Athenian Stranger. Listen, all ye who have just now heard the
laws about Gods, and about our dear forefathers:-Of all the things which a
man has, next to the Gods, his soul is the most divine and most truly his
own. Now in every man there are two parts: the better and superior, which
rules, and the worse and inferior, which serves; and the ruling part of him
is always to be preferred to the subject. Wherefore I am right in bidding
every one next to the Gods, who are our masters, and those who in order
follow them [i.e., the demons], to honour his own soul, which every one
seems to honour, but no one honours as he ought; for honour is a divine
good, and no evil thing is honourable; and he who thinks that he can honour
the soul by word or gift, or any sort of compliance, without making her in
any way better, seems to honour her, but honours her not at all. For
example, every man, from his very boyhood, fancies that he is able to know
everything, and thinks that he honours his soul by praising her, and he is
very ready to let her do whatever she may like. But I mean to say that in
acting thus he injures his soul, and is far from honouring her; whereas, in
our opinion, he ought to honour her as second only to the Gods. Again, when
a man thinks that others are to be blamed, and not himself, for the errors
which he has committed from time to time, and the many and great evils which
befell him in consequence, and is always fancying himself to be exempt and
innocent, he is under the idea that he is honouring his soul; whereas the
very reverse is the fact, for he is really injuring her. And when,
disregarding the word and approval of the legislator, he indulges in
pleasure, then again he is far from honouring her; he only dishonours her,
and fills her full of evil and remorse; or when he does not endure to the
end the labours and fears and sorrows and pains which the legislator
approves, but gives way before them, then, by yielding, he does not honour
the soul, but by all such conduct he makes her to be dishonourable; nor when
he thinks that life at any price is a good, does he honour her, but yet once
more he dishonours her; for the soul having a notion that the world below is
all evil, he yields to her, and does not resist and teach or convince her
that, for aught she knows, the world of the Gods below, instead of being
evil, may be the greatest of all goods. Again, when any one prefers beauty
to virtue, what is this but the real and utter dishonour of the soul? For
such a preference implies that the body is more honourable than the soul;
and this is false, for there is nothing of earthly birth which is more
honourable than the heavenly, and he who thinks otherwise of the soul has no
idea how greatly he undervalues this wonderful possession; nor, again, when
a person is willing, or not unwilling, to acquire dishonest gains, does he
then honour his soul with gifts-far otherwise; he sells her glory and honour
for a small piece of gold; but all the gold which is under or upon the earth
is not enough to give in exchange for virtue. In a word, I may say that he
who does not estimate the base and evil, the good and noble, according to
the standard of the legislator, and abstain in every possible way from the
one and practise the other to the utmost of his power, does not know that in
all these respects he is most foully and disgracefully abusing his soul,
which is the divinest part of man; for no one, as I may say, ever considers
that which is declared to be the greatest penalty of evil-doing--namely, to
grow into the likeness of bad men, and growing like them to fly from the
conversation of the good, and be cut off from them, and cleave to and follow
after the company of the bad. And he who is joined to them must do and
suffer what such men by nature do and say to one another-a suffering which
is not justice but retribution; for justice and the just are noble, whereas
retribution is the suffering which waits upon injustice; and whether a man
escape or endure this, he is miserable-in the former case, because he is not
cured; while in the latter, he perishes in order that the rest of mankind
may be saved.
Speaking generally, our glory is to follow the better and improve the
inferior, which is susceptible of improvement, as far as this is possible.
And of all human possessions, the soul is by nature most inclined to avoid
the evil, and track out and find the chief good; which when a man has found,
he should take up his abode with it during the remainder of his life.
Wherefore the soul also is second [or next to God] in honour; and third, as
every one will perceive, comes the honour of the body in natural order.
