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Athenian Stranger. Enough of this. And what, then, is to be regarded
as the origin of government? Will not a man be able to judge of it
best from a point of view in which he may behold the progress of
states and their transitions to good or evil?
Cleinias. What do you mean?
Ath. I mean that he might watch them from the point of view of time,
and observe the changes which take place in them during infinite ages.
Cle. How so?
Ath. Why, do you think that you can reckon the time which has
elapsed since cities first existed and men were citizens of them?
Cle. Hardly.
Ath. But are sure that it must be vast and incalculable?
Cle. Certainly.
Ath. And have not thousands and thousands of cities come into
being during this period and as many perished? And has not each of
them had every form of government many times over, now growing larger,
now smaller, and again improving or declining?
Cle. To be sure.
Ath. Let us endeavour to ascertain the cause of these changes; for
that will probably explain the first origin and development of forms
of government.
Cle. Very good. You shall endeavour to impart your thoughts to us,
and we will make an effort to understand you.
Ath. Do you believe that there is any truth in ancient traditions?
Cle. What traditions?
Ath. The traditions about the many destructions of mankind which
have been occasioned by deluges and pestilences, and in many other
ways, and of the survival of a remnant?
Cle. Every one is disposed to believe them.
Ath. Let us consider one of them, that which was caused by the
famous deluge.
Cle. What are we to observe about it?
Ath. I mean to say that those who then escaped would only be hill
shepherds-small sparks of the human race preserved on the tops of
mountains.
Cle. Clearly.
Ath. Such survivors would necessarily be unacquainted with the
arts and the various devices which are suggested to the dwellers in
cities by interest or ambition, and with all the wrongs which they
contrive against one another.
Cle. Very true.
Ath. Let us suppose, then, that the cities in the plain and on the
sea-coast were utterly destroyed at that time.
Cle. Very good.
Ath. Would not all implements have then perished and every other
excellent invention of political or any other sort of wisdom have
utterly disappeared?
Cle. Why, yes, my friend; and if things had always continued as they
are at present ordered, how could any discovery have ever been made
even in the least particular? For it is evident that the arts were
unknown during ten thousand times ten thousand years. And no more than
a thousand or two thousand years have elapsed since the discoveries of
Daedalus, Orpheus and Palamedes-since Marsyas and Olympus invented
music, and Amphion the lyre-not to speak of numberless other
inventions which are but of yesterday.
Ath. Have you forgotten, Cleinias, the name of a friend who is
really of yesterday?
Cle. I suppose that you mean Epimenides.
Ath. The same, my friend; he does indeed far overleap the heads of
all mankind by his invention; for he carried out in practice, as you
declare, what of old Hesiod only preached.
Cle. Yes, according to our tradition.
Ath. After the great destruction, may we not suppose that the
state of man was something of this sort:-In the beginning of things
there was a fearful illimitable desert and a vast expanse of land; a
herd or two of oxen would be the only survivors of the animal world;
and there might be a few goats, these too hardly enough to maintain
the shepherds who tended them?
Cle. True.
Ath. And of cities or governments or legislation, about which we are
now talking, do you suppose that they could have any recollection at
all?
Cle. None whatever.
Ath. And out of this state of things has there not sprung all that
we now are and have: cities and governments, and arts and laws, and
a great deal of vice and a great deal of virtue?
Cle. What do you mean?
Ath. Why, my good friend, how can we possibly suppose that those who
knew nothing of all the good and evil of cities could have attained
their full development, whether of virtue or of vice?
Cle. I understand your meaning, and you are quite right.
Ath. But, as time advanced and the race multiplied, the world came
to be what the world is.
Cle. Very true.
Ath. Doubtless the change was not made all in a moment, but little
by little, during a very long period of time.
Cle. A highly probable supposition.
Ath. At first, they would have a natural fear ringing in their
ears which would prevent their descending from the heights into the
plain.
Cle. Of course.
Ath. The fewness of the survivors at that time would have made
them all the more desirous of seeing one another; but then the means
of travelling either by land or sea had been almost entirely lost,
as I may say, with the loss of the arts, and there was great
difficulty in getting at one another; for iron and brass and all
metals were jumbled together and had disappeared in the chaos; nor was
there any possibility of extracting ore from them; and they had
scarcely any means of felling timber. Even if you suppose that some
implements might have been preserved in the mountains, they must
quickly have worn out and vanished, and there would be no more of them
until the art of metallurgy had again revived.
Cle. There could not have been.
Ath. In how many generations would this be attained?
Cle. Clearly, not for many generations.
Ath. During this period, and for some time afterwards, all the
arts which require iron and brass and the like would disappear.
Cle. Certainly.
Ath. Faction and war would also have died out in those days, and for
many reasons.
Cle. How would that be?
Ath. In the first place, the desolation of these primitive men would
create in them a feeling of affection and good-will towards one
another; and, secondly, they would have no occasion to quarrel about
their subsistence, for they would have pasture in abundance, except
just at first, and in some particular cases; and from their
pasture-land they would obtain the greater part of their food in a
primitive age, having plenty of milk and flesh; moreover they would
procure other food by the chase, not to be despised either in quantity
or quality. They would also have abundance of clothing, and bedding,
and dwellings, and utensils either capable of standing on the fire
or not; for the plastic and weaving arts do not require any use of
iron: and God has given these two arts to man in order to provide
him with all such things, that, when reduced to the last extremity,
the human race may still grow and increase. Hence in those days
mankind were not very poor; nor was poverty a cause of difference
among them; and rich they could not have been, having neither gold nor
silver:-such at that time was their condition. And the community which
has neither poverty nor riches will always have the noblest
principles; in it there is no insolence or injustice, nor, again,
are there any contentions or envyings. And therefore they were good,
and also because they were what is called simple-minded; and when they
were told about good and evil, they in their simplicity believed
what they heard to be very truth and practised it. No one had the
wit to suspect another of a falsehood, as men do now; but what they
heard about Gods and men they believed to be true, and lived
accordingly; and therefore they were in all respects such as we have
described them.
Cle. That quite accords with my views, and with those of my friend
here.
