Laws — Book 6

Plato · a new plain-English translation from the Greek

ATHENIAN: Well, after everything we've just said, we're pretty much ready to set up the offices of government for your city. CLEINIAS: So it seems. ATHENIAN: There are two aspects to organizing a constitution. First, establishing the offices and the officeholders — how many there should be and how they're to be appointed. Second, assigning to each office the laws it needs — which ones, how many, and what kind fit each office. But before we get to the selection process, let's pause and say something relevant about it. CLEINIAS: What's that? ATHENIAN: This. It's obvious to everyone that lawgiving is a great undertaking, but if you put unsuitable officials in charge of a well-prepared city with well-made laws, it's not just that the good laws bring no benefit — it isn't merely that a great deal of ridicule would follow — but the damage and harm done to the cities would be about the greatest there is. CLEINIAS: How could it be otherwise? ATHENIAN: So let's think through how this applies to the constitution and city we're building now, my friend. You see that, first, those who properly move toward positions of power must have given adequate proof of themselves and their family, from childhood right up to the moment of selection. And second, those who are going to do the choosing must have been raised in the customs of law, well educated, so that they're capable of judging correctly whom to reject and whom to accept — deciding rightly who deserves which position. But how could people who have only just come together, who don't know one another, and who haven't yet been educated, ever manage to choose officeholders without fault? CLEINIAS: They pretty much couldn't. ATHENIAN: But they say a contest doesn't much accept excuses. And that's exactly the position you and I are in now — since you've committed, as you say, to settling this city for the Cretan people, you and nine others, and I in turn am to help you with the story we're telling at present.

ATHENIAN: I certainly wouldn't willingly leave a story headless — wandering about like that, it would look shapeless. CLEINIAS: Well said, stranger. ATHENIAN: Not only well said — I'll actually do it, as far as I'm able. CLEINIAS: Then let's do exactly what we're saying. ATHENIAN: It will happen, god willing, and as long as we can hold off old age that much longer. CLEINIAS: It's likely the god will be willing. ATHENIAN: Likely indeed. Following that thought, let's take up this point too. CLEINIAS: What point? ATHENIAN: How boldly and riskily our city is being founded right now. CLEINIAS: What exactly are you looking at, and where is this remark of yours pointed? ATHENIAN: At how easily and fearlessly we're legislating for men with no experience of law, not knowing how they'll eventually take to the laws we're now laying down. This much, Cleinias, is clear to nearly anyone, even someone not terribly wise: people won't readily accept these laws right from the start. But if we could somehow hold out long enough for children raised on these laws from birth, thoroughly steeped in them, familiar with them, to take part alongside the whole city in choosing its officials — then, if that happened, and happened correctly by whatever means or method, I think there would be great security, even beyond that initial period, that the city so nurtured would endure. CLEINIAS: That certainly makes sense. ATHENIAN: Let's look, then, at whether we can find some adequate way toward this. I say, Cleinias, that the people of Knossos, more than the other Cretans, ought not just to fulfill their religious duty regarding this land you're now settling, but should give intense attention — as far as they're able — to establishing the first offices as securely and excellently as possible. The other offices are a smaller task, but choosing our first Guardians of the Laws is the most urgent business of all, requiring every effort. CLEINIAS: What method, then, and what reasoning do we find for this?

ATHENIAN: Here it is. I say, children of Crete, that the Knossians, because their city is senior to the many others, ought jointly with those who have come to join this new settlement — drawn from both groups — choose thirty-seven in all: nineteen from the new settlers, the rest from Knossos itself. The Knossians should give these to your city, and you yourself should be a citizen of this colony, one of the eighteen, whether they persuade you or use their modest power to compel you. CLEINIAS: Why then, stranger, don't you and Megillus join us in this citizenship? ATHENIAN: Athens thinks highly of itself, Cleinias, and so does Sparta, and both live far away as colonizers. But everything fits properly for you, and for the other founders in the same way, as has just been said about you. So let's say this is the fairest arrangement we can make from what's available to us now. As time goes on and the constitution holds firm, let the selection of officials be as follows. Everyone who bears arms, cavalry or infantry, and has taken part in war within the ranges appropriate to their age, shall share in choosing the officials. The selection should take place in whatever temple the city holds most honored. Each person shall bring to the god's altar a tablet on which he has written a name, along with the father's name and the tribe and deme the candidate belongs to, and shall add his own name in the same way beside it. Anyone who wishes may take up any tablet that doesn't strike him as rightly written and display it in the marketplace for no less than thirty days. The tablets judged best, up to three hundred, shall be shown to the whole city by the officials, and the city shall again vote from among these for whomever each person wants. Those who come out on top a second time, a hundred of them, shall again be shown to everyone. For the third round, from the hundred, anyone who wishes may cast a vote for whomever he wants, passing between the sacrificial victims. Then thirty-seven, whoever receives the most votes, shall be judged and declared officials. But who, Cleinias and Megillus, will set all of this up in the city regarding the offices and their scrutiny? Do we realize that in cities being yoked together for the first time like this, there must be some people to do it, yet there can't yet be anyone who has already held every office? There must be such people somehow, and not mediocre ones, but the very best available. As the saying goes, a good beginning is half of every task, and we all praise a fine start on every occasion.

ATHENIAN: And it's actually more than half, in my view — no one has ever praised a truly good beginning adequately enough. CLEINIAS: Quite right. ATHENIAN: So let's not pass over it in silence, as if we didn't understand it, without explaining clearly to ourselves how it's to be done. For my part I have no resource to offer except one thing, necessary and useful for our present purpose. CLEINIAS: What's that? ATHENIAN: I say that for this city we're about to settle, there is no father or mother except the city that is founding it — though I'm well aware that many colonies have often turned out, and will turn out, at odds with their founding cities. But for now, in the present moment, like a child who — even if he's destined one day to be at odds with his parents — in the current helplessness of childhood loves and is loved by those who bore him, and always fleeing to his relatives finds in them his only necessary allies — so I say the Knossians now stand ready, through their care for the new city, and the new city toward Knossos. I repeat, as I just said — repeating something good does no harm — that the Knossians must attend to all this jointly, choosing from among those who have come to the colony, selecting the oldest and best as far as possible, no fewer than a hundred men; and let there be a hundred more from the Knossians themselves. These, once they've come to the new city, must jointly see to it that the offices are established according to law, and once established, that they're properly scrutinized. Once this is done, the Knossians shall dwell in Knossos, and the new city shall try to preserve and prosper on its own. As for the thirty-seven who are chosen, both now and for all future time, let them be selected on these terms: first, let them be Guardians of the Laws; second, guardians of the written declarations each person submits to the officials regarding the extent of his property — except that the man with the highest assessment shall declare four minas, the second three, the third two minas, and the fourth one mina. If anyone is found possessing anything beyond what he's declared, the excess shall become public property, and in addition he shall be liable to prosecution by anyone who wishes to bring it, in a suit that is neither honorable nor well-named, but shameful — if he's convicted of despising the laws for the sake of profit. Whoever wishes may indict him for sordid greed and pursue the case before the Guardians of the Laws themselves.

