Plato: Laws Book 4

[704a]

Athenian
Come now, what is this State going to be, shall we suppose I am not asking for its present name or the name it will have to go by in the future; for this might be derived from the conditions of its settlement, or from some locality, or a river or spring or some local deity might bestow its sacred title [704b] on the new State. The point of my question about it is rather this,—is it to be an inland State, or situated on the sea-coast?

Clinias
The State which I mentioned just now, Stranger, lies about eighty stades, roughly speaking, from the sea.

Athenian
Well, has it harbors on the sea-board side, or is it quite without harbors?

Clinias
It has excellent harbors on that side, Stranger, none better. [704c]

Athenian
Dear me! how unfortunate!1 But what of the surrounding country? Is it productive in all respects, or deficient in some products?

Clinias
There is practically nothing that it is deficient in.

Athenian
Will there be any State bordering close on it?

Clinias
None at all, and that is the reason for settling it. Owing to emigration from this district long ago, the country has lain desolate for ever so long.

Athenian
How about plains, mountains and forests? What extent of each of these does it contain? [704d]

Clinias
As a whole, it resembles in character the rest of Crete.

Athenian
You would call it hilly rather than level?

Clinias Certainly.

Athenian
Then it would not be incurably unfit for the acquisition of virtue. For if the State was to be on the sea-coast, and to have fine harbors, and to be deficient in many products, instead of productive of everything,—in that case it would need a mighty savior and divine lawgivers, if, with such a character, it was to avoid having a variety of luxurious and depraved habits.2 As things are, however, there is consolation in the fact of that eighty stades. Still, it lies unduly near the sea, and the more so because, as you say, its harbors are good; that, however, we must make the best of. [705a] For the sea is, in very truth, “a right briny and bitter neighbor,”3 although there is sweetness in its proximity for the uses of daily life; for by filling the markets of the city with foreign merchandise and retail trading, and breeding in men's souls knavish and tricky ways, it renders the city faithless and loveless, not to itself only, but to the rest of the world as well. But in this respect [705b] our State has compensation in the fact that it is all-productive; and since it is hilly, it cannot be highly productive as well as all-productive; if it were, and supplied many exports, it would be flooded in return with gold and silver money—the one condition of all, perhaps, that is most fatal, in a State, to the acquisition of noble and just habits of life,—as we said, if you remember, in our previous discourse.4

Clinias
We remember, and we endorse what you said both then and now. [705c]

Athenian
Well, then, how is our district off for timber for ship-building?

Clinias
There is no fir to speak of, nor pine, and but little cypress; nor could one find much larch or plane, which shipwrights are always obliged to use for the interior fittings of ships.

Athenian
Those, two, are natural features which would not be bad for the country.

Clinias
Why so? [705d]

Athenian
That a State should not find it easy to copy its enemies in bad habits is a good thing.

Clinias
To which of our statements does this observation allude?

Athenian
My dear Sir, keep a watch on me, with an eye cast back on our opening5 statement about the Cretan laws. It asserted that those laws aimed at one single object; and whereas you declared that this object was military strength, I made the rejoinder that, while it was right that such enactments should have virtue for their aim, I did not at all approve of that aim being restricted to a part, instead of applying to the whole. [705e] So do you now, in turn, keep a watch on my present lawmaking, as you follow it, in case I should enact any law either not tending to virtue at all, or tending only to a part of it. For I lay it down as an axiom that no law is rightly enacted which does not aim always, like an archer, at that object, and that alone, which is constantly [706a] accompanied by something ever-beautiful,—passing over every other object, be it wealth or anything else of the kind that is devoid of beauty. To illustrate how the evil imitation of enemies, which I spoke of, comes about, when people dwell by the sea and are vexed by enemies, I will give you an example (though with no wish, of course, to recall to you painful memories). When Minos, once upon a time, reduced the people of Attica [706b] to a grievous payment of tribute, he was very powerful by sea, whereas they possessed no warships at that time such as they have now, nor was their country so rich in timber that they could easily supply themselves with a naval force. Hence they were unable quickly to copy the naval methods of their enemies and drive them off by becoming sailors themselves. And indeed it would have profited them to lose seventy times seven children [706c] rather than to become marines instead of staunch foot-soldiers; for marines are habituated to jumping ashore frequently and running back at full speed to their ships, and they think no shame of not dying boldly at their posts when the enemy attack; and excuses are readily made for them, as a matter of course, when they fling away their arms and betake themselves to what they describe as “no dishonorable flight.” These “exploits” are the usual result of employing naval soldiery, and they merit, not “infinite praise,” but precisely the opposite; [706d] for one ought never to habituate men to base habits, and least of all the noblest section of the citizens. That such an institution is not a noble one might have been learnt even from Homer. For he makes Odysseus abuse Agamemnon for ordering the Achaeans to haul down their ships to the sea, when they were being pressed in fight by the Trojans; and in his wrath he speaks thus:— [706e] “Dost bid our people hale their fair-benched ships Seaward, when war and shouting close us round? So shall the Trojans see their prayers fulfilled, And so on us shall sheer destruction fall! For, when the ships are seaward drawn, no more Will our Achaeans hold the battle up, But, backward glancing, they will quit the fray: ” [707a]

  “Thus baneful counsel such as thine will prove.
  ”
  Hom. Il. 14.96

So Homer, too, was aware of the fact that triremes lined up in the sea alongside of infantry fighting on land are a bad thing: why, even lions, if they had habits such as these, would grow used to running away from does! Moreover, States dependent upon navies for their power give honors, as rewards for their safety, to a section of their forces that is not the finest; for they owe their safety to the arts of the pilot, the captain and the rower— [707b] men of all kinds and not too respectable,—so that it would be impossible to assign the honors to each of them rightly. Yet, without rectitude in this, how can it still be right with a State?6

Clinias
It is well-nigh impossible. None the less, Stranger, it was the sea-fight at Salamis, fought by the Greeks against the barbarians, which, as we Cretans at least affirm, saved Greece.