Ath. Would not many generations living on in a simple manner,
although ruder, perhaps, and more ignorant of the arts generally,
and in particular of those of land or naval warfare, and likewise of
other arts, termed in cities legal practices and party conflicts,
and including all conceivable ways of hurting one another in word
and deed;-although inferior to those who lived before the deluge, or
to the men of our day in these respects, would they not, I say, be
simpler and more manly, and also more temperate and altogether more
just? The reason has been already explained.
Cle. Very true.
Ath. I should wish you to understand that what has preceded and what
is about to follow, has been, and will be said, with the intention
of explaining what need the men of that time had of laws, and who
was their lawgiver.
Cle. And thus far what you have said has been very well said.
Ath. They could hardly have wanted lawgivers as yet; nothing of that
sort was likely to have existed in their days, for they had no letters
at this early period; they lived by habit and the customs of their
ancestors, as they are called.
Cle. Probably.
Ath. But there was already existing a form of government which, if I
am not mistaken, is generally termed a lordship, and this still
remains in many places, both among Hellenes and barbarians, and is the
government which is declared by Homer to have prevailed among the
Cyclopes:
They have neither councils nor judgments, but they dwell in hollow
caves on the tops of high mountains, and every one gives law to his
wife and children, and they do not busy themselves about one another.
Cle. That seems to be a charming poet of yours; I have read some
other verses of his, which are very clever; but I do not know much
of him, for foreign poets are very little read among the Cretans.
Megillus. But they are in Lacedaemon, and he appears to be the
prince of them all; the manner of life, however, which he describes is
not Spartan, but rather Ionian, and he seems quite to confirm what you
are saying, when he traces up the ancient state of mankind by the help
of tradition to barbarism.
Ath. Yes, he does confirm it; and we may accept his witness to the
fact that such forms of government sometimes arise.
Cle. We may.
Ath. And were not such states composed of men who had been dispersed
in single habitations and families by the poverty which attended the
devastations; and did not the eldest then rule among them, because
with them government originated in the authority of a father and a
mother, whom, like a flock of birds, they followed, forming one
troop under the patriarchal rule and sovereignty of their parents,
which of all sovereignties is the most just?
Cle. Very true.
Ath. After this they came together in greater numbers, and increased
the size of their cities, and betook themselves to husbandry, first of
all at the foot of the mountains, and made enclosures of loose walls
and works of defence, in order to keep off wild beasts; thus
creating a single large and common habitation.
Cle. Yes; at least we may suppose so.
Ath. There is another thing which would probably happen.
Cle. What?
Ath. When these larger habitations grew up out of the lesser
original ones, each of the lesser ones would survive in the larger;
every family would be under the rule of the eldest, and, owing to
their separation from one another, would have peculiar customs in
things divine and human, which they would have received from their
several parents who had educated them; and these customs would incline
them to order, when the parents had the element of order in their
nature, and to courage, when they had the element of courage. And they
would naturally stamp upon their children, and upon their children's
children, their own likings; and, as we are saying, they would find
their way into the larger society, having already their own peculiar
laws.
Cle. Certainly.
Ath. And every man surely likes his own laws best, and the laws of
others not so well.
Cle. True.
Ath. Then now we seem to have stumbled upon the beginnings of
legislation.
Cle. Exactly.
Ath. The next step will be that these persons who have met together,
will select some arbiters, who will review the laws of all of them,
and will publicly present such as they approve to the chiefs who
lead the tribes, and who are in a manner their kings, allowing them to
choose those which they think best. These persons will themselves be
called legislators, and will appoint the magistrates, framing some
sort of aristocracy, or perhaps monarchy, out of the dynasties or
lordships, and in this altered state of the government they will live.
Cle. Yes, that would be the natural order of things.
Ath. Then, now let us speak of a third form of government, in
which all other forms and conditions of polities and cities concur.
Cle. What is that?
Ath. The form which in fact Homer indicates as following the second.
This third form arose when, as he says, Dardanus founded Dardania:
For not as yet had the holy Ilium been built on the plain to be a
city of speaking men; but they were still dwelling at the foot of
many-fountained Ida.
For indeed, in these verses, and in what he said of the Cyclopes, he
speaks the words of God and nature; for poets are a divine race and
often in their strains, by the aid of the Muses and the Graces, they
attain truth.
Cle. Yes.
Ath. Then now let us proceed with the rest of our tale, which will
probably be found to illustrate in some degree our proposed
design:-Shall we do so?
Cle. By all means.
Ath. Ilium was built, when they descended from the mountain, in a
large and fair plain, on a sort of low hill, watered by many rivers
descending from Ida.
Cle. Such is the tradition.
Ath. And we must suppose this event to have taken place many ages
after the deluge?
Ath. A marvellous forgetfulness of the former destruction would
appear to have come over them, when they placed their town right under
numerous streams flowing from the heights, trusting for their security
to not very high hills, either.
Cle. There must have been a long interval, clearly.
Ath. And, as population increased, many other cities would begin
to be inhabited.
Cle. Doubtless.
Ath. Those cities made war against Troy-by sea as well as land-for
at that time men were ceasing to be afraid of the sea.
Cle. Clearly.
Ath. The Achaeans remained ten years, and overthrew Troy.
Cle. True.
Ath. And during the ten years in which the Achaeans were besieging
Ilium, the homes of the besiegers were falling into an evil plight.
Their youth revolted; and when the soldiers returned to their own
cities and families, they did not receive them properly, and as they
ought to have done, and numerous deaths, murders, exiles, were the
consequence. The exiles came again, under a new name, no longer
Achaeans, but Dorians-a name which they derived from Dorieus; for it
was he who gathered them together. The rest of the story is told by
you Lacedaemonians as part of the history of Sparta.
Meg. To be sure.
