Plato · a new plain-English translation from the Greek
ATHENIAN: After this would come the matter of contracts between us with one another, which need a proper ordering. That much, at least, is simple: no one should touch my property if he can help it, nor move even the smallest part of it, without first persuading me in any way whatsoever; and I should do the same regarding the property of others, if I have any sense at all. Let us speak first of one kind of such property: a treasure which a man has laid up as a store for himself and his family, when he is not one of my ancestors. I would never pray to the gods to find such a thing, and if I did find it I would not move it, nor would I consult the people called seers who advise me in some way or other to dig up a deposit hidden in the earth. For I would never gain so much by taking it for my own property as I would gain in weight for the virtue and justice of my soul by not taking it—acquiring a better possession in place of a worse, in a better part of myself, valuing justice in my soul above wealth stored up in property. For there is a saying that applies to many cases, that it is well not to move the immovable, and this case would be counted as one of them. One should also believe the traditional stories told about this, that such things are not advantageous for one's line of children. But if a man cares nothing for children, and neglecting the lawgiver who laid down the rule, takes for himself what neither he nor any ancestor of his ever deposited, without persuading the one who deposited it—destroying the finest of laws, the simplest and most nobly conceived enactment of a lawgiver, who said, 'What you did not deposit, do not take up'—if a man shows contempt for both these lawgivers and takes for himself no small thing (since sometimes the bulk of a treasure is enormous), what ought he to suffer?
ATHENIAN: What he suffers at the hands of the gods, the god knows. But whoever first discovers such a thing should report it—if it happens within the city, to the city-wardens; if somewhere in the marketplace of the city, to the market-wardens; if in the rest of the countryside, he should make it known to the country-wardens and their officers. When it has been reported, the city should send to Delphi, and whatever the god decrees concerning the property and the one who moved it, the city should carry out in service to the god's oracles. And if the informer is a free man, let him gain a reputation for virtue; if he fails to inform, a reputation for baseness. If he is a slave, if he informs he should rightly be made free by the city, which pays his price to his master; but if he fails to inform, let him be punished with death. Following on from this would come the same rule applying equally to small and great matters. If someone leaves something of his own behind somewhere, whether willingly or unwillingly, whoever comes upon it should let it lie, believing that the spirit of the roadway guards such things, which have been consecrated to the goddess by the law. But if someone disobeys this and picks it up and carries it home, then if he is a slave and the thing is of small value, let him be flogged with many blows by whoever comes upon him, provided that person is not less than thirty years old. But if a free man does it, then besides being reckoned illiberal and a man with no part in the laws, he must repay the person who left the item ten times what the object he disturbed was worth. If someone accuses another of holding more or even less of his property than is rightfully his, and the other admits to holding it but says it is not the plaintiff's, then if the property has been registered according to law with the officials, the holder should be summoned before the office, and he should present it. Once it is made clear, if it appears in the records as registered to one of the two disputants, that person should take it and go; but if it belongs to someone else who is not present, whichever party provides an adequate guarantor undertaking to hand it over to the absent owner according to that owner's claim should take it away. But if the disputed property is not registered with the officials, it should be held until trial by the three eldest of the officials; and if the item held in trust is a living creature, the one who loses the case concerning it should pay its upkeep to the officials. The officials must decide the case within three days. Let anyone who wishes lead away his own slave, if the man is of sound mind, to use him for any lawful purpose he wishes; and let him also lead away, on behalf of another relative or friend, a slave who has run off, for the purpose of keeping him safe. But if someone tries to free a person being led away as a slave, claiming he should be free, the one leading him should let him go, and the one claiming him should only take him on these terms: by providing three adequate guarantors, and not otherwise.
ATHENIAN: If someone takes a person away contrary to these rules, he shall be liable for the charge of violent seizure, and if convicted he shall pay double the assessed damage to the one from whom the person was taken. Let a man also bring in a freedman, if he fails to attend properly upon those who freed him, or does not attend sufficiently. The service required is that the freed person visit the hearth of the one who freed him three times a month, offering to do whatever is just and also possible, and to arrange marriage matters however seems best to his former master. He must not be allowed to grow richer than the one who freed him; whatever surplus arises shall belong to the master. The freed person shall not remain longer than twenty years, but like other resident foreigners he must depart, taking all his own property with him, unless he persuades both the officials and the one who freed him to let him stay. If the property of a freedman, or of any other resident foreigner, becomes greater than the third property class, then within thirty days from the day this happens, he must take his belongings and depart, and no request to remain longer shall be granted to him thereafter by the officials. If someone disobeys these rules and, being brought to court, is convicted, let him be punished with death and his property confiscated to the state. Cases of this kind shall be tried in the tribal courts, unless the parties settle their disputes earlier before neighbors or chosen arbitrators. If someone lays claim to an animal, or anything else, as his own property, the one holding it should refer him to the seller, or to whoever gave it to him—provided that person is solvent and answerable at law, or transferred it to some other person legitimately—within thirty days if the transfer was to a citizen or resident foreigner within the city, and within five months if it was a transfer from abroad, the middle month being the one in which the summer sun turns toward winter. Whatever exchanges people make with one another by way of buying or selling should be carried out by handing over the item in the designated place assigned to each kind of goods in the marketplace, and receiving payment on the spot; exchanges should be made in no other way and nowhere else, nor should any sale or purchase be made on credit for anything. But if someone exchanges anything for anything else in some other way or in other places, trusting the person he is dealing with, let him do so understanding that there are no lawful actions available, according to what has just been said, concerning goods not sold in the proper way. As for friendly loan-pools, anyone who likes may gather them, friend collecting from friend; yet should a quarrel break out over the collection, all concerned must act on the understanding that no legal action of any kind will lie over such affairs.
