Laws Part 3

The enmity to the sea is another Spartan feature which is transferred by Plato to the Magnesian state. He did not reflect that a non-maritime power would always be at the mercy of one which had a command of the great highway. Their many island homes, the vast extent of coast which had to be protected by them, their struggles first of all with the Phoenicians and Carthaginians, and secondly with the Persian fleets, forced the Greeks, mostly against their will, to devote themselves to the sea. The islanders before the inhabitants of the continent, the maritime cities before the inland, the Corinthians and Athenians before the Spartans, were compelled to fit out ships: last of all the Spartans, by the pressure of the Peloponnesian War, were driven to establish a naval force, which, after the battle of Aegospotami, for more than a generation commanded the Aegean. Plato, like the Spartans, had a prejudice against a navy, because he regarded it as the nursery of democracy. But he either never considered, or did not care to explain, how a city, set upon an island and 'distant not more than ten miles from the sea, having a seaboard provided with excellent harbours,' could have safely subsisted without one.

Neither the Spartans nor the Magnesian colonists were permitted to engage in trade or commerce. In order to limit their dealings as far as possible to their own country, they had a separate coinage; the Magnesians were only allowed to use the common currency of h.e.l.las when they travelled abroad, which they were forbidden to do unless they received permission from the government. Like the Spartans, Plato was afraid of the evils which might be introduced into his state by intercourse with foreigners; but he also shrinks from the utter exclusiveness of Sparta, and is not unwilling to allow visitors of a suitable age and rank to come from other states to his own, as he also allows citizens of his own state to go to foreign countries and bring back a report of them. Such international communication seemed to him both honourable and useful.

We may now notice some points in which the commonwealth of the Laws approximates to the Athenian model. These are much more numerous than the previous cla.s.s of resemblances; we are better able to compare the laws of Plato with those of Athens, because a good deal more is known to us of Athens than of Sparta.

The information which we possess about Athenian law, though comparatively fuller, is still fragmentary. The sources from which our knowledge is derived are chiefly the following:- (1) The Orators,-Antiphon, Andocides, Lysias, Isocrates, Demosthenes, Aeschines, Lycurgus, and others.

(2) Herodotus, Thucydides, Xenophon, Plato, Aristotle, as well as later writers, such as Cicero de Legibus, Plutarch, Aelian, Pausanias.

(3) Lexicographers, such as Harpocration, Pollux, Hesychius, Suidas, and the compiler of the Etymologic.u.m Magnum, many of whom are of uncertain date, and to a great extent based upon one another. Their writings extend altogether over more than eight hundred years, from the second to the tenth century.

(4) The Scholia on Aristophanes, Plato, Demosthenes.

(5) A few inscriptions.

Our knowledge of a subject derived from such various sources and for the most part of uncertain date and origin, is necessarily precarious. No critic can separate the actual laws of Solon from those which pa.s.sed under his name in later ages. Nor do the Scholiasts and Lexicographers attempt to distinguish how many of these laws were still in force at the time when they wrote, or when they fell into disuse and were to be found in books only. Nor can we hastily a.s.sume that enactments which occur in the Laws of Plato were also a part of Athenian law, however probable this may appear.

There are two cla.s.ses of similarities between Plato's Laws and those of Athens: (i) of inst.i.tutions (ii) of minor enactments.

