Complete Works (316 page)

The next question is the organization of a food-supply in keeping with [c] our communal meals. In other states the sources of supply are many and varied—in fact, at least twice as many as in ours, because most Greeks draw on both the land and the sea for their food, whereas our citizens will use the land alone. For the legislator, this makes things simpler. It’s not just that half the number of laws or even substantially fewer will do, [d] but they’ll be more suitable laws for gentlemen to observe. Our state’s legislator, you see, need not bother his head very much about the merchant-shipping business, trading, retailing, inn-keeping, customs duties, mining, money-lending and compound interest. Waving aside most of these and a thousand other such details, he’ll legislate for farmers, shepherds, bee-keepers, for the protectors of their stock and the supervisors of their equipment. [e] His laws already cover such major topics as marriage and the birth and rearing of children, as well as their education and the appointment of the state’s officials, so the next topic to which he must turn in his legislation is their food, and the workers who co-operate in the constant effort to produce it.

Let’s first specify the ‘agricultural’ laws, as they’re called. The first law—sanctioned by Zeus the Protector of Boundaries—shall run as follows:

No man shall disturb the boundary stones of his neighbor, whether fellow citizen or foreigner (that is, when a proprietor’s land is on the boundary of the state), in the conviction that this would be ‘moving the immovable’
⁹
in the crudest sense. Far better that a man should want to
[843]
try to move the biggest stone that does not mark a boundary, than a small one separating friend’s land from foe’s, and established by an oath sworn to the gods. Zeus the God of Kin is witness in the one case, Zeus the Protector of Foreigners in the other. Rouse him in either capacity, and the most terrible wars break out. If a man obeys the law he will escape its penalties, but if he holds it in contempt he is to be liable to two punishments, [b] the first at the hands of the gods, the second under the law. No man, if he can help it, must move the boundary stones of his neighbor’s land, but if anyone does move them, any man who wishes should report him to the farmers, who should take him to court.

26. If anyone is found guilty of such a charge,
he must
be regarded as a man who has tried to reallocate land, whether clandestinely or by force; and the court must bear that in mind when assessing what penalty he should suffer or what fine he should pay.

Next we come to those numerous petty injuries done by neighbor to neighbor. The frequent repetition of such injuries makes feelings run high, so that relations between neighbors become intolerably embittered. That’s [c] why everyone should do everything he can to avoid offending his neighbor; above all, he must always go out of his way to avoid all acts of encroachment. Hurting a man is all too easy, and we all get the chance to do that; but it’s not everyone who is in a position to do a good turn.

27. If a man oversteps his boundaries and encroaches on his neighbor’s land,
he should
pay for the damage, and also, by way of cure for such uncivilized [d] and inconsiderate behavior, give the injured party a further sum of twice that amount.

In all these and similar cases the Country-Wardens should act as inspectors, judges and assessors (the entire divisional company in the graver cases, as indicated earlier,
¹⁰
and the Guards-in-Chief in the more trivial).

28. If a man lets his cattle graze on someone else’s land,
these officials
must inspect the damage, reach a decision, and assess the penalty.

[e] 29. If anyone takes over another man’s bees, by making rattling noises to please and attract them, so that he gets them for himself,
he must
pay for the injury he has done.

30. If anyone burns his own wood without taking sufficient precautions to protect his neighbor’s,
he must
be fined a sum decided by the officials.

31. If when planting trees a man fails to leave a suitable gap between them and his neighbor’s land,
the same
regulation is to apply.