ATHENIAN: Anyone who makes a sale and takes fifty drachmas or more as the price is required to stay on in the city ten days, and the seller's house must be known to the buyer, both because of the complaints that customarily arise about such transactions and for the sake of returns required by law. The return required by law shall be as follows and no other. If someone sells a slave suffering from consumption, or kidney stones, or strangury, or the disease called sacred, or some other disease of the body or mind that is long-lasting and hard to cure and not obvious to most people, then if the sale was to a doctor or a trainer, that buyer shall have no right of return against such a seller, nor if the seller told the truth beforehand when he made the sale. But when a professional sells such a slave to a layman, the purchaser has six months in which to bring him back; only for the sacred disease is a full year allowed for making the return. The case shall be judged before some of the doctors whom both parties jointly propose and select; and whoever loses the case shall pay double the price at which the slave was sold. If a private individual sells to another private individual, there shall be a right of return just as was said before, and a trial as well, but the loser shall pay only the simple price. If someone knowingly sells a murderer to another person who also knows it, there shall be no right of return for that sale; but if the buyer did not know, the right of return shall exist from whenever one of the buyers becomes aware of it, and the case shall be judged by the five youngest of the Guardians of the Law. Should the seller be judged to have known, he must cleanse the purchaser's house as the interpreters' law directs, and refund the buyer triple the price paid. Whoever exchanges coin for coin, or any other living creature or non-living thing, must give and receive everything free of adulteration, in keeping with the law; and let us also adopt a preamble, as with other laws, concerning this whole category of wrongdoing. Every man ought to think of adulteration and falsehood and deception as one and the same kind of thing, the very thing to which most people, wrongly, attach the reputation that, occurring as it does at the right moment on each occasion, it might often be a correct thing to do—while leaving vague and undefined just what that 'right moment' is, and where and when, and by this way of speaking they harm themselves greatly in many cases, and harm others too. It is not permissible for a lawgiver to leave this undefined, but he must always make clear either broader or narrower limits, and so let it now be defined.
ATHENIAN: Let no one, invoking the name of the gods, commit any falsehood or deception or adulteration, whether in word or deed, unless he intends to become most hateful to the gods. Such a man is the one who, swearing false oaths, has no regard for the gods; and second to him is the one who lies before those who are stronger than himself. Now the stronger are the better as opposed to the worse, and, generally speaking, the elder as opposed to the younger—which is why parents are stronger than their children, and men than women and children, and rulers than the ruled. All these it would be fitting for everyone to respect, in every other office and especially in the political offices, which is the very point from which our present discussion arose. For every dishonest dealer in the marketplace lies and deceives, and calls on the gods as he swears an oath in accordance with the laws and regulations of the market-wardens, respecting neither men nor revering the gods. It is altogether a fine practice not to defile the names of the gods lightly, keeping to the purity and holiness that most of us, most of the time, maintain in matters concerning the gods. But if someone will not be persuaded, here is the law: whoever sells anything in the marketplace should never name two prices for what he is selling, but having named a single price, if he does not get it, he may rightly withdraw the item and take it away again, and on that same day he must not price it higher or lower; and there must be no praising or swearing of oaths over anything for sale. If someone disobeys these rules, any citizen present who is not less than thirty years old may strike the one who swears the oath without penalty; but if he pays no heed and disregards it, he shall be liable to reproach for betraying the laws. As for a person selling something adulterated who cannot be persuaded by the present rules, whoever among those present who understands the matter and is able to prove it should expose it before the officials; then, if the exposer is a slave or a resident foreigner, let him carry off the adulterated item for himself; but if he is a citizen and fails to prove his charge, let him be publicly denounced as cheating the gods, while if he proves it, let him dedicate the item to the gods who preside over the marketplace. And whoever is caught openly selling such an adulterated item shall, besides being deprived of the adulterated goods, be whipped with the lash one stroke for every drachma of the price he set on the item for sale, a herald proclaiming in the marketplace the reasons for which he is about to be whipped. The market-wardens and the Guardians of the Law, having inquired from experts in each field about acts of adulteration and other malpractices of sellers, shall write down what a seller must and must not do, and shall post these rules, inscribed on a pillar in front of the market-officials' building, to serve as clear guides for those concerned with the proper use of the marketplace.
ATHENIAN: The matter of city-wardens has been adequately covered earlier. If anything seems to be missing, let them report it to the Guardians of the Law, write down what seems to have been left out, and set up in the wardens' office, on a stone tablet, both the first and second sets of ordinances laid down for their office. Close on the heels of counterfeit trades comes shopkeeping, and about the whole business of it we should first give advice and reasoning, and only afterward add a law. For shopkeeping, in a city, has arisen not for the sake of harm by its nature, but quite the opposite. Isn't anyone who takes wealth of any kind, when it is unevenly and unequally distributed, and makes it even and proportionate, a benefactor? We must say that this is exactly what the power of money achieves, and that the merchant is stationed there for this purpose. The hired laborer, the innkeeper, and others -- some in more respectable occupations, some in less -- all have this same capacity: to supply everyone's needs with assistance and to bring evenness to people's possessions. Let us see, then, why shopkeeping is thought not fine or respectable, and what it is that has brought it into disrepute, so that even if we cannot cure the whole of it, we may at least set right its parts by law. This, it appears, is no trivial business, nor one demanding only a small share of excellence. CLEINIAS: How so? ATHENIAN: My dear Cleinias, there is a small class of people, few by nature and raised on the finest upbringing, who, when they fall into need or desire of something, are able to hold to moderation, and who, when it is possible to take a great deal of money, stay sober and choose the moderate amount over the large. But the mass of humanity is the complete opposite: their wants are boundless, and even when it is possible to gain moderately, they choose insatiably to gain more. This is why all the classes involved in shopkeeping, trading, and innkeeping have gotten a bad name and fallen into shameful disgrace. Suppose someone -- it would never happen and never will, but it's worth saying even though it sounds absurd -- forced the best men everywhere to keep an inn for some time, or to run a shop, or do something of that sort, or forced women by some fated necessity to share in such a way of life: we would then recognize how welcome and dear each of these services is, and that if it were carried out in a genuinely uncorrupted way, all such things would be honored as a mother and a nurse are honored.