ATHENIAN: If the defendant is convicted, he shall have no share in common property, and whenever some distribution is made to the city, he shall be excluded from it, except for his allotted portion; and it shall be recorded that he was convicted, for as long as he lives, in a place where anyone who wishes may read it. No one shall hold the office of Guardian of the Laws for more than twenty years, and no one shall be brought forward for the office who is younger than fifty. If someone is brought forward at sixty, he shall hold office for only ten years, and by this same reasoning, whoever lives beyond seventy should no longer think of holding so weighty an office among these officials, as though he still meant to serve. Let these, then, be the three regulations stated concerning the Guardians of the Laws; as the laws proceed further, each will assign to these men whatever additional duties they must attend to beyond what's been said now. For the moment, let's go on to speak of the selection of other offices. After this we must choose generals, and for them, assistants for war such as cavalry commanders, tribal commanders of horse, and organizers of the infantry tribes' formations — for whom this very name would suit best, just as most people call them company commanders. As for generals, let the Guardians of the Laws nominate them from this city itself, and let all who have shared in war, both those currently and those successively of military age, choose from among the nominees. If anyone thinks someone not nominated is better than one of those nominated, he may name whom he wants in place of whom, swearing to it, and put forward this alternative candidate; whichever of the two wins on a show of hands shall be entered into the selection. The three who receive the most votes shall be generals and overseers of matters of war, once scrutinized just as the Guardians of the Laws are. The elected generals shall nominate company commanders for themselves, twelve in all, one commander per tribe, and the same process of counter-nomination that applied to the generals shall apply to the company commanders too, along with the same voting and judgment. For now, before the presiding officers and council have been chosen, let the Guardians of the Laws convene this assembly, seating it in the most sacred and suitable place available, with the hoplites seated separately, the cavalry separately, and third alongside these all who bear arms of whatever kind.

ATHENIAN: Let all the citizens vote for generals and cavalry-commanders, but let those who bear the shield choose the company-commanders; and let the whole body of cavalry in turn choose the tribal-commanders for these same men. As for the leaders of the light-armed troops, the archers, or any other branch of the fighting forces, let the generals appoint these for themselves. There remains for us still the appointment of the cavalry-commanders. Let the same men who nominated the generals nominate these too, and let the selection and the counter-nomination proceed in the very same way as it did for the generals; but let the cavalry cast the vote for them in full view of the infantry, and let the two who receive the most votes be commanders of all the horsemen. Disputes over the voting may be raised twice; but if anyone disputes a third time, let those whose task it was to judge the measure of each vote decide the matter by ballot. As for the council, let it consist of thirty times twelve — that is, three hundred and sixty, a number well suited to being divided up. Dividing them into four groups of ninety according to the property-classes, let each class return ninety councillors. First, from the highest property class, let all be required to vote, on pain of a fine to be fixed, for anyone who refuses to comply; and once they have voted, let the names be sealed up, and on the next day let voting proceed from the second property class in the same manner as before; on the third day let anyone who wishes vote from the third class, though it be compulsory only for members of the top three classes, while the fourth and smallest class shall be free to abstain from voting without penalty. On the fourth day let all vote from the fourth and smallest class, but let anyone from the third or fourth class who does not wish to vote go unpunished; whereas anyone from the second or first class who fails to vote shall be fined — the man from the second class three times the first fine, the man from the first class four times. On the fifth day let the magistrates bring out the sealed names for all the citizens to see, and let every man vote again from among these, on pain of the first fine. Then, having selected one hundred and eighty from each property class, let them determine by lot which half of these shall undergo scrutiny, and let these be the councillors for the year.

ATHENIAN: A selection carried out in this way would strike a middle course between a monarchic and a democratic constitution — and a constitution ought always to steer a middle course between the two. For slaves and masters could never become friends, nor could the base and the worthy if ranked with equal honors — since for unequal people equal treatment becomes unequal, unless it hits the right measure. It is through both these errors that constitutions become filled with civil strife. There is an old saying, and a true one, that equality produces friendship — very rightly and fittingly said. But just what this equality is that has such power is far from clear, and this greatly confuses us. For there are two equalities, bearing the same name but in practice almost opposite in effect. The first, any city and any lawgiver is capable of applying to the distribution of honors — the equality of measure, weight, and number, meted out by lot. But the truest and best equality is not so easy for everyone to see. It is the judgment of Zeus, and it is granted to human beings only sparingly — yet whatever portion of it is granted to cities or to individuals produces every good thing. For to the greater it gives more, to the lesser less, apportioning to each what is fitting to its own nature; and in particular, it always grants greater honors to those of greater virtue, while to those of the opposite character it assigns what is proper to each in due proportion to their virtue and education. This, surely, is for us always the very essence of political justice — and it is toward this we must now strain, Cleinias, and it is to this equality we must look as we settle the city now coming into being. Whoever founds another city at some future time must likewise legislate with this same goal in view, not with an eye to a few tyrants, or to one man, or to some power of the people, but always with an eye to justice — and this, as I have just said, is the equal naturally given, each time, to unequal things. Yet it is necessary that every city, even so, make use at times of these very things that share the name of equality only by courtesy, if it is not to have some part of itself infected with civil strife — for fairness and forgiveness are always a departure from the perfect and exact standard of strict justice, whenever they occur. That is why it is necessary to make use of the equality of the lot, on account of the discontent of the many, calling upon god and good fortune in our prayers to guide the lot itself toward what is most just.

ATHENIAN: In this way, then, both equalities must be used out of necessity, but the one that depends on chance as sparingly as possible. This, friends, is what a city that means to survive must do, for these reasons. And since a ship sailing on the sea needs watch kept day and night without pause, and a city likewise, tossed among the waves of other cities and living always in danger of being caught by plots of every kind, must join magistrate to magistrate and guard to guard, passing the watch on continuously from day into night and from night back into day, never letting it lapse — since a large body can never act quickly in any of these matters, it is necessary to let most of the councillors remain for most of the time at their own private affairs, managing their own households in good order, while a twelfth part of them, distributed over twelve months, one part for each month, serve as guards, ready to meet at once anyone who comes from elsewhere or from within the city itself, whether someone wishes to bring a report, or to inquire about something the city ought to answer to other cities, or to receive answers when it has itself put questions to others; and also, since disturbances of every kind are always liable to arise within a city, this body must see, so far as possible, that they do not arise at all, and if they do arise, that the city becomes aware of it and the trouble is cured as swiftly as can be. For these reasons there must always be this presiding body of the city with authority to convene assemblies and to dissolve them, both the regular ones and those suddenly forced upon the city. All this, then, would be the business of the twelfth part of the council that is on duty, while the other eleven parts rest through the rest of the year. This portion of the council must, in common with the other officials, keep these watches over the city continually. So much for arrangements within the city itself, which would be tolerably well ordered. But what care and what organization shall there be for the rest of the countryside? Now that the whole city and the whole territory has been divided into twelve parts, must there not be appointed overseers of the roads within the city, the houses, the buildings, the harbors, the market-place, the springs, and further, of the sacred precincts and temples and all such things? CLEINIAS: Of course there must.

ATHENIAN: Let us say, then, that for the temples there must be temple-wardens, priests, and priestesses; and for the roads, buildings, and the good order relating to such things — both to keep human beings from wrongdoing and other creatures too, within the city's own enclosure and its outskirts, so that whatever is fitting for cities may come about — three kinds of officials must be chosen: for the matter just mentioned, those called city-wardens, and for the good order of the market-place, market-wardens. As for priests of the temples, wherever there are hereditary priesthoods, male or female, these should not be disturbed; but where, as is likely at first for new settlers, there is no one holding such office, or only a few, priests and priestesses must be appointed as temple-wardens for the gods. Of all these, some must be chosen by election and others by lot in the various appointments, mixing together in friendship, in each district and city, both the common people and those who are not, so that there may be the greatest possible harmony. As for the priesthoods, leaving to the god himself the choice of what pleases him, one should assign them by lot, thus surrendering the matter to divine fortune, but should scrutinize whoever is chosen each time — first, that he be whole in body and legitimate in birth, next, that he come as far as possible from households kept pure, free from bloodguilt and from all offenses of that kind against the divine, and that he himself and his father and mother have likewise lived their lives blamelessly. One should bring the laws concerning all divine matters from Delphi, and having appointed interpreters over them, make use of these. Let each priesthood last one year and no longer, and let the man who is to perform the sacred rites adequately according to the sacred laws concerning divine matters be not less than sixty years old; and let the same rules apply to priestesses. As for the interpreters, let the four tribes each put forward four candidates three times, one from their own number each time, and let three of these, whoever receive the most votes, after scrutiny, be sent nine in all to Delphi, one chosen from each group of three; and let their scrutiny and the age required be the same as for the priests. Let these men be interpreters for life; and when one of them departs, let the four tribes choose a replacement from the tribe he came from.