Athenian
Yes, that is what is said by most of the Greeks and barbarians. [707c] But we—that is, I myself and our friend Megillus—affirm that it was the land-battle of Marathon which began the salvation of Greece, and that of Plataea which completed it; and we affirm also that, whereas these battles made the Greeks better, the sea-fights made them worse,—if one may use such an expression about battles that helped at that time to save us (for I will let you count Artemisium also as a sea-fight, as well as Salamis). Since, however, [707d] our present object is political excellence, it is the natural character of a country and its legal arrangements that we are considering; so that we differ from most people in not regarding mere safety and existence as the most precious thing men can possess, but rather the gaining of all possible goodness and the keeping of it throughout life. This too, I believe, was stated by us before.7

Clinias
It was.

Athenian
Then let us consider only this,—whether we are traversing by the same road which we took then, as being the best for states in the matter of settlements and modes of legislation. [707e]

Clinias
The best by far.

Athenian
In the next place tell me this: who are the people that are to be settled? Will they comprise all that wish to go from any part of Crete, supposing that there has grown up in every city a surplus population too great for the country's food supply? For you are not; I presume, collecting all who wish to go from Greece; although I do, indeed, see in your country settlers from Argos, Aegina, [708a] and other parts of Greece. So tell us now from what quarters the present expedition of citizens is likely to be drawn.

Clinias
It will probably be from the whole of Crete and of the rest of the Greeks, they seem most ready to admit people from the Peloponnese as fellow-settlers. For it is quite true, as you said just now, that we have some here from Argos, amongst them being the most famous of our clans, the Gortynian, which is a colony from Gortys, in the Peloponnese. [708b]

Athenian
It would not be equally easy for States to conduct settlements in other cases as in those when, like a swarm of bees, a single clan goes out from a single country and settles, as a friend coming from friends, being either squeezed out by lack of room or forced by some other such pressing need. At times, too, the violence of civil strife might compel a whole section of a State to emigrate; and on one occasion an entire State went into exile, when it was totally crushed by an overpowering attack. [708c] All such cases are in one way easier to manage, as regards settling and legislation, but in another way harder. In the case where the race is one, with the same language and laws, this unity makes for friendliness, since it shares also in sacred rites and all matters of religion; but such a body does not easily tolerate laws or polities which differ from those of its homeland. Again, where such a body has seceded owing to civil strife due to the badness of the laws, but still strives to retain, owing to long habit, the very customs which caused its former ruin, then, because of this, it proves a difficult and intractable subject for the person who has control of its settlement and its laws. [708d] On the other hand, the clan that is formed by fusion of various elements would perhaps be more ready to submit to new laws, but to cause it to share in one spirit and pant (as they say) in unison like a team of horses would be a lengthy task and most difficult. But in truth legislation and the settlement of States are tasks that require men perfect above all other men in goodness.

Clinias
Very probably; but tell us still more clearly the purport of these observations. [708e]

Athenian
My good Sir, in returning to the subject of lawgivers in our investigation, I may probably have to cast a slur on them; but if what I say is to the point, then there will be no harm in it. Yet why should I vex myself? For practically all human affairs seem to be in this same plight.

Clinias
What is it you refer to?

Athenian
I was on the point of saying that no man ever makes laws, [709a] but chances and accidents of all kinds, occurring in all sorts of ways, make all our laws for us. For either it is a war that violently upsets polities and changes laws, or it is the distress due to grievous poverty. Diseases, too, often force on revolutions, owing to the inroads of pestilences and recurring bad seasons prolonged over many years. Foreseeing all this, one might deem it proper to say—as I said just now—that no mortal man frames any law, [709b] but human affairs are nearly all matters of pure chance. But the fact is that, although one may appear to be quite right in saying this about sea-faring and the arts of the pilot, the physician, and the general, yet there really is something else that we may say with equal truth about these same things.

Clinias
What is that?

Athenian
That God controls all that is, and that Chance and Occasion co-operate with God in the control of all human affairs. It is, however, less harsh to admit that these two must be accompanied by a third factor, which is Art. For that the pilots' art [709c] should cooperate with Occasion—verily I, for one, should esteem that a great advantage. Is it not so?

Clinias
It is.

Athenian
Then we must grant that this is equally true in the other cases also, by parity of reasoning, including the case of legislation. When all the other conditions are present which a country needs to possess in the way of fortune if it is ever to be happily settled, then every such State needs to meet with a lawgiver who holds fast to truth. [709d]

Clinias
Very true.

Athenian
Would not, then, the man who possessed art in regard to each of the crafts mentioned be able to pray aright for that condition which, if it were given by Chance, would need only the supplement of his own art?

Clinias
Certainly.

Athenian
And if all the other craftsmen mentioned just now were bidden to state the object of their prayers, they could do so, could they not?

Clinias
Of course.

Athenian
And the lawgiver, I suppose, could do likewise?

Clinias
I suppose so.

Athenian
“Come now, O lawgiver,” let us say to him, “what are we to give you, and what condition of State, to enable you, when you receive it, thence-forward to manage the State by yourself satisfactorily?” [709e]

Clinias
What is the next thing that can rightly be said?