(i) The const.i.tution of the Laws in its general character resembles much more nearly the Athenian const.i.tution of Solon's time than that which succeeded it, or the extreme democracy which prevailed in Plato's own day. It was a mean state which he hoped to create, equally unlike a Syracusan tyranny or the mob-government of the Athenian a.s.sembly. There are various expedients by which he sought to impart to it the quality of moderation. (1) The whole people were to be educated: they could not be all trained in philosophy, but they were to acquire the simple elements of music, arithmetic, geometry, astronomy; they were also to be subject to military discipline, archontes kai archomenoi. (2) The majority of them were, or had been at some time in their lives, magistrates, and had the experience which is given by office. (3) The persons who held the highest offices were to have a further education, not much inferior to that provided for the guardians in the Republic, though the range of their studies is narrowed to the nature and divisions of virtue: here their philosophy comes to an end. (4) The entire number of the citizens (5040) rarely, if ever, a.s.sembled, except for purposes of elections. The whole people were divided into four cla.s.ses, each having the right to be represented by the same number of members in the Council. The result of such an arrangement would be, as in the const.i.tution of Servius Tullius, to give a disproportionate share of power to the wealthier cla.s.ses, who may be supposed to be always much fewer in number than the poorer. This tendency was qualified by the complicated system of selection by vote, previous to the final election by lot, of which the object seems to be to hand over to the wealthy few the power of selecting from the many poor, and vice versa. (5) The most important body in the state was the Nocturnal Council, which is borrowed from the Areopagus at Athens, as it existed, or was supposed to have existed, in the days before Ephialtes and the Eumenides of Aeschylus, when its power was undiminished. In some particulars Plato appears to have copied exactly the customs and procedure of the Areopagus: both a.s.semblies sat at night (Telfy). There was a resemblance also in more important matters. Like the Areopagus, the Nocturnal Council was partly composed of magistrates and other state officials, whose term of office had expired. (7) The const.i.tution included several diverse and even opposing elements, such as the a.s.sembly and the Nocturnal Council. (8) There was much less exclusiveness than at Sparta; the citizens were to have an interest in the government of neighbouring states, and to know what was going on in the rest of the world.-All these were moderating influences.

A striking similarity between Athens and the const.i.tution of the Magnesian colony is the use of the lot in the election of judges and other magistrates. That such a mode of election should have been resorted to in any civilized state, or that it should have been transferred by Plato to an ideal or imaginary one, is very singular to us. The most extreme democracy of modern times has never thought of leaving government wholly to chance. It was natural that Socrates should scoff at it, and ask, 'Who would choose a pilot or carpenter or flute-player by lot' (Xen. Mem.)? Yet there were many considerations which made this mode of choice attractive both to the oligarch and to the democrat:-(1) It seemed to recognize that one man was as good as another, and that all the members of the governing body, whether few or many, were on a perfect equality in every sense of the word. (2) To the pious mind it appeared to be a choice made, not by man, but by heaven (compare Laws). (3) It afforded a protection against corruption and intrigue...It must also be remembered that, although elected by lot, the persons so elected were subject to a scrutiny before they entered on their office, and were therefore liable, after election, if disqualified, to be rejected (Laws). They were, moreover, liable to be called to account after the expiration of their office. In the election of councillors Plato introduces a further check: they are not to be chosen directly by lot from all the citizens, but from a select body previously elected by vote. In Plato's state at least, as we may infer from his silence on this point, judges and magistrates performed their duties without pay, which was a guarantee both of their disinterestedness and of their belonging probably to the higher cla.s.s of citizens (compare Arist. Pol.). Hence we are not surprised that the use of the lot prevailed, not only in the election of the Athenian Council, but also in many oligarchies, and even in Plato's colony. The evil consequences of the lot are to a great extent avoided, if the magistrates so elected do not, like the dicasts at Athens, receive pay from the state.

Another parallel is that of the Popular a.s.sembly, which at Athens was omnipotent, but in the Laws has only a faded and secondary existence. In Plato it was chiefly an elective body, having apparently no judicial and little political power entrusted to it. At Athens it was the mainspring of the democracy; it had the decision of war or peace, of life and death; the acts of generals or statesmen were authorized or condemned by it; no office or person was above its control. Plato was far from allowing such a despotic power to exist in his model community, and therefore he minimizes the importance of the a.s.sembly and narrows its functions. He probably never asked himself a question, which naturally occurs to the modern reader, where was to be the central authority in this new community, and by what supreme power would the differences of inferior powers be decided. At the same time he magnifies and brings into prominence the Nocturnal Council (which is in many respects a reflection of the Areopagus), but does not make it the governing body of the state.

