Plato · a new plain-English translation from the Greek
ATHENIAN: The next task after these is to arrange and to legislate the festivals, in concert with the oracles from Delphi — which sacrifices, and to which gods, it would be better and more auspicious for the city to sacrifice. When they should be held, and how many in number, is perhaps for us to legislate, at least some of it. CLEINIAS: The number, perhaps. ATHENIAN: Then let us state the number first. Let there be no fewer than three hundred and sixty-five, so that at least one office is always sacrificing to some god or spirit on behalf of the city, its people, and their possessions. The interpreters, the priests and priestesses, and the seers, meeting together with the guardians of the laws, are to arrange whatever the lawgiver must necessarily leave out; and indeed these same men must be the assessors of what is left out. The law will say that there are twelve festivals for the twelve gods after whom each tribe is named, and that people sacrifice to each of these monthly rites — choruses and musical contests, and athletic contests too — allotting them as befits both the gods themselves and each of the seasons; and that they distribute the women's festivals, marking which are properly held without men and which not. Further, the rites of the gods below must not be mingled with those of the gods we should call heavenly, or with the rites of their attendants, but kept separate, assigned by law to the twelfth month, the month of Pluto; and men of war must feel no distaste for such a god, but honor him as ever the best friend of the human race. For the partnership of soul and body is in no way better than their dissolution — I would say so in earnest.
ATHENIAN: Beyond this, those who are to make these divisions adequately must keep in mind a thought of this kind: our city is such that one could find no other like it among cities today for leisure of time and for command over the necessities of life; and it must, like a single human being, live well. And for those who live happily, the first requirement is that they neither wrong others nor be wronged by others themselves. Of these two, the first is not very hard; what is thoroughly hard is to acquire the power of not being wronged, and there is no way to possess that completely except by becoming completely good. The very same holds for a city: if it becomes good, its life is peaceful; if bad, war from without and war within. And this being roughly so, each people must train for war not in wartime, but in the life of peace. So a city with any sense must take the field every month for not less than one day — for more, if the rulers agree — with no squeamishness about frost or heat: the men themselves, and their wives and children too, whenever the rulers decide to lead the people out in full force, and at other times by divisions. And along with the sacrifices they must always contrive fine games, so that there are festival battles imitating real fighting as vividly as possible. At each of these they must distribute prizes of victory and awards of valor, and compose encomia and censures for one another according to what sort of man each proves himself in the contests and in his whole life besides — decorating the one judged best and blaming the one judged otherwise. But not everyone is to be the poet of such pieces: first, the author must be no less than fifty years old, and not one of those who have poetry and music adequately in them but have never done a single fine and conspicuous deed. The poems to be sung are those of men who are themselves good and honored in the city, craftsmen of fine deeds — even if their work is not naturally musical. The judgment of them shall rest with the educator and the other guardians of the laws, who shall grant them this privilege: that they alone may speak freely in the Muses' art. To the others no license is given: no one shall dare to sing an unapproved song not vetted by the guardians of the laws — not even if it is sweeter than the hymns of Thamyras or of Orpheus — but only such poems as, judged sacred, were dedicated to the gods, and such as, being works of good men, blaming or praising particular persons, were judged to do so with due measure. And I say the same about military service and about free speech in poetry: it must apply alike to women and to men.
ATHENIAN: And the lawgiver must set the case before himself in argument, like this: Come now — once I have prepared the whole city, whom exactly am I raising? Are they not athletes for the greatest of contests, where their opponents are numberless? Certainly, someone would say, and rightly. Well then: if we were raising boxers or pancratiasts or contestants in some other event of that kind, would we go straight to the contest itself without having sparred with anyone day by day beforehand? Surely, being boxers, for a great many days before the contest we would be learning to fight and working hard, rehearsing everything we intended to use when the day came to fight it out for victory; and, coming as near to the real thing as possible, instead of proper straps we would bind on padded gloves, so that blows and the parrying of blows could be practiced as adequately as possible. And if we ran especially short of sparring partners, do you think fear of the laughter of fools would stop us from hanging up a lifeless dummy and training against it? And if ever we were at a loss for everything, living and lifeless alike, with no training partners to be had — would we not dare, all alone, literally to shadow-box against ourselves? Or what else would one say the practice of arm-drill has ever been? CLEINIAS: Practically nothing else, stranger, than the very thing you have just named. ATHENIAN: Well then: shall the fighting force of our city dare, each time, to step forward to the greatest of contests worse prepared than such competitors — the fight for life, for children, for property, and for the whole city? And shall their lawgiver, fearing that these exercises against one another might strike some people as ridiculous, fail to legislate — to command small field-exercises without arms if possible every day, directing the choruses and all gymnastics together to that end, and to order the greater and lesser maneuvers, so to call them, to be held not less than monthly, with contests against one another all over the country — competing in the seizure of positions and in ambushes, and imitating warfare in all its forms —
ATHENIAN: actually fighting with padded missiles, and using throws as close to the real thing as possible, with weapons carrying a spice of danger, so that the game they play against one another is not entirely without fear, but stirs up terrors and in a certain way exposes the stout-hearted man and the one who is not — assigning honors to the former and disgraces to the latter, correctly, so as to make the whole city serviceable, all life long, for the true contest? And if someone dies in these exercises, the homicide being involuntary, shall he not lay it down that the killer, once purified according to law, is clean of hand — reckoning that when a few men die, others no worse will grow up in their place, whereas if fear, so to speak, dies, he will find in all such exercises no test to tell the better men from the worse — which is for a city an evil not a little greater than the other? CLEINIAS: We at least would agree, stranger, that every city should legislate and practice such things. ATHENIAN: Now do we all know the reason why, at present, such choral play and contest hardly exists anywhere in the cities at all, except on a very small scale? Shall we say it is due to the ignorance of the masses and of those who make laws for them? CLEINIAS: Perhaps. ATHENIAN: Not a bit of it, my blessed Cleinias. One must say there are two causes of it, and quite sufficient ones. CLEINIAS: What are they? ATHENIAN: The first is the passion for wealth, which leaves a man no time to attend to anything except his own possessions; every citizen's soul hangs suspended on these, and simply cannot care for anything but the day's profit. Whatever study or pursuit leads to that end, each man is instantly ready to learn and practice in private; at everything else he laughs. Let this stand as one cause, and a single one, why a city refuses to take seriously this or any other fine and noble pursuit, while for insatiable greed of gold and silver every man is willing to stoop to every art and device, seemly or shameful, if he is going to get rich — willing to perform any act, holy, unholy, or utterly disgraceful, without a qualm, provided only it gives him the power, like a beast, to eat anything whatsoever, to drink likewise, and to procure himself every sort of sexual satisfaction in full. CLEINIAS: True.
