Laws
ATHENIAN: Do you imagine that I delay because I am in a perplexity?
CLEINIAS: No; but we think that you are too severe upon the money-loving
temper, of which you seem in the present discussion to have a peculiar
dislike.
ATHENIAN: That is a very fair rebuke, Cleinias; and I will now proceed
to the second cause.
CLEINIAS: Proceed.
ATHENIAN: I say that governments are a cause--democracy, oligarchy,
tyranny, concerning which I have often spoken in the previous discourse;
or rather governments they are not, for none of them exercises a
voluntary rule over voluntary subjects; but they may be truly called
states of discord, in which while the government is voluntary, the
subjects always obey against their will, and have to be coerced; and
the ruler fears the subject, and will not, if he can help, allow him to
become either noble, or rich, or strong, or valiant, or warlike at all.
These two are the chief causes of almost all evils, and of the evils of
which I have been speaking they are notably the causes. But our state
has escaped both of them; for her citizens have the greatest leisure,
and they are not subject to one another, and will, I think, be made by
these laws the reverse of lovers of money. Such a constitution may be
reasonably supposed to be the only one existing which will accept the
education which we have described, and the martial pastimes which have
been perfected according to our idea.
CLEINIAS: True.
ATHENIAN: Then next we must remember, about all gymnastic contests, that
only the warlike sort of them are to be practised and to have prizes
of victory; and those which are not military are to be given up. The
military sort had better be completely described and established by law;
and first, let us speak of running and swiftness.
CLEINIAS: Very good.
ATHENIAN: Certainly the most military of all qualities is general
activity of body, whether of foot or hand. For escaping or for capturing
an enemy, quickness of foot is required; but hand-to-hand conflict and
combat need vigour and strength.
CLEINIAS: Very true.
ATHENIAN: Neither of them can attain their greatest efficiency without
arms.
CLEINIAS: How can they?
ATHENIAN: Then our herald, in accordance with the prevailing practice,
will first summon the runner--he will appear armed, for to an unarmed
competitor we will not give a prize. And he shall enter first who is to
run the single course bearing arms; next, he who is to run the double
course; third, he who is to run the horse-course; and fourthly, he who
is to run the long course; the fifth whom we start, shall be the first
sent forth in heavy armour, and shall run a course of sixty stadia to
some temple of Ares--and we will send forth another, whom we will style
the more heavily armed, to run over smoother ground. There remains the
archer; and he shall run in the full equipments of an archer a distance
of 100 stadia over mountains, and across every sort of country, to a
temple of Apollo and Artemis; this shall be the order of the contest,
and we will wait for them until they return, and will give a prize to
the conqueror in each.
CLEINIAS: Very good.
ATHENIAN: Let us suppose that there are three kinds of contests--one of
boys, another of beardless youths, and a third of men. For the youths
we will fix the length of the contest at two-thirds, and for the boys
at half of the entire course, whether they contend as archers or as
heavy-armed. Touching the women, let the girls who are not grown up
compete naked in the stadium and the double course, and the horse-course
and the long course, and let them run on the race-ground itself; those
who are thirteen years of age and upwards until their marriage shall
continue to share in contests if they are not more than twenty, and
shall be compelled to run up to eighteen; and they shall descend into
the arena in suitable dresses. Let these be the regulations about
contests in running both for men and women.
Respecting contests of strength, instead of wrestling and similar
contests of the heavier sort, we will institute conflicts in armour of
one against one, and two against two, and so on up to ten against ten.
As to what a man ought not to suffer or do, and to what extent, in order
to gain the victory--as in wrestling, the masters of the art have laid
down what is fair and what is not fair, so in fighting in armour--we
ought to call in skilful persons, who shall judge for us and be our
assessors in the work of legislation; they shall say who deserves to be
victor in combats of this sort, and what he is not to do or have done
to him, and in like manner what rule determines who is defeated; and
let these ordinances apply to women until they are married as well as
to men. The pancration shall have a counterpart in a combat of the
light-armed; they shall contend with bows and with light shields and
with javelins and in the throwing of stones by slings and by hand: and
laws shall be made about it, and rewards and prizes given to him who
best fulfils the ordinances of the law.
