Laws
ATHENIAN: Yes; and under his guidance let us consider a further point.
CLEINIAS: What is it?
ATHENIAN: Let us remember what a courageously mad and daring creation
this our city is.
CLEINIAS: What had you in your mind when you said that?
ATHENIAN: I had in my mind the free and easy manner in which we are
ordaining that the inexperienced colonists shall receive our laws. Now
a man need not be very wise, Cleinias, in order to see that no one can
easily receive laws at their first imposition. But if we could anyhow
wait until those who have been imbued with them from childhood, and have
been nurtured in them, and become habituated to them, take their part in
the public elections of the state; I say, if this could be accomplished,
and rightly accomplished by any way or contrivance--then, I think that
there would be very little danger, at the end of the time, of a state
thus trained not being permanent.
CLEINIAS: A reasonable supposition.
ATHENIAN: Then let us consider if we can find any way out of the
difficulty; for I maintain, Cleinias, that the Cnosians, above all the
other Cretans, should not be satisfied with barely discharging their
duty to the colony, but they ought to take the utmost pains to establish
the offices which are first created by them in the best and surest
manner. Above all, this applies to the selection of the guardians of the
law, who must be chosen first of all, and with the greatest care; the
others are of less importance.
CLEINIAS: What method can we devise of electing them?
ATHENIAN: This will be the method:--Sons of the Cretans, I shall say to
them, inasmuch as the Cnosians have precedence over the other states,
they should, in common with those who join this settlement, choose
a body of thirty-seven in all, nineteen of them being taken from the
settlers, and the remainder from the citizens of Cnosus. Of these latter
the Cnosians shall make a present to your colony, and you yourself shall
be one of the eighteen, and shall become a citizen of the new state; and
if you and they cannot be persuaded to go, the Cnosians may fairly use a
little violence in order to make you.
CLEINIAS: But why, Stranger, do not you and Megillus take a part in our
new city?
ATHENIAN: O, Cleinias, Athens is proud, and Sparta too; and they are
both a long way off. But you and likewise the other colonists are
conveniently situated as you describe. I have been speaking of the
way in which the new citizens may be best managed under present
circumstances; but in after-ages, if the city continues to exist, let
the election be on this wise. All who are horse or foot soldiers, or
have seen military service at the proper ages when they were severally
fitted for it (compare Arist. Pol.), shall share in the election of
magistrates; and the election shall be held in whatever temple the state
deems most venerable, and every one shall carry his vote to the altar
of the God, writing down on a tablet the name of the person for whom he
votes, and his father's name, and his tribe, and ward; and at the side
he shall write his own name in like manner. Any one who pleases may take
away any tablet which he does not think properly filled up, and exhibit
it in the Agora for a period of not less than thirty days. The tablets
which are judged to be first, to the number of 300, shall be shown by
the magistrates to the whole city, and the citizens shall in like manner
select from these the candidates whom they prefer; and this second
selection, to the number of 100, shall be again exhibited to the
citizens; in the third, let any one who pleases select whom he pleases
out of the 100, walking through the parts of victims, and let them
choose for magistrates and proclaim the seven-and-thirty who have the
greatest number of votes. But who, Cleinias and Megillus, will order for
us in the colony all this matter of the magistrates, and the scrutinies
of them? If we reflect, we shall see that cities which are in process of
construction like ours must have some such persons, who cannot possibly
be elected before there are any magistrates; and yet they must be
elected in some way, and they are not to be inferior men, but the
best possible. For as the proverb says, 'a good beginning is half the
business'; and 'to have begun well' is praised by all, and in my opinion
is a great deal more than half the business, and has never been praised
by any one enough.
CLEINIAS: That is very true.
ATHENIAN: Then let us recognize the difficulty, and make clear to our
own minds how the beginning is to be accomplished. There is only
one proposal which I have to offer, and that is one which, under our
circumstances, is both necessary and expedient.
CLEINIAS: What is it?
ATHENIAN: I maintain that this colony of ours has a father and mother,
who are no other than the colonizing state. Well I know that many
colonies have been, and will be, at enmity with their parents. But in
early days the child, as in a family, loves and is beloved; even if
there come a time later when the tie is broken, still, while he is in
want of education, he naturally loves his parents and is beloved by
them, and flies to his relatives for protection, and finds in them his
only natural allies in time of need; and this parental feeling already
exists in the Cnosians, as is shown by their care of the new city; and
there is a similar feeling on the part of the young city towards Cnosus.
