Plato · a new plain-English translation from the Greek
ATHENIAN: If anyone, acting as ambassador or herald, misrepresents the city and deals falsely on its behalf with some other city, or, when sent, fails to report the actual message he was sent to deliver, or again is shown to have brought back incorrectly, whether as ambassador or as herald, what came from enemies or even from friends — against such men let there be indictments for having impiously violated, contrary to law, the messages and commands of Hermes and of Zeus; and let there be an assessment of what he must suffer or pay, if convicted. Theft of property is illiberal; robbery is shameless. None of the sons of Zeus has ever practiced either of these, delighting in fraud or in violence. Let no one, then, deceived by poets or by any of the tellers of misguided tales on these matters, be persuaded otherwise, and think, when he thieves or uses force, that he is doing nothing shameful but only what the gods themselves do. That is neither true nor plausible: whoever does any such lawless thing is neither a god nor a child of gods; and it belongs to the lawgiver to know this better than all the poets put together. So whoever is persuaded by our argument fares well, and may he fare well for all time; but whoever disbelieves must thereafter contend with a law of this kind: if anyone steals any public property, great or small, he needs the same penalty. For the man who steals something small has stolen with the same lust, only with lesser power; and the man who removes the greater sum without having deposited it does wrong to the full. So the law thinks it right to punish neither with a lighter penalty than the other on the ground of the size of the theft, but on the ground that the one may perhaps still be curable, the other incurable.
ATHENIAN: If, then, someone convicts in court a foreigner or a slave of stealing something public — since he is in all likelihood curable — let the judgment determine what he must suffer or what fine he must pay. But the citizen, reared as he will have been reared, if he is caught plundering or doing violence to his fatherland, whether taken in the act or not — him, as being practically incurable, punish with death. Concerning armies, much counsel and many laws arise, and rightly; but the greatest is this: that no one, male or female, ever be without a commander, and that no one's soul acquire the habit, in earnest or in play, of acting on its own initiative, alone; rather, in every war and in every peace, one must live looking always to the commander and following him, steered by him even in the smallest things — to halt when someone orders it, to march, to exercise, to bathe, to take meals, to wake at night for guard duty and for the passing of orders; and in the midst of danger itself neither to pursue anyone nor to give ground before another without the commanders' signal. In a single word: to teach one's soul, by habit, neither to know nor to understand at all how to do anything apart from the rest, but for life to be lived, as far as possible, gathered, together, and in common, by all and with all. For than this there is not, nor will there ever be, anything stronger, better, or more skillful for safety in war and for victory. This must be practiced in peacetime, from childhood on — to rule others and to be ruled by others; and anarchy must be rooted out of the whole life of all human beings, and of the beasts subject to human beings. Moreover, all choral dances are to be danced with a view to excellence in war, and the whole cultivation of nimbleness and dexterity is to be practiced for the same ends — likewise endurance of food and drink, of cold and its opposite, and of hard bedding; and, greatest of all, not to ruin the power of the head and the feet by wrapping them in coverings not their own, destroying the natural growth of one's own hair-felt and footgear.
ATHENIAN: For these are the extremities, and kept sound they hold the greatest power of the whole body, as ruined they hold the opposite: the one part is the body's greatest servant, the other its greatest ruler, holding by nature all its sovereign senses. Such is the praise of the soldier's life that the young man should think he hears; and now the laws: he who is enrolled, or posted to some assignment in rotation, must serve. If anyone deserts out of some cowardice, without the generals' discharge, let there be indictments for failure of service before the military officers when they return from the field; and let those who served sit in judgment, each arm separately — hoplites, cavalry, and every other branch of the service likewise — bringing hoplites before the hoplites, cavalry before the cavalry, and the others in the same way before their own fellows. If a man is convicted, let it be his lot never to compete for any prize of overall valor, never to indict another for failure of service, never to be an accuser in these matters; and in addition let the court assess what he must suffer or pay. After that, when the suits for failure of service have been judged, let the officers of each branch again hold an assembly, and let whoever wishes be judged for the prizes of valor among his own corps — presenting, concerning any earlier war, neither token nor sworn confirmation of witnesses, but only concerning the campaign then just completed. Let the prize for each be a wreath of olive; this the winner shall inscribe and dedicate in whichever temple of the war-gods he chooses, as evidence for the judging of prizes of valor his whole life long, first, second, and third. If someone serves, but goes home early, before his time, without the officers' withdrawal order, let there be indictments for desertion of post before the same judges as for failure of service, and on conviction let the penalties stand that were fixed before. Now every man bringing any suit against another must fear to inflict a false penalty, whether willingly or, so far as he can help it, unwillingly — for Justice is called, and truly called, the maiden daughter of Reverence, and falsehood is naturally hateful to Reverence and Justice. In all matters, then, one must be wary of striking a false note against justice, but especially concerning the loss of weapons in war — lest, mistaking losses that were forced for shameful ones and making them a reproach, one bring unworthy suits against an unworthy target.
ATHENIAN: It is by no means easy to draw the line between the two, yet the law must try somehow to distinguish them case by case. Let us call a story to our aid. If Patroclus had been carried to his tent without his arms and had come to — as has happened to thousands — while those earlier arms, which the poet says the gods gave to Peleus as a dowry with Thetis at his wedding, were in Hector's hands, then every coward of that day would have been free to reproach the son of Menoetius with loss of arms. Then there are all those who have lost weapons by being flung down cliffs, or at sea, or when a sudden great rush of water caught them, struggling, in a storm — one could chant a thousand such cases in consolation, prettying up an evil that invites slander. One must therefore cut apart, as best one can, the greater and worse evil from its opposite. Roughly speaking, the use of these names as reproaches admits of a division: a man would not justly be called shield-flinger in every case, but arms-loser. For the man stripped of his arms by a reasonable degree of force is not equally a shield-flinger with the man who let them go on purpose — they differ wholly and entirely. So let the law say this: if a man is overtaken by the enemy with his weapons on him and does not turn and defend himself, but lets them go or throws them away on purpose, gaining a coward's shameful life rather than the fine and happy death of courage, for such a loss of arms — arms flung away — let there be a suit; but of the other kind described before, let the judge not neglect to take account. For it is the bad man one must always punish, so that he may be better — not the unlucky man; that gains nothing. What penalty, then, would be fitting for the man who has thrown away the defensive power of such weapons for its opposite? A human being cannot do the reverse of what the god is said to have done when he changed Caeneus the Thessalian from a woman into a man's nature; but for a shield-flinger the change opposite to that one — from man back into woman — would in a way be, of all penalties, the most fitting for him.
