.

Ath. As time went on and our race multiplied, all things advanced—did they not?—to the condition which now exists.

Clin. Very true.

Ath. But, in all probability, they advanced, not all at once, but by small degrees, during an immense space of time.

Clin. Yes, that is most likely.

Ath. For they all, I fancy, felt as it were still ringing in their ears a dread of going down from the highlands to the plains.

Clin. Of course.

Ath. And because there were so few of them round about in those days, were they not delighted to see one another, but for the fact that means of transport, whereby they might visit one another by sea or land, had practically all perished along with the arts? Hence intercourse, I imagine, was not very easy. For iron and bronze and all the metals in the mines had been flooded and had disappeared; so that it was extremely difficult to extract fresh metal; and there was a dearth, in consequence, of felled timber. For even if there happened to be some few tools still left somewhere on the mountains, these were soon worn out, and they could not be replaced by others until men had rediscovered the art of metal-working.

Clin. They could not.

Ath. Now, how many generations, do we suppose, had passed before this took place?

Clin. A great many, evidently.

Ath. And during all this period, or even longer, all the arts that require iron and bronze and all such metals must have remained in abeyance?

Clin. Of course.

Ath. Moreover, civil strife and war also disappeared during that time, and that for many reasons.

Clin. How so?

Ath. In the first place, owing to their desolate state, they were kindly disposed and friendly towards one another; and secondly, they had no need to quarrel about food. For they had no lack of flocks and herds (except perhaps some of them at the outset), and in that age these were what men mostly lived on: thus they were well supplied with milk and meat, and they procured further supplies of food, both excellent and plentiful, by hunting. They were also well furnished with clothing and coverlets and houses, and with vessels for cooking and other kinds; for no iron is required for the arts of moulding and weaving, which two arts God gave to men to furnish them with all these necessaries, in order that the human race might have means of sprouting and increase whenever it should fall into such a state of distress. Consequently, they were not excessively poor, nor were they constrained by stress of poverty to quarrel one with another; and, on the other hand, since they were without gold and silver, they could never have become rich. Now a community which has no communion with either poverty or wealth is generally the one in which the noblest characters will be formed; for in it there is no place for the growth of insolence and injustice, of rivalries and jealousies. So these men were good, both for these reasons and because of their simple-mindedness, as it is called; for, being simple-minded, when they heard things called bad or good, they took what was said for gospel-truth and believed it. For none of them had the shrewdness of the modern man to suspect a falsehood; but they accepted as true the statements made about gods and men, and ordered their lives by them. Thus they were entirely of the character we have just described.

Clin. Certainly Megillus and I quite agree with what you say.

Ath. And shall we not say that people living in this fashion for many generations were bound to be unskilled, as compared with either the antediluvians or the men of today, and ignorant of arts in general and especially of the arts of war as now practised by land and sea, including those warlike arts which, disguised under the names of law-suits and factions, are peculiar to cities, contrived as they are with every device of word and deed to inflict mutual hurt and injury; and that they were also more simple and brave and temperate, and in all ways more righteous? And the cause of this state of things we have already explained.

Clin. Quite true.

Ath. We must bear in mind that the whole purpose of what we have said and of what we are going to say next is this,—that we may understand what possible need of laws the men of that time had, and who their lawgiver was.

Clin. Excellent.

Ath. Shall we suppose that those men had no need of lawgivers, and that in those days it was not as yet usual to have such a thing? For those born in that age of the world’s history did not as yet possess the art of writing, but lived by following custom and what is called patriarchal law.

Clin. That is certainly probable.

Ath. But this already amounts to a kind of government.

Clin. What kind?

Ath. Everybody, I believe, gives the name of headship to the government which then existed,—and it still continues to exist to-day among both Greeks and barbarians in many quarters.[*](Cp. Aristot. Pol. 1252b 17ff. This headship, which is the hereditary personal authority of the father of a family or chief of a clan, we should term patriarchy.) And, of course, Homer mentions its existence in connection with the household system of the Cyclopes, where he says—

1. No halls of council and no laws are theirs,
2. But within hollow caves on mountain heights
3. Aloft they dwell, each making his own law.

1. For wife and child; of others reck they naught.

Clin. This poet of yours seems to have been a man of genius. We have also read other verses of his, and they were extremely fine; though in truth we have not read much of him, since we Cretans do not indulge much in foreign poetry.

Meg. But we Spartans do, and we regard Homer as the best of them; all the same, the mode of life he describes is always Ionian rather than Laconian. And now he appears to be confirming your statement admirably, when in his legendary account he ascribes the primitive habits of the Cyclopes to their savagery.

Ath. Yes, his testimony supports us; so let us take him as evidence that polities of this sort do sometimes come into existence.

Clin. Quite right.