ATHENIAN: But as things stand now, when someone settles in desolate places, at the ends of long roads leading everywhere, purely for the sake of shopkeeping, and receives travelers who have fallen into difficulty with welcome shelter, or those driven violently by fierce storms, providing them fair weather and calm, or relief from stifling heat -- what he does afterward is not to receive them as companions and offer the friendly hospitality that ought to follow such a welcome, but instead, as though they were captured enemy prisoners, to ransom them for the longest, most unjust, and foulest ransom money. It is this, and things like it, done wrongly in all such dealings, that has produced the bad reputation attached to relieving people's need. For this the lawgiver must always cut a remedy. It has long and rightly been said that fighting on two fronts against opposing forces is difficult, as in the case of illnesses and many other things; and indeed the fight here, too, concerning this matter, is against two things: poverty and wealth -- the one having corrupted people's souls through luxury, the other having driven them, through hardship, into shamelessness itself. What relief, then, from this sickness could there be in a city with any sense? First, to make use of the class of shopkeepers as sparingly as possible, given the constraints; next, to assign this work to those people whose corruption would do the least great harm to the city; and third, to find some device by which those who do take up such occupations will not easily fall, unchecked, into habits of shamelessness and an ignoble soul. After what has just been said, let this law, with good fortune, be established for us concerning these matters: of the Magnesians, whom the god is restoring and resettling, as many as are landholders among the forty-five thousand hearths -- let none of them become a shopkeeper, whether willingly or unwillingly, nor a merchant, nor hold any service position for private citizens who are not his equal, except for his father and mother and their forebears further up the line, and all his elders, so long as they are free men serving freely. What counts as freeborn conduct and what as unfree is not easy to legislate precisely, but let it be judged by those who have received the prizes of excellence, according to what they hate and what they welcome.
ATHENIAN: Whoever engages in some craft of unfree shopkeeping, let anyone who wishes bring a charge of disgracing his lineage against him before those judged first in virtue; and if it is decided that he is befouling his ancestral hearth with an unworthy occupation, let him be bound and refrain from that occupation for a year; and if he does it again, for two years, and with each conviction let the period of confinement keep doubling from the previous term. A second law: whoever intends to keep a shop must be a resident alien or a foreigner. And a third point, the third law: so that such a person may be as good as possible, or as little bad as possible, as a fellow resident among us in the city, the Guardians of the Law must understand that they are guardians not only of those who are easy to keep from becoming lawless and bad -- those who have been well brought up in birth and rearing -- but must keep even closer watch over those who are not of that sort, who pursue occupations that carry some strong pull toward becoming bad. In this way, then, concerning shopkeeping -- which is extensive and involves many such occupations -- as many of these as it is judged, out of sheer necessity, must remain in the city, let the Guardians of the Law again meet together with experts in each branch of shopkeeping, just as we earlier directed regarding counterfeiting, a matter akin to this one, and having met, let them examine what income and what expenditure yields a moderate profit for the shopkeeper, and having written down the resulting expenditure and income, let them establish and guard it -- the market-wardens some of it, the city-wardens some, the country-wardens the rest. In this way shopkeeping would, more or less, benefit each party while doing the least possible harm to those in the cities who make use of it. Whenever someone, having agreed to a contract, fails to fulfill it according to the agreement -- except for cases where laws or a decree forbid it, or where someone was compelled to agree under some unjust force, or where, through some unexpected turn of fortune, a person is unwillingly prevented -- there shall be lawsuits over the rest of the unfulfilled agreement in the tribal courts, if the parties cannot reach a settlement before that through arbitrators or neighbors. The class of craftsmen is sacred to Hephaestus and Athena, those who have equipped our life together with their arts; and sacred, in turn, to Ares and Athena are those who preserve the works of the craftsmen with other, defensive arts. Rightly is this class, too, sacred to these gods. All of these continually serve the land and the people -- some as leaders in the contests of war, others by bringing forth, for pay, the production of tools and works.
ATHENIAN: For those engaged in such work, it would not be fitting to deal falsely, out of respect for the gods who are their ancestors. If a craftsman fails to complete a commissioned work within the stated time, through his own fault, showing no respect at all for the god who gives life, thinking that as a kinsman that god will simply forgive him, and giving no thought at all to the matter with his mind, he shall first pay a penalty to the god, and second, let this law stand attached to that: he shall owe the price of the work for the client he has deceived, and he must carry it out again from the beginning within the stated time, free of charge. And for the one commissioning the work, there is an advisory law as well, matching what was advised to the seller: he must not try to bargain for a higher price but should assess it as simply as possible at its true worth -- the same instruction applies to the one commissioning it, for the craftsman, at least, knows the work's true value. In free cities, then, one must never use a craft -- a thing whose nature is clear and honest -- to try the wits of ordinary citizens by scheming, on the part of the craftsman himself; let there be lawsuits over these matters for the wronged party against the wrongdoer. And if, in turn, someone who has commissioned work from a craftsman fails to pay the wages properly, as agreed under the legal contract, dishonoring Zeus, guardian of the city, and Athena, both partners in our civic life, and clinging to a small profit, breaks apart great bonds of community -- let there be a law to support the bond of the city together with the gods: whoever, having received a finished work in advance, fails to pay the wages within the agreed time shall be made to pay double; and if a year passes, though other sums lent out at interest bear no interest under our other laws, in this case the debtor shall pay one obol per drachma for each month, and suits over these matters shall be held in the tribal courts. Since it is fitting to speak, if only in passing, about the preservation of those craftsmen of war -- generals and all who are skilled in such things -- we should note that we have spoken of craftsmen throughout as applying equally to them, as being craftsmen of another kind. If any of these, too, having undertaken a public work, whether willingly or as assigned, carries it out well, let the honors -- which are, for men of war, their wages -- be paid to him justly; the law, in praising him, will never grow weary of it.
