Laws

Plato

Plato in Twelve Volumes, Vol. 10-11 translated by R. G. Bury. Cambridge, MA, Harvard University Press; London, William Heinemann Ltd. 1926.

Ath. for they reckon as rich those who possess, in a rare degree, goods worth a vast deal of money, and these even a wicked man might possess. And since this is so, I would never concede to them that the rich man is really happy if he is not also good; while, if a man is superlatively good, it is impossible that he should be also superlatively rich. Why so? it may be asked. Because, we would reply, the gain derived from both right and wrong is more than double that from right alone, whereas the expenditure of those who refuse to spend either nobly or ignobIy is only one-half the expenditure of those who are noble and like spending on noble objects; consequently, the wealth of men who double their gains and halve their expenditure will never be exceeded by the men whose procedure in both respects is just the opposite.[*](e.g.A (a good man) gains (justly) £300, of which he spends £100 on necessaries and £100 on noble objects, leaving him a balance of £l00. B (a not-good man) gains (justly and unjustly) £600, of which he spends £l00 on necessaries, and nothing on noble objects, leaving him a balance of £500. The third type (C) is worse than B because he not only gains but also spends wrongly. Type A shows how the good man is neither very rich nor very poor,—B, how the bad man may be very rich,—C, how the bad may be very poor.) Now of these men, the one is good, and the other not bad, so long as he is niggardly, but utterly bad when he is not niggardly, and (as we have just said) at no time good. For while the one man, since he takes both justly and unjustly and spends neither justly nor unjustly, is rich (and the utterly bad man, being lavish as a rule, is very poor) ,— the other man, who spends on noble objects, and gains by just means only, is never likely to become either superlatively rich or extremely poor. Accordingly, what we have stated is true,—that the very rich are not good, and not being good, neither are they happy. Now the fundamental purpose of our laws was this,—that the citizens should be as happy as possible, and in the highest degree united in mutual friendship. Friendly the citizens will never be where they have frequent legal actions with one another and frequent illegal acts, but rather where these are the fewest and least possible. We say that in the State there must be neither gold nor silver, nor must there be much money-making by means of vulgar trading or usury or the fattening of gelded beasts, but only such profit as farming offers and yields, and of this only so much as will not drive a man by his money-making to neglect the objects for which money exists: these objects are the soul and the body, which without gymnastic and the other branches of education would never become things of value. Wherefore we have asserted (and that not once only)[*](Cp. Plat. Laws 631c, Plat. Laws 697b, Plat. Laws 728e.) that the pursuit of money is to be honored last of all: of all the three objects which concern every man, the concern for money, rightly directed, comes third and last; that for the body comes second; and that for the soul, first.

Ath. Accordingly, if it prescribes its honors in this order, the polity which we are describing has its laws correctly laid down; but if any of the laws therein enacted shall evidently make health of more honor in the State than temperance, or wealth than health and temperance, it will quite clearly be a wrong enactment. Thus the lawgiver must ofttimes put this question to himself— What is it that I intend? and, Am I succeeding in this, or am I wide of the mark? In this way he might, perhaps, get through the task of legislation himself, and save others the trouble of it; but in no other way could he ever possibly do so. The man who has received an allotment shall hold it, as we say, on the terms stated. It would indeed have been a splendid thing if each person, on entering the colony, had had all else equal as well. Since this, however, is impossible, and one man will arrive with more money and another with less, it is necessary for many reasons, and for the sake of equaIizing chances in public life, that there should be unequal valuations, in order that offices and contributions may be assigned in accordance with the assessed valuation in each case,—being framed not in proportion only to the moral excellence of a man’s ancestors or of himself, nor to his bodily strength and comeliness, but in proportion also to his wealth or poverty,—so that by a rule of symmetrical inequality[*](i.e. of, proportional distribution: cp. Plat. Laws 757a for political as distinct from arithmetical, equality.) they may receive offices and honors as equally as possible, and may have no quarrelling. For these reasons we must make four classes, graded by size of property, and called first, second, third and fourth (or by some other names) , alike when the individuals remain in the same class and when, through a change from poverty to wealth or from wealth to poverty, they pass over each to that class to which he belongs. The kind of law that I would enact as proper to follow next after the foregoing would be this: It is, as we assert, necessary in a State which is to avoid that greatest of plagues, which is better termed disruption than dissension,[*](Or class discord. ) that none of its citizens should be in a condition of either painful poverty or wealth, since both these conditions produce both these results; consequently the lawgiver must now declare a limit for both these conditions. The limit of poverty shall be the value of the allotment: this must remain fixed, and its diminution in any particular instance no magistrate should overlook, nor any other citizen who aspires to goodness.