Ath. Did they not originate with those people who lived scattered in separate clans or in single households, owing to the distress which followed after the catastrophes; for amongst these the eldest holds rule, owing to the fact that the rule proceeds from the parents, by following whom they form a single flock, like a covey of birds, and live under a patriarchal government and a kingship which is of all kingships the most just?

Clin. Most certainly.

Ath. Next, they congregate together in greater numbers, and form larger droves; and first they turn to farming on the hill-sides, and make ring-fences of rubble and walls to ward off wild beasts, till finally they have constructed a single large common dwelling.

Clin. It is certainly probable that such was the course of events.

Ath. Well, is not this also probable?

Clin. What?

Ath. That, while these larger settlements were growing out of the original small ones, each of the small settlements continued to retain, clan by clan, both the rule of the eldest and also some customs derived from its isolated condition and peculiar to itself. As those who begot and reared them were different, so these customs of theirs, relating to the gods and to themselves, differed, being more orderly where their forefathers had been orderly, and more brave where they had been brave; and as thus the fathers of each clan in due course stamped upon their children and children’s children their own cast of mind, these people came (as we say) into the larger community furnished each with their own peculiar laws.

Clin. Of course.

Ath. And no doubt each clan was well pleased with its own laws, and less well with those of its neighbors.

Clin. True.

Ath. Unwittingly, as it seems, we have now set foot, as it were, on the starting-point of legislation.

Clin. We have indeed.

Ath. The next step necessary is that these people should come together and choose out some members of each clan who, after a survey of the legal usages of all the clans, shall notify publicly to the tribal leaders and chiefs (who may be termed their kings) which of those usages please them best, and shall recommend their adoption. These men will themselves be named legislators, and when they have established the chiefs as magistrates, and have framed an aristocracy, or possibly even a monarchy, from the existing plurality of headships, they will live under the constitution thus transformed.

Clin. The next steps would certainly be such as you describe.

Ath. Let us go on to describe the rise of a third form of constitution, in which are blended all kinds and varieties of constitutions, and of States as well.[*](For this mixed polity of the city of the plain, cp. the description of democracy in Plat. Rep. 557d ff.)

Clin. What form is that?

Ath. The same that Homer himself mentioned next to the second, when he said that the third form arose in this way. His verses run thus—

1. Dardania he founded when as yet
2. The Holy keep of Ilium was not built
3. Upon the plain, a town for mortal folk,
4. But still they dwelt upon the highland slopes
5. Of many-fountained Ida.

Ath. Indeed, these verses of his, as well as those he utters concerning the Cyclopes, are in a kind of unison with the voices of both God and Nature. For being divinely inspired in its chanting, the poetic tribe, with the aid of Graces and Muses, often grasps the truth of history.

Clin. It certainly does.

Ath. Now let us advance still further in the tale that now engages us; for possibly it may furnish some hint regarding the matter we have in view. Ought we not to do so?

Clin. Most certainly.

Ath.Ilium was founded, we say, after moving from the highlands down to a large and noble plain, on a hill of no great height which had many rivers flowing down from Ida above.

Clin. So they say.

Ath. And do we not suppose that this took place many ages after the Deluge?

Clin. Many ages after, no doubt.

Ath. At any rate they seem to have been strangely forgetful of the catastrophe now mentioned, since they placed their city, as described, under a number of rivers descending from the mount, and relied for their safety upon hillocks of no great height.

Clin. So it is evident that they were removed by quite a long interval from that calamity.

Ath. By this time, too, as mankind multiplied, many other cities had been founded.

Clin. Of course.

Ath. And these cities also made attacks on Ilium, probably by sea too, as well as by land, since by this time all made use of the sea fearlessly.

Clin. So it appears.

Ath. And after a stay of ten years the Achaeans sacked Troy.

Clin. Very true.

Ath. Now during this period of ten years, while the siege lasted, the affairs of each of the besiegers at home suffered much owing to the seditious conduct of the young men. For when the soldiers returned to their own cities and homes, these young people did not receive them fittingly and justly, but in such a way that there ensued a vast number of cases of death, slaughter, and exile. So they, being again driven out, migrated by sea; and because Dorieus[*](We do not hear of him elsewhere; and the account here is so vague that it is hard to say what events (or traditions) are alluded to. The usual story is that Dorian invaders drove out the Achaeans from S. Greece (about 900 B.C.)) was the man who then banded together the exiles, they got the new name of Dorians, instead of Achaeans. But as to all the events that follow this, you Lacedaemonians relate them all fully in your traditions.

Meg. Quite true.