Having determined this, we have next to consider that there is a natural
honour of the body, and that of honours some are true and some are
counterfeit. To decide which are which is the business of the legislator;
and he, I suspect, would intimate that they are as follows:-Honour is not to
be given to the fair body, or to the strong or the swift or the tall, or to
the healthy body (although many may think otherwise), any more than to their
opposites; but the mean states of all these habits are by far the safest and
most moderate; for the one extreme makes the soul braggart and insolent, and
the other, illiberal and base; and money, and property, and distinction all
go to the same tune. The excess of any of these things is apt to be a source
of hatreds and divisions among states and individuals; and the defect of
them is commonly a cause of slavery. And, therefore, I would not have any
one fond of heaping up riches for the sake of his children, in order that he
may leave them as rich as possible. For the possession of great wealth is of
no use, either to them or to the state. The condition of youth which is free
from flattery, and at the same time not in need of the necessaries of life,
is the best and most harmonious of all, being in accord and agreement with
our nature, and making life to be most entirely free from sorrow. Let
parents, then, bequeath to their children not a heap of riches, but the
spirit of reverence. We, indeed, fancy that they will inherit reverence from
us, if we rebuke them when they show a want of reverence. But this quality
is not really imparted to them by the present style of admonition, which
only tells them that the young ought always to be reverential. A sensible
legislator will rather exhort the elders to reverence the younger, and above
all to take heed that no young man sees or hears one of themselves doing or
saying anything disgraceful; for where old men have no shame, there young
men will most certainly be devoid of reverence. The best way of training the
young is to train yourself at the same time; not to admonish them, but to be
always carrying out your own admonitions in practice. He who honours his
kindred, and reveres those who share in the same Gods and are of the same
blood and family, may fairly expect that the Gods who preside over
generation will be propitious to him, and will quicken his seed. And he who
deems the services which his friends and acquaintances do for him, greater
and more important than they themselves deem them, and his own favours to
them less than theirs to him, will have their good-will in the intercourse
of life. And surely in his relations to the state and his fellow citizens,
he is by far the best, who rather than the Olympic or any other victory of
peace or war, desires to win the palm of obedience to the laws of his
country, and who, of all mankind, is the person reputed to have obeyed them
best through life. In his relations to strangers, a man should consider that
a contract is a most holy thing, and that all concerns and wrongs of
strangers are more directly dependent on the protection of God, than wrongs
done to citizens; for the stranger, having no kindred and friends, is more
to be pitied by Gods and men. Wherefore, also, he who is most able to avenge
him is most zealous in his cause; and he who is most able is the genius and
the god of the stranger, who follow in the train of Zeus, the god of
strangers. And for this reason, he who has a spark of caution in him, will
do his best to pass through life without sinning against the stranger. And
of offences committed, whether against strangers or fellow-countrymen, that
against suppliants is the greatest. For the god who witnessed to the
agreement made with the suppliant, becomes in a special manner the guardian
of the sufferer; and he will certainly not suffer unavenged.
Thus we have fairly described the manner in which a man is to act about his
parents, and himself, and his own affairs; and in relation to the state, and
his friends, and kindred, both in what concerns his own countrymen, and in
what concerns the stranger. We will now consider what manner of man he must
be who would best pass through life in respect of those other things which
are not matters of law, but of praise and blame only; in which praise and
blame educate a man, and make him more tractable and amenable to the laws
which are about to be imposed.
Truth is the beginning of every good thing, both to Gods and men; and he who
would be blessed and happy, should be from the first a partaker of the
truth, that he may live a true man as long as possible, for then he can be
trusted; but he is not to be trusted who loves voluntary falsehood, and he
who loves involuntary falsehood is a fool. Neither condition is enviable,
for the untrustworthy and ignorant has no friend, and as time advances he
becomes known, and lays up in store for himself isolation in crabbed age
when life is on the wane: so that, whether his children or friends are alive
or not, he is equally solitary.-Worthy of honour is he who does no
injustice, and of more than twofold honour, if he not only does no injustice
himself, but hinders others from doing any; the first may count as one man,
the second is worth many men, because he informs the rulers of the injustice
of others. And yet more highly to be esteemed is he who co-operates with the
rulers in correcting the citizens as far as he can-he shall be proclaimed
the great and perfect citizen, and bear away the palm of virtue. The same
praise may be given about temperance and wisdom, and all other goods which
may be imparted to others, as well as acquired by a man for himself; he who
imparts them shall be honoured as the man of men, and he who is willing, yet
is not able, may be allowed the second place; but he who is jealous and will
not, if he can help, allow others to partake in a friendly way of any good,
is deserving of blame: the good, however, which he has, is not to be
undervalued by us because it is possessed by him, but must be acquired by us
also to the utmost of our power. Let every man, then, freely strive for the
prize of virtue, and let there be no envy. For the unenvious nature
increases the greatness of states-he himself contends in the race, blasting
the fair fame of no man; but the envious, who thinks that he ought to get
the better by defaming others, is less energetic himself in the pursuit of
true virtue, and reduces his rivals to despair by his unjust slanders of
them. And so he makes the whole city to enter the arena untrained in the
practice of virtue, and diminishes her glory as far as in him lies. Now
every man should be valiant, but he should also be gentle. From the cruel,
or hardly curable, or altogether incurable acts of injustice done to him by
others, a man can only escape by fighting and defending himself and
conquering, and by never ceasing to punish them; and no man who is not of a
noble spirit is able to accomplish this. As to the actions of those who do
evil, but whose evil is curable, in the first place, let us remember that
the unjust man is not unjust of his own free will. For no man of his own
free will would choose to possess the greatest of evils, and least of all in
the most honourable part of himself. And the soul, as we said, is of a truth
deemed by all men the most honourable. In the soul, then, which is the most
honourable part of him, no one, if he could help, would admit, or allow to
continue the greatest of evils. The unrighteous and vicious are always to be
pitied in any case; and one can afford to forgive as well as pity him who is
curable, and refrain and calm one's anger, not getting into a passion, like
a woman, and nursing ill-feeling. But upon him who is incapable of
reformation and wholly evil, the vials of our wrath should be poured out;
wherefore I say that good men ought, when occasion demands, to be both
gentle and passionate.
