And indeed I should be loth to leave our sketch headless; for it would look entirely shapeless if it wandered about in that guise.
but it is truly, as I think, something more than the half, and no man has ever yet commended as it deserves a beginning that is well made.
and if the defendant be convicted, he shall take no share of the public goods, and whenever the State makes a distribution, he shall go portionless, save for his allotment, and he shall be registered as a convicted criminal, where anyone who chooses may read his sentence, as long as he lives. A Law-warden shall hold office for no more than twenty years, and he shall be voted into office when he is not under fifty years of age. If he is elected at the age of sixty, he shall hold office for ten years only; and by the same rule, the more he exceeds the minimum age, the shorter shall be his term of office; so that if he lives beyond the age of seventy, he must no longer fancy that he can remain among these officials holding an office of such high importance. So, for the Law-wardens, let us state that these three duties are imposed on them, and as we proceed with the laws, each fresh law will impose upon these men whatever additional duties they ought to be charged with beyond those now stated. And now we may go on to describe the selection of the other officials. Commanders must be selected next, and as subordinates to them, for purposes of war, hipparchs, phylarchs, and officers to marshal the ranks of the foot-phylae,—to whom the name of taxiarchs, which is in fact the very name which most men give to them, would be specially appropriate. Of these, commanders shall be nominated by the Law-wardens from among the members of our State only; and from those nominated the selection shall be made by all who either are serving or have served in war, according to their several ages. And if anyone deems that someone of the men not nominated is better than one of those nominated, he shall state the name of his nominee and of the man whom he is to replace, and, taking the oath about the matter, he shall propose his substitute; and whichever of the two is decided on by vote shall be included in the list for selection. And the three men, who have been appointed by the majority of votes to serve as commanders and controllers of military affairs, shall be tested as were the Law-wardens. The selected commanders shall nominate for themselves taxiarchs, twelve for each tribe; and here, in the case of the taxiarchs, just as in the case of the commanders, there shall be a right of counter-nomination, and a similar procedure of voting and testing. For the present—before that prytaneis and a Boule have been elected—this assembly shall be convened by the Law-wardens, and they shall seat it in the holiest and roomiest place available, the hoplites on one side, the horse-soldiers on another, and in the third place, next to these, all who belong to the military forces.
All shall vote for the commanders, all who carry shields for the taxiarchs; all the cavalry shall elect for themselves phylarchs; the commanders shall appoint for themselves captains of skirmishers, archers, or any other branch of service. The appointment of hipparchs we have still remaining. They shall be nominated by the same persons who nominated the commanders, and the mode of selection and counter-nomination shall be the same in their case as in that of the commanders: the cavalry shall vote for them in full sight of the infantry, and the two who secure most votes shall be captains of all the cavalrymen. No more than two challenges of votes shall be allowed: if anyone makes a third challenge, it shall be decided by those who had charge of the count on the occasion in question. The Boule (or Council) shall consist of thirty dozen—as the number 360 is well-adapted for the sub-divisions: they shall be divided into four groups; and 90 councillors shall be voted for from each of the property-classes. First, for councillors from the highest property-class all the citizens shall be compelled to vote, and whoever disobeys shall be fined with the fine decreed. When these have been voted for, their names shall be recorded. On the next day those from the second class shall be voted for, the procedure being similar to that on the first day. On the third day, for councillors from the third class anyone who chooses shall vote; and the voting shall be compulsory for members of the first three classes, but those of the fourth and lowest class shall be let off the fine, in case any of them do not wish to vote. On the fourth day, for those from the fourth and lowest class all shall vote; and if any member of the third or fourth class does not wish to vote, he shall be let off the fine; but any member of the first or second class who fails to vote shall be fined—three times the amount of the first fine in the case of a member of the second class, and four times in the case of one of the first class. On the fifth day the officials shall publish the names recorded for all the citizens to see; and for these every man shall vote, or else be fined with the first fine; and when they have selected 180 from each of the classes, they shall choose out by lot one-half of this number, and test them; and these shall be the Councillors for the year.
The selection of officials that is thus made will form a mean between a monarchic constitution and a democratic; and midway between these our constitution should always stand. For slaves will never be friends with masters, nor bad men with good, even when they occupy equal positions—for when equality is given to unequal things, the resultant will be unequal, unless due measure is applied; and it is because of these two conditions that political organizations are filled with feuds. There is an old and true saying that equality produces amity, which is right well and fitly spoken; but what the equality is which is capable of doing this is a very troublesome question, since it is very far from being clear. For there are two kinds of equality which, though identical in name, are often almost opposites in their practical results. The one of these any State or lawgiver is competent to apply in the assignment of honors,—namely, the equality determined by measure, weight and number,—by simply employing the lot to give even results in the distributions; but the truest and best form of equality is not an easy thing for everyone to discern. It is the judgment of Zeus, and men it never assists save in small measure, but in so far as it does assist either States or individuals, it produces all things good; for it dispenses more to the greater and less to the smaller, giving due measure to each according to nature; and with regard to honors also, by granting the greater to those that are greater in goodness, and the less to those of the opposite character in respect of goodness and education, it assigns in proportion what is fitting to each. Indeed, it is precisely this which constitutes for us political justice, which is the object we must strive for, Clinias; this equality is what we must aim at, now that we are settling the State that is being planted. And whoever founds a State elsewhere at any time must make this same object the aim of his legislation,—not the advantage of a few tyrants, or of one, or of some form of democracy, but justice always; and this consists in what we have just stated, namely, the natural equality given on each occasion to things unequal. None the less, it is necessary for every State at times to employ even this equality in a modified degree, if it is to avoid involving itself in intestine discord, in one section or another,—for the reasonable and considerate, wherever employed, is an infringement of the perfect and exact, as being contrary to strict justice; for the same reason it is necessary to make use also of the equality of the lot, on account of the discontent of the masses, and in doing so to pray, calling upon God and Good Luck to guide for them the lot aright towards the highest justice.