Ath. And now—as it were by divine direction—we have returned once more to the very point in our discourse on laws where we made our digression,[*](Cp. Plat. Laws 638d.) when we plunged into the subject of music and drinking-parties; and we can, so to speak, get a fresh grip upon the argument, now that it has reached this point,—the settlement of Lacedaemon, about which you said truly that it and Crete were settled under kindred laws. From the wandering course of our argument, and our excursion through various polities and settlements, we have now gained this much: we have discerned a first, a second and a third State,[*](i.e., (1) the family or clan, under patriarchal headship; (2) the combination of clans under an aristocracy (or monarchy); (3) the mixed state (or city of the plain, like Troy); and (4) the confederacy, consisting, in the example, of three States leagued together.) all, as we suppose, succeeding one another in the settlements which took place during vast ages of time. And now there has emerged this fourth State—or nation, if you so prefer—which was once upon a time in course of establishment and is now established. Now, if we can gather from all this which of these settlements was right and which wrong, and which laws keep safe what is kept safe, and which laws ruin what is mined, and what changes in what particulars would effect the happiness of the State,—then, O Megillus and Clinias, we ought to describe these things again, making a fresh start from the beginning,—unless we have some fault to find with our previous statements.

Meg. I can assure you, Stranger, that if some god were to promise us that, in making this second attempt to investigate legislation, we shall listen to a discourse that is no worse and no shorter than that we have just been listening to, I for one would go a long way to hear it; indeed, this would seem quite a short day, although it is, as a matter of fact, close on midsummer.

Ath. So it seems that we must proceed with our enquiry.

Meg. Most certainly.

Ath. Let us, then, place ourselves in imagination at that epoch when Lacedaemon, together with Argos and Messene and the adjoining districts, had become completely subject, Megillus, to your forefathers. They determined next, according to the tradition, to divide their host into three parts, and to establish three States,—Argos, Messene and Lacedaemon.

Meg. Very true.

Ath. And Temenus became King of Argos, Cresphontes of Messene, and Proclus and Eurysthenes of Lacedaemon.

Meg. Of course.

Ath. And all the men of that time swore that they would assist these kings if anyone should try to wreck their kingdoms.

Meg. Quite so.

Ath. Is the dissolution of a kingdom, or of any government that has ever yet been dissolved, caused by any other agency than that of the rulers themselves? Or, though we made this assertion a moment ago when we happened upon this subject, have we now forgotten it?[*](Cp.Plat. Laws 682d, 682e.)

Meg. How could we possibly have forgotten?

Ath. Shall we further confirm that assertion now? For we have come to the same view now, as it appears, in dealing with facts of history; so that we shall be examining it with reference not to a mere abstraction, but to real events. Now what actually took place was this: each of the three royal houses, and the cities under their sway, swore to one another,[*]( Cp.Plat. Laws 692b.) according to the laws, binding alike on ruler and subject, which they had made,—the rulers that, as time went on and the nation advanced, they would refrain from making their rule more severe, and the subjects that, so long as the rulers kept fast to their promise, they would never upset the monarchy themselves, nor would they allow others to do so; and they swore that the kings should aid both kings and peoples when wronged, and the peoples aid both peoples and kings. Was not that the way of it?

Meg. It was.

Ath. In the polities legally established—whether by the kings or others—in the three States, was not this the most important principle?

Meg. What?

Ath. That the other two States should always help against the third, whenever it disobeyed the laws laid down.

Meg. Evidently.

Ath. And surely most people insist on this,— that the lawgivers shall enact laws of such a kind that the masses of the people accept them willingly; just as one might insist that trainers or doctors should make their treatments or cures of men’s bodies pleasurable.

Meg. Exactly so.

Ath. But in fact one often has to be content if one can bring a body into a sound and healthy state with no great amount of pain.

Meg. Very true.

Ath. The men of that age possessed also another advantage which helped not a little to facilitate legislation.[*](Cp. Plat. Laws 736c.)

Meg. What was that?

Ath. Their legislators, in their efforts to establish equality of property, were free from that worst of accusations which is commonly incurred in States with laws of a different kind, whenever anyone seeks to disturb the occupation of land, or to propose the abolition of debts, since he perceives that without these measures equality could never be fully secured. In such cases, if the lawgiver attempts to disturb any of these things, everyone confronts him with the cry, Hands off, and they curse him for introducing redistributions of land and remissions of debts, with the result that every man is rendered powerless. But the Dorians had this further advantage, that they were free from all dread of giving offence, so that they could divide up their land without dispute; and they had no large debts of old standing.[*]( i.e., the Dorian settlers, by right of conquest, were free to do as they pleased: none of the old owners or creditors could assert rights or claims.)

Meg. True

Ath. How was it then, my good sirs, that their settlement and legislation turned out so badly?

Meg. What do you mean? What fault have you to find with it?

