Laws
against this disease? In the first place, they must have as few retail
traders as possible; and in the second place, they must assign the
occupation to that class of men whose corruption will be the least
injury to the state; and in the third place, they must devise some way
whereby the followers of these occupations themselves will not readily
fall into habits of unbridled shamelessness and meanness.
After this preface let our law run as follows, and may fortune favour
us: No landowner among the Magnetes, whose city the God is restoring and
resettling--no one, that is, of the 5040 families, shall become a
retail trader either voluntarily or involuntarily; neither shall he be
a merchant, or do any service for private persons unless they equally
serve him, except for his father or his mother, and their fathers and
mothers; and in general for his elders who are freemen, and whom he
serves as a freeman. Now it is difficult to determine accurately the
things which are worthy or unworthy of a freeman, but let those who have
obtained the prize of virtue give judgment about them in accordance
with their feelings of right and wrong. He who in any way shares in the
illiberality of retail trades may be indicted for dishonouring his race
by any one who likes, before those who have been judged to be the first
in virtue; and if he appear to throw dirt upon his father's house by an
unworthy occupation, let him be imprisoned for a year and abstain from
that sort of thing; and if he repeat the offence, for two years; and
every time that he is convicted let the length of his imprisonment be
doubled. This shall be the second law: He who engages in retail trade
must be either a metic or a stranger. And a third law shall be: In
order that the retail trader who dwells in our city may be as good or
as little bad as possible, the guardians of the law shall remember
that they are not only guardians of those who may be easily watched and
prevented from becoming lawless or bad, because they are well-born and
bred; but still more should they have a watch over those who are of
another sort, and follow pursuits which have a very strong tendency to
make men bad. And, therefore, in respect of the multifarious occupations
of retail trade, that is to say, in respect of such of them as are
allowed to remain, because they seem to be quite necessary in a
state--about these the guardians of the law should meet and take counsel
with those who have experience of the several kinds of retail trade, as
we before commanded concerning adulteration (which is a matter akin to
this), and when they meet they shall consider what amount of receipts,
after deducting expenses, will produce a moderate gain to the retail
trades, and they shall fix in writing and strictly maintain what they
find to be the right percentage of profit; this shall be seen to by the
wardens of the agora, and by the wardens of the city, and by the wardens
of the country. And so retail trade will benefit every one, and do the
least possible injury to those in the state who practise it.
When a man makes an agreement which he does not fulfil, unless the
agreement be of a nature which the law or a vote of the assembly does
not allow, or which he has made under the influence of some unjust
compulsion, or which he is prevented from fulfilling against his will
by some unexpected chance, the other party may go to law with him in
the courts of the tribes, for not having completed his agreement, if
the parties are not able previously to come to terms before arbiters or
before their neighbours. The class of craftsmen who have furnished human
life with the arts is dedicated to Hephaestus and Athene; and there is
a class of craftsmen who preserve the works of all craftsmen by arts of
defence, the votaries of Ares and Athene, to which divinities they
too are rightly dedicated. All these continue through life serving the
country and the people; some of them are leaders in battle; others make
for hire implements and works, and they ought not to deceive in such
matters, out of respect to the Gods who are their ancestors. If any
craftsman through indolence omit to execute his work in a given
time, not reverencing the God who gives him the means of life, but
considering, foolish fellow, that he is his own God and will let him off
easily, in the first place, he shall suffer at the hands of the God, and
in the second place, the law shall follow in a similar spirit. He shall
owe to him who contracted with him the price of the works which he has
failed in performing, and he shall begin again and execute them gratis
in the given time. When a man undertakes a work, the law gives him the
same advice which was given to the seller, that he should not attempt to
raise the price, but simply ask the value; this the law enjoins also on
the contractor; for the craftsman assuredly knows the value of his work.
Wherefore, in free states the man of art ought not to attempt to impose
upon private individuals by the help of his art, which is by nature a
true thing; and he who is wronged in a matter of this sort, shall have
a right of action against the party who has wronged him. And if any one
lets out work to a craftsman, and does not pay him duly according to the
lawful agreement, disregarding Zeus the guardian of the city and Athene,
who are the partners of the state, and overthrows the foundations of
society for the sake of a little gain, in his case let the law and the
Gods maintain the common bonds of the state. And let him who, having
already received the work in exchange, does not pay the price in the
time agreed, pay double the price; and if a year has elapsed, although
interest is not to be taken on loans, yet for every drachma which he
owes to the contractor let him pay a monthly interest of an obol. Suits
about these matters are to be decided by the courts of the tribes; and
by the way, since we have mentioned craftsmen at all, we must not
forget that other craft of war, in which generals and tacticians are the
craftsmen, who undertake voluntarily or involuntarily the work of our
safety, as other craftsmen undertake other public works--if they execute
their work well the law will never tire of praising him who gives them
those honours which are the just rewards of the soldier; but if any one,
having already received the benefit of any noble service in war, does
not make the due return of honour, the law will blame him. Let this then
be the law, having an ingredient of praise, not compelling but advising
the great body of the citizens to honour the brave men who are the
saviours of the whole state, whether by their courage or by their
military skill--they should honour them, I say, in the second place; for
the first and highest tribute of respect is to be given to those who are
able above other men to honour the words of good legislators.