Thus it is that necessity compels us to employ both forms of equality; but that form, which needs good luck, we should employ as seldom as possible. The State which means to survive must necessarily act thus, my friends, for the reasons we have stated. For just as a ship when sailing on the sea requires continual watchfulness both by night and day, so likewise a State, when it lives amidst the surge of surrounding States and is in danger of being entrapped by all sorts of plots, requires to have officers linked up with officers from day to night and from night to day, and guardians succeeding guardians, and being succeeded in turn, without a break. But since a crowd of men is incapable of ever performing any of these duties smartly, the bulk of the Councillors must necessarily be left to stay most of their time at their private business, to attend to their domestic affairs; and we must assign a twelfth part of them to each of the twelve months, to furnish guards in rotation, so as promptly to meet any person coming either from somewhere abroad or from their own State, in case he desires to give information or to make enquiries about some matter of international importance; and so as to make replies, and, when the State has asked questions, to receive the replies; and above all, in view of the manifold innovations that are wont to occur constantly in States, to prevent if possible their occurrence, and in case they do occur, to ensure that the State may perceive and remedy the occurrence as quickly as possible. For these reasons, this presidential section of the State must always have the control of the summoning and dissolving of assemblies, both the regular legal assemblies and those of an emergency character. Thus a twelfth part of the Council will be the body that manages all these matters, and each such part shall rest in turn for eleven-twelfths of the year: in common with the rest of the officials, this twelfth section of the Council must keep its watch in the State over these matters continually. This disposition of affairs in the city will prove a reasonable arrangement. But what control are we to have, and what system, for all the rest of the country? Now that all the city and the whole country have each been divided up into twelve parts, must not supervisors be appointed for the roads of the city itself, the dwellings, buildings, harbors, market, springs, and for the sacred glebes also and the temples, and all such things?
As treasurers to control the sacred funds in each of the temples, and the sacred glebes, with their produce and their rents, we must choose from the highest property-classes three men for the largest temples, two for the smaller, and one for the least extensive; and the method of selecting and testing these shall be the same as that adopted in the case of the commanders. Such shall be the regulations concerning matters of religion. Nothing, so far as possible, shall be left unguarded. As regards the city, the task of guarding shall be in charge of the commanders, taxiarchs, hipparchs, phylarchs and prytaneis, and also of the city-stewards and market-stewards, wherever we have such officials properly selected and appointed. All the rest of the country must be guarded in the following manner: we have marked out the whole country as nearly as possible into twelve equal portions: to each portion one tribe shall be assigned by lot, and it shall provide five men to act as land-stewards and phrourarchs (watch-captains); it shall be the duty of each of the Five to select twelve young men from his own tribe of an age neither under 25 nor over 30. To these groups of twelve the twelve portions of the country shall be assigned, one to each in rotation for a month at a time, so that all of them may gain experience and knowledge of all parts of the country. The period of office and of service for guards and officers shall be two years. From the portion in which they are stationed first by the lot they shall pass on month by month to the next district, under the leadership of the phrourarchs, in a direction from left to right,— and that will be from west to east. When the first year is completed, in order that as many as possible of the guards may not only become familiar with the country in one season of the year, but may also learn about what occurs in each several district at different seasons, their leaders shall lead them back again in the reverse direction, constantly changing their district, until they have completed their second year of service. For the third year they must elect other land-stewards and phrourarchs.