Ath. This, that whereas there were three States settled, two of the three[*](viz., Argos and Messene,—the third being Laconia. ) speedily wrecked their constitution and their laws, and one only remained stable—and that was your State, Megillus.

Meg. The question is no easy one.

Ath. Yet surely in our consideration and enquiry into this subject, indulging in an old man’s sober play with laws, we ought to proceed on our journey painlessly, as we said[*](Cp. Plat. Laws 625b.) when we first started out.

Meg. Certainly, we must do as you say.

Ath. Well, what laws would offer a better subject for investigation than the laws by which those States were regulated? Or what larger or more famous States are there about whose settling we might enquire?

Meg. It would be hard to mention better instances than these.

Ath. It is fairly evident that the men of that age intended this organization of theirs to serve as an adequate protection not only for the Peloponnesus, but for the whole of Hellas as well, in case any of the barbarians should attack them just as the former dwellers around Ilium were emboldened to embark on the Trojan War through reliance on the Assyrian power as it had been in the reign of Ninus.[*]( The mythical founder of the Assyrian empire, husband of Semiramis, and builder of Nineveh (dated about 2200 B.C.).) For much of the splendor of that empire still survived and the people of that age stood in fear of its confederate power, just as we men of today dread the Great King. For since Troy was a part of the Assyrian empire, the second[*](The first capture was by Heracles, in the reign of Laomedon, father of Priam. Cp. Hom. Il. 5.640 ff.) capture of Troy formed a grave charge against the Greeks. It was in view of all this that the Dorian host was at that time organizes and distributed amongst three States under brother princes, the sons of Heracles[*](viz., Temenus, king of Argos, Procles and Eurystheus of Laconia, Cresphontes of Messene.); and men thought it admirably devised, and in its equipment superior even to the host that had sailed to Troy. For men reckoned, first, that in the sons of Heracles they had better chiefs than the Pelopidae,[*](viz., Agamemnon and Menelaus.) and further, that this army was superior in valor to the army which went to Troy, since the latter, which was Achaean, was worsted by the former, which was Dorian. Must we not suppose that it was in this way, and with this intention, that the men of that age organized themselves?

Meg. Certainly.

Ath. Is it not also probable that they would suppose this to be a stable arrangement, and likely to continue quite a long time, since they had shared together many toils and dangers, and were marshalled under leaders of a single family (their princes being brothers), and since, moreover, they had consulted a number of diviners and, amongst others, the Delphian Apollo?

Meg. That is certainly probable.

Ath. But it seems that these great expectations speedily vanished, except only, as we said, in regard to that small fraction, your State of Laconia; and ever since, up to the present day, this fraction has never ceased warring against the other two. For if the original intention had been realized, and if they had been in accord about their policy, it would have created a power invincible in war.

Meg. It certainly would.

Ath. How then, and by what means, was it destroyed? Is it not worth while to enquire by what stroke of fortune so grand a confederacy was wrecked?

Meg. Yes for, if one passed over these examples, one would not be likely to find elsewhere either laws or constitutions which preserve interests thus fair and great, or, on the contrary, wreck them totally.

Ath. Thus by a piece of good luck, as it seems, we have embarked on an enquiry of some importance.

Meg. Undoubtedly.

Ath. Now, my dear sir, do not men in general, like ourselves at the present moment, unconsciously fancy that every fine object they set eyes on would produce marvellous results, if only a man understood the right way to make a fine use of it? But for us to hold such an idea in regard to the matter before us would possibly be both wrong and against nature; and the same is true of all other cases where men hold such ideas.

Meg. What is it you mean? And what shall we say is the special point of your remarks ?

Ath. Why, my dear sir, I had a laugh at my own expense just now. For when I beheld this armament of which we are speaking, I thought it an amazingly fine thing, and that, if anyone had made a fine use of it at that time, it would have proved, as I said, a wonderful boon to the Greeks.

Meg. And was it not quite right and sensible of you to say this, and of us to endorse it?

Ath. Possibly; I conceive, however, that everyone, when he beholds a thing that is large, powerful and strong, is instantly struck by the conviction that, if its possessor knew how to employ an instrument of that magnitude and quality, he could make himself happy by many wonderful achievements.

Meg. Is not that a right conviction? Or what is your view?

Ath. Just consider what one ought to have in view in every instance, in order to justify the bestowal of such praise. And first, with regard to the matter now under discussion,—if the men who were then marshalling the army knew how to organize it properly, how would they have achieved success? Must it not have been by consolidating it firmly and by maintaining it perpetually, so that they should be both free themselves and masters over all others whom they chose, and so that both they and their children should do in general just what they pleased throughout the world of Greeks and barbarians alike? Are not these the reasons why they would be praised?

Meg. Certainly.