Athenian
You mean, do you not, on the side of the lawgiver?

Clinias
Yes.

Athenian
This is what he will say: “Give me the State under a monarchy;8 and let the monarch be young, and possessed by nature of a good memory, quick intelligence, courage and nobility of manner; and let that quality, which we formerly mentioned9 as the necessary accompaniment of all the parts of virtue, attend now also [710a] on our monarch's soul, if the rest of his qualities are to be of any value.”

Clinias
Temperance, as I think, Megillus, is what the Stranger indicates as the necessary accompaniment. Is it not?

Athenian
Yes, Clinias; temperance, that is, of the ordinary kind10 not the kind men mean when they use academic language and identify temperance with wisdom, but that kind which by natural instinct springs up at birth in children and animals, so that some are not incontinent, others continent, in respect of pleasures; and of this we said11 [710b] that, when isolated from the numerous so-called “goods,” it was of no account. You understand, of course, what I mean.

Clinias
Certainly.

Athenian
Let our monarch, then, possess this natural quality in addition to the other qualities mentioned, if the State is to acquire in the quickest and best way possible the constitution it needs for the happiest kind of life. For there does not exist, nor could there ever arise, a quicker and better form of constitution than this. [710c]

Clinias
How and by what argument, Stranger, could one convince oneself that to say this is to speak the truth?

Athenian
It is quite easy to perceive at least this, Clinias, that the facts stand by nature's ordinance in the way described.

Clinias
In what way do you mean? On condition, do you say, that there should be a monarch who was young, temperate, quick at learning, with a good memory, brave and of a noble manner?

Athenian
Add also “fortunate,”—not in other respects, but only in this, that in his time there should arise a praiseworthy lawgiver, and that, by a piece of good fortune, [710d] the two of them should meet; for if this were so, then God would have done nearly everything that he does when he desires that a State should be eminently prosperous. The second best condition is that there should arise two such rulers; then comes the third best, with three rulers; and so on, the difficulty increasing in proportion as the number becomes greater, and vice versa.

Clinias
You mean, apparently, that the best State would arise from a monarchy, when it has a first-rate lawgiver and a virtuous monarch, and these are the conditions under which the change into such a State could be effected most easily and quickly; and, next to this, from an oligarchy— [710e] or what is it you mean?

Athenian
Not at all: the easiest step is from a monarchy, the next easiest from a monarchic constitution, the third from some form of democracy. An oligarchy, which comes fourth in order, would admit of the growth of the best State only with the greatest difficulty, since it has the largest number of rulers. What I say is that the change takes place when nature supplies a true lawgiver, and when it happens that his policy is shared by the most powerful persons in the State; [711a] and wherever the State authorities are at once strongest and fewest in number, then and there the changes are usually carried out with speed and facility.

Clinias
How so? We do not understand.

Athenian
Yet surely it has been stated not once, I imagine, but many times over. But you, very likely, have never so much as set eyes on a monarchical State.

Clinias
No, nor have I any craving for such a sight. [711b]

Athenian
You would, however, see in it an illustration of what we spoke of just now.

Clinias
What was that?

Athenian
The fact that a monarch, when he decides to change the moral habits of a State, needs no great efforts nor a vast length of time, but what he does need is to lead the way himself first along the desired path, whether it be to urge the citizens towards virtue's practices or the contrary; by his personal example he should first trace out the right lines, giving praise and honor to these things, [711c] blame to those, and degrading the disobedient according to their several deeds.

Clinias
Yes, we may perhaps suppose that the rest of the citizens will quickly follow the ruler who adopts such a combination of persuasion and force.

Athenian
Let none, my friends, persuade us that a State could ever change its laws more quickly or more easily by any other way than by the personal guidance of the rulers: no such thing could ever occur, either now or hereafter. Indeed, that is not the result which we find it difficult or impossible [711d] to bring about; what is difficult to bring about is rather that result which has taken place but rarely throughout long ages, and which, whenever it does take place in a State, produces in that State countless blessings of every kind.

Clinias
What result do you mean?

Athenian
Whenever a heaven-sent desire for temperate and just institutions arises in those who hold high positions,—whether as monarchs, or because of conspicuous eminence [711e] of wealth or birth, or, haply, as displaying the character of Nestor, of whom it is said that, while he surpassed all men in the force of his eloquence, still more did he surpass them in temperance. That was, as they say, in the Trojan age, certainly not in our time; still, if any such man existed, or shall exist, or exists among us now, blessed is the life he leads, and blessed are they who join in listening to the words of temperance that proceed out of his mouth. So likewise of power in general, the same rule holds good: [712a] whenever the greatest power coincides in man with wisdom and temperance, then the germ of the best polity is planted;12 but in no other way will it ever come about. Regard this as a myth oracularly uttered, and let us take it as proved that the rise of a well-governed State is in one way difficult, but in another way—given, that is, the condition we mention—it is easier by far and quicker than anything else.

Clinias
No doubt. [712b]

Athenian
Let us apply the oracle to your State, and so try, like greybeard boys, to model its laws by our discourse.13

Clinias
Yes, let us proceed, and delay no longer.

Athenian
Let us invoke the presence of the God at the establishment of the State; and may he hearken, and hearkening may he come, propitious and kindly to us-ward, to help us in the fashioning of the State and its laws.

Clinias
Yes, may he come!

Athenian
Well, what form of polity is it that we intend to impose [712c] upon the State?

Clinias
What, in particular, do you refer to? Explain still more clearly. I mean, is it a democracy, an oligarchy, an aristocracy, or a monarchy? For certainly you cannot mean a tyranny: that we can never suppose.