ATHENIAN: Then let this that I describe be set down as one cause that prevents cities from adequately practicing either anything else fine or the arts of war — a cause that turns the naturally orderly among men into merchants and shipowners and outright servants, and makes the brave into pirates, burglars, temple-robbers, mercenaries, and tyrants' men — often enough men not without gifts, but unlucky. CLEINIAS: How do you mean? ATHENIAN: Well, how could I call them anything but utterly unlucky, when they are compelled to go through life with their own soul perpetually starving? CLEINIAS: That, then, is one cause. But what do you say the second cause is, stranger? ATHENIAN: A good reminder. CLEINIAS: This lifelong insatiable craving, you say, is one — it keeps every man too busy, and stands in the way of each properly practicing the arts of war. Granted. Now tell us the second. ATHENIAN: Do I seem to you to be stalling instead of telling it, because I am at a loss? CLEINIAS: No — but you seem to us to be flogging this sort of character, out of a kind of hatred, more than the present argument requires. ATHENIAN: An excellent rebuke, gentlemen; then you shall hear what comes next, it seems. CLEINIAS: Just speak. ATHENIAN: I say the causes are those non-constitutions I have named many times in our earlier discussions: democracy, oligarchy, and tyranny. None of these is a constitution; all would most rightly be called faction-states. None rules willing subjects by willing consent; each rules willing over unwilling, always with some measure of force; and a ruler who fears his subjects will never willingly allow any of them to become fine, or rich, or strong, or brave, or warlike at all. These two, then, are the causes of practically everything, and of our present matter they are the causes above all. But the constitution we are now legislating has escaped both: it enjoys, I should think, the greatest leisure; its people are free from one another's power; and under these laws they would, I think, be the least money-loving of men. So it is reasonable, and it stands to reason, that of all present constitutions such an establishment alone would welcome the education, and the war-play, that we have now worked through and completed in argument. CLEINIAS: Good. ATHENIAN: Then does it not follow next upon this to remember, concerning all the gymnastic contests, that those among them which are exercises for war are to be pursued, and prizes of victory established for them, while those that are not may be dismissed? What these are, it is better to state and to legislate from the beginning. And first, should we not establish the contests of running and of speed generally? CLEINIAS: We should.
ATHENIAN: Speed of body is certainly the most warlike thing of all, whether speed of feet or speed of hands—the feet for fleeing and catching, and the hand-to-hand fighting in close grappling calling for strength and power. CLEINIAS: Of course. ATHENIAN: And yet neither has its greatest use without weapons. CLEINIAS: How could it? ATHENIAN: So first the herald will call out the sprinter, just as now happens at our games, and he will come in armed—we won't set prizes for a naked competitor. The first to come in will be the one racing the stadium-length course in armor, the second the one running the double course, the third the one racing on horseback, the fourth the one running the long-distance course, and the fifth is the one we'll send off already armed, sixty stadium-lengths toward a shrine of Ares and back, calling him, since he carries more weight, a hoplite, competing over the smoother road; and another, an archer wearing full archer's gear, will race a hundred stadia to a shrine of Apollo and Artemis, competing through hills and every kind of terrain. We'll hold the contest and wait for these runners until they arrive, and give the winner's prizes to whoever wins each event. CLEINIAS: Rightly so. ATHENIAN: Let's think of these as three grades of contest, one for boys, one for beardless youths, one for men. For the beardless youths we'll set two-thirds of the full course length, and for the boys half of that, whether they're competing as archers or hoplites. For women—unmarried girls, running naked—the stadium sprint, the double course, the horseback race, and the long-distance race, run on the same course as the men. Girls of thirteen up to marriageable age, but not older than twenty nor younger than eighteen, are to come down to compete in these races dressed in suitable attire. Let this be the arrangement for the running events, for both men and women. As for events of strength, in place of wrestling and such heavy sports as exist now, we'll have combat in armor, one against one, two against two, up to ten against ten competing against each other.