Ath. And in every case where a man uses the language of eulogy on seeing great wealth or eminent family distinctions or anything else of the kind, would it not be true to say that, in using it, he has this fact specially in mind,—that the possessor of such things is likely, just because of this, to realize all, or at least the most and greatest, of his desires.

Meg. That is certainly probable.

Ath. Come now, is there one object of desire—that now indicated by our argument—which is common to all men?

Meg. What is that?

Ath. The desire that, if possible, everything,—or failing that, all that is humanly possible—should happen in accordance with the demands of one’s own heart.

Meg. To he sure.

Ath. Since this, then, is what we all wish always, alike in childhood and manhood and old age, it is for this, necessarily, that we should pray continually.

Meg. Of course.

Ath. Moreover, on behalf of our friends we will join in making the same prayer which they make on their own behalf.

Meg. To be sure.

Ath. And a son is a friend to his father, the boy to the man.

Meg. Certainly.

Ath. Yet the father will often pray the gods that the things which the son prays to obtain may in no wise he granted according to the son’s prayers.

Meg. Do you mean, when the son who is praying is still young and foolish?

Ath. Yes, and also when the father, either through age or through the hot temper of youth, being devoid of all sense of right and justice, indulges in the vehement prayers of passion (like those of Theseus against Hippolytus[*]( Hippolytus was accused by his stepmother, Phaedra, of attempting to dishonor her: therefore his father (Theseus) invoked a curse upon him, and Poseidon (father of Theseus) sent a bull which scared the horses of H.’s chariot so that they upset the chariot and dragged him till he was dead.), when he met his luckless end), while the son, on the contrary, has a sense of justice,—in this case do you suppose that the son will echo his father’s prayers?

Meg. I grasp your meaning. You mean, as I suppose, that what a man ought to pray and press for is not that everything should follow his own desire, while his desire in no way follows his own reason; but it is the winning of wisdom that everyone of us, States and individuals alike, ought to pray for and strive after.

Ath. Yes. And what is more, I would recall to your recollection, as well as to my own, how it was said[*](Plat. Laws 630d ff.) (if you remember) at the outset that the legislator of a State, in settling his legal ordinances, must always have regard to wisdom. The injunction you gave was that the good lawgiver must frame all his laws with a view to war: I, on the other hand, maintained that, whereas by your injunction the laws would be framed with reference to one only of the four virtues, it was really essential to look to the whole of virtue, and first and above all to pay regard to the principal virtue of the four, which is wisdom and reason and opinion, together with the love and desire that accompany them. Now the argument has come hack again to the same point, and I now repeat my former statement,—in jest, if you will, or else in earnest; I assert that prayer is a perilous practice for him who is devoid of reason, and that what he obtains is the opposite of his desires. For I certainly expect that, as you follow the argument recently propounded, you will now discover that the cause of the ruin of those kingdoms, and of their whole design, was not cowardice or ignorance of warfare on the part either of the rulers or of those who should have been their subjects; but that what ruined them was badness of all other kinds, and especially ignorance concerning the greatest of human interests. That this was the course of events then, and is so still, whenever such events occur, and will be so likewise in the future,—this, with your permission, I will endeavor to discover in the course of the coming argument, and to make it as clear as I can to you, my very good friends.

Clin. Verbal compliments are in poor taste, Stranger; but by deed, if not by word, we shall pay you the highest of compliments by attending eagerly to your discourse; and that is what best shows whether compliments are spontaneous or the reverse.

Meg. Capital, Clinias! Let us do just as you say.

Clin. It shall be so, God willing. Only say on.

Ath. Well then, to advance further on the track of our discourse,—we assert that it was ignorance, in its greatest form, which at that time destroyed the power we have described, and which naturally produces still the same results; and if this is so, it follows that the lawgiver must try to implant in States as much wisdom as possible, and to root out folly to the utmost of his power.

Clin. Obviously.

Ath. What kind of ignorance would deserve to be called the greatest? Consider whether you will agree with my description; I take it to be ignorance of this kind,—

Clin. What kind?

Ath. That which we see in the man who hates, instead of loving, what he judges to be noble and good, while he loves and cherishes what he judges to be evil and unjust. That want of accord, on the part of the feelings of pain and pleasure, with the rational judgment is, I maintain, the extreme form of ignorance, and also the greatest because it belongs to the main mass of the soul,— for the part of the soul that feels pain and pleasure corresponds to the mass of the populace in the State.[*](In this comparison between the Soul and the State both are regarded as consisting of two parts or elements, the ruling and the ruled, of which the former is the noblest, but the latter the greatest in bulk and extent. The ruling element in the Soul is Reason (νοῦς, λόγος), and in the State it is Law (νόμος) and its exponents: the subject element in the Soul consists of sensations, emotions and desires, which (both in hulk and in irrationality) correspond to the mass of the volgus in the State. Plato’s usual division of the Soul is into three parts—reason (νοῦς), passion (θυμός), and desire (ἐπιθυμία): cp. Plat. Rep. 435ff.) So whenever this part opposes what are by nature the ruling principles—knowledge, opinion, or reason,—this condition I call folly, whether it be in a State, when the masses disobey the rulers and the laws, or in an individual, when the noble elements of reason existing in the soul produce no good effect, but quite the contrary. All these I would count as the most discordant forms of ignorance, whether in the State or the individual, and not the ignorance of the artisan,—if you grasp my meaning, Strangers.