Ath. Thus, after digressing from the original subject of laws into
music and drinking-bouts, the argument has, providentially, come
back to the same point, and presents to us another handle. For we have
reached the settlement of Lacedaemon; which, as you truly say, is in
laws and in institutions the sister of Crete. And we are all the
better for the digression, because we have gone through various
governments and settlements, and have been present at the foundation
of a first, second, and third state, succeeding one another in
infinite time. And now there appears on the horizon a fourth state
or nation which was once in process of settlement and has continued
settled to this day. If, out of all this, we are able to discern
what is well or ill settled, and what laws are the salvation and
what are the destruction of cities, and what changes would make a
state happy, O Megillus and Cleinias, we may now begin again, unless
we have some fault to find with the previous discussion.
Meg. If some God, Stranger, would promise us that our new enquiry
about legislation would be as good and full as the present, I would go
a great way to hear such another, and would think that a day as long
as this-and we are now approaching the longest day of the year-was too
short for the discussion.
Ath. Then I suppose that we must consider this subject?
Meg. Certainly.
Ath. Let us place ourselves in thought at the moment when Lacedaemon
and Argos and Messene and the rest of the Peloponnesus were all in
complete subjection, Megillus, to your ancestors; for afterwards, as
the legend informs us, they divided their army into three portions,
and settled three cities, Argos, Messene, Lacedaemon.
Meg. True.
Ath. Temenus was the king of Argos, Cresphontes of Messene,
Procles and Eurysthenes of Lacedaemon.
Meg. Certainly.
Ath. To these kings all the men of that day made oath that they
would assist them, if any one subverted their kingdom.
Meg. True.
Ath. But can a kingship be destroyed, or was any other form of
government ever destroyed, by any but the rulers themselves? No
indeed, by Zeus. Have we already forgotten what was said a little
while ago?
Meg. No.
Ath. And may we not now further confirm what was then mentioned? For
we have come upon facts which have brought us back again to the same
principle; so that, in resuming the discussion, we shall not be
enquiring about an empty theory, but about events which actually
happened. The case was as follows:-Three royal heroes made oath to
three cities which were under a kingly government, and the cities to
the kings, that both rulers and subjects should govern and be governed
according to the laws which were common to all of them: the rulers
promised that as time and the race went forward they would not make
their rule more arbitrary; and the subjects said that, if the rulers
observed these conditions, they would never subvert or permit others
to subvert those kingdoms; the kings were to assist kings and
peoples when injured, and the peoples were to assist peoples and kings
in like manner. Is not this the fact?
Meg. Yes.
Ath. And the three states to whom these laws were given, whether
their kings or any others were the authors of them, had therefore
the greatest security for the maintenance of their constitutions?
Meg. What security?
Ath. That the other two states were always to come to the rescue
against a rebellious third.
Meg. True.
Ath. Many persons say that legislators ought to impose such laws
as the mass of the people will be ready to receive; but this is just
as if one were to command gymnastic masters or physicians to treat
or cure their pupils or patients in an agreeable manner.
Meg. Exactly.
Ath. Whereas the physician may often be too happy if he can
restore health, and make the body whole, without any very great
infliction of pain.
Meg. Certainly.
Ath. There was also another advantage possessed by the men of that
day, which greatly lightened the task of passing laws.
Meg. What advantage?
Ath. The legislators of that day, when they equalized property,
escaped the great accusation which generally arises in legislation, if
a person attempts to disturb the possession of land, or to abolish
debts, because he sees that without this reform there can never be any
real equality. Now, in general, when the legislator attempts to make a
new settlement of such matters, every one meets him with the cry, that
"he is not to disturb vested interests"-declaring with imprecations
that he is introducing agrarian laws and cancelling of debts, until
a man is at his wits end; whereas no one could quarrel with the
Dorians for distributing the land-there was nothing to hinder them;
and as for debts, they had none which were considerable or of old
standing.
Meg. Very true.
Ath. But then, my good friends, why did the settlement and
legislation of their country turn out so badly?
Meg. How do you mean; and why do you blame them?
Ath. There were three kingdoms, and of these, two quickly
corrupted their original constitution and laws, and the only one which
remained was the Spartan.
Meg. The question which you ask is not easily answered.
Ath. And yet must be answered when we are enquiring about laws, this
being our old man's sober game of play, whereby we beguile the way, as
I was saying when we first set out on our journey.
Meg. Certainly; and we must find out why this was.
Ath. What laws are more worthy of our attention than those which
have regulated such cities? or what settlements of states are
greater or more famous?
Meg. I know of none.
Ath. Can we doubt that your ancestors intended these institutions
not only for the protection of Peloponnesus, but of all the
Hellenes. in case they were attacked by the barbarian? For the
inhabitants of the region about Ilium, when they provoked by their
insolence the Trojan war, relied upon the power of the Assyrians and
the Empire of Ninus, which still existed and had a great prestige; the
people of those days fearing the united Assyrian Empire just as we now
fear the Great King. And the second capture of Troy was a serious
offence against them, because Troy was a portion of the Assyrian
Empire. To meet the danger the single army was distributed between
three cities by the royal brothers, sons of Heracles-a fair device, as
it seemed, and a far better arrangement than the expedition against
Troy. For, firstly, the people of that day had, as they thought, in
the Heraclidae better leaders than the Pelopidae; in the next place,
they considered that their army was superior in valour to that which
went against Troy; for, although the latter conquered the Trojans,
they were themselves conquered by the Heraclidae-Achaeans by
Dorians. May we not suppose that this was the intention with which the
men of those days framed the constitutions of their states?
Meg. Quite true.
Ath. And would not men who had shared with one another many dangers,
and were governed by a single race of royal brothers, and had taken
the advice of oracles, and in particular of the Delphian Apollo, be
likely to think that such states would be firmly and lastingly
established?
Meg. Of course they would.
Ath. Yet these institutions, of which such great expectations were
entertained, seem to have all rapidly vanished away; with the
exception, as I was saying, of that small part of them which existed
in yourland.And this third part has never to this day ceased warring
against the two others; whereas, if the original idea had been carried
out, and they had agreed to be one, their power would have been
invincible in war.
Meg. No doubt.
Ath. But what was the ruin of this glorious confederacy? Here is a
subject well worthy of consideration.
Meg. Certainly, no one will ever find more striking instances of
laws or governments being the salvation or destruction of great and
noble interests, than are here presented to his view.
