Laws
one-half of them by lot, who shall undergo a scrutiny:--These are to
form the council for the year.
The mode of election which has been described is in a mean between
monarchy and democracy, and such a mean the state ought always to
observe; for servants and masters never can be friends, nor good and
bad, merely because they are declared to have equal privileges. For to
unequals equals become unequal, if they are not harmonised by measure;
and both by reason of equality, and by reason of inequality, cities are
filled with seditions. The old saying, that 'equality makes friendship,'
is happy and also true; but there is obscurity and confusion as to what
sort of equality is meant. For there are two equalities which are called
by the same name, but are in reality in many ways almost the opposite
of one another; one of them may be introduced without difficulty, by any
state or any legislator in the distribution of honours: this is the rule
of measure, weight, and number, which regulates and apportions them. But
there is another equality, of a better and higher kind, which is not so
easily recognized. This is the judgment of Zeus; among men it avails
but little; that little, however, is the source of the greatest good
to individuals and states. For it gives to the greater more, and to the
inferior less and in proportion to the nature of each; and, above all,
greater honour always to the greater virtue, and to the less less;
and to either in proportion to their respective measure of virtue
and education. And this is justice, and is ever the true principle of
states, at which we ought to aim, and according to this rule order the
new city which is now being founded, and any other city which may be
hereafter founded. To this the legislator should look,--not to the
interests of tyrants one or more, or to the power of the people, but to
justice always; which, as I was saying, is the distribution of natural
equality among unequals in each case. But there are times at which every
state is compelled to use the words, 'just,' 'equal,' in a secondary
sense, in the hope of escaping in some degree from factions. For
equity and indulgence are infractions of the perfect and strict rule of
justice. And this is the reason why we are obliged to use the equality
of the lot, in order to avoid the discontent of the people; and so we
invoke God and fortune in our prayers, and beg that they themselves will
direct the lot with a view to supreme justice. And therefore, although
we are compelled to use both equalities, we should use that into which
the element of chance enters as seldom as possible.
Thus, O my friends, and for the reasons given, should a state act which
would endure and be saved. But as a ship sailing on the sea has to be
watched night and day, in like manner a city also is sailing on a sea
of politics, and is liable to all sorts of insidious assaults; and
therefore from morning to night, and from night to morning, rulers must
join hands with rulers, and watchers with watchers, receiving and giving
up their trust in a perpetual succession. Now a multitude can never
fulfil a duty of this sort with anything like energy. Moreover, the
greater number of the senators will have to be left during the greater
part of the year to order their concerns at their own homes. They will
therefore have to be arranged in twelve portions, answering to the
twelve months, and furnish guardians of the state, each portion for a
single month. Their business is to be at hand and receive any foreigner
or citizen who comes to them, whether to give information, or to put one
of those questions, to which, when asked by other cities, a city should
give an answer, and to which, if she ask them herself, she should
receive an answer; or again, when there is a likelihood of internal
commotions, which are always liable to happen in some form or other,
they will, if they can, prevent their occurring; or if they have already
occurred, will lose no time in making them known to the city, and
healing the evil. Wherefore, also, this which is the presiding body of
the state ought always to have the control of their assemblies, and of
the dissolutions of them, ordinary as well as extraordinary. All this
is to be ordered by the twelfth part of the council, which is always
to keep watch together with the other officers of the state during one
portion of the year, and to rest during the remaining eleven portions.
Thus will the city be fairly ordered. And now, who is to have the
superintendence of the country, and what shall be the arrangement?
Seeing that the whole city and the entire country have been both of
them divided into twelve portions, ought there not to be appointed
superintendents of the streets of the city, and of the houses, and
buildings, and harbours, and the agora, and fountains, and sacred
domains, and temples, and the like?
CLEINIAS: To be sure there ought.
ATHENIAN: Let us assume, then, that there ought to be servants of the
temples, and priests and priestesses. There must also be superintendents
of roads and buildings, who will have a care of men, that they may do no
harm, and also of beasts, both within the enclosure and in the suburbs.
Three kinds of officers will thus have to be appointed, in order that
the city may be suitably provided according to her needs. Those who have
the care of the city shall be called wardens of the city; and those who
have the care of the agora shall be called wardens of the agora; and
those who have the care of the temples shall be called priests. Those
who hold hereditary offices as priests or priestesses, shall not be
disturbed; but if there be few or none such, as is probable at the
foundation of a new city, priests and priestesses shall be appointed to
be servants of the Gods who have no servants. Some of our officers shall
be elected, and others appointed by lot, those who are of the people and
those who are not of the people mingling in a friendly manner in every
place and city, that the state may be as far as possible of one mind.