ATHENIAN: As for what one must accomplish, and how much, in order to win without having suffered injury or inflicted it, the experts in wrestling itself have already legislated, as things stand, what counts as proper wrestling and what doesn't; in the same way we should call together the foremost experts in fighting in arms and have them join in legislating who ought rightly to be declared the winner in these combats too—since he did not suffer or inflict harm—and likewise what system determines the loser. Let the same rules be legislated for the women, up to the age of marriage. As for light-armed skirmishing as a whole, it should be set up in opposition to combat with bare hands, competing with bows, light shields, javelins, stones thrown by hand, and slings; laws must be laid down for these too, and prizes and victories given to whoever performs best according to the rules established for them. After this would come legislation about horse-racing contests. We have no great need of many horses here, in Crete at any rate, so our efforts, both in raising them and in competing with them, are bound to be smaller. As for the chariot, we have no one at all who raises horses for it, nor would anyone here have any serious ambition in that direction, so in setting up such a competition we should neither have nor pretend to have any sensible plan for it. But by setting prizes for single-horse racing—for unbroken colts, for horses in the middle stage between full grown and unbroken, and for full-grown horses themselves—we would be giving equestrian sport its due, in keeping with the nature of our land. Let there be, by law, a race and rivalry over these events, with tribal commanders and cavalry commanders given joint authority to judge all the races themselves and the events in which riders come down in arms. But setting contests for unarmed riders, whether in the athletic games or here, would not be sound legislation. A Cretan mounted archer is not without use, nor a mounted javelin-thrower, so let there be rivalry and competition in these too, for the sake of sport. As for women taking part in these events, it's not worth forcing the issue by law and decree; but if, coming out of the training given them earlier and grown accustomed to it, their nature allows it and girls or young women feel no reluctance to take part, we should permit it and not find fault. Competition, then, and the training of gymnastics—both what we work at in the games and what we practice daily under instructors—has now, in every respect, reached its conclusion. And as for music, most of it has likewise been fully covered, except for the recitations of rhapsodes and what goes along with them, and whatever competitions among choruses are required at festivals—these will be arranged once the months, days, and years have been assigned to the gods and those who share honors with the gods, whether the festivals occur every two years, or every four, or however the gods, giving us some sense of the arrangement, direct that they be distributed.
ATHENIAN: At that point we should expect the musical contests too to be held in their turn, arranged by the officials in charge of the games, together with the supervisor of the young and the Guardians of the Law, who will meet together in council about these very matters and become lawgivers themselves regarding when, who, and with whom the contests will be held for all choruses and choral performance. What each of these ought to be, in terms of subject matter, songs, and modes blended with rhythms and dances, has already been said many times by the first lawgiver, and those who come after must follow his lead in legislating, assigning the contests appropriately to each sacrifice at the proper times, and so give the city festivals to celebrate. These matters, then, and others like them, are not hard to see how they should receive their due place under law, nor would shifting them one way or another bring great gain or loss to the city. But there are matters that differ from these in no small way, and are hard to persuade people about—matters that would most properly be the business of a god, if it were somehow possible for such directives to come from him; but as things stand, it seems they need some bold human being instead, someone who values plain speaking above all else and will say what he judges best for the city and its citizens, setting down, amid corrupted souls, what befits and follows from the whole constitution, speaking against the strongest desires, having no human ally, following reason alone, alone. CLEINIAS: What subject are we bringing up now, Stranger? We don't yet follow. ATHENIAN: Understandably so; but let me try to explain it to you still more clearly. When our discussion arrived at education, I pictured young men and young women meeting each other on friendly terms; and, naturally enough, fear came over me as I considered what use anyone would make of such a city, where young men and young women are well-nourished, free from the harsh and illiberal labors that most quench wanton excess, while sacrifices, festivals, and choral dances occupy everyone's attention throughout life. In such a city, in what way will they hold back from those desires which, for so many people, drive them to the furthest extremes—desires which reason bids them refrain from, in the attempt to become law?
ATHENIAN: That the established laws we set out earlier should prevail over most desires is nothing to marvel at—for not being permitted excessive wealth is no small aid toward self-control, and the whole system of education has adopted moderate laws bearing on such things, and besides this the watchful eye of the rulers, compelled to look nowhere else, keeps constant guard, so that the young themselves, as far as is humanly possible, keep due measure with regard to other desires. But when it comes to the passions of love—for male children and females, for women toward men and men toward women—from which countless troubles have arisen for individuals and for whole cities alike, how could one guard against this, and by cutting away what remedy would one find an escape from such danger in each of these cases? It is altogether no easy thing, Cleinias. In fact, on quite a few other matters, Crete as a whole, and Sparta too, offer us fairly considerable help, by setting laws that differ from the customs of most people, but on the subject of love—since we're speaking just among ourselves—they are entirely opposed to it. For if someone, following nature, were to lay down the law that existed before Laius, saying it was right that males and youths should not have intercourse together for sexual pleasure the way one does with females, citing as witness the nature of wild animals and pointing out that among beasts male does not touch male for such purposes, because it is not natural—he might use a persuasive argument, but one that would in no way agree with your cities' practices. Beyond this, there is something we say the lawgiver must always keep watch over, and on this point such practice does not agree either. For we are always asking what in our legislation tends toward virtue and what does not. Well then, if we grant that this practice is, as things stand, honorable, or at least not at all shameful, to legislate, what portion would it contribute toward virtue for us? Will the character of courage take root and grow in the soul of the one persuaded, or will the nature of temperance grow in the soul of the one who persuades? No one would ever be convinced of that—rather the very opposite: everyone will condemn the softness of the one who yields to pleasures and cannot master himself, and won't he likewise fault the one who takes on the likeness of the image by imitating the female? Who, then, among human beings will make this the subject of law, holding it to be as it truly is? Scarcely anyone, if he has a true law in mind. How then do we claim this is true?