Between the judicial system of the Laws and that of Athens there was very great similarity, and a difference almost equally great. Plato not unfrequently adopts the details when he rejects the principle. At Athens any citizen might be a judge and member of the great court of the Heliaea. This was ordinarily subdivided into a number of inferior courts, but an occasion is recorded on which the whole body, in number six thousand, met in a single court (Andoc. de Myst.). Plato significantly remarks that a few judges, if they are good, are better than a great number. He also, at least in capital cases, confines the plaintiff and defendant to a single speech each, instead of allowing two apiece, as was the common practice at Athens. On the other hand, in all private suits he gives two appeals, from the arbiters to the courts of the tribes, and from the courts of the tribes to the final or supreme court. There was nothing answering to this at Athens. The three courts were appointed in the following manner:-the arbiters were to be agreed upon by the parties to the cause; the judges of the tribes to be elected by lot; the highest tribunal to be chosen at the end of each year by the great officers of state out of their own number-they were to serve for a year, to undergo a scrutiny, and, unlike the Athenian judges, to vote openly. Plato does not dwell upon methods of procedure: these are the lesser matters which he leaves to the younger legislators. In cases of murder and some other capital offences, the cause was to be tried by a special tribunal, as was the custom at Athens: military offences, too, as at Athens, were decided by the soldiers. Public causes in the Laws, as sometimes at Athens, were voted upon by the whole people: because, as Plato remarks, they are all equally concerned in them. They were to be previously investigated by three of the princ.i.p.al magistrates. He believes also that in private suits all should take part; 'for he who has no share in the administration of justice is apt to imagine that he has no share in the state at all.' The wardens of the country, like the Forty at Athens, also exercised judicial power in small matters, as well as the wardens of the agora and city. The department of justice is better organized in Plato than in an ordinary Greek state, proceeding more by regular methods, and being more restricted to distinct duties.

The executive of Plato's Laws, like the Athenian, was different from that of a modern civilized state. The difference chiefly consists in this, that whereas among ourselves there are certain persons or cla.s.ses of persons set apart for the execution of the duties of government, in ancient Greece, as in all other communities in the earlier stages of their development, they were not equally distinguished from the rest of the citizens. The machinery of government was never so well organized as in the best modern states. The judicial department was not so completely separated from the legislative, nor the executive from the judicial, nor the people at large from the professional soldier, lawyer, or priest. To Aristotle (Pol.) it was a question requiring serious consideration-Who should execute a sentence? There was probably no body of police to whom were entrusted the lives and properties of the citizens in any h.e.l.lenic state. Hence it might be reasonably expected that every man should be the watchman of every other, and in turn be watched by him. The ancients do not seem to have remembered the homely adage that, 'What is every man's business is no man's business,' or always to have thought of applying the principle of a division of labour to the administration of law and to government. Every Athenian was at some time or on some occasion in his life a magistrate, judge, advocate, soldier, sailor, policeman. He had not necessarily any private business; a good deal of his time was taken up with the duties of office and other public occupations. So, too, in Plato's Laws. A citizen was to interfere in a quarrel, if older than the combatants, or to defend the outraged party, if his junior. He was especially bound to come to the rescue of a parent who was ill-treated by his children. He was also required to prosecute the murderer of a kinsman. In certain cases he was allowed to arrest an offender. He might even use violence to an abusive person. Any citizen who was not less than thirty years of age at times exercised a magisterial authority, to be enforced even by blows. Both in the Magnesian state and at Athens many thousand persons must have shared in the highest duties of government, if a section only of the Council, consisting of thirty or of fifty persons, as in the Laws, or at Athens after the days of Cleisthenes, held office for a month, or for thirty-five days only. It was almost as if, in our own country, the Ministry or the Houses of Parliament were to change every month. The average ability of the Athenian and Magnesian councillors could not have been very high, considering there were so many of them. And yet they were entrusted with the performance of the most important executive duties. In these respects the const.i.tution of the Laws resembles Athens far more than Sparta. All the citizens were to be, not merely soldiers, but politicians and administrators.