ATHENIAN: As it is, since that is impossible, let this law stand upon such men, as the nearest thing to it, for their love of mere life — so that he may not risk what remains of it, but live on as long as possible in his cowardice, harnessed to disgrace: whatever man is convicted in a suit of having shamefully thrown away his weapons of war, no general nor any other officer of war shall ever employ him as a soldier or post him to any station whatsoever. Otherwise, the auditor shall fine the man who posted the coward: a thousand drachmas if he is of the highest property class, five minas if of the second, three minas if of the third, a mina if of the fourth. And the man convicted in the suit, besides being excluded from manly dangers, as suits his nature, shall pay a fee in addition: a thousand if he is of the highest class, five if of the second, three if of the third, and likewise a mina, as with the former, if of the fourth class. Now, concerning auditors, what account would be fitting for us, seeing that some of our officials are appointed by the chance of the lot and for a year, others for several years and from a pre-selected list? Who will be a sufficient auditor of such men, if any of them, warped in some way, or bowed by the weight of the office, handles it in a manner unworthy of it, his own capacity falling short of the office's dignity? It is by no means easy to find an official who exceeds the officials in virtue, but still we must try to discover some auditors of divine quality. For the matter stands thus: there are many critical points at which a constitution can come undone, as with a ship or an animal — the stays, the undergirders, the tendons' sinews, one nature dispersed everywhere, which we call by many names in many places; and this is one such point, and not the least, for a constitution's being preserved or dissolving and perishing. For if those who audit the officials are better than they, and act with blameless justice and blamelessly, the whole country and city flourishes and is happy; but if the auditing of the officials goes otherwise, then the justice that binds all political functions into one is dissolved, every office is torn apart from every other, and, no longer inclining to the same end, they make of one city many, fill it with faction, and swiftly destroy it. That is why the auditors must be marvelous in every virtue.
ATHENIAN: Let us then contrive their creation in some such fashion as this. Every year, after the sun's turning from summer toward winter, the whole city must assemble in the precinct shared by Helios and Apollo, to present to the god three men from among themselves — each man naming the one he judges best in every way, himself excluded, a man no younger than fifty. Of those nominated, let them select those who received the most votes, down to half, if the number comes out even; if it is odd, let them remove the one with the fewest votes, and keep the half, marking them off by the count of votes. If a tie among some makes the half too many, let them remove the excess by striking off the younger, and vote again on the rest thus approved, until three are left with unequal votes. If all three, or two, are equal, let them commit it to good destiny and fortune and separate by lot the winner and the second and the third, crown them with olive, and, having awarded these prizes of excellence, proclaim to all: the city of the Magnesians, by god's favor finding safety once more, presents to Helios its three best men, and dedicates them, according to the ancient law, as a shared first-fruit to Apollo and to Helios, for as long as they live up to the judgment. In the first year let them appoint twelve such auditors, each serving until he reaches seventy-five years of age; thereafter let three be added each year. These, dividing all the offices into twelve parts, shall scrutinize them with every test befitting free men. For as long as they serve as auditors, they shall reside in the precinct of Apollo and Helios in which they were chosen; and judging — sometimes each alone, sometimes together with one another — those who have held office for the city, they shall declare, by posting notices in the marketplace, what each office-holder must suffer or pay according to the auditors' verdict. Any official who does not admit he has been judged justly shall summon the auditors before the select judges; and if he is acquitted at the audit, let him accuse the auditors themselves, if he wishes. But if he is convicted, then if the auditors' assessment against him was death, let him simply die — for that cannot be otherwise; but of the other assessments, all that can be paid double, let him pay double. And now we must hear what the audits of these men themselves will be, and how conducted.
ATHENIAN: While these men live, then, having been judged worthy of the prizes of excellence by the whole city, let them have front seats at every public festival, and let them be sent out from among their number as heads of every sacred delegation the city sends jointly to the other Greeks — sacrifices, festival-viewings, and any other sacred rites shared in common — and let these alone, of all in the city, be adorned with a crown of laurel. All of them shall be priests of Apollo and Helios, and one shall be chief priest each year, the one judged first among that year's priests, and his name shall be recorded year by year, to serve as a measure for counting time, as long as the city stands. When they die, let their lying-in-state, their funeral procession, and their burial-places differ from those of the other citizens: the dress worn throughout shall be white, there shall be no dirges or lamentations, and a chorus of fifteen girls and another of boys shall stand around the bier, singing in turn, as it were a hymn composed in praise of the priests, blessing them in song the whole day through. At dawn the bier itself shall be carried to the tomb by a hundred of the young men from the gymnasia, chosen by the relatives of the deceased; the unmarried young men shall go first, each dressed in his war-gear, the cavalrymen with their horses, the hoplites in their armor, and the rest likewise; boys shall sing the ancestral song around the bier itself in front, and girls shall follow behind, along with all the women who are past childbearing. After these, priests and priestesses shall follow, since the tomb is pure — even if they are otherwise barred from other burials — provided the oracle at Delphi gives its assent to this arrangement as well. The tomb itself shall be an underground vault, oblong, built of stone as lasting and imperishable as can be managed, containing stone couches set side by side, where they shall lay the one who has become blessed, then heap earth around it in a mound and plant a grove of trees encircling it on every side but one, so that the tomb may keep, for all time to come, room to grow by that much earth for those laid there afterward. Each year they shall hold for them a contest in music, and one in athletics and horsemanship.
ATHENIAN: These, then, are the honors for those who pass their audits unscathed. But if one of these men, trusting in having once been judged worthy, later proves by his conduct that he is, after all, only human, and turns out corrupt after the judgment, the law must direct that anyone who wishes may indict him, and the trial in court shall proceed in some such manner as this. First, the Guardians of the Laws shall sit as this court; next, those of these honored men still living; and besides these, the court of selected judges. The one bringing the charge shall write out an indictment stating that so-and-so is unworthy of the prize of excellence and of his office; and if the defendant is convicted, let him be stripped of his office, his tomb, and all the other honors given him; but if the prosecutor fails to win a fifth of the votes, let him pay a fine — twelve minas if he is of the highest property class, eight if of the second, six if of the third, two if of the fourth. Rhadamanthys deserves admiration for the way he is said to have judged cases, because he saw plainly that the men of his time held the gods to exist — reasonably enough, since in that age most men were the offspring of gods, and he himself, so the story goes, was one of them. He evidently thought it right to entrust judgment to no human judge, but to the gods, and so his verdicts were simple and swift: he would put each disputed point to the litigants under oath, and the matter was settled quickly and safely. But now, when we say that a portion of mankind does not believe in the gods at all, and others think the gods take no thought for us, while most — and the worst of them — hold the opinion that the gods, in exchange for small offerings and flatteries, let off a great deal of stolen wealth and release men from heavy penalties, Rhadamanthys' method would no longer suit men as they are today in matters of justice. Since men's opinions about the gods have changed, the laws too must change to match. Those who frame laws with any intelligence must, in the assignment of lawsuits, do away with the oaths sworn by the two disputing parties: the one bringing a suit against another shall write out his charges but not swear an oath over them, and the defendant likewise shall write out his denial and hand it to the magistrates unsworn. For it is a dreadful thing, when a city has many lawsuits, to know for certain that nearly half the people involved have perjured themselves — and these same people go on dining together at the common messes without the least embarrassment, and meeting each other in other gatherings and in their own private family circles.
