Complete Works (300 page)

C
LINIAS
: Well said, sir. I must follow your advice.

1
. The first rank has been given to the gods (726e–727a).

2
. A pun: the Greek
nomos
means both ‘tune’ and ‘law’. Cf. 722d–e.

3
. See 728b–c.

4
. See 684d–e.

5
. Reading
posous
in d1 with accent on the second syllable.

6
. There were sites of prestigious oracles of Apollo at Delphi, Zeus at Dodona in northwest Greece, and the Egyptian god Ammon at the oasis of Siwa in the Libyan desert.

7
. In this translation the laws making up the legal code proposed for Clinias’ city are set off from the surrounding text and numbered consecutively.

8
. I.e., as well as on ‘neutral’ objects.

9
. I.e., when he
makes
money (by dishonest means).

10
. See 741b–c.

11
. See 739a ff.

12
. 5040 = 12 × 420. A ‘section’ (420) has many divisors (including all numbers from 1 to 7), and several (e.g. 12, 15, 20) can be conveniently subdivided. Division of all the 12 sections, if carried far enough, will ultimately give you 5040. The brotherhoods and units mentioned just below would be subdivisions of the tribes (a tribe = 420 citizens).

Book VI

[751]
A
THENIAN
: Well then, now that I’ve got all that off my chest, your next job will be to appoint officials for the state.

C
LINIAS
: It certainly will.

A
THENIAN
: There are two stages involved in organizing a society.
¹
First you establish official positions and appoint people to hold them: you decide how many posts there should be and how they ought to be filled. Then [b] each office has to be given its particular laws: you have to decide which laws will be appropriate in each case, and the number and type required. But before we make our choice, let’s pause a moment and explain a point that will affect it.

C
LINIAS
: And what’s that?

A
THENIAN
: This. It’s obvious to anyone that legislation is a tremendous task, and that when you have a well constructed state with a well-framed legal code, to put incompetent officials in charge of administering the code is a waste of good laws, and the whole business degenerates into farce. [c] And not only that: the state will find that its laws are doing it damage and injury on a gigantic scale.

C
LINIAS
: Naturally.

A
THENIAN
: Now let’s notice the relevance of this to your present society and state. You appreciate that if your candidates are to deserve promotion to positions of power, their characters and family background must have been adequately tested, right from their childhood until the moment of [d] their election. Furthermore, the intending electors ought to have been well brought up in law-abiding habits, so as to be able to approve or disapprove of the candidates for the right reasons and elect or reject them according to their deserts.
²
But in the present case we are dealing with people who have only just come together and don’t know each other—and they’re uneducated too. So how could they ever elect their officials without going wrong?

C
LINIAS
: It’s pretty well impossible.

A
THENIAN
: But look here, ‘once in the race, you’ve no excuses’, as the saying is. That’s just our predicament now: you and your nine colleagues, [e] you tell us, have given an undertaking to the people of Crete to turn your
[752]
energies to founding this state; I, for my part, have promised to join in with this piece of fiction I’m now relating. Seeing that I’ve got on to telling a story, I’d be most reluctant to leave it without a head: it would look a grim sight wandering about like that!

C
LINIAS
: And a fine story it’s been, sir.

A
THENIAN
: Surely, but I also intend to give you actual help along those lines, so far as I can.

C
LINIAS
: Then let’s carry out our program, certainly.

A
THENIAN
: Yes, we shall, God willing, if we can keep old age at bay for long enough.

C
LINIAS
: ‘God willing’ can probably be taken for granted. [b]

A
THENIAN
: Of course. So let’s be guided by him and notice something else.

C
LINIAS
: What?

A
THENIAN
: That we’ll find we’ve been pretty bold and foolhardy in launching this state of ours.

C
LINIAS
: What’s made you say that? What have you in mind?