(ii) There are numerous minor particulars in which the Laws of Plato resemble those of Athens. These are less interesting than the preceding, but they show even more strikingly how closely in the composition of his work Plato has followed the laws and customs of his own country.

(1) Evidence. (a) At Athens a child was not allowed to give evidence (Telfy). Plato has a similar law: 'A child shall be allowed to give evidence only in cases of murder.' (b) At Athens an unwilling witness might be summoned; but he was not required to appear if he was ready to declare on oath that he knew nothing about the matter in question (Telfy). So in the Laws. (c) Athenian law enacted that when more than half the witnesses in a case had been convicted of perjury, there was to be a new trial (anadikos krisis-Telfy). There is a similar provision in the Laws. (d) False-witness was punished at Athens by atimia and a fine (Telfy). Plato is at once more lenient and more severe: 'If a man be twice convicted of false-witness, he shall not be required, and if thrice, he shall not be allowed to bear witness; and if he dare to witness after he has been convicted three times,...he shall be punished with death.'

(2) Murder. (a) Wilful murder was punished in Athenian law by death, perpetual exile, and confiscation of property (Telfy). Plato, too, has the alternative of death or exile, but he does not confiscate the murderer's property. (b) The Parricide was not allowed to escape by going into exile at Athens (Telfy), nor, apparently, in the Laws. (c) A homicide, if forgiven by his victim before death, received no punishment, either at Athens (Telfy), or in the Magnesian state. In both (Telfy) the contriver of a murder is punished as severely as the doer; and persons accused of the crime are forbidden to enter temples or the agora until they have been tried (Telfy). (d) At Athens slaves who killed their masters and were caught red-handed, were not to be put to death by the relations of the murdered man, but to be handed over to the magistrates (Telfy). So in the Laws, the slave who is guilty of wilful murder has a public execution: but if the murder is committed in anger, it is punished by the kinsmen of the victim.

(3) Involuntary homicide. (a) The guilty person, according to the Athenian law, had to go into exile, and might not return, until the family of the man slain were conciliated. Then he must be purified (Telfy). If he is caught before he has obtained forgiveness, he may be put to death. These enactments reappear in the Laws. (b) The curious provision of Plato, that a stranger who has been banished for involuntary homicide and is subsequently wrecked upon the coast, must 'take up his abode on the sea-sh.o.r.e, wetting his feet in the sea, and watching for an opportunity of sailing,' recalls the procedure of the Judicium Phreatteum at Athens, according to which an involuntary homicide, who, having gone into exile, is accused of a wilful murder, was tried at Phreatto for this offence in a boat by magistrates on the sh.o.r.e. (c) A still more singular law, occurring both in the Athenian and Magnesian code, enacts that a stone or other inanimate object which kills a man is to be tried, and cast over the border (Telfy).

(4) Justifiable or excusable homicide. Plato and Athenian law agree in making homicide justifiable or excusable in the following cases:-(1) at the games (Telfy); (2) in war (Telfy); (3) if the person slain was found doing violence to a free woman (Telfy); (4) if a doctor's patient dies; (5) in the case of a robber (Telfy); (6) in self-defence (Telfy).

(5) Impiety. Death or expulsion was the Athenian penalty for impiety (Telfy). In the Laws it is punished in various cases by imprisonment for five years, for life, and by death.

(6) Sacrilege. Robbery of temples at Athens was punished by death, refusal of burial in the land, and confiscation of property (Telfy). In the Laws the citizen who is guilty of such a crime is to 'perish ingloriously and be cast beyond the borders of the land,' but his property is not confiscated.

(7) Sorcery. The sorcerer at Athens was to be executed (Telfy): compare Laws, where it is enacted that the physician who poisons and the professional sorcerer shall be punished with death.

(8) Treason. Both at Athens and in the Laws the penalty for treason was death (Telfy), and refusal of burial in the country (Telfy).

(9) Sheltering exiles. 'If a man receives an exile, he shall be punished with death.' So, too, in Athenian law (Telfy.).