Of all evils the greatest is one which in the souls of most men is innate,
and which a man is always excusing in himself and never correcting; mean,
what is expressed in the saying that "Every man by nature is and ought to be
his own friend." Whereas the excessive love of self is in reality the source
to each man of all offences; for the lover is blinded about the beloved, so
that he judges wrongly of the just, the good, and the honourable, and thinks
that he ought always to prefer himself to the truth. But he who would be a
great man ought to regard, not himself or his interests, but what is just,
whether the just act be his own or that of another. Through a similar error
men are induced to fancy that their own ignorance is wisdom, and thus we who
may be truly said to know nothing, think that we know all things; and
because we will not let others act for us in what we do not know, we are
compelled to act amiss ourselves. Wherefore let every man avoid excess of
self-love, and condescend to follow a better man than himself, not allowing
any false shame to stand in the way. There are also minor precepts which are
often repeated, and are quite as useful; a man should recollect them and
remind himself of them. For when a stream is flowing out, there should be
water flowing in too; and recollection flows in while wisdom is departing.
Therefore I say that a man should refrain from excess either of laughter or
tears, and should exhort his neighbour to do the same; he should veil his
immoderate sorrow or joy, and seek to behave with propriety, whether the
genius of his good fortune remains with him, or whether at the crisis of his
fate, when he seems to be mounting high and steep places, the Gods oppose
him in some of his enterprises. Still he may ever hope, in the case of good
men, that whatever afflictions are to befall them in the future God will
lessen, and that present evils he will change for the better; and as to the
goods which are the opposite of these evils, he will not doubt that they
will be added to them, and that they will be fortunate. Such should be men's
hopes, and such should be the exhortations with which they admonish one
another, never losing an opportunity, but on every occasion distinctly
reminding themselves and others of all these things, both in jest and
earnest.
Enough has now been said of divine matters, both as touching the practices
which men ought to follow, and as to the sort of persons who they ought
severally to be. But of human things we have not as yet spoken, and we must;
for to men we are discoursing and not to Gods. Pleasures and pains and
desires are a part of human nature, and on them every mortal being must of
necessity hang and depend with the most eager interest. And therefore we
must praise the noblest life, not only as the fairest in appearance, but as
being one which, if a man will only taste, and not, while still in his
youth, desert for another, he will find to surpass also in the very thing
which we all of us desire-I mean in having a greater amount of pleasure and
less of pain during the whole of life. And this will be plain, if a man has
a true taste of them, as will be quickly and clearly seen. But what is a
true taste? That we have to learn from the argument-the point being what is
according to nature, and what is not according to nature. One life must be
compared with another, the more pleasurable with the more painful, after
this manner:-We desire to have pleasure, but we neither desire nor choose
pain; and the neutral state we are ready to take in exchange, not for
pleasure but for pain; and we also wish for less pain and greater pleasure,
but less pleasure and greater pain we do not wish for; and an equal balance
of either we cannot venture to assert that we should desire. And all these
differ or do not differ severally in number and magnitude and intensity and
equality, and in the opposites of these when regarded as objects of choice,
in relation to desire. And such being the necessary order of things, we wish
for that life in which there are many great and intense elements of pleasure
and pain, and in which the pleasures are in excess, and do not wish for that
in which the opposites exceed; nor, again, do we wish for that in which the
clements of either are small and few and feeble, and the pains exceed. And
when, as I said before, there is a balance of pleasure and pain in life,
this is to be regarded by us as the balanced life; while other lives are
preferred by us because they exceed in what we like, or are rejected by us
because they exceed in what we dislike. All the lives of men may be regarded
by us as bound up in these, and we must also consider what sort of lives we
by nature desire. And if we wish for any others, I say that we desire them
only through some ignorance and inexperience of the lives which actually
exist.
Now, what lives are they, and how many in which, having searched out and
beheld the objects of will and desire and their opposites, and making of
them a law, choosing, I say, the dear and the pleasant and the best and
noblest, a man may live in the happiest way possible? Let us say that the
temperate life is one kind of life, and the rational another, and the
courageous another, and the healthful another; and to these four let us
oppose four other lives-the foolish, the cowardly, the intemperate, the
diseased. He who knows the temperate life will describe it as in all things
gentle, having gentle pains and gentle pleasures, and placid desires and
loves not insane; whereas the intemperate life is impetuous in all things,
and has violent pains and pleasures, and vehement and stinging desires, and
loves utterly insane; and in the temperate life the pleasures exceed the
pains, but in the intemperate life the pains exceed the pleasures in
greatness and number and frequency. Hence one of the two lives is naturally
and necessarily more pleasant and the other more painful, and he who would
live pleasantly cannot possibly choose to live intemperately. And if this is
true, the inference clearly is that no man is voluntarily intemperate; but
that the whole multitude of men lack temperance in their lives, either from
ignorance, or from want of self-control, or both. And the same holds of the
diseased and healthy life; they both have pleasures and pains, but in health
the pleasure exceeds the pain, and in sickness the pain exceeds the
pleasure. Now our intention in choosing the lives is not that the painful
should exceed, but the life in which pain is exceeded by pleasure we have
determined to be the more pleasant life. And we should say that the
temperate life has the elements both of pleasure and pain fewer and smaller
and less frequent than the intemperate, and the wise life than the foolish
life, and the life of courage than the life of cowardice; one of each pair
exceeding in pleasure and the other in pain, the courageous surpassing the
cowardly, and the wise exceeding the foolish. And so the one dass of lives
exceeds the other class in pleasure; the temperate and courageous and wise
and healthy exceed the cowardly and foolish and intemperate and diseased
lives; and generally speaking, that which has any virtue, whether of body or
soul, is pleasanter than the vicious life, and far superior in beauty and
rectitude and excellence and reputation, and causes him who lives
accordingly to be infinitely happier than the opposite.