Ath. And having set this as the (inferior) limit, the lawgiver shall allow a man to possess twice this amount, or three times, or four times. Should anyone acquire more than this—whether by discovery or gift or money-making, or through gaining a sum exceeding the due measure by some other such piece of luck, if he makes the surplus over to the State and the gods who keep the State, he shall be well-esteemed and free from penalty. But if anyone disobeys this law, whoso wishes may get half by laying information, and the man that is convicted shall pay out an equal share of his own property, and the half shall go to the gods. All the property of every man over and above his allotment shall be publicly written out and be in the keeping of the magistrates appointed by law, so that legal rights pertaining to all matters of property may be easy to decide and perfectly clear. In the next place, the lawgiver must first plant his city as nearly as possible in the center of the country, choosing a spot which has all the other conveniences also which a city requires, and which it is easy enough to perceive and specify. After this, he must divide off twelve portions of land,—when he has first set apart a sacred glebe for Hestia, Zeus and Athena, to which he shall give the name acropolis and circle it round with a ring-wall; starting from this he must divide up both the city itself and all the country into the twelve portions. The twelve portions must be equalized by making those consisting of good land small, and those of inferior land larger. He must mark off 5,040 allotments, and each of these he must cut in two and join two pieces to form each several allotment, so that each contains a near piece and a distant piece,—joining the piece next the city with the piece furthest off, the second nearest with the second furthest, and so on with all the rest.[*](Cp. Plat. Laws 776a.) And in dealing with these separate portions, they must employ the device we mentioned a moment ago, about poor land and good, and secure equality by making the assigned portions of larger or smaller size. And he must divide the citizens also into twelve parts, making all the twelve parts as equal as possible in respect of the value of the rest of their property, after a census has been made of all. After this they must also appoint twelve allotments for the twelve gods, and name and consecrate the portion allotted to each god, giving it the name of phyle.[*](i.e. tribe.) And they must also divide the twelve sections of the city in the same manner as they divided the rest of the country; and each citizen must take as his share two dwellings, one near the center of the country the other near the outskirts. Thus the settlement shall be completed.

Ath. But we must by all means notice this,—that all the arrangements now described will never be likely to meet with such favorable conditions that the whole program can be carried out according to plan. This requires that the citizens will raise no objection to such a mode of living together, and will tolerate being restricted for life to fixed and limited amounts of property and to families such as we have stated, and being deprived of gold and of the other things which the lawgiver is clearly obliged by our regulations to forbid, and will submit also to the arrangements he has defined for country and city, with the dwellings set in the center and round the circumference,—almost as if he were telling nothing but dreams, or moulding, so to say, a city and citizens out of wax. These criticisms are not altogether unfair, and the lawgiver should reconsider the points that follow. So he that is legislating speaks to us again in this wise: Do not suppose, my friends, that I in these my discourses fail to observe the truth of what is now set out in this criticism. But in dealing with all schemes for the future, the fairest plan, I think, is this—that the person who exhibits the pattern on which the undertaking is to be modelled should omit no detail of perfect beauty and truth; but where any of them is impossible of realization, that particular detail he should omit and leave unexecuted, but contrive to execute instead whatever of the remaining details comes nearest to this and is by nature most closely akin to the right procedure; and he should allow the lawgiver to express his ideal completely; and when this is done, then and then only should they both consult together as to how far their proposals are expedient and how much of the legislation is impracticable. For the constructor of even the most trivial object, if he is to be of any merit, must make it in all points consistent with itself. So now we must endeavor to discern—after we have decided on our division into twelve parts—in what fashion the divisions that come next to these and are the offspring of these, up to the ultimate figure, 5,040, (determining as they do, the phratries and demes[*](Phratries and demes were sub-divisions of the phyle or tribe.) and villages, as well as the military companies and platoons, and also the coinage-system, dry and liquid measures, and weights),— how, I say, all these numerations are to be fixed by the law so as to be of the right size and consistent one with another.

Ath. Moreover, he should not hesitate, through fear of what might appear to be peddling detail, to prescribe that, of all the utensils which the citizens may possess, none shall be allowed to be of undue size. He must recognize it as a universal rule that the divisions and variations of numbers are applicable to all purposes—both to their own arithmetical variations and to the geometrical variations of surfaces and solids, and also to those of sounds, and of motions, whether in a straight line up and down or circular.[*](i.e. the laws of arithmetic apply also to plane and solid geometry, acoustics, and kinetics.) The lawgiver must keep all these in view and charge all the citizens to hold fast, so far as they can, to this organized numerical system. For in relation to economics, to politics and to all the arts, no single branch of educational science possesses so great an influence as the study of numbers: its chief advantage is that it wakes up the man who is by nature drowsy and slow of wit, and makes him quick to learn, mindful and sharp-witted, progressing beyond his natural capacity by art divine. All these subjects of education will prove fair and fitting, provided that you can remove illiberality and avarice, by means of other laws and institutions, from the souls of those who are to acquire them adequately and to profit by them; otherwise you will find that you have unwittingly turned out a sharper, as we call him, instead of a sage: examples of this we can see today in the effect produced on the Egyptians and Phoenicians[*](Cp. Plat. Rep. 436a.) and many other nations by the illiberal character of their property, and their other institutions,—whether these results are due to their having had a bad lawgiver, or to some adverse fortune that befell them, or else, possibly, to some natural disadvantage. For that, too, is a point, O Megillus and Clinias, which we must not fail to notice,—that some districts are naturally superior to others for the breeding of men of a good or bad type; and we must not conflict with this natural difference in our legislation. Some districts are ill-conditioned or well-conditioned owing to a variety of winds or to sunshine, others owing to their waters, others owing simply to the produce of the soil, which offers produce either good or bad for their bodies, and equally able to effect similar results in their souls as well. Of all these, those districts would be by far the best which have a kind of heavenly breeze, and where the portions of land are under the care of daemons,[*](Cp. Plat. Laws 745d ad fin.) so that they receive those that come from time to time to settle there either graciously or ungraciously. These districts the judicious lawgiver will examine, so far as examination of such matters is possible for mere man; and he will try to frame his laws accordingly. And you too, Clinias, must adopt the same course; when you are proposing to colonize the country, you must attend to these matters first.