Clin. We do, my dear sir, and we agree with it.

Ath. Then let it be thus resolved and declared, that no control shall be entrusted to citizens thus ignorant, but that they shall be held in reproach for their ignorance, even though they be expert calculators, and trained in all accomplishments and in everything that fosters agility of soul, while those whose mental condition is the reverse of this shall be entitled wise, even if—as the saying goes—they spell not neither do they swim[*](i.e., are ignorant of even the most ordinary accomplishments. ); and to these latter, as to men of sense, the government shall be entrusted. For without harmony,[*]( Cp. Plat. Rep. 430e; 591d.) my friends, how could even the smallest fraction of wisdom exist? It is impossible. But the greatest and best of harmonies would most properly be accounted the greatest wisdom; and therein he who lives rationally has a share, whereas he who is devoid thereof will always prove to be a home-wrecker and anything rather than a saviour of the State, because of his ignorance in these matters. So let this declaration stand, as we recently said, as one of our axioms.

Clin. Yes, let it stand.

Ath. Our States, I presume, must have rulers and subjects.

Clin. Of course.

Ath. Very well then: what and how many are the agreed rights or claims in the matter of ruling and being ruled, alike in States, large or small, and in households? Is not the right of father and mother one of them? And in general would not the claim of parents to rule over offspring be a claim universally just?

Clin. Certainly.

Ath. And next to this, the right of the noble to rule over the ignoble; and then, following on these as a third claim, the right of older people to rule and of younger to be ruled.

Clin. To be sure.

Ath. The fourth right is that slaves ought to be ruled, and masters ought to rule.

Clin. Undoubtedly.

Ath. And the fifth is, I imagine, that the stronger should rule and the weaker be ruled.

Clin. A truly compulsory form of rule!

Ath. Yes, and one that is very prevalent among all kinds of creatures, being

according to nature,

Clin. A very just observation.

Ath. Heaven’s favour and good-luck mark the seventh form of rule, where we bring a man forward for a casting of lots, and declare that if he gains the lot he will most justly be ruler, but if he fails he shall take his place among the ruled.

Clin. Very true.

Ath.Seest thou, O legislator,—it is thus we might playfully address one of those who lightly start on the task of legislation—how many are the rights pertaining to rulers, and how they are essentially opposed to one another? Herein we have now discovered a source of factions, which thou must remedy. So do thou, in the first place, join with us in enquiring how it came to pass, and owing to what transgression of those rights, that the kings of Argos and Messene brought ruin alike on themselves and on the Hellenic power, splendid as it was at that epoch. Was it not through ignorance of that most true saying of Hesiod[*](Cp. Hes. WD 638 ff.; Rep. 466 C.: the meaning is that when the whole is excessive, the moderate half is preferable; this maxim being here applied to excesses of political power.) that oftimes the half is greater than the whole?

Clin. Most true, indeed.

Ath. Is it our view, then, that this causes ruin when it is found in kings rather than when found in peoples?

Clin. Probably this is, in the main, a disease of kings, in whom luxury breeds pride of life.

Ath. Is it not plain that what those kings strove for first was to get the better of the established laws, and that they were not in accord with one another about the pledge which they had approved both by word and by oath; and this discord—reputed to be wisdom, but really, as we affirm, the height of ignorance, owing to its grating dissonance and lack of harmony, brought the whole Greek world to ruin?

Clin. It would seem so, certainly.

Ath. Very well then: what precaution ought the legislator to have taken at that time in his enactments, to guard against the growth of this disorder? Verily, to perceive that now requires no great sagacity, nor is it a hard thing to declare; but the man who foresaw it in those days—if it could possibly have been foreseen—would have been a wiser man than we.

Meg. To what are you alluding?

Ath. If one looks at what has happened, Megillus, among you Lacedaemonians, it is easy to perceive, and after perceiving to state, what ought to have been done at that time.

Meg. Speak still more clearly.

Ath. The clearest statement would be this—

Meg. What?