ATHENIAN: One must look at the nature of friendship, and of desire, and of what is called love all together, if one is to think correctly about these matters—for these are two distinct things, and out of the two a third kind arises, and this single name, encompassing all three, produces every kind of confusion and obscurity. CLEINIAS: How so? ATHENIAN: We call a thing dear, I suppose, when it is like to like in virtue and equal to equal; and again we call dear that which, being needy, is drawn to the wealthy, being opposite in kind; and when either of these becomes intense, we call it love. CLEINIAS: Rightly said. ATHENIAN: Now the friendship that arises from opposites is fierce and savage, and rarely holds anything in common between us, while that which arises from likeness is gentle and shared throughout life; but the friendship blended out of both is, in the first place, not easy to understand—what someone possessed by this third kind of love could possibly want for himself—and then, being drawn in opposite directions by both, he finds himself at a loss, one urging him to seize the bloom of youth, the other forbidding it. For the one who loves the body, hungering after its bloom as though it were ripe fruit, urges himself on to have his fill, paying no honor at all to the character of the beloved's soul; while the other, holding bodily desire as a secondary matter, looking rather than lusting, truly desiring soul with soul, considers it an outrage to glut himself on the body of the one he loves, and, revering and respecting self-control, courage, magnificence, and wisdom, would wish to remain pure always, together with a beloved who remains pure as well. The love blended out of both of these is the third kind we have now gone through. Given that there are these three kinds, should the law forbid all of them, keeping them from arising among us, or is it clear that we would want the love that is of virtue, and belongs to the young person desiring to become as good as possible, to exist among us in the city, while we would prevent the other two, if that were possible? Or how do we put it, dear Megillus? MEGILLUS: On this very point, Stranger, what you have just said is entirely right. ATHENIAN: It seems, then, as I suspected, that I have won your agreement, my friend; as for your law, what it thinks about such matters, there's no need for me to examine it—I need only accept the concession granted in the argument. As for Cleinias, I will try, afterward and again later, by way of persuasion, to win him over on these very points. Let what has been granted me by the two of you stand, and let us make our way through the laws in full. MEGILLUS: Quite rightly said.
ATHENIAN: There is a certain art to laying down this law — one part of it easy, just now, and another part about as difficult as anything could be. MEGILLUS: What do you mean? ATHENIAN: We know, I think, that even now most people, lawless as they generally are, keep themselves remarkably carefully from sleeping with the beautiful ones among their own kin — and not unwillingly, but as willingly as can be. MEGILLUS: When do you mean? ATHENIAN: Whenever someone has a brother or sister who is beautiful. And the same unwritten law guards a son or daughter just as effectively, so that a man does not lie down with them, openly or secretly, or touch them in any kind of embrace. In fact the desire for that kind of union hardly ever enters most people's minds at all. MEGILLUS: True. ATHENIAN: So doesn't a small phrase snuff out every pleasure of that kind? MEGILLUS: What phrase do you mean? ATHENIAN: That such things are not holy in any way, but hated by the gods and the ugliest of ugly things. And isn't the reason for this simply that no one ever says otherwise — that each of us, from the moment we are born, hears people saying this always and everywhere, in comedies and just as often in solemn tragedy, whenever they bring on stage a Thyestes or an Oedipus, or some Macareus secretly bedding his sister, and then, once found out, promptly inflicting death on himself as the penalty for the crime? MEGILLUS: You're quite right about this much — that reputation has some extraordinary power, when no one ever even tries to breathe a word against the law. ATHENIAN: So what was said a moment ago is correct — that for a lawgiver who wants to enslave one of the desires that most enslave human beings, it's easy to see how he would master it: by consecrating this same reputation among everyone alike — slave and free, child and woman, and the whole city together — he will have made this law as secure as it can possibly be. MEGILLUS: Quite so. But how it will ever be possible to get everyone willing to say such a thing—
ATHENIAN: You've picked it up well — that's exactly what I meant when I said I had an art for this law, one that would let people use sexual union for begetting children as nature intends, keeping away from males, not deliberately killing off the human race, nor sowing seed on rocks and stones where it will never take root and grow, and keeping away from every female field in which you would not want what is sown to grow. If this law became permanent and prevailed — just as it now prevails over unions between parents and children — and if it justly won out over other unions too, it would bring countless benefits. First, it is laid down according to nature; and it keeps people away from erotic frenzy and madness and every kind of adultery, and from excess in drinking and eating, and makes husbands genuinely dear to their own wives. Many other good things would come of it too, if someone could really hold fast to this law. But no doubt some vigorous young man standing beside us, bursting with seed, would hear this law being proposed and jeer at us for laying down rules that are senseless and impossible, and fill the whole place with shouting. It was with this objection in mind that I said I possessed a certain art — in one respect the easiest of all, in another the hardest — for making this law, once laid down, actually stick. It's easy enough to see that it is possible, and how: for we say that once this custom is sufficiently consecrated, it will enslave every soul and make people obey the laid-down laws entirely out of fear. But things have now gone so far that it seems it could never happen even then — just as people don't believe it's possible for a whole city to live its whole life practicing the common-meals institution, though it has been tested in fact and does exist among you; yet even so, that women should do the same is still thought contrary to nature, even in your own cities. It's because of this stubborn disbelief that I said both of these things are extremely hard to keep to by law. MEGILLUS: You're right about that. ATHENIAN: Well then — since it isn't beyond human power, but can actually come about — would you like me to try to make an argument for you that has some plausibility? CLEINIAS: Of course. ATHENIAN: Would a man abstain from sex more easily, and be willing to observe due measure in it, if his body were in good condition and not slack from lack of training, or if it were in poor shape? CLEINIAS: Far more easily if it were in good condition, surely.