Clin. Your discourse, Stranger, is most excellent, and I must do as you advise.

Ath. Well then, after all that has now been said, you will next come, I suppose, to the task of appointing magistrates for your State.

Clin. That is so.

Ath. In this there are two branches of civic organization involved,— first, the appointment of magistracies and magistrates, with the fixing of the right number required and the proper method of appointment; and next the assignment to each magistracy of such and so many laws as are in each case appropriate.[*](Cp. Plat. Laws 735a.) But before we make our selection, let us pause for a moment, and make a statement concerning it of a pertinent kind.

Clin. What statement is that?

Ath. It is this:— It is a fact clear to everyone that, the work of legislation being a great one, the placing of unfit officers in charge of well-framed laws in a well-equipped State not only robs those laws of all their value and gives rise to widespread ridicule, but is likely also to prove the most fertile source of damage and danger in such States.

Clin. Undoubtedly.

Ath. Let us then, my friend, mark this result in dealing now with your polity and State. You see that it is necessary, in the first place, that those who rightly undertake official functions should in every case have been fully tested— both themselves and their families— from their earliest years up to the time of their selection; and, secondly, that those who are to be the selectors should have been reared in law-abiding habits, and be well trained for the task of rightly rejecting or accepting those candidates who deserve their approval or disapproval. Yet as regards this point, can we suppose that men who have but recently come together, with no knowledge of one another and with no training, could ever possibly select their officials in a faultless manner?

Clin. It is practically impossible.

Ath. Yet, with the hand on the plough, as they say, there is no looking back.[*](Literally, a contest does not at all admit excuses; i.e. once engaged in it, you cannot draw back.) And so it must be now with you and me; for you, as you tell me,[*](Plat. Laws 702b, Plat. Laws 702c.) have given your pledge to the Cretan nation that you, with your nine colleagues, will devote yourself to the founding of that State; and I, for my part, have promised to lend you aid in the course of our present imaginative sketch.

Ath. And indeed I should be loth to leave our sketch headless;[*](Cp.Plat. Gorg. 505d ff.) for it would look entirely shapeless if it wandered about in that guise.

Clin. I heartily approve of what you say, Stranger.

Ath. And what is more, I shall act as I say to the best of my power.

Clin. By all means let us do as we say.

Ath. It shall be done, if God will and if we can thus far master our old age.

Clin. Probably God will be willing.

Ath. Probably he will; and with him as leader let us observe this also—

Clin. What?

Ath. How bold and adventurous is the fashion in which we shall now have founded this State of ours.

Clin. What is now specially in your mind, and what makes you say so?

Ath. The fact that we are legislating lightheartedly and boldly for inexperienced men, in the hope that they will accept the laws we have now enacted. Thus much at least is plain, Clinias, to almost everyone—even to the meanest intelligence— that they will not readily accept any of those laws at the start; but if those laws could remain unchanged until those who have imbibed them in infancy, and have been reared up in them and grown fully used to them, have taken part in elections to office in every department of State,—then, when this has been effected (if any means or method can be found to effect it rightly) , we have, as I think, a strong security that, after this transitional period of disciplined adolescence, the State will remain firm.

Clin. It is certainly reasonable to suppose so.

Ath. Let us then consider whether we might succeed in providing an adequate means to this end on the following lines. For I declare, Clinias, that you Cnosians, above all other Cretans, not only ought to deal in no perfunctory manner with the soil which you are now settling, but ought also to take the utmost care that the first officials are appointed in the best and most secure way possible. The selection of the rest of them will be a less serious task; but it is imperatively necessary for you to choose your Law-wardens first with the utmost care.

Clin. What means can we find for this, or what rule?

Ath. This: I assert, O ye sons of Crete, that, since the Cnosians take precedence over most of the Cretan cities, they should combine with those who have come into this community to select thirty-seven persons in all from their own number and the community—nineteen from the latter body, and the rest from Cnosus itself; and those men the Cnosians should make over to your State, and they should make you in person a citizen of this colony and one of the eighteen—using persuasion or, possibly, a reasonable degree of compulsion.

Clin. Why, pray, have not you also, Stranger, and Megillus lent us a hand in our constitution?

