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Persons f THE DIALOGUE: An ATHENIAN STRANGER;
CLEINIAS, a Cretan; MEGILLUS, a Lacedaemonian
Athenian Stranger. Tell me, Strangers, is a God
or some man supposed to be the author of your
laws?
Cleinias. A God, Stranger; in very truth
a, God: among us Cretans he is said to have been
Zeus, but in Lacedaemon, whence our friend here
comes, I believe they would say that Apollo is
their lawgiver: would they not, Megillus?
Megillus. Certainly.
Ath. And do you, Cleinias, believe, as
Homer tells, that every ninth year Minos went to
converse with his Olympian sire, and was
inspired by him to make laws for your cities?
Cle. Yes, that is our tradition; and
there was Rhadamanthus, a brother of his, with
whose name you are familiar; he is reputed to
have been the justest of men, and we Cretans are
of opinion that he earned this reputation from
his righteous administration of justice when he
was alive.
Ath. Yes, and a noble reputation it was,
worthy of a son of Zeus. As you and Megillus
have been trained in these institutions, I dare
say that you will not be unwilling to give an
account of your government and laws; on our way
we can pass the time pleasantly in about them,
for I am told that the distance from Cnosus to
the cave and temple of Zeus is considerable; and
doubtless there are shady places under the lofty
trees, which will protect us from this scorching
sun. Being no longer young, we may often stop to
rest beneath them, and get over the whole
journey without difficulty, beguiling the time
by conversation.
Cle. Yes, Stranger, and if we proceed
onward we shall come to groves of cypresses,
which are of rare height and beauty, and there
are green meadows, in which we may repose and
converse.
Ath. Very good.
Cle. Very good, indeed; and still better
when we see them; let us move on cheerily.
Ath. I am willing-And first, I want to
know why the law has ordained that you shall
have common meals and gymnastic exercises, and
wear arms.
Cle. I think, Stranger, that the aim of
our institutions is easily intelligible to any
one. Look at the character of our country: Crete
is not like Thessaly, a large plain; and for
this reason they have horsemen in Thessaly, and
we have runners-the inequality of the ground in
our country is more adapted to locomotion on
foot; but then, if you have runners you must
have light arms-no one can carry a heavy weight
when running, and bows and arrows are convenient
because they are light. Now all these
regulations have been made with a view to war,
and the legislator appears to me to have looked
to this in all his arrangements:-the common
meals, if I am not mistaken, were instituted by
him for a similar reason, because he saw that
while they are in the field the citizens are by
the nature of the case compelled to take their
meals together for the sake of mutual
protection. He seems to me to have thought the
world foolish in not understanding that all are
always at war with one another; and if in war
there ought to be common meals and certain
persons regularly appointed under others to
protect an army, they should be continued in
peace. For what men in general term peace would
be said by him to be only a name; in reality
every city is in a natural state of war with
every other, not indeed proclaimed by heralds,
but everlasting. And if you look closely, you
will find that this was the intention of the
Cretan legislator; all institutions, private as
well as public, were arranged by him with a view
to war; in giving them he was under the
impression that no possessions or institutions
are of any value to him who is defeated in
battle; for all the good things of the conquered
pass into the hands of the conquerors.
Ath. You appear to me, Stranger, to have
been thoroughly trained in the Cretan
institutions, and to be well informed about
them; will you tell me a little more explicitly
what is the principle of government which you
would lay down? You seem to imagine that a well
governed state ought to be so ordered as to
conquer all other states in war: am I right in
supposing this to be your meaning?
Cle. Certainly; and our Lacedaemonian
friend, if I am not mistaken, will agree with
me.
Meg. Why, my good friend, how could any
Lacedaemonian say anything else?
Ath. And is what you say applicable only
to states, or also to villages?
Cle. To both alike.
Ath. The case is the same?
Cle. Yes.
Ath. And in the village will there be the
same war of family against family, and of
individual against individual?
Cle. The same.
Ath. And should each man conceive himself
to be his own enemy:-what shall we say?
Cle. O Athenian Stranger-inhabitant of
Attica I will not call you, for you seem to
deserve rather to be named after the goddess
herself, because you go back to first principles
you have thrown a light upon the argument, and
will now be better able to understand what I was
just saying-that all men are publicly one
another's enemies, and each man privately his
own.
(Ath. My good sir, what do you mean?)--
Cle..... Moreover, there is a victory and
defeat-the first and best of victories, the
lowest and worst of defeats-which each man gains
or sustains at the hands, not of another, but of
himself; this shows that there is a war against
ourselves going on within every one of us.
Ath. Let us now reverse the order of the
argument: Seeing that every individual is either
his own superior or his own inferior, may we say
that there is the same principle in the house,
the village, and the state?
Cle. You mean that in each of them there
is a principle of superiority or inferiority to
self?
Ath. Yes.
Cle. You are quite right in asking the
question, for there certainly is such a
principle, and above all in states; and the
state in which the better citizens win a victory
over the mob and over the inferior classes may
be truly said to be better than itself, and may
be justly praised, where such a victory is
gained, or censured in the opposite case.
Ath. Whether the better is ever really
conquered by the worse, is a question which
requires more discussion, and may be therefore
left for the present. But I now quite understand
your meaning when you say that citizens who are
of the same race and live in the same cities may
unjustly conspire, and having the superiority in
numbers may overcome and enslave the few just;
and when they prevail, the state may be truly
called its own inferior and therefore bad; and
when they are defeated, its own superior and
therefore good.
Cle. Your remark, Stranger, is a paradox,
and yet we cannot possibly deny it.
Ath. Here is another case for
consideration;-in a family there may be several
brothers, who are the offspring of a single
pair; very possibly the majority of them may be
unjust, and the just may be in a minority.
Cle. Very possibly.
Ath. And you and I ought not to raise a
question of words as to whether this family and
household are rightly said to be superior when
they conquer, and inferior when they are
conquered; for we are not now considering what
may or may not be the proper or customary way of
speaking, but we are considering the natural
principles of right and wrong in laws.
Cle. What you say, Stranger, is most
true.
Meg. Quite excellent, in my opinion, as
far as we have gone.