ATHENIAN: But if, having received payment in advance, he fails to deliver some fine work of war, the law will find fault with him. Let this law, then, be established for us, mixed with praise concerning these matters -- advisory, not compulsory -- for the mass of the citizens: to honor the good men, all who are saviors of the whole city whether by acts of courage or by feats of strategy in war, as second in rank; for the greatest prize of all must be given, first, to those who have proven able to honor, above all else, the writings of good lawgivers. The greatest of the contracts that people make with one another have now, more or less, been arranged by us, apart from matters concerning orphans and the guardianship and care of orphans. These must, after what has just been said, somehow be put in order as well. The starting points of all this are, on the one hand, the wishes of those about to die concerning the disposal of their property, and on the other, the circumstances of those who die leaving no disposition at all. I called this necessary, Cleinias, having in mind how awkward and difficult it is. For it cannot be left unregulated either -- each person would make many different and conflicting arrangements, at odds with the laws, with the customs of the living, and even with their own earlier wishes before they were about to make final arrangements, if anyone is to be given the plain, sovereign authority to dispose, in whatever way he pleases, of a will made at the end of his life however he happens to feel. For most of us are, in a way, thoughtless and unsettled in our judgment whenever we suppose that we are about to die. CLEINIAS: How do you mean this, stranger? ATHENIAN: It is a hard thing, Cleinias, for a man about to die, and full of talk that gives lawgivers real cause for fear and difficulty. CLEINIAS: In what way? ATHENIAN: Seeking to be master over everything, he tends to speak with anger. CLEINIAS: What sort of things does he say? ATHENIAN: 'It is a terrible thing, gods,' he says, 'if it will not be possible for me to give what is mine to whomever I wish, and not to another -- more to one, less to another, depending on who has shown himself base toward me and who good, each having been thoroughly tested through illnesses, or through old age, or through all sorts of other misfortunes.' CLEINIAS: Well then, stranger, don't they seem to you to speak well? ATHENIAN: To me, Cleinias, the lawgivers of old seem to have been soft, and to have legislated with too narrow a view and too little thought about human affairs. CLEINIAS: How do you mean?
ATHENIAN: It was fear of that very argument, my friend, that led people to make the law allowing anyone to dispose of his own property exactly as he pleases, without qualification. But you and I will give a more measured answer to those in your city who are about to die. Friends, we will say, you creatures of a single day, it is hard for you just now to know what is truly yours, and harder still to know yourselves, as the inscription at Delphi tells us. As lawgiver, then, I hold that neither you yourselves nor this property belong to you, but that both you and it belong to your whole family, past and future, and even more than that, to the city. And since that is so, I will not willingly agree if someone flatters you while sickness or old age has you reeling, and talks you into disposing of things against your own best interest. Rather I will legislate with an eye to what is best for the whole city and the whole family, weighing the individual's claim as it deserves, in a lesser place. Go now in kindness and goodwill toward us, following the human path you are already following by nature; the rest of your affairs will be our concern, cared for as best we can, with no favoritism among you. Let this stand, Cleinias, as consolation and preamble for both the living and the dying. Now here is the law itself. Whoever writes a will disposing of his property, if he is the father of children, shall first name which of his sons he judges fit to become his heir, and write this down. As for his other children, if he gives any of them to another household for adoption, with that household's consent, let him record this in writing as well. And if a son is left over who has not been provided for by any inheritance, one whom the law allows hope of being sent out to a colony, the father may give him whatever he wishes of the remaining property, except the ancestral plot of land and all its furnishings; and if there are several such sons, the father may distribute what is left of the estate among them in whatever proportion he wishes. But to a son who already has a household of his own, he need not allot any of the property; and likewise for a daughter, if she is already betrothed to become someone's wife, he need not allot to her, but if she is not, he should. And if, after the will is made, some parcel of the estate's land turns up unexpectedly for a son or daughter, let it be left to the heir named in the will. And if a man leaves no male children but only females, the one making the will shall choose a husband for one of his daughters and leave him behind as his own son, writing him down as heir.
ATHENIAN: And if a man's son should die while still a child, before reaching manhood, whether that son was born to him or adopted, the man making the will shall also provide in writing for such an eventuality, stating who ought to become his second son, in case of better fortune. And if a man is entirely childless and makes a will, he may set aside a tenth part of whatever he has newly acquired, and give it away to anyone he wishes, if he so desires; but he must hand over everything else, without reservation and with good grace, to the one he adopts, making him his son according to the law. When children need guardians, if their father dies having made a will and named guardians for them, willing men who have agreed to serve as guardians, as many and whoever he wishes, then the choice of guardians as written shall be authoritative. But if a man dies either without having made any will at all, or having failed to name guardians, the nearest relatives on both the father's and the mother's side shall be the authoritative guardians, two from the father's side and two from the mother's side, plus one chosen from among the deceased's friends; and the Guardians of the Law shall appoint these for whichever orphan needs them. Of the whole body of guardianship and of the orphans, the fifteen eldest of the Guardians of the Law shall always take charge, in order of seniority, dividing themselves into groups of three, three for one year and then another three the next, until the five rotations have gone full circle; and this duty must never lapse, so far as it can be helped. Whoever dies without having made any will at all, but leaves children who need guardianship, the use of these same laws shall extend to his children as well. But if a man, meeting with unexpected misfortune, leaves only daughters, let the lawgiver be forgiven if, in deciding how to give the daughters in marriage, he weighs two of three considerations — nearness of kinship and preservation of the family estate — but omits the third, namely what a father would consider if he examined the character and habits of all the citizens to find one suited to be his own son and his daughter's bridegroom, since such an examination is impossible. Let this law, then, be laid down for such cases as far as it can be: if a man who has made no will leaves daughters, and he dies, his full brother, or a brother by the same mother who has no inheritance of his own, shall take the daughter and the estate of the deceased; and if there is no brother, but a brother's son, the same rule applies, provided they are close enough in age to each other; and if none of these exists, but there is a sister's son, likewise; fourth in line is the father's brother, fifth this man's son, and sixth the son of a sister of the father.
ATHENIAN: In the same way the succession shall always proceed by nearness of kinship, whenever a man leaves only female children, tracing back through brothers and their children, first the males of a given line, and afterward the females of that same line. The judge shall examine and decide whether the ages of this couple are fitting or unfitting for marriage, viewing the males naked, and the females naked down to the navel. And if the family lacks relations even as far as a brother's grandsons, or likewise as far as a grandfather's children, then, whoever the girl herself chooses from among the rest of the citizens, with the consent of the guardians, and he consenting in turn, that man shall become heir of the deceased and bridegroom of the daughter. And there will often be, in more cases than one might think, such a lack even within the city itself. So if a woman who cannot find anyone at home sees a man who has gone out among the colonists, and wants him to become heir to her father's estate, then, if he is a relative, let him proceed to claim the inheritance according to the order the law prescribes; but if he is outside the family, one of those living in the city but unrelated by blood, he shall have authority, with the consent of the guardians and of the deceased's daughter, to marry her and to return home and take the estate of the man who made no will. And if a man dies without a will and leaves no children at all, male or female, in other respects the earlier law shall apply to his case; but a female and a male, like a mated pair, shall proceed from the family into the household that has in each instance been left empty, and the inheritance shall rightly belong to them in this order: first a sister, second a brother's daughter, third a sister's granddaughter, fourth the father's sister, fifth the father's brother's daughter, and sixth would be the daughter of a sister of the father. These women shall be united with their respective claimants in accordance with kinship and custom, as we legislated earlier. Now let us not overlook how burdensome such laws are, in that they sometimes harshly command the nearest male relative of the deceased to marry the female relative, seeming to take no account of the countless obstacles that arise among human beings against such commands, making people unwilling to obey — obstacles that would make many prefer to suffer almost anything rather than comply, whenever bodily diseases or deformities, or mental ones, occur in some of those ordered to marry or be married. Some might think the lawgiver gives no thought to such cases — but that opinion would not be correct.