Ath.Athens is haughty, Clinias, and Sparta also is haughty, and both are far distant: but for you this course is in all respects proper, as it is likewise for the rest of the founders of the colony, to whom also our recent remarks about you apply. Let us, then, assume that this would be the most equitable arrangement under the conditions at present existing. Later on, if the constitution still remains, the selection of officials shall take place as follows:—In the selection of officials all men shall take part who carry arms, as horse-soldiers or foot-soldiers, or who have served in war so far as their age and ability allowed. They shall make the selection in that shrine which the State shall deem the most sacred; and each man shall bring to the altar of the god, written on a tablet, the name of his nominee, with his father’s name and that of his tribe and of the deme he belongs to, and beside these he shall write also his own name in like manner. Any man who chooses shall be permitted to remove any tablet which seems to him to be improperly written, and to place it in the market-place for not less than thirty days. The officials shall publicly exhibit, for all the State to see, those of the tablets that are adjudged to come first, to the number of 300; and all the citizens shall vote again in like manner, each for whomsoever of these he wishes. Of these, the officials shall again exhibit publicly the names of those who are adjudged first, up to the number of 100. The third time, he that wishes shall vote for whomsoever he wishes out of the hundred, passing between slain victims[*](An ancient method of solemnly ratifying an agreement; cp.Genesis 15. 9 ff.) as he does so: then they shall test the thirty-seven men who have secured most votes, and declare them to be magistrates. Who, then, are the men, O Clinias and Megillus, who shall establish in our State all these regulations concerning magisterial offices and tests? We perceive (do we not?) that for States that are thus getting into harness for the first time some such persons there must necessarily be; but who they can be, before any officials exist, it is impossible to see. Yet somehow or other they must be there—and men, too, of no mean quality, but of the highest quality possible. For, as the saying goes, well begun is half done,[*](Literally, the beginning is the half of every work. ) and every man always commends a good beginning;

Ath. but it is truly, as I think, something more than the half, and no man has ever yet commended as it deserves a beginning that is well made.

Clin. Very true.

Ath. Let us not then wittingly leave this first step unmentioned, nor fail to make it quite clear to ourselves how it is to be brought about. I, however, am by no means fertile in resource, save for one statement which, in view of the present situation, it is both necessary and useful to make.

Clin. What statement is that?

Ath. I assert that the State for whose settlement we are planning has nobody in the way of parents except that State which is founding it, though I am quite aware that many of the colony-States often have been, and will be, at feud with those which founded them. But now, on the present occasion, just as a child in the present helplessness of childhood—in spite of the likelihood of his being at enmity with his parents at some future date—loves his parents and is loved by them, and always flies for help to his kindred and finds in them, and them alone, his allies,—so now, as I assert, this relationship exists ready-made for the Cnosians towards the young State, owing to their care for it, and for the young State towards the Cnosians. I state once more, as I stated just now,[*](Plat. Laws 752d.)—for there is no harm in duplicating a good statement—that the Cnosians must take a share in caring for all these matters, choosing out not less than 100 men of those who have come into the colony, the oldest and best of them they are able to select; and of the Cnosians themselves let there be another hundred. This joint body[*](This body of 200 is to be appointed, as a temporary expedient, to give the State a start by selecting its first necessary officials.) must, I say, go to the new State and arrange in common that the magistrates be appointed according to the laws and be tested after appointment. When this has been done, then the Cnosians must dwell in Cnosus, and the young State must endeavor by its own efforts to secure for itself safety and success. As to the men who belong to the thirty and seven,[*](See above, Plat. Laws 752e.) let us select them for the following purposes: First, they shall act as Wardens of the laws, and secondly as Keepers of the registers in which every man writes out for the officials the amount of his property, omitting four minae if he be of the highest property-class, three if he be of the second class, two if he be of the third, and one if he be of the fourth class. And should anyone be proved to possess anything else beyond what is registered, all such surplus shall be confiscated; and in addition he shall be liable to be brought to trial by anyone who wishes to prosecute—a trial neither noble nor fair of name, if he be convicted of despising law because of lucre. So he that wishes shall charge him with profiteering, and prosecute him by law before the Law-wardens themselves;

Ath. and if the defendant be convicted, he shall take no share of the public goods, and whenever the State makes a distribution, he shall go portionless, save for his allotment, and he shall be registered as a convicted criminal, where anyone who chooses may read his sentence, as long as he lives. A Law-warden shall hold office for no more than twenty years, and he shall be voted into office when he is not under fifty years of age. If he is elected at the age of sixty, he shall hold office for ten years only; and by the same rule, the more he exceeds the minimum age, the shorter shall be his term of office; so that if he lives beyond the age of seventy, he must no longer fancy that he can remain among these officials holding an office of such high importance. So, for the Law-wardens, let us state that these three duties are imposed on them, and as we proceed with the laws, each fresh law will impose upon these men whatever additional duties they ought to be charged with beyond those now stated. And now we may go on to describe the selection of the other officials. Commanders must be selected next, and as subordinates to them, for purposes of war, hipparchs, phylarchs, and officers to marshal the ranks of the foot-phylae,—to whom the name of taxiarchs,[*](i.e. rank-leaders. ) which is in fact the very name which most men give to them, would be specially appropriate. Of these, commanders shall be nominated by the Law-wardens from among the members of our State only; and from those nominated the selection shall be made by all who either are serving or have served in war, according to their several ages. And if anyone deems that someone of the men not nominated is better than one of those nominated, he shall state the name of his nominee and of the man whom he is to replace, and, taking the oath about the matter, he shall propose his substitute; and whichever of the two is decided on by vote shall be included in the list for selection. And the three men, who have been appointed by the majority of votes to serve as commanders and controllers of military affairs, shall be tested as were the Law-wardens. The selected commanders shall nominate for themselves taxiarchs, twelve for each tribe; and here, in the case of the taxiarchs, just as in the case of the commanders, there shall be a right of counter-nomination, and a similar procedure of voting and testing. For the present—before that prytaneis[*](i.e. members of a prytany, or twelfth part of the Boule (or Council) : for the functions of these bodies, see Plat. Laws 758b.) and a Boule have been elected—this assembly shall be convened by the Law-wardens, and they shall seat it in the holiest and roomiest place available, the hoplites on one side, the horse-soldiers on another, and in the third place, next to these, all who belong to the military forces.

