Laws

Ath. What I say is that the change takes place when nature supplies a true lawgiver, and when it happens that his policy is shared by the most powerful persons in the State; and wherever the State authorities are at once strongest and fewest in number, then and there the changes are usually carried out with speed and facility.

Clin. How so? We do not understand.

Ath. Yet surely it has been stated not once, I imagine, but many times over. But you, very likely, have never so much as set eyes on a monarchical State.

Clin. No, nor have I any craving for such a sight.

Ath. You would, however, see in it an illustration of what we spoke of just now.

Clin. What was that?

Ath. The fact that a monarch, when he decides to change the moral habits of a State, needs no great efforts nor a vast length of time, but what he does need is to lead the way himself first along the desired path, whether it be to urge the citizens towards virtue’s practices or the contrary; by his personal example he should first trace out the right lines, giving praise and honor to these things, blame to those, and degrading the disobedient according to their several deeds.

Clin. Yes, we may perhaps suppose that the rest of the citizens will quickly follow the ruler who adopts such a combination of persuasion and force.

Ath. Let none, my friends, persuade us that a State could ever change its laws more quickly or more easily by any other way than by the personal guidance of the rulers: no such thing could ever occur, either now or hereafter. Indeed, that is not the result which we find it difficult or impossible to bring about; what is difficult to bring about is rather that result which has taken place but rarely throughout long ages, and which, whenever it does take place in a State, produces in that State countless blessings of every kind.

Clin. What result do you mean?

Ath. Whenever a heaven-sent desire for temperate and just institutions arises in those who hold high positions,—whether as monarchs, or because of conspicuous eminence of wealth or birth, or, haply, as displaying the character of Nestor, of whom it is said that, while he surpassed all men in the force of his eloquence, still more did he surpass them in temperance. That was, as they say, in the Trojan age, certainly not in our time; still, if any such man existed, or shall exist, or exists among us now, blessed is the life he leads, and blessed are they who join in listening to the words of temperance that proceed out of his mouth.

Ath. So likewise of power in general, the same rule holds good: whenever the greatest power coincides in man with wisdom and temperance, then the germ of the best polity is planted;[*](Cp. Plat. Rep. 473d.) but in no other way will it ever come about. Regard this as a myth oracularly uttered, and let us take it as proved that the rise of a well-governed State is in one way difficult, but in another way—given, that is, the condition we mention—it is easier by far and quicker than anything else.

Clin. No doubt.

Ath. Let us apply the oracle to your State, and so try, like greybeard boys, to model its laws by our discourse.[*](Cp. Plat. Laws 746a.)

Clin. Yes, let us proceed, and delay no longer.

Ath. Let us invoke the presence of the God at the establishment of the State; and may he hearken, and hearkening may he come, propitious and kindly to us-ward, to help us in the fashioning of the State and its laws.

Clin. Yes, may he come!

Ath. Well, what form of polity is it that we intend to impose upon the State?

Clin. What, in particular, do you refer to? Explain still more clearly. I mean, is it a democracy, an oligarchy, an aristocracy, or a monarchy? For certainly you cannot mean a tyranny: that we can never suppose.

Ath. Come now, which of you two would like to answer me first and tell me to which of these kinds his own polity at home belongs?

Meg. Is it not proper that I, as the elder, should answer first?

Clin. No doubt.

Meg. In truth, Stranger, when I reflect on the Lacedaemonian polity, I am at a loss to tell you by what name one should describe it. It seems to me to resemble a tyranny, since the board of ephors it contains is a marvellously tyrannical feature; yet sometimes it strikes me as, of all States, the nearest to a democracy. Still, it would be totally absurd to deny that it is an aristocracy; while it includes, moreover, a life monarchy, and that the most ancient of monarchies, as is affirmed, not only by ourselves, but by all the world. But now that I am questioned thus suddenly, I am really, as I said, at a loss to say definitely to which of these polities it belongs.

