Laws
saying, when he traces up the ancient state of mankind by the help of
tradition to barbarism.
ATHENIAN: Yes, he does confirm it; and we may accept his witness to the
fact that such forms of government sometimes arise.
CLEINIAS: We may.
ATHENIAN: And were not such states composed of men who had been
dispersed in single habitations and families by the poverty which
attended the devastations; and did not the eldest then rule among them,
because with them government originated in the authority of a father and
a mother, whom, like a flock of birds, they followed, forming one troop
under the patriarchal rule and sovereignty of their parents, which of
all sovereignties is the most just?
CLEINIAS: Very true.
ATHENIAN: After this they came together in greater numbers, and
increased the size of their cities, and betook themselves to husbandry,
first of all at the foot of the mountains, and made enclosures of loose
walls and works of defence, in order to keep off wild beasts; thus
creating a single large and common habitation.
CLEINIAS: Yes; at least we may suppose so.
ATHENIAN: There is another thing which would probably happen.
CLEINIAS: What?
ATHENIAN: When these larger habitations grew up out of the lesser
original ones, each of the lesser ones would survive in the larger;
every family would be under the rule of the eldest, and, owing to their
separation from one another, would have peculiar customs in things
divine and human, which they would have received from their several
parents who had educated them; and these customs would incline them to
order, when the parents had the element of order in their nature, and to
courage, when they had the element of courage. And they would naturally
stamp upon their children, and upon their children's children, their
own likings; and, as we are saying, they would find their way into the
larger society, having already their own peculiar laws.
CLEINIAS: Certainly.
ATHENIAN: And every man surely likes his own laws best, and the laws of
others not so well.
CLEINIAS: True.
ATHENIAN: Then now we seem to have stumbled upon the beginnings of
legislation.
CLEINIAS: Exactly.
ATHENIAN: The next step will be that these persons who have met
together, will select some arbiters, who will review the laws of all of
them, and will publicly present such as they approve to the chiefs who
lead the tribes, and who are in a manner their kings, allowing them to
choose those which they think best. These persons will themselves be
called legislators, and will appoint the magistrates, framing some sort
of aristocracy, or perhaps monarchy, out of the dynasties or lordships,
and in this altered state of the government they will live.
CLEINIAS: Yes, that would be the natural order of things.
ATHENIAN: Then, now let us speak of a third form of government, in which
all other forms and conditions of polities and cities concur.
CLEINIAS: What is that?
ATHENIAN: The form which in fact Homer indicates as following the
second. This third form arose when, as he says, Dardanus founded
Dardania:--
'For not as yet had the holy Ilium been built on the plain to be a
city of speaking men; but they were still dwelling at the foot of
many-fountained Ida.'
For indeed, in these verses, and in what he said of the Cyclopes, he
speaks the words of God and nature; for poets are a divine race, and
often in their strains, by the aid of the Muses and the Graces, they
attain truth.
CLEINIAS: Yes.
ATHENIAN: Then now let us proceed with the rest of our tale, which
will probably be found to illustrate in some degree our proposed
design:--Shall we do so?
CLEINIAS: By all means.
ATHENIAN: Ilium was built, when they descended from the mountain, in
a large and fair plain, on a sort of low hill, watered by many rivers
descending from Ida.
CLEINIAS: Such is the tradition.
ATHENIAN: And we must suppose this event to have taken place many ages
after the deluge?
ATHENIAN: A marvellous forgetfulness of the former destruction would
appear to have come over them, when they placed their town right under
numerous streams flowing from the heights, trusting for their security
to not very high hills, either.
CLEINIAS: There must have been a long interval, clearly.
ATHENIAN: And, as population increased, many other cities would begin to
be inhabited.
CLEINIAS: Doubtless.
ATHENIAN: Those cities made war against Troy--by sea as well as
land--for at that time men were ceasing to be afraid of the sea.
CLEINIAS: Clearly.
ATHENIAN: The Achaeans remained ten years, and overthrew Troy.
CLEINIAS: True.
ATHENIAN: And during the ten years in which the Achaeans were besieging
Ilium, the homes of the besiegers were falling into an evil plight.
Their youth revolted; and when the soldiers returned to their own cities
and families, they did not receive them properly, and as they ought to
have done, and numerous deaths, murders, exiles, were the consequence.
The exiles came again, under a new name, no longer Achaeans, but
Dorians,--a name which they derived from Dorieus; for it was he
who gathered them together. The rest of the story is told by you
Lacedaemonians as part of the history of Sparta.
MEGILLUS: To be sure.
ATHENIAN: Thus, after digressing from the original subject of laws into
music and drinking-bouts, the argument has, providentially, come back to
the same point, and presents to us another handle. For we have reached
the settlement of Lacedaemon; which, as you truly say, is in laws and
in institutions the sister of Crete. And we are all the better for
the digression, because we have gone through various governments and
settlements, and have been present at the foundation of a first, second,
and third state, succeeding one another in infinite time. And now
there appears on the horizon a fourth state or nation which was once in
process of settlement and has continued settled to this day. If, out of
all this, we are able to discern what is well or ill settled, and what
laws are the salvation and what are the destruction of cities, and what
changes would make a state happy, O Megillus and Cleinias, we may
now begin again, unless we have some fault to find with the previous
discussion.