Enough of the preamble; and now the laws should follow; or, to speak more
correctly, outline of them. As, then, in the case of a web or any other
tissue, the warp and the woof cannot be made of the same materials, but the
warp is necessarily superior as being stronger, and having a certain
character of firmness, whereas the woof is softer and has a proper degree of
elasticity;-in a similar manner those who are to hold great offices in
states, should be distinguished truly in each case from those who have been
but slenderly proven by education. Let us suppose that there are two parts
in the constitution of a state-one the creation of offices, the other the
laws which are assigned to them to administer.
But, before all this, comes the following consideration:-The shepherd or
herdsman, or breeder of horses or the like, when he has received his animals
will not begin to train them until he has first purified them in a manner
which befits a community of animals; he will divide the healthy and
unhealthy, and the good breed and the bad breed, and will send away the
unhealthy and badly bred to other herds, and tend the rest, reflecting that
his labours will be vain and have no effect, either on the souls or bodies
of those whom nature and ill nurture have corrupted, and that they will
involve in destruction the pure and healthy nature and being of every other
animal, if he should neglect to purify them. Now the case of other animals
is not so important-they are only worth introducing for the sake of
illustration; but what relates to man is of the highest importance; and the
legislator should make enquiries, and indicate what is proper for each one
in the way of purification and of any other procedure. Take, for example,
the purification of a city-there are many kinds of purification, some easier
and others more difficult; and some of them, and the best and most difficult
of them, the legislator, if he be also a despot, may be able to effect; but
the legislator, who, not being a despot, sets up a new government and laws,
even if he attempt the mildest of purgations, may think himself happy if he
can complete his work. The best kind of purification is painful, like
similar cures in medicine, involving righteous punishment and inflicting
death or exile in the last resort. For in this way we commonly dispose of
great sinners who are incurable, and are the greatest injury of the whole
state. But the milder form of purification is as follows:-when men who have
nothing, and are in want of food, show a disposition to follow their leaders
in an attack on the property of the rich-these, who are the natural plague
of the state, are sent away by the legislator in a friendly spirit as far as
he is able; and this dismissal of them is euphemistically termed a colony.
And every legislator should contrive to do this at once. Our present case,
however, is peculiar. For there is no need to devise any colony or purifying
separation under the circumstances in which we are placed. But as, when many
streams flow together from many sources, whether springs or mountain
torrents, into a single lake, we ought to attend and take care that the
confluent waters should be perfectly clear, and in order to effect this,
should pump and draw off and divert impurities, so in every political
arrangement there may be trouble and danger. But, seeing that we are now
only discoursing and not acting, let our selection be supposed to be
completed, and the desired purity attained. Touching evil men, who want to
join and be citizens of our state, after we have tested them by every sort
of persuasion and for a sufficient time, we will prevent them from coming;
but the good we will to the utmost of our ability receive as friends with
open arms.
Another piece of good fortune must not be forgotten, which, as we were
saying, the Heraclid colony had, and which is also ours-that we have escaped
division of land and the abolition of debts; for these are always a source
of dangerous contention, and a city which is driven by necessity to
legislate upon such matters can neither allow the old ways to continue, nor
yet venture to alter them. We must have recourse to prayers, so to speak,
and hope that a slight change may be cautiously effected in a length of
time. And such a change can be accomplished by those who have abundance of
land, and having also many debtors, are willing, in a kindly spirit, to
share with those who are in want, sometimes remitting and sometimes giving,
holding fast in a path of moderation, and deeming poverty to be the increase
of a man's desires and not the diminution of his property. For this is the
great beginning of salvation to a state, and upon this lasting basis may be
erected afterwards whatever political order is suitable under the
circumstances; but if the change be based upon an unsound principle, the
future administration of the country will be full of difficulties. That is a
danger which, as I am saying, is escaped by us, and yet we had better say
how, if we had not escaped, we might have escaped; and we may venture now to
assert that no other way of escape, whether narrow or broad, can be devised
but freedom from avarice and a sense of justice-upon this rock our city
shall be built; for there ought to be no disputes among citizens about
property. If there are quarrels of long standing among them, no legislator
of any degree of sense will proceed a step in the arrangement of the state
until they are settled. But that they to whom God has given, as he has to
us, to be the founders of a new state as yet free from enmity-that they
should create themselves enmities by their mode of distributing lands and
houses, would be superhuman folly and wickedness.