ATHENIAN: Let it be established by law, then, that a judge about to render a verdict must take an oath, and that whoever appoints men to public office for the community — whether by oath or by drawing lots taken from sacred vessels — must always do the same; likewise a judge of choral performances and of music generally, and the officials and umpires of athletic and equestrian contests, and all such offices where, by ordinary human reckoning, false swearing brings the perjurer no profit. But wherever denial and false swearing appear to bring some obvious great advantage, all such cases between mutual accusers shall be judged without oaths. And in general, the presiding officers in a trial must not allow anyone to speak under oath for the sake of persuasiveness, nor to call curses down upon himself and his family, nor to resort to unseemly begging, nor to womanish wailing, but must require that the point of justice be taught and learned throughout with proper restraint; if a litigant does otherwise, the officials, as though such talk lay outside the argument, must bring him back again and again to the matter itself. Between foreigners and foreigners, as is now the practice, let it be permitted to exchange and give oaths to one another if they wish, and to hold by them fully — for they will not grow old in our city, nor, for the most part, will they nest here and rear up other such people to share ownership of the land with us — and let the manner of assigning lawsuits between them be handled the same way for all. Whenever a free man disobeys the city in some matter not deserving of flogging, imprisonment, or death — matters concerning attendance at choral training, processions, or other such public adornments and public services connected with peacetime sacrifices or wartime levies — the first compulsion for all such offenses shall be a remedial penalty; for those who still refuse to comply, distraint of property shall be carried out by whatever officials the city and the law direct to collect it; and for those who resist even the distraint, the pledges taken shall be sold, and the proceeds shall go to the city treasury. If a heavier penalty is called for, the various magistrates shall impose the fitting fine and bring the man before the court, until he consents to do what has been ordered. As for a city that earns its living only from the land and does not engage in trade, it is bound to have deliberated about its own citizens' travel abroad and about the reception of foreigners from elsewhere — what ought to be done. The lawgiver, then, must first advise on these matters, persuading his citizens as far as he is able.
ATHENIAN: It is the nature of mingling between cities to blend all sorts of characters together, as foreigners introduce novelties to one another. This would do the very greatest harm to those who are well governed under sound laws; but for most cities, since they are nowhere near well governed, it makes no difference at all if they mix freely, receiving foreigners themselves and sending their own people flocking off to other cities, whenever anyone — young or old — takes a fancy to travel, wherever and whenever he likes. On the other hand, neither receiving outsiders at all nor ever traveling abroad oneself is simply not workable, and besides, it would look savage and harsh to the rest of mankind, if we used that ugly word people apply to it — 'driving out foreigners' — and behaved in a stubborn, forbidding manner, or seemed to. One must never think it a small matter whether one seems good to others or not; for most people, though they fall considerably short of the reality of virtue, do not fall nearly so far short in judging who among others is bad and who is good — there is something divine and unerring even in wicked men's instinct, so that a great many, even among the very worst, judge quite well, in what they say and think, which men are better and which worse. That is why it is good advice for most cities to set store by their reputation among the many. But the truest and greatest thing is this: being truly good, to pursue the reputation of a good life on that basis and no other — that, at least, for the man who is to be complete. And it would be fitting for the city we are founding in Crete to secure among the rest of mankind the fairest and best reputation possible for virtue; and there is every reasonable hope that, if things go as they should, it will be seen, along with a few others, as one of those well-governed cities and lands that gaze upon the sun and the other gods with an unclouded eye. This, then, is how matters of travel to other lands and places, and of the reception of foreigners, must be handled. First: no one younger than forty shall be permitted to travel abroad anywhere at all, under any circumstances, on his own account; but he may do so on the city's business, as a herald, an envoy, or one of the sacred observers. Journeys made in war, on campaign, do not deserve to be called civic travel abroad at all — they are a different matter.
ATHENIAN: To Delphi, for Apollo, and to Olympia, for Zeus, and to Nemea, and to the Isthmus, we must send delegations to share in the sacrifices and contests held for these gods, sending as many as possible of our finest and best people, who will make the city seem well regarded in these peaceful, sacred gatherings, to balance the reputation our people win in war. When they come home, they shall teach the young that the customs of other peoples concerning government rank second to our own. But there is another kind of observer we ought to send abroad, of the following sort, once the Guardians of the Laws have given leave: if any of our citizens wish, with rather more leisure, to observe how other men live, no law shall stand in their way. For a city with no experience of bad men and good, one that never mixes with others, could never become fully civilized and complete, nor could it hold to its laws through understanding rather than mere habit alone. Among the mass of mankind there are always some men of a divine nature — not many — worth associating with above all else, and they are born no more readily in well-governed cities than elsewhere. The man who lives in a well-governed city ought always to go in search of them, by sea and by land, tracking down whoever remains uncorrupted, so as to confirm those of his own city's customs that are rightly established, and set right whatever has been overlooked. Without this kind of observation and inquiry, a city can never remain complete — nor, indeed, if its observing is done badly. CLEINIAS: How, then, could both be secured? ATHENIAN: In this way. First, let the man we make such an observer be more than fifty years old, and, besides, one of those held in high regard, especially for service in war, if he is to carry the pattern of our Guardians of the Laws to other cities; but once past sixty, let him observe no longer. Having gone abroad to observe for as many of the next ten years as he wishes, and having returned home, let him join the assembly of those who oversee the laws. This body shall be a mixture of younger and older men, meeting each day, of necessity, from before dawn until sunrise — first the priests who have received the prizes of excellence, then the ten senior-most of the Guardians of the Laws always serving; and further, the overseer of all education, both the one currently in office and those who have already been released from that office. None of these shall attend alone, but each shall bring with him a young man, between thirty and forty years old, one who suits his own liking.