ATHENIAN: Let it be said, then, on behalf of both the lawgiver and those subject to the law, as a kind of shared preamble: that those under the law's commands should have forgiveness for the lawgiver, on the ground that, being occupied with public affairs, he could never at the same time manage the private misfortunes that befall each individual; and forgiveness in turn for those under the law, since it is only reasonable that they sometimes cannot fulfill the lawgiver's commands, given as he gives them without knowing the particulars. CLEINIAS: What, then, stranger, might one do in such cases to act most fittingly? ATHENIAN: It is necessary, Cleinias, to choose arbitrators for such laws and for those subject to them. CLEINIAS: What do you mean? ATHENIAN: There are times when the nephew of a wealthy man would not willingly take his uncle's daughter, being spoiled and setting his mind on a grander marriage; and there are times when the lawgiver's command would force someone into the greatest of misfortunes, compelled to disobey the law because it forces him to accept a mad household connection, or some other terrible misfortune of body or soul, for one whose life such a marriage would make unlivable. Let the following, then, be laid down as our law concerning these matters: if anyone brings a complaint against the established laws regarding a will, whether about other matters or specifically about marriages — claiming that the lawgiver himself, if present and alive, would never have forced him to act this way, to marry or be given in marriage, being now forced to do either — and some relative or some guardian says so, let the lawgiver be understood to have left behind the fifteen Guardians of the Law as arbitrators and fathers for the orphaned boys and girls; and let those disputing any such matter bring their case before these men, whose judgments shall be final. But if anyone thinks this grants the Guardians of the Law too much power over them, let him bring the matter before the court of select judges and have the dispute decided there; and upon the loser let blame and reproach be laid, from the lawgiver himself, as a penalty heavier than a large fine for one who thinks himself wise. Now for the orphaned children this becomes, as it were, a kind of second birth. After the first birth, each child's nurture and education have already been prescribed; but after the second — the birth into being fatherless — we must contrive some way that the misfortune of orphanhood brings as little pity as possible upon those who suffer it. First, then, we say the Guardians of the Law are established by law to be fathers to them in place of their begetters, no worse than real fathers, and we further instruct them to watch over the orphans each year as if they were their own kin — having first given, as a fitting preamble on the nurture of orphans, instruction to the guardians themselves as well as to these officials.
ATHENIAN: It seems to me, then, that this is the fitting moment to recall what we said earlier, that the souls of the dead have some power after death by which they take an interest in human affairs. These are true accounts, but they involve long tales; still, we must trust the other traditions concerning such things, since they are so numerous and so very ancient, and we must trust those who make our laws that things stand this way, unless they show themselves altogether senseless. If, then, this is indeed how things stand by nature, first let people fear the gods above, who perceive the desolation of orphans, and next the spirits of the departed, whose nature it is to watch over their own offspring with exceptional care, kindly toward those who honor them and hostile toward those who slight them; and further let them dread those living souls that have reached old age and stand in the highest honor — for wherever a city under good laws flourishes, there children's children live with affection and delight toward such elders — and these old people see keenly and hear keenly all that concerns such matters, and are well-disposed toward those who act justly regarding them, while they feel the greatest indignation toward those who commit outrage against orphans and the desolate, since they count these as a deposit supreme in greatness and sanctity. To these injunctions every guardian and ruler must hold fast, however small his mind may be, taking care about the nurture and education of orphans, as one contributing to a shared fund for himself and his own, doing good in every way and to the full extent of his power. Whoever, persuaded by the tale preceding this law, commits no outrage against an orphan, will not come to know directly the lawgiver's anger regarding such things; but whoever disobeys, and wrongs someone bereft of father or mother, shall pay double the whole damage compared to one who commits the same wrong against a child with both parents living. As for the rest of the legislation concerning guardians over orphans, and officials overseeing the guardians' care — if these men themselves possessed no model of raising free children, having raised their own and managed their own household's property, and moreover had laws set out with some moderation on these very matters, there would be some reason to lay down certain special laws for guardianship, as being genuinely and greatly different, shaping the orphan's life by special practices apart from that of children who are not orphans. But as things stand, in our city orphanhood does not differ much overall from being under a father's rule; though in honors and dishonors together with attentive care, it tends by no means to be treated as equal.
ATHENIAN: This is why the law has taken such care over legislation concerning orphans, using both encouragement and threats. And here is a threat that would be quite timely: whoever acts as guardian to a child, male or female, and whoever among the Guardians of the Law is appointed to oversee a guardian, must love the child who has fallen into orphanhood no less than his own children, and must look after the property of the one being raised no worse than his own — indeed, with even more eagerness than his own. Let every guardian hold this single law concerning orphans. If anyone acts otherwise in such matters, contrary to this law, the magistrate is to fine the guardian, and the guardian, bringing the magistrate before the court of selected judges, is to fine him double whatever penalty the court decides. If a guardian seems to the child's relatives, or indeed to any other citizen, to be neglecting or mishandling his duty, they are to bring him before the same court; whatever he is convicted of, he must pay four times over, half going to the child, half to the one who won the case. When any of the orphans comes of age, if he believes he was badly guarded, he may bring suit over the guardianship within five years of its ending. If a guardian is convicted, the court is to assess what he must suffer or pay; if a magistrate is convicted of harming the orphan through negligence, the court is to assess what he must pay the child, but if through deliberate wrongdoing, then in addition to the fine he is to be removed from the office of Guardian of the Law, and the city as a whole is to appoint another Guardian of the Law in his place for the country and the city. Disputes arise between fathers and their own children, and between children and their parents, greater than they ought to be — disputes in which fathers might think the lawgiver should legislate that they be allowed, if they wish, to have a herald publicly disown a son before everyone, declaring him by law no longer a son; and sons, in turn, might think they should be allowed to indict a father for insanity when he is reduced to a shameful condition by sickness or old age. Such things do in truth tend to happen among people of thoroughly wicked character; but where only half the badness is present — say, a bad son with a good father, or the reverse — such disasters do not spring from so bitter a hostility.
