Complete Works (301 page)

Cavalry-Commanders.
That will leave us with the appointment of the Cavalry-Commanders. The preliminary list must be drawn up by the same persons as drew up the list of Generals, and the election and counterproposals should be conducted in the same way; the cavalry must hold [b] the election watched by the infantry, and the two candidates with the most votes must become leaders of the entire mounted force.

Disputed Votes.
Votes may be disputed no more than twice. If anyone contests the vote on the third occasion, the tellers must decide the issue by voting among themselves.

The council should have thirty dozen members, as three hundred sixty will be a convenient number for subdivision. The total will be divided [c] into four sections of ninety, this being the number of members to be elected from each property-class. The first step in the election is to be compulsory for all: everyone must take part in the nomination of members of the highest class, and anybody who neglects his duty must pay the approved fine. When the nominations are completed, the names must be noted down.

On the next day, using the same procedure as before, they will nominate members of the second class.

On the third day, nominating for Councillors from the third class will [d] be optional, except for voters of the first three classes: voters of the fourth and lowest class will be exempted from the fine if they do not care to make a nomination.

The fourth day will see the nomination for representatives of the fourth and lowest class; everyone must take part, but voters of the third and fourth class who do not wish to nominate should not be fined—unlike voters of the second and first classes, who must be fined treble and quadruple the standard fine respectively if they do not make a nomination.

On the fifth day the officials must display to the entire citizen body the [e] names duly noted down, and on the basis of these lists every man must cast his vote or pay the standard fine. One hundred eighty must be selected from each property-class, and half of them finally chosen by lot. These, after scrutiny, are to be Councillors for the year.

A system of selection like that will effect a compromise between a monarchical and a democratic constitution, which is precisely the sort of compromise a constitution should always be. You see, even if you proclaim that a master and his slave shall have equal status, friendship between
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them is inherently impossible. The same applies to the relations between an honest man and a scoundrel. Indiscriminate equality for all amounts to
in
equality, and both fill a state with quarrels between its citizens. How correct the old saying is, that ‘equality leads to friendship’! It’s right enough and it rings true, but what
kind
of equality has this potential is a problem which produces ripe confusion. This is because we use the same term for [b] two concepts of ‘equality’, which in most respects are virtual opposites. The first sort of equality (of measures, weights and numbers) is within the competence of any state and any legislator: that is, one can simply distribute equal awards by lot. But the most genuine equality, and the best, is not so obvious. It needs the wisdom and judgment of Zeus, and only in a limited number of ways does it help the human race; but when states or even individuals do find it profitable, they find it very profitable indeed. The general method I mean is to grant much to the great and less to the [c] less great, adjusting what you give to take account of the real nature of each—specifically, to confer high recognition on great virtue, but when you come to the poorly educated in this respect, to treat them as they deserve. We maintain, in fact, that statesmanship consists of essentially this—strict justice. This is what we should be aiming at now, Clinias: this [d] is the kind of ‘equality’ we should concentrate on as we bring our state into the world. The founder of any other state should also concentrate on this same goal when he frames his laws, and take no notice of a bunch of dictators, or a single one, or even the power of the people. He must always make
justice
his aim, and this is precisely as we’ve described it: it consists of granting the ‘equality’ that unequals deserve to get. Yet on occasion a state as a whole (unless it is prepared to put up with a degree of friction in one part or another) will be obliged to apply these concepts in a rather rough and ready way, because complaisance and toleration, which always [e] wreck complete precision, are the enemies of strict justice. You can now see why it was necessary to avoid the anger of the man in the street by giving him an equal chance in the lot (though even then we prayed to the gods of good luck to make the lot give the right decisions). So though force of circumstances compels us to employ both sorts of equality, we should employ the second, which demands good luck to prove successful,
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as little as possible.