During their periods of residence in each district their duties shall be as follows: first, in order to ensure that the country shall be fenced as well as possible against enemies, they shall make channels wherever needed, and dig moats and build crosswalls, so as to keep out to the best of their power those who attempt in any way to damage the country and its wealth; and for these purposes they shall make use of the beasts of burden and the servants in each district, employing the former and supervising the latter, and choosing always, so far as possible, the times when these people are free from their own business. In all respects they must make movement as difficult as possible for enemies, but for friends—whether men, mules or cattle—as easy as possible, by attending to the roads, that they all may become as level as possible, and to the rain-waters, that they may benefit instead of injuring the country, as they flow down from the heights into all the hollow valleys in the mountains: they shall dam the outflows of their flooded dales by means of walls and channels, so that by storing up or absorbing the rains from heaven, and by forming pools or springs in all the low-lying fields and districts, they may cause even the driest spots to be abundantly supplied with good water. As to spring-waters, be they streams or fountains, they shall beautify and embellish them by means of plantations and buildings, and by connecting the pools by hewn tunnels they shall make them all abundant, and by using water-pipes they shall beautify at all seasons of the year any sacred glebe or grove that may be close at hand, by directing the streams right into the temples of the gods. And everywhere in such spots the young men should erect gymnasia both for themselves and for the old men—providing warm baths for the old: they should keep there a plentiful supply of dry wood, and give a kindly welcome and a helping hand to sick folk and to those whose bodies are worn with the toils of husbandry—a welcome far better than a doctor who is none too skilful. They shall carry on these, and all similar operations, in the country districts, by way of ornament as well as use, and to furnish recreation also of no ungraceful kind. The serious duties in this department shall be as follows:—The Sixty must guard each their own district, not only because of enemies, but in view also of those who profess to be friends. And if one either of the foreign neighbors or of the citizens injures another citizen, be the culprit a slave or a freeman, the judges for the complainant shall be the Five officers themselves in petty cases, and the Five each with their twelve subordinates in more serious cases, where the damages claimed are up to three minae. No judge or official should hold office without being subject to an audit, excepting only those who, like kings, form a court of final appeal.
So too with regard to these land-stewards if they do any violence to those whom they supervise, by imposing unfair charges, or by trying to plunder some of their farm-stores without their consent, or if they take a gift intended as a bribe, or distribute goods unjustly—for yielding to seduction they shall be branded with disgrace throughout the whole State; and in respect of all other wrongs they have committed against people in the district, up to the value of one mina, they shall voluntarily submit to trial before the villagers and neighbors; and should they on any occasion, in respect of either a greater or lesser wrong, refuse thus to submit,—trusting that by their moving on every month to a new district they will escape trial,—in such cases the injured party must institute proceedings at the public courts, and if he win his suit, he shall exact the double penalty from the defendant who has absconded and refused to submit voluntarily to trial. The mode of life of the officers and land-stewards during their two years of service shall be of the following kind. First, in each of the districts there shall be common meals, at which all shall mess together. If a man absents himself by day, or by sleeping away at night, without orders from the officers or some urgent cause, and if the Five inform against him and post his name up in the market-place as guilty of deserting his watch, then he shall suffer degradation for being a traitor to his public duty, and whoever meets him and desires to punish him may give him a beating with impunity. And if any one of the officers themselves commits any such act, it will be proper for all the Sixty to keep an eye on him; and if any of them notices or hears of such an act, but fails to prosecute, he shall be held guilty under the same laws, and shall be punished more severely than the young men; he shall be entirely disqualified from holding posts of command over the young men. Over these matters the Law-wardens shall exercise most careful supervision, to prevent if possible their occurrence, and, where they do occur, to ensure that they meet with the punishment they deserve. Now it is needful that every man should hold the view, regarding men in general, that the man who has not been a servant will never become a praiseworthy master, and that the right way to gain honor is by serving honorably rather than by ruling honorably—doing service first to the laws, since this is service to the gods, and, secondly, the young always serving the elder folk and those who have lived honorable lives. In the next place, he who is made a land-steward must have partaken of the daily rations, which are coarse and uncooked, during the two years of service.
For whenever the Twelve have been chosen, being assembled together with the Five, they shall resolve that, acting like servants, they will keep no servants or slaves to wait on themselves, nor will they employ any attendants belonging to the other farmers or villagers for their own private needs, but only for public requirements; and in all other respects they shall determine to live a self-supporting life, acting as their own ministers and masters, and thoroughly exploring, moreover, the whole country both by summer and winter, under arms, for the purpose both of fencing and of learning each several district. For that all should have an accurate knowledge of their own country is a branch of learning that is probably second to none: so the young men ought to practise running with hounds and all other forms of hunting, as much for this reason as for the general enjoyment and benefit derived from such sports. With regard, then, to this branch of service—both the men themselves and their duties, whether we choose to call them secret-service men or land-stewards or by any other name— every single man who means to guard his own State efficiently shall do his duty zealously to the best of his power. The next step in our choice of officials is to appoint market-stewards and city-stewards. After the land-stewards (sixty in number) will come the three city-stewards, who shall divide the twelve sections of the city into three parts, and shall copy the land-stewards in having charge of the streets of the city and of the various roads that run into the city from the country, and of the buildings, to see that all these conform to the requirements of the law; and they shall also have charge of all the water-supplies conveyed and passed on to them by the guards in good condition, to ensure that they shall be both pure and plentiful as they pour into the cisterns, and may thus both beautify and benefit the city. Thus it is needful that these men also should have both the ability and the leisure to attend to public affairs. Therefore for the office of city-steward every citizen shall nominate whatever person he chooses from the highest property-class; and when these have been voted on, and they have arrived at the six men for whom most votes have been cast, then those whose duty it is shall select the three by lot; and after passing the scrutiny, these men shall execute the office according to the laws ordained for them. Next to these they must elect five market-stewards from the second and first property-classes: in all other respects the mode of their election shall be similar to that of the city-stewards; from the ten candidates chosen by voting they shall select the five by lot, and after scrutiny declare them appointed.