Ath. Then now we seem to have happily arrived at a real and
important question.
Meg. Very true.
Ath. Did you never remark, sage friend, that all men, and we
ourselves at this moment, often fancy that they see some beautiful
thing which might have effected wonders if any one had only known
how to make a right use of it in some way; and yet this mode of
looking at things may turn out after all to be a mistake, and not
according to nature, either in our own case or in any other?
Meg. To what are you referring, and what do you mean?
Ath. I was thinking of my own admiration of the aforesaid
Heracleid expedition, which was so noble, and might have had such
wonderful results for the Hellenes, if only rightly used; and I was
just laughing at myself.
Meg. But were you not right and wise in speaking as you did, and
we in assenting to you?
Ath. Perhaps; and yet I cannot help observing that any one who
sees anything great or powerful, immediately has the feeling
that-"If the owner only knew how to use his great and noble
possession, how happy would he be, and what great results would he
achieve!"
Meg. And would he not be justified?
Ath. Reflect; in what point of view does this sort of praise
appear just: First, in reference to the question in hand:-If the
then commanders had known how to arrange their army properly, how
would they have attained success? Would not this have been the way?
They would have bound them all firmly together and preserved them
for ever, giving them freedom and dominion at pleasure, combined
with the power of doing in the whole world, Hellenic and barbarian,
whatever they and their descendants desired. What other aim would they
have had?
Meg. Very good.
Ath. Suppose any one were in the same way to express his
admiration at the sight of great wealth or family honour, or the like,
he would praise them under the idea that through them he would
attain either all or the greater and chief part of what he desires.
Meg. He would.
Ath. Well, now, and does not the argument show that there is one
common desire of all mankind?
Meg. What is it?
Ath. The desire which a man has, that all things, if possible-at any
rate, things human-may come to pass in accordance with his soul's
desire.
Meg. Certainly.
Ath. And having this desire always, and at every time of life, in
youth, in manhood, in age, he cannot help always praying for the
fulfilment of it.
Meg. No doubt.
Ath. And we join in the prayers of our friends, and ask for them
what they ask for themselves.
Meg. We do.
Ath. Dear is the son to the father-the younger to the elder.
Meg. Of course.
Ath. And yet the son often prays to obtain things which the father
prays that he may not obtain.
Meg. When the son is young and foolish, you mean?
Ath. Yes; or when the father, in the dotage of age or the heat of
youth, having no sense of right and justice, prays with fervour, under
the influence of feelings akin to those of Theseus when he cursed
the unfortunate Hippolytus, do you imagine that the son, having a
sense of right and justice, will join in his father's prayers?
Meg. I understand you to mean that a man should not desire or be
in a hurry to have all things according to his wish, for his wish
may be at variance with his reason. But every state and every
individual ought to pray and strive for wisdom.
Ath. Yes; and I remember, and you will remember, what I said at
first, that a statesman and legislator ought to ordain laws with a
view to wisdom; while you were arguing that the good lawgiver ought to
order all with a view to war. And to this I replied that there were
four virtues, but that upon your view one of them only was the aim
of legislation; whereas you ought to regard all virtue, and especially
that which comes first, and is the leader of all the rest-I mean
wisdom and mind and opinion, having affection and desire in their
train. And now the argument returns to the same point, and I say
once more, in jest if you like, or in earnest if you like, that the
prayer of a fool is full of danger, being likely to end in the
opposite of what he desires. And if you would rather receive my
words in earnest, I am willing that you should; and you will find, I
suspect, as I have said already, that not cowardice was the cause of
the ruin of the Dorian kings and of their whole design, nor
ignorance of military matters, either on the part of the rulers or
of their subjects; but their misfortunes were due to their general
degeneracy, and especially to their ignorance of the most important
human affairs. That was then, and is still, and always will be the
case, as I will endeavour, if you will allow me, to make out and
demonstrate as well as I am able to you who are my friends, in the
course of the argument.
Cle. Pray go on, Stranger;-compliments are troublesome, but we
will show, not in word but in deed, how greatly we prize your words,
for we will give them our best attention; and that is the way in which
a freeman best shows his approval or disapproval.
Meg. Excellent, Cleinias; let us do as you say.
Cle. By all means, if Heaven wills. Go on.
Ath. Well, then, proceeding in the same train of thought, I say that
the greatest ignorance was the ruin of the Dorian power, and that now,
as then, ignorance is ruin. And if this be true, the legislator must
endeavour to implant wisdom in states, and banish ignorance to the
utmost of his power.
Cle. That is evident.
Ath. Then now consider what is really the greatest ignorance. I
should like to know whether you and Megillus would agree with me in
what I am about to say; for my opinion is-
Cle. What?
Ath. That the greatest ignorance is when a man hates that which he
nevertheless thinks to be good and noble, and loves and embraces
that which he knows to be unrighteous and evil. This disagreement
between the sense of pleasure and the judgment of reason in the soul
is, in my opinion, the worst ignorance; and also the greatest, because
affecting the great mass of the human soul; for the principle which
feels pleasure and pain in the individual is like the mass or populace
in a state. And when the soul is opposed to knowledge, or opinion,
or reason, which are her natural lords, that I call folly, just as
in the state, when the multitude refuses to obey their rulers and
the laws; or, again, in the individual, when fair reasonings have
their habitation in the soul and yet do no good, but rather the
reverse of good. All these cases I term the worst ignorance, whether
in individuals or in states. You will understand, Stranger, that I
am speaking of something which is very different from the ignorance of
handicraftsmen.
Cle. Yes, my friend, we understand and agree.
Ath. Let us, then, in the first place declare and affirm that the
citizen who does not know these things ought never to have any kind of
authority entrusted to him: he must be stigmatized as ignorant, even
though he be versed in calculation and skilled in all sorts of
accomplishments, and feats of mental dexterity; and the opposite are
to be called wise, even although, in the words of the proverb, they
know neither how to read nor how to swim; and to them, as to men of
sense, authority is to be committed. For, O my friends, how can
there be the least shadow of wisdom when there is no harmony? There is
none; but the noblest and greatest of harmonies may be truly said to
be the greatest wisdom; and of this he is a partaker who lives
according to reason; whereas he who is devoid of reason is the
destroyer of his house and the very opposite of a saviour of the
state: he is utterly ignorant of political wisdom. Let this, then,
as I was saying, be laid down by us.