So much, my friends, for the justification of our policy, which is the policy a state must follow if it means to survive. The state is just like a ship at sea, which always needs someone to keep watch night and day: as it is steered through the waves of international affairs, it lives in constant peril of being captured by all sorts of conspiracies. Hence the need of an [b] unbroken chain of authority right through the day and into the night and then on into the next day, guard relieving guard in endless succession. But a large body will never be able to act quickly enough, and most of the time we have to leave the majority of council members free to live their private lives and administer their own establishments. We must therefore divide the members of the council into twelve groups, one for [c] each month, and have them go on guard by turns. They must be available promptly, whenever anyone from abroad or from within the state itself approaches them wishing to give information or inquire about those topics on which a state must arrange to answer the questions of other states and receive replies to its own. They must be particularly concerned with the [d] constant revolutions of all kinds that are apt to occur in a state; if possible, they must prevent them, but failing that they must see that the state gets to know as soon as possible, so that the outbreak can be cured. That is why this executive committee has to be in charge of convening and dissolving not only statutory meetings but also those held in some national emergency. The authority that should see to all this—a twelfth of the council—will of course be
off
duty for eleven-twelfths of the year: it’s the section of the council
on
duty that must co-operate with other officials and keep a watchful eye on the state.

[e] That will be a reasonable arrangement for the city, but what about the rest of the country? How should it be superintended and organized? Well now, the entire city and the entire country have been divided into twelve sections; there are the roads of the central city; there are houses, public buildings, harbors, the market, and fountains; there are, above all, sacred enclosures and similar places. Shouldn’t all these things have officials appointed to look after them?

C
LINIAS
: Naturally.

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A
THENIAN
: We can say, then, that the temples should have Attendants and Priests and Priestesses. Next, there are the duties of looking after streets and public buildings, ensuring that they reach the proper standards, stopping men and animals doing them damage, and seeing that conditions both in the suburbs and the city itself are in keeping with a civilized life. All these duties require three types of officials to be chosen: the ‘City-Wardens’ (as they will be called) will be responsible for the points we’ve just mentioned, and the ‘Market-Wardens’ for the correct conduct of the market.

[b] Priests or Priestesses of temples who have hereditary priesthoods should not be turned out of office. But if (as is quite likely in a new foundation) few or no temples are thus provided for, the deficiencies must be made good by appointing Priests and Priestesses to be Attendants in the temples of the gods. In all these cases the appointments should be made partly by election and partly by lot, so that a mixture of democratic and non-democratic methods in every rural and urban division may lead to the greatest possible feeling of solidarity. In electing Priests, one should leave it to the god himself to express his wishes, and allow him to guide the luck of the [c] draw. But the man whom the lot favors must be screened to see that he is healthy and legitimate, reared in a family whose moral standards could hardly be higher, and that he himself and his father and mother have lived unpolluted by homicide and all such offenses against heaven.

They must get laws on all religious matters from Delphi, and appoint Expounders of them; that will provide them with a code to be obeyed.[d] Each priesthood must be held for a year and no longer, and anyone who intends to celebrate our rites in due conformity with religious law should not be less than sixty years old. The same rules should apply to Priestesses too.

There should be three
³
Expounders. The tribes will be arranged in three sets of four, and every man should nominate four persons, each from the same set as himself; the three candidates who receive most votes should be scrutinized, and nine names should then be sent to Delphi for the oracle to select one from each group of three. Their scrutiny, and the requirement as to age, should be the same as in the case of the Priests; these three must [e] hold office for life, and when one dies the group of four tribes in which the vacancy occurs should make nominations for a replacement.

The highest property-class must elect Treasurers to control the sacred funds of each temple, and to look after the temple-enclosures and their
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produce and revenues; three should be chosen to take charge of the largest temples, two for the less large, and one for the very small. The election and scrutiny of these officials should be conducted as it was for the Generals.

So much by way of provision for the holy places.