Ath. Again; might there not be a judge
over these brethren, of whom we were speaking?
Cle. Certainly.
Ath. Now, which would be the better
judge-one who destroyed the bad and appointed
the good to govern themselves; or one who, while
allowing the good to govern, let the bad live,
and made them voluntarily submit? Or third, I
suppose, in the scale of excellence might be
placed a judge, who, finding the family
distracted, not only did not destroy any one,
but reconciled them to one another for ever
after, and gave them laws which they mutually
observed, and was able to keep them friends.
Cle. The last would be by far the best
sort of judge and legislator.
Ath. And yet the aim of all the laws
which he gave would be the reverse of war.
Cle. Very true.
Ath. And will he who constitutes the
state and orders the life of man have in view
external war, or that kind of intestine war
called civil, which no one, if he could prevent,
would like to have occurring in his own state;
and when occurring, every one would wish to be
quit of as soon as possible?
Cle. He would have the latter chiefly in
view.
Ath. And would he prefer that this civil
war should be terminated by the destruction of
one of the parties, and by the victory of the
other, or that peace and friendship should be
re-established, and that, being reconciled, they
should give their attention to foreign enemies?
Cle. Every one would desire the latter in
the case of his own state.
Ath. And would not that also be the
desire of the legislator?
Cle. Certainly.
Ath. And would not every one always make
laws for the sake of the best?
Cle. To be sure.
Ath. But war, whether external or civil,
is not the best, and the need of either is to be
deprecated; but peace with one another, and good
will, are best. Nor is the victory of the state
over itself to be regarded as a really good
thing, but as a necessity; a man might as well
say that the body was in the best state when
sick and purged by medicine, forgetting that
there is also a state of the body which needs no
purge. And in like manner no one can be a true
statesman, whether he aims at the happiness of
the individual or state, who looks only, or
first of all, to external warfare; nor will he
ever be a sound legislator who orders peace for
the sake of war, and not war for the sake of
peace.
Cle. I suppose that there is truth,
Stranger, in that remark of yours; and yet I am
greatly mistaken if war is not the entire aim
and object of our own institutions, and also of
the Lacedaemonian.
Ath. I dare say; but there is no reason
why we should rudely quarrel with one another
about your legislators, instead of gently
questioning them, seeing that both we and they
are equally in earnest. Please follow me and the
argument closely:-And first I will put forward
Tyrtaeus, an Athenian by birth, but also a
Spartan citizen, who of all men was most eager
about war: Well, he says, "I sing not, I care
not, about any man, even if he were the richest
of men, and possessed every good (and then he
gives a whole list of them), if he be not at all
times a brave warrior." I imagine that you, too,
must have heard his poems; our Lacedaemonian
friend has probably heard more than enough of
them.
Meg. Very true.
Cle. And they have found their way from
Lacedaemon to Crete.
Ath. Come now and let us all join in
asking this question of Tyrtaeus: O most divine
poet, we will say to him, the excellent praise
which you have bestowed on those who excel in
war sufficiently proves that you are wise and
good, and I and Megillus and Cleinias of Cnosus
do, as I believe, entirely agree with you. But
we should like to be quite sure that we are
speaking of the same men; tell us, then, do you
agree with us in thinking that there are two
kinds of war; or what would you say? A far
inferior man to Tyrtaeus would have no
difficulty in replying quite truly, that war is
of two kinds one which is universally called
civil war, and is as we were just now saying, of
all wars the worst; the other, as we should all
admit, in which we fall out with other nations
who are of a different race, is a far milder
form of warfare.
Cle. Certainly, far milder.
Ath. Well, now, when you praise and blame
war in this high-flown strain, whom are you
praising or blaming, and to which kind of war
are you referring? I suppose that you must mean
foreign war, if I am to judge from expressions
of yours in which you say that you abominate
those
Who refuse to look upon fields of blood, and
will not draw near and strike at their enemies.
And we shall naturally go on to say to him-You,
Tyrtaeus, as it seems, praise those who
distinguish themselves in external and foreign
war; and he must admit this.
Cle. Evidently.
Ath. They are good; but we say that there
are still better men whose virtue is displayed
in the greatest of all battles. And we too have
a poet whom we summon as a witness, Theognis,
citizen of Megara in Sicily:
Cyrnus, he who is faithful in a civil broil is
worth his weight in gold and silver. And such an
one is far better, as we affirm, than the other
in a more difficult kind of war, much in the
same degree as justice and temperance and
wisdom, when united with courage, are better
than courage only; for a man cannot be faithful
and good in civil strife without having all
virtue. But in the war of which Tyrtaeus speaks,
many a mercenary soldier will take his stand and
be ready to die at his post, and yet they are
generally and almost without exception insolent,
unjust, violent men, and the most senseless of
human beings. You will ask what the conclusion
is, and what I am seeking to prove: I maintain
that the divine legislator of Crete, like any
other who is worthy of consideration, will
always and above all things in making laws have
regard to the greatest virtue; which, according
to Theognis, is loyalty in the hour of danger,
and may be truly called perfect justice.
Whereas, that virtue which Tyrtaeus highly
praises is well enough, and was praised by the
poet at the right time, yet in place and dignity
may be said to be only fourth rate.
Cle. Stranger, we are degrading our
inspired lawgiver to a rank which is far beneath
him.
Ath. Nay, I think that we degrade not him
but ourselves, if we imagine that Lycurgus and
Minos laid down laws both in Lacedaemon and
Crete mainly with a view to war.
Cle. What ought we to say then?
Ath. What truth and what justice require
of us, if I am not mistaken, when speaking in
behalf of divine excellence;-at the legislator
when making his laws had in view not a part
only, and this the lowest part of virtue, but
all virtue, and that he devised classes of laws
answering to the kinds of virtue; not in the way
in which modern inventors of laws make the
classes, for they only investigate and offer
laws whenever a want is felt, and one man has a
class of laws about allotments and heiresses,
another about assaults; others about ten
thousand other such matters. But we maintain
that the right way of examining into laws is to
proceed as we have now done, and I admired the
spirit of your exposition; for you were quite
right in beginning with virtue, and saying that
this was the aim of the giver of the law, but I
thought that you went wrong when you added that
all his legislation had a view only to a part,
and the least part of virtue, and this called
forth my subsequent remarks. Will you allow me
then to explain how I should have liked to have
heard you expound the matter?