Ath. All shall vote for the commanders, all who carry shields for the taxiarchs; all the cavalry shall elect for themselves phylarchs; the commanders shall appoint for themselves captains of skirmishers, archers, or any other branch of service. The appointment of hipparchs we have still remaining. They shall be nominated by the same persons who nominated the commanders, and the mode of selection and counter-nomination shall be the same in their case as in that of the commanders: the cavalry shall vote for them in full sight of the infantry, and the two who secure most votes shall be captains of all the cavalrymen. No more than two challenges of votes shall be allowed: if anyone makes a third challenge, it shall be decided by those who had charge of the count on the occasion in question. The Boule (or Council) shall consist of thirty dozen—as the number 360 is well-adapted for the sub-divisions: they shall be divided into four groups; and 90 councillors shall be voted for from each of the property-classes.[*](Cp. Aristot. Pol. 1266a 14 ff.) First, for councillors from the highest property-class all the citizens shall be compelled to vote, and whoever disobeys shall be fined with the fine decreed. When these have been voted for, their names shall be recorded. On the next day those from the second class shall be voted for, the procedure being similar to that on the first day. On the third day, for councillors from the third class anyone who chooses shall vote; and the voting shall be compulsory for members of the first three classes, but those of the fourth and lowest class shall be let off the fine, in case any of them do not wish to vote. On the fourth day, for those from the fourth and lowest class all shall vote; and if any member of the third or fourth class does not wish to vote, he shall be let off the fine; but any member of the first or second class who fails to vote shall be fined—three times the amount of the first fine in the case of a member of the second class, and four times in the case of one of the first class. On the fifth day the officials shall publish the names recorded for all the citizens to see; and for these every man shall vote, or else be fined with the first fine; and when they have selected 180 from each of the classes, they shall choose out by lot one-half of this number, and test them; and these shall be the Councillors for the year.

Ath.The selection of officials that is thus made will form a mean between a monarchic constitution and a democratic; and midway between these our constitution should always stand. For slaves will never be friends with masters, nor bad men with good, even when they occupy equal positions—for when equality is given to unequal things, the resultant will be unequal, unless due measure is applied; and it is because of these two conditions that political organizations are filled with feuds. There is an old and true saying that equality produces amity, which is right well and fitly spoken; but what the equality is which is capable of doing this is a very troublesome question, since it is very far from being clear. For there are two kinds of equality[*](Cp.Plat. Gorg. 508a ff, Plat. Gorg. 508b ff; Aristot. Pol. 1301b 29 ff.;Aristot. Nic. Eth. 1131b 27, Aristot. Nic. Eth. 1158b 30 ff. The arithmetical equality which merely counts heads and treats all alike is here contrasted with that truer proportional equality which takes account of human inequality, and on which distributive justice (as Aristotle terms it) is based: cp. also 744 C.) which, though identical in name, are often almost opposites in their practical results. The one of these any State or lawgiver is competent to apply in the assignment of honors,—namely, the equality determined by measure, weight and number,—by simply employing the lot to give even results in the distributions; but the truest and best form of equality is not an easy thing for everyone to discern. It is the judgment of Zeus, and men it never assists save in small measure, but in so far as it does assist either States or individuals, it produces all things good; for it dispenses more to the greater and less to the smaller, giving due measure to each according to nature; and with regard to honors also, by granting the greater to those that are greater in goodness, and the less to those of the opposite character in respect of goodness and education, it assigns in proportion what is fitting to each. Indeed, it is precisely this which constitutes for us political justice, which is the object we must strive for, Clinias; this equality is what we must aim at, now that we are settling the State that is being planted. And whoever founds a State elsewhere at any time must make this same object the aim of his legislation,—not the advantage of a few tyrants, or of one, or of some form of democracy, but justice always; and this consists in what we have just stated, namely, the natural equality given on each occasion to things unequal. None the less, it is necessary for every State at times to employ even this equality in a modified degree, if it is to avoid involving itself in intestine discord, in one section or another,—for the reasonable and considerate, wherever employed, is an infringement of the perfect and exact, as being contrary to strict justice; for the same reason it is necessary to make use also of the equality of the lot, on account of the discontent of the masses, and in doing so to pray, calling upon God and Good Luck to guide for them the lot aright towards the highest justice.