ATHENIAN: Well then, don't we know by report of Iccus of Tarentum, because of the Olympic contest and others as well? They say that out of sheer competitive drive, and because he had acquired both skill and a courage tempered by self-control in his soul, he never once touched a woman, nor a boy either, during the whole peak of his training. And the same story is told of Crison and Astylus and Diopompus and a great many others. And yet, Cleinias, the citizens of your country and mine were far worse trained in their souls than these men, however much more vigorous in body. CLEINIAS: What you say is true — this is very much what the old writers report actually happened with these athletes. ATHENIAN: Well then — if these men dared to abstain from something most people call a source of happiness, for the sake of victory in wrestling and running and such contests, shall our young men prove unable to hold out for the sake of a far nobler victory, one we shall charm them toward from childhood on, as is fitting, telling it to them in stories and speeches and songs? CLEINIAS: What victory do you mean? ATHENIAN: Victory over pleasures — that mastering them means living happily, while being mastered by them means the exact opposite in every way. And besides this, will not the fear that such a thing is in no way at all holy give us the power to master what others, though inferior to us, have already mastered? CLEINIAS: It seems likely. ATHENIAN: Since, then, we have come to this point regarding this custom, and it was the badness of most people that drove us into this difficulty, I say that our law on these very matters must simply proceed by declaring that our citizens must not be worse than birds and many other animals, which, born in great flocks, live chaste and untouched by mating until the age for begetting children, and then, once they reach that age, pair off, male with female by mutual liking and female with male, and live out the rest of their lives in a holy and just way, abiding firmly by the first compacts of their union — and that our citizens ought to be better than animals, at least. But if they are corrupted by the example of most other Greeks and non-Greeks, seeing and hearing that the so-called disorderly Aphrodite has the greatest power among them, and thus prove unable to master themselves, then the Guardians of the Law, turning lawgivers, must devise a second law for them to fall back on.
CLEINIAS: What law, then, do you advise laying down for them, if the one now proposed slips past them? ATHENIAN: Clearly the one next in line after it, Cleinias. CLEINIAS: What do you mean? ATHENIAN: That the strength of these pleasures should be kept as untrained as possible, by diverting its outflow and nourishment elsewhere in the body through hard exertion. This would happen if shamelessness had no place in the practice of sex — for if people indulged in it rarely, out of a sense of shame, they would gain a weaker mistress in it, using it seldom. So let it count as something honorable among them to keep such acts hidden, established by custom and unwritten law, and something shameful to be caught, though not shameful simply to have done it at all. In this way shame and honor would be established for us in a kind of second-rank law, with a second-best correctness, and would compel that one class of people — those of corrupted nature, whom we call weaker than themselves — comprising in fact three groups, not to break the law. CLEINIAS: Which three groups do you mean? ATHENIAN: The one that reveres the gods, the one that loves honor, and the one whose desire has arisen not for bodies but for characters that are beautiful in soul. These, perhaps, are like wishes expressed in a kind of myth just now — yet they would be the very best thing, if they could actually come about, in every city. And perhaps, god willing, we might force through one of two arrangements regarding sexual love: either that no one dare touch any person of noble and free birth except his own wedded wife, and not sow unconsecrated and bastard seed in concubines, nor sow unnatural and unfruitful seed in males; or else we might do away with male relations altogether, while for women, if a man has intercourse with any woman except one who has come into his house through sacred and divine marriage rites, whether bought or acquired by some other means, and does so without hiding it from all the men and women alike, we might well be laying down the law rightly in declaring him disqualified from honors in the city, as being in truth no better than a foreigner.
ATHENIAN: Let this, then — whether we should call it one law or two — be laid down concerning sex and all matters of love, governing how we act rightly and wrongly toward one another out of such desires. MEGILLUS: For my part, stranger, I would gladly accept this law from you; but let Cleinias himself say what he actually thinks about it. CLEINIAS: I will do so, Megillus, whenever the right occasion seems to present itself to me. For now, let us allow the stranger to go on further with the laws. MEGILLUS: Rightly said. ATHENIAN: Well now, as we proceed, we are more or less at the point where the common meals have been set up — a thing we say would be difficult elsewhere, but in Crete no one would suppose it should be otherwise. As for the manner of it — whether as here, or as in Lacedaemon, or whether there is some third form of common meals, better than either of these two — this, I think, is not hard to discover, though discovering it would accomplish no great good; for indeed the arrangements already in place work well enough. Following on from these comes the arrangement of livelihood, and what form that should take for them. In other cities, livelihood might be drawn from all sorts of sources and many quarters — chiefly from twice as many as these people have; for most Greeks provide for their food from both land and sea, while these provide for it from land alone. This makes the lawgiver's task easier — not only do the resulting laws come to about half as many, and far fewer than that, but they are also more fitting for free men. For matters of shipping, trading, retailing, innkeeping, tax-farming, mining, moneylending and compound interest, and countless other such things, are for the most part dismissed altogether — the lawgiver of this city bids them good riddance — and he will legislate instead for farmers, herdsmen, beekeepers, and those who guard and oversee the tools of such trades, having already legislated on the greatest matters — marriages, the begetting and rearing of children, and further the beginnings of education and the establishment of offices in the city. Now he must necessarily turn to legislate for those who provide sustenance and all who labor alongside them in this very task. First, then, let there be laws called agricultural.