All shall vote for every official: any man who refuses to do so, if reported to the officials, shall be fined fifty drachmae, besides being declared to be a bad citizen. Whoso wishes shall attend the Ecclesia and the public assembly; and for members of the second and first property-classes attendance shall be compulsory, anyone who is found to be absent from the assemblies being fined ten drachmae; but for a member of the third or fourth class it shall not be compulsory, and he shall escape without a fine, unless the officials for some urgent reason charge everyone to attend. The market-stewards must see to it that the market is conducted as appointed by law: they must supervise the temples and fountains in the market, to see that no one does any damage; in case anyone does damage, if he be a slave or a stranger, they shall punish him with stripes and bonds, while if a native is guilty of such misconduct, they shall have power to inflict a fine up to a hundred drachmae of their own motion, and to fine a wrongdoer up to twice that amount, when acting in conjunction with the city-stewards. Similarly, the city-stewards shall have power of fining and punishing in their own sphere, fining up to a mina of their own motion, and up to twice that sum in conjunction with the market-stewards. It will be proper next to appoint officials for music and gymnastics,—two grades for each department, the one for education, the other for managing competitions. By education-officers the law means supervisors of gymnasia and schools, both in respect of their discipline and teaching and of the control of the attendances and accommodation both for girls and boys. By competition-officers it means umpires for the competitors both in gymnastic and in music, these also being of two grades. For competitions there should be the same umpires both for men and for horses; but in the case of music it will be proper to have separate umpires for solos and for mimetic performances,— I mean, for instance, one set chosen for rhapsodists, harpers, flute-players, and all such musicians, and another set for choral performers. We ought to choose first the officials for the playful exercise of choirs of children and lads and girls in dances and all other regular methods of music;
and for these one officer suffices, and he must be not under forty years of age. And for solo performances one umpire, of not less than thirty years, is sufficient, to act as introducer and to pass an adequate judgment upon the competitors. The officer and manager of the choirs they must appoint in the following way. All those who are devoted to these subjects shall attend the assembly, and if they refuse to attend they shall be liable to a fine—a matter which the Law-wardens shall decide: any others who are unwilling to attend shall be subject to no compulsion. Every elector must make his nomination from the list of those who are experts: in the scrutiny, affirmation and negation shall be confined to one point only—on the one side, that the candidate is expert, on the other side, that he is not expert; and whichever of the ten who come first on votes is elected after the scrutiny shall be the officer for the year in charge of the choirs according to law. In the same way as these they shall appoint the officer elected to preside for the year over those who enter for competitions in solos and joint performances on the flute. Next it is proper to choose umpires for the athletic contests of horses and men from among the third and the second property-classes: this election it shall be compulsory for the first three classes to attend, but the lowest class shall be exempt from fines for non-attendance. Three shall be appointed: twenty having been first selected by show of hand, three out of the twenty shall be chosen by lot; and they shall be subject also to the approval of the scrutineers. Should any candidate be disqualified in any voting or testing for office, they shall elect a substitute, and carry out the scrutiny by the same method as in the case of the original candidate. In the department we have been dealing with, we have still to appoint an officer who shall preside over the whole range of education of both boys and girls. For this purpose there shall be one officer legally appointed: he shall not be under fifty years of age, and shall be the father of legitimate children of either sex, or preferably of both sexes. Both the candidate that is put first, and the elector who puts him first, must be convinced that of the highest offices of State this is by far the most important.
For in the case of every creature—plant or animal, tame and wild alike—it is the first shoot, if it sprouts out well, that is most effective in bringing to its proper development the essential excellence of the creature in question. Man, as we affirm, is a tame creature: none the less, while he is wont to become an animal most godlike and tame when he happens to possess a happy nature combined with right education, if his training be deficient or bad, he turns out the wildest of all earth’s creatures. Wherefore the lawgiver must not permit them to treat the education of children as a matter of secondary or casual importance; but, inasmuch as the presiding official must be well selected, he must begin first by charging them to appoint as president, to the best of their power, that one of the citizens who is in every way the most excellent. Therefore all the officials—excepting the Council and the prytaneis—shall go to the temple of Apollo, and shall each cast his vote for whichever one of the Law-wardens he deems likely best to control educational affairs. He who gains most votes, after passing a scrutiny held by the selecting officials, other than the Law-wardens, shall hold office for five years: in the sixth year they shall elect another man for this office in a similar manner. If anyone holding a public office dies more than thirty days before his office terminates, those whose proper duty it is must appoint a substitute in the same manner. If a guardian of orphans dies, the relations, who are residents, on both the father’s and mother’s side, as far as cousin’s children, shall appoint a substitute within ten days, failing which they shall each be fined one drachma per diem until they have appointed the guardian for the children. A State, indeed, would be no State if it had no law-courts properly established; but a judge who was dumb and who said as little as litigants at a preliminary inquiry, as do arbitrators, would never prove efficient in deciding questions of justice; consequently it is not easy for a large body of men to judge well, nor yet for a small one, if of poor ability. The matter in dispute on either side must always be made clear, and for elucidating the point at issue, lapse of time, deliberation and frequent questionings are of advantage.