ATHENIAN: And let their meetings and discussions about laws always concern their own city, and also anything of special note they learn about such matters elsewhere—and likewise about studies, whatever in the course of this inquiry seems to help make men more reverent once they've learned it, while without it the subject of laws looks murkier and more obscure to them. Whatever of these the older men approve, let the younger ones learn with all diligence; and if any of those invited seems unworthy, let the whole assembly blame the one who invited him. As for the young men who win a good reputation among these, let the rest of the city keep watch over them, looking to them with special attention and observing them closely—honoring them when they do well, but disgracing them more than ordinary people if they turn out worse than the many. Whoever has gone abroad to study the customs of other peoples should, on his return, go straight to this assembly, and if he has found anyone able to report some word about the framing of laws or education or upbringing, or if he himself comes back having thought something out, let him share it with the whole assembly. And if he seems to have come back neither worse nor better, let him at least be commended for his sheer eagerness; but if far better, let him be praised far more, while he lives, and when he dies let the assembled body honor him with fitting honors, as far as it has power to do so. But if he seems to have come back corrupted, let him not associate with anyone, young or old, pretending to wisdom; and if he obeys the magistrates, let him live as a private citizen, but if not, let him die, provided he is convicted in court of meddling in matters of education and law. And if, though deserving to be brought to court, none of the magistrates brings him in, let that be held as a reproach against the magistrates when the prizes of excellence are awarded. So much, then, for the man who travels abroad in this manner and of this character—let him travel. As for the man who comes to visit us, after this we must turn to treating him with courtesy. There are four kinds of foreigners about whom we need to say something. The first, and the one who keeps coming continually, mostly in summer, like migrating birds—most of these, indeed, cross the sea as if flying, for the sake of trade, migrating with the season to other cities—
ATHENIAN: him the officials appointed over such matters must receive at markets, harbors, and public buildings outside but near the city, guarding lest any such foreigner stir up trouble, and dispensing justice to them properly, using only as much of it as is necessary and as little as possible. The second kind is one who truly comes to see with his eyes, and to hear whatever sights are proper to the ears devoted to the Muses. For every such person there should be lodgings prepared near the temples, offering hospitality; and the priests and temple-keepers of these places should look after and care for them, until, having stayed a reasonable time and having seen and heard what they came for, they depart unharmed, neither having done nor suffered wrong. Let the priests be their judges if anyone wrongs one of them, or if one of them wrongs someone else, in matters up to fifty drachmas; but if any greater charge arises for them, their cases must go before the market wardens. A third kind of foreigner we must receive publicly is one who has come from another country on some public business; him only the generals, cavalry commanders, and infantry commanders should receive, and the care of such a person, together with the presiding officials, belongs solely to whoever hosts him as a guest for his stay. The fourth kind—should one ever arrive, though it is rare—but should one ever come, one of our own kind of observer visiting from another country, he should first be no younger than fifty years, and besides this should be seeking to see something admirable among the beauties found in other cities, or to show something of the same kind to another city. Let such a person go, uninvited, wherever he pleases, to the doors of the rich and the wise, being himself such a person; for he may go trusting that he is a fit guest for such a host, to the house of whoever oversees the whole of education, or to the house of one of the victors in virtue's contests, and after spending time with some of these, teaching one thing and learning another, let him depart, a friend honored by friends with gifts and fitting honors. By these laws, then, we must receive all foreign men and women coming from another country, and send off our own people, honoring Zeus the god of hospitality, not driving strangers away with food and sacrifices as the creatures of the Nile do now, nor with harsh proclamations.
ATHENIAN: Let any pledge that someone gives be given explicitly, with the whole transaction set down in writing, in the presence of no fewer than three witnesses for sums under a thousand drachmas, and no fewer than five for sums above a thousand. Let the one who acts as guarantor, or who sells anything on behalf of another, be liable if the seller is acting unjustly or is not creditworthy at all; and let the one who sells on another's behalf be answerable just as the seller himself would be.If anyone wishes to search for stolen goods in another's house, let him do so naked, or wearing only a short tunic without a belt, having first sworn by the customary gods that he truly expects to find them—only then may he search. The householder must open his house, both the sealed and unsealed parts, for the search. If anyone refuses to allow a search to someone wishing to conduct one, let the one refused bring suit, having assessed the value of the goods sought, and if the defendant is convicted, let him pay double the assessed damage. If the master of the house happens to be away, those living in it must allow the unsealed parts to be searched, while the sealed parts the searcher must reseal himself, and set as guard whomever he wishes for five days; but if the owner is away longer, let him bring in the city wardens and search in this way, breaking even the sealed parts, and afterward reseal them again together with the household and the city wardens.There is a time limit for disputed possessions, after which, if someone has held the item, it may no longer be disputed. Land and dwellings here admit of no such dispute; but for anything else that someone possesses, if he is seen using it openly in the city and in the marketplace and at the temples, and no one lays claim to it, while the true claimant says he has been searching for it during this time, and the possessor is clearly not hiding it—if someone has held such a possession openly for a year in this way while the claimant searches, let no one be allowed to lay claim to such property once the year has passed. But if he does not use it in the city or marketplace, but openly in the countryside, and no claimant meets him within five years, once the five years have passed, let the claimant no longer be allowed, for the rest of time, to lay claim to it. If someone uses it within a house in the city, let the time limit be three years; but if he possesses it unseen out in the country, let it be ten years; and if it is in a foreign land, there is no time limit at all on making a claim, whenever the true owner may discover it.
ATHENIAN: If anyone forcibly prevents another from appearing at a trial, whether the man himself or his witnesses, then if the one prevented is a slave, whether his own or another's, the case becomes void and without effect; but if he is a free man, then besides the case being void, the offender is to be held in prison for a year, and lies open to a charge of kidnapping from anyone willing to bring it. If someone forcibly prevents a competitor from taking part in a gymnastic or musical contest or any other contest, let the one who wishes report it to the judges of the games, and let them free the willing competitor to enter the contest; but if they are unable to do so, then if the one who prevented him from competing wins, the prize of victory shall be given to the one who was prevented, and he shall be recorded as victor in whatever temples he wishes, while the one who caused the obstruction shall never be allowed to set up any dedication or inscription for that contest, and shall besides be liable for damages, whether he loses the contest or wins it.If anyone knowingly receives stolen goods, let him undergo the same penalty as the thief; and let the penalty for harboring an exile be death.Let everyone regard the same people as friends and enemies as the city does; and if anyone privately makes peace or war with others apart from the community, let death be his penalty too; and if some part of the city makes peace or war on its own account with others, let the generals bring those responsible for this action before the court, and if convicted, let death be their sentence.Those who serve their country in any capacity must serve without taking gifts, and there must be no excuse, no approved argument that one should accept gifts for good service but not for bad; for it is not easy to discern this and, having discerned it, to hold firm—so it is safest to obey the law and simply take no gifts for one's service. Whoever disobeys, if convicted in court, shall simply be put to death.Regarding contributions of money to the public treasury, let each person's property be assessed for the sake of many needs, and let the tribesmen report the yearly yield in writing to the land wardens, so that with two kinds of levy available, the public treasury may use whichever it wishes, deciding each year whether to draw on a portion of the total assessed value or on the yearly income actually produced, apart from what is paid toward the common meals.