Cle. By all means.
Ath. You ought to have said, Stranger-The
Cretan laws are with reason famous among the
Hellenes; for they fulfil the object of laws,
which is to make those who use them happy; and
they confer every sort of good. Now goods are of
two kinds: there are human and there are divine
goods, and the human hang upon the divine; and
the state which attains the greater, at the same
time acquires the less, or, not having the
greater, has neither. Of the lesser goods the
first is health, the second beauty, the third
strength, including swiftness in running and
bodily agility generally, and the fourth is
wealth, not the blind god [Pluto], but one who
is keen of sight, if only he has wisdom for his
companion. For wisdom is chief and leader of the
divine dass of goods, and next follows
temperance; and from the union of these two with
courage springs justice, and fourth in the scale
of virtue is courage. All these naturally take
precedence of the other goods, and this is the
order in which the legislator must place them,
and after them he will enjoin the rest of his
ordinances on the citizens with a view to these,
the human looking to the divine, and the divine
looking to their leader mind. Some of his
ordinances will relate to contracts of marriage
which they make one with another, and then to
the procreation and education of children, both
male and female; the duty of the lawgiver will
be to take charge of his citizens, in youth and
age, and at every time of life, and to give them
punishments and rewards; and in reference to all
their intercourse with one another, he ought to
consider their pains and pleasures and desires,
and the vehemence of all their passions; he
should keep a watch over them, and blame and
praise them rightly by the mouth of the laws
themselves. Also with regard to anger and
terror, and the other perturbations of the soul,
which arise out of misfortune, and the
deliverances from them which prosperity brings,
and the experiences which come to men in
diseases, or in war, or poverty, or the opposite
of these; in all these states he should
determine and teach what is the good and evil of
the condition of each. In the next place, the
legislator has to be careful how the citizens
make their money and in what way they spend it,
and to have an eye to their mutual contracts and
dissolutions of contracts, whether voluntary or
involuntary: he should see how they order all
this, and consider where justice as well as
injustice is found or is wanting in their
several dealings with one another; and honour
those who obey the law, and impose fixed
penalties on those who disobey, until the round
of civil life is ended, and the time has come
for the consideration of the proper funeral
rites and honours of the dead. And the lawgiver
reviewing his work, will appoint guardians to
preside over these things-some who walk by
intelligence, others by true opinion only, and
then mind will bind together all his ordinances
and show them to be in harmony with temperance
and justice, and not with wealth or ambition.
This is the spirit, Stranger, in which I was and
am desirous that you should pursue the subject.
And I want to know the nature of all these
things, and how they are arranged in the laws of
Zeus, as they are termed, and in those of the
Pythian Apollo, which Minos and Lycurgus gave;
and how the order of them is discovered to his
eyes, who has experience in laws gained either
by study or habit, although they are far from
being self-evident to the rest of mankind like
ourselves.
Cle. How shall we proceed, Stranger?
Ath. I think that we must begin again as
before, and first consider the habit of courage;
and then we will go on and discuss another and
then another form of virtue, if you please. In
this way we shall have a model of the whole; and
with these and similar discourses we will
beguile the way. And when we have gone through
all the virtues, we will show, by the grace of
God, that the institutions of which I was
speaking look to virtue.
Meg. Very good; and suppose that you
first criticize this praiser of Zeus and the
laws of Crete.
Ath. I will try to criticize you and
myself, as well as him, for the argument is a
common concern. Tell me-were not first the
syssitia, and secondly the gymnasia, invented by
your legislator with a view to war?
Meg. Yes.
Ath. And what comes third, and what
fourth? For that, I think, is the sort of
enumeration which ought to be made of the
remaining parts of virtue, no matter whether you
call them parts or what their name is, provided
the meaning is clear.
Meg. Then I, or any other Lacedaemonian,
would reply that hunting is third in order.
Ath. Let us see if we can discover what
comes fourth and fifth.
Meg. I think that I can get as far as the
fouth head, which is the frequent endurance of
pain, exhibited among us Spartans in certain
hand-to-hand fights; also in stealing with the
prospect of getting a good beating; there is,
too, the so-called Crypteia, or secret service,
in which wonderful endurance is shown-our people
wander over the whole country by day and by
night, and even in winter have not a shoe to
their foot, and are without beds to lie upon,
and have to attend upon themselves. Marvellous,
too, is the endurance which our citizens show in
their naked exercises, contending against the
violent summer heat; and there are many similar
practices, to speak of which in detail would be
endless.
Ath. Excellent, O Lacedaemonian Stranger.
But how ought we to define courage? Is it to be
regarded only as a combat against fears and
pains, or also against desires and pleasures,
and against flatteries; which exercise such a
tremendous power, that they make the hearts even
of respectable citizens to melt like wax?
Meg. I should say the latter.
Ath. In what preceded, as you will
remember, our Cnosian friend was speaking of a
man or a city being inferior to themselves:-Were
you not, Cleinias?
Cle. I was.
Ath. Now, which is in the truest sense
inferior, the man who is overcome by pleasure or
by pain?
Cle. I should say the man who is overcome
by pleasure; for all men deem him to be inferior
in a more disgraceful sense, than the other who
is overcome by pain.
Ath. But surely the lawgivers of Crete
and Lacedaemon have not legislated for a courage
which is lame of one leg, able only to meet
attacks which come from the left, but impotent
against the insidious flatteries which come from
the right?
Cle. Able to meet both, I should say.
Ath. Then let me once more ask, what
institutions have you in either of your states
which give a taste of pleasures, and do not
avoid them any more than they avoid pains; but
which set a person in the midst of them, and
compel or induce him by the prospect of reward
to get the better of them? Where is an ordinance
about pleasure similar to that about pain to be
found in your laws? Tell me what there is of
this nature among you:-What is there which makes
your citizen equally brave against pleasure and
pain, conquering what they ought to conquer, and
superior to the enemies who are most dangerous
and nearest home?