Therefore those who challenge each other must go first to the neighbors and friends who know most about the actions in dispute: if a man fails to get an adequate decision from them, he shall repair to another court; and if these two courts are unable to settle the matter, the third court shall put an end to the case. In a sense we may say that the establishment of law-courts coincides with the election of officials; for every official must be also a judge of certain matters, while a judge, even if not an official, may be said to be an official of no little importance on the day when he concludes a suit by pronouncing his judgment. Assuming then that the judges are officials, let us declare who will make suitable judges, and of what matters, and how many shall deal with each case. The most elementary form of court is that which the two parties arrange for themselves, choosing judges by mutual agreement; of the rest, there shall be two forms of trial,—the one when a private person accuses a private person of injuring him and desires to gain a verdict by bringing him to trial, and the other when a person believes that the State is being injured by one of the citizens and desires to succor the common weal. Who and what sort the judges are must now be explained. First, we must have a court common to all private persons who are having their third dispute with one another. It shall be formed in this way. On the day preceding the commencement of a new year of office—which commences with the month next after the summer solstice—all the officials, whether holding office for one year only or longer, shall assemble in the same temple and, after adjuring the god, they shall dedicate, so to say, one judge from each body of officials, namely, that member of each body whom they deem the best man and the most likely to decide the suits for his fellow-citizens during the ensuing year in the best and holiest way. These being chosen, they shall undergo a scrutiny before those who have chosen them; and should any be disqualified, they shall choose a substitute in like manner. Those who pass the scrutiny shall act as judges for those who have escaped the other courts, and they shall cast their votes openly. The Councillors, and all the other officials, who have elected them, shall be obliged to attend these trials, both to hear and to see; and anyone else that wishes may attend. Anyone who accuses a judge of deliberately giving an unjust judgment shall go to the Law-wardens and lay his charge before them: a judge that is convicted on such a charge shall submit to pay double the amount of the damage done to the injured party; and if he be held to deserve a greater penalty, the judges of the case shall estimate what additional punishment must be inflicted, or what payment made to the State and to the person who took proceedings.
In the matter of offences against the State it is necessary, first of all, that a share in the trial should be given to the populace, for when a wrong is done to the State, it is the whole of the people that are wronged, and they would justly be vexed if they had no share in such trials; so, while it is right that both the beginning and the ending of such a suit should be assigned to the people, the examination shall take place before three of the highest officials mutually agreed upon by both defendant and plaintiff: should they be unable by themselves to reach an agreement, the Council must revise the choice of each of them. In private suits also, so far as possible, all the citizens must have a share; for the man that has no share in helping to judge imagines that he has no part or lot in the State at all. Therefore there must also be courts for each tribe, and judges appointed by lot and to meet the sudden occasion must judge the cases, unbiased by appeals; but the final verdict in all such cases must rest with that court which we declare to be organized in the most incorruptible way that is humanly possible, specially for the benefit of those who have failed to obtain a settlement of their case either before the neighbors or in the tribal courts. Thus as concerns the law-courts—which, as we say, cannot easily be called either offices or non-offices without ambiguity—this outline sketch serves to describe them in part, though there is a good deal it omits; for detailed legislation and definition concerning suits would most properly be placed at the conclusion of the legislative code. So let these matters be directed to wait for us at the conclusion; and I should say that the other official posts have had most of the legislation they require for their establishment. But a full and precise account concerning each and all of the State departments and the whole of the civic organization it is impossible to give clearly until our review has embraced every section of its subject, from the first to the very last, in proper order. So now, at the point where we stand—when our exposition has reached so far as to include the election of the officials—we may find a fit place to terminate our previous subject, and to commence the subject of legislation, which no longer needs any postponements or delays.