Ath. Thus it is that necessity compels us to employ both forms of equality; but that form, which needs good luck, we should employ as seldom as possible. The State which means to survive must necessarily act thus, my friends, for the reasons we have stated. For just as a ship when sailing on the sea requires continual watchfulness both by night and day, so likewise a State, when it lives amidst the surge of surrounding States and is in danger of being entrapped by all sorts of plots, requires to have officers linked up with officers from day to night and from night to day, and guardians succeeding guardians, and being succeeded in turn, without a break. But since a crowd of men is incapable of ever performing any of these duties smartly, the bulk of the Councillors must necessarily be left to stay most of their time at their private business, to attend to their domestic affairs; and we must assign a twelfth part of them to each of the twelve months, to furnish guards in rotation, so as promptly to meet any person coming either from somewhere abroad or from their own State, in case he desires to give information or to make enquiries about some matter of international importance; and so as to make replies, and, when the State has asked questions, to receive the replies; and above all, in view of the manifold innovations that are wont to occur constantly in States, to prevent if possible their occurrence, and in case they do occur, to ensure that the State may perceive and remedy the occurrence as quickly as possible. For these reasons, this presidential section of the State must always have the control of the summoning and dissolving of assemblies, both the regular legal assemblies and those of an emergency character. Thus a twelfth part of the Council will be the body that manages all these matters, and each such part shall rest in turn for eleven-twelfths of the year: in common with the rest of the officials, this twelfth section of the Council must keep its watch in the State over these matters continually. This disposition of affairs in the city will prove a reasonable arrangement. But what control are we to have, and what system, for all the rest of the country? Now that all the city and the whole country have each been divided up into twelve parts, must not supervisors be appointed for the roads of the city itself, the dwellings, buildings, harbors, market, springs, and for the sacred glebes also and the temples, and all such things?

Clin. Certainly.

Ath. Let us state, then, that for the temples there must be temple-keepers and priests and priestesses; and for roads and buildings and the due ordering thereof, and for men, and beasts too, to prevent their doing wrong, and to secure that the order proper to States is observed both within the city bounds and in the suburbs, we must select three kinds of officers: those who deal with the matters just mentioned we shall call city-stewards, and those dealing with the ordering of the market, market-stewards. Priests of temples, or priestesses, who hold hereditary priesthoods should not be disturbed; but if,—as is likely to be the case in such matters with a people who are being organized for the first time,—few or none have them already established, then we must establish priests and priestesses to be temple-keepers for the gods. In establishing all these offices, we must make the appointments partly by election and partly by lot,[*](Cp. Aristot. Pol. 1300a 19 ff.) mingling democratic with non-democratic methods, to secure mutual friendliness, in every rural and urban district, so that all may be as unanimous as possible.[*](Cp. Plat. Laws 738d ff., Plat. Laws 771e.) As to the priests, we shall entrust it to the god himself to ensure his own good pleasure, by committing their appointment to the divine chance of the lot; but each person who gains the lot we shall test, first, as to whether he is sound and true-born, and secondly, as to whether he comes from houses that are as pure as possible, being himself clean from murder and all such offences against religion, and of parents that have lived by the same rule. They ought to bring from Delphi laws about all matters of religion, and appoint interpreters[*](i.e. official exponents of sacred law; cp. Plat. Laws 775a, Plat. Laws 828b.) thereof, and make use of those laws. Each priestly office should last for one year and no longer; and the person who is to officiate in sacred matters efficiently according to the laws of religion should be not less than sixty years old: and the same rules shall hold good also for priestesses. For the interpreters the tribes shall vote four at a time, by three votings, for four men, one from each tribe;[*](The 12 tribes are divided into 3 groups of 4 each: each group appoints 3, making 9 in all: the other 3 required to make up the full number (12) are selected by the Oracle from the 9 candidates next on the list.) and when the three men for whom most votes are cast have been tested, they shall send the other nine to Delphi for the oracle to select one from each triad; and the rules as to their age and testing shall be the same as for the priests. These men shall hold office for life as interpreters; and when one falls out, the four tribes[*](i.e. the tribal group by which he was elected.) shall elect a substitute from the tribe he belonged to.

Ath. As treasurers to control the sacred funds in each of the temples, and the sacred glebes, with their produce and their rents, we must choose from the highest property-classes three men for the largest temples, two for the smaller, and one for the least extensive; and the method of selecting and testing these shall be the same as that adopted in the case of the commanders. Such shall be the regulations concerning matters of religion. Nothing, so far as possible, shall be left unguarded. As regards the city, the task of guarding shall be in charge of the commanders, taxiarchs, hipparchs, phylarchs and prytaneis, and also of the city-stewards and market-stewards, wherever we have such officials properly selected and appointed. All the rest of the country must be guarded in the following manner: we have marked out the whole country as nearly as possible into twelve equal portions: to each portion one tribe shall be assigned by lot, and it shall provide five men to act as land-stewards and phrourarchs (watch-captains); it shall be the duty of each of the Five to select twelve young men from his own tribe of an age neither under 25 nor over 30. To these groups of twelve the twelve portions of the country shall be assigned, one to each in rotation for a month at a time, so that all of them may gain experience and knowledge of all parts of the country. The period of office and of service for guards and officers shall be two years. From the portion in which they are stationed first by the lot they shall pass on month by month to the next district, under the leadership of the phrourarchs, in a direction from left to right,— and that will be from west to east. When the first year is completed, in order that as many as possible of the guards may not only become familiar with the country in one season of the year, but may also learn about what occurs in each several district at different seasons, their leaders shall lead them back again in the reverse direction, constantly changing their district, until they have completed their second year of service. For the third year they must elect other land-stewards and phrourarchs.