Meg. I was able to tell you, Stranger,
many laws which were directed against pain; but
I do not know that I can point out any great or
obvious examples of similar institutions which
are concerned with pleasure; there are some
lesser provisions, however, which I might
mention.
Cle. Neither can I show anything of that
sort which is at all equally prominent in the
Cretan laws.
Ath. No wonder, my dear friends; and if,
as is very likely, in our search after the true
and good, one of us may have to censure the laws
of the others, we must not be offended, but take
kindly what another says.
Cle. You are quite right, Athenian
Stranger, and we will do as you say.
Ath. At our time of life, Cleinias, there
should be no feeling of irritation.
Cle. Certainly not.
Ath. I will not at present determine
whether he who censures the Cretan or
Lacedaemonian polities is right or wrong. But I
believe that I can tell better than either of
you what the many say about them. For assuming
that you have reasonably good laws, one of the
best of them will be the law forbidding any
young men to enquire which of them are right or
wrong; but with one mouth and one voice they
must all agree that the laws are all good, for
they came from God; and any one who says the
contrary is not to be listened to. But an old
man who remarks any defect in your laws may
communicate his observation to a ruler or to an
equal in years when no young man is present.
Cle. Exactly so, Stranger; and like a
diviner, although not there at the time, you
seem to me quite to have hit the meaning of the
legislator, and to say what is most true.
Ath. As there are no young men present,
and the legislator has given old men free
licence, there will be no impropriety in our
discussing these very matters now that we are
alone.
Cle. True. And therefore you may be as
free as you like in your censure of our laws,
for there is no discredit in knowing what is
wrong; he who receives what is said in a
generous and friendly spirit will be all the
better for it.
Ath. Very good; however, I am not going
to say anything against your laws until to the
best of my ability I have examined them, but I
am going to raise doubts about them. For you are
the only people known to us, whether Greek or
barbarian, whom the legislator commanded to
eschew all great pleasures and amusements and
never to touch them; whereas in the matter of
pains or fears which we have just been
discussing, he thought that they who from
infancy had always avoided pains and fears and
sorrows, when they were compelled to face them
would run away from those who were hardened in
them, and would become their subjects. Now the
legislator ought to have considered that this
was equally true of pleasure; he should have
said to himself, that if our citizens are from
their youth upward unacquainted with the
greatest pleasures, and unused to endure amid
the temptations of pleasure, and are not
disciplined to refrain from all things evil, the
sweet feeling of pleasure will overcome them
just as fear would overcome the former class;
and in another, and even a worse manner, they
will be the slaves of those who are able to
endure amid pleasures, and have had the
opportunity of enjoying them, they being often
the worst of mankind. One half of their souls
will be a slave, the other half free; and they
will not be worthy to be called in the true
sense men and freemen. Tell me whether you
assent to my words?
Cle. On first hearing, what you say
appears to be the truth; but to be hasty in
coming to a conclusion about such important
matters would be very childish and simple.
Ath. Suppose, Cleinias and Megillus, that
we consider the virtue which follows next of
those which we intended to discuss (for after
courage comes temperance), what institutions
shall we find relating to temperance, either in
Crete or Lacedaemon, which, like your military
institutions, differ from those of any ordinary
state.
Meg. That is not an easy question to
answer; still I should say that the common meals
and gymnastic exercises have been excellently
devised for the promotion both of temperance and
courage.
Ath. There seems to be a difficulty,
Stranger, with regard to states, in making words
and facts coincide so that there can be no
dispute about them. As in the human body, the
regimen which does good in one way does harm in
another; and we can hardly say that any one
course of treatment is adapted to a particular
constitution. Now the gymnasia and common meals
do a great deal of good, and yet they are a
source of evil in civil troubles; as is shown in
the case of the Milesian, and Boeotian, and
Thurian youth, among whom these institutions
seem always to have had a tendency to degrade
the ancient and natural custom of love below the
level, not only of man, but of the beasts. The
charge may be fairly brought against your cities
above all others, and is true also of most other
states which especially cultivate gymnastics.
Whether such matters are to be regarded
jestingly or seriously, I think that the
pleasure is to be deemed natural which arises
out of the intercourse between men and women;
but that the intercourse of men with men, or of
women with women, is contrary to nature, and
that the bold attempt was originally due to
unbridled lust. The Cretans are always accused
of having invented the story of Ganymede and
Zeus because they wanted to justify themselves
in the enjoyment of unnatural pleasures by the
practice of the god whom they believe to have
been their lawgiver. Leaving the story, we may
observe that any speculation about laws turns
almost entirely on pleasure and pain, both in
states and in individuals: these are two
fountains which nature lets flow, and he who
draws from them where and when, and as much as
he ought, is happy; and this holds of men and
animals-of individuals as well as states; and he
who indulges in them ignorantly and at the wrong
time, is the reverse of happy.
Meg. I admit, Stranger, that your words
are well spoken, and I hardly know what to say
in answer to you; but still I think that the
Spartan lawgiver was quite right in forbidding
pleasure. Of the Cretan laws, I shall leave the
defence to my Cnosian friend. But the laws of
Sparta, in as far as they relate to pleasure,
appear to me to be the best in the world; for
that which leads mankind in general into the
wildest pleasure and licence, and every other
folly, the law has clean driven out; and neither
in the country nor in towns which are under the
control of Sparta, will you find revelries and
the many incitements of every kind of pleasure
which accompany them; and any one who meets a
drunken and disorderly person, will immediately
have him most severely punished, and will not
let him off on any pretence, not even at the
time of a Dionysiac festival; although I have
remarked that this may happen at your
performances "on the cart," as they are called;
and among our Tarentine colonists I have seen
the whole city drunk at a Dionysiac festival;
but nothing of the sort happens among us.
Ath. O Lacedaemonian Stranger, these
festivities are praiseworthy where there is a
spirit of endurance, but are very senseless when
they are under no regulations. In order to
retaliate, an Athenian has only to point out the
licence which exists among your women. To all
such accusations, whether they are brought
against the Tarentines, or us, or you, there is
one answer which exonerates the practice in
question from impropriety. When a stranger
expresses wonder at the singularity of what he
sees, any inhabitant will naturally answer
him:-Wonder not, O stranger; this is our custom,
and you may very likely have some other custom
about the same things. Now we are speaking, my
friends, not about men in general, but about the
merits and defects of the lawgivers themselves.