This is what we previously agreed upon: so do you now keep both these objects of ours in view as you revise the laws, and censure all the laws which are unable to effect them, but welcome all such as are able to do so, and, adopting them wholeheartedly, rule your lives by them. All other practices, which tend towards goods (so-called), other than these, you must bid farewell to. For a beginning of the laws which are to follow, we must commence with things sacred. First, we must consider anew the number 5,040, and the number of convenient subdivisions which we found it to contain both as a whole and when divided up into tribes: the tribal number is, as we said, a twelfth part of the whole number, being in its nature precisely 20 X 21. Our whole number has twelve subdivisions, and the tribal number also has twelve; and each such portion must be regarded as a sacred gift of God, conformed to the months and to the revolution of the universe. Wherefore also every State is guided by native instinct to hold them sacred, although some men possibly have made their divisions more correctly than others, or have consecrated them more happily. We, in any case, affirm now that we are perfectly correct in first selecting the number 5,040, which admits of division by all the numbers from 1 to 12, excepting only 11—and this omission is very easily remedied, since the mere subtraction of two hearths from the total restores an integral number as quotient: that this is really true we could show, at our leisure, by a fairly short explanation. For the present, then, we shall trust to the oracular statement just delivered, and we shall employ these subdivisions, and give to each portion the name of a God, or of a child of Gods, and bestow on it altars and all that belongs thereto; and at these we shall appoint two assemblies every month for sacrifice—of which twelve (yearly) shall be for the whole tribal division, and twelve for its urban section only; the object of these shall be, first, to offer thanksgiving to the gods and their attendants, and secondly, to promote fellowship amongst ourselves and the mutual acquaintance we spoke of, and association of every sort. For, in view of the fellowship and intercourse of marriage, it is necessary to eliminate ignorance, both on the part of the husband concerning the woman he marries and the family she comes from, and on the part of the father concerning the man to whom he gives his daughter; for it is all-important in such matters to avoid, if possible, any mistake.
To achieve this serious purpose, sportive dances should be arranged for boys and girls; and at these they should both view and be viewed, in a reasonable way and on occasions that offer a suitable pretext, with bodies unclad, save so far as sober modesty prescribes. Of all such matters the officers of the choirs shall be the supervisors and controllers, and also, in conjunction with the Law-wardens, the lawgivers of all that we leave unprescribed. It is, as we said, necessary that in regard to all matters involving a host of petty details the law-giver should leave omissions, and that rules and amendments should be made from year to year by those who have constant experience of them from year to year and are taught by practice, until it be decided that a satisfactory code has been made out to regulate all such proceedings. A fair and sufficient period to assign for such experimental work would be ten years, both for sacrifices and for dances in all their several details; each body of officials, acting in conjunction with the original lawgiver, if he be still alive, or by themselves, if he be dead, shall report to the Law-wardens whatever is omitted in their own department, and shall make it good, until each detail seems to have reached its proper completion: this done, they shall decree them as fixed rules, and employ them as well as the rest of the laws originally decreed by the law-giver. In these they must never make any change voluntarily; but if it should ever be thought that a necessity for change has arisen, all the people must be consulted, as well as all the officials, and they must seek advice from all the divine oracles; and if there is a general consent by all, then they may make a change, but under no other conditions at any time; and the objector to change shall always prevail according to law. When any man of twenty-five years of age, viewing and being viewed by others, believes that he has found in any quarter a mate to his liking and suitable for the joint procreation of children, he shall marry, in every case before he is thirty-five; but first let him hearken to the direction as to how he should seek what is proper and fitting, for, as Clinias maintains, one ought to introduce each law by a prelude suitable thereto.
Concerning marriage these shall be the exhortations given, in addition to those previously given, declaring how it is a duty to lay hold on the ever-living reality by providing servants for God in our own stead; and this we do by leaving behind us children’s children. All this and more one might say in a proper prelude concerning marriage and the duty of marrying. Should any man, however, refuse to obey willingly, and keep himself aloof and unpartnered in the State, and reach the age of thirty-five unmarried, an annual fine shall be imposed upon him, of a hundred drachmae if he be of the highest property-class, if of the second, seventy, if of the third, sixty, if of the fourth, thirty. This fine shall be consecrated to Hera. He that fails to pay the fine in full every year shall owe ten times the amount of it, and the treasurer of the goddess shall exact this sum, or, failing to exact it, he shall owe it himself, and in the audit he shall in every case be liable to account for such a sum. This shall be the money-fine in which the man who refuses to marry shall be mulcted, and as to honor, he shall receive none from the younger men, and no young man shall of his own free-will pay any regard to him: if he attempt to punish any person, everyone shall come to the assistance of the person maltreated and defend him, and whoever is present and fails thus to give assistance shall be declared by law to be both a cowardly and a bad citizen. Concerning dowries it has been stated before, and it shall be stated again, that an equal exchange consists in neither giving nor receiving any gift, for all those who belong to this State have the necessaries of life provided for them; and the result of this rule will be less insolence on the part of the wives and less humiliation and servility on the part of the husband because of money. Whoso obeys this rule will be acting nobly; but he that disobeys—by giving or receiving for raiment a sum of over fifty drachmae, or over one mina, or over one and a half minae, or (if a member of the highest property-class) over two minae,—shall owe to the public treasury a sum equal thereto, and the sum given or received shall be consecrated to Hera and Zeus, and the treasurers of these deities shall exact it,— just as it was the rule, in cases of refusal to marry, that the treasurers of Hera should exact the fine in each instance, or else pay it out of their own pockets. The right of betrothal belongs in the first place to the father, next to the grandfather, thirdly to the full brothers; failing any of these, it rightly belongs next to relatives on the mother’s side in like order; in case of any unwonted misfortune, the right shall belong to the nearest of kin in each case, acting in conjunction with the guardians.