(10) Wounding. Athenian law compelled a man who had wounded another to go into exile; if he returned, he was to be put to death (Telfy). Plato only punishes the offence with death when children wound their parents or one another, or a slave wounds his master.

(11) Bribery. Death was the punishment for taking a bribe, both at Athens (Telfy) and in the Laws; but Athenian law offered an alternative-the payment of a fine of ten times the amount of the bribe.

(12) Theft. Plato, like Athenian law (Telfy), punishes the theft of public property by death; the theft of private property in both involves a fine of double the value of the stolen goods (Telfy).

(13) Suicide. He 'who slays him who of all men, as they say, is his own best friend,' is regarded in the same spirit by Plato and by Athenian law. Plato would have him 'buried ingloriously on the borders of the twelve portions of the land, in such places as are uncultivated and nameless,' and 'no column or inscription is to mark the place of his interment.' Athenian law enacted that the hand which did the deed should be separated from the body and be buried apart (Telfy).

(14) Injury. In cases of wilful injury, Athenian law compelled the guilty person to pay double the damage; in cases of involuntary injury, simple damages (Telfy). Plato enacts that if a man wounds another in pa.s.sion, and the wound is curable, he shall pay double the damage, if incurable or disfiguring, fourfold damages. If, however, the wounding is accidental, he shall simply pay for the harm done.

(15) Treatment of parents. Athenian law allowed any one to indict another for neglect or illtreatment of parents (Telfy). So Plato bids bystanders a.s.sist a father who is a.s.saulted by his son, and allows any one to give information against children who neglect their parents.

(16) Execution of sentences. Both Plato and Athenian law give to the winner of a suit power to seize the goods of the loser, if he does not pay within the appointed time (Telfy). At Athens the penalty was also doubled (Telfy); not so in Plato. Plato however punishes contempt of court by death, which at Athens seems only to have been visited with a further fine (Telfy).

(17) Property. (a) Both at Athens and in the Laws a man who has disputed property in his possession must give the name of the person from whom he received it (Telfy); and any one searching for lost property must enter a house naked (Telfy), or, as Plato says, 'naked, or wearing only a short tunic and without a girdle. (b) Athenian law, as well as Plato, did not allow a father to disinherit his son without good reason and the consent of impartial persons (Telfy). Neither grants to the eldest son any special claim on the paternal estate (Telfy). In the law of inheritance both prefer males to females (Telfy). (c) Plato and Athenian law enacted that a tree should be planted at a fair distance from a neighbour's property (Telfy), and that when a man could not get water, his neighbour must supply him (Telfy). Both at Athens and in Plato there is a law about bees, the former providing that a beehive must be set up at not less a distance than 300 feet from a neighbour's (Telfy), and the latter forbidding the decoying of bees.

(18) Orphans. A ward must proceed against a guardian whom he suspects of fraud within five years of the expiration of the guardianship. This provision is common to Plato and to Athenian law (Telfy). Further, the latter enacted that the nearest male relation should marry or provide a husband for an heiress (Telfy),-a point in which Plato follows it closely.

(19) Contracts. Plato's law that 'when a man makes an agreement which he does not fulfil, unless the agreement be of a nature which the law or a vote of the a.s.sembly does not allow, or which he has made under the influence of some unjust compulsion, or which he is prevented from fulfilling against his will by some unexpected chance,-the other party may go to law with him,' according to Pollux (quoted in Telfy's note) prevailed also at Athens.

(20) Trade regulations. (a) Lying was forbidden in the agora both by Plato and at Athens (Telfy). (b) Athenian law allowed an action of recovery against a man who sold an unsound slave as sound (Telfy). Plato's enactment is more explicit: he allows only an unskilled person (i.e. one who is not a trainer or physician) to take proceedings in such a case. (c) Plato diverges from Athenian practice in the disapproval of credit, and does not even allow the supply of goods on the deposit of a percentage of their value (Telfy). He enacts that 'when goods are exchanged by buying and selling, a man shall deliver them and receive the price of them at a fixed place in the agora, and have done with the matter,' and that 'he who gives credit must be satisfied whether he obtain his money or not, for in such exchanges he will not be protected by law. (d) Athenian law forbad an extortionate rate of interest (Telfy); Plato allows interest in one case only-if a contractor does not receive the price of his work within a year of the time agreed-and at the rate of 200 per cent. per annum for every drachma a monthly interest of an obol. (e) Both at Athens and in the Laws sales were to be registered (Telfy), as well as births (Telfy).