Athenian
Come now, which of you two would like to answer me first and tell me to which of these kinds his own polity at home belongs?

Megillus
Is it not proper that I, as the elder, should answer first? [712d]

Clinias
No doubt.

Megillus
In truth, Stranger, when I reflect on the Lacedaemonian polity, I am at a loss to tell you by what name one should describe it. It seems to me to resemble a tyranny, since the board of ephors it contains is a marvellously tyrannical feature; yet sometimes it strikes me as, of all States, the nearest to a democracy. Still, it would be totally absurd to deny that it is an aristocracy; [712e] while it includes, moreover, a life monarchy, and that the most ancient of monarchies, as is affirmed, not only by ourselves, but by all the world. But now that I am questioned thus suddenly, I am really, as I said, at a loss to say definitely to which of these polities it belongs.

Clinias
And I, Megillus, find myself equally perplexed; for I find it very difficult to affirm that our Cnosian polity is any one of these.

Athenian
Yes, my good Sirs; for you do, in fact, partake in a number of polities. But those we named just now are not polities, but arrangements of States which rule or serve [713a] parts of themselves, and each is named after the ruling power. But if the State ought to be named after any such thing, the name it should have borne is that of the God who is the true ruler of rational men.

Clinias
Who is that God?

Athenian
May we, then, do a little more story-telling, if we are to answer this question suitably?

Clinias
Should we not do so?

Athenian
We should. Long ages before even those cities existed [713b] whose formation we have described above, there existed in the time of Cronos, it is said, a most prosperous government and settlement, on which the best of the States now existing is modelled.14

Clinias
Evidently it is most important to hear about it.

Athenian
I, for one, think so; and that is why I have introduced the mention of it.

Megillus
You were perfectly right to do so; and, since your story [713c] is pertinent, you will be quite right in going on with it to the end.

Athenian
I must do as you say. Well, then, tradition tells us how blissful was the life of men in that age, furnished with everything in abundance, and of spontaneous growth. And the cause thereof is said to have been this: Cronos was aware of the fact that no human being (as we have explained15) is capable of having irresponsible control of all human affairs without becoming filled with pride and injustice; so, pondering this fact, he then appointed as kings [713d] and rulers for our cities, not men, but beings of a race that was nobler and more divine, namely, daemons. He acted just as we now do in the case of sheep and herds of tame animals: we do not set oxen as rulers over oxen, or goats over goats, but we, who are of a nobler race, ourselves rule over them. In like manner the God, in his love for humanity, set over us at that time the nobler race of daemons who, with much comfort to themselves and much to us, took charge of us and furnished peace [713e] and modesty and orderliness and justice without stint, and thus made the tribes of men free from feud and happy. And even today this tale has a truth to tell, namely, that wherever a State has a mortal, and no god, for ruler, there the people have no rest from ills and toils; and it deems that we ought by every means to imitate the life of the age of Cronos, as tradition paints it, and order both [714a] our homes and our States in obedience to the immortal element within us, giving to reason's ordering the name of “law.”16 But if an individual man or an oligarchy or a democracy, possessed of a soul which strives after pleasures and lusts and seeks to surfeit itself therewith, having no continence and being the victim of a plague that is endless and insatiate of evil,— if such an one shall rule over a State or an individual by trampling on the laws, then there is (as I said just now) [714b] no means of salvation. This, then, is the statement, Clinias, which we have to examine, to see whether we believe it, or what we are to do.

Clinias
We must, of course, believe it.

Athenian
Are you aware that, according to some, there are as many kinds of laws as there are kinds of constitutions? And how many constitutions are commonly recognized we have recently recounted.17 Please do not suppose that the problem now raised is one of small importance; rather it is of the highest importance. For we are again18 faced with the problem as to what ought to be the aim of justice and injustice. The assertion of the people I refer to is this,— [714c] that the laws ought not to aim either at war or at goodness in general, but ought to have regard to the benefit of the established polity, whatever it may be, so that it may keep in power forever and never be dissolved; and that the natural definition of justice is best stated in this way.

Clinias
In what way?

Athenian
That justice is “what benefits the stronger.”19.

Clinias
Explain yourself more clearly.

Athenian
This is how it is:—the laws (they say) in a State are always enacted by the stronger power? Is it not so?

Clinias
That is quite true.

Athenian
Do you suppose, then (so they argue), that a democracy [714d] or any other government—even a tyrant—if it has gained the mastery, will of its own accord set up laws with any other primary aim than that of securing the permanence of its own authority?

Clinias
Certainly not.

Athenian
Then the lawgiver will style these enactments “justice,” and will punish every transgressor as guilty of injustice.

Clinias
That is certainly probable.

Athenian
So these enactments will thus and herein always constitute justice.

Clinias
That is, at any rate, what the argument asserts. [714e]

Athenian
Yes, for this is one of those “agreed claims” concerning government.20

Clinias
What “claims”?

Athenian
Those which we dealt with before,—claims as to who should govern whom. It was shown that parents should govern children, the older the younger, the high-born the low-born, and (if you remember) there were many other claims, some of which were conflicting. The claim before us is one of these, and we said that21—to quote Pindar—“the law marches with nature [715a] when it justifies the right of might.”

Clinias
Yes, that is what was said then.

Athenian
Consider now, to which class of men should we entrust our State. For the condition referred to is one that has already occurred in States thousands of times.

Clinias
What condition?