Concerning the preliminary marriage-sacrifice and all other sacred ceremonies proper to be performed before, during, or after marriage, each man shall enquire of the Interpreters, and believe that, in obeying their directions, he will have done all things duly. Concerning marriage-feasts,—both parties should invite their male and female friends, not more than five on each side, and an equal number of the kinsfolk and connections of both houses: in no case must the expense exceed what the person’s means permit—one mina for the richest class, half that amount for the second, and so on in proportion, according as the valuation grows less. He that obeys the law should be praised by all; but he that disobeys the Law-wardens shall punish as a man of poor taste and ill-trained in the nomes of the nuptial Muses. Drinking to excess is a practice that is nowhere seemly—save only at the feasts of the God, the Giver of wine,—nor yet safe; and certainly it is not so for those who take marriage seriously; for at such a time above all it behoves both bride and bridegroom to be sober, seeing that the change in their life is a great one, and in order to ensure, so far as possible, in every case that the child that is begotten may be sprung from the loins of sober parents: for what shall be, with God’s help, the night or day of its begetting is quite uncertain. Moreover, it is not right that procreation should be the work of bodies dissolved by excess of wine, but rather that the embryo should be compacted firmly, steadily and quietly in the womb. But the man that is steeped in wine moves and is moved himself in every way, writhing both in body and soul; consequently, when drunk, a man is clumsy and bad at sowing seed, and is thus likely to beget unstable and untrusty offspring, crooked in form and character. Wherefore he must be very careful throughout all the year and the whole of his life—and most especially during the time he is begetting—to commit no act that involves either bodily ailment or violence and injustice; for these he will inevitably stamp on the souls and bodies of the offspring, and will generate them in every way inferior. From acts of such a kind he must especially abstain on the day and night of his marriage; for the Beginning that sits enshrined as a goddess among mortals is the Savior of all, provided that she receives the honor due to her from each one who approaches her.
The man who marries must part from his father and mother, and take one of the two houses in his allotment, to be, as it were, the nest and home of his chicks, and make therein his marriage and the dwelling and home of himself and his children. For in friendships the presence of some degree of longing seems to cement various dispositions and bind them together; but unabated proximity, since it lacks the longing due to an interval, causes friends to fall away from one another owing to an excessive surfeit of each other’s company. Therefore the married pair must leave their own houses to their parents and the bride’s relations, and act themselves as if they had gone off to a colony, visiting and being visited in their home, begetting and rearing children, and so handing on life, like a torch, from one generation to another, and ever worshipping the gods as the laws direct. Next, as regards possessions, what should a man possess to form a reasonable amount of substance? As to most chattels, it is easy enough both to see what they should be and to acquire them; but servants present all kinds of difficulties. The reason is that our language about them is partly right and partly wrong; for the language we use both contradicts and agrees with our practical experience of them.
We ought to punish slaves justly, and not to make them conceited by merely admonishing them as we would free men. An address to a servant should be mostly a simple command: there should be no jesting with servants, either male or female, for by a course of excessively foolish indulgence in their treatment of their slaves, masters often make life harder both for themselves, as rulers, and for their slaves, as subject to rule.
But our plan, in addition to this, would deserve to raise roars of laughter,—I mean the plan of sending young men into the country every year to dig and trench and build, so as to keep the enemy out and prevent their ever setting foot on the borders of the land—if we were also to build a wall round; for, in the first place, a wall is by no means an advantage to a city as regards health, and, moreover, it usually causes a soft habit of soul in the inhabitants, by inviting them to seek refuge within it instead of repelling the enemy; instead of securing their safety by keeping watch night and day, it tempts them to believe that their safety is ensured if they are fenced in with walls and gates and go to sleep, like men born to shirk toil, little knowing that ease is really the fruit of toil, whereas a new crop of toils is the inevitable outcome, as I think, of dishonorable ease and sloth. But if men really must have a wall, then the building of the private houses must be arranged from the start in such a way that the whole city may form a single wall; all the houses must have good walls, built regularly and in a similar style, facing the roads, so that the whole city will have the form of a single house, which will render its appearance not unpleasing, besides being far and away the best plan for ensuring safety and ease for defence. To see that the original buildings remain will fittingly be the special charge of the inmates; and the city-stewards should supervise them, and compel by fines those who are negligent, and also watch over the cleanliness of everything in the city, and prevent any private person from encroaching on State property either by buildings or diggings. These officers must also keep a watch over the proper flowing of the rain-water, and over all other matters, whether within or without the city, that it is right for them to manage. All such details—and all else that the lawgiver is unable to deal with and omits— the Law-wardens shall regulate by supplementary decrees, taking account of the practical requirements. And now that these buildings and those of the market-place, and the gymnasia, and all the schools have been erected and await their inmates, and the theaters their spectators, let us proceed to the subject which comes next after marriage, taking our legislation in order.