Clin. And I, Megillus, find myself equally perplexed; for I find it very difficult to affirm that our Cnosian polity is any one of these.

Ath. Yes, my good Sirs; for you do, in fact, partake in a number of polities. But those we named just now are not polities, but arrangements of States which rule or serve parts of themselves, and each is named after the ruling power. But if the State ought to be named after any such thing, the name it should have borne is that of the God who is the true ruler of rational men.

Clin. Who is that God?

Ath. May we, then, do a little more story-telling, if we are to answer this question suitably?

Clin. Should we not do so?

Ath. We should. Long ages before even those cities existed whose formation we have described above, there existed in the time of Cronos, it is said, a most prosperous government and settlement, on which the best of the States now existing is modelled.[*](Cp.Politic. 271.)

Clin. Evidently it is most important to hear about it.

Ath. I, for one, think so; and that is why I have introduced the mention of it.

Meg. You were perfectly right to do so; and, since your story is pertinent, you will be quite right in going on with it to the end.

Ath. I must do as you say. Well, then, tradition tells us how blissful was the life of men in that age, furnished with everything in abundance, and of spontaneous growth. And the cause thereof is said to have been this: Cronos was aware of the fact that no human being (as we have explained[*](Plat. Laws 691c, 691d.)) is capable of having irresponsible control of all human affairs without becoming filled with pride and injustice; so, pondering this fact, he then appointed as kings and rulers for our cities, not men, but beings of a race that was nobler and more divine, namely, daemons. He acted just as we now do in the case of sheep and herds of tame animals: we do not set oxen as rulers over oxen, or goats over goats, but we, who are of a nobler race, ourselves rule over them. In like manner the God, in his love for humanity, set over us at that time the nobler race of daemons who, with much comfort to themselves and much to us, took charge of us and furnished peace and modesty and orderliness and justice without stint, and thus made the tribes of men free from feud and happy.

Ath. And even today this tale has a truth to tell, namely, that wherever a State has a mortal, and no god, for ruler, there the people have no rest from ills and toils; and it deems that we ought by every means to imitate the life of the age of Cronos, as tradition paints it, and order both our homes and our States in obedience to the immortal element within us, giving to reason’s ordering the name of law.[*](A double word-play:νοῦς=νόμος, and διανομάς=δαίμονας. Laws, being the dispensation of reason, take the place of the daemons of the age of Cronos: the divine element in man (τὸ δαιμόνιον), which claims obedience, is reason (νοῦς).) But if an individual man or an oligarchy or a democracy, possessed of a soul which strives after pleasures and lusts and seeks to surfeit itself therewith, having no continence and being the victim of a plague that is endless and insatiate of evil,— if such an one shall rule over a State or an individual by trampling on the laws, then there is (as I said just now) no means of salvation. This, then, is the statement, Clinias, which we have to examine, to see whether we believe it, or what we are to do.

Clin. We must, of course, believe it.

Ath. Are you aware that, according to some, there are as many kinds of laws as there are kinds of constitutions? And how many constitutions are commonly recognized we have recently recounted.[*](Plat. Laws 712c.) Please do not suppose that the problem now raised is one of small importance; rather it is of the highest importance. For we are again[*](Cp. Plat. Laws 630b, 690b, 690c.) faced with the problem as to what ought to be the aim of justice and injustice. The assertion of the people I refer to is this,— that the laws ought not to aim either at war or at goodness in general, but ought to have regard to the benefit of the established polity, whatever it may be, so that it may keep in power forever and never be dissolved; and that the natural definition of justice is best stated in this way.

Clin. In what way?

Ath. That justice is what benefits the stronger.[*](Cp.Plat. Rep. 1.338, 2.367.).

Clin. Explain yourself more clearly.

Ath. This is how it is:—the laws (they say) in a State are always enacted by the stronger power? Is it not so?

Clin. That is quite true.

Ath. Do you suppose, then (so they argue), that a democracy or any other government—even a tyrant—if it has gained the mastery, will of its own accord set up laws with any other primary aim than that of securing the permanence of its own authority?