Athenian
Where offices of rule are open to contest, the victors in the contest monopolize power in the State so completely that they offer not the smallest share in office to the vanquished party or their descendants; and each party keeps a watchful eye on the other, [715b] lest anyone should come into office and, in revenge for the former troubles, cause a rising against them. Such polities we, of course, deny to be polities, just as we deny that laws are true laws unless they are enacted in the interest of the common weal of the whole State. But where the laws are enacted in the interest of a section, we call them feudalities22 rather than polities; and the “justice” they ascribe to such laws is, we say, an empty name. Our reason for saying this is that in your State we shall assign office to a man, not because he is wealthy, [715c] nor because he possesses any other quality of the kind—such as strength or size or birth; but the ministration of the laws must be assigned, as we assert, to that man who is most obedient to the laws and wins the victory for obedience in the State,—the highest office to the first, the next to him that shows the second degree of mastery, and the rest must similarly be assigned, each in succession, to those that come next in order. And those who are termed “magistrates” I have now called “ministers”23 of the laws, not for the sake of coining a new phrase, [715d] but in the belief that salvation, or ruin, for a State hangs upon nothing so much as this. For wherever in a State the law is subservient and impotent, over that State I see ruin impending; but wherever the law is lord over the magistrates, and the magistrates are servants to the law, there I descry salvation and all the blessings that the gods bestow on States.

Clinias
Aye, by Heaven, Stranger; for, as befits your age, you have keen sight.

Athenian
Yes; for a man's vision of such objects is at its dullest [715e] when he is young, but at its keenest when he is old.

Clinias
Very true.

Athenian
What, then, is to be our next step? May we not assume that our immigrants have arrived and are in the country, and should we not proceed with our address to them?

Clinias
Of course.

Athenian
Let us, then, speak to them thus:—“O men, that God who, as old tradition24 tells, holdeth the beginning, the end, and the center of all things that exist, [716a] completeth his circuit by nature's ordinance in straight, unswerving course. With him followeth Justice, as avenger of them that fall short of the divine law; and she, again, is followed by every man who would fain be happy, cleaving to her with lowly and orderly behavior; but whoso is uplifted by vainglory, or prideth himself on his riches or his honors or his comeliness of body, and through this pride joined to youth and folly, is inflamed in soul with insolence, dreaming that he has no need of ruler or guide, but rather is competent himself to guide others,— [716b] such an one is abandoned and left behind by the God, and when left behind he taketh to him others of like nature, and by his mad prancings throweth all into confusion: to many, indeed, he seemeth to be some great one, but after no long time he payeth the penalty, not unmerited, to Justice, when he bringeth to total ruin himself, his house, and his country. Looking at these things, thus ordained, what ought the prudent man to do, or to devise, or to refrain from doing?”

Clinias
The answer is plain: Every man ought so to devise as to be of the number of those who follow in the steps of the God. [716c]

Athenian
What conduct, then, is dear to God and in his steps? One kind of conduct, expressed in one ancient phrase,25 namely, that “like is dear to like” when it is moderate, whereas immoderate things are dear neither to one another nor to things moderate. In our eyes God will be “the measure of all things” in the highest degree—a degree much higher than is any “man” they talk of.26 He, then, that is to become dear to such an one must needs become, so far as he possibly can, of a like character; and, according to the present argument, he amongst us that is temperate is dear to God, [716d] since he is like him, while he that is not temperate is unlike and at enmity,—as is also he who is unjust, and so likewise with the rest, by parity of reasoning. On this there follows, let us observe, this further rule,—and of all rules it is the noblest and truest,—that to engage in sacrifice and communion with the gods continually, by prayers and offerings and devotions of every kind, is a thing most noble and good and helpful towards the happy life, and superlatively fitting also, for the good man; [716e] but for the wicked, the very opposite. For the wicked man is unclean of soul, whereas the good man is clean; and from him that is defiled no good man, nor god, can ever rightly receive gifts. [717a] Therefore all the great labor that impious men spend upon the gods is in vain, but that of the pious is most profitable to them all. Here, then, is the mark at which we must aim; but as to shafts we should shoot, and (so to speak) the flight of them,—what kind of shafts, think you, would fly most straight to the mark? First of all, we say, if—after the honors paid to the Olympians and the gods who keep the State—we should assign the Even and the Left as their honors to the gods of the under-world, we would be aiming most straight at the mark of piety— [717b] as also in assigning to the former gods the things superior, the opposites of these.27 Next after these gods the wise man will offer worship to the daemons, and after the daemons to the heroes. After these will come private shrines legally dedicated to ancestral deities; and next, honors paid to living parents. For to these duty enjoins that the debtor should pay back the first and greatest of debts, the most primary of all dues, and that he should acknowledge that all that he owns and has belongs to those who begot and reared him, [717c] so that he ought to give them service to the utmost of his power—with substance, with body, and with soul, all three—thus making returns for the loans of care and pain spent on the children by those who suffered on their behalf in bygone years, and recompensing the old in their old age, when they need help most. And throughout all his life he must diligently observe reverence of speech towards his parents above all things, [717d] seeing that for light and winged words there is a most heavy penalty,—for over all such matters Nemesis, messenger of Justice, is appointed to keep watch;28 wherefore the son must yield to his parents when they are wroth, and when they give rein to their wrath either by word or deed, he must pardon them, seeing that it is most natural for a father to be especially wroth when he deems that he is wronged by his own son. When parents die, the most modest funeral rites are the best, whereby the son neither exceeds the accustomed pomp, nor falls short of what his forefathers [717e] paid to their sires; and in like manner he should duly bestow the yearly attentions, which ensure honor, on the rites already completed. He should always venerate them, by never failing to provide a continual memorial, [718a] and assigning to the deceased a due share of the means which fortune Provides for expenditure. Every one of us, if we acted thus and observed these rules of life, would win always a due reward from the gods and from all that are mightier than ourselves, and would pass the greatest part of our lives in the enjoyment of hopes of happiness. As regards duties to children, relations, friends and citizens, and those of service done to strangers for Heaven's sake, and of social intercourse with all those classes,—by fulfilling which a man should brighten his own life and order it as the law enjoins,— [718b] the sequel of the laws themselves, partly by persuasion and partly (when men's habits defy persuasion) by forcible and just chastisement, will render our State, with the concurrence of the gods, a blessed State and a prosperous. There are also matters which a lawgiver, if he shares my view, must necessarily regulate, though they are ill-suited for statement in the form of a law; in dealing with these he ought, in my opinion, to produce a sample for his own use and that of those [718c] for whom he is legislating, and, after expounding all other matters as best he can, pass on next to commencing the task of legislation.