How then can we rightly order the distribution of the land? In the first
place, the number of the citizens has to be determined, and also the number
and size of the divisions into which they will have to be formed; and the
land and the houses will then have to be apportioned by us as fairly as we
can. The number of citizens can only be estimated satisfactorily in relation
to the territory and the neighbouring states. The territory must be
sufficient to maintain a certain number of inhabitants in a moderate way of
life-more than this is not required; and the number of citizens should be
sufficient to defend themselves against the injustice of their neighbours,
and also to give them the power of rendering efficient aid to their
neighbours when they are wronged. After having taken a survey of theirs and
their neighbours' territory, we will determine the limits of them in fact as
well as in theory. And now, let us proceed to legislate with a view to
perfecting the form and outline of our state. The number of our citizens
shall be 5040-this will be a convenient number; and these shall be owners of
the land and protectors of the allotment. The houses and the land will be
divided in the same way, so that every man may correspond to a lot. Let the
whole number be first divided into two parts, and then into three; and the
number is further capable of being divided into four or five parts, or any
number of parts up to ten. Every legislator ought to know so much arithmetic
as to be able to tell what number is most likely to be useful to all cities;
and we are going to take that number which contains the greatest and most
regular and unbroken series of divisions. The whole of number has every
possible division, and the number 5040 can be divided by exactly fifty-nine
divisors, and ten of these proceed without interval from one to ten: this
will furnish numbers for war and peace, and for all contracts and dealings,
including taxes and divisions of the land. These properties of number should
be ascertained at leisure by those who are bound by law to know them; for
they are true, and should be proclaimed at the foundation of the city, with
a view to use. Whether the legislator is establishing a new state or
restoring an old and decayed one, in respect of Gods and temples-the temples
which are to be built in each city, and the Gods or demi-gods after whom
they are to be called-if he be a man of sense, he will make no change in
anything which the oracle of Delphi, or Dodona, or the God Ammon, or any
ancient tradition has sanctioned in whatever manner, whether by apparitions
or reputed inspiration of Heaven, in obedience to which mankind have
established sacrifices in connection with mystic rites, either originating
on the spot, or derived from Tyrrhenia or Cyprus or some other place, and on
the strength of which traditions they have consecrated oracles and images,
and altars and temples, and portioned out a sacred domain for each of them.
The least part of all these ought not to be disturbed by the legislator; but
he should assign to the several districts some God, or demi-god, or hero,
and, in the distribution of the soil, should give to these first their
chosen domain and all things fitting, that the inhabitants of the several
districts may meet at fixed times, and that they may readily supply their
various wants, and entertain one another with sacrifices, and become friends
and acquaintances; for there is no greater good in a state than that the
citizens should be known to one another. When not light but darkness and
ignorance of each other's characters prevails among them, no one will
receive the honour of which he is deserving, or the power or the justice to
which he is fairly entitled: wherefore, in every state, above all things,
every man should take heed that he have no deceit in him, but that he be
always true and simple; and that no deceitful person take any advantage of
him.
The next move in our pastime of legislation, like the withdrawal of the
stone from the holy line in the game of draughts, being an unusual one, will
probably excite wonder when mentioned for the first time. And yet, if a man
will only reflect and weigh the matter with care, he will see that our city
is ordered in a manner which, if not the best, is the second best. Perhaps
also some one may not approve this form, because he thinks that such a
constitution is ill adapted to a legislator who has not despotic power. The
truth is, that there are three forms of government, the best, the second and
the third best, which we may just mention, and then leave the selection to
the ruler of the settlement. Following this method in the present instance,
let us speak of the states which are respectively first, second, and third
in excellence, and then we will leave the choice to Cleinias now, or to any
one else who may hereafter have to make a similar choice among
constitutions, and may desire to give to his state some feature which is
congenial to him and which he approves in his own country.
The first and highest form of the state and of the government and of the law
is that in which there prevails most widely the ancient saying, that
"Friends have all things in common." Whether there is anywhere now, or will
ever be, this communion of women and children and of property, in which the
private and individual is altogether banished from life, and things which
are by nature private, such as eyes and ears and hands, have become common,
and in some way see and hear and act in common, and all men express praise
and blame and feel joy and sorrow on the same occasions, and whatever laws
there are unite the city to the utmost-whether all this is possible or not,
I say that no man, acting upon any other principle, will ever constitute a
state which will be truer or better or more exalted in virtue. Whether such
a state is governed by Gods or sons of Gods, one, or more than one, happy
are the men who, living after this manner, dwell there; and therefore to
this we are to look for the pattern of the state, and to cling to this, and
to seek with all our might for one which is like this. The state which we
have now in hand, when created, will be nearest to immortality and the only
one which takes the second place; and after that, by the grace of God, we
will complete the third one. And we will begin by speaking of the nature and
origin of the second.