These are points that many legislators have dealt with perfectly adequately, and we should make use of their work rather than demand that the grand architect of our state should legislate on a mass of trivial details that can be handled by any run-of-the-mill lawgiver. For instance, the
[844]
water supply for farmers is the subject of some splendid old-established laws—but there’s no call to let them overflow into our discussion! It is fundamental that anyone who wants to conduct a supply of water to his own land may do so, provided his source is the public reservoirs and he does not intercept the surface springs of any private person. He may conduct the water by any route he likes, except through houses, temples and tombs, and he must do no damage beyond the actual construction of the conduit. But in some naturally dry districts the soil may fail to retain [b] the moisture when it rains, so that drinking water is in short supply. In that case the owner must dig down to the clay, and if he fails to strike water at that depth he should take from his neighbors sufficient drinking water for each member of his household. If the neighbors too are short of water, he should share the available supply with them and fetch his ration daily, the amount to be fixed by the Country-Wardens. A man may injure [c] the farmer or householder next door on higher ground by blocking the flow of rainwater; on the other hand he may discharge it so carelessly as to damage the man below. If the parties are not prepared to co-operate in this matter, anyone who wishes should report the matter to an official—a City-Warden in the city, and a Country-Warden in the country—and obtain a ruling as to what each side should do. Anyone refusing to abide by the ruling must take the consequences of being a grudging and ill-tempered [d] fellow:

32. If found guilty,
he should
pay twice the value of the damage to the injured party as a penalty for disobeying the officials.

Everyone should take his share of the fruit harvest on roughly the following principles. The goddess of the harvest has graciously bestowed two gifts upon us, (a) the fruit which pleases Dionysus so much, but which won’t keep, and (b) the produce which nature has made fit to store. So our law about the harvest should run as follows.

33. Anyone who consumes any part of the coarse crop of grapes or figs, whether on his own land or another’s, before the rising of Arcturus
¹¹
[e] ushers in the vintage,
must owe
(a) fifty drachmas, to be presented to Dionysus, if he takes the fruit from his own trees,
(b) one hundred if from his neighbor’s, and
(c) sixty-six and two-thirds drachmas if from anyone else’s trees.

If a man wants to gather in the ‘dessert’ grapes or figs (as they are called nowadays), he may do so whenever and however he likes, provided they come from his own trees; but

34. (a) if he takes them from anyone else’s trees, without permission,
he must
be punished in accordance with the provisions of the law which
[845]
forbids the removal of any object except by the depositor.
¹²
(b) If a slave fails to get the landowner’s permission before touching any of this kind of fruit,
he must
be whipped, the number of lashes to be the same as the number of grapes in the bunch or figs picked off the fig tree.

A resident alien may buy dessert fruit and gather it in as he wishes. If a foreigner on a visit from abroad feels inclined to eat some fruit as he travels along the road, he may, if he wishes, take some of the dessert crop gratis, [b] for himself and one attendant, as part of our hospitality. But foreigners must be prevented by law from sharing with us the ‘coarse’ and similar fruits.

35. If a foreigner, master or slave, touches such fruit in ignorance of the law,
(a)
the slave
is to be punished with a whipping;
(b)
the free
man is to be dismissed with a warning and told to stick to the crop that is unsuitable to be kept in store in the form of raisins, wine, or dried figs.

There should be nothing to be ashamed of in helping oneself inconspicuously to apples and pears and pomegranates and so on, but

[c] 36. (a) if a man under thirty is caught at it,
he should
be cuffed and driven off, provided he suffers no actual injury.

A citizen should have no legal redress for such an assault on his person. (A foreigner is to be entitled to a share of these fruits too, on the same terms as he may take some of the dessert grapes and figs.) If a man
above
thirty years of age touches some fruits, consuming them on the spot and taking none away with him, he shall share them all on the same terms as the foreigner, but

(b) if he disobeys the law,
[d]
he should
be liable to be disqualified from competing for awards of merit, if anyone draws the attention of the assessors to the facts when the awards are being decided.

Water is the most nourishing food a garden can have, but it’s easily fouled, whereas the soil, the sun and the winds, which co-operate with the water in fostering the growth of the plants that spring up out of the ground, are not readily interfered with by being doctored or channeled off or stolen. But in the nature of the case, water is exposed to all these hazards. That is why it needs the protection of a law, which should run [e] as follows.