Cle. Let it be so laid down.
Ath. I suppose that there must be rulers and subjects in states?
Cle. Certainly.
Ath. And what are the principles on which men rule and obey in
cities, whether great or small; and similarly in families? What are
they, and how many in number? Is there not one claim of authority
which is always just-that of fathers and mothers and in general of
progenitors to rule over their offspring?
Cle. There is.
Ath. Next follows the principle that the noble should rule over
the ignoble; and, thirdly, that the elder should rule and the
younger obey?
Cle. To be sure.
Ath. And, fourthly, that slaves should be ruled, and their masters
rule?
Cle. Of course.
Ath. Fifthly, if I am not mistaken, comes the principle that the
stronger shall rule, and the weaker be ruled?
Cle. That is a rule not to be disobeyed.
Ath. Yes, and a rule which prevails very widely among all creatures,
and is according to nature, as the Theban poet Pindar once said; and
the sixth principle, and the greatest of all, is, that the wise should
lead and command, and the ignorant follow and obey; and yet, O thou
most wise Pindar, as I should reply him, this surely is not contrary
to nature, but according to nature, being the rule of law over willing
subjects, and not a rule of compulsion.
Cle. Most true.
Ath. There is a seventh kind of rule which is awarded by lot, and is
dear to the Gods and a token of good fortune: he on whom the lot falls
is a ruler, and he who fails in obtaining the lot goes away and is the
subject; and this we affirm to be quite just.
Cle. Certainly.
Ath. "Then now," as we say playfully to any of those who lightly
undertake the making of laws, "you see, legislator, the principles
of government, how many they are, and that they are naturally
opposed to each other. There we have discovered a fountain-head of
seditions, to which you must attend. And, first, we will ask you to
consider with us, how and in what respect the kings of Argos and
Messene violated these our maxims, and ruined themselves and the great
and famous Hellenic power of the olden time. Was it because they did
not know how wisely Hesiod spoke when he said that the half is often
more than the whole? His meaning was, that when to take the whole
would be dangerous, and to take the half would be the safe and
moderate course, then the moderate or better was more than the
immoderate or worse."
Cle. Very true.
Ath. And may we suppose this immoderate spirit to be more fatal when
found among kings than when among peoples?
Cle. The probability is that ignorance will be a disorder especially
prevalent among kings, because they lead a proud and luxurious life.
Ath. Is it not palpable that the chief aim of the kings of that time
was to get the better of the established laws, and that they were
not in harmony with the principles which they had agreed to observe by
word and oath? This want of harmony may have had the appearance of
wisdom, but was really, as we assert, the greatest ignorance, and
utterly overthrew the whole empire by dissonance and harsh discord.
Cle. Very likely.
Ath. Good; and what measures ought the legislator to have then taken
in order to avert this calamity? Truly there is no great wisdom in
knowing, and no great difficulty in telling, after the evil has
happened; but to have foreseen the remedy at the time would have taken
a much wiser head than ours.
Meg. What do you mean?
Ath. Any one who looks at what has occurred with you Lacedaemonians,
Megillus, may easily know and may easily say what ought to have been
done at that time.
Meg. Speak a little more clearly.
Ath. Nothing can be clearer than the observation which I am about to
make.
Meg. What is it?
Ath. That if any one gives too great a power to anything, too
large a sail to a vessel, too much food to the body, too much
authority to the mind, and does not observe the mean, everything is
overthrown, and, in the wantonness of excess runs in the one case to
disorders, and in the other to injustice, which is the child of
excess. I mean to say, my dear friends, that there is no soul of
man, young and irresponsible, who will be able to sustain the
temptation of arbitrary power-no one who will not, under such
circumstances, become filled with folly, that worst of diseases, and
be hated by his nearest and dearest friends: when this happens, his
kingdom is undermined, and all his power vanishes from him. And
great legislators who know the mean should take heed of the danger. As
far as we can guess at this distance of time, what happened was as
follows:-
Meg. What?
Ath. A God, who watched over Sparta, seeing into the future, gave
you two families of kings instead of one; and thus brought you more
within the limits of moderation. In the next place, some human
wisdom mingled with divine power, observing that the constitution of
your government was still feverish and excited, tempered your inborn
strength and pride of birth with the moderation which comes of age,
making the power of your twenty-eight elders equal with that of the
kings in the most important matters. But your third saviour,
perceiving that your government was still swelling and foaming, and
desirous to impose a curb upon it, instituted the Ephors, whose
power he made to resemble that of magistrates elected by lot; and by
this arrangement the kingly office, being compounded of the right
elements and duly moderated, was preserved, and was the means of
preserving all the rest. Since, if there had been only the original
legislators, Temenus, Cresphontes, and their contemporaries, as far as
they were concerned not even the portion of Aristodemus would have
been preserved; for they had no proper experience in legislation, or
they would surely not have imagined that oaths would moderate a
youthful spirit invested with a power which might be converted into
a tyranny. Now that God has instructed us what sort of government
would have been or will be lasting, there is no wisdom, as I have
already said, in judging after the event; there is no difficulty in
learning from an example which has already occurred. But if any one
could have foreseen all this at the time, and had been able to
moderate the government of the three kingdoms and unite them into one,
he might have saved all the excellent institutions which were then
conceived; and no Persian or any other armament would have dared to
attack us, or would have regarded Hellas as a power to be despised.
Cle. True.