Let the citizens at once distribute their land and houses, and not till the
land in common, since a community of goods goes beyond their proposed
origin, and nurture, and education. But in making the distribution, let the
several possessors feel that their particular lots also belong to the whole
city; and seeing that the earth is their parent, let them tend her more
carefully than children do their mother. For she is a goddess and their
queen, and they are her mortal subjects. Such also are the feelings which
they ought to entertain to the Gods and demi-gods of the country. And in
order that the distribution may always remain, they ought to consider
further that the present number of families should be always retained, and
neither increased nor diminished. This may be secured for the whole city in
the following manner:-Let the possessor of a lot leave the one of his
children who is his best beloved, and one only, to be the heir of his
dwelling, and his successor in the duty of ministering to the Gods, the
state and the family, as well the living members of it as those who are
departed when he comes into the inheritance; but of his other children, if
he have more than one, he shall give the females in marriage according to
the law to be hereafter enacted, and the males he shall distribute as sons
to those citizens who have no children and are disposed to receive them; or
if there should be none such, and particular individuals have too many
children, male or female, or too few, as in the case of barrenness-in all
these cases let the highest and most honourable magistracy created by us
judge and determine what is to be done with the redundant or deficient, and
devise a means that the number of 5040 houses shall always remain the same.
There are many ways of regulating numbers; for they in whom generation is
affluent may be made to refrain, and, on the other hand, special care may be
taken to increase the number of births by rewards and stigmas, or we may
meet the evil by the elder men giving advice and administering rebuke to the
younger-in this way the object may be attained. And if after all there be
very great difficulty about the equal preservation of the 5040 houses, and
there be an excess of citizens, owing to the too great love of those who
live together, and we are at our wits' end, there is still the old device
often mentioned by us of sending out a colony, which will part friends with
us, and be composed of suitable persons. If, on the other hand, there come a
wave bearing a deluge of disease, or a plague of war, and the inhabitants
become much fewer than the appointed number by reason of bereavement, we
ought not to introduce citizens of spurious birth and education, if this can
be avoided; but even God is said not to be able to fight against necessity.
Wherefore let us suppose this "high argument" of ours to address us in the
following terms:-Best of men, cease not to honour according to nature
similarity and equality and sameness and agreement, as regards number and
every good and noble quality. And, above all, observe the aforesaid number
5040 throughout life; in the second place, do not disparage the small and
modest proportions of the inheritances which you received in the
distribution, by buying and selling them to one another. For then neither
will the God who gave you the lot be your friend, nor will the legislator;
and indeed the law declares to the disobedient that these are the terms upon
which he may or may not take the lot. In the first place, the earth as he is
informed is sacred to the Gods; and in the next place, priests and
priestesses will offer up prayers over a first, and second, and even a third
sacrifice, that he who buys or sells the houses or lands which he has
received, may suffer the punishment which he deserves; and these their
prayers they shall write down in the temples, on tablets of cypress-wood,
for the instruction of posterity. Moreover they will set a watch over all
these things, that they may be observed;-the magistracy which has the
sharpest eyes shall keep watch that any infringement of these commands may
be discovered and punished as offences both against the law and the God. How
great is the benefit of such an ordinance to all those cities, which obey
and are administered accordingly, no bad man can ever know, as the old
proverb says; but only a man of experience and good habits. For in such an
order of things there will not be much opportunity for making money; no man
either ought, or indeed will be allowed, to exercise any ignoble occupation,
of which the vulgarity is a matter of reproach to a freeman, and should
never want to acquire riches by any such means.
Further, the law enjoins that no private man shall be allowed to possess
gold and silver, but only coin for daily use, which is almost necessary in
dealing with artisans, and for payment of hirelings, whether slaves or
immigrants, by all those persons who require the use of them. Wherefore our
citizens, as we say, should have a coin passing current among themselves,
but not accepted among the rest of mankind; with a view, however, to
expeditions and journeys to other lands-for embassies, or for any other
occasion which may arise of sending out a herald, the state must also
possess a common Hellenic currency. If a private person is ever obliged to
go abroad, let him have the consent of the magistrates and go; and if when
he returns he has any foreign money remaining, let him give the surplus back
to the treasury, and receive a corresponding sum in the local currency. And
if he is discovered to appropriate it, let it be confiscated, and let him
who knows and does not inform be subject to curse and dishonour equally him
who brought the money, and also to a fine not less in amount than the
foreign money which has been brought back. In marrying and giving in
marriage, no one shall give or receive any dowry at all; and no one shall
deposit money with another whom he does not trust as a friend, nor shall he
lend money upon interest; and the borrower should be under no obligation to
repay either capital or interest. That these principles are best, any one
may see who compares them with the first principle and intention of a state.
