Laws

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.)