Clinias
What is the special form in which such matters are laid down?

Athenian
It is by no means easy to embrace them all in a single model of statement (so to speak) but let us conceive of them in some such way as this, in case we may succeed in affirming something definite about them.

Clinias
Tell us what that “something” is.

Athenian
I should desire the people to be as docile as possible in the matter of virtue; and this evidently is what the legislator will endeavor to effect in all his legislation. [718d]

Clinias
Assuredly.

Athenian
I thought the address we have made might prove of some help in making them listen to its monitions with souls not utterly savage, but in a more civil and less hostile mood. So that we may be well content if as I say, it renders the hearer even but a little more docile, because a little less hostile. For there is no great plenty or abundance of persons anxious to become with all speed as good as possible; [718e] the majority, indeed, serve to show how wise Hesiod was when he said, ““smooth is the way that leadeth unto wickedness,” and that “no sweat is needed to traverse it,” since it is “passing short,””Hes. WD 287ff. but (he says)—“In front of goodness the immortal gods Have set the sweat of toil, and thereunto Long is the road and steep, and rough withal ” [719a]

  “The first ascent; but when the crest is won,
  'Tis easy travelling, albeit 'twas hard.
  ”
  Hes. WD 287 ff.

Clinias
The poet speaks nobly, I should say.

Athenian
He certainly does. Now I wish to put before you what I take to be the result of the foregoing argument.

Clinias
Do so.

Athenian
Let us address the lawgiver and say: “Tell us, O lawgiver: if you knew what we ought [719b] to do and say, is it not obvious that you would state it?”

Clinias
Inevitably.

Athenian
“Now did not we hear you saying a little while ago29 that the lawgiver should not permit the poets to compose just as they please? For they would not be likely to know what saying of theirs might be contrary to the laws and injurious to the State.”

Clinias
That is quite true.

Athenian
Would our address be reasonable, if we were to address him on behalf of the poets30 in these terms?—

Clinias
What terms? [719c]

Athenian
These:—“There is, O lawgiver, an ancient saying—constantly repeated by ourselves and endorsed by everyone else—that whenever a poet is seated on the Muses' tripod, he is not in his senses, but resembles a fountain, which gives free course to the upward rush of water and, since his art consists in imitation, he is compelled often to contradict himself, when he creates characters of contradictory moods; and he knows not which of these contradictory utterances is true. But it is not possible for the lawgiver in his law [719d] thus to compose two statements about a single matter; but he must always publish one single statement about one matter. Take an example from one of your own recent statements.31 A funeral may be either excessive or defective or moderate: of these three alternatives you chose one, the moderate, and this you prescribe, after praising it unconditionally. I, on the other hand, if (in my poem) I had a wife of surpassing wealth, and she were to bid me bury her, [719e] would extol the tomb of excessive grandeur; while a poor and stingy man would praise the defective tomb, and the person of moderate means, if a moderate man himself, would praise the same one as you. But you should not merely speak of a thing as moderate, in the way you have now done, but you should explain what 'the moderate' is, and what is its size; otherwise it is too soon for you to propose that such a statement should be made law.”

Clinias
Exceedingly true.

Athenian
Should, then, our appointed president of the laws commence his laws with no such prefatory statement, [720a] but declare at once what must be done and what not, and state the penalty which threatens disobedience, and so turn off to another law, without adding to his statutes a single word of encouragement and persuasion? Just as is the way with doctors, one treats us in this fashion, and another in that: they have two different methods, which we may recall, in order that, like children who beg the doctor to treat them by the mildest method, so we may make a like request of the lawgiver. Shall I give an illustration of what I mean? There are men that are doctors, we say, and others that are doctors' assistants; but we call the latter also, to be sure, by the name of “doctors.” [720b]

Clinias
We do.

Athenian
These, whether they be free-born or slaves, acquire their art under the direction of their masters, by observation and practice and not by the study of nature—which is the way in which the free-born doctors have learnt the art themselves and in which they instruct their own disciples. Would you assert that we have here two classes of what are called “doctors”?

Clinias
Certainly.

Athenian
You are also aware that, as the sick folk in the cities comprise both slaves and free men, [720c] the slaves are usually doctored by slaves, who either run round the town or wait in their surgeries; and not one of these doctors either gives or receives any account of the several ailments of the various domestics, but prescribes for each what he deems right from experience, just as though he had exact knowledge, and with the assurance of an autocrat; then up he jumps and off he rushes to another sick domestic, and thus he relieves his master in his attendance on the sick. [720d] But the free-born doctor is mainly engaged in visiting and treating the ailments of free men, and he does so by investigating them from the commencement and according to the course of nature; he talks with the patient himself and with his friends, and thus both learns himself from the sufferers and imparts instruction to them, so far as possible; and he gives no prescription until he has gained the patient's consent, and only then, while securing the patient's continued docility by means of persuasion, [720e] does he attempt to complete the task of restoring him to health. Which of these two methods of doctoring shows the better doctor, or of training, the better trainer? Should the doctor perform one and the same function in two ways, or do it in one way only32 and that the worse way of the two and the less humane?