(21) Sumptuary laws. Extravagance at weddings (Telfy), and at funerals (Telfy) was forbidden at Athens and also in the Magnesian state.

There remains the subject of family life, which in Plato's Laws partakes both of an Athenian and Spartan character. Under this head may conveniently be included the condition of women and of slaves. To family life may be added citizenship.

As at Sparta, marriages are to be contracted for the good of the state; and they may be dissolved on the same ground, where there is a failure of issue,-the interest of the state requiring that every one of the 5040 lots should have an heir. Divorces are likewise permitted by Plato where there is an incompatibility of temper, as at Athens by mutual consent. The duty of having children is also enforced by a still higher motive, expressed by Plato in the n.o.ble words:-'A man should cling to immortality, and leave behind him children's children to be the servants of G.o.d in his place.' Again, as at Athens, the father is allowed to put away his undutiful son, but only with the consent of impartial persons (Telfy), and the only suit which may be brought by a son against a father is for imbecility. The cla.s.s of elder and younger men and women are still to regard one another, as in the Republic, as standing in the relation of parents and children. This is a trait of Spartan character rather than of Athenian. A peculiar sanct.i.ty and tenderness was to be shown towards the aged; the parent or grandparent stricken with years was to be loved and worshipped like the image of a G.o.d, and was to be deemed far more able than any lifeless statue to bring good or ill to his descendants. Great care is to be taken of orphans: they are entrusted to the fifteen eldest Guardians of the Law, who are to be 'lawgivers and fathers to them not inferior to their natural fathers,' as at Athens they were entrusted to the Archons. Plato wishes to make the misfortune of orphanhood as little sad to them as possible.

Plato, seeing the disorder into which half the human race had fallen at Athens and Sparta, is minded to frame for them a new rule of life. He renounces his fanciful theory of communism, but still desires to place women as far as possible on an equality with men. They were to be trained in the use of arms, they are to live in public. Their time was partly taken up with gymnastic exercises; there could have been little family or private life among them. Their lot was to be neither like that of Spartan women, who were made hard and common by excessive practice of gymnastic and the want of all other education,-nor yet like that of Athenian women, who, at least among the upper cla.s.ses, retired into a sort of oriental seclusion,-but something better than either. They were to be the perfect mothers of perfect children, yet not wholly taken up with the duties of motherhood, which were to be made easy to them as far as possible (compare Republic), but able to share in the perils of war and to be the companions of their husbands. Here, more than anywhere else, the spirit of the Laws reverts to the Republic. In speaking of them as the companions of their husbands we must remember that it is an Athenian and not a Spartan way of life which they are invited to share, a life of gaiety and brightness, not of austerity and abstinence, which often by a reaction degenerated into licence and grossness.