Let us then discourse a little more at length
about intoxication, which is a very important
subject, and will seriously task the
discrimination of the legislator. I am not
speaking of drinking, or not drinking, wine at
all, but of intoxication. Are we to follow the
custom of the Scythians, and Persians, and
Carthaginians, and Celts, and Iberians, and
Thracians, who are all warlike nations, or that
of your countrymen, for they, as you say,
altogether abstain? But the Scythians and
Thracians, both men and women, drink unmixed
wine, which they pour on their garments, and
this they think a happy and glorious
institution. The Persians, again, are much given
to other practices of luxury which you reject,
but they have more moderation in them than the
Thracians and Scythians.
Meg. O best of men, we have only to take
arms into our hands, and we send all these
nations flying before us.
Ath. Nay, my good friend, do not say
that; there have been, as there always will be,
flights and pursuits of which no account can be
given, and therefore we cannot say that victory
or defeat in battle affords more than a doubtful
proof of the goodness or badness of
institutions. For when the greater states
conquer and enslave the lesser, as the
Syracusans have done the Locrians, who appear to
be the best-governed people in their part of the
world, or as the Athenians have done the Ceans
(and there are ten thousand other instances of
the same sort of thing), all this is not to the
point; let us endeavour rather to form a
conclusion about each institution in itself and
say nothing, at present, of victories and
defeats. Let us only say that such and such a
custom is honourable, and another not. And first
permit me to tell you how good and bad are to be
estimated in reference to these very matters.
Meg. How do you mean?
Ath. All those who are ready at a
moment's notice to praise or censure any
practice which is matter of discussion, seem to
me to proceed in a wrong way. Let me give you an
illustration of what I mean:-You may suppose a
person to be praising wheat as a good kind of
food, whereupon another person instantly blames
wheat, without ever enquiring into its effect or
use, or in what way, or to whom, or with what,
or in what state and how, wheat is to be given.
And that is just what we are doing in this
discussion. At the very mention of the word
intoxication, one side is ready with their
praises and the other with their censures; which
is absurd. For either side adduce their
witnesses and approvers, and some of us think
that we speak with authority because we have
many witnesses; and others because they see
those who abstain conquering in battle, and this
again is disputed by us. Now I cannot say that I
shall be satisfied, if we go on discussing each
of the remaining laws in the same way. And about
this very point of intoxication I should like to
speak in another way, which I hold to be the
right one; for if number is to be the criterion,
are there not myriads upon myriads of nations
ready to dispute the point with you, who are
only two cities?
Meg. I shall gladly welcome any method of
enquiry which is right.
Ath. Let me put the matter thus:-Suppose
a person to praise the keeping of goats, and the
creatures themselves as capital things to have,
and then some one who had seen goats feeding
without a goatherd in cultivated spots, and
doing mischief, were to censure a goat or any
other animal who has no keeper, or a bad keeper,
would there be any sense or justice in such
censure?
Meg. Certainly not.
Ath. Does a captain require only to have
nautical knowledge in order to be a good
captain, whether he is sea-sick or not? What do
you say?
Meg. I say that he is not a good captain
if, although he have nautical skill, he is
liable to sea-sickness.
Ath. And what would you say of the
commander of an army? Will he be able to command
merely because he has military skill if he be a
coward, who, when danger comes, is sick and
drunk with fear?
Meg. Impossible.
Ath. And what if besides being a coward
he has no skill?
Meg. He is a miserable fellow, not fit to
be a commander of men, but only of old women.
Ath. And what would you say of some one
who blames or praises any sort of meeting which
is intended by nature to have a ruler, and is
well enough when under his presidency? The
critic, however, has never seen the society
meeting together at an orderly feast under the
control of a president, but always without a
ruler or with a bad one:-when observers of this
class praise or blame such meetings, are we to
suppose that what they say is of any value?
Meg. Certainly not, if they have never
seen or been present at such a meeting when
rightly ordered.
Ath. Reflect; may not banqueters and
banquets be said to constitute a kind of
meeting?
Meg. Of course.
Ath. And did any one ever see this sort
of convivial meeting rightly ordered? Of course
you two will answer that you have never seen
them at all, because they are not customary or
lawful in your country; but I have come across
many of them in many different places, and
moreover I have made enquiries about them
wherever I went, as I may say, and never did I
see or hear of anything of the kind which was
carried on altogether rightly; in some few
particulars they might be right, but in general
they were utterly wrong.
Cle. What do you mean, Stranger, by this
remark? Explain; For we, as you say, from our
inexperience in such matters, might very likely
not know, even if they came in our way, what was
right or wrong in such societies.
Ath. Likely enough; then let me try to be
your instructor: You would acknowledge, would
you not, that in all gatherings of man, kind, of
whatever sort, there ought to be a leader?
Cle. Certainly I should.
Ath. And we were saying just now, that
when men are at war the leader ought to be a
brave man?
Cle. We were.
Ath. The brave man is less likely than
the coward to be disturbed by fears?
Cle. That again is true.
Ath. And if there were a possibility of
having a general of an army who was absolutely
fearless and imperturbable, should we not by all
means appoint him?
Cle. Assuredly.
Ath. Now, however, we are speaking not of
a general who is to command an army, when foe
meets foe in time of war, but of one who is to
regulate meetings of another sort, when friend
meets friend in time of peace.
Cle. True.
Ath. And that sort of meeting, if
attended with drunkenness, is apt to be unquiet.
Cle. Certainly; the reverse of quiet.
Ath. In the first place, then, the
revellers as well as the soldiers will require a
ruler?
Cle. To be sure; no men more so.
Ath. And we ought, if possible, to
provide them with a quiet ruler?
Cle. Of course.
Ath. And he should be a man who
understands society; for his duty is to preserve
the friendly feelings which exist among the
company at the time, and to increase them for
the future by his use of the occasion.
Cle. Very true.
Ath. Must we not appoint a sober man and
a wise to be our master of the revels? For if
the ruler of drinkers be himself young and
drunken, and not over-wise, only by some special
good fortune will he be saved from doing some
great evil.