ATHENIAN: The moderate man must give the gods offerings that are moderate in measure. Now the earth and the hearth of one's dwelling are sacred to all the gods together; so let no one consecrate them a second time as sacred to the gods. Gold and silver, in other cities, are a possession that breeds envy, whether held privately or dedicated in temples; ivory, coming from a body that has lost its life, is not a pure offering; iron and bronze are instruments of war. Whatever wooden object anyone wishes, carved from a single piece of wood, let him dedicate, and likewise of stone, for the common temples; and as for woven work, let it be no more than a single woman's work in a single month. White colors would be fitting for the gods, both elsewhere and in woven work; but dyes should not be used except for the ornaments of war. The most godlike gifts are birds and images such as a single painter can complete in a single day; and let all other offerings be fashioned after this same pattern.Now that the parts of the whole city have been distinguished, as many and such as they need to be, and laws about contracts have been stated, as far as possible, concerning nearly all the greatest matters, what remains would be the matter of lawsuits. As for courts, the first kind would be judges chosen by agreement, whom both the defendant and the plaintiff select jointly—these more fittingly bear the name of arbitrators than of judges. The second kind are the villagers and tribesmen, divided into twelfth parts, before whom, if the parties are not settled at the first stage, they must go to contest the matter over a greater penalty; and the defendant, if he loses a second time, must pay a fifth part of the assessed value of the suit that was filed. And if someone wishing to bring a complaint against the judges wants to contest the case a third time, let him bring the suit before the selected judges, and if he loses again, let him pay one and a half times the assessed value. And if the plaintiff, having lost at the first stage, does not let the matter rest but goes on to the second, then if he wins let him receive back a fifth part, but if he loses let him pay the same portion of the suit's value. And if the parties, having disregarded the earlier judgments, come to the third court, the defendant, if he loses, as has been said, shall pay one and a half times the value, and the plaintiff shall pay half the assessed value. As for the allotment and filling of courts, and the appointment of assistants for each office, and the times at which each of these matters must take place, and about the casting and postponement of votes, and all the other necessary matters concerning lawsuits—the assignment of earlier and later cases, the requirements for answers and counter-deposits, and all their kindred matters—we have spoken of these before, but it is good to state what is right twice and even three times.
ATHENIAN: Now for all the small and easy regulations that an older lawgiver has left to be found, it falls to the younger lawgiver to fill them in. For private courts this would give roughly the right measure; but as for public and communal matters, and whatever the officials need in order to administer the duties proper to each office, there exist in many cities, thanks to reasonable men, quite a few decent enactments on these subjects. From these the Guardians of the Law must work out what is fitting for the constitution now being born, reasoning it through, correcting it, testing each provision against experience, until each part seems adequately settled — and only then, setting the final seal on it as unchangeable, use it for the whole of life. As for the rules about silence and respectful speech in the courts, and their opposites, and whatever else departs from what most other cities count as just, good, and honorable — some of this has already been said, and some will be said further on, near the end. Any future judge, in order to be fair in his judgments, must keep his eye on all of this, and must possess a written text of it and learn it. For of all subjects of study, none has more power to make the student better than a correct exposition of the laws — if indeed they have been rightly laid down — or else our divine and wondrous law would bear its name in vain. And indeed, of all the other kinds of discourse — the praises and blames spoken of people in poems, and those spoken in prose, whether written down or argued day after day, out of rivalry, in every other kind of gathering, and sometimes conceded out of sheer emptiness — for all of these the lawgiver's writings would be the clear touchstone. The good judge must hold them within himself like an antidote against all other speeches, and by means of them set both himself and the city straight, providing for the good the preservation and increase of just conduct, and for the bad, so far as possible, a turning away from ignorance, licentiousness, cowardice, and, in short, all injustice — for those whose faults seem curable.
ATHENIAN: But for those whose thread is truly spun to ruin, death is the cure they should be given for souls so disposed — a thing that might justly be repeated many times over — and judges of this kind, and the leaders of judges, would deserve praise from the whole city. Once the year's trials have reached their verdicts, the following must become law for enforcing them. First, the court that rendered the judgment must have the losing party's property, apart from what is necessary for him to keep, handed over in full to the winner, immediately after each vote, by the herald's proclamation, in the judges' hearing. And once the month following the trial-months arrives, if anyone has not freely and willingly settled with the winner, the court that judged the case must, in cooperation with the winner, hand over the loser's property. If they lack the means, and the shortfall is not less than a drachma, that person is not to be permitted to bring suit against anyone else until he has paid the whole debt to the winner in full; others, however, may bring suit against him as normal. And if anyone, after being condemned, forcibly deprives the court of its judgment, those wrongfully deprived must haul him before the Law-Guardians' court; and should he lose such a suit, let him be punished with death, as one who is destroying the whole city and its laws. As for a man born after this, raised, having himself begotten and raised children, having engaged in dealings in due measure, having paid the penalty if he wronged anyone and exacted it from another, and having grown old within the laws in his proper turn — his end would come about naturally. Concerning the dead, whether male or female, the religious observances owed to the gods below the earth and to those here above, whatever is proper to be performed, the Interpreters shall have authority to declare. As for burial grounds, none shall be on arable land, neither a large monument nor a small one; rather, wherever the land has a nature suited only to this purpose — receiving the bodies of the dead in a way least distressing to the living — such places shall be used to the full, and none, living or dead, shall deprive the living among us of whatever land, as mother, is naturally fitted to bear food for human beings.
ATHENIAN: The burial mound is not to be heaped higher than what five men could complete in five days; nor are stone markers to be made larger than what would hold an inscription praising the life of the deceased in no more than four heroic verses. The laying-out of the body, first of all, is not to remain indoors longer than it takes to make clear whether the person is merely in a trance or truly dead — and, allowing for human nature, the right measure would be roughly a burial procession to the tomb on the third day. One must trust the lawgiver on this point, among others, when he says that the soul is altogether different from the body, and that in life itself what makes each of us who we are is nothing but the soul, while the body follows along as a semblance of each of us; and it is well said that when we die, the corpses of the dead are images, while the true self of each of us, truly existing, is called the immortal soul, which departs to render its account before other gods — as our ancestral law declares — a thing that gives confidence to the good and great fear to the bad, and for which no great help can be given once a person has died. For it was while he was alive that all his relations needed to help him, so that living he might live as justly and as reverently as possible, and dying, might be free of retribution for wrongs and errors in the life that follows this one. Given this, one must never ruin one's household with expense, thinking that this mass of flesh being buried is especially one's own; rather, one must think that the son, or brother, or whoever it is one most feels the loss of and wishes to bury, has departed, having completed and fulfilled his own allotted portion, and that what remains is to do well by the present occasion, spending moderate amounts, as though upon a lifeless altar of the powers below. What is moderate the lawgiver may divine without too much impropriety. Let this, then, be the law: for the man of the highest property class, the total expenditure on the burial shall be no more than five minas; for the second class, three minas; for the third, two; and for the fourth, one mina would be a fitting measure of expense. The Guardians of the Law must necessarily attend to many other matters and take care of many things, and not least of these, seeing to it that children, men, and people of every age live under their oversight; and, moreover, at the very end for all of them, some one Guardian of the Law must take charge, whichever one the household of the deceased chooses as overseer, for whom it shall be a matter of honor that everything concerning the deceased is done well and in due measure, and a disgrace if it is not done well.