ATHENIAN: Now in another kind of constitution, a disowned child would not necessarily become stateless. But in this one, whose laws we are now framing, a fatherless child of this sort is bound of necessity to be resettled in another land — for beyond the five thousand and forty households, not one more can be added. So the one who is to suffer this by judgment must be disowned not by one father alone, but by the whole clan. This is how such matters ought to be handled by law: whenever anger seizes someone — rightly or wrongly, it makes no difference to good fortune — and he desires to cut off from his kinship the son he begot and raised, he must not be allowed to do this lightly or on the spot. First he must gather his own relatives as far as cousins, and likewise the son's relatives on the mother's side, and bring his accusation before them, showing why the young man deserves to be cast out of the family by all; and the son too must be given equal opportunity to argue that he deserves none of this. If the father persuades them, and gets the votes of more than half of all the kinsmen present — not counting the father and mother and the accused himself, but counting all the other men and women of full age — then, and only then, may the father disown his son; in no other way. If any citizen wishes to adopt the disowned young man as his own son, no law shall prevent him from doing so — for the characters of the young are apt to undergo many changes in the course of life. But if ten years pass and no one has wished to adopt the disowned man, those in charge of the excess population meant for colonies are to see to it that he too takes part properly in that same colony. And if sickness, or old age, or a harshness of temper — or all these together — renders someone unusually deranged, more than most people, and this escapes everyone except those who live with him, and he squanders his estate as though he were still master of it, while his son is at a loss and hesitates to bring the suit for insanity, then let this law be established for him: he must first go to the eldest of the Guardians of the Law and explain his father's misfortune. They, once they have examined the matter sufficiently, are to advise him whether or not the suit should be brought; and if they advise bringing it, they are to serve as both witnesses and advocates for the one bringing the charge. Whoever is convicted shall for the rest of his life have no authority to dispose of even the smallest part of his own property, and shall live out the remainder of his life like a child in the household.
ATHENIAN: If a husband and wife cannot get along at all, being unlucky in temperament, then ten of the middle-aged Guardians of the Law must always take charge of such cases, along with ten of the women who oversee marriages. If they are able to reconcile the couple, that reconciliation shall stand; but if their feelings are too stormy for that, the officials must seek out, as best they can, who would suit each of them. It is likely that people of this kind do not have gentle characters; so an attempt should be made to match them with partners of deeper and gentler disposition. Those among them who are childless or have few children should form their new union for the sake of children; those who already have enough children should separate and remarry for the sake of growing old together and caring for one another. If a wife dies leaving both daughters and sons, the law that is laid down should be advisory rather than compulsory — that the father raise the surviving children without bringing in a stepmother. But if there are no children, he must remarry by necessity, until he has fathered children enough for both household and city. If the husband dies leaving enough children, the mother of his children should remain and raise them; but if she seems too young to remain healthily without a husband, then her relatives, in consultation with the women who oversee marriages, are to do whatever seems best to them and to the women concerning such matters. If the couple lack children, they should remarry for that reason too, and the law shall set the sufficient number of children at two, one male and one female. When it is agreed whose child a newborn is, but a ruling is needed as to whose status it should follow: if a slave woman has relations with a slave, a free man, or a freedman, the child born shall belong entirely to the master of the slave woman; if a free woman lies with a slave, the offspring becomes the property of the slave's owner. And when a child is born of a man's own slave woman, or of a woman's own slave, and this is publicly known, the women are to send the mother's child away to another land along with the father, and the Guardians of the Law are to send the father's child away along with the mother who bore it. No god, and no sensible human being, would ever counsel neglect of one's parents. To think rightly about this, a preamble concerning the honoring of the gods, properly framed, should come before our laws on the honor and dishonor due to parents, something like this:
ATHENIAN: Ancient laws concerning the gods are established for everyone in two forms. Some gods we honor because we see them clearly; for others we set up images as likenesses, and though these statues are lifeless, we believe that the living gods they represent feel great goodwill and gratitude toward us because of them. So the man in whose house lies a father or a mother, or the aged parents of either, worn out with years like stored-up treasures, must never suppose that any image he could own carries greater power than these, provided their possessor tends them in the right and proper way. CLEINIAS: What do you mean by rightly? ATHENIAN: I will explain — for indeed, friends, such things deserve to be heard. CLEINIAS: Just tell us. ATHENIAN: We say that Oedipus, dishonored, called down curses on his own children, and that everyone sings of how these curses were fulfilled and heard by the gods; that Amyntor in anger cursed his son Phoenix, and Theseus cursed Hippolytus, and countless others cursed countless others — and it has become clear that the gods do listen to parents concerning their children. For a parent's curse against his offspring is more just than any other curse could be against anyone. Let no one, then, believe that when a father or mother is dishonored by their children, a god listens to their prayers against nature, while when they are honored and made joyful, and out of that joy pray earnestly to the gods for good things for their children, we will not believe the gods listen equally and grant these too. If they did not, they could never be just distributors of good things — and that is the very thing we say is least fitting for gods. CLEINIAS: Very true. ATHENIAN: Then let us reflect on what we said a little earlier — that we could possess no image more honored by the gods than a father or forefather worn down by age, or a mother possessing the same power; for when someone honors them with tribute, the god rejoices — otherwise he would not listen to them at all. For truly, the image of our ancestors set up among us is a marvel, far beyond lifeless statues. Living images, when we tend them, join in our prayers each time, and when dishonored, do the opposite, while lifeless ones do neither. So if a person makes right use of father, forefather, and all such kin, he would possess, of all images, the one most sovereign in securing the favor of the gods. CLEINIAS: Beautifully said.