ATHENIAN: Let this be the first law of Zeus of Boundaries: no one shall move the boundary-markers of land, whether it belongs to a fellow citizen who is his neighbor, or, if he owns land on the frontier, belongs to some foreigner sharing the border, believing that to move the unmovable is truly what this would be. Let every man be more willing to try moving any other stone, however large, than a small one that marks the boundary of friendship and enmity sworn before the gods. For of the one Zeus of Kinship is witness, of the other Zeus of Strangers, and both gods, once roused, bring the bitterest wars. The man who obeys the law will never feel the evils that come from disobeying it, but whoever holds it in contempt shall be liable to a double penalty, the first and greatest from the gods, the second from the law. For no one should willingly move his neighbors' boundary-markers; but if someone does move them, let anyone who wishes report it to the farmers-in-charge, and let them bring the case before the court. And if a man is convicted in such a suit, since the guilty party has secretly and violently redistributed the land, let the court assess whatever penalty he must suffer or pay. After this comes the matter of the many small injuries neighbors do one another, which through their frequency breed a great mass of hostility and make for a harsh and deeply bitter neighborliness. For this reason a man must be entirely careful to do nothing to set himself at odds with his neighbor, and above all must be exceedingly wary about encroaching on his land in any way at all — for doing harm is nothing difficult, within anyone's reach, but doing good is not within everyone's reach. Whoever encroaches on his neighbor's land by crossing the boundary-lines shall pay for the damage, and, to be cured of both his shamelessness and his meanness, shall pay the injured party a further sum equal to twice the damage. Over all such matters the overseers, judges, and assessors shall be the land-wardens: for the more serious cases, as has been said earlier, the whole body of the twelfth-district officials; for the lesser, their district-captains. And if someone lets his livestock graze on another's land, let these officials judge the damage and assess the penalty after inspection. And if someone appropriates another man's swarm of bees by following the pleasure they take in some sound and drawing them off with clapping to make them his own, let him pay for the damage. And if a man burning brush is not sufficiently careful of his neighbor's property, let him be fined whatever amount the officials decide.
ATHENIAN: And if a man planting trees does not leave the proper distance from his neighbor's land, as has been adequately stated by many lawgivers already — whose laws we should make use of rather than expect the greater orderer of a city to legislate every small and petty matter that any ordinary lawgiver could handle. Take, for instance, the old and good laws already in place among farmers concerning water: they are not worth spelling out at length here. Rather — whoever wishes to channel water to his own land may draw it from the common springs, provided he does not cut off any private person's visible spring-source; he may lead it wherever he wishes except through someone's house, sacred precincts, or tombs, so long as he does no harm beyond the mere digging of the channel. But if in some places the ground is naturally so dry that it blocks off the rains that come from Zeus, and there is a shortage of the water necessary for drinking, the owner should dig on his own land down to the clay layer, and if at that depth he still finds no water, he may draw water from his neighbors for the necessary drinking needs of his household. But if the neighbors too are short on water, he shall set a fixed allowance of water with the land-wardens, drawing this ration each day, and in this way share the water with his neighbors. And if rainwater from Zeus causes harm — say a man farming above, or living in a house that shares a wall, refuses to allow drainage and so harms those below, or conversely the man above lets the water flow carelessly and harms the man below — and the parties are unwilling to come to terms over this, then whoever wishes may call in the city-warden, in town, or the land-warden, in the country, and have him set out what each party must do. Whoever does not abide by the ruling shall be liable to a penalty for both spite and an unaccommodating spirit, and if found guilty shall pay the injured party twice the damage, for having refused to obey the officials. As for the sharing of fruit, all should observe some such practice as this. This goddess grants us two kinds of gift from her favor: one is the playful gift of Dionysus that cannot be stored, the other is the gift meant by nature for storing away. Let this then be the law laid down concerning fruit: whoever tastes another's fruit from the countryside, whether grapes or figs, before the season for harvesting arrives — the season that runs together with the rising of Arcturus — whether on his own land or another's, shall owe fifty sacred drachmas to Dionysus if he picks it from his own land, a mina if from his neighbors', and two-thirds of a mina if from anyone else's.