The intention, as we affirm, of a reasonable statesman, is not what the many
declare to be the object of a good legislator, namely, that the state for
the true interests of which he is advising should be as great and as rich as
possible, and should possess gold and silver, and have the greatest empire
by sea and land;-this they imagine to be the real object of legislation, at
the same time adding, inconsistently, that the true legislator desires to
have the city the best and happiest possible. But they do not see that some
of these things are possible, and some of them are impossible; and he who
orders the state will desire what is possible, and will not indulge in vain
wishes or attempts to accomplish that which is impossible. The citizen must
indeed be happy and good, and the legislator will seek to make him so; but
very rich and very good at the same time he cannot be, not, at least, in the
sense in which the many speak of riches. For they mean by "the rich" the few
who have the most valuable possessions, although the owner of them may quite
well be a rogue. And if this is true, I can never assent to the doctrine
that the rich man will be happy-he must be good as well as rich. And good in
a high degree, and rich in a high degree at the same time, he cannot be.
Some one will ask, why not? And we shall answer-Because acquisitions which
come from sources which are just and unjust indifferently, are more than
double those which come from just sources only; and the sums which are
expended neither honourably nor disgracefully, are only half as great as
those which are expended honourably and on honourable purposes. Thus, if the
one acquires double and spends half, the other who is in the opposite case
and is a good man cannot possibly be wealthier than he. The first-I am
speaking of the saver and not of the spender-is not always bad; he may
indeed in some cases be utterly bad, but, as I was saying, a good man he
never is. For he who receives money unjustly as well as justly, and spends
neither nor unjustly, will be a rich man if he be also thrifty. On the other
hand, the utterly bad is in general profligate, and therefore very poor;
while he who spends on noble objects, and acquires wealth by just means
only, can hardly be remarkable for riches, any more than he can be very
poor. Our statement, then, is true, that the very rich are not good, and, if
they are not good, they are not happy. But the intention of our laws was
that the citizens should be as happy as may be, and as friendly as possible
to one another. And men who are always at law with one another, and amongst
whom there are many wrongs done, can never be friends to one another, but
only those among whom crimes and lawsuits are few and slight. Therefore we
say that gold and silver ought not to be allowed in the city, nor much of
the vulgar sort of trade which is carried on by lending money, or rearing
the meaner kinds of live stock; but only the produce of agriculture, and
only so much of this as will not compel us in pursuing it to neglect that
for the sake of which riches exist-I mean, soul and body, which without
gymnastics, and without education, will never be worth anything; and
therefore, as we have said not once but many times, the care of riches
should have the last place in our thoughts. For there are in all three
things about which every man has an interest; and the interest about money,
when rightly regarded, is the third and lowest of them: midway comes the
interest of the body; and, first of all, that of the soul; and the state
which we are describing will have been rightly constituted if it ordains
honours according to this scale. But if, in any of the laws which have been
ordained, health has been preferred to temperance, or wealth to health and
temperate habits, that law must clearly be wrong. Wherefore, also, the
legislator ought often to impress upon himself the question-"What do I
want?" and "Do I attain my aim, or do I miss the mark?" In this way, and in
this way only, he ma acquit himself and free others from the work of
legislation.
Let the allottee then hold his lot upon the conditions which we have
mentioned.
It would be well that every man should come to the colony having all things
equal; but seeing that this is not possible, and one man will have greater
possessions than another, for many reasons and in particular in order to
preserve equality in special crises of the state, qualifications of property
must be unequal, in order that offices and contributions and distributions
may be proportioned to the value of each person's wealth, and not solely to
the virtue of his ancestors or himself, nor yet to the strength and beauty
of his person, but also to the measure of his wealth or poverty; and so by a
law of inequality, which will be in proportion to his wealth, he will
receive honours and offices as equally as possible, and there will be no
quarrels and disputes. To which end there should be four different standards
appointed according to the amount of property: there should be a first and a
second and a third and a fourth class, in which the citizens will be placed,
and they will be called by these or similar names: they may continue in the
same rank, or pass into another in any individual case, on becoming richer
from being, poorer, or poorer from being richer. The form of law which I
should propose as the natural sequel would be as follows:-In a state which
is desirous of being saved from the greatest of all plagues-not faction, but
rather distraction;-here should exist among the citizens neither extreme
poverty, nor, again, excess of wealth, for both are productive of both these
evils. Now the legislator should determine what is to be the limit of
poverty or wealth. Let the limit of poverty be the value of the lot; this
ought to be preserved, and no ruler, nor any one else who aspires after a
reputation for virtue, will allow the lot to be impaired in any case. This
the legislator gives as a measure, and he will permit a man to acquire
double or triple, or as much as four times the amount of this. But if a
person have yet greater riches, whether he has found them, or they have been
given to him, or he has made them in business, or has acquired by any stroke
of fortune that which is in excess of the measure, if he give back the
surplus to the state, and to the Gods who are the patrons of the state, he
shall suffer no penalty or loss of reputation; but if he disobeys this our
law any one who likes may inform against him and receive half the value of
the excess, and the delinquent shall pay a sum equal to the excess out of
his own property, and the other half of the excess shall belong to the Gods.
And let every possession of every man, with the exception of the lot, be
publicly registered before the magistrates whom the law appoints, so that
all suits about money may be easy and quite simple.