ATHENIAN: Everyone with sense fears and honors the prayers of parents, knowing that they have been fulfilled for many people many times. Since nature has ordered things this way, aged ancestors are a windfall for the good, living to the very end of life, and when they depart while still young at heart, deeply missed; but for the bad, they are a source of great fear. Let everyone, then, persuaded by what has now been said, honor his own parents with every lawful honor. But if some remain deaf to such preambles, the following law would rightly apply to them: if anyone in this city cares for his parents less than he ought, and does not defer to and satisfy the wishes of his father and mother, and of all his ancestors, more than those of his own sons and all his descendants and himself, the one suffering such treatment — either in person or by sending someone — must lay the matter before the three senior-most of the Law-Guardians, together with three of the women who supervise marriages. These are to take charge of the matter, punishing the wrongdoers, if they are still young, with blows and imprisonment — men up to the age of thirty, women up to ten years older, receiving the same punishments. If, being older than these ages, they still do not give up the same neglect of their parents, and in fact mistreat them, they are to be brought before a court of one hundred and one citizens, whoever are the eldest of all. If convicted, the court shall assess what he must pay or suffer, holding back nothing that a human being is capable of suffering or paying. If someone is unable to report his mistreatment, any free person who learns of it must report it to the magistrates, or be deemed base and liable to prosecution by anyone willing, for the harm done. If a slave brings information, he shall be freed; and if he belongs to either the wrongdoer or the wronged, he shall be released by the authorities, while if he belongs to some other citizen, the public treasury shall pay his owner his value. The magistrates must take care that no one wrongs such a person in retaliation for the information given. As for poisoning one person harms another with drugs, the cases involving death have already been dealt with, but concerning other kinds of harm — whenever someone, by drinks or foods or ointments, deliberately and with forethought harms another — none of this has yet been addressed. This is because there are two kinds of poisoning among the human race, and this double nature has held back our discussion of it.
ATHENIAN: The kind of harm we just described plainly is bodies harming bodies according to nature. But there is another kind, which by means of certain charms, spells, and so-called bindings persuades those who dare to do harm that they truly have such power, and persuades their victims that they are being harmed above all by people with the power to bewitch. Now about all these things it is neither easy to know how they really work, nor, even if one did know, would it be easy to persuade others. And it isn't worthwhile to try to convince people, when they distrust each other's souls about such things — say if they ever see waxen images molded and set at doorways, or at crossroads, or on the graves of their own parents — to simply disregard all of this, when we ourselves have no clear doctrine about it. Instead we should divide the law about drug-use into two, and however someone attempts to use drugs, first we must ask, urge, and advise that he not attempt any such thing, nor frighten the mass of people the way one frightens children, nor force the lawgiver and judge to cure people of such fears — since, in the first place, the man who attempts to use drugs does not know what he is doing, whether it concerns bodies (unless he happens to have medical knowledge) or concerns those charms (unless he happens to be a seer or a diviner of portents). So let this statement stand as the law about drug-use: whoever administers a drug to someone causing harm that is not fatal, whether to that person himself or to his people, or harm to livestock or beehives, whether fatal or not — if he happens to be a physician and is convicted on the charge of drugging, let him be punished with death; but if he is a private person, let the court assess what he must suffer or pay. But if by bindings, invocations, incantations, or any such forms of drug-use he seems to be the kind of person who does harm, then if he is a seer or diviner of portents, let him die; and if he is convicted of drug-use without possessing such divinatory skill, let the same apply to him as well — for in his case too the court shall assess what it judges he must suffer or pay.
ATHENIAN: Whatever harm one person does another by theft or violence, if the harm is greater, let him pay the injured party a greater restitution, and if he has done lesser harm, a smaller one — in every case, exactly as much as the harm he has done, until the injury is made good. And beyond that, in addition to what corresponds to each wrongdoing, let each offender pay a further penalty for the sake of correction — lighter for one who did wrong through someone else's folly, having been led by persuasion because of youth or some such thing, but heavier for one who did wrong through his own folly or through lack of self-control over pleasures or pains, becoming so in cowardly fears or in certain desires or envies or fits of anger hard to cure — not because the wrongdoing itself is being punished (for what has happened can never be made not to have happened), but for the sake of the future, so that either the wrongdoer himself and those who see him justly punished may come to hate injustice altogether, or so that much of that kind of misfortune may be lessened. For all these reasons, and with an eye to all such things, the laws, like a good archer, must aim at the magnitude of the punishment appropriate in each case and at what is altogether deserved. And in performing this same task the judge must serve as assistant to the lawgiver, whenever some law entrusts to him the assessment of what the one on trial must suffer or pay, while the lawgiver, like a painter, must sketch in outline the works that follow from his writing. This, then, Megillus and Cleinias, is what we must now do as finely and as well as we can: we must state what the penalties should be, as they are called, for all thefts and acts of violence, so that the gods and children of gods may allow us to legislate. If someone is mad, let him not appear openly in the city; let his relatives keep watch over each such person at home, by whatever means they know how, or else pay a fine — the man of the highest property class a hundred drachmas if he lets him wander loose, whether the madman is a slave or a free man; the second class four-fifths of a mina; the third class three-fifths; and the fourth class two-fifths. Now people go mad in many ways. Those we have just mentioned go mad from disease; but there are others whose bad nature, together with a bad upbringing, produces madness through anger, so that over some petty quarrel they raise their voices and hurl abuse at one another — none of which is fitting to happen anywhere at all in a well-governed city. Let there be one law about abusive speech applying to everyone: Let no one speak abusively of anyone. If a person is disputing something in argument with another, let each teach and learn, both the disputant and those present, while entirely refraining from abuse.