Ath.During their periods of residence in each district their duties shall be as follows: first, in order to ensure that the country shall be fenced as well as possible against enemies, they shall make channels wherever needed, and dig moats and build crosswalls, so as to keep out to the best of their power those who attempt in any way to damage the country and its wealth; and for these purposes they shall make use of the beasts of burden and the servants in each district, employing the former and supervising the latter, and choosing always, so far as possible, the times when these people are free from their own business. In all respects they must make movement as difficult as possible for enemies, but for friends—whether men, mules or cattle—as easy as possible, by attending to the roads, that they all may become as level as possible, and to the rain-waters, that they may benefit instead of injuring the country, as they flow down from the heights into all the hollow valleys in the mountains: they shall dam the outflows of their flooded dales by means of walls and channels, so that by storing up or absorbing the rains from heaven, and by forming pools or springs in all the low-lying fields and districts, they may cause even the driest spots to be abundantly supplied with good water. As to spring-waters, be they streams or fountains, they shall beautify and embellish them by means of plantations and buildings, and by connecting the pools by hewn tunnels they shall make them all abundant, and by using water-pipes they shall beautify at all seasons of the year any sacred glebe or grove that may be close at hand, by directing the streams right into the temples of the gods. And everywhere in such spots the young men should erect gymnasia both for themselves and for the old men—providing warm baths for the old: they should keep there a plentiful supply of dry wood, and give a kindly welcome and a helping hand to sick folk and to those whose bodies are worn with the toils of husbandry—a welcome far better than a doctor who is none too skilful. They shall carry on these, and all similar operations, in the country districts, by way of ornament as well as use, and to furnish recreation also of no ungraceful kind. The serious duties in this department shall be as follows:—The Sixty must guard each their own district, not only because of enemies, but in view also of those who profess to be friends. And if one either of the foreign neighbors or of the citizens injures another citizen, be the culprit a slave or a freeman, the judges for the complainant shall be the Five officers themselves in petty cases, and the Five each with their twelve subordinates in more serious cases, where the damages claimed are up to three minae. No judge or official should hold office without being subject to an audit, excepting only those who, like kings, form a court of final appeal.

Ath. So too with regard to these land-stewards if they do any violence to those whom they supervise, by imposing unfair charges, or by trying to plunder some of their farm-stores without their consent, or if they take a gift intended as a bribe, or distribute goods unjustly—for yielding to seduction they shall be branded with disgrace throughout the whole State; and in respect of all other wrongs they have committed against people in the district, up to the value of one mina, they shall voluntarily submit to trial before the villagers and neighbors; and should they on any occasion, in respect of either a greater or lesser wrong, refuse thus to submit,—trusting that by their moving on every month to a new district they will escape trial,—in such cases the injured party must institute proceedings at the public courts, and if he win his suit, he shall exact the double penalty from the defendant who has absconded and refused to submit voluntarily to trial. The mode of life of the officers and land-stewards during their two years of service shall be of the following kind. First, in each of the districts there shall be common meals, at which all shall mess together. If a man absents himself by day, or by sleeping away at night, without orders from the officers or some urgent cause, and if the Five inform against him and post his name up in the market-place as guilty of deserting his watch, then he shall suffer degradation for being a traitor to his public duty, and whoever meets him and desires to punish him may give him a beating with impunity. And if any one of the officers themselves commits any such act, it will be proper for all the Sixty to keep an eye on him; and if any of them notices or hears of such an act, but fails to prosecute, he shall be held guilty under the same laws, and shall be punished more severely than the young men; he shall be entirely disqualified from holding posts of command over the young men. Over these matters the Law-wardens shall exercise most careful supervision, to prevent if possible their occurrence, and, where they do occur, to ensure that they meet with the punishment they deserve. Now it is needful that every man should hold the view, regarding men in general, that the man who has not been a servant will never become a praiseworthy master, and that the right way to gain honor is by serving honorably rather than by ruling honorably—doing service first to the laws, since this is service to the gods, and, secondly, the young always serving the elder folk and those who have lived honorable lives. In the next place, he who is made a land-steward must have partaken of the daily rations, which are coarse and uncooked, during the two years of service.