The officers of the temples shall be appointed by lot; in this way their
election will be committed to God, that He may do what is agreeable to
Him. And he who obtains a lot shall undergo a scrutiny, first, as to
whether he is sound of body and of legitimate birth; and in the second
place, in order to show that he is of a perfectly pure family, not
stained with homicide or any similar impiety in his own person, and also
that his father and mother have led a similar unstained life. Now
the laws about all divine things should be brought from Delphi, and
interpreters appointed, under whose direction they should be used. The
tenure of the priesthood should always be for a year and no longer; and
he who will duly execute the sacred office, according to the laws of
religion, must be not less than sixty years of age--the laws shall
be the same about priestesses. As for the interpreters, they shall be
appointed thus:--Let the twelve tribes be distributed into groups of
four, and let each group select four, one out of each tribe within the
group, three times; and let the three who have the greatest number of
votes (out of the twelve appointed by each group), after undergoing
a scrutiny, nine in all, be sent to Delphi, in order that the God may
return one out of each triad; their age shall be the same as that of the
priests, and the scrutiny of them shall be conducted in the same manner;
let them be interpreters for life, and when any one dies let the four
tribes select another from the tribe of the deceased. Moreover, besides
priests and interpreters, there must be treasurers, who will take charge
of the property of the several temples, and of the sacred domains, and
shall have authority over the produce and the letting of them; and
three of them shall be chosen from the highest classes for the greater
temples, and two for the lesser, and one for the least of all; the
manner of their election and the scrutiny of them shall be the same as
that of the generals. This shall be the order of the temples.
Let everything have a guard as far as possible. Let the defence of the
city be commited to the generals, and taxiarchs, and hipparchs, and
phylarchs, and prytanes, and the wardens of the city, and of the agora,
when the election of them has been completed. The defence of the country
shall be provided for as follows:--The entire land has been already
distributed into twelve as nearly as possible equal parts, and let the
tribe allotted to a division provide annually for it five wardens of the
country and commanders of the watch; and let each body of five have
the power of selecting twelve others out of the youth of their own
tribe,--these shall be not less than twenty-five years of age, and not
more than thirty. And let there be allotted to them severally every
month the various districts, in order that they may all acquire
knowledge and experience of the whole country. The term of service
for commanders and for watchers shall continue during two years. After
having had their stations allotted to them, they will go from place to
place in regular order, making their round from left to right as their
commanders direct them; (when I speak of going to the right, I mean that
they are to go to the east). And at the commencement of the second
year, in order that as many as possible of the guards may not only get
a knowledge of the country at any one season of the year, but may also
have experience of the manner in which different places are affected
at different seasons of the year, their then commanders shall lead them
again towards the left, from place to place in succession, until they
have completed the second year. In the third year other wardens of
the country shall be chosen and commanders of the watch, five for each
division, who are to be the superintendents of the bands of twelve.
While on service at each station, their attention shall be directed
to the following points:--In the first place, they shall see that the
country is well protected against enemies; they shall trench and dig
wherever this is required, and, as far as they can, they shall by
fortifications keep off the evil-disposed, in order to prevent them from
doing any harm to the country or the property; they shall use the beasts
of burden and the labourers whom they find on the spot: these will be
their instruments whom they will superintend, taking them, as far
as possible, at the times when they are not engaged in their regular
business. They shall make every part of the country inaccessible to
enemies, and as accessible as possible to friends (compare Arist. Pol.);
there shall be ways for man and beasts of burden and for cattle, and
they shall take care to have them always as smooth as they can; and
shall provide against the rains doing harm instead of good to the land,
when they come down from the mountains into the hollow dells; and shall
keep in the overflow by the help of works and ditches, in order that the
valleys, receiving and drinking up the rain from heaven, and providing
fountains and streams in the fields and regions which lie underneath,
may furnish even to the dry places plenty of good water. The fountains
of water, whether of rivers or of springs, shall be ornamented with
plantations and buildings for beauty; and let them bring together the
streams in subterraneous channels, and make all things plenteous; and if
there be a sacred grove or dedicated precinct in the neighbourhood,
they shall conduct the water to the actual temples of the Gods, and so
beautify them at all seasons of the year. Everywhere in such places the
youth shall make gymnasia for themselves, and warm baths for the
aged, placing by them abundance of dry wood, for the benefit of those