Complete Works (276 page)

S
OCRATES
: Perhaps you do not take into consideration that when we move the pieces at checkers they remain the same pieces. But look at the question with me in the following way. Have you ever come across a treatise on health for the sick?

F
RIEND
: I have.

S
OCRATES
: Then you know what skill it is that this is the treatise of?

F
RIEND
: I do know—medicine.

S
OCRATES
: Don’t you call those who possess knowledge of these matters doctors?

F
RIEND
: I agree.

S
OCRATES
: Do people who possess knowledge accept the same things on [d] the same matters, or do different people accept different things?

F
RIEND
: The same things, in my view.

S
OCRATES
: Is it simply that the Greeks accept the same things as the Greeks on the matters they know about, or do foreigners too accept the same things, agreeing among themselves and with the Greeks?

F
RIEND
: I would suppose it definitely has to be the case that those who know agree in accepting the same things, both Greeks and foreigners.

S
OCRATES
: Well answered. And won’t they always agree?

F
RIEND
: Yes, always.

S
OCRATES
: And don’t the doctors in their treatises on health write what [e] they accept as being so?

F
RIEND
: Yes.

S
OCRATES
: Then these treatises of the doctors are medical, and laws of medicine.

F
RIEND
: Medical, to be sure.

S
OCRATES
: So farming treatises too are laws of farming?

F
RIEND
: Yes.

S
OCRATES
: And whose are the treatises and accepted ideas on working a garden?

F
RIEND
: Gardeners.

S
OCRATES
: Then these are our laws of gardening.

F
RIEND
: Yes.

S
OCRATES
: Formulated by people who know how to manage a garden?

F
RIEND
: Obviously.

S
OCRATES
: And it is the gardeners who have the knowledge?

F
RIEND
: Yes.

S
OCRATES
: And whose are the treatises and accepted ideas on preparing a meal?

F
RIEND
: Cooks.

S
OCRATES
: Then these are the laws of cookery?

F
RIEND
: Cookery.

[317]
S
OCRATES
: Formulated, as it appears, by people who know how to manage the preparation of a meal?

F
RIEND
: Yes.

S
OCRATES
: And it is the cooks who have the knowledge, as they claim?

F
RIEND
: Yes, they have the knowledge.

S
OCRATES
: Very well. But then, whose are the treatises and accepted ideas on administration of a city? Isn’t it those who know how to manage cities?

F
RIEND
: In my view it is.

S
OCRATES
: And does anyone possess this knowledge except those who are skilled in politics and kingship?

F
RIEND
: Those it is.

S
OCRATES
: Then these writings which people call laws are treatises on [b] politics—treatises by kings and good men.

F
RIEND
: What you say is true.

S
OCRATES
: Then surely those who possess knowledge will not write different things at different times on the same matters?

F
RIEND
: No.

S
OCRATES
: Nor yet will they ever change one set of accepted ideas for another on the same matters?

F
RIEND
: Certainly not.

S
OCRATES
: So if we see anyone doing this anywhere, shall we say that those who do it are in possession of knowledge, or not in possession?

F
RIEND
: Not in possession.

S
OCRATES
: And won’t we also say that whatever is correct is the accepted idea in each sphere, whether in medicine or in cookery or in gardening?

F
RIEND
: Yes.

[c] S
OCRATES
: And whatever is not correct, we shall never again say that it is the accepted idea?

F
RIEND
: Never again.

S
OCRATES
: Then it proves to be unlawful.

F
RIEND
: It must be.

S
OCRATES
: And in treatises on what is just and unjust and in general on the organization of a city and on how one should administer a city, isn’t what is correct a law of royal skill? But not what is not correct, although it is taken to be law by those who don’t know. That is unlawful.

F
RIEND
: Yes.

S
OCRATES
: Then we were correct in agreeing that law is discovery of reality. [d]

F
RIEND
: It seems so.

S
OCRATES
: Now to a further point that we need to note carefully on the topic. Who has knowledge of how to distribute seed over land?

F
RIEND
: A farmer.

S
OCRATES
: Does he distribute appropriate seed for each sort of land?

F
RIEND
: Yes.

S
OCRATES
: Then the farmer is a good apportioner of it, and his laws and distributions are correct in this sphere?

F
RIEND
: Yes.

S
OCRATES
: And who is a good apportioner of notes in songs?
¹
Whose laws are correct here?

F
RIEND
: The laws of the flautist and the lute-player. [e]

S
OCRATES
: Then the person whose laws are most authoritative in this sphere is the person whose command of flute-playing is best.

F
RIEND
: Yes.

S
OCRATES
: And who is best at distributing nourishment for human bodies? Is it not the person who distributes it appropriately?

F
RIEND
: Yes.

S
OCRATES
: Then his distributions and laws are best, and the person whose laws are most authoritative in this sphere is also the best apportioner.

F
RIEND
: Certainly.

S
OCRATES
: Who is this person?

F
RIEND
: A trainer.
[318]

S
OCRATES
: He is supreme at driving a human herd?
²

F
RIEND
: Yes.

S
OCRATES
: And who is supreme at driving a herd of sheep? What is his name?

F
RIEND
: A shepherd.

S
OCRATES
: Then it is the laws of the shepherd that are best for the sheep.

F
RIEND
: Yes.

S
OCRATES
: And the laws of the cowherd for cattle?

F
RIEND
: Yes.

S
OCRATES
: And whose laws are best for human souls? Isn’t it those of the king? Agreed?