ATHENIAN: The laying-out of the body and everything else shall proceed according to the customary law governing such matters, but the following points must be left to the political lawgiver to prescribe: that weeping for the dead be ordered or forbidden as not unseemly; that wailing, and the raising of the voice outside the house, be forbidden; that carrying the corpse into public view along the streets be prevented, and that anyone in the procession be forbidden from crying out; and that the procession be outside the city before daybreak. Let these, then, be the customary rules laid down concerning such matters, and let the one who obeys be free of penalty, while the one who disobeys any one of the Guardians of the Law be fined by all of them, the fine being whatever seems right to all in common. All the other matters concerning burials of the dead, or the withholding of burial, concerning parricides, temple-robbers, and all such people, have been stated earlier among the laws, so that our legislation would now be virtually complete. Yet the completion of any and every undertaking lies, roughly speaking, not in the doing of it, nor in its acquisition and establishment, but rather in finding, once and for all, a lasting means of preservation for what has been produced; only then should we consider that everything that needed doing has been done — before that, the whole thing is incomplete. CLEINIAS: Well said, stranger; but tell me still more clearly what this last remark was aimed at. ATHENIAN: Cleinias, much of what came before has been well celebrated in song, and among the things not least well sung are the titles given to the Fates. CLEINIAS: Which ones do you mean? ATHENIAN: That Lachesis is the first, Clotho the second, and Atropos the third, the preserver of what has been spun, likened to the unturning power that the spinners impart by fire — a power that a city and its constitution must supply not only as health and safety for bodies, but also as good order for souls, or rather, as the preservation of the laws. It seems to me that this is still lacking in our laws: how the unchanging power natural to those goddesses is to come to be present in them. CLEINIAS: What you say is no small matter, if indeed it is impossible to find some way for every such possession to come about. ATHENIAN: But it is possible, as now appears altogether clear to me. CLEINIAS: Then let us not give up in any way until we have secured this very thing for the laws we have stated; for it would be ridiculous to labor pointlessly over something and cast it down on no firm foundation. ATHENIAN: Your urging is right, and you will find me of the same mind. CLEINIAS: Well said, then. What, you ask, would be the preservation, and in what manner, for our constitution and our laws?
ATHENIAN: Did we not say that there must be an assembly gathered in our city of the following kind? The ten eldest of the Guardians of the Law, always, together with all those who have received the prizes of excellence, are to assemble together with them; and further, those who traveled abroad in search of anything useful to hear regarding the guardianship of the laws, and who returned home safely, shall, once tested and examined by these same men, be judged worthy to share in the assembly. And besides these, each member is to bring in one young man, not less than thirty years old, first judging for himself that the young man is worthy by nature and upbringing, and so present him to the others; and if the others agree, they shall admit him, but if not, the judgment reached shall remain secret, especially from the one rejected. The assembly is to meet early in the morning, at the time when everyone is most free from other business, private and public. Was something of this sort said in our earlier discussions? CLEINIAS: It was indeed. ATHENIAN: Taking up again, then, the subject of this assembly, I would say the following. I claim that if someone were to set it down as, so to speak, an anchor for the whole city, having everything suited to itself, it would preserve everything we want preserved. CLEINIAS: How so? ATHENIAN: This, then, would be the moment for us to spare no eagerness in explaining it rightly. CLEINIAS: You have spoken very well; do just as you intend. ATHENIAN: One must, then, Cleinias, consider, for everything, what serves as the fitting savior in each of its works — as in a living creature, soul and head are by nature the greatest such things. CLEINIAS: What do you mean now? ATHENIAN: The excellence of these two surely provides safety for every living creature. CLEINIAS: How so? ATHENIAN: When intelligence arises in the soul, in addition to its other qualities, and sight and hearing arise in the head, in addition to its other qualities — in short, intelligence blended with the finest senses, becoming a unity, would most justly be called the safety of each. CLEINIAS: So it seems, at any rate. ATHENIAN: It does indeed seem so. But what is the intelligence, blended with the senses, that would be the safety of ships in both storms and calm weather? Is it not that, on a ship, the helmsman together with the sailors, blending their senses with the helmsman's intelligence, preserve both themselves and everything belonging to the ship? CLEINIAS: Of course.
ATHENIAN: We don't need many examples of this kind of thing. Just think what target a general sets for an army, and what target every branch of the medical service aims at, if it's aiming correctly at preservation. Isn't it victory and mastery over the enemy for the one, and the provision of bodily health for the doctors and their assistants? CLEINIAS: Of course. ATHENIAN: And could a doctor who doesn't know what we just called health, or a general who doesn't know victory, or any of the others we've gone through who doesn't know his own goal, possibly be said to have any sense about his job? CLEINIAS: How could he? ATHENIAN: And what about a city? If someone appeared not to know the target a statesman must keep his eye on, could he rightly be called a ruler at all to begin with, let alone be capable of preserving something whose very target he doesn't even know? CLEINIAS: How could he? ATHENIAN: So it seems that now too, if the settling of our territory is going to reach completion, there must be something in it that knows this very thing we're talking about, the target, whatever it turns out to be for our statesman, and knows next how one ought to share in it, and who advises well or badly about it, the laws themselves first, and then the men. If a city is empty of anything like that, it's no wonder if, being mindless and senseless, it does whatever happens to come up in each of its various actions. CLEINIAS: True. ATHENIAN: So now, in which part of the city, or in which of its practices, do we have anything adequately equipped to serve as such a safeguard? Can we say? CLEINIAS: No, stranger, not clearly at least. But if I have to guess, I think this discussion is heading toward the assembly you just said had to meet at night. ATHENIAN: An excellent guess, Cleinias. And as the argument now before us shows, that body must possess virtue entire, and the first thing that virtue requires is not wandering off aiming at many things, but keeping one's eye fixed on a single target and, looking to that, always shooting everything, like arrows, toward it. CLEINIAS: Absolutely. ATHENIAN: Now we'll understand why it's no wonder that the customary laws of cities wander all over the place, since each city's legislation looks to a different thing. In most cases it's no surprise that for some the standard of justice is how certain people will rule in the city, whether they happen to be better or worse, while for others it's how they'll grow rich, whether or not they happen to be somebody's slaves; and others again are driven by eagerness for a life of freedom. Some legislate with a pair of aims in view, wanting to be free and also masters over other cities at the same time; and the cleverest, as they think themselves, aim at all of these things together and any others like them, without being able to point to any single thing, distinctly prized above the rest, that everything else ought to look toward.