Clinias
The double method, Stranger, is by far the better.

Athenian
Do you wish us to examine the double method and the single as applied also to actual legislation?

Clinias
Most certainly I wish it.

Athenian
Come, tell me then, in Heaven's name,—what would be the first law to be laid down by the lawgiver? Will he not follow the order of nature, and in his ordinances regulate [721a] first the starting-point of generation in States?

Clinias
Of course.

Athenian
Does not the starting-point of generation in all States lie in the union and partnership of marriage?33.

Clinias
Certainly.

Athenian
So it seems that, if the marriage laws were the first to be enacted, that would be the right course in every State.

Clinias
Most assuredly.

Athenian
Let us state the law in its simple form first: how will it run? Probably like this:—“A man shall marry when he is thirty years old [721b] and under five and thirty;34 if he fails to do so, he shall be punished both by a fine in money and by degradation, the fine being of such and such an amount, and the degradation of such and such a kind.” Such shall be the simple form of marriage law. The double form shall be this,—“A man shall marry when he is thirty years old and under thirty-five, bearing in mind that this is the way by which the human race, by nature's ordinance, shares in immortality, a thing for which nature has implanted in everyone a keen desire. [721c] The desire to win glory, instead of lying in a nameless grave, aims at a like object. Thus mankind is by nature coeval with the whole of time, in that it accompanies it continually both now and in the future; and the means by which it is immortal is this:—by leaving behind it children's children and continuing ever one and the same, it thus by reproduction shares in immortality. That a man should deprive himself thereof voluntarily is never an act of holiness; and he who denies himself wife and children is guilty of such intentional deprivation. [721d] He who obeys the law may be dismissed without penalty, but he that disobeys and does not marry when thirty-five years old shall pay a yearly fine of such and such an amount,—lest he imagine that single life brings him gain and ease,—and he shall have no share in the honors which are paid from time to time by the younger men in the State to their seniors.” When one hears and compares this law with the former one, [721e] it is possible to judge in each particular case whether the laws ought to be at least double in length, through combining threats with persuasion, or only single in length, through employing threats alone.

Megillus
Our Laconian way, Stranger, is to prefer brevity always. But were I bidden to choose which of these two statutes I should desire to have enacted in writing in my State, I should choose the longer; [722a] and what is more, I should make the same choice in the case of every law in which, as in the example before us, these two alternatives were offered. It is necessary, however, that the laws we are now enacting should have the approval of our friend Clinias also; for it is his State which is now proposing to make use of such things.

Clinias
I highly approve of all you have said, Megillus.

Athenian
Still, it is extremely foolish to argue about the length or brevity of writings, for what we should value, I suppose, is not their extreme brevity or prolixity, [722b] but their excellence; and in the case of the laws mentioned just now, not only does the one form possess double the value of the other in respect of practical excellence, but the example of the two kinds of doctors, recently mentioned,35 presents a very exact analogy. But as regards this, it appears that no legislator has ever yet observed that, while it is in their power to make use in their law-making of two methods,—namely, persuasion and force,—in so far as that is feasible in dealing with the uncultured populace, they actually employ one method only: in their legislation they do not temper compulsion [722c] with persuasion, but use untempered force alone. And I, my dear sirs, perceive still a third requisite which ought to be found in laws, but which is nowhere to be found at present.

Clinias
What is it you allude to?

Athenian
A matter which, by a kind of divine direction, has sprung out of the subjects we have now been discussing. It was little more than dawn when we began talking about laws, and now it is high noon, and here we are in this entrancing resting-place; all the time we have been talking of nothing but laws, [722d] yet it is only recently that we have begun, as it seems, to utter laws, and what went before was all simply preludes to laws. What is my object in saying this? It is to explain that all utterances and vocal expressions have preludes and tunings-up (as one might call them), which provide a kind of artistic preparation which assists towards the further development of the subject. Indeed, we have examples before us of preludes, admirably elaborated, [722e] in those prefixed to that class of lyric ode called the “nome,”36 and to musical compositions of every description. But for the “nomes” (i.e. laws) which are real nomes—and which we designate “political”—no one has ever yet uttered a prelude, or composed or published one, just as though there were no such thing. But our present conversation proves, in my opinion, that there is such a thing; and it struck me just now that the laws we were then stating are something more than simply double, and consist of these two things combined—law, and prelude to law. The part which we called the “despotic prescription”— [723a] comparing it to the prescriptions of the slave-doctors we mentioned—is unblended law; but the part which precedes this, and which is uttered as persuasive thereof, while it actually is “persuasion,” yet serves also the same purpose as the prelude to an oration.37 To ensure that the person to whom the lawgiver addresses the law should accept the prescription quietly—and, because quietly, in a docile spirit,—that, as I supposed, was the evident object with which the speaker uttered all his persuasive discourse.38 Hence, according to my argument, [723b] the right term for it would be, not legal “statement,” but “prelude,” and no other word. Having said this, what is the next statement I would desire to make? It is this: that the lawgiver must never omit to furnish preludes, as prefaces both to the laws as a whole and to each individual statute, whereby they shall surpass their original form by as much as the “double” examples recently given surpassed the “single.”