ATHENIAN: As for treasurers in charge of the sacred funds belonging to each of the temples, the precincts, their produce, and their leases, let three be chosen from the highest property class for the greatest temples, two for the lesser ones, and one for the most modest; and let the selection and scrutiny of these proceed just as it did for the generals. Let this, then, be the arrangement concerning sacred matters. Let nothing, so far as possible, be left unguarded. As for the guarding of the city, let it proceed in this manner, under the oversight of the generals, the company-commanders, the cavalry-commanders, the tribal-commanders, and the presiding officers, as well as the city-wardens and market-wardens, once these have been duly elected and installed; and let the rest of the countryside be guarded entirely as follows. The whole territory has been divided for us, as far as possible, into twelve equal parts, and let one tribe, assigned by lot to each part, provide annually five men to serve, so to speak, as rural-commanders and guard-captains; and let each of these five be permitted to enlist from his own tribe twelve young men, not less than twenty-five years old and not more than thirty. Let the districts of the territory be assigned to these by lot, month by month, so that all may become experienced and knowledgeable about the whole territory. Let the term of office and of guard-duty last two years for both the guards and their commanders. However the parts fall to them at first, let the guard-captains lead them, moving on each month to the next district in a circle to the right — and let 'to the right' mean toward the east. When the year has gone round, in the second year, so that as many of the guards as possible may become familiar with the territory not merely in one season of the year, but so that as many as possible may also learn what happens at each season in each district, those who led the way before shall now lead in reverse, always shifting to the district on the left, and continuing in this fashion until the second year is done. In the third year let other rural-commanders be chosen, and let the five who had charge of the twelve be replaced.

ATHENIAN: Now as for the daily business at each post, the general care should run along these lines. First, that the land be as well defended against enemies as possible — digging trenches wherever needed, cutting counter-ditches, and using fortified works as far as they can to block anyone who tries to damage the land or the property in it. For this work they should use the pack animals and servants available at each post, directing the work through them and supervising them, while keeping their own labor free from it as much as possible. They should make every route as hard to pass as they can for enemies, and as easy as possible for friends — for people, pack animals, and herds alike — tending the roads so that each becomes as smooth as it can be. As for the water that falls from Zeus, they must see that it does no harm to the land but rather benefits it: where it runs down from the heights into the hollow ravines in the mountains, they should block its outflow with buildings and trenches, so that by receiving and holding the rain that comes from Zeus, it creates streams and springs for all the fields and places below, and turns even the driest spots well-watered and abundant. The springheads themselves — whether a river or a spring — they should make more attractive with plantings and buildings, gathering the waters together through channels so as to make them plentiful for all, and if there happens to be a grove or a sacred precinct set apart nearby, they should direct the streams into it, right into the shrines of the gods, and so adorn them, drawing water there at every season. Everywhere in such places the young men must build gymnasiums for themselves, and warm baths for the old, providing plenty of dry, seasoned wood, so as to give a warm welcome to bodies worn down by illness or by farm labor — a reception better, by a good margin, than a not-very-skilled doctor's care. All this and everything like it will bring both beauty and benefit to these places, done in a spirit of no ungracious play. But here is where serious effort must go. Each company of sixty is to guard its own district — not only against enemies, but against any who claim to be friends as well. When one neighbor wrongs another, whether slave or free, among neighbors and other citizens, the five commanders of that district are to judge the smaller cases themselves; the greater ones, up to three minas, they judge together with the twelve, making seventeen judges, for whatever charges one party brings against another. But no judge or official is to render judgment or hold office free of future accounting, except those who hold the final authority, such as the kings.

ATHENIAN: And further, if these rural officers commit any abuse toward those in their charge — giving unequal orders, or attempting to take and carry off produce from the farms without consent, or accepting some gift as a bribe, or handing down unjust rulings, then for yielding to flattery let them carry public disgrace throughout the whole city; but for other wrongs they commit against people in their district, up to the value of a mina, let them submit willingly to trial among the villagers and neighbors involved. For greater wrongs, or even lesser ones, if they refuse to submit, trusting that by rotating monthly to a new post each time they can keep escaping trial by fleeing forward, the wronged party may bring a public suit against them; and if he wins, let the one who tried to escape and refused to submit willingly to punishment pay double. The officers and the rural guards are to conduct their common life during these two years in the following way. First, in each district there are to be common messes, where all must take their meals together. Anyone who misses a meal on any day, or sleeps away at night, without orders from the officers or some overriding necessity, if the five report him and post a notice in the marketplace naming him as one who has abandoned his watch, is to bear public disgrace as a betrayer of his city's cause, and may be beaten by anyone who happens on him and wishes to punish him, with no liability for doing so. If one of the officers themselves does anything of this kind, all sixty must see to it; and whoever notices or learns of it and fails to prosecute is to be liable under these same laws and fined more heavily than the younger men, and stripped of all future eligibility for offices held by the young. Over all this the Guardians of the Laws must keep close watch, so that such offenses either do not occur, or when they do occur, meet with the justice they deserve. Every man must hold this conviction about all human beings: that one who has never served cannot become a master worthy of praise, and that a man should take more pride in serving well than in ruling well — first in service to the laws, since this is service to the gods, and then always in service to elders and to those who have lived honorably. After this, the man who has held the post of rural guard must, during these two years, have tasted the plain and needy way of daily living.

ATHENIAN: For once the twelve have been enrolled, they should meet together with the five and take counsel so that, like servants, they will have no other servants or slaves of their own, nor will they make use of the other farmers and villagers as attendants for their private errands, but only for public matters. In everything else they must plan to live by serving one another and being served by one another, and besides this, to range over the whole countryside, summer and winter, under arms, for the sake of guarding and coming to know every part of it at all times. For there is, I think, no lesson of greater value than for everyone to know his own country thoroughly and with precision. For this reason, the young man ought to pursue hunting and every other form of the chase no less than other pleasures, along with the benefit that comes with such pursuits for everyone. These men, then, and their occupation — whether one calls them 'rangers' or 'rural guards' or whatever name one prefers — every man who intends to keep his city properly safe should pursue eagerly, to the extent of his power. Next in order for us was the choice of officials concerning market wardens and city wardens. Following the rural guards, who are sixty in number, should come city wardens, three in number, dividing the city into three of the twelve districts, imitating the others by tending the roads within the city and the highways leading in from the country that run continually toward it, and the buildings, so that all are built according to law, and also the water supplies — whatever water the country guards send and hand over to them, properly treated — so that it flows to the fountains sufficient and pure, thereby adorning and benefiting the city at once. These men too must be capable and have the leisure to attend to public affairs. So every man should nominate whomever he wishes as city warden from among those of the highest property class; once the vote has narrowed the field to six who receive the most votes, let those in charge of this draw lots among them for three, who then take office after being examined according to the laws set for them. Market wardens are to be chosen next in the same manner, five men from the second and first property classes, the rest of the selection proceeding just as for the city wardens: ten are voted forward from among the rest, and five are drawn by lot from those ten, and once examined, they are declared to hold office.