Clin. Certainly not.

Ath. Then the lawgiver will style these enactments justice, and will punish every transgressor as guilty of injustice.

Clin. That is certainly probable.

Ath. So these enactments will thus and herein always constitute justice.

Clin. That is, at any rate, what the argument asserts.

Ath. Yes, for this is one of those agreed claims concerning government.[*](Cp. Plat. Laws 690b.)

Clin. What claims?

Ath. Those which we dealt with before,—claims as to who should govern whom. It was shown that parents should govern children, the older the younger, the high-born the low-born, and (if you remember) there were many other claims, some of which were conflicting. The claim before us is one of these, and we said that[*](Cp. Plat. Laws 690b, with the footnote.)—to quote Pindar—

the law marches with nature when it justifies the right of might.

Clin. Yes, that is what was said then.

Ath. Consider now, to which class of men should we entrust our State. For the condition referred to is one that has already occurred in States thousands of times.

Clin. What condition?

Ath. Where offices of rule are open to contest, the victors in the contest monopolize power in the State so completely that they offer not the smallest share in office to the vanquished party or their descendants; and each party keeps a watchful eye on the other, lest anyone should come into office and, in revenge for the former troubles, cause a rising against them. Such polities we, of course, deny to be polities, just as we deny that laws are true laws unless they are enacted in the interest of the common weal of the whole State. But where the laws are enacted in the interest of a section, we call them feudalities[*](A word coined (like the Greek) to suggest a constitution based on feuds or party-divisions.) rather than polities; and the justice they ascribe to such laws is, we say, an empty name. Our reason for saying this is that in your State we shall assign office to a man, not because he is wealthy, nor because he possesses any other quality of the kind—such as strength or size or birth; but the ministration of the laws must be assigned, as we assert, to that man who is most obedient to the laws and wins the victory for obedience in the State,—the highest office to the first, the next to him that shows the second degree of mastery, and the rest must similarly be assigned, each in succession, to those that come next in order. And those who are termed magistrates I have now called ministers[*](Magistrates = rulers; ministers = subjects, or servants.) of the laws, not for the sake of coining a new phrase, but in the belief that salvation, or ruin, for a State hangs upon nothing so much as this. For wherever in a State the law is subservient and impotent, over that State I see ruin impending; but wherever the law is lord over the magistrates, and the magistrates are servants to the law, there I descry salvation and all the blessings that the gods bestow on States.

Clin. Aye, by Heaven, Stranger; for, as befits your age, you have keen sight.

Ath. Yes; for a man’s vision of such objects is at its dullest when he is young, but at its keenest when he is old.

Clin. Very true.

Ath. What, then, is to be our next step? May we not assume that our immigrants have arrived and are in the country, and should we not proceed with our address to them?

Clin. Of course.

Ath. Let us, then, speak to them thus:—O men, that God who, as old tradition[*](Probably Orphic, quoted thus by the scholiast:Ζεὺς ἀρχή, Ζεὺς μέσσα, Διὸς δ’ ἐκ πάντα τέτυκται.) tells, holdeth the beginning, the end, and the center of all things that exist, completeth his circuit by nature’s ordinance in straight, unswerving course. With him followeth Justice, as avenger of them that fall short of the divine law; and she, again, is followed by every man who would fain be happy, cleaving to her with lowly and orderly behavior; but whoso is uplifted by vainglory, or prideth himself on his riches or his honors or his comeliness of body, and through this pride joined to youth and folly, is inflamed in soul with insolence, dreaming that he has no need of ruler or guide, but rather is competent himself to guide others,— such an one is abandoned and left behind by the God, and when left behind he taketh to him others of like nature, and by his mad prancings throweth all into confusion: to many, indeed, he seemeth to be some great one, but after no long time he payeth the penalty, not unmerited, to Justice, when he bringeth to total ruin himself, his house, and his country. Looking at these things, thus ordained, what ought the prudent man to do, or to devise, or to refrain from doing?

