Laws
path, and we term them planets. 'Yes; and I have seen the morning and
evening stars go all manner of ways, and the sun and moon doing what we
know that they always do. But I wish that you would explain your meaning
further.' You will easily understand what I have had no difficulty
in understanding myself, though we are both of us past the time of
learning. 'True; but what is this marvellous knowledge which youth are
to acquire, and of which we are ignorant?' Men say that the sun, moon,
and stars are planets or wanderers; but this is the reverse of the fact.
Each of them moves in one orbit only, which is circular, and not in
many; nor is the swiftest of them the slowest, as appears to human eyes.
What an insult should we offer to Olympian runners if we were to put
the first last and the last first! And if that is a ridiculous error in
speaking of men, how much more in speaking of the Gods? They cannot be
pleased at our telling falsehoods about them. 'They cannot.' Then people
should at least learn so much about them as will enable them to avoid
impiety.
Enough of education. Hunting and similar pursuits now claim our
attention. These require for their regulation that mixture of law and
admonition of which we have often spoken; e.g., in what we were saying
about the nurture of young children. And therefore the whole duty of the
citizen will not consist in mere obedience to the laws; he must regard
not only the enactments but also the precepts of the legislator. I
will illustrate my meaning by an example. Of hunting there are many
kinds--hunting of fish and fowl, man and beast, enemies and friends; and
the legislator can neither omit to speak about these things, nor make
penal ordinances about them all. 'What is he to do then?' He will praise
and blame hunting, having in view the discipline and exercise of youth.
And the young man will listen obediently and will regard his praises and
censures; neither pleasure nor pain should hinder him. The legislator
will express himself in the form of a pious wish for the welfare of the
young:--O my friends, he will say, may you never be induced to hunt for
fish in the waters, either by day or night; or for men, whether by sea
or land. Never let the wish to steal enter into your minds; neither
be ye fowlers, which is not an occupation for gentlemen. As to land
animals, the legislator will discourage hunting by night, and also
the use of nets and snares by day; for these are indolent and unmanly
methods. The only mode of hunting which he can praise is with horses
and dogs, running, shooting, striking at close quarters. Enough of the
prelude: the law shall be as follows:--
Let no one hinder the holy order of huntsmen; but let the nightly
hunters who lay snares and nets be everywhere prohibited. Let the fowler
confine himself to waste places and to the mountains. The fisherman is
also permitted to exercise his calling, except in harbours and sacred
streams, marshes and lakes; in all other places he may fish, provided he
does not make use of poisonous mixtures.
BOOK VIII. Next, with the help of the Delphian Oracle, we will appoint
festivals and sacrifices. There shall be 365 of them, one for every day
in the year; and one magistrate, at least, shall offer sacrifice
daily according to rites prescribed by a convocation of priests and
interpreters, who shall co-operate with the guardians of the law, and
supply what the legislator has omitted. Moreover there shall be twelve
festivals to the twelve Gods after whom the twelve tribes are named:
these shall be celebrated every month with appropriate musical and
gymnastic contests. There shall also be festivals for women, to be
distinguished from the men's festivals. Nor shall the Gods below be
forgotten, but they must be separated from the Gods above--Pluto shall
have his own in the twelfth month. He is not the enemy, but the friend
of man, who releases the soul from the body, which is at least as good a
work as to unite them. Further, those who have to regulate these matters
should consider that our state has leisure and abundance, and wishing to
be happy, like an individual, should lead a good life; for he who leads
such a life neither does nor suffers injury, of which the first is very
easy, and the second very difficult of attainment, and is only to be
acquired by perfect virtue. A good city has peace, but the evil city is
full of wars within and without. To guard against the danger of external
enemies the citizens should practise war at least one day in every
month; they should go out en masse, including their wives and children,
or in divisions, as the magistrates determine, and have mimic contests,
imitating in a lively manner real battles; they should also have prizes
and encomiums of valour, both for the victors in these contests, and for
the victors in the battle of life. The poet who celebrates the victors
should be fifty years old at least, and himself a man who has done great
deeds. Of such an one the poems may be sung, even though he is not the
best of poets. To the director of education and the guardians of the law
shall be committed the judgment, and no song, however sweet, which has
not been licensed by them shall be recited. These regulations about
poetry, and about military expeditions, apply equally to men and to
women.