ATHENIAN: Every man is to cast a vote in all these elections; whoever refuses, if reported to the officials, is to be fined fifty drachmas in addition to gaining a reputation for bad citizenship. Anyone who wishes may attend the assembly and the general gathering, but it is compulsory for those of the second and first property classes, under penalty of ten drachmas if they are not present and found at the gatherings; for the third and fourth classes it is not compulsory, and they are excused without penalty, unless the officials issue an order for everyone to assemble because of some special necessity. The market wardens are to guard the order of the marketplace as laid down by law, and look after the shrines and fountains in the marketplace, so that no one commits any wrong there; and they are to punish the wrongdoer — with blows and confinement if he is a slave or a foreigner, but if a native commits such disorder, the market wardens themselves have authority to judge and fine up to a hundred drachmas, and up to double that amount jointly with the city wardens, judging the wrongdoer together. The city wardens are to have the same powers of fine and punishment within their own office, fining up to a mina on their own, and up to double that jointly with the market wardens. Next after this it would be fitting to establish officials over music and over athletics, two kinds for each — one set for education, the other for competitions. By education the law means overseers of the gymnasiums and schools, who look after their order and discipline, and also after the attendance and lodging of boys and girls; by competition it means judges who award prizes to competitors, in athletic contests and in music alike — again two kinds, one for music, another for athletic contests. For the athletic contests of men and horses the same judges will serve; but for music it would be fitting to have different judges for solo and imitative performance, such as reciters, singers to the lyre, flute players, and all such performers, and yet others for choral performance. First, then, officials must be chosen for the entertainment provided by choruses of boys, men, and girls, in their dances and in all the musical arrangement involved.

ATHENIAN: One official is sufficient for them, provided he is not younger than forty. One is likewise sufficient for solo performance, provided he is not younger than thirty, serving as presenter and giving a fair judgment among the competitors. The chorus official and arranger should be chosen in the following way. All who are warmly disposed toward such matters should attend the assembly, on penalty for not attending — the Guardians of the Laws being judges of this — while for everyone else, if they do not wish to attend, nothing is compulsory. The one making the nomination must do so from among men experienced in the matter, and in the scrutiny this single point should count both for and against a candidate: that the one drawn is either inexperienced or experienced in this. Whoever is drawn as one of ten who have been voted forward, once examined, is to direct the choruses for the year according to law. In the same manner and on the same terms, whoever is drawn is to preside for that year over the judging of solo and ensemble instrumental performances submitted for competition, handing over the decision to the judges. After this, judges for athletic competition must be chosen — for contests of horses and men at the gymnasiums — from the third and even the second property classes; for this election it is compulsory for the three highest classes to attend and vote, while the lowest class is excused without penalty. Three are to be chosen by lot, from twenty voted forward beforehand, drawing the three from the twenty whom the vote of the examiners then approves. If anyone is rejected in the examination for any office or judgeship, others are to be chosen in his place by the same process, and the examination conducted for them in the same way. The remaining official concerning the matters mentioned is the overseer of all education, for girls and boys alike. Let there be one man to hold this office by law, not younger than fifty years of age, and the father of legitimate children — sons and daughters ideally, or failing that, one or the other. Both the man selected and the one making the selection must bear in mind that this office is, by far, the greatest of the highest offices in the city.

ATHENIAN: Every plant, if its first shoot springs up well, has the greatest power of bringing its own nature to the fulfillment proper to it—this holds for other plants, for tame and wild animals, and for human beings alike. Man, we say, is a tame creature; and yet, if he happens on the right upbringing and a fortunate nature, he tends to become the most divine and tame of all living things, while if he is raised inadequately or badly he becomes the wildest thing the earth produces. For this reason the lawgiver must not let the rearing of children become a secondary matter or an afterthought. He must begin by seeing that whoever is to take charge of it is well chosen—the best person in the city at everything, so far as that can be managed, must be appointed and set over them as overseer. So all the offices, except the council and the presiding officers, shall proceed to Apollo's temple and there cast a secret ballot for whichever of the Guardians of the Laws each thinks would make the best director of education. Whoever gets the most votes, once he has been examined and approved by the other officials who did the choosing—excepting the Guardians of the Laws themselves—shall serve a term of five years; in the sixth, another shall be chosen to this office by the same method. If someone dies while holding a public office, with more than thirty days remaining before his term would have ended, those whose proper business it is shall appoint a replacement to the office in the same manner. And if a guardian of orphans dies, the relatives who live in the city, on both the father's and the mother's side as far as cousins' children, shall appoint another within ten days, or else each shall be fined a drachma a day until they have appointed a guardian for the children. Every city, surely, would become no city at all if its courts were not properly established. A judge who says nothing, who speaks no more than the litigants themselves during preliminary hearings—as happens in private arbitrations—could never be competent to render judgment on matters of justice. That is why it is not easy for a large body of judges to render good judgment, nor for a small and inferior one either. What is in dispute must always be made clear from both sides, and time, unhurried procedure, and repeated examination all help bring the matter in dispute out into the open.

ATHENIAN: For these reasons, first, those who bring charges against one another should go to their neighbors, and to friends and people who know the facts as well as possible about the disputed actions. If someone does not get a satisfactory judgment there, let him go to another court. And third, should the matter still be unresolved after two courts, a final tribunal shall bring the case to its close. In a certain way the establishment of courts is itself a form of choosing officials—for every official must also be a judge of some matters, and a judge, even though not an official, becomes in a certain sense a not insignificant official on the day he brings a case to judgment. So let us treat judges as officials too, and say who would be suitable, and over what matters and how many judges should preside over each. Let the highest court be the one that each set of disputants appoints for themselves, choosing certain persons in common. Of the remaining two tribunals, let one apply when one private citizen, accusing another of wrongdoing, wants to bring him to trial for judgment, and the other when someone believes the public has been wronged by one of the citizens and wishes to come to the defense of the community—here too we must say what sort of judges these should be. Let our first court, then, be the one common to all private citizens disputing with one another for the third time, established as follows. All the officials, both those who hold office for a year and those who hold it longer, when a new year is about to begin after the summer solstice, in the following month—on the day before that day all the officials must gather together in one temple and, having sworn an oath to the god, offer up, as it were a firstfruits from every office, one judge—whoever from each office seems best and likely to judge the citizens' cases most excellently and most righteously through the coming year. Once these are chosen, there shall be an examination among the very officials who chose them; and if someone is disqualified, another shall be chosen in his place by the same method. Those who pass the examination shall judge the cases of those who have fled the other courts, and shall cast their vote openly. The council members and the other officials who chose them shall of necessity be present as listeners and observers of these trials, and any other citizen who wishes may attend as well. If someone accuses another of having deliberately judged a case unjustly, let him bring the charge before the Guardians of the Laws. Whoever is convicted of such an offense must pay half the damages to the injured party; and if he is judged to deserve a greater penalty, the judges of the case shall assess in addition whatever else he ought to suffer or pay, both to the community and to the one who brought the suit.