Clin. The answer is plain: Every man ought so to devise as to be of the number of those who follow in the steps of the God.

Ath. What conduct, then, is dear to God and in his steps? One kind of conduct, expressed in one ancient phrase,[*](Cp. Hom. Od. 17.218:ὡς αἰεὶ τὸν ὁμοῖον ἄγει θεὸς ὡς τὸν ὁμοῖον. The expression like to like became proverbial, like our Birds of a feather, etc. Usually it was applied more to the bad than to the good (or moderate) to which Plato here restricts it.) namely, that like is dear to like when it is moderate, whereas immoderate things are dear neither to one another nor to things moderate. In our eyes God will be the measure of all things in the highest degree—a degree much higher than is any man they talk of.[*](An allusion to the dictum of the sophist Protagoras—Man is the measure of all things, cp. Cratylus 386 A ff.; Theaetetus 152 A.) He, then, that is to become dear to such an one must needs become, so far as he possibly can, of a like character; and, according to the present argument, he amongst us that is temperate is dear to God, since he is like him, while he that is not temperate is unlike and at enmity,—as is also he who is unjust, and so likewise with the rest, by parity of reasoning. On this there follows, let us observe, this further rule,—and of all rules it is the noblest and truest,—that to engage in sacrifice and communion with the gods continually, by prayers and offerings and devotions of every kind, is a thing most noble and good and helpful towards the happy life, and superlatively fitting also, for the good man; but for the wicked, the very opposite.

Ath. For the wicked man is unclean of soul, whereas the good man is clean; and from him that is defiled no good man, nor god, can ever rightly receive gifts. Therefore all the great labor that impious men spend upon the gods is in vain, but that of the pious is most profitable to them all. Here, then, is the mark at which we must aim; but as to shafts we should shoot, and (so to speak) the flight of them,—what kind of shafts, think you, would fly most straight to the mark? First of all, we say, if—after the honors paid to the Olympians and the gods who keep the State—we should assign the Even and the Left as their honors to the gods of the under-world, we would be aiming most straight at the mark of piety— as also in assigning to the former gods the things superior, the opposites of these.[*](This account of the ritual proper to the worship of the various deities is obscure. Plainly, however, it is based on the Pythagorean doctrine of Opposites, in which the Odd (number) is superior to the Even, and the Right (side) to the Left (as also the Male to the Female). It is here laid down that honors (or worship) of the superior grade are to be offered only to the deities of Olympus, or of the State, and inferior honors only to the deities of the underworld. In Greek augury, also, the left was the side of ill omen (sinister), whereas in Roman augury the right is so.) Next after these gods the wise man will offer worship to the daemons, and after the daemons to the heroes. After these will come private shrines legally dedicated to ancestral deities; and next, honors paid to living parents. For to these duty enjoins that the debtor should pay back the first and greatest of debts, the most primary of all dues, and that he should acknowledge that all that he owns and has belongs to those who begot and reared him, so that he ought to give them service to the utmost of his power—with substance, with body, and with soul, all three—thus making returns for the loans of care and pain spent on the children by those who suffered on their behalf in bygone years, and recompensing the old in their old age, when they need help most. And throughout all his life he must diligently observe reverence of speech towards his parents above all things, seeing that for light and winged words there is a most heavy penalty,—for over all such matters Nemesis, messenger of Justice, is appointed to keep watch;[*](Cp. S. Matth. xii. 36: Every idle word that men shall speak, they shall give account thereof in the day of judgement.) wherefore the son must yield to his parents when they are wroth, and when they give rein to their wrath either by word or deed, he must pardon them, seeing that it is most natural for a father to be especially wroth when he deems that he is wronged by his own son. When parents die, the most modest funeral rites are the best, whereby the son neither exceeds the accustomed pomp, nor falls short of what his forefathers paid to their sires; and in like manner he should duly bestow the yearly attentions, which ensure honor, on the rites already completed.