The legislator may be conceived to make the following address to
himself:--With what object am I training my citizens? Are they not
strivers for mastery in the greatest of combats? Certainly, will be
the reply. And if they were boxers or wrestlers, would they think of
entering the lists without many days' practice? Would they not as far as
possible imitate all the circumstances of the contest; and if they
had no one to box with, would they not practise on a lifeless image,
heedless of the laughter of the spectators? And shall our soldiers go
out to fight for life and kindred and property unprepared, because sham
fights are thought to be ridiculous? Will not the legislator require
that his citizens shall practise war daily, performing lesser exercises
without arms, while the combatants on a greater scale will carry arms,
and take up positions, and lie in ambuscade? And let their combats be
not without danger, that opportunity may be given for distinction,
and the brave man and the coward may receive their meed of honour
or disgrace. If occasionally a man is killed, there is no great harm
done--there are others as good as he is who will replace him; and the
state can better afford to lose a few of her citizens than to lose the
only means of testing them.
'We agree, Stranger, that such warlike exercises are necessary.' But why
are they so rarely practised? Or rather, do we not all know the reasons?
One of them (1) is the inordinate love of wealth. This absorbs the soul
of a man, and leaves him no time for any other pursuit. Knowledge is
valued by him only as it tends to the attainment of wealth. All is lost
in the desire of heaping up gold and silver; anybody is ready to do
anything, right or wrong, for the sake of eating and drinking, and
the indulgence of his animal passions. 'Most true.' This is one of the
causes which prevents a man being a good soldier, or anything else
which is good; it converts the temperate and orderly into shopkeepers or
servants, and the brave into burglars or pirates. Many of these latter
are men of ability, and are greatly to be pitied, because their souls
are hungering and thirsting all their lives long. The bad forms of
government (2) are another reason--democracy, oligarchy, tyranny, which,
as I was saying, are not states, but states of discord, in which the
rulers are afraid of their subjects, and therefore do not like them to
become rich, or noble, or valiant. Now our state will escape both
these causes of evil; the society is perfectly free, and has plenty of
leisure, and is not allowed by the laws to be absorbed in the pursuit
of wealth; hence we have an excellent field for a perfect education, and
for the introduction of martial pastimes. Let us proceed to describe the
character of these pastimes. All gymnastic exercises in our state
must have a military character; no other will be allowed. Activity and
quickness are most useful in war; and yet these qualities do not attain
their greatest efficiency unless the competitors are armed. The runner
should enter the lists in armour, and in the races which our heralds
proclaim, no prize is to be given except to armed warriors. Let there be
six courses--first, the stadium; secondly, the diaulos or double course;
thirdly, the horse course; fourthly, the long course; fifthly, races (1)
between heavy-armed soldiers who shall pass over sixty stadia and
finish at a temple of Ares, and (2) between still more heavily-armed
competitors who run over smoother ground; sixthly, a race for archers,
who shall run over hill and dale a distance of a hundred stadia, and
their goal shall be a temple of Apollo and Artemis. There shall be three
contests of each kind--one for boys, another for youths, a third for
men; the course for the boys we will fix at half, and that for the
youths at two-thirds of the entire length. Women shall join in the
races: young girls who are not grown up shall run naked; but after
thirteen they shall be suitably dressed; from thirteen to eighteen they
shall be obliged to share in these contests, and from eighteen to twenty
they may if they please and if they are unmarried. As to trials of
strength, single combats in armour, or battles between two and two, or
of any number up to ten, shall take the place of wrestling and the heavy
exercises. And there must be umpires, as there are now in wrestling,
to determine what is a fair hit and who is conqueror. Instead of the
pancratium, let there be contests in which the combatants carry bows
and wear light shields and hurl javelins and throw stones. The next
provision of the law will relate to horses, which, as we are in Crete,
need be rarely used by us, and chariots never; our horse-racing prizes
will only be given to single horses, whether colts, half-grown, or
full-grown. Their riders are to wear armour, and there shall be a
competition between mounted archers. Women, if they have a mind, may
join in the exercises of men.
But enough of gymnastics, and nearly enough of music. All musical
contests will take place at festivals, whether every third or every
fifth year, which are to be fixed by the guardians of the law, the
judges of the games, and the director of education, who for this
purpose shall become legislators and arrange times and conditions. The
principles on which such contests are to be ordered have been often
repeated by the first legislator; no more need be said of them, nor
are the details of them important. But there is another subject of the
highest importance, which, if possible, should be determined by the
laws, not of man, but of God; or, if a direct revelation is impossible,
there is need of some bold man who, alone against the world, will
speak plainly of the corruption of human nature, and go to war with the
passions of mankind. 'We do not understand you.' I will try to make my
meaning plainer. In speaking of education, I seemed to see young men and
maidens in friendly intercourse with one another; and there arose in my
mind a natural fear about a state, in which the young of either sex are
well nurtured, and have little to do, and occupy themselves chiefly with
festivals and dances. How can they be saved from those passions which
reason forbids them to indulge, and which are the ruin of so many?
The prohibition of wealth, and the influence of education, and the
all-seeing eye of the ruler, will alike help to promote temperance; but
they will not wholly extirpate the unnatural loves which have been the