CLEINIAS: Then surely, stranger, what we laid down long ago was correct? We said that all our laws must always look toward one thing, and we agreed, quite rightly I think, that this one thing is virtue. ATHENIAN: Yes. CLEINIAS: And we set down virtue as fourfold. ATHENIAN: Certainly. CLEINIAS: And nous as the leader of all these, the thing toward which the other three, and everything else besides, must look. ATHENIAN: You're following beautifully, Cleinias. Keep following through the rest. We said that the nous of a pilot, of a doctor, and of a general all look toward that one thing they must aim at; and now we're testing the statesman's nous on this very point, and, as though questioning a person, we might say to him: My good sir, where exactly are you looking? What is that one thing which the medical mind can clearly name, while you, who claim to surpass all sensible people, can't say what it is? Or can you two, Megillus and Cleinias, spell it out for me and tell me what you say it is, the way I've distinguished plenty of other things for you? CLEINIAS: No, we can't, stranger. ATHENIAN: And what about the need to be eager to see this thing itself, and see it in the cases where it applies? CLEINIAS: Which cases do you mean? ATHENIAN: For instance, when we said there are four kinds of virtue, clearly each one of them, being one of four, must be called one thing. CLEINIAS: Of course. ATHENIAN: And yet we call all of them together one thing as well. We say courage is virtue, and wisdom is virtue, and the other two as well, as though they weren't really many things but only this one thing, virtue. CLEINIAS: Quite so. ATHENIAN: Now, how these two differ from each other and each got its own name, along with the others, isn't hard to say. But how it is that we call both of them by one name, virtue, and the others too, that's no longer so easy. CLEINIAS: What do you mean? ATHENIAN: What I mean isn't hard to show. Let's divide the questioning and answering between us. CLEINIAS: How do you mean this time? ATHENIAN: Ask me why, when we call both by one name, virtue, we then again call them by two names, courage and wisdom. I'll tell you the reason: it's because the one, courage, has to do with fear, something even wild animals share in, along with the characters of very young children; a soul can become courageous by nature, without any reasoning at all. But a soul that is wise and possesses nous, apart from reasoning, has never come to be, does not exist now, and never will exist in the future, since that's a different sort of thing altogether. CLEINIAS: True.
ATHENIAN: So, as for how these two are different, and are two, you've received that from me in argument. Now give me back, in turn, how they are one and the same. Think of it as though you were the one explaining, and showing how four things are one; and then ask the same of me, once you've shown how they're one, to show in turn how they're four. And after that let's consider whether someone who has adequate knowledge of anything at all that has both a name and a definition ought to know only the name, and be ignorant of the definition, or whether it's shameful for someone who truly amounts to something to be ignorant of all such things concerning the very matters that differ most in greatness and beauty. CLEINIAS: It certainly seems so. ATHENIAN: Is there anything more important for a lawgiver and a guardian of the laws, and for someone who thinks he surpasses everyone in virtue and has carried off the prizes for it, than these very things we're now discussing, courage, moderation, justice, wisdom? CLEINIAS: How could there be? ATHENIAN: So shouldn't the interpreters, the teachers, the lawgivers, the guardians set over everyone else, in dealing with someone who needs to learn and understand, or someone who needs correction and rebuke for wrongdoing, teach him thoroughly what power vice and virtue have and make it perfectly plain, so as to be superior to others, rather than have some poet who comes into the city, or some self-styled educator of the young, appear better than the man who has mastered virtue entire? And then, in such a city, where the guardians are not adequate in word and deed alike, having sufficient knowledge about virtue, is it any wonder that this city, being unguarded, suffers what many cities today suffer? CLEINIAS: No wonder at all, it seems. ATHENIAN: Well then? Must we do what we're now describing, or how? Must we make the guardians more precise than the many in virtue, both in word and deed? Or in what way will our city be made to resemble the head and senses of intelligent people, since it possesses this kind of guardianship within itself? CLEINIAS: How exactly, stranger, and in what way, do we compare it to such a thing when we speak this way? ATHENIAN: Clearly the city itself is like the trunk of the body, while among the guardians, the young ones, those chosen as the most naturally gifted, with sharp perception throughout their whole soul, are stationed as if on the topmost peak, keeping watch all around the whole city,
ATHENIAN: and, as sentries, hand over their perceptions to memory, and report to the elders everything that goes on in the city; while those who are likened to the mind, because they think through many things worthy of note with distinctive excellence, the old men, are to deliberate, and, using the young as their assistants along with joint counsel, are together to preserve the whole city in this way, working as one. Is this how we should describe it, or in some other way ought it to be set up? Should we have everyone equal, without distinguishing certain ones as raised and educated with greater precision? CLEINIAS: But, my good sir, that's impossible. ATHENIAN: Then we must proceed to some more precise education than what came before. CLEINIAS: Perhaps. ATHENIAN: And might it turn out that the education we've just now more or less touched on is the very one we need? CLEINIAS: Absolutely. ATHENIAN: Didn't we say that the finest craftsman and guardian in any field must not only be able to look toward the many, but must press on to know the one, and, once he knows it, arrange everything with reference to that, keeping it all in view together? CLEINIAS: Correctly said. ATHENIAN: Could there be a more precise examination and view of anything at all than the ability to look from the many and dissimilar toward a single form? CLEINIAS: Perhaps. ATHENIAN: Not perhaps, it truly is so, my good man; there is no clearer method than this for any human being. CLEINIAS: Trusting you, stranger, I agree, and let's proceed on this basis in our discussion. ATHENIAN: Then it seems we must compel the guardians of our divine constitution to see with precision, first of all, what it is that remains the same running through all four, the thing we say is one within courage, moderation, justice, and wisdom, and which is rightly called by the single name of virtue. This, my friends, if we're willing, we must now grip tightly and not let go, until we've said adequately what it is we must look toward, whether as one, or as a whole, or both, or however its nature really is. Or, if this escapes us, do we imagine we'll ever be adequately equipped concerning virtue, when we won't be able to say whether it is many, or four, or one? Certainly not, if we're persuaded by our own counsel, we'll have to devise some other way for this to come to exist among us in the city. But if it seems best to drop the matter altogether, we must look to that too. CLEINIAS: By the god of hospitality, stranger, such a thing must certainly not be dropped, you seem to us to be speaking most correctly. But how could one manage to bring this about?