The next thing to be noted is, that the city should be placed as nearly as
possible in the centre of the country; we should choose a place which
possesses what is suitable for a city, and this may easily be imagined and
described. Then we will divide the city into twelve portions, first founding
temples to Hestia, to Zeus and to Athene, in a spot which we will call the
Acropolis, and surround with a circular wall, making the division of the
entire city and country radiate from this point. The twelve portions shall
be equalized by the provision that those which are of good land shall be
smaller. while those of inferior quality shall be larger. The number of the
lots shall be 5040, and each of them shall be divided into two, and every
allotment shall be composed of two such sections; one of land near the city,
the other of land which is at a distance. This arrangement shall be carried
out in the following manner: The section which is near the city shall be
added to that which is on borders, and form one lot, and the portion which
is next nearest shall be added to the portion which is next farthest; and so
of the rest. Moreover, in the two sections of the lots the same principle of
equalization of the soil ought to be maintained; the badness and goodness
shall be compensated by more and less. And the legislator shall divide the
citizens into twelve parts, and arrange the rest of their property, as far
as possible, so as to form twelve equal parts; and there shall be a
registration of all. After this they shall assign twelve lots to twelve
Gods, and call them by their names, and dedicate to each God their several
portions, and call the tribes after them. And they shall distribute the
twelve divisions of the city in the same way in which they divided the
country; and every man shall have two habitations, one in the centre of the
country, and the other at the extremity. Enough of the manner of settlement.
Now we ought by all means to consider that there can never be such a happy
concurrence of circumstances as we have described; neither can all things
coincide as they are wanted. Men who will not take offence at such a mode of
living together, and will endure all their life long to have their property
fixed at a moderate limit, and to beget children in accordance with our
ordinances, and will allow themselves to be deprived of gold and other
things which the legislator, as is evident from these enactments, will
certainly forbid them; and will endure, further, the situation of the land
with the city in the middle and dwellings round about;-all this is as if the
legislator were telling his dreams, or making a city and citizens of wax.
There is truth in these objections, and therefore every one should take to
heart what I am going to say. Once more, then, the legislator shall appear
and address us:-"O my friends," he will say to us, "do not suppose me
ignorant that there is a certain degree of truth in your words; but I am of
opinion that, in matters which are not present but future, he who exhibits a
pattern of that at which he aims, should in nothing fall short of the
fairest and truest; and that if he finds any part of this work impossible of
execution he should avoid and not execute it, but he should contrive to
carry out that which is nearest and most akin to it; you must allow the
legislator to perfect his design, and when it is perfected, you should join
with him in considering what part of his legislation is expedient and what
will arouse opposition; for surely the artist who is to be deemed worthy of
any regard at all, ought always to make his work self-consistent."
Having determined that there is to be a distribution into twelve parts, let
us now see in what way this may be accomplished. There is no difficulty in
perceiving that the twelve parts admit of the greatest number of divisions
of that which they include, or in seeing the other numbers which are
consequent upon them, and are produced out of them up to 5040; wherefore the
law ought to order phratries and demes and villages, and also military ranks
and movements, as well as coins and measures, dry and liquid, and weights,
so as to be commensurable and agreeable to one another. Nor should we fear
the appearance of minuteness, if the law commands that all the vessels which
a man possesses should have a common measure, when we consider generally
that the divisions and variations of numbers have a use in respect of all
the variations of which they are susceptible, both in themselves and as
measures of height and depth, and in all sounds, and in motions, as well
those which proceed in a straight direction, upwards or downwards, as in
those which go round and round. The legislator is to consider all these
things and to bid the citizens, as far as possible, not to lose sight of
numerical order; for no single instrument of youthful education has such
mighty power, both as regards domestic economy and politics, and in the
arts, as the study of arithmetic. Above all, arithmetic stirs up him who is
by nature sleepy and dull, and makes him quick to learn, retentive, shrewd,
and aided by art divine he makes progress quite beyond his natural powers.
All such things, if only the legislator, by other laws and institutions, can
banish meanness and covetousness from the souls of men, so that they can use
them properly and to their own good, will be excellent and suitable
instruments of education. But if he cannot, he will unintentionally create
in them, instead of wisdom, the habit of craft, which evil tendency may be
observed in the Egyptians and Phoenicians, and many other races, through the
general vulgarity of their pursuits and acquisitions, whether some unworthy
legislator theirs has been the cause, or some impediment of chance or
nature. For we must not fail to observe, O Megillus and Cleinias, that there
is a difference in places, and that some beget better men and others worse;
and we must legislate accordingly. Some places are subject to strange and
fatal influences by reason of diverse winds and violent heats, some by
reason of waters; or, again, from the character of the food given by the
earth, which not only affects the bodies of men for good or evil, but
produces similar results in their souls. And in all such qualities those
spots excel in which there is a divine inspiration, and in which the
demi-gods have their appointed lots, and are propitious, not adverse, to the
settlers in them. To all these matters the legislator, if he have any sense
in him, will attend as far as man can, and frame his laws accordingly. And
this is what you, Cleinias, must do, and to matters of this kind you must
turn your mind since you are going to colonize a new country.
Cleinias. Your words, Athenian Stranger, are excellent, and I will do
as you say