ATHENIAN: Concerning public charges, it is necessary first of all to give the mass of citizens a share in judgment—for whenever someone wrongs the city, everyone is wronged, and people would rightly resent being excluded from a share in such decisions. So both the beginning and the end of such a trial must be handed over to the people, while the sifting of the evidence shall be conducted by three of the most senior officials, agreed upon by defendant and prosecutor alike; and if the two cannot agree between themselves, the council shall decide on the choice for each. All citizens, so far as possible, must also share in private lawsuits—for whoever has no share in the power to help judge thinks he has no part at all in the city. For this reason it is necessary that courts be established by tribe as well, with judges chosen by lot on the spot, incorruptible by appeals for favor, to judge the case; and that the final decision in all such matters rest with that court which we say has been made, so far as is humanly possible, the most incorruptible of all, for the benefit of those who cannot get satisfaction either from their neighbors or from the tribal courts. Now concerning courts—which we have said we cannot speak of definitively either as offices or as something other than offices—we have, so to speak, sketched an outline from the outside: some things have been said, others left for later. For it would be most fitting for the precise legislation and division of the laws concerning lawsuits to come near the end of our lawgiving. Let this, then, be left to await us at the end; but the arrangements concerning the other offices have pretty much received the greater part of their legislation already. It is not possible for the whole and precise account, concerning each and every administration of the city and of political affairs generally, to become clear before the exposition, proceeding from the beginning, has taken up the secondary matters and the intermediate ones and all its own parts, and arrived at its conclusion. As things stand now, however, reaching as far as the selection of officials makes a sufficient stopping point for what has gone before, and there is no more reason to delay or hesitate before beginning the actual legislation of the laws. CLEINIAS: Everything you have said before was entirely to my liking, stranger, and now that you have linked the beginning to an end for what has been said and what is yet to be said, you have spoken even more agreeably than before.

ATHENIAN: Then our thoughtful old men's game would have been well played, so far as we have played it now. CLEINIAS: You seem to be revealing a fine seriousness in these men. ATHENIAN: Naturally. But let us consider this next point, if you agree with me. CLEINIAS: What point, and about what? ATHENIAN: You know how, with painters, the work never seems to reach an end for any single figure—there is always shading or highlighting or whatever it is the sons of painters call such touches, and it never seems to stop being adorned so that the picture can no longer improve and grow clearer. CLEINIAS: I more or less follow what you mean, even though I have never been trained in that art myself. ATHENIAN: And you've lost nothing by it. But let us make use of the point that has just come up, for something like this: suppose someone set out to paint the most beautiful living creature possible, and resolved that it should never grow worse but only better as time goes on—don't you see that, being mortal, unless he leaves behind a successor able to correct the figure if time makes it slip in any way, and able to fill in whatever was left out through his own weakness in the art, restoring and improving it into the future, all his great labor will last only a short while? CLEINIAS: True. ATHENIAN: Well then? Doesn't the lawgiver's wish seem to you much the same? First, to write the laws with as much precision as he can manage; then, as time goes on and his intentions are tested in practice—do you think any lawgiver could be so foolish as not to know that a great many things are bound to be left out, things that someone must follow along and correct, so that the constitution and order of the city he has founded never grows worse but always better? CLEINIAS: Naturally—how could it be otherwise?—everyone would want that. ATHENIAN: So if someone had some device for this, some way of teaching another, in deed and in word, whether to a greater or lesser degree, an understanding of how the laws should be guarded and corrected, he would never stop speaking of it before reaching the end, would he?

CLEINIAS: How could he? ATHENIAN: Then is this not exactly what you and I must now do? CLEINIAS: What do you mean? ATHENIAN: Since we are about to legislate, and Guardians of the Laws have been chosen for us, and we are on the downward slope of life while they are young compared to us, we must, as we say, both legislate ourselves and at the same time try to make these very men, so far as possible, lawgivers and law-guardians in their own right. CLEINIAS: Certainly—provided we are capable enough for it. ATHENIAN: In any case it must be attempted, and pursued with eagerness. CLEINIAS: Of course. ATHENIAN: Let us say to them, then: dear preservers of the laws, in laying down laws on each matter we will leave a great many things out—that is unavoidable—yet, so far as we can, we will not leave the larger, essential matters undrawn, as it were, in outline; you will have to fill in what has been sketched. What you should keep your eyes on as you do this, you must hear. Megillus and I and Cleinias have said this to one another not just once, and we agree it has been well put; and we want you to become both sympathetic judges of what we say and our students, keeping your eyes on the very things we have agreed with one another that the law-guardian and lawgiver ought to keep in view. Our agreement had a single central point: that a person should somehow become good, possessing the excellence of soul proper to a human being, whether this comes from some practice, some habit of character, some kind of possession, desire, opinion, or course of study—whether the nature involved, among those living together, is male or female, young or old—every effort throughout the whole of life must be stretched toward this very thing we speak of, and nothing that stands in its way should be given honor by anyone, not even, in the end, the city itself, if it should truly become necessary for the city to be overthrown rather than willingly submit to a slave's yoke under baser men, or else abandon the city in flight. All such things must be endured before adopting a form of government that by nature makes people worse.

ATHENIAN: We agreed on these things earlier, and now, looking to both these standards, you praise and blame laws according to whether they can achieve them — the ones that succeed you welcome and take up gladly, living by them, but whatever else pursues other aims, however good it's called, deserves no more than a passing nod. Let the beginning of the laws that follow be this, starting from sacred matters. We must first go back to the number five thousand and forty, and recall all the useful divisions it has and had, both as a whole and by tribe — a twelfth part of which we set at twenty-one times twenty, exactly right. The whole number yields twelve divisions, and so does the tribal share. Each portion must be regarded as sacred, a gift of a god, following the months and the cycle of the whole heaven. That is why every city is naturally drawn to hold such things sacred, though some peoples have divided and consecrated the arrangement more correctly and successfully than others. We, at any rate, maintain that we have chosen most correctly the number five thousand and forty, which admits every division up through twelve, starting from one, except for eleven — and even that flaw is easily healed, since if you take away two hearths it becomes whole again on the other side. That this is really so, a lengthy account could show at leisure. For now, trusting the report and argument before us, let us make the division, assign to each portion a god or a child of a god, set up altars and their appropriate rites, and hold gatherings for sacrifices at them twice a month — twelve for the tribal division, twelve for the division of the city as a whole — first for the sake of the gods' favor and of matters concerning them, and second for our own sake, for kinship and mutual acquaintance, as we might say, and for fellowship of every kind. For when it comes to marriage and the mingling of families, it's essential to remove ignorance about the people one marries into and the woman one gives in marriage, and about those to whom one gives her, holding it of the greatest importance, as far as possible, never to go wrong in such things.

ATHENIAN: For the sake of this seriousness, then, the games too should be arranged — boys and girls dancing together, and at the same time seeing and being seen, at an age that gives some plausible occasion, in reasonable dress, undressed only to the point each one's modesty allows. The directors and organizers of all this should be the leaders of the choruses, together with the lawgivers, acting as legislators alongside the Guardians of the Laws wherever we ourselves leave gaps in our regulations. It's unavoidable, as we said, that in all such matters — small and numerous as they are — the lawgiver must leave things out, and that those who each year gain experience of them, learning from practice, must make the arrangements and correct them and adjust them year by year, until a sufficient standard for such customs and practices seems to have been reached. A period of ten years, devoted to sacrifices and dances in general and applied to each and every one, would be a moderate and sufficient span for gaining this experience — while the lawgiver who set them up is alive, this is done in common with him; once he is gone, each office should bring to the Guardians of the Laws whatever remains uncorrected from its own period, correcting it, until each practice seems to have reached its final, well-finished form. Then, having fixed them as unchangeable, they should use them from then on together with the other laws that the original lawgiver laid down. About these, no one should ever willingly alter anything; but if some necessity ever seems to demand it, all the officials must be consulted, the whole people, and every oracle of the gods, and only if all agree should any change be made — never otherwise, under any circumstances — and whoever opposes such a change should always prevail by law. Whenever any man who has reached the age of twenty-five, looking into the matter himself and being looked into by others, comes to believe he has found a match to his mind and fitting for having and raising children, let him marry — every such man, before reaching thirty-five. But first let him hear how he ought to seek what is fitting and suitable. For, as Cleinias says, a fitting prelude belongs before every law, addressed to each case. CLEINIAS: You've remembered beautifully, stranger — you've seized just the right moment in the discussion, one that strikes me as perfectly measured.