The greater part of the dealings between man and man have been now
regulated by us with the exception of those that relate to orphans and
the supervision of orphans by their guardians. These follow next in
order, and must be regulated in some way. But to arrive at them we must
begin with the testamentary wishes of the dying and the case of those
who may have happened to die intestate. When I said, Cleinias, that we
must regulate them, I had in my mind the difficulty and perplexity in
which all such matters are involved. You cannot leave them unregulated,
for individuals would make regulations at variance with one another, and
repugnant to the laws and habits of the living and to their own previous
habits, if a person were simply allowed to make any will which he
pleased, and this were to take effect in whatever state he may have been
at the end of his life; for most of us lose our senses in a manner, and
feel crushed when we think that we are about to die.
CLEINIAS: What do you mean, Stranger?
ATHENIAN: O Cleinias, a man when he is about to die is an intractable
creature, and is apt to use language which causes a great deal of
anxiety and trouble to the legislator.
CLEINIAS: In what way?
ATHENIAN: He wants to have the entire control of all his property, and
will use angry words.
CLEINIAS: Such as what?
ATHENIAN: O ye Gods, he will say, how monstrous that I am not allowed
to give, or not to give, my own to whom I will--less to him who has been
bad to me, and more to him who has been good to me, and whose badness
and goodness have been tested by me in time of sickness or in old age
and in every other sort of fortune!
CLEINIAS: Well, Stranger, and may he not very fairly say so?
ATHENIAN: In my opinion, Cleinias, the ancient legislators were
too good-natured, and made laws without sufficient observation or
consideration of human things.
CLEINIAS: What do you mean?
ATHENIAN: I mean, my friend, that they were afraid of the testator's
reproaches, and so they passed a law to the effect that a man should be
allowed to dispose of his property in all respects as he liked; but you
and I, if I am not mistaken, will have something better to say to our
departing citizens.
CLEINIAS: What?
ATHENIAN: O my friends, we will say to them, hard is it for you, who
are creatures of a day, to know what is yours--hard too, as the Delphic
oracle says, to know yourselves at this hour. Now I, as the legislator,
regard you and your possessions, not as belonging to yourselves, but as
belonging to your whole family, both past and future, and yet more do I
regard both family and possessions as belonging to the state; wherefore,
if some one steals upon you with flattery, when you are tossed on the
sea of disease or old age, and persuades you to dispose of your property
in a way that is not for the best, I will not, if I can help, allow
this; but I will legislate with a view to the whole, considering what
is best both for the state and for the family, esteeming as I ought
the feelings of an individual at a lower rate; and I hope that you will
depart in peace and kindness towards us, as you are going the way of
all mankind; and we will impartially take care of all your concerns, not
neglecting any of them, if we can possibly help. Let this be our prelude
and consolation to the living and dying, Cleinias, and let the law be as
follows: He who makes a disposition in a testament, if he be the father
of a family, shall first of all inscribe as his heir any one of his sons
whom he may think fit; and if he gives any of his children to be adopted
by another citizen, let the adoption be inscribed. And if he has a son
remaining over and above who has not been adopted upon any lot, and who
may be expected to be sent out to a colony according to law, to him his
father may give as much as he pleases of the rest of his property, with
the exception of the paternal lot and the fixtures on the lot. And if
there are other sons, let him distribute among them what there is more
than the lot in such portions as he pleases. And if one of the sons
has already a house of his own, he shall not give him of the money, nor
shall he give money to a daughter who has been betrothed, but if she is
not betrothed he may give her money. And if any of the sons or daughters
shall be found to have another lot of land in the country, which has
accrued after the testament has been made, they shall leave the lot
which they have inherited to the heir of the man who has made the will.
If the testator has no sons, but only daughters, let him choose the
husband of any one of his daughters whom he pleases, and leave and
inscribe him as his son and heir. And if a man have lost his son, when
he was a child, and before he could be reckoned among grown up men,
whether his own or an adopted son, let the testator make mention of the
circumstance and inscribe whom he will to be his second son in hope of