Ath. There was small credit to us, Cleinias, in defeating them;
and the discredit was, not that the conquerors did not win glorious
victories both by land and sea, but what, in my opinion, brought
discredit was, first of all, the circumstance that of the three cities
one only fought on behalf of Hellas, and the two others were so
utterly good for nothing that the one was waging a mighty war
against Lacedaemon, and was thus preventing her from rendering
assistance, while the city of Argos, which had the precedence at the
time of the distribution, when asked to aid in repelling the
barbarian, would not answer to the call, or give aid. Many things
might be told about Hellas in connection with that war which are far
from honourable; nor, indeed, can we rightly say that Hellas
repelled the invader; for the truth is, that unless the Athenians
and Lacedaemonians, acting in concert, had warded off the impending
yoke, all the tribes of Hellas would have been fused in a chaos of
Hellenes mingling with one another, of barbarians mingling with
Hellenes, and Hellenes with barbarians; just as nations who are now
subject to the Persian power, owing to unnatural separations and
combinations of them, are dispersed and scattered, and live miserably.
These, Cleinias and Megillus, are the reproaches which we have to make
against statesmen and legislators, as they are called, past and
present, if we would analyse the causes of their failure, and find out
what else might have been done. We said, for instance, just now,
that there ought to be no great and unmixed powers; and this was under
the idea that a state ought to be free and wise and harmonious, and
that a legislator ought to legislate with a view to this end. Nor is
there any reason to be surprised at our continually proposing aims for
the legislator which appear not to be always the same; but we should
consider when we say that temperance is to be the aim, or wisdom is to
be the aim, or friendship is to be the aim, that all these aims are
really the same; and if so, a variety in the modes of expression ought
not to disturb us.
Cle. Let us resume the argument in that spirit. And now, speaking of
friendship and wisdom and freedom, I wish that you would tell me at
what, in your opinion, the legislator should aim.
Ath. Hear me, then: there are two mother forms of states from
which the rest may be truly said to be derived; and one of them may be
called monarchy and the other democracy: the Persians have the highest
form of the one, and we of the other; almost all the rest, as I was
saying, are variations of these. Now, if you are to have liberty and
the combination of friendship with wisdom, you must have both these
forms of government in a measure; the argument emphatically declares
that no city can be well governed which is not made up of both.
Cle. Impossible.
Ath. Neither the one, if it be exclusively and excessively
attached to monarchy, nor the other, if it be similarly attached to
freedom, observes moderation; but your states, the Laconian and
Cretan, have more of it; and the same was the case with the
Athenians and Persians of old time, but now they have less. Shall I
tell you why?
Cle. By all means, if it will tend to elucidate our subject.
Ath. Hear, then:-There was a time when the Persians had more of
the state which is a mean between slavery and freedom. In the reign of
Cyrus they were freemen and also lords of many others: the rulers gave
a share of freedom to the subjects, and being treated as equals, the
soldiers were on better terms with their generals, and showed
themselves more ready in the hour of danger. And if there was any wise
man among them, who was able to give good counsel, he imparted his
wisdom to the public; for the king was not jealous, but allowed him
full liberty of speech, and gave honour to those who could advise
him in any matter. And the nation waxed in all respects, because there
was freedom and friendship and communion of mind among them.
Cle. That certainly appears to have been the case.
Ath. How, then, was this advantage lost under Cambyses, and again
recovered under Darius? Shall I try to divine?
Cle. The enquiry, no doubt, has a bearing upon our subject.
Ath. I imagine that Cyrus, though a great and patriotic general, had
never given his mind to education, and never attended to the order
of his household.
Cle. What makes you say so?
Ath. I think that from his youth upwards he was a soldier, and
entrusted the education of his children to the women; and they brought
them up from their childhood as the favourites of fortune, who were
blessed already, and needed no more blessings. They thought that
they were happy enough, and that no one should be allowed to oppose
them in any way, and they compelled every one to praise all that
they said or did. This was how they brought them up.
Cle. A splendid education truly!
Ath. Such an one as women were likely to give them, and especially
princesses who had recently grown rich, and in the absence of the men,
too, who were occupied in wars and dangers, and had no time to look
after them.
Cle. What would you expect?
Ath. Their father had possessions of cattle and sheep, and many
herds of men and other animals, but he did not consider that those
to whom he was about to make them over were not trained in his own
calling, which was Persian; for the Persians are shepherds-sons of a
rugged land, which is a stern mother, and well fitted to produce
sturdy race able to live in the open air and go without sleep, and
also to fight, if fighting is required. He did not observe that his
sons were trained differently; through the so-called blessing of being
royal they were educated in the Median fashion by women and eunuchs,
which led to their becoming such as people do become when they are
brought up unreproved. And so, after the death of Cyrus, his sons,
in the fulness of luxury and licence, took the kingdom, and first
one slew the other because he could not endure a rival; and,
afterwards, the slayer himself, mad with wine and brutality, lost
his kingdom through the Medes and the Eunuch, as they called him,
who despised the folly of Cambyses.
Cle. So runs the tale, and such probably were the facts.
Ath. Yes; and the tradition says, that the empire came back to the
Persians, through Darius and the seven chiefs.
Cle. True.
Ath. Let us note the rest of the story. Observe, that Darius was not
the son of a king, and had not received a luxurious education. When he
came to the throne, being one of the seven, he divided the country
into seven portions, and of this arrangement there are some shadowy
traces still remaining; he made laws upon the principle of introducing
universal equality in the order of the state, and he embodied in his
laws the settlement of the tribute which Cyrus promised-thus
creating a feeling of friendship and community among all the Persians,
and attaching the people to him with money and gifts. Hence his armies
cheerfully acquired for him countries as large as those which Cyrus
had left behind him. Darius was succeeded by his son Xerxes; and he
again was brought up in the royal and luxurious fashion. Might we
not most justly say: "O Darius, how came you to bring up Xerxes in the
same way in which Cyrus brought up Cambyses, and not to see his
fatal mistake?" For Xerxes, being the creation of the same
education, met with much the same fortune as Cambyses; and from that
time until now there has never been a really great king among the
Persians, although they are all called Great. And their degeneracy
is not to be attributed to chance, as I maintain; the reason is rather
the evil life which is generally led by the sons of very rich and
royal persons; for never will boy or man, young or old, excel in
virtue, who has been thus educated. And this, I say, is what the
legislator has to consider, and what at the present moment has to be
considered by us. Justly may you, O Lacedaemonians, be praised, in
that you do not give special honour or a special education to wealth
rather than to poverty, or to a royal rather than to a private
station, where the divine and inspired lawgiver has not originally
commanded them to be given. For no man ought to have pre-eminent
honour in a state because he surpasses others in wealth, any more than
because he is swift of foot or fair or strong, unless he have some
virtue in him; nor even if he have virtue, unless he have this
particular virtue of temperance.