Ath. If one neglects the rule of due measure, and gives things too great in power to things too small—sails to ships, food to bodies, offices of rule to souls—then everything is upset, and they run, through excess of insolence, some to bodily disorders, others to that offspring of insolence, injustice.[*](Cp. Soph. OT 873: ὕβρις φυτεύει τύραννον) What, then, is our conclusion? Is it not this? There does not exist, my friends, a mortal soul whose nature, when young and irresponsible, will ever be able to stand being in the highest ruling position upon earth without getting surfeited in mind with that greatest of disorders, folly, and earning the detestation of its nearest friends; and when this occurs, it speedily ruins the soul itself and annihilates the whole of its power. To guard against this, by perceiving the due measure, is the task of the great lawgiver. So the most duly reasonable conjecture we can now frame as to what took place at that epoch appears to be this—

Meg. What?

Ath. To begin with, there was a god watching over you; and he, foreseeing the future, restricted within due bounds the royal power by making your kingly line no longer single but twofold. In the next place, some man,[*](Lycurgus.) in whom human nature was blended with power divine, observing your government to be still swollen with fever, blended the self-willed force of the royal strain with the temperate potency of age, by making the power of the eight-and-twenty elders of equal weight with that of the kings in the greatest matters. Then your third saviour,[*](Theopompus, king of Sparta about 750 B.C. The institution of the Ephorate is by some ascribed to him (as here), by others to Lycurgus. Cp. Aristot. Pol. 1313a 19ff.) seeing your government still fretting and fuming, curbed it, as one may say, by the power of the ephors, which was not far removed from government by lot. Thus, in your case, according to this account, owing to its being blended of the right elements and possessed of due measure, the kingship not only survived itself but ensured the survival of all else. For if the matter had lain with Temenus and Cresphontes[*]( See Plat. Laws 683d.) and the lawgivers of their day—whosoever those lawgivers really were,—even the portion of Aristodemus[*](i.e., Lacedaemon: Aristodemus was father of Eurysthenes and Procles (cp. Plat. Laws 683d).) could never have survived, for they were not fully expert in the art of legislation; otherwise they could hardly have deemed it sufficient to moderate by means of sworn pledges[*]( Cp. Plat. Laws 684a.) a youthful soul endowed with power such as might develop into a tyranny; but now God has shown of what kind the government ought to have been then, and ought to be now, if it is to endure. That we should understand this, after the occurrence, is—as I said before[*](Plat. Laws 691b)—no great mark of sagacity, since it is by no means difficult to draw an inference from an example in the past; but if, at the time, there had been anyone who foresaw the result and was able to moderate the ruling powers and unify them,—such a man would have preserved all the grand designs then formed, and no Persian or other armament would ever have set out against Greece, or held us in contempt as a people of small account.

Clin. True.

Ath. The way they repulsed the Persians, Clinias, was disgraceful. But when I say disgraceful, I do not imply that they did not win fine victories both by land and sea in those victorious campaigns: what I call disgraceful is this,—that, in the first place, one only of those three States defended Greece, while the other two were so basely corrupt that one of them[*](Messene) actually prevented Lacedaemon from assisting Greece by warring against her with all its might, and Argos, the other,—which stood first of the three in the days of the Dorian settlement— when summoned to help against the barbarian, paid no heed and gave no help.[*]( Cp. Hdt. 7.148ff. The reference is to the Persian invasion under Mardonius in 490 B.C.; but there is no other evidence for the charge here made against Messene.) Many are the discreditable charges one would have to bring against Greece in relating the events of that war;

Ath.indeed, it would be wrong to say that Greece defended herself, for had not the bondage that threatened her been warded off by the concerted policy of the Athenians and Lacedaemonians, practically all the Greek races would have been confused together by now, and barbarians confused with Greeks and Greeks with barbarians,—just as the races under the Persian empire today are either scattered abroad or jumbled together and live in a miserable plight. Such, O Megillus and Clinias, are the charges we have to make against the so-called statesmen and lawgivers, both of the past and of the present, in order that, by investigating their causes, we may discover what different course ought to have been pursued; just as, in the case before us, we called it a blunder to establish by law a government that is great or unblended, our idea being that a State ought to be free and wise and in friendship with itself, and that the lawgiver should legislate with a view to this. Nor let it surprise us that, while we have often already proposed ends which the legislator should, as we say, aim at in his legislation, the various ends thus proposed are apparently different. One needs to reflect that wisdom and friendship, when stated to be the aim in view, are not really different aims, but identical and, if we meet with many other such terms, let not this fact disturb us.

Clin. We shall endeavor to bear this in mind as we traverse the arguments again. But for the moment, as regards friendship, wisdom and freedom,—tell us, what was it you intended to say that the lawgiver ought to aim at?