ATHENIAN: Let's not yet say how we might manage it; let's first make sure, by agreement among ourselves, whether it must be done at all or not. CLEINIAS: But surely it must, if it's possible. ATHENIAN: Well then, do we think the same about the beautiful and the good? Must our guardians know only that each of these is many, or also how and in what way each is one? CLEINIAS: It seems more or less necessary that they think through how it is one as well. ATHENIAN: And what if they can conceive it but are unable to demonstrate it in argument? CLEINIAS: How could that be? You're describing the condition of a slave. ATHENIAN: And what about this, does the same account hold for all serious matters, that those who are truly to be guardians of the laws must truly know the truth about them, and be capable both of explaining it adequately in speech and of following it in their actions, judging what is done rightly and what is not in accordance with nature? CLEINIAS: Of course. ATHENIAN: And isn't one of the finest of these matters what concerns the gods, which we worked through so earnestly, namely that they exist, and how great is the power they evidently hold; knowing this to the extent a human being is able to know it, and forgiving most people in the city for merely following the reputation of the laws, while not permitting this for those who are to share in the guardianship, unless someone has thoroughly worked to gain every possible conviction there is concerning the gods? And that the refusal of such trust should mean that the guardians of the laws never choose as one of their own a man who is not divine and has not labored diligently over these matters, nor let him be judged fit for virtue either? CLEINIAS: It's only just, as you say, that someone lazy or incapable regarding such things should be kept far from what is noble. ATHENIAN: Do we know, then, that there are two things that lead to conviction about the gods, of all we went through earlier? CLEINIAS: What are they? ATHENIAN: One is what we said about the soul, that it is the eldest and most divine of all things whose motion, once it has taken on generation, has furnished it with ever-flowing being. The other concerns the orderly movement of the stars and everything else over which nous, having arranged the whole universe, holds mastery.
ATHENIAN: Whoever looks at these things properly, and not in a shallow or amateurish way, could never grow up so godless as to feel anything but the opposite of what most people expect. Most people think that those who take up such studies—astronomy and the other sciences bound up with it of necessity—become godless, because they've seen how things happen by necessity rather than by the purposeful working of a mind bent on good ends. CLEINIAS: Well, how does it actually stand? ATHENIAN: Exactly the opposite, as I said, of how it stood when people thought of these bodies as lifeless. Even then people were struck with wonder at them, and those who studied them closely already suspected what is now firmly established—that bodies without soul could never make use of such precise and marvelous calculations unless they possessed mind. Indeed some in that very age dared to risk saying just this, that it was mind that had ordered everything in the heavens. But those same people, going wrong about the nature of soul—thinking it younger than body when it is in fact older—overturned practically everything, so to speak, and ruined their own case far more than anything else. Because what lay right before their eyes—all the bodies moving through the heavens—appeared to them to be crammed with stones and earth and a mass of other soulless matter, which they made responsible for the causes of the whole universe. That's what produced, in that period, a great deal of atheism and hostility toward such inquiries, and it's what brought on the poets' mockery, comparing philosophers to useless dogs howling pointlessly, along with other foolish things they said. But now, as I said, everything stands the opposite way. CLEINIAS: How so? ATHENIAN: No mortal man can ever become a secure and steady worshiper of the gods unless he grasps these two truths now being stated: that soul is the oldest of all things that share in generation, and immortal, and rules over all bodies; and beyond that—as has been said many times now—he must grasp the mind that has been said to reside among the stars governing all things that exist, along with the necessary studies that come before this, and having seen how these connect with music, put them to use in harmony with the practices and customs of moral life, and be able to give a rational account of everything that admits of one.
ATHENIAN: Whoever isn't capable of acquiring these things, along with the ordinary civic virtues, could scarcely ever become a ruler adequate to the whole city—he'd only ever be fit to serve other rulers. So now, Cleinias and Megillus, we need to consider whether, in addition to all the laws we've gone through, we should add this one as well: that the nocturnal council of the officials shall stand as a legal safeguard for the city's preservation, having shared in the full education we've described. Or how shall we proceed? CLEINIAS: My good man, how could we not add it, if we're at all able to manage it, even partway? ATHENIAN: Then let's all strive together toward this. As for my part, I would gladly join you as a partner in the effort—and I may perhaps find others to join me too—because of my long experience and considerable reflection on such matters. CLEINIAS: Well, stranger, above everything we must go the way that the god is more or less leading us. But what the right method would be for us to follow—that's what we should discuss and investigate now. ATHENIAN: It's no longer possible, Megillus and Cleinias, to legislate about such matters before the council itself has been formed—only once it exists should it become authoritative over what it must itself legislate. But what actually shapes such people would come about through instruction joined with a great deal of shared association, if it's carried out correctly. CLEINIAS: How so? What should we say this means? ATHENIAN: First of all, presumably, a list would have to be drawn up of those suited by nature for this guardianship, in age, in capacity for learning, in character, and in habits. After that come the things that must be learned, which are neither easy to discover nor easy to learn as another's pupil once they've been discovered. Beyond this, the times and the order in which each subject should be taken up—it would be pointless to set these down in writing, since not even the learners themselves could see that they were learning at the right moment, until each of them had gained genuine knowledge of the subject within his own soul. So, put this way, to call all this 'unspeakable' would not be quite right, yet it's 'unspoken' in the sense that nothing said in advance would make clear what's actually meant. CLEINIAS: Given that this is how things stand, stranger, what then should we do?
ATHENIAN: What we're saying, my friends, seems to rest on shared and even ground between us—and if we're truly willing to gamble everything on the constitution as a whole, we must do as the saying goes, throw either triple sixes or triple ones. I'll take that risk together with you, by stating and explaining what I've concluded about the education and upbringing we've just been discussing again. The risk, mind you, is no small one, nor comparable to any other. This much, Cleinias, I urge you to take to heart: it will be you who either wins the greatest glory by properly establishing this city of the Magnesians, or whatever name the god gives it—or else you will never escape being thought the bravest man among those who come after. And if this divine council of ours truly comes into being, my dear companions, the city must be handed over to it; none of today's lawgivers, one might say, would dispute that. And what we touched on in speech a little earlier, as if in a dream, sketching some rough image of a shared mind and head, will really come to pass, practically wide awake, if only the men are chosen with precision, trained as they should be, and once trained, settle in the acropolis of the land and are made into guardians the likes of which we have never before seen in our lives, guardians of the sort needed for the preservation of virtue. MEGILLUS: My dear Cleinias, from everything that's just been said, either we must give up founding the city, or we must not let this stranger go, but by every entreaty and every device make him a partner in the city's founding. CLEINIAS: Very true, Megillus, and I will do just that—and you must help me. MEGILLUS: I will help.