instead of this, the female sex, that very section of humanity which, owing to its frailty, is in other respects most secretive and intriguing, is abandoned to its disorderly condition through the perverse compliance of the lawgiver. Owing to your neglect of that sex, you have had an influx of many consequences which would have been much better than they now are if they had been under legal control. For it is not merely, as one might suppose, a matter affecting one-half of our whole task—this matter of neglecting to regulate women,— but in as far as females are inferior in goodness to males, just in so far it affects more than the half. It is better, then, for the welfare of the State to revise and reform this institution, and to regulate all the institutions for both men and women in common. At present, however, the human race is so far from having reached this happy position, that a man of discretion must actually avoid all mention of the practice in districts and States where even the existence of public meals is absolutely without any formal recognition. How then shall one attempt, without being laughed at, actually to compel women to take food and drink publicly and exposed to the view of all? The female sex would more readily endure anything rather than this: accustomed as they are to live a retired and private life, women will use every means to resist being led out into the light, and they will prove much too strong for the lawgiver. So that elsewhere, as I said, women would not so much as listen to the mention of the right rule without shrieks of indignation; but in our State perhaps they will. So if we agree that our discourse about the polity as a whole must not—so far as theory goes—prove abortive, I am willing to explain how this institution is good and fitting, if you are equally desirous to listen, but otherwise to leave it alone.
Thirdly comes our greatest need and keenest lust, which, though the latest to emerge, influences the soul of men with most raging frenzy—the lust for the sowing of offspring that burns with utmost violence. These three morbid states we must direct towards what is most good, instead of what is (nominally) most pleasant, trying to check them by means of the three greatest forces—fear, law, and true reasoning,—reinforced by the Muses and the Gods of Games, so as to quench thereby their increase and inflow. So let us place the subject of the production of children next after that of marriage, and after their production, their nurture and education. If our discourse proceeds on these lines, possibly each of our laws will attain completion, and when we come to the public meals, by approaching these at close quarters we shall probably discern more clearly whether such associations ought to be for men only, or for women as well; and thus we shall not only prescribe the preliminaries that are still without legal regulation, and place them as fences before the common meals, but also, as I said just now, we shall discuss more exactly the character of the common meals, and thus be more likely to prescribe for them laws that are suitable and fitting.
The bridegroom, therefore, shall apply his mind both to the bride and to the work of procreation, and the bride shall do likewise, especially during the period when they have no children yet born. In charge of them there shall be the women-inspectors whom we have chosen,—more or fewer of them, according to the number and times of their appointments, decided by the officials; and they shall meet every day at the temple of Eileithyia, for a third of an hour, or more; and at their meetings they shall report to one another any case they may have noticed where any man or woman of the procreative age is devoting his attention to other things instead of to the rules ordained at the marriage sacrifices and ceremonies. The period of procreation and supervision shall be ten years and no longer, whenever there is an abundant issue of offspring; but in case any are without issue to the end of this period, they shall take counsel in common to decide what terms are advantageous for both parties, in conjunction with their kindred and the women-officials, and be divorced. If any dispute arises as to what is fitting and advantageous for each party, they shall choose ten of the Law-wardens, and abide by the regulations they shall permit or impose. The women-inspectors shall enter the houses of the young people, and, partly by threats, partly by admonition, stop them from their sin and folly: if they cannot do so, they shall go and report the case to the Law-wardens, and they shall prevent them. If they also prove unable, they shall inform the State Council, posting up a sworn statement that they are verily unable to reform So-and-so. The man that is thus posted up,— if he fails to defeat those who have thus posted him in the law-courts,—shall suffer the following disqualifications: he shall not attend any marriage or children’s birthday feasts, and if he does so, anyone who wishes may with impunity punish him with blows. The same law shall hold good for the women: the offender shall have no part in women’s excursions, honors, or invitations to weddings or birthday feasts, if she has been similarly posted up as disorderly and has lost her suit. And when they shall have finished producing children according to the laws, if the man have sexual intercourse with a strange woman, or the woman with a man, while the latter are still within the procreative age-limit, they shall be liable to the same penalty as was stated for those still producing children.
Thereafter the man and woman that are sober-minded in these matters shall be well-reputed in every way; but the opposite kind of esteem, or rather disesteem, shall be shown to persons of the opposite character. Sexual conduct shall lie unmentioned or unprescribed by law when the majority show due propriety therein; but if they are disorderly, then what is thus prescribed shall be executed according to the laws then enacted. For everyone the first year is the beginning of the whole life: it ought to be inscribed as life’s beginning for both boy and girl in their ancestral shrines: beside it, on a whited wall in every phratry, there should be written up the number of the archons who give its number to the year; and the names of the living members of the phratry shall be written always close together, and those of the deceased shall be erased. The limit of the marriage-age shall be from sixteen to twenty years—the longest time allowed—for a girl, and for a boy from thirty to thirty-five. The limit for official posts shall be forty for a woman and thirty for a man. For military services the limit shall be from twenty years up to sixty for a man; for women they shall ordain what is possible and fitting in each case, after they have finished bearing children, and up to the age of fifty, in whatever kind of military work it may be thought right to employ their services.
Clin.How?
Ath.The bride and bridegroom must set their minds to produce for the State children of the greatest possible goodness and beauty. All people that are partners in any action produce results that are fair and good whensoever they apply their minds to themselves and the action, but the opposite results when either they have no minds or fail to apply them.