Cle. It will be by a singular good
fortune that he is saved.
Ath. Now suppose such associations to be
framed in the best way possible in states, and
that some one blames the very fact of their
existence-he may very likely be right. But if he
blames a practice which he only sees very much
mismanaged, he shows in the first place that he
is not aware of the mismanagement, and also not
aware that everything done in this way will turn
out to be wrong, because done without the
superintendence of a sober ruler. Do you not see
that a drunken pilot or a drunken ruler of any
sort will ruin ship, chariot, army-anything, in
short, of which he has the direction?
Cle. The last remark is very true,
Stranger; and I see quite clearly the advantage
of an army having a good leader-he will give
victory in war to his followers, which is a very
great advantage; and so of other things. But I
do not see any similar advantage which either
individuals or states gain from the good
management of a feast; and I want you to tell me
what great good will be effected, supposing that
this drinking ordinance is duly established.
Ath. If you mean to ask what great good
accrues to the state from the right training of
a single youth, or of a single chorus-when the
question is put in that form, we cannot deny
that the good is not very great in any
particular instance. But if you ask what is the
good of education in general, the answer is
easy-that education makes good men, and that
good men act nobly, and conquer their enemies in
battle, because they are good. Education
certainly gives victory, although victory
sometimes produces forgetfulness of education;
for many have grown insolent from victory in
war, and this insolence has engendered in them
innumerable evils; and many a victory has been
and will be suicidal to the victors; but
education is never suicidal.
Cle. You seem to imply, my friend, that
convivial meetings, when rightly ordered, are an
important element of education.
Ath. Certainly I do.
Cle. And can you show that what you have
been saying is true?
Ath. To be absolutely sure of the truth
of matters concerning which there are many
opinions, is an attribute of the Gods not given
to man, Stranger; but I shall be very happy to
tell you what I think, especially as we are now
proposing to enter on a discussion concerning
laws and constitutions.
Cle. Your opinion, Stranger, about the
questions which are now being raised, is
precisely what we want to hear.
Ath. Very good; I will try to find a way
of explaining my meaning, and you shall try to
have the gift of understanding me. But first let
me make an apology. The Athenian citizen is
reputed among all the Hellenes to be a great
talker, whereas Sparta is renowned for brevity,
and the Cretans have more wit than words. Now I
am afraid of appearing to elicit a very long
discourse out of very small materials. For
drinking indeed may appear to be a slight
matter, and yet is one which cannot be rightly
ordered according to nature, without correct
principles of music; these are necessary to any
clear or satisfactory treatment of the subject,
and music again runs up into education
generally, and there is much to be said about
all this. What would you say then to leaving
these matters for the present, and passing on to
some other question of law?
Meg. O Athenian Stranger, let me tell you
what perhaps you do not know, that our family is
the proxenus of your state. I imagine that from
their earliest youth all boys, when they are
told that they are the proxeni of a particular
state, feel kindly towards their second and this
has certainly been my own feeling. I can well
remember from the days of my boyhood, how, when
any Lacedaemonians praised or blamed the
Athenians, they used to say to me-"See,
Megillus, how ill or how well," as the case
might be, "has your state treated us"; and
having always had to fight your battles against
detractors when I heard you assailed, I became
warmly attached to you. And I always like to
hear the Athenian tongue spoken; the common
saying is quite true, that a good Athenian is
more than ordinarily good, for he is the only
man who is freely and genuinely good by the
divine inspiration of his own nature, and is not
manufactured. Therefore be assured that I shall
like to hear you say whatever you have to say.
Cle. Yes, Stranger; and when you have
heard me speak, say boldly what is in your
thoughts. Let me remind you of a tie which
unites you to Crete. You must have heard here
the story of the prophet Epimenides, who was of
my family, and came to Athens ten years before
the Persian war, in accordance with the response
of the Oracle, and offered certain sacrifices
which the God commanded. The Athenians were at
that time in dread of the Persian invasion; and
he said that for ten years they would not come,
and that when they came, they would go away
again without accomplishing any of their
objects, and would suffer more evil than they
inflicted. At that time my forefathers formed
ties of hospitality with you; thus ancient is
the friendship which I and my parents have had
for you.
Ath. You seem to be quite ready to
listen; and I am also ready to perform as much
as I can of an almost impossible task, which I
will nevertheless attempt. At the outset of the
discussion, let me define the nature and power
of education; for this is the way by which our
argument must travel onwards to the God
Dionysus.
Cle. Let us proceed, if you please.
Ath. Well, then, if I tell you what are
my notions of education, will you consider
whether they satisfy you?
Cle. Let us hear.
Ath. According to my view, any one who
would be good at anything must practise that
thing from his youth upwards, both in sport and
earnest, in its several branches: for example,
he who is to be a good builder, should play at
building children's houses; he who is to be a
good husbandman, at tilling the ground; and
those who have the care of their education
should provide them when young with mimic tools.
They should learn beforehand the knowledge which
they will afterwards require for their art. For
example, the future carpenter should learn to
measure or apply the line in play; and the
future warrior should learn riding, or some
other exercise, for amusement, and the teacher
should endeavour to direct the children's
inclinations and pleasures, by the help of
amusements, to their final aim in life. The most
important part of education is right training in
the nursery. The soul of the child in his play
should be guided to the love of that sort of
excellence in which when he grows up to manhood
he will have to be perfected. Do you agree with
me thus far?
Cle. Certainly.
Ath. Then let us not leave the meaning of
education ambiguous or ill-defined. At present,
when we speak in terms of praise or blame about
the bringing-up of each person, we call one man
educated and another uneducated, although the
uneducated man may be sometimes very well
educated for the calling of a retail trader, or
of a captain of a ship, and the like. For we are
not speaking of education in this narrower
sense, but of that other education in virtue
from youth upwards, which makes a man eagerly
pursue the ideal perfection of citizenship, and
teaches him how rightly to rule and how to obey.
This is the only education which, upon our view,
deserves the name; that other sort of training,
which aims at the acquisition of wealth or
bodily strength, or mere cleverness apart from
intelligence and justice, is mean and illiberal,
and is not worthy to be called education at all.