A
THENIAN
: I’m thinking of the cheerful way we’re legislating for people who’ll be new to the laws we’ve passed, without bothering how they’ll ever be brought to accept them. It’s obvious to us all, Clinias, even if we’re [c] not very clever, that at the start they won’t readily accept any at all. Ideally, we’d remain on the spot long enough to see people getting a taste of the laws while they’re still children; then when they’ve grown up and have become thoroughly accustomed to them, they can take part in the elections to all the offices of the state. If we can manage that (assuming acceptable ways and means are available), then I reckon that the state would have a firm guarantee of survival when its ‘schooldays’ are over.

C
LINIAS
: That’s reasonable enough. [d]

A
THENIAN
: So let’s see if we can find ways and means. Will this do? I maintain, Clinias, that of all the Cretans, the citizens of Cnossus have a special duty. They must not be content with simply doing all that religion demands for the mere soil of your settlement: they must also take scrupulous care to see that the first officials are appointed by the best and safest methods. And it’s absolutely vital to give your best attention to choosing, [e] first of all, Guardians of the Laws. (Less trouble need be taken over the other officials.)

C
LINIAS
: So can we find a reasonable way of going about it?

A
THENIAN
: Yes. ‘Sons of Crete’ (I say), ‘as the Cnossians take precedence over your many cities, they should collaborate with the newly arrived settlers in choosing a total of thirty-seven men from the two sides, nineteen from the settlers, the rest from Cnossus itself’—the gift of the Cnossians
[753]
to this state of yours, Clinias. They should include you in the eighteen, and make you yourself a citizen of the colony, with your consent (failing which, you’ll be gently compelled).

C
LINIAS
: But why on earth, sir, haven’t you, and Megillus too, enrolled as joint administrators?

A
THENIAN
: Ah, Clinias, Athens is a high and mighty state, and so is Sparta; besides, they’re both a long way off. But it’s just the right thing for you and the other founders, and what I said a moment ago of you [b] applies equally to them. So let’s take it we’ve explained how to deal with the present situation. But as time goes on and the constitution has become established, the election of these officials should be held more or less as follows. Everyone who serves in the cavalry or infantry, and has fought in the field while young and strong enough to do so, should participate. [c] They must proceed to election in the temple which the state considers to be the most venerable; each elector should place on the altar of the god a small tablet on which he has written the name of the person he wishes to vote for, adding the candidate’s father, tribe, and deme; and he should append his own name with the same details. For at least thirty days anyone who wishes should be allowed to remove any tablet bearing a name he finds objectionable and put it on display in the market-place. Then the [d] officials must exhibit to the state at large the three hundred tablets that head the list; on the basis of this list the voters must then again record their nominations, and the hundred names that lead this second time must be publicly displayed as before. On the third occasion anyone who wishes should walk between the victims of a sacrifice and record which of these three hundred he chooses. The thirty-seven who receive most votes must then submit to scrutiny and be declared elected.

[e] Well then, Clinias and Megillus, who will make all these arrangements about these officials in our state, and their scrutiny? We can surely appreciate that as the state apparatus is as yet only rudimentary such people have to be on hand; but they could hardly be available before any officials at all have been appointed. Even so, we must have them, and these two hundred persons mustn’t be feeble specimens, either, but men of the highest caliber. As the proverb says, ‘getting started is half the battle’, and a
good
[754]
beginning we all applaud. But in my view a good start is more than ‘half’, and no one has yet given it the praise it deserves.

C
LINIAS
: That’s quite true.

A
THENIAN
: So as we acknowledge the value of a good beginning, let’s not skip discussion of it in this case. Let’s get it quite clear in our own minds how we can tackle it. I’ve no particular points to make, except one, which is vitally relevant to the situation.

C
LINIAS
: And what’s that?