ATHENIAN: Well said. So then, my boy, born of good parents, we should say you must make a marriage that wins approval among sensible people, who would advise you neither to shun marriage with the poor nor to chase after marriage with the rich above all, but rather, other things being equal, always to give preference to the humbler match in forming the union. This would benefit both the city and the households that come together; for the level and balanced is immeasurably better for virtue than the unmixed and extreme. And a man who knows himself to be more impulsive and quicker than he should be in all his actions ought to be eager to become son-in-law to sober parents; while a man of the opposite nature should move toward the opposite kind of in-laws. Let there be one single teaching for every marriage: each man must court the marriage that benefits the city, not the one that is most pleasant to himself. For everyone by nature is somehow drawn toward his own likeness, and from this the whole city ends up uneven in wealth and in character — which brings about, in most cities, exactly what we do not want to happen to us. Now to command these things by law in so many words — that the rich should not marry the rich, nor a man of great influence marry into another such family, and to force the quick-tempered toward the slower and the slow toward the quick in forming marriages — besides being ridiculous, would stir up anger in many people; for it isn't easy to see that a city must be mixed like a mixing-bowl, in which the wine, poured in raging, foams, but once disciplined by another, sober god, forms a good partnership and produces a fine and moderate drink. Hardly anyone is able to perceive that this same thing happens in the blending of children. For this reason, we must leave such matters to persuasion rather than law, trying by incantation to persuade each person to value the evenness of his children's characters more than the boundless equality of matched wealth in marriage, and to turn back with reproach anyone who is overly serious about money in marrying, rather than forcing him by written law.

ATHENIAN: Let this stand as encouragement concerning marriages, along with what was said earlier — that one must hold fast to the everlasting nature by leaving behind children's children, forever handing over to the god servants in one's place. All this, and more besides, could be said as a proper prelude on how one ought to marry. But if someone still will not willingly obey, and instead keeps himself apart and unconnected within the city, remaining unmarried until he is thirty-five, let him be fined every year: a man of the highest property class, one hundred drachmas; of the second, seventy; of the third, sixty; of the fourth, thirty. Let this money be sacred to Hera. Whoever fails to pay each year shall owe ten times as much; the treasurer of the goddess shall exact it, and if he fails to collect it, he himself shall owe it, and shall answer for it at his examination of accounts. So much for the fine in money laid on the man unwilling to marry. He shall also be deprived of all honor from the younger men, and no young man shall willingly obey him in anything; and if he tries to punish anyone, let everyone come to the aid of the one wronged and defend him, and let any bystander who fails to help be declared by law both a coward and a bad citizen. As for dowries, it has been said before, and let it be said again: that it suits equality best neither to receive nor to give a dowry, so that the poor are not left to grow old for lack of money; for in this city the necessities are provided for everyone, and marriage will bring less arrogance and less base, servile submission on the wife's part on account of money. Whoever obeys this would be doing something noble; but whoever disobeys, whether giving or receiving more than fifty drachmas' worth for clothing — or a mina, for the second class, or a mina and a half, or two minas for the man of the highest property class — shall owe an equal sum to the public treasury, and whatever was given or received shall be sacred to Hera and Zeus; and the treasurers of these two gods shall exact it, just as was said of the treasurers of Hera exacting the fine from those who do not marry, each paying the penalty from his own funds. Let the right to give a woman in marriage belong first to her father, second to her grandfather, third to brothers by the same father; if none of these exist, then the right belongs likewise to those on the mother's side. And should some unusual circumstance arise, the nearest relatives in every case, together with the guardians, shall have the authority.

ATHENIAN: Whatever preliminary rites of marriage, or any other sacred ceremony connected with such things, are proper to perform for those about to marry, now marrying, or already married, each person should ask the interpreters of sacred law and, following their guidance, consider that everything has been done properly for himself. As for the wedding feasts, one should invite no more than five friends of each sex, and likewise the same number again of relatives and household members on each side. The expense should not exceed what one's means allow: one mina for the man of the highest property class, half that for the next, and so on in proportion as the property classes descend. Everyone should praise the man who obeys this law, while the Guardians of the Laws should punish the one who disobeys as a man of poor taste and uneducated in the customs governing the muses of the wedding. Drinking oneself drunk is fitting nowhere — nor is it safe — save at the feasts of the god who bestowed wine upon us, and certainly not for anyone serious about marriage, an occasion on which both bride and groom above all need their wits about them, since they are undertaking no small change in life, and also so that the child conceived may come, as far as possible, from parents in full possession of their senses; for it's practically impossible to know which night, or which day, will beget it, with the god's help. Beyond this, procreation should not happen while the body is dissolved by drink, but the thing being formed should come together sound, steady, and calm in its proper measure. But the man overcome by wine is scattered every which way, and scatters others, raging in body and soul alike; so a drunken man sows in a distracted and corrupted state, likely to beget offspring of uneven character and uncertain body, crooked in neither straight body nor straight soul. That is why, throughout the whole year and indeed one's whole life, but especially during whatever time one is begetting children, a man must take care not to do, deliberately, anything conducive to sickness, nor anything bound up with arrogance or injustice — for this is necessarily stamped and imprinted on the souls and bodies of the children begotten, and reproduces itself, making everything worse in every way. Above all, one must abstain from such things on that particular day and night; for a beginning, once it takes root as a god among men, preserves everything — provided it receives the honor due to it from each person who has dealings with it.

ATHENIAN: The man who marries should think of one of the two houses on his allotted land as a place for the hatching and raising of chicks, so to speak, and should make his marriage-home and the raising of his children there, separated from his father and mother. In friendships, if there is some longing left in them, it binds and glues every disposition together; but constant, saturating togetherness, which leaves no room for longing to build up over time, makes people drift apart through sheer excess of closeness. For this reason people should leave their own households — those of the wife's parents included — and go live as if arriving in a colony, watching over one another and being watched over in turn, bearing and raising children, handing life on like a torch from one generation to the next, and always serving the gods according to the laws. As for property, what kind of possessions would someone acquire to have the most fitting estate? Most of this is neither hard to think through nor hard to acquire, but the matter of household servants is difficult in every way. And the reason is that what we say about them is somehow both wrong and, in a certain way, right — for what we say about slaves runs contrary to our practical needs, and yet also follows from those very needs. MEGILLUS: What do you mean by that? We don't yet follow what you're getting at, stranger. ATHENIAN: And reasonably so, Megillus. Of nearly all the peoples of Greece, the helot-system of the Lacedaemonians would cause the most dispute and disagreement — some saying it has turned out well, others not so well. Less contested would be the slavery of the Heracleots over the Mariandynians, and the serf-class of the Thessalians. Looking at all such cases, what should we do about acquiring household servants? This is exactly the point I happened to raise a moment ago in passing, and you rightly asked me what on earth I meant. We know, I think, that everyone would say slaves should be acquired who are as well-disposed and as excellent as possible — for many slaves have already proven themselves better than brothers, better than sons in every virtue, and have saved their masters, their masters' property, and their entire households. This much we know is said about slaves. MEGILLUS: Of course.