And I repeat what I was saying--for there is no harm in repeating a
good thing--that the Cnosians should take a common interest in all these
matters, and choose, as far as they can, the eldest and best of the
colonists, to the number of not less than a hundred; and let there
be another hundred of the Cnosians themselves. These, I say, on their
arrival, should have a joint care that the magistrates should be
appointed according to law, and that when they are appointed they should
undergo a scrutiny. When this has been effected, the Cnosians
shall return home, and the new city do the best she can for her own
preservation and happiness. I would have the seven-and-thirty now, and
in all future time, chosen to fulfil the following duties:--Let them,
in the first place, be the guardians of the law; and, secondly, of the
registers in which each one registers before the magistrate the amount
of his property, excepting four minae which are allowed to citizens of
the first class, three allowed to the second, two to the third, and a
single mina to the fourth. And if any one, despising the laws for the
sake of gain, be found to possess anything more which has not been
registered, let all that he has in excess be confiscated, and let him be
liable to a suit which shall be the reverse of honourable or fortunate.
And let any one who will, indict him on the charge of loving base gains,
and proceed against him before the guardians of the law. And if he be
cast, let him lose his share of the public possessions, and when there
is any public distribution, let him have nothing but his original lot;
and let him be written down a condemned man as long as he lives, in
some place in which any one who pleases can read about his offences. The
guardian of the law shall not hold office longer than twenty years, and
shall not be less than fifty years of age when he is elected; or if he
is elected when he is sixty years of age, he shall hold office for ten
years only; and upon the same principle, he must not imagine that he
will be permitted to hold such an important office as that of guardian
of the laws after he is seventy years of age, if he live so long.
These are the three first ordinances about the guardians of the law; as
the work of legislation progresses, each law in turn will assign to them
their further duties. And now we may proceed in order to speak of the
election of other officers; for generals have to be elected, and these
again must have their ministers, commanders, and colonels of horse,
and commanders of brigades of foot, who would be more rightly called by
their popular name of brigadiers. The guardians of the law shall propose
as generals men who are natives of the city, and a selection from the
candidates proposed shall be made by those who are or have been of the
age for military service. And if one who is not proposed is thought by
somebody to be better than one who is, let him name whom he prefers in
the place of whom, and make oath that he is better, and propose him;
and whichever of them is approved by vote shall be admitted to the final
selection; and the three who have the greatest number of votes shall
be appointed generals, and superintendents of military affairs, after
previously undergoing a scrutiny, like the guardians of the law. And let
the generals thus elected propose twelve brigadiers, one for each tribe;
and there shall be a right of counter-proposal as in the case of the
generals, and the voting and decision shall take place in the same way.
Until the prytanes and council are elected, the guardians of the law
shall convene the assembly in some holy spot which is suitable to
the purpose, placing the hoplites by themselves, and the cavalry by
themselves, and in a third division all the rest of the army. All are
to vote for the generals (and for the colonels of horse), but the
brigadiers are to be voted for only by those who carry shields (i.e. the
hoplites). Let the body of cavalry choose phylarchs for the generals;
but captains of light troops, or archers, or any other division of the
army, shall be appointed by the generals for themselves. There only
remains the appointment of officers of cavalry: these shall be proposed
by the same persons who proposed the generals, and the election and the
counter-proposal of other candidates shall be arranged in the same
way as in the case of the generals, and let the cavalry vote and the
infantry look on at the election; the two who have the greatest number
of votes shall be the leaders of all the horse. Disputes about the
voting may be raised once or twice; but if the dispute be raised a third
time, the officers who preside at the several elections shall decide.
The council shall consist of 30 x 12 members--360 will be a convenient
number for sub-division. If we divide the whole number into four parts
of ninety each, we get ninety counsellors for each class. First, all
the citizens shall select candidates from the first class; they shall
be compelled to vote, and, if they do not, shall be duly fined. When the
candidates have been selected, some one shall mark them down; this shall
be the business of the first day. And on the following day, candidates
shall be selected from the second class in the same manner and under the
same conditions as on the previous day; and on the third day a selection
shall be made from the third class, at which every one may, if he likes
vote, and the three first classes shall be compelled to vote; but the
fourth and lowest class shall be under no compulsion, and any member of
this class who does not vote shall not be punished. On the fourth day
candidates shall be selected from the fourth and smallest class; they
shall be selected by all, but he who is of the fourth class shall suffer
no penalty, nor he who is of the third, if he be not willing to vote;
but he who is of the first or second class, if he does not vote shall be
punished;--he who is of the second class shall pay a fine of triple
the amount which was exacted at first, and he who is of the first class
quadruple. On the fifth day the rulers shall bring out the names noted
down, for all the citizens to see, and every man shall choose out of
them, under pain, if he do not, of suffering the first penalty; and
when they have chosen 180 out of each of the classes, they shall choose