A
THENIAN
: Apart from the city which is founding it, this state we are [b] about to settle has, so to speak, no father or mother. I’m quite aware, of course, that many a foundation has quarreled repeatedly with its founder-state, and will again, but in the present circumstances we have, as it were, the merest infant on our hands. I mean, any child is going to fall out with his parents sooner or later, but while he’s young and can’t help himself, he loves them and they love him; he’s forever scampering back to his family and finding his only allies are his relatives. That’s exactly the way [c] I maintain our young state regards the citizens of Cnossus and how they regard it, in virtue of their role as its guardians. I therefore repeat what I said just now—there’s no harm in saying a good thing twice—that the citizen of Cnossus should choose colleagues from among the newly arrived colonists and take charge of all these arrangements; they should choose at least a hundred of them, the oldest and most virtuous they can find; and they themselves should contribute another hundred. They should enter the new state and collaborate in seeing that the officials are designated [d] according to law, and after designation, scrutinized. When they’ve done all that, the citizens of Cnossus should resume living in Cnossus and leave the infant state to work out its own salvation and flourish unaided.

The duties for which the members of the body of thirty-seven should be appointed are as follows (not only here and now, but permanently): first, they are to act as Guardians of the Laws; second, they are to take charge of the documents in which each person has made his return to the officials of his total property. (A man may leave four hundred drachmas undeclared if he belongs to the highest property-class, three hundred if to the second, two [e] hundred if to the third, and one hundred if he belongs to the fourth.)

5. If anyone is found to possess anything in addition to the registered sum,
the entire
surplus should be confiscated by the state,

and on top of that anyone who wants to should bring a charge against him—and an ugly, discreditable and disgraceful charge it will be, if the man is convicted of being enticed by the prospect of gain to hold the laws in contempt. The accuser, who may be anyone, should accordingly enter a charge of ‘money-grubbing’ against him, and prosecute in the court of the Law-Guardians themselves.

6. If the defendant is found guilty,
he must
be excluded from the common resources of the state, and when
[755]
a grant of some kind is made, he must go without and be limited to his holding; and for as long as he lives his conviction should be recorded for public inspection by all and sundry.

A Law-Guardian must not hold office for longer than twenty years; he should be not less than fifty years old on appointment, and if he is appointed at sixty, his maximum tenure must be ten years, and so on. And if a man survives beyond seventy, he should no longer expect to hold [b] such an important post as membership of this board.

That gives us three duties to assign to the Guardians of the Laws. As the legal code is extended, every new law will give this body of men additional duties to perform, over and above the ones we’ve mentioned.

Now for the election of the other officials, one by one.

Next, then, we have to elect Generals and their aides-de-camp, so to [c] speak: Cavalry-Commanders, Tribe-Leaders, and controllers of the tribal companies of infantry (‘Company-Commanders’ will be a good name for these officers, which is in fact what most people do call them).

Generals
. The Guardians of the Laws must compile a preliminary list of candidates, restricted to citizens, and the Generals should then be elected from this list by all those who have served in the armed forces at the proper age, or are serving at the time. If anybody thinks that someone [d] not on the preliminary list is better qualified than someone who is, he must name his proposed substitute, and say whom he should replace; then, having sworn his oath, he must propose the alternative candidate. Whichever of the two the voting favors should be a candidate in the election. The three candidates who receive most votes should become Generals and take over the organization of military affairs, after being scrutinized in the same way as the Guardians of the Laws.

[e]
Company-Commanders.
The elected Generals should make their own preliminary list of twelve Company-Commanders, one for each tribe; the counter-nominations, the election and the scrutiny must be conducted as they were for the Generals themselves.

The Elections.
For the moment, before a council and executive committees have been chosen, your assembly must be convened by the Guardians of the Laws in the holiest and most capacious place they can find; and they must seat the heavy-armed soldiers, the cavalry, and finally all other ranks, in separate blocks. The Generals and Cavalry-Commanders should be
[756]
elected by the whole assembly, the Company-Commanders by the shield-bearers, and their Tribe-Leaders by the entire cavalry; as for light-armed troops, archers, or whatever other ranks there may be, the appointment of their leaders should be left to the Generals’ discretion.