ATHENIAN: And isn't the opposite also said — that there is nothing sound in a slave's soul, and that a person of sense should never trust the class of slaves in anything at all? Our wisest poet declared this too, speaking on behalf of Zeus: "Far-seeing Zeus takes away half the mind," he says, "of men, whenever the day of slavery seizes them." Each side, holding to these different views, acts accordingly: some trust the class of household slaves in nothing, and, treating them like beasts, batter their servants' souls into slavishness with goads and whips, not three times over but many times; others do exactly the opposite in every respect. MEGILLUS: Of course. CLEINIAS: Well then, stranger, given that people disagree so sharply on this, what should we do about our own land — both about acquiring slaves and about disciplining them? ATHENIAN: What indeed, Cleinias? It's clear that since the human animal is a difficult creature, and when it comes to drawing the necessary distinction in practice between slave, free man, and master, it shows itself thoroughly unwilling to be, or to become, something easy to deal with — the possession is a hard one. This has been shown in practice, time and again, in the frequent revolts among the Messenians, and in whatever troubles arise for cities that acquire many servants all speaking one language, and further in the deeds and sufferings of every sort caused by the so-called wandering bands of robbers around Italy. Looking at all this, one might well be at a loss over what to do about the whole business. Only two devices remain: first, that those likely to submit to slavery more easily should not be fellow-countrymen of one another, but as discordant as possible in background; second, that we raise them properly — not merely for their own sake, but even more out of regard for ourselves. The proper raising of such people means never treating servants with any kind of arrogance, and if possible, wronging them even less than one would wrong equals. For the man who reveres justice by nature, not by pretense, and genuinely hates injustice, shows himself clearly in his dealings with those people toward whom it is easy for him to act unjustly — namely, his slaves. So whoever proves himself, in his character and conduct toward slaves, free of impiety and injustice, would be best equipped to sow the seeds from which virtue grows. And the very same thing can rightly be said of any master, any tyrant, or anyone at all who wields power over someone weaker than himself.

ATHENIAN: Slaves must certainly be punished as justice requires, and not be pampered by mere warnings as if they were free men — that only spoils them. Nearly every address to a servant should be a command, plain and simple; one should never joke around with servants at all, neither with the women nor the men — which is exactly what many people foolishly do, spoiling their slaves and thereby making life harder both for the slaves' obedience and for their own authority over them. CLEINIAS: Rightly said. ATHENIAN: Well then, once someone has equipped himself as best he can with servants sufficient in number and suited to assist with each kind of task, the next thing, in our account, is to sketch out the arrangement of houses. CLEINIAS: Certainly. ATHENIAN: And it seems that, speaking generally of the whole art of building, we must attend to the city that is new and, until now, unbuilt — how each part of it, its temples and its walls, is to be laid out. These matters, Cleinias, properly come before marriages, but since we are only doing this in speech, it's quite all right to take them up now; when it comes to actual practice, we will, god willing, arrange these things before the marriages, and only afterward bring the marriage-laws themselves to completion, over and above all this. For now let's simply run through them briefly, in outline. CLEINIAS: Certainly. ATHENIAN: The temples, then, should be built all around the marketplace, and around the whole city in a circle, on the high ground, for the sake of easy defense and cleanliness. Near them should be the residences of the officials and the courts, where, as being the most sacred places, they will receive and render judgments — some concerning matters of piety, and in these same precincts should stand shrines to the relevant gods, along with courts in which the trials for homicide and other crimes deserving death would fittingly take place. As for walls, Megillus, I would side with Sparta in letting the walls lie sleeping in the ground and not raising them up, and for this reason: the poetic saying in their praise is a fine one, that walls ought to be of bronze and iron rather than of earth.

ATHENIAN: But our practice would rightly earn us no end of ridicule besides — sending out the young men each year into the countryside, some to dig, some to cut trenches, and others to wall off passages with certain constructions, as if to keep the enemy from setting foot across the borders of the land, while at the same time we throw a wall around the city itself. Such a wall, first of all, does nothing at all to benefit the health of cities, and it tends besides to produce a certain softness of spirit in the people living within it, inviting them to take refuge behind it instead of repelling the enemy, and to think that safety comes not from keeping watch, night and day, with some of their number always on guard, but from barricading themselves behind walls and gates and then falling asleep, believing they truly have devices for safety — as if born for a life without toil, unaware that ease, in truth, comes only out of toil. From shameful ease and laziness, I think, toils are born all over again. But if humans really must have some kind of wall, the private houses should be laid out from the very start in such a way that the whole city forms a single wall — with uniform, matching houses all facing onto the streets, all presenting a well-fortified front. It would not be unpleasant to look at either, with the whole city having the shape of one single house, and it would also be far superior for ease of guarding, contributing wholly and entirely to safety. As for keeping these buildings as they were originally constructed, that responsibility would fall chiefly on the residents themselves, but the city wardens should also see to it, compelling and fining anyone who neglects this; and they should likewise attend to cleanliness throughout the city as a whole, making sure no private citizen encroaches on any public property, whether by building or by digging. They must also see to the proper flow of rainwater and to whatever else it is fitting to manage, whether inside or outside the city. The guardians of the law, having surveyed all these needs together, should legislate further on them, and on anything else the law fails to cover for lack of foresight. Once these matters are settled, along with the buildings around the marketplace, around the gymnasia, and all the schoolhouses standing ready to receive their students, and the theaters awaiting their audiences, let us move on to what comes after the marriages, continuing our legislation in order. CLEINIAS: Certainly. ATHENIAN: Let the marriages, then, Cleinias, be taken as already accomplished. After this would come a period of living together before childbearing, lasting no less than a year — and how the bridegroom and bride ought to live during this time, in a city that is going to be different from most others, following on from what has just been said, is not the easiest thing to state. There have already been quite a few such difficult points, but this one is harder for the majority to accept than most of the others. Still, whatever seems right and true must be stated regardless, Cleinias. CLEINIAS: Certainly.

ATHENIAN: Whoever intends to lay down laws for cities, prescribing how citizens should conduct their public and communal life, while thinking there's no need to legislate for private matters beyond the bare necessities, and instead leaves each person free to live his daily life however he pleases, without everything being brought under regulation — such a person, having abandoned private conduct to being unregulated by law, imagines that citizens will nonetheless be willing to conduct their public and communal life by law. He is not thinking correctly. Why have I said this? Because I mean to say that our bridegrooms ought to take their meals in the common messes no differently, and no less, than they did in the time before their marriage. This practice, when it first arose among you in your part of the world, was a remarkable thing — brought about, in all likelihood, by some war, or by some other circumstance of similar force, among small populations gripped by great scarcity; and once they had tried the common messes and been compelled to use them, the practice seemed to make a great difference for their survival, and in some such way the institution of common messes became established among you. CLEINIAS: So it seems. As I was saying, though this practice was once a remarkable and even fearsome thing to impose on people, it would not now be nearly as difficult for a lawgiver to legislate. But the next step, one that would rightly occur if it did occur, yet nowhere occurs today, and which makes the lawgiver's task next to hopeless — a task like, as the saying about people who waste their efforts goes, "carding wool into fire" and countless other such futile endeavors — is neither easy to state nor, once stated, easy to bring to completion. CLEINIAS: What is this thing, stranger, that you seem so reluctant even to begin telling us? ATHENIAN: Listen, then, so that we don't waste a great deal of time over this very point for nothing. Whatever in a city partakes of order and law produces every kind of good, whereas the many things that are disordered, or badly ordered, undo much of what has been well ordered elsewhere. This is exactly the point bearing on what we're discussing now. Among you, Cleinias and Megillus, the common messes for men have been established well, and, as I said, remarkably so, by some divine necessity; but the corresponding practice for women has been left, quite wrongly, without any legislation, and the practice of common messes for them has never been brought into the light.