Ath. Listen. There are two mother-forms of constitution, so to call them, from which one may truly say all the rest are derived. Of these the one is properly termed monarchy, the other democracy, the extreme case of the former being the Persian polity, and of the latter the Athenian; the rest are practically all, as I said, modifications of these two. Now it is essential for a polity to partake of both these two forms, if it is to have freedom and friendliness combined with wisdom. And that is what our argument intends to enjoin, when it declares that a State which does not partake of these can never be rightly constituted.[*]( Cp. Plat. Laws 756e; Aristot. Pol. 1266a 1ff.)

Clin. It could not.

Ath. Since the one embraced monarchy and the other freedom, unmixed and in excess, neither of them has either in due measure: your Laconian and Cretan States are better in this respect, as were the Athenian and Persian in old times— in contrast to their present condition. Shall we expound the reasons for this?

Clin. By all means—that is if we mean to complete the task we have set ourselves.

Ath. Let us attend then. When the Persians, under Cyrus, maintained the due balance between slavery and freedom, they became, first of all, free themselves, and, after that, masters of many others. For when the rulers gave a share of freedom to their subjects and advanced them to a position of equality, the soldiers were more friendly towards their officers and showed their devotion in times of danger; and if there was any wise man amongst them, able to give counsel, since the king was not jealous but allowed free speech and respected those who could help at all by their counsel,—such a man had the opportunity of contributing to the common stock the fruit of his wisdom. Consequently, at that time all their affairs made progress, owing to their freedom, friendliness and mutual interchange of reason.

Clin. Probably that is pretty much the way in which the matters you speak of took place.

Ath. How came it, then, that they were ruined in Cambyses’ reign, and nearly restored again under Darius? Shall I use a kind of divination to picture this?

Clin. Yes that certainly will help us to gain a view of the object of our search.

Ath. What I now divine regarding Cyrus is this,—that, although otherwise a good and patriotic commander, he was entirely without a right education, and had paid no attention to household management.

Clin. What makes us say this?

Ath. Probably he spent all his life from boyhood in soldiering, and entrusted his children to the women folk to rear up; and they brought them up from earliest childhood as though they had already attained to Heaven’s favour and felicity, and were lacking in no celestial gift; and so by treating them as the special favorites of Heaven, and forbidding anyone to oppose them, in anything, and compelling everyone to praise their every word and deed, they reared them up into what they were.

Clin. A fine rearing, I should say!

Ath. Say rather, a womanish rearing by royal women lately grown rich, who, while the men were absent, detained by many dangers and wars, reared up the children.

Clin. That sounds reasonable.

Ath. And their father, while gaining flocks and sheep and plenty of herds, both of men and of many other chattels, yet knew not that the children to whom he should bequeath them were without training in their father’s craft, which was a hard one, fit to turn out shepherds of great strength, able to camp out in the open and to keep watch and, if need be, to go campaigning. He overlooked the fact that his sons were trained by women and eunuchs and that the indulgence shown them as Heaven’s darlings had ruined their training, whereby they became such as they were likely to become when reared with a rearing that spared the rod. So when, at the death of Cyrus, his sons took over the kingdom, over-pampered and undisciplined as they were, first, the one killed the other,[*](i.e., Cambyses killed Smerdis.) through annoyance at his being put on an equality with himself, and presently, being mad with drink and debauchery, he lost his own throne at the hands of the Medes, under the man then called the Eunuch,[*](i.e., the Magian, Gomates, who personated Smerdis and claimed the kingdom. After seven months’ reign this usurper was slain by seven Persian nobles, of whom Darius was one (521 B.C.).) who despised the stupidity of Cambyses.

Clin. That, certainly, is the story, and probably it is near to the truth.

Ath. Further, the story tells how the kingdom was restored to the Persians through Darius and the Seven.

Clin. It does.

Ath. Let us follow the story and see how things went.[*](Cf. Hdt. 3.68-88.) Darius was not a king’s son, nor was he reared luxuriously. When he came and seized the kingdom, with his six companions, he divided it into seven parts, of which some small vestiges remain even to this day; and he thought good to manage it by enacting laws into which he introduced some measure of political equality, and also incorporated in the law regulations about the tribute-money which Cyrus had promised the Persians, whereby he secured friendliness and fellowship amongst all classes of the Persians, and won over the populace by money and gifts; and because of this, the devotion of his armies won for him as much more land as Cyrus had originally bequeathed. After Darius came Xerxes, and he again was brought up with the luxurious rearing of a royal house: O Darius—for it is thus one may rightly address the father—how is it that you have ignored the blunder of Cyrus, and have reared up Xerxes in just the same habits of life in which Cyrus reared Cambyses? And Xerxes, being the product of the same training, ended by repeating almost exactly the misfortunes of Cambyses. Since then there has hardly ever been a single Persian king who was really, as well as nominally, Great.[*](The Persian monarch was commonly styled the Great King.)