If anyone deliberately spoils someone else’s water supply, whether spring or reservoir, by poisons or excavations or theft, the injured party should take his case to the City-Wardens and submit his estimate of the damage in writing.

37. Anyone convicted of fouling water by magic poisons
should
, in addition to his fine, purify the spring or reservoir, using whatever method of purification the regulations of the Expounders
¹³
prescribe as appropriate to the circumstances and the individuals involved.

A man may bring home any crop of his own by any route he pleases,
[846]
provided he does no one any damage, or, failing that, benefits to at least three times the value of the damage he does his neighbor. The authorities must act as inspectors in this business, as well as in all other cases when someone uses his own property deliberately to inflict violent or surreptitious damage on another man or some piece of his property without his permission. When the damage does not exceed three minas, the injured party must report it to the magistrates and obtain redress; but if he has a larger claim to bring against someone, he must get his redress from the culprit by taking the case to the public courts. [b]

38. If one of the officials is judged to have settled the penalties in a biased fashion,
he must
be liable to the injured person for double the damages.

Offenses committed by the authorities in handling any claim should be taken to the public courts by anyone who may wish to do so. (There are thousands of procedural details like this that must be observed before a penalty can be imposed: the complaint has to be lodged, the summonses issued and served in the presence of two witnesses, or whatever the proper [c] number is. All this sort of detail must not be left to look after itself, but it is not important enough for a legislator who is getting on in years. Our younger colleagues must settle these points, using the broad principles laid down by their predecessors as a guide for their own detailed regulations, which they must apply as need arises. They must thus proceed by trial and error until they think they have got a satisfactory set of formalities, and once the process of modification is over, they should finalize their rules of procedure and render them lifelong obedience.)

[d] As for craftsmen in general, our policy should be this. First, no citizen of our land nor any of his servants should enter the ranks of the workers whose vocation lies in the arts and crafts. A citizen’s vocation, which demands a great deal of practice and study, is to establish and maintain good order in the community, and this is not a job for part-timers. Following [e] two trades or two callings efficiently—or even following one and supervising a worker in another—is almost always too difficult for human nature. So in our state this must be a cardinal rule: no metal worker must turn to carpentry and no carpenter must supervise workers in metal instead of practicing his own craft. We may, of course, be met with the excuse that
[847]
supervising large numbers of employees is more sensible—because more profitable—than just following one’s own trade. But no! In our state each individual must have one occupation only, and that’s how he must earn his bread. The City-Wardens must have the job of enforcing this rule.

39. If a citizen born and bred turns his attention to some craft instead of to the cultivation of virtue,
the City-Wardens
must punish him with marks of disgrace and dishonor until they’ve got him back on the right lines.

40. If a foreigner follows two trades,
the Wardens
must punish him by prison or fines or expulsion from the [b] state, and so force him to play one role, not many.

As for craftsmen’s pay, and cases of refusal to take delivery of their work, or any other wrong done to them by other parties or by them to others, the City-Wardens must adjudicate if the sum at issue does not exceed fifty drachmas; if more, the public courts must decide the dispute as the law directs.

In our state no duties will have to be paid by anyone on either imports or exports. No one must import frankincense and similar foreign fragrant [c] stuff used in religious ritual, or purple and similar dyes not native to the country, or materials for any other process which only needs imports from abroad for inessential purposes; nor, on the other hand, is anyone to export anything that it is essential to keep in the state. The twelve Guardians of the Laws next in order of seniority after the five eldest must act as inspectors and supervisors in this entire field. But what about arms and other military [d] equipment? Well, if we ever need, for military purposes, some technique, vegetable product, mineral, binding material or animal that has to be obtained from abroad, the
state
will receive the goods and pay for them, and the Cavalry-Commanders and the Generals are to be in charge of importing them and exporting other goods in exchange. The Guardians of the Laws will lay down suitable and adequate regulations on the subject. Nowhere in the whole country and whole state are these—or any other—[e] goods to be retailed for profit.