Ath. For whenever the Twelve have been chosen, being assembled together with the Five, they shall resolve that, acting like servants, they will keep no servants or slaves to wait on themselves, nor will they employ any attendants belonging to the other farmers or villagers for their own private needs, but only for public requirements; and in all other respects they shall determine to live a self-supporting life, acting as their own ministers and masters, and thoroughly exploring, moreover, the whole country both by summer and winter, under arms, for the purpose both of fencing and of learning each several district. For that all should have an accurate knowledge of their own country is a branch of learning that is probably second to none: so the young men ought to practise running with hounds and all other forms of hunting, as much for this reason as for the general enjoyment and benefit derived from such sports. With regard, then, to this branch of service—both the men themselves and their duties, whether we choose to call them secret-service men or land-stewards or by any other name— every single man who means to guard his own State efficiently shall do his duty zealously to the best of his power. The next step in our choice of officials is to appoint market-stewards and city-stewards. After the land-stewards (sixty in number) will come the three city-stewards, who shall divide the twelve sections of the city into three parts, and shall copy the land-stewards in having charge of the streets of the city and of the various roads that run into the city from the country, and of the buildings, to see that all these conform to the requirements of the law; and they shall also have charge of all the water-supplies conveyed and passed on to them by the guards in good condition, to ensure that they shall be both pure and plentiful as they pour into the cisterns, and may thus both beautify and benefit the city. Thus it is needful that these men also should have both the ability and the leisure to attend to public affairs. Therefore for the office of city-steward every citizen shall nominate whatever person he chooses from the highest property-class; and when these have been voted on, and they have arrived at the six men for whom most votes have been cast, then those whose duty it is shall select the three by lot; and after passing the scrutiny, these men shall execute the office according to the laws ordained for them. Next to these they must elect five market-stewards from the second and first property-classes: in all other respects the mode of their election shall be similar to that of the city-stewards; from the ten candidates chosen by voting they shall select the five by lot, and after scrutiny declare them appointed.

Ath. All shall vote for every official: any man who refuses to do so, if reported to the officials, shall be fined fifty drachmae, besides being declared to be a bad citizen. Whoso wishes shall attend the Ecclesia and the public assembly; and for members of the second and first property-classes attendance shall be compulsory, anyone who is found to be absent from the assemblies being fined ten drachmae; but for a member of the third or fourth class it shall not be compulsory, and he shall escape without a fine, unless the officials for some urgent reason charge everyone to attend. The market-stewards must see to it that the market is conducted as appointed by law: they must supervise the temples and fountains in the market, to see that no one does any damage; in case anyone does damage, if he be a slave or a stranger, they shall punish him with stripes and bonds, while if a native is guilty of such misconduct, they shall have power to inflict a fine up to a hundred drachmae of their own motion, and to fine a wrongdoer up to twice that amount, when acting in conjunction with the city-stewards. Similarly, the city-stewards shall have power of fining and punishing in their own sphere, fining up to a mina of their own motion, and up to twice that sum in conjunction with the market-stewards. It will be proper next to appoint officials for music and gymnastics,—two grades for each department, the one for education, the other for managing competitions. By education-officers the law means supervisors of gymnasia and schools, both in respect of their discipline and teaching and of the control of the attendances and accommodation both for girls and boys. By competition-officers it means umpires for the competitors both in gymnastic and in music, these also being of two grades. For competitions there should be the same umpires both for men and for horses; but in the case of music it will be proper to have separate umpires for solos and for mimetic performances,— I mean, for instance, one set chosen for rhapsodists, harpers, flute-players, and all such musicians, and another set for choral performers. We ought to choose first the officials for the playful exercise of choirs of children and lads and girls in dances and all other regular methods of music;

Ath. and for these one officer suffices, and he must be not under forty years of age. And for solo performances one umpire, of not less than thirty years, is sufficient, to act as introducer[*](i.e. to take entries and assign places to the competitors.) and to pass an adequate judgment upon the competitors. The officer and manager of the choirs they must appoint in the following way. All those who are devoted to these subjects shall attend the assembly, and if they refuse to attend they shall be liable to a fine—a matter which the Law-wardens shall decide: any others who are unwilling to attend shall be subject to no compulsion. Every elector must make his nomination from the list of those who are experts: in the scrutiny, affirmation and negation shall be confined to one point only—on the one side, that the candidate is expert, on the other side, that he is not expert; and whichever of the ten who come first on votes is elected after the scrutiny shall be the officer for the year in charge of the choirs according to law. In the same way as these they shall appoint the officer elected to preside for the year over those who enter for competitions in solos and joint performances on the flute. Next it is proper to choose umpires for the athletic contests of horses and men from among the third and the second property-classes: this election it shall be compulsory for the first three classes to attend, but the lowest class shall be exempt from fines for non-attendance. Three shall be appointed: twenty having been first selected by show of hand, three out of the twenty shall be chosen by lot; and they shall be subject also to the approval of the scrutineers. Should any candidate be disqualified in any voting or testing for office, they shall elect a substitute, and carry out the scrutiny by the same method as in the case of the original candidate. In the department we have been dealing with, we have still to appoint an officer who shall preside over the whole range of education of both boys and girls. For this purpose there shall be one officer legally appointed: he shall not be under fifty years of age, and shall be the father of legitimate children of either sex, or preferably of both sexes. Both the candidate that is put first, and the elector who puts him first, must be convinced that of the highest offices of State this is by far the most important.