But let us not quarrel with one another about a
word, provided that the proposition which has
just been granted hold good: to wit, that those
who are rightly educated generally become good
men. Neither must we cast a slight upon
education, which is the first and fairest thing
that the best of men can ever have, and which,
though liable to take a wrong direction, is
capable of reformation. And this work of
reformation is the great business of every man
while he lives.
Cle. Very true; and we entirely agree
with you.
Ath. And we agreed before that they are
good men who are able to rule themselves, and
bad men who are not.
Cle. You are quite right.
Ath. Let me now proceed, if I can, to
clear up the subject a little further by an
illustration which I will offer you.
Cle. Proceed.
Ath. Do we not consider each of ourselves
to be one?
Cle. We do.
Ath. And each one of us has in his bosom
two counsellors, both foolish and also
antagonistic; of which we call the one pleasure,
and the other pain.
Cle. Exactly.
Ath. Also there are opinions about the
future, which have the general name of
expectations; and the specific name of fear,
when the expectation is of pain; and of hope,
when of pleasure; and further, there is
reflection about the good or evil of them, and
this, when embodied in a decree by the State, is
called Law.
Cle. I am hardly able to follow you;
proceed, however, as if I were.
Meg. I am in the like case.
Ath. Let us look at the matter thus: May
we not conceive each of us living beings to be a
puppet of the Gods, either their plaything only,
or created with a purpose-which of the two we
cannot certainly know? But we do know, that
these affections in us are like cords and
strings, which pull us different and opposite
ways, and to opposite actions; and herein lies
the difference between virtue and vice.
According to the argument there is one among
these cords which every man ought to grasp and
never let go, but to pull with it against all
the rest; and this is the sacred and golden cord
of reason, called by us the common law of the
State; there are others which are hard and of
iron, but this one is soft because golden; and
there are several other kinds. Now we ought
always to cooperate with the lead of the best,
which is law. For inasmuch as reason is
beautiful and gentle, and not violent, her rule
must needs have ministers in order to help the
golden principle in vanquishing the other
principles. And thus the moral of the tale about
our being puppets will not have been lost, and
the meaning of the expression "superior or
inferior to a man's self" will become clearer;
and the individual, attaining to right reason in
this matter of pulling the strings of the
puppet, should live according to its rule; while
the city, receiving the same from some god or
from one who has knowledge of these things,
should embody it in a law, to be her guide in
her dealings with herself and with other states.
In this way virtue and vice will be more clearly
distinguished by us. And when they have become
clearer, education and other institutions will
in like manner become clearer; and in particular
that question of convivial entertainment, which
may seem, perhaps, to have been a very trifling
matter, and to have taken a great many more
words than were necessary.
Cle. Perhaps, however, the theme may turn
out not to be unworthy of the length of
discourse.
Ath. Very good; let us proceed with any
enquiry which really bears on our present
object.
Cle. Proceed.
Ath. Suppose that we give this puppet of
ours drink-what will be the effect on him?
Cle. Having what in view do you ask that
question?
Ath. Nothing as yet; but I ask generally,
when the puppet is brought to the drink, what
sort of result is likely to follow. I will
endeavour to explain my meaning more clearly:
what I am now asking is this-Does the drinking
of wine heighten and increase pleasures and
pains, and passions and loves?
Cle. Very greatly.
Ath. And are perception and memory, and
opinion and prudence, heightened and increased?
Do not these qualities entirely desert a man if
he becomes saturated with drink?
Cle. Yes, they entirely desert him.
Ath. Does he not return to the state of
soul in which he was when a young child?
Cle. He does.
Ath. Then at that time he will have the
least control over himself?
Cle. The least.
Ath. And will he not be in a most
wretched plight?
Cle. Most wretched.
Ath. Then not only an old man but also a
drunkard becomes a second time a child?
Cle. Well said, Stranger.
Ath. Is there any argument which will
prove to us that we ought to encourage the taste
for drinking instead of doing all we can to
avoid it?
Cle. I suppose that there is; you at any
rate, were just now saying that you were ready
to maintain such a doctrine.
Ath. True, I was; and I am ready still,
seeing that you have both declared that you are
anxious to hear me.
Cle. To sure we are, if only for the
strangeness of the paradox, which asserts that a
man ought of his own accord to plunge into utter
degradation.
Ath. Are you speaking of the soul?
Cle. Yes.
Ath. And what would you say about the
body, my friend? Are you not surprised at any
one of his own accord bringing upon himself
deformity, leanness, ugliness, decrepitude?
Cle. Certainly.
Ath. Yet when a man goes of his own
accord to a doctor's shop, and takes medicine,
is he not aware that soon, and for many days
afterwards, he will be in a state of body which
he would die rather than accept as the permanent
condition of his life? Are not those who train
in gymnasia, at first beginning reduced to a
state of weakness?
Cle. Yes, all that is well known.
Ath. Also that they go of their own
accord for the sake of the subsequent benefit?
Cle. Very good.
Ath. And we may conceive this to be true
in the same way of other practices?
Cle. Certainly.
Ath. And the same view may be taken of
the pastime of drinking wine, if we are right in
supposing that the same good effect follows?
Cle. To be sure.
Ath. If such convivialities should turn
out to have any advantage equal in importance to
that of gymnastic, they are in their very nature
to be preferred to mere bodily exercise,
inasmuch as they have no accompaniment of pain.
Cle. True; but I hardly think that we
shall be able to discover any such benefits to
be derived from them.
Ath. That is just what we must endeavour
to show. And let me ask you a question:-Do we
not distinguish two kinds of fear, which are
very different?
Cle. What are they?
Ath. There is the fear of expected evil.
Cle. Yes.
Ath. And there is the fear of an evil
reputation; we are afraid of being thought evil,
because we do or say some dishonourable thing,
which fear we and all men term shame.
Cle. Certainly.
Ath. These are the two fears, as I called
them; one of which is the opposite of pain and
other fears, and the opposite also of the
greatest and most numerous sort of pleasures.
Cle. Very true.