MEGILLUS: If some God, Stranger, would promise us that our new enquiry
about legislation would be as good and full as the present, I would go
a great way to hear such another, and would think that a day as long as
this--and we are now approaching the longest day of the year--was too
short for the discussion.
ATHENIAN: Then I suppose that we must consider this subject?
MEGILLUS: Certainly.
ATHENIAN: Let us place ourselves in thought at the moment when
Lacedaemon and Argos and Messene and the rest of the Peloponnesus were
all in complete subjection, Megillus, to your ancestors; for afterwards,
as the legend informs us, they divided their army into three portions,
and settled three cities, Argos, Messene, Lacedaemon.
MEGILLUS: True.
ATHENIAN: Temenus was the king of Argos, Cresphontes of Messene, Procles
and Eurysthenes of Lacedaemon.
MEGILLUS: Certainly.
ATHENIAN: To these kings all the men of that day made oath that they
would assist them, if any one subverted their kingdom.
MEGILLUS: True.
ATHENIAN: But can a kingship be destroyed, or was any other form of
government ever destroyed, by any but the rulers themselves? No indeed,
by Zeus. Have we already forgotten what was said a little while ago?
MEGILLUS: No.
ATHENIAN: And may we not now further confirm what was then mentioned?
For we have come upon facts which have brought us back again to the
same principle; so that, in resuming the discussion, we shall not
be enquiring about an empty theory, but about events which actually
happened. The case was as follows:--Three royal heroes made oath to
three cities which were under a kingly government, and the cities to
the kings, that both rulers and subjects should govern and be governed
according to the laws which were common to all of them: the rulers
promised that as time and the race went forward they would not make
their rule more arbitrary; and the subjects said that, if the rulers
observed these conditions, they would never subvert or permit others to
subvert those kingdoms; the kings were to assist kings and peoples
when injured, and the peoples were to assist peoples and kings in like
manner. Is not this the fact?
MEGILLUS: Yes.
ATHENIAN: And the three states to whom these laws were given, whether
their kings or any others were the authors of them, had therefore the
greatest security for the maintenance of their constitutions?
MEGILLUS: What security?
ATHENIAN: That the other two states were always to come to the rescue
against a rebellious third.
MEGILLUS: True.
ATHENIAN: Many persons say that legislators ought to impose such laws as
the mass of the people will be ready to receive; but this is just as
if one were to command gymnastic masters or physicians to treat or cure
their pupils or patients in an agreeable manner.
MEGILLUS: Exactly.
ATHENIAN: Whereas the physician may often be too happy if he can restore
health, and make the body whole, without any very great infliction of
pain.
MEGILLUS: Certainly.
ATHENIAN: There was also another advantage possessed by the men of that
day, which greatly lightened the task of passing laws.
MEGILLUS: What advantage?
ATHENIAN: The legislators of that day, when they equalized property,
escaped the great accusation which generally arises in legislation, if a
person attempts to disturb the possession of land, or to abolish debts,
because he sees that without this reform there can never be any real
equality. Now, in general, when the legislator attempts to make a new
settlement of such matters, every one meets him with the cry, that 'he
is not to disturb vested interests,'--declaring with imprecations that
he is introducing agrarian laws and cancelling of debts, until a man
is at his wits' end; whereas no one could quarrel with the Dorians for
distributing the land,--there was nothing to hinder them; and as for
debts, they had none which were considerable or of old standing.
MEGILLUS: Very true.
ATHENIAN: But then, my good friends, why did the settlement and
legislation of their country turn out so badly?
MEGILLUS: How do you mean; and why do you blame them?
ATHENIAN: There were three kingdoms, and of these, two quickly corrupted
their original constitution and laws, and the only one which remained
was the Spartan.
MEGILLUS: The question which you ask is not easily answered.
ATHENIAN: And yet must be answered when we are enquiring about laws,
this being our old man's sober game of play, whereby we beguile the way,
as I was saying when we first set out on our journey.
MEGILLUS: Certainly; and we must find out why this was.
ATHENIAN: What laws are more worthy of our attention than those which
have regulated such cities? or what settlements of states are greater or
more famous?
MEGILLUS: I know of none.
ATHENIAN: Can we doubt that your ancestors intended these institutions
not only for the protection of Peloponnesus, but of all the Hellenes,
in case they were attacked by the barbarian? For the inhabitants of the
region about Ilium, when they provoked by their insolence the Trojan
war, relied upon the power of the Assyrians and the Empire of Ninus,
which still existed and had a great prestige; the people of those days
fearing the united Assyrian Empire just as we now fear the Great King.
And the second capture of Troy was a serious offence against them,
because Troy was a portion of the Assyrian Empire. To meet the danger
the single army was distributed between three cities by the royal
brothers, sons of Heracles,--a fair device, as it seemed, and a far