Meg. What do you mean, Stranger?
Ath. I suppose that courage is a part of virtue?
Meg. To be sure.
Ath. Then, now hear and judge for yourself:-Would you like to have
for a fellow-lodger or neighbour a very courageous man, who had no
control over himself?
Meg. Heaven forbid!
Ath. Or an artist, who was clever in his profession, but a rogue?
Meg. Certainly not.
Ath. And surely justice does not grow apart from temperance?
Meg. Impossible.
Ath. Any more than our pattern wise man, whom we exhibited as having
his pleasures and pains in accordance with and corresponding to true
reason, can be intemperate?
Meg. No.
Ath. There is a further consideration relating to the due and
undue award of honours in states.
Meg. What is it?
Ath. I should like to know whether temperance without the other
virtues, existing alone in the soul of man, is rightly to be praised
or blamed?
Meg. I cannot tell.
Ath. And that is the best answer; for whichever alternative you
had chosen, I think that you would have gone wrong.
Meg. I am fortunate.
Ath. Very good; a quality, which is a mere appendage of things which
can be praised or blamed, does not deserve an expression of opinion,
but is best passed over in silence.
Meg. You are speaking of temperance?
Ath. Yes; but of the other virtues, that which having this appendage
is also most beneficial, will be most deserving of honour, and next
that which is beneficial in the next degree; and so each of them
will be rightly honoured according to a regular order.
Meg. True.
Ath. And ought not the legislator to determine these classes?
Meg. Certainly he should.
Ath. Suppose that we leave to him the arrangement of details. But
the general division of laws according to their importance into a
first and second and third class, we who are lovers of law may make
ourselves.
Meg. Very; good.
Ath. We maintain, then, that a State which would be safe and
happy, as far as the nature of man allows, must and ought to
distribute honour and dishonour in the right way. And the right way is
to place the goods of the soul first and highest in the scale,
always assuming temperance to be the condition of them; and to
assign the second place to the goods of the body; and the third
place to money and property. And it any legislator or state departs
from this rule by giving money the place of honour, or in any way
preferring that which is really last, may we not say, that he or the
state is doing an unholy and unpatriotic thing?
Meg. Yes; let that be plainly declared.
Ath. The consideration of the Persian governments led us thus far to
enlarge. We remarked that the Persians grew worse and worse. And we
affirm the reason of this to have been, that they too much
diminished the freedom of the people, and introduced too much of
despotism, and so destroyed friendship and community of feeling. And
when there is an end of these, no longer do the governors govern on
behalf of their subjects or of the people, but on behalf of
themselves; and if they think that they can gain ever so small an
advantage for themselves, they devastate cities, and send fire and
desolation among friendly races. And as they hate ruthlessly and
horribly, so are they hated; and when they want the people to fight
for them, they find no community of feeling or willingness to risk
their lives on their behalf; their untold myriads are useless to
them on the field of battle, and they think that their salvation
depends on the employment of mercenaries and strangers whom they hire,
as if they were in want of more men. And they cannot help being
stupid, since they proclaim by actions that the ordinary
distinctions of right and wrong which are made in a state are a
trifle, when compared with gold and silver.
Meg. Quite true.
Ath. And now enough of the Persians, and their present
maladministration of their government, which is owing to the excess of
slavery and despotism among them.
Meg. Good.
Ath. Next, we must pass in review the government of Attica in like
manner, and from this show that entire freedom and the absence of
all superior authority is not by any means so good as government by
others when properly limited, which was our ancient Athenian
constitution at the time when the Persians made their attack on
Hellas, or, speaking more correctly, on the whole continent of Europe.
There were four classes, arranged according to a property census,
and reverence was our queen and mistress, and made us willing to
live in obedience to the laws which then prevailed. Also the
vastness of the Persian armament, both by sea and on land, caused a
helpless terror, which made us more and more the servants of our
rulers and of the laws; and for all these reasons an exceeding harmony
prevailed among us. About ten years before the naval engagement at
Salamis, Datis came, leading a Persian host by command of Darius,
which was expressly directed against the Athenians and Eretrians,
having orders to carry them away captive; and these orders he was to
execute under pain of death. Now Datis and his myriads soon became
complete masters of Eretria, and he sent a fearful report to Athens
that no Eretrian had escaped him; for the soldiers of Datis had joined
hands and netted the whole of Eretria. And this report, whether well
or ill founded, was terrible to all the Hellenes, and above all to the
Athenians, and they dispatched embassies in all directions, but no one
was willing to come to their relief, with the exception of the
Lacedaemonians; and they, either because they were detained by the
Messenian war, which was then going on, or for some other reason of
which we are not told, came a day too late for the battle of Marathon.
After a while, the news arrived of mighty preparations being made, and
innumerable threats came from the king. Then, as time went on, a
rumour reached us that Darius had died, and that his son, who was
young and hot-headed, had come to the throne and was persisting in his
design. The Athenians were under the impression that the whole
expedition was directed against them, in consequence of the battle
of Marathon; and hearing of the bridge over the Hellespont, and the
canal of Athos, and the host of ships, considering that there was no
salvation for them either by land or by sea, for there was no one to
help them, and remembering that in the first expedition, when the
Persians destroyed Eretria, no one came to their help, or would risk
the danger of an alliance with them, they thought that this would
happen again, at least on land; nor, when they looked to the sea,
could they descry any hope of salvation; for they were attacked by a
thousand vessels and more. One chance of safety remained, slight
indeed and desperate, but their only one. They saw that on the
former occasion they had gained a seemingly impossible victory, and
borne up by this hope, they found that their only refuge was in
themselves and in the Gods. All these things created in them the
spirit of friendship; there was the fear of the moment, and there
was that higher fear, which they had acquired by obedience to their
ancient laws, and which I have several times in the preceding
discourse called reverence, of which the good man ought to be a
willing servant, and of which the coward is independent and
fearless. If this fear had not possessed them, they would never have
met the enemy, or defended their temples and sepulchres and their
country, and everything that was near and dear to them, as they did;
but little by little they would have been all scattered and dispersed.