ATHENIAN: For out of calling down curses on one another and hurling shameful, womanish accusations at each other, first from words — a light matter — deep hatreds and the heaviest enmities arise in deed. For the speaker, indulging in an ungracious thing, his temper, and gorging his anger on a foul feast, savaging back into wildness whatever civilizing his upbringing once achieved, comes to live in a brutish, ill-tempered state, accepting a bitter satisfaction from his rage. And in such exchanges everyone tends, in time, to slide over into saying something ridiculous about his opponent; and no one who makes a habit of this has ever failed either to lose his serious character altogether or to lose a great part of his greatness of mind. For these reasons, let no one ever utter any such thing at all in a sacred place, or at any public sacrifices, or at games, or in the marketplace, or in a law court, or in any common assembly; and let the official presiding over each of these punish it without penalty to himself, or else let him never again be allowed to compete for a prize, on the ground that he cares nothing for the laws and does not carry out what the lawgiver has prescribed. But if someone in other places, whether starting the abuse or defending himself, does not refrain from such language, let any older person who comes upon it enforce the law by driving off with blows those who are indulging their anger — another form of evil — or else himself be liable to the appointed penalty. We are saying now that a person tangled up in abuse, without trying to say anything funny, cannot help himself, and it is this that we condemn, whenever it arises out of anger. But what of this: shall we accept the eagerness of comic poets to say funny things about people, so long as they attempt such comic remarks about our citizens without anger? Or shall we distinguish two cases, joking and not joking, and allow someone who is joking to say something funny about a person without anger, but forbid anyone to do so in earnest and with anger, as we said? This latter must never be permitted at all — but as to who shall be allowed and who not, let us make that our law.
ATHENIAN: Let it not be permitted for a writer of comedy, or of iambic verse, or of lyric song, to mock any of the citizens whatsoever, whether in word or in image, whether in anger or without anger. If anyone disobeys, let the judges of the contests banish him from the country altogether on that very day, or else let him be fined three sacred minas belonging to the god in whose honor the contest is held. But those who were said earlier to have permission to compose about someone, they may do so to one another without anger, in play, but they may not do so in earnest and with anger at the same time. The distinguishing of this shall be entrusted to the overseer of the whole education of the young; and whatever he approves, the poet may bring forward publicly, but whatever he rejects, let the poet neither perform it himself for anyone, nor ever be shown to have taught it to another, slave or free, or else let him be judged a base man and disobedient to the laws. A man is not to be pitied for being hungry or suffering some such thing, but rather the man who is self-controlled, or who possesses some virtue or part of it, if in addition to this he has acquired some misfortune. It would be astonishing, then, if such a person were utterly neglected, so as to fall into the extreme of beggary, whether slave or free, in a city and constitution that is inhabited and moderately governed. So it is safe for the lawgiver to establish some such law as this for such people: Let there be no beggar among us in the city; and if anyone attempts to do such a thing, gathering a livelihood by endless prayers, let the market officials drive him out of the marketplace, the board of city officials drive him out of the town, and the officials of the countryside send him out across the borders from the rest of the territory, so that the land may be made entirely clean of such a creature. If a male or female slave does any harm at all to another's property, and the person harmed was not himself partly responsible through inexperience or some other improper use, the master of the one who did the harm must either make full restitution for the damage or hand over the one who did it. But if the master claims that the accusation was contrived jointly by the slave and the injured party in order to deprive him of the slave, let him bring a suit for malicious prosecution against the one claiming to have been harmed, and if he wins, let him receive double the value of the slave as assessed by the court; but if he loses, let him make good the damage and surrender the slave. Should a beast of burden, or a horse, a dog, or any other creature, do injury to something belonging to a neighbor, the damage is to be paid in the same way.
ATHENIAN: If someone is unwilling to testify voluntarily, let the party who needs him summon him, and let the one summoned appear for the trial; and if he knows the facts and is willing to testify, let him testify; but if he claims to know nothing, let him take an oath by the three gods, Zeus, Apollo, and Themis, that in truth he knows nothing of it, and thus be dismissed from the suit. But whoever is summoned to give testimony and does not appear before the one who summoned him shall be liable at law for the damage caused. And if someone calls up a witness in the course of a trial already in progress, that witness, once he has testified, shall not take part in the vote on that case. A free woman may testify and act as an advocate if she is over forty years of age, and she may bring a suit if she has no husband; but while her husband lives, she may only testify. A male slave, a female slave, and a child may testify and act as advocates only in a case of murder, provided they furnish an adequate guarantor that they will remain available until the trial, in case they are charged with giving false testimony. Either party in a dispute may bring a charge against the whole of a testimony or a part of it, claiming that someone has testified falsely, before the case is decided; and the officials in charge shall keep these charges sealed by both parties, and produce them for the judgment on the false testimony. If anyone is convicted twice of bearing false witness, let no law any longer compel anyone to accept his testimony; and if three times, let him no longer be permitted to testify at all. And if, having been convicted three times, he dares to testify anyway, let anyone who wishes report him to the officials, and let the officials hand him over to a court, and if he is convicted, let him be punished with death. As for all those whose testimonies are convicted at trial as judged false, and are found to have secured the victory for the one who won, if more than half of such testimonies are condemned in some case, let the suit decided on the strength of them be reopened, and let there be a fresh dispute and adjudication as to whether the case was decided on the basis of those testimonies or not; and however it is decided, let that be the final resolution of the earlier suits. Though there are many fine things in human life, upon most of them something like a blight has grown, which stains and befouls them. And indeed is not justice among human beings a fine thing, since it has civilized everything human? And if this is fine, how could joining in the pursuit of justice for others not also be fine? Yet, being what they are, some vile art defames these things, dressing itself up under a fine name — an art which claims, first, to be a kind of contrivance for lawsuits, capable of winning both when pleading one's own case and when assisting another, whether or not the actions concerning that particular suit were just.
ATHENIAN: Let this skill—and the speeches that come from it—be given free of charge, if anyone offers money in exchange. As for this practice in our city, whether it counts as a skill or is merely an untrained knack built from experience, it would be best if it never arose at all. But if the lawgiver asks its practitioners to obey and not speak against justice, and instead to leave for another country, then those who obey will be met with silence, but for those who disobey, the law says this: if anyone appears to be trying to twist the force of just claims in the minds of jurors, or to bring lawsuits out of season too often, or to help others do so, then whoever wishes may indict him for malicious litigation or malicious advocacy, and he shall be judged before the court of selected judges. If he is convicted, the court shall assess whether he did this out of love of money or love of winning. If it was love of winning, the court shall fix a period during which such a person may not bring a suit or assist in one for anyone. If it was love of money, then a foreigner convicted of it shall leave the country and never return, on pain of death, while a citizen shall be put to death, because of his love of money—a vice that is condemned among us in every form. And if anyone is convicted twice of doing this out of love of winning, let him be put to death.