F
RIEND
: I do agree.

[b] S
OCRATES
: You’re doing well in your answers. Can you now say who in antiquity proved himself a good lawgiver in the sphere of laws of flute-playing? Perhaps you don’t call him to mind—would you like me to remind you?

F
RIEND
: Certainly.

S
OCRATES
: Isn’t it said to be Marsyas, and his boyfriend Olympus the Phrygian?
³

F
RIEND
: What you say is true.

S
OCRATES
: Now their flute tunes are absolutely divine, and alone stir [c] and make manifest those who are in need of the gods—and to this day there are still only these, because they are divine.

F
RIEND
: That is so.

S
OCRATES
: And who among the ancient kings is said to have proved himself to be a good lawgiver, so that even to this day his accepted provisions remain in force, because they are divine?

F
RIEND
: I cannot call him to mind.

S
OCRATES
: Don’t you know which of the Greeks make use of the most ancient laws?

F
RIEND
: Are you referring to the Spartans, and Lycurgus the lawgiver?

S
OCRATES
: But that is not yet three hundred years ago, perhaps, or a [d] little more than that. Where do the best of their accepted provisions come from? Do you know?

F
RIEND
: People say from Crete.

S
OCRATES
: So among the Greeks it is the Cretans who make use of the most ancient laws?

F
RIEND
: Yes.

S
OCRATES
: Then do you know who were their good kings? Minos and Rhadamanthus, the sons of Zeus and Europa: these laws were theirs.

F
RIEND
: People certainly claim that Rhadamanthus was a just man, Socrates; but they say Minos was savage and harsh and unjust.

S
OCRATES
: My good friend, you are telling a theatrical Attic version of the story.

F
RIEND
: Well, isn’t that what they say about Minos? [e]

S
OCRATES
: Not Homer and Hesiod. Yet they are more persuasive than all the tragedians put together—who are the people you are listening to if this is what you are saying.

F
RIEND
: And what is it that Homer and Hesiod say about Minos?

S
OCRATES
: I will tell you, so that you won’t commit impiety along with the mass of people. There cannot be anything more impious than this, nor anything over which one should take more precautions, than being mistaken in word and deed with regard to gods, and in second place, with regard to divine humans. You should always exercise very great forethought, when you are about to criticize or praise a man, to ensure
[319]
that you don’t speak incorrectly. This is why you should learn to distinguish admirable from wicked men. For god vents his anger when anyone criticizes someone similar to himself, or praises someone whose condition is opposite to his own; the former is the good man. For you really mustn’t think that there are sacred stones and pieces of wood and birds and snakes, but not humans.
⁴
A good human being is the most sacred of all of these, and one who is wicked the most defiled.

So now I will speak about Minos, and how Homer and Hesiod sing his [b] praises, with this purpose in mind: that you, as a human and the son of a human, may not be mistaken in what you say about a hero who is son of Zeus. Homer when telling us about Crete and how there are many men in it and “ninety cities,” says:

Among them is Cnossus, a great city, where Minos was King in the ninth season, having converse with great Zeus.
⁵

This, then, is how Homer sings the praises of Minos: briefly expressed—but [c] Homer composed nothing like it for any of the heroes. That Zeus is a sophist and that this art of his is something altogether excellent, he makes clear here as well as in many other places. For he means that during the ninth year Minos got together with Zeus to discuss things, and went regularly to be educated by Zeus as though he were a sophist. So the fact that Homer assigns this privilege of being educated by Zeus to no one among the heroes but to Minos is extraordinary praise. And in the book of the dead in the
Odyssey
he represents Minos, not Rhadamanthus, [d] as giving judgment with a golden scepter.
⁶
He does not represent Rhadamanthus as giving judgment in this passage, nor as associated with Zeus in any passage. For this reason I say that Minos beyond all others has had his praises sung by Homer.

To be the son of Zeus and then to be the only one educated by Zeus is praise that cannot be exceeded. For this verse, “was king in the ninth season, having converse with great Zeus” indicates that Minos was an [e] associate of Zeus. “Converses” are discussions, and someone who “has converse” is an associate in discussions. In other words, every nine years Minos would go into the Cave of Zeus, partly to learn and partly to demonstrate what he had learned from Zeus in the preceding ninth year. There are those who suppose that someone who “has converse” is a drinking and partying companion of Zeus, but one may use the following as
[320]
evidence that those who make this supposition talk nonsense. Of all the many human beings there are, Greeks and foreigners, none abstain from drinking sessions and the sort of partying there is when wine is present except Cretans and in second place Spartans, who have learned it from the Cretans. In Crete it is one of the laws Minos laid down that people are not to drink together to the point of drunkenness. And indeed it is clear that what he accepted as admirable he laid down as accepted practice [b] also for his own citizens. For Minos would surely not have accepted one thing but done something different from what he accepted, like a dishonest person. His form of association was as I say, through discourses for education into virtue. This is why he laid down for his own citizens those laws which have made Crete happy for all time, and Sparta from when she began to make use of them, because they are divine.

[c] Rhadamanthus was a good man: he had been educated by Minos. But he had been educated not in the art of kingship as a whole, but in one subsidiary to it, confined to presiding in law courts; that is why he was said to be a good judge. Minos used him as watcher over the law in the town, but Talos in the rest of Crete. Talos used to tour the villages three times a year, preserving a watch over the law in them by having the laws written on bronze tablets: this is why he was called “bronze.”