ATHENIAN: Whoever wishes to gather the grapes now called 'the noble kind,' or the figs called 'the noble kind,' may harvest them in whatever way and whenever he pleases, if he takes them from his own property; but if he takes them from someone else's without asking, in violation of the law against moving what one has not put down, let him always be punished accordingly. And if a slave, without asking his master's permission, touches any such fruit belonging to another's land, let him be whipped, one stripe for every grape of the cluster and every fig of the tree. A resident alien who has bought the noble fruit may harvest it if he wishes; but if a foreigner visiting the country wishes to eat some fruit while passing along the roads, he may taste the noble kind, if he wishes, together with one attendant, without payment, receiving it as a guest-gift; but the law shall forbid foreigners from sharing with us in the fruit called 'of the countryside' and the like. If someone ignorant of this, whether the foreigner himself or a slave, touches it, the slave shall be punished with blows, and the free man sent off with a warning and instruction to touch instead the other fruit meant for storage — raisins, wine, and dried figs — which is not suitable to be treated this way. Concerning pears, apples, pomegranates, and all such fruit, there is no shame at all in taking some without asking; but whoever is caught, if under thirty years of age, shall be struck and driven off without wounds, and there shall be no legal action available to a free man for such blows. A foreigner shall be allowed to share in these too, just as with the other fruit; but if a man older than thirty touches them, eating on the spot and carrying nothing away, let him share in all such things just as the foreigner does; but if he does not obey the law, let him risk being disqualified from competing for the prize of virtue, should someone remind the judges of that time about his conduct. As for water, it is above all else the most nourishing thing for gardens, but also the easiest to spoil, since it is not easy to corrupt by poisoning, diversion, or theft the earth, sun, or winds that nourish along with water the things that grow from the ground — but all these things are entirely possible with the nature of water. For this reason it needs the law's assistance. Let this, then, be the law concerning it: if anyone deliberately spoils another's water, whether from a spring or gathered in a cistern, by poisoning, digging, or theft, let the injured party bring suit before the city-wardens, recording the value of the damage; and if someone is convicted of causing harm through poisoning of any kind, in addition to the assessed penalty let him purify the springs or the water-container, in whatever manner the laws of the interpreters direct that the purification should be carried out in each case and for each person.
ATHENIAN: Concerning the gathering-in of all seasonal produce, let anyone who wishes be permitted to carry his own goods by any route, so long as he either causes no harm to anyone or gains for himself three times whatever loss he causes his neighbor; and let the officials serve as overseers of this and of everything else that anyone does — whether harming another willingly or unwillingly, by force or in secret, to that man himself or to any of his belongings, through the use of his own property — for all such matters, let the injured party bring the case before the officials and seek redress, so long as the damage does not exceed three minas; but if the charge one party brings against another is greater than that, let him bring the suit to the common courts and seek redress against the wrongdoer there. And if any official seems to have judged the penalties with an unjust mind, let him be liable to the injured party for twice the damage; and let anyone who wishes bring the wrongdoing of officials, in each case, before the common courts. There are countless such small regulations, by which penalties must be assessed, concerning the filing of suits, summonses, and witnesses to summonses — whether two or some other number are required to be called — and everything of that sort; it is impossible for these to go unlegislated, yet they are not worthy of an aged lawgiver. Let the younger men legislate these matters, modeling them on the earlier laws, small things after the pattern of great ones, gaining practical experience of their necessary use, until it seems that everything has been adequately established; then, having fixed these rules unchangeable, let them live by them ever after, now that they have their proper measure. As for the other craftsmen, this is the principle to follow. First, let no native of the land be among those laboring at craft trades, nor any household servant of a native. For a citizen possesses a craft sufficient in itself, requiring much practice and much learning — the craft of preserving and securing the common order of the city — a craft not to be pursued as a sideline. And practically no human nature is capable of pursuing two occupations or two crafts with precision, nor of practicing one himself while properly overseeing another who practices it.
ATHENIAN: This, then, must be the first principle established in the city: no one working as a smith shall also work as a carpenter, nor shall a carpenter oversee others working as smiths more than his own craft, on the pretext that by overseeing the many household servants working for him, he can reasonably attend to his craft more effectively through them, since the income from that source is greater for him than from his own craft — no, let each single person in the city, having taken up a single craft, earn his living from that alone. Let the city-wardens labor to preserve this law: if a native citizen inclines toward some craft rather than the care of virtue, let them punish him with reproaches and marks of dishonor, until they set him straight on his own proper course; and if any foreigner pursues two crafts, let them punish him with imprisonment, fines of money, and expulsion from the city, compelling him to be one thing only, not many. Concerning wages for these workers and disputes over the completion of jobs, and if either they wrong someone else or someone else wrongs them, let the city-wardens render judgment up to fifty drachmas, and let the common courts decide cases above that sum, according to law. Let no one in the city pay any duty at all, whether on goods exported or imported; and as for frankincense and such foreign incense used for the gods, and purple dye and other imported dyes, since our region does not produce them, or anything else needed for some other craft that requires certain imported foreign goods, let no one bring such things in except for some necessary purpose, nor export anything necessary that ought to remain in the country; and let the overseers and managers of all these matters be the Guardians of the Law, with the five eldest excluded, the remaining twelve in charge. As for weapons and all instruments of war, if there is need to import some skill, plant, mined material, tanned good, or animal for such use, let the cavalry-commanders and generals have authority over the importing and exporting of these, the city both giving and receiving as needed, and the Guardians of the Law shall establish laws concerning these matters that are fitting and sufficient; but as for retail trade for the sake of profit, let there be none of this, whether in these goods or anything else, anywhere in our whole territory and city. Regarding food and the distribution of the produce of the land, the arrangement of the Cretan law seems, roughly, to be the right way to go about it properly. For all the produce from the land must be divided into twelve parts, which all must take, in the same proportion by which they must also spend it.