As far as practicable, nothing should be left unguarded. The protection of the city is to be the business of the Generals, Company-Commanders, Cavalry-Commanders, Tribe-Leaders and members of the Executive—and [b] the City-Wardens and Market-Wardens too, once we have them elected and satisfactorily installed in office. The whole of the rest of the country should be protected as follows. Our entire territory has been divided as exactly as possible into twelve equal sections, and every year one tribe must be allocated by lot to each of them. Every tribe must provide five ‘Country-Wardens’ or ‘Guards-in-Chief’, each of whom will be allowed to choose from his own tribe
⁴
twelve young men who must be not younger than twenty-five nor older than thirty. The effect of the lot will be that [c] each group will take a different section every month, so that they all get experience and knowledge of the entire country. The guards and their officers in charge are to hold their respective commissions for two years. Starting from the original sections (i.e., districts of the country) assigned [d] by lot, the Guards-in-Chief are to take their groups round in a circle, transferring them each month to the next district on the right (‘on the right’ should be understood to mean ‘to the East’). But it’s not enough that as many of the guards as possible should get experience of the country at only one season of the year: we want them to add to their knowledge of the actual territory by discovering what goes on in every district at every season. So their leaders for the time being should follow up the first [e] year by spending a second leading them back through the various districts, moving this time to the left. For the third year, a tribe must choose other Country-Wardens, and five new Guards-in-Chief, each in charge of twelve assistants.

While stationed in the various districts, their duties should be as follows. To start with, they must see that the territory is protected against enemies as thoroughly as possible. They must dig ditches wherever necessary, and excavate trenches and erect fortifications to check any attempt to harm the
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land and the livestock. They will requisition the beasts of burden and slaves of the local residents for these purposes, and employ them at their discretion, picking as far as possible times when they are not required for their normal duties. The wardens must arrange that the enemy would be impeded at every turn, whereas movement by our own side (by men or beasts of burden or cattle) would be facilitated; and they must see that every road is as easy for the traveler as can be managed.

The rain God sends must do the countryside good, not harm, so the [b] wardens must see that the water flowing off the high ground down into any sufficiently deep ravines between the hills is collected by dikes and ditches, so that the ravines can retain and absorb it, and supply streams and springs for all the districts in the countryside below, and give even the driest of spots a copious supply of pure water. As for water that springs from the ground, the wardens must beautify the fountains and rivers that [c] form by adorning them with trees and buildings; they must use drains to tap the individual streams and collect an abundant supply, and any grove or sacred enclosure which has been dedicated nearby must be embellished by having a perennial flow of water directed by irrigation into the very temples of the gods. The young men should erect in every quarter gymnasia for themselves and senior citizens, construct warm baths for the old folk, and lay up a large stock of thoroughly dry wood. All this will help to [d] relieve invalids, and farmers wearied by the labor of the fields—and it will be a much kinder treatment than the tender mercies of some fool of a doctor.

All these and similar projects will beautify and improve a district, and permit some welcome recreation into the bargain. The Wardens’ really serious duties should be as follows. Each squad of sixty must protect its own district not only from enemies, but from those who profess to be [e] friends. If a slave or a free man injures a neighbor or any other citizen, the Wardens must try the case brought by the plaintiff. The five leaders should deal with the trivial cases on their own authority, but in the more important cases (when one man sues another for any sum up to three minas) they should sit in judgment with one group of twelve assistants as a bench of seventeen. Apart from the officials whose decisions (like those of kings) are final, no judge shall hold court, and no official shall fill his position, without being liable to be called to account for his actions. The Country-Wardens are to be no exception, if they treat the people in their care at all high-handedly by giving them unfair orders or by trying
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to grab and remove any agricultural equipment without permission, or allow their palms to be greased, or go so far as to deliver unjust verdicts. For giving way to boot-lickers they must be publicly disgraced. When the actual injury they have done to an inhabitant of their district does not exceed one mina in value, they should voluntarily submit to a trial before the villagers and neighbors. Whenever larger sums are involved (or even smaller sums, if the accused is not prepared to submit to trial because he’s [b] confident that by moving to a fresh district every month he will get away and ‘get off’ too), the injured party should file suit against him in the common courts.