ATHENIAN: But there is one part of our human race that has always grown more secretive and thievish than the rest — the female sex — because of its weakness, and the lawgiver did wrong to yield to this and let it run loose, untamed as it is. And because we let it go slack, a great many things have slipped past us that would be in far better shape now if they had received laws. For it is not merely a half of things, as one might suppose, that gets left in disorder where women are concerned — no, insofar as female nature is inferior to male in virtue, by just that much it is more than double the problem. So it would be better for the happiness of a city to take this matter up again, correct it, and arrange all pursuits in common for women and men alike. But as things now stand, the human race has come to this in so unlucky a state that no one of sound mind would even mention the subject in other regions and cities — places where common messes are not even accepted as a practice for the whole city at all. From what starting point, then, could anyone attempt in practice, without being laughed at, to force women to have their consumption of food and drink brought out into the open? There is nothing this sex would endure less easily. For, being used to living a hidden, shadowed life, if dragged forcibly into the light it will resist with everything it has, and will get the better of the lawgiver by far. Elsewhere, then, as I said, this sex would not even put up with the correct argument being spoken, without shouting it down — but here, perhaps, it might. So if it seems worthwhile, for the sake of the argument, that our discussion of the whole constitution not go astray, I am willing to say why it is good and fitting — if you two agree to hear it out; if not, I will let it go. CLEINIAS: Why, stranger, we are altogether remarkably eager to hear it. ATHENIAN: Let us hear it, then. And do not be surprised if I seem to you to be starting from some point far back — we have leisure to spare, and nothing presses us to avoid examining the laws from every possible angle. CLEINIAS: Well said.

ATHENIAN: Let us go back, then, to what was said at the start. Every man should give real thought to this much at least: that the coming-into-being of humankind either has no beginning at all and will have no end, but always was and always will be, or else it has existed for a length of time from its beginning so vast as to be beyond reckoning. CLEINIAS: Of course. ATHENIAN: Well then — the founding and destruction of cities, all sorts of practices both orderly and disorderly, and every kind of craving for drink and food and eating — don't we suppose all these have occurred, all across the whole earth, along with every sort of turn of the seasons, in which living things are likely to have undergone countless changes of their own? CLEINIAS: Of course. ATHENIAN: Well then — do we believe that vines appeared at some point when they had not existed before? And likewise olives, and the gifts of Demeter and Kore, and that some Triptolemus served as minister of such things? And in the time when these did not yet exist, don't we suppose living things turned, as they do now, to eating one another? CLEINIAS: Of course. ATHENIAN: And indeed we still see, among many peoples even now, the practice of human beings sacrificing one another persisting to this day. Whereas we hear the opposite about others — a time when people did not even dare to taste beef, when the offerings to the gods were not living creatures but cakes and fruits soaked in honey and other such pure offerings, and people abstained from flesh as unholy food, holding it unholy likewise to defile the gods' altars with blood; instead what are called Orphic lives prevailed among those people of that time, keeping to everything lifeless and, on the other hand, abstaining from everything that had life. CLEINIAS: What you have said is indeed widely told, and plausible to believe. ATHENIAN: But someone might ask, to what end has all this just now been said to you? CLEINIAS: You have grasped the question rightly, stranger. ATHENIAN: And so, if I am able, Cleinias, I will try to explain what follows from it. CLEINIAS: Go on and speak. ATHENIAN: I see that everything for human beings hangs on three needs and desires, through which, when they are guided rightly, virtue results, and when guided badly, the opposite. These are: eating and drinking, right from birth — concerning which every living thing has an inborn passion, full of a frenzied craving and deaf to anyone telling it it must do something other than satisfy the pleasures and desires bound up with these things, and must always free itself from every kind of pain that stands in the way;

ATHENIAN: and a third need for us, the greatest, and the sharpest craving, arriving last but setting human beings most thoroughly ablaze with madness of every kind, is the one that burns with the greatest wanton excess concerning the begetting of offspring. These three sicknesses must be turned toward what is best rather than toward what is called most pleasant, and we must try to hold them in check by three of the greatest means: fear, law, and true reasoning — while also calling on the Muses and the gods of contest to help quench their growth and inflow. Let us set the begetting of children after marriages, and after begetting, their nurture and education; and perhaps, as the argument proceeds in this way, each law of ours will be carried through to the point where we arrive at the common meals — whether such associations should exist for women alone, for men alone, or both — and by coming closer to the matter we will perhaps see it better, and settle in advance what still remains, even now, without any law governing it, and thereby, as I just said, we will observe these things more accurately and be better able to establish the laws proper and fitting to them. CLEINIAS: Very rightly said. ATHENIAN: Let us then keep in memory what has just been said; for we may well have need of all of it at some point. CLEINIAS: What exactly do you bid us remember? ATHENIAN: The things we distinguished by three terms: eating, we said, first; then drinking, second; and third, some frenzy over sexual matters. CLEINIAS: We will certainly remember, stranger, what you are now bidding us to. ATHENIAN: Good. Let us turn, then, to matters of marriage, to instruct people how and in what manner they ought to produce children, and, if we fail to persuade them, to threaten them with certain laws. CLEINIAS: How so? ATHENIAN: The bride and groom must set their minds on producing for the city children as fine and as good as it is in their power to make. Now all human beings, in every joint undertaking, when they pay close attention both to themselves and to the task, accomplish everything nobly and well; but when they fail to pay attention, or have no sense, the opposite happens.

ATHENIAN: So let the groom keep his mind fixed on his bride and on producing children, and let the bride do likewise, and especially during that time when they do not yet have children born to them. Let there be overseers of this among the women we have chosen — however many or few seem right — whom the officials shall assign as they see fit, and whenever they see fit, gathering each day at the shrine of Eileithyia for up to a third of an hour; and once gathered there, let them report to one another whether they see any man or woman among those trying to have children paying attention to something other than what has been laid down concerning the sacrifices and rites performed at the wedding. Let the begetting and supervision of childbearing last ten years, no longer, when there is a good flow of offspring; but if some remain childless through this period, let them separate, with the counsel of their household and of the ruling women together, deciding jointly what is fitting for each. And if some dispute arises about what is proper and fitting for each, let them select ten from among the Guardians of the Law and hold to whatever those ten determine and impose. Let the women enter the houses of the young, partly admonishing, partly threatening, to stop them from error and folly; and if they are unable to do so, let them go and lay the matter before the Guardians of the Law, who shall then restrain the offenders. And if even they are unable, let them make a public declaration, writing it down and swearing that they truly cannot make such-and-such a person better. And let the one so recorded be disenfranchised, unless he wins a suit in court against those who recorded him, in this respect: he shall not attend weddings nor the coming-of-age ceremonies of children, and if he does attend, whoever wishes may strike him with impunity. Let the same rules hold for a woman as well: she shall have no share in women's outings, honors, or attendance at weddings and children's birthday celebrations, if she is likewise recorded as disorderly and does not win her case. And once they have begotten children according to law, if anyone associates with another man's wife in such matters, or a wife with another man, while they are still of childbearing age, let the same penalties apply to them as were stated for those still begetting children;

ATHENIAN: after that, let the man and woman who show self-control in such matters be held in good repute in every respect, and let the one who does the opposite be honored in the opposite way — or rather, held in dishonor. And where the majority behave with moderation in these matters, let it lie unlegislated, in silence; but where they behave disorderly, let what has been legislated in this connection be carried out according to the laws laid down at that time. The beginning of each person's whole life is his first year, and this should be recorded in the ancestral shrines as the beginning of life, for both boy and girl. Let there be inscribed on a whitewashed wall, in every phratry, the succession of officials counted by year; and let the living members of the phratry always be recorded nearby, while those departing from life are erased. Let the limit for marriage be, for a girl, from sixteen to twenty years, the outer bound so fixed; for a young man, from thirty to thirty-five years. For entry into public office, forty years for a woman, thirty for a man; for military service, for a man from twenty up to sixty years; for a woman, whatever service in war matters seems needed of her, once she has borne children, let what is possible and fitting be assigned to each, up to fifty years.

← All of Plato: Republic · Laws · Timaeus · Crito