Ath. And does not the legislator and
every one who is good for anything, hold this
fear in the greatest honour? This is what he
terms reverence, and the confidence which is the
reverse of this he terms insolence; and the
latter he always deems to be a very great evil
both to individuals and to states.
Cle. True.
Ath. Does not this kind of fear preserve
us in many important ways? What is there which
so surely gives victory and safety in war? For
there are two things which give
victory-confidence before enemies, and fear of
disgrace before friends.
Cle. There are.
Ath. Then each of us should be fearless
and also fearful; and why we should be either
has now been determined.
Cle. Certainly.
Ath. And when we want to make any one
fearless, we and the law bring him face to face
with many fears.
Cle. Clearly.
Ath. And when we want to make him rightly
fearful, must we not introduce him to shameless
pleasures, and train him to take up arms against
them, and to overcome them? Or does this
principle apply to courage only, and must he who
would be perfect in valour fight against and
overcome his own natural character-since if he
be unpractised and inexperienced in such
conflicts, he will not be half the man which he
might have been-and are we to suppose, that with
temperance it is otherwise, and that he who has
never fought with the shameless and unrighteous
temptations of his pleasures and lusts, and
conquered them, in earnest and in play, by word,
deed, and act, will still be perfectly
temperate?
Cle. A most unlikely supposition.
Ath. Suppose that some God had given a
fear-potion to men, and that the more a man
drank of this the more he regarded himself at
every draught as a child of misfortune, and that
he feared everything happening or about to
happen to him; and that at last the most
courageous of men utterly lost his presence of
mind for a time, and only came to himself again
when he had slept off the influence of the
draught.
Cle. But has such a draught, Stranger,
ever really been known among men?
Ath. No; but, if there had been, might
not such a draught have been of use to the
legislator as a test of courage? Might we not go
and say to him, "O legislator, whether you are
legislating for the Cretan, or for any other
state, would you not like to have a touchstone
of the courage and cowardice of your citizens?"
Cle. "I should," will be the answer of every
one.
Ath. "And you would rather have a touchstone in
which there is no risk and no great danger than
the reverse?"
Cle. In that proposition every one may
safely agree.
Ath. "And in order to make use of the draught,
you would lead them amid these imaginary
terrors, and prove them, when the affection of
fear was working upon them, and compel them to
be fearless, exhorting and admonishing them; and
also honouring them, but dishonouring any one
who will not be persuaded by you to be in all
respects such as you command him; and if he
underwent the trial well and manfully, you would
let him go unscathed; but if ill, you would
inflict a punishment upon him? Or would you
abstain from using the potion altogether,
although you have no reason for abstaining?"
Cle. He would be certain, Stranger, to
use the potion.
Ath. This would be a mode of testing and
training which would be wonderfully easy in
comparison with those now in use, and might be
applied to a single person, or to a few, or
indeed to any number; and he would do well who
provided himself with the potion only, rather
than with any number of other things, whether he
preferred to be by himself in solitude, and
there contend with his fears, because he was
ashamed to be seen by the eye of man until he
was perfect; or trusting to the force of his own
nature and habits, and believing that he had
been already disciplined sufficiently, he did
not hesitate to train himself in company with
any number of others, and display his power in
conquering the irresistible change effected by
the draught-his virtue being such, that he never
in any instance fell into any great
unseemliness, but was always himself, and left
off before he arrived at the last cup, fearing
that he, like all other men, might be overcome
by the potion.
Cle. Yes, Stranger, in that last case,
too, he might equally show his self-control.
Ath. Let us return to the lawgiver, and
say to him:-"Well, lawgiver, there is certainly
no such fear-potion which man has either
received from the Gods or himself discovered;
for witchcraft has no place at our board. But is
there any potion which might serve as a test of
overboldness and excessive and indiscreet
boasting?
Cle. I suppose that he will say,
Yes-meaning that wine is such a potion.
Ath. Is not the effect of this quite the
opposite of the effect of the other? When a man
drinks wine he begins to be better pleased with
himself, and the more he drinks the more he is
filled full of brave hopes, and conceit of his
power, and at last the string of his tongue is
loosened, and fancying himself wise, he is
brimming over with lawlessness, and has no more
fear or respect, and is ready to do or say
anything.
Cle. I think that every one will admit
the truth of your description.
Meg. Certainly.
Ath. Now, let us remember, as we were
saying, that there are two things which should
be cultivated in the soul: first, the greatest
courage; secondly, the greatest fear-
Cle. Which you said to be characteristic
of reverence, if I am not mistaken.
Ath. Thank you for reminding me. But now,
as the habit of courage and fearlessness is to
be trained amid fears, let us consider whether
the opposite quality is not also to be trained
among opposites.
Cle. That is probably the case.
Ath. There are times and seasons at which
we are by nature more than commonly valiant and
bold; now we ought to train ourselves on these
occasions to be as free from impudence and
shamelessness as possible, and to be afraid to
say or suffer or do anything that is base.
Cle. True.
Ath. Are not the moments in which we are
apt to be bold and shameless such as these?-when
we are under the influence of anger, love,
pride, ignorance, avarice, cowardice? or when
wealth, beauty, strength, and all the
intoxicating workings of pleasure madden us?
What is better adapted than the festive use of
wine, in the first place to test, and in the
second place to train the character of a man, if
care be taken in the use of it? What is there
cheaper, or more innocent? For do but consider
which is the greater risk:-Would you rather test
a man of a morose and savage nature, which is
the source of ten thousand acts of injustice, by
making bargains with him at a risk to yourself,
or by having him as a companion at the festival
of Dionysus? Or would you, if you wanted to
apply a touchstone to a man who is prone to
love, entrust your wife, or your sons, or
daughters to him, perilling your dearest
interests in order to have a view of the
condition of his soul? I might mention
numberless cases, in which the advantage would
be manifest of getting to know a character in
sport, and without paying dearly for experience.
And I do not believe that either a Cretan, or
any other man, will doubt that such a test is a
fair test, and safer, cheaper, and speedier than
any other.
Cle. That is certainly true.
Ath. And this knowledge of the natures
and habits of men's souls will be of the
greatest use in that art which has the
management of them; and that art, if I am not
mistaken, is politics.
Cle. Exactly so.
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