Clinias
I, for my part, would charge the expert in these matters to legislate thus, and not otherwise. [723c]

Athenian
You are right, I believe, Clinias, in asserting at least thus much,—that all laws have preludes, and that, in commencing each piece of legislation, one ought to preface each enactment with the prelude that naturally belongs to it—for the statement that is to follow the prelude is one of no small importance, and it makes a vast difference whether these statements are distinctly or indistinctly remembered; still, we should be wrong if we prescribed that all statutes, great and small, should be equally provided with preludes. [723d] For neither ought that to be done in the case of songs and speeches of every kind; for they all naturally have preludes, but we cannot employ them always; that is a thing which must be left in each case to the judgment of the actual orator or singer or legislator.

Clinias
What you say is, I believe, very true. But let us not spend more time, Stranger, in delay, but return to our main subject, and start afresh (if you agree) from the statements you made above—and made not [723e] by way of prelude. Let us, then, repeat from the start the second thoughts that are “best” (to quote the players' proverb), treating them throughout as a prelude, and not, as before, as a chance discourse; and let us handle the opening part as being confessedly a prelude. As to the worship of the gods and the attention to be paid to ancestors, our previous statement39 is quite sufficient; it is what comes next to these that you must try to state, until the whole of the prelude has been, in our opinion, adequately set forth by you. After that you will proceed with your statement of the actual laws. [724a]

Athenian
So then the prelude we previously composed concerning the gods and those next to the gods, and concerning parents, living and dead, was, as we now declare, sufficient; and you are now bidding me, I understand, to bring up, as it were, to the light of day the residue of this same subject.

Clinias
Most certainly.

Athenian
Well, surely it is both fitting and of the greatest mutual advantage that, next to the matters mentioned, the speaker and his hearers should deal with the question of the degree of zeal or slackness [724b] which men ought to use in respect of their souls, their bodies, and their goods, and should ponder thereon, and thus get a grasp of education as far as possible. Precisely this, then, is the statement which we must actually make and listen to next.

Clinias
Perfectly right.

1 This remark is explained by what is said below, Plat. Laws 705a.

2 Cp. Aristot. Pol. 7.6.

3 Quoted from Alcman.

4 Cp. Plat. Laws 679b.

5 Cp. Plat. Laws 625e.

6 Cp. Plat. Laws 697b, 757a.

7 Cp. Plat. Laws 637c.

8 Cp. Plat. Rep. 473c ff., 486a ff.

9 Plat. Laws 696d.

10 Plat. Laws 698a;Plat. Phaedo 82a ff. The “academic” (or philosophic) identification of “virtue” with “wisdom” was a main feature in the ethics of Socrates; cp.Plat. Rep. 430d ff.

11 Plat. Laws 696d.

12 Cp. Plat. Rep. 473d.

13 Cp. Plat. Laws 746a.

14 Cp.Politic. 271.

15 Plat. Laws 691c, 691d.

16 A double word-play:νοῦς=νόμος, andδιανομάς=δαίμονας. Laws, being “the dispensation of reason,” take the place of the “daemons” of the age of Cronos: the divine element in man (τὸ δαιμόνιον), which claims obedience, is reason (νοῦς).

17 Plat. Laws 712c.

18 Cp. Plat. Laws 630b, 690b, 690c.

19 Cp.Plat. Rep. 1.338, 2.367.

20 Cp. Plat. Laws 690b.

21 Cp. Plat. Laws 690b, with the footnote.

22 A word coined (like the Greek) to suggest a constitution based on “feuds” or party-divisions.

23 “Magistrates” = rulers; “ministers” = subjects, or servants.

24 Probably Orphic, quoted thus by the scholiast:Ζεὺς ἀρχή, Ζεὺς μέσσα, Διὸς δ᾽ ἐκ πάντα τέτυκται.

25 Cp. Hom. Od. 17.218:ὡς αἰεὶ τὸν ὁμοῖον ἄγει θεὸς ὡς τὸν ὁμοῖον. The expression “like to like” became proverbial, like our “Birds of a feather,” etc. Usually it was applied more to the bad than to the good (or “moderate”) to which Plato here restricts it.

26 An allusion to the dictum of the sophist Protagoras—“Man is the measure of all things,” cp.Cratylus386 A ff.;Theaetetus152 A.

27 This account of the ritual proper to the worship of the various deities is obscure. Plainly, however, it is based on the Pythagorean doctrine of “Opposites,” in which the Odd (number) is “superior” to the Even, and the “Right” (side) to the Left (as also the “Male” to the “Female”). It is here laid down that “honors” (or worship) of the “superior” grade are to be offered only to the deities of Olympus, or of the State, and inferior honors only to the deities of the underworld. In Greek augury, also, the left was the side of ill omen (sinister), whereas in Roman augury the right is so.

28 Cp. S. Matth. xii. 36: “Every idle word that men shall speak, they shall give account thereof in the day of judgement.”

29 Plat. Laws 656.

30 Cp. Plat. Laws 719d.

31 Cp. Plat. Laws 717e.

32 Cp. Plat. Laws 634d, 634e; Plat. Laws 722b, 722c; Plat. Laws 857e.

33 Cp. Plat. Laws 631d, 631e.

34 But cp. Plat. Laws 772d.

35 Cp. Plat. Laws 720c.

36 Cp. Plat. Laws 700b.

37 Cp. Plat. Laws 718c.

38 Cp. Plat. Laws 715e.

39 Cp. Plat. Laws 716b.