ATHENIAN: Each twelfth part of the produce—wheat and barley, say, along with all the other seasonal crops that go with them, and all the livestock that may be sold in each case—should be divided proportionally into three. One share goes to the free citizens, one to their household servants, and the third to the craftsmen and to foreigners generally: those resident aliens who live among us and need the food they must have, and those who come from time to time on some business of the city or of a private citizen. Of all the necessary goods, only this third share is to be available for sale as a matter of necessity; neither of the other two shares is to be under any obligation to be sold. How, then, should these shares be divided most correctly? First, it's clear that in one respect we divide equally, and in another unequally. CLEINIAS: What do you mean? ATHENIAN: The land must inevitably produce and yield some crops of each kind that are worse and some that are better. CLEINIAS: Of course. ATHENIAN: Well then, of the three shares, none should get more of this kind of produce than another—neither the share given to masters or slaves, nor again the share for foreigners—but the distribution should give the same equality of proportion to everyone alike. Each citizen, having taken his two shares, should be free to distribute them to his slaves and to free persons as he wishes, in whatever quantity and kind he chooses. But the amount beyond this must be divided by measure and number in this way: one takes the total number of all the animals that must get their food from the land, and divides accordingly. After this, separate dwellings must be assigned to these groups; the following arrangement suits them. There should be twelve villages, one set at the center of each twelfth portion of the land. In each village, first of all, sacred precincts and a marketplace must be set aside for the gods and for the daimons who attend the gods—whether these are local shrines belonging to the Magnesians themselves or to others whose foundations have been preserved in memory from ancient times—rendering to them the honors the ancients paid; and everywhere, shrines must be founded to Hestia, Zeus, and Athena, and to whatever god is patron of each twelfth district. First, buildings should be put up around these shrines, wherever the ground is highest, to serve as a well-fortified refuge for the guards. The rest of the land is to be laid out by dividing the craftsmen into thirteen groups: one group to settle in the city itself, divided again into the twelve sections of the whole city, distributed both around its edges and throughout its center; in each village, the remaining crafts useful to farmers are to be settled together with them. The overseers of all this should be the officers in charge of the rural wardens, who will determine what kinds of craftsmen and how many each district needs, and where they should live so as to be least troublesome and most useful to the farmers.
ATHENIAN: For those in the city, the same kind of oversight should be exercised and carried out by the office of the city wardens. As for the market wardens, their concern should be with everything relating to the marketplace. Their duty, after seeing to the shrines, should be, second in importance for the people's needs, to keep watch that no one commits any wrong in the marketplace, acting as overseers of good order and of insolence, and punishing whoever needs punishing. As for goods for sale, they should first check whether everything set aside for sale to foreigners by the citizens is being done according to law. The law for each month is this: on the new moon, the guardians appointed for this—whether foreigners or even slaves who manage such matters for the citizens—must bring out the portion that is to be sold to foreigners: first, a twelfth part of the grain. The foreigner is to buy grain, and whatever else pertains to grain, for the whole month at the first market day. On the tenth of the month, some are to sell and others to buy liquids, a supply sufficient for the whole month. On the twenty-third, there is to be a sale of animals—whatever each party needs to sell or to buy—and of such tools or goods as farmers need to sell, like hides, or any kind of clothing, or woven or felted goods, or other such things, which foreigners must in turn buy from others who possess them. As for retail trading in these goods, or in barley or wheat ground into meal, or any other food generally, no citizen or slave of a citizen is to sell such goods to another, nor is anyone to buy from such a person; but in the marketplaces set aside for foreigners, a foreigner may sell to craftsmen and to their slaves, exchanging wine and selling grain—what most people call retail trade. And once animals have been divided up, butchers may sell portions to foreigners, to craftsmen, and to their household servants. Any foreigner who wishes may buy firewood in bulk, day by day, from the overseers in the countryside, and may sell it himself to other foreigners, in whatever quantity and whenever he wishes. As for all other goods and equipment that people need, they are to sell them by bringing them to the common marketplace, to whatever spot the guardians of the law and the market wardens, together with the city wardens, have judged suitable and marked out with boundaries for the sale of goods. In these places, and nowhere else, currency is to be exchanged for goods and goods for currency, with neither party giving credit to the other in the exchange.
ATHENIAN: Whoever extends credit, trusting the other party, must be content whether he recovers what is owed or not, on the understanding that there is no longer any legal remedy for such dealings. As for anything bought or sold beyond the price and quantity fixed by the law—which states how much may be added or subtracted before neither transaction is permitted—any excess must at once be entered in the register the Guardians of the Law keep, and any shortfall erased from it. The same rule shall apply to resident aliens regarding the registration of their property. Whoever wishes to take up residence as a resident alien may do so on fixed terms: residence is available to any foreigner who wishes and is able to settle there, provided he possesses a trade and stays no longer than twenty years from the date he registers, paying no resident's tax at all except good behavior, and no other fee for buying or selling. When the time expires, he must take his property and depart. But if within these years it happens that he has rendered some considerable service worth mentioning to the city, and he is confident he can persuade the council and the assembly, he may petition either for a lawful extension of the time before he must leave, or even for permission to remain for life; and whatever he persuades the city to grant, on approaching it and making his case, shall be binding for him. As for the children of resident aliens who are craftsmen, once they reach the age of fifteen, their own period of residency is to begin after their fifteenth year; having stayed twenty years on these terms, each may go wherever he pleases—but if he wishes to remain, he may do so on the same terms, having made his case. And whoever departs must first strike out the registrations that were previously recorded for him with the officials.