Next in order we shall have to legislate about the horse contests. Now
we do not need many horses, for they cannot be of much use in a country
like Crete, and hence we naturally do not take great pains about the
rearing of them or about horse races. There is no one who keeps a
chariot among us, and any rivalry in such matters would be altogether
out of place; there would be no sense nor any shadow of sense in
instituting contests which are not after the manner of our country. And
therefore we give our prizes for single horses--for colts who have not
yet cast their teeth, and for those who are intermediate, and for the
full-grown horses themselves; and thus our equestrian games will accord
with the nature of the country. Let them have conflict and rivalry
in these matters in accordance with the law, and let the colonels and
generals of horse decide together about all courses and about the armed
competitors in them. But we have nothing to say to the unarmed either in
gymnastic exercises or in these contests. On the other hand, the Cretan
bowman or javelin-man who fights in armour on horseback is useful, and
therefore we may as well place a competition of this sort among
our amusements. Women are not to be forced to compete by laws and
ordinances; but if from previous training they have acquired the habit
and are strong enough and like to take part, let them do so, girls as
well as boys, and no blame to them.
Thus the competition in gymnastic and the mode of learning it have been
described; and we have spoken also of the toils of the contest, and of
daily exercises under the superintendence of masters. Likewise, what
relates to music has been, for the most part, completed. But as to
rhapsodes and the like, and the contests of choruses which are to
perform at feasts, all this shall be arranged when the months and days
and years have been appointed for Gods and demi-gods, whether every
third year, or again every fifth year, or in whatever way or manner the
Gods may put into men's minds the distribution and order of them. At the
same time, we may expect that the musical contests will be celebrated
in their turn by the command of the judges and the director of education
and the guardians of the law meeting together for this purpose, and
themselves becoming legislators of the times and nature and conditions
of the choral contests and of dancing in general. What they ought
severally to be in language and song, and in the admixture of harmony
with rhythm and the dance, has been often declared by the original
legislator; and his successors ought to follow him, making the games and
sacrifices duly to correspond at fitting times, and appointing public
festivals. It is not difficult to determine how these and the like
matters may have a regular order; nor, again, will the alteration of
them do any great good or harm to the state. There is, however, another
matter of great importance and difficulty, concerning which God should
legislate, if there were any possibility of obtaining from Him an
ordinance about it. But seeing that divine aid is not to be had, there
appears to be a need of some bold man who specially honours plainness
of speech, and will say outright what he thinks best for the city and
citizens--ordaining what is good and convenient for the whole state amid
the corruptions of human souls, opposing the mightiest lusts, and having
no man his helper but himself standing alone and following reason only.
CLEINIAS: What is this, Stranger, that you are saying? For we do not as
yet understand your meaning.
ATHENIAN: Very likely; I will endeavour to explain myself more clearly.
When I came to the subject of education, I beheld young men and maidens
holding friendly intercourse with one another. And there naturally arose
in my mind a sort of apprehension--I could not help thinking how one is
to deal with a city in which youths and maidens are well nurtured, and
have nothing to do, and are not undergoing the excessive and servile
toils which extinguish wantonness, and whose only cares during their
whole life are sacrifices and festivals and dances. How, in such a state
as this, will they abstain from desires which thrust many a man and
woman into perdition; and from which reason, assuming the functions of
law, commands them to abstain? The ordinances already made may possibly
get the better of most of these desires; the prohibition of excessive
wealth is a very considerable gain in the direction of temperance, and
the whole education of our youth imposes a law of moderation on them;
moreover, the eye of the rulers is required always to watch over the
young, and never to lose sight of them; and these provisions do, as far
as human means can effect anything, exercise a regulating influence
upon the desires in general. But how can we take precautions against the
unnatural loves of either sex, from which innumerable evils have come
upon individuals and cities? How shall we devise a remedy and way of
escape out of so great a danger? Truly, Cleinias, here is a difficulty.
In many ways Crete and Lacedaemon furnish a great help to those who
make peculiar laws; but in the matter of love, as we are alone, I must
confess that they are quite against us. For if any one following nature
should lay down the law which existed before the days of Laius, and
denounce these lusts as contrary to nature, adducing the animals as a
proof that such unions were monstrous, he might prove his point, but
he would be wholly at variance with the custom of your states. Further,
they are repugnant to a principle which we say that a legislator should
always observe; for we are always enquiring which of our enactments
tends to virtue and which not. And suppose we grant that these loves are
accounted by law to the honourable, or at least not disgraceful, in what
degree will they contribute to virtue? Will such passions implant in the
soul of him who is seduced the habit of courage, or in the soul of the
seducer the principle of temperance? Who will ever believe this? or
rather, who will not blame the effeminacy of him who yields to pleasures
and is unable to hold out against them? Will not all men censure
as womanly him who imitates the woman? And who would ever think of
establishing such a practice by law? certainly no one who had in his
mind the image of true law. How can we prove that what I am saying is
true? He who would rightly consider these matters must see the nature of
friendship and desire, and of these so-called loves, for they are of two
kinds, and out of the two arises a third kind, having the same name; and
this similarity of name causes all the difficulty and obscurity.
CLEINIAS: How is that?
ATHENIAN: Dear is the like in virtue to the like, and the equal to the