Meg. Your words, Athenian, are quite true, and worthy of yourself
and of your country.
Ath. They are true, Megillus; and to you, who have inherited the
virtues of your ancestors, I may properly speak of the actions of that
day. And I would wish you and Cleinias to consider whether my words
have not also a bearing on legislation; for I am not discoursing
only for the pleasure of talking, but for the argument's sake.
Please to remark that the experience both of ourselves and the
Persians was, in a certain sense, the same; for as they led their
people into utter servitude, so we too led ours into all freedom.
And now, how shall we proceed? for I would like you to observe that
our previous arguments have good deal to say for themselves.
Meg. True; but I wish that you would give us a fuller explanation.
Ath. I will. Under the ancient laws, my friends, the people was
not as now the master, but rather the willing servant of the laws.
Meg. What laws do you mean?
Ath. In the first place, let us speak of the laws about music-that
is to say, such music as then existed-in order that we may trace the
growth of the excess of freedom from the beginning. Now music was
early divided among us into certain kinds and manners. One sort
consisted of prayers to the Gods, which were called hymns; and there
was another and opposite sort called lamentations, and another
termed paeans, and another, celebrating the birth of Dionysus, called,
I believe, "dithyrambs." And they used the actual word "laws," or
nomoi, for another kind of song; and to this they added the term
"citharoedic." All these and others were duly distinguished, nor
were the performers allowed to confuse one style of music with
another. And the authority which determined and gave judgment, and
punished the disobedient, was not expressed in a hiss, nor in the most
unmusical shouts of the multitude, as in our days, nor in applause and
clapping of hands. But the directors of public instruction insisted
that the spectators should listen in silence to the end; and boys
and their tutors, and the multitude in general, were kept quiet by a
hint from a stick. Such was the good order which the multitude were
willing to observe; they would never have dared to give judgment by
noisy cries. And then, as time went on, the poets themselves
introduced the reign of vulgar and lawless innovation. They were men
of genius, but they had no perception of what is just and lawful in
music; raging like Bacchanals and possessed with inordinate
delights-mingling lamentations with hymns, and paeans with dithyrambs;
imitating the sounds of the flute on the lyre, and making one
general confusion; ignorantly affirming that music has no truth,
and, whether good or bad, can only be judged of rightly by the
pleasure of the hearer. And by composing such licentious works, and
adding to them words as licentious, they have inspired the multitude
with lawlessness and boldness, and made them fancy that they can judge
for themselves about melody and song. And in this way the theatres
from being mute have become vocal, as though they had understanding of
good and bad in music and poetry; and instead of an aristocracy, an
evil sort of theatrocracy has grown up. For if the democracy which
judged had only consisted of educated persons, no fatal harm would
have been done; but in music there first arose the universal conceit
of omniscience and general lawlessness;-freedom came following
afterwards, and men, fancying that they knew what they did not know,
had no longer any fear, and the absence of fear begets
shamelessness. For what is this shamelessness, which is so evil a
thing, but the insolent refusal to regard the opinion of the better by
reason of an over-daring sort of liberty?
Meg. Very true.
Ath. Consequent upon this freedom comes the other freedom, of
disobedience to rulers; and then the attempt to escape the control and
exhortation of father, mother, elders, and when near the end, the
control of the laws also; and at the very end there is the contempt of
oaths and pledges, and no regard at all for the Gods-herein they
exhibit and imitate the old so called Titanic nature, and come to
the same point as the Titans when they rebelled against God, leading a
life of endless evils. But why have I said all this? I ask, because
the argument ought to be pulled up from time to time, and not be
allowed to run away, but held with bit and bridle, and then we shall
not, as the proverb says, fall off our ass. Let us then once more
ask the question, To what end has all this been said?
Meg. Very good.
Ath. This, then, has been said for the sake-
Meg. Of what?
Ath. We were maintaining that the lawgiver ought to have three
things in view: first, that the city for which he legislates should be
free; and secondly, be at unity with herself; and thirdly, should have
understanding;-these were our principles, were they not?
Meg. Certainly.
Ath. With a view to this we selected two kinds of government, the
despotic, and the other the most free; and now we are considering
which of them is the right form: we took a mean in both cases, of
despotism in the one, and of liberty in the other, and we saw that
in a mean they attained their perfection; but that when they were
carried to the extreme of either, slavery or licence, neither party
were the gainers.
Meg. Very true.
Ath. And that was our reason for considering the settlement of the
Dorian army, and of the city built by Dardanus at the foot of the
mountains, and the removal of cities to the seashore, and of our
mention of the first men, who were the survivors of the deluge. And
all that was previously said about music and drinking, and what
preceded, was said with the view of seeing how a state might be best
administered, and how an individual might best order his own life. And
now, Megillus and Cleinias, how can we put to the proof the value of
our words?
Cle. Stranger, I think that I see how a proof of their value may
be obtained. This discussion of ours appears to me to have been
singularly fortunate, and just what I at this moment want; most
auspiciously have you and my friend Megillus come in my way. For I
will tell you what has happened to me; and I regard the coincidence as
a sort of omen. The greater part of Crete is going to send out a
colony, and they have entrusted the management of the affair to the
Cnosians; and the Cnosian government to me and nine others. And they
desire us to give them any laws which we please, whether taken from
the Cretan model or from any other; and they do not mind about their
being foreign if they are better. Grant me then this favour, which
will also be a gain to yourselves:-Let us make a selection from what
has been said, and then let us imagine a State of which we will
suppose ourselves to be the original founders. Thus we shall proceed
with our enquiry, and, at the same time, I may have the use of the
framework which you are constructing, for the city which is in
contemplation.
Ath. Good news, Cleinias; if Megillus has no objection, you may
be sure that I will do all in my power to please you.
Cle. Thank you.
Meg. And so will I.
Cle. Excellent; and now let us begin to frame the State.
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