In Plato's age the subject of slavery greatly interested the minds of thoughtful men; and how best to manage this 'troublesome piece of goods' exercised his own mind a good deal. He admits that they have often been found better than brethren or sons in the hour of danger, and are capable of rendering important public services by informing against offenders-for this they are to be rewarded; and the master who puts a slave to death for the sake of concealing some crime which he has committed, is held guilty of murder. But they are not always treated with equal consideration. The punishments inflicted on them bear no proportion to their crimes. They are to be addressed only in the language of command. Their masters are not to jest with them, lest they should increase the hardship of their lot. Some privileges were granted to them by Athenian law of which there is no mention in Plato; they were allowed to purchase their freedom from their master, and if they despaired of being liberated by him they could demand to be sold, on the chance of falling into better hands. But there is no suggestion in the Laws that a slave who tried to escape should be branded with the words-kateche me, pheugo, or that evidence should be extracted from him by torture, that the whole household was to be executed if the master was murdered and the perpetrator remained undetected: all these were provisions of Athenian law. Plato is more consistent than either the Athenians or the Spartans; for at Sparta too the Helots were treated in a manner almost unintelligible to us. On the one hand, they had arms put into their hands, and served in the army, not only, as at Plataea, in attendance on their masters, but, after they had been manumitted, as a separate body of troops called Neodamodes: on the other hand, they were the victims of one of the greatest crimes recorded in Greek history (Thucyd.). The two great philosophers of h.e.l.las sought to extricate themselves from this cruel condition of human life, but acquiesced in the necessity of it. A n.o.ble and pathetic sentiment of Plato, suggested by the thought of their misery, may be quoted in this place:-'The right treatment of slaves is to behave properly to them, and to do to them, if possible, even more justice than to those who are our equals; for he who naturally and genuinely reverences justice, and hates injustice, is discovered in his dealings with any cla.s.s of men to whom he can easily be unjust. And he who in regard to the natures and actions of his slaves is undefiled by impiety and injustice, will best sow the seeds of virtue in them; and this may be truly said of every master, and tyrant, and of every other having authority in relation to his inferiors.'

All the citizens of the Magnesian state were free and equal; there was no distinction of rank among them, such as is believed to have prevailed at Sparta. Their number was a fixed one, corresponding to the 5040 lots. One of the results of this is the requirement that younger sons or those who have been disinherited shall go out to a colony. At Athens, where there was not the same religious feeling against increasing the size of the city, the number of citizens must have been liable to considerable fluctuations. Several cla.s.ses of persons, who were not citizens by birth, were admitted to the privilege. Perpetual exiles from other countries, people who settled there to practise a trade (Telfy), any one who had shown distinguished valour in the cause of Athens, the Plataeans who escaped from the siege, metics and strangers who offered to serve in the army, the slaves who fought at Arginusae,-all these could or did become citizens. Even those who were only on one side of Athenian parentage were at more than one period accounted citizens. But at times there seems to have arisen a feeling against this promiscuous extension of the citizen body, an expression of which is to be found in the law of Pericles-monous Athenaious einai tous ek duoin Athenaion gegonotas (Plutarch, Pericles); and at no time did the adopted citizen enjoy the full rights of citizenship-e.g. he might not be elected archon or to the office of priest (Telfy), although this prohibition did not extend to his children, if born of a citizen wife. Plato never thinks of making the metic, much less the slave, a citizen. His treatment of the former cla.s.s is at once more gentle and more severe than that which prevailed at Athens. He imposes upon them no tax but good behaviour, whereas at Athens they were required to pay twelve drachmae per annum, and to have a patron: on the other hand, he only allows them to reside in the Magnesian state on condition of following a trade; they were required to depart when their property exceeded that of the third cla.s.s, and in any case after a residence of twenty years, unless they could show that they had conferred some great benefit on the state. This privileged position reflects that of the isoteleis at Athens, who were excused from the metoikion. It is Plato's greatest concession to the metic, as the bestowal of freedom is his greatest concession to the slave.

Lastly, there is a more general point of view under which the Laws of Plato may be considered,-the principles of Jurisprudence which are contained in them. These are not formally announced, but are scattered up and down, to be observed by the reflective reader for himself. Some of them are only the common principles which all courts of justice have gathered from experience; others are peculiar and characteristic. That judges should sit at fixed times and hear causes in a regular order, that evidence should be laid before them, that false witnesses should be disallowed, and corruption punished, that defendants should be heard before they are convicted,-these are the rules, not only of the h.e.l.lenic courts, but of courts of law in all ages and countries. But there are also points which are peculiar, and in which ancient jurisprudence differs considerably from modern; some of them are of great importance...It could not be said at Athens, nor was it ever contemplated by Plato, that all men, including metics and slaves, should be equal 'in the eye of the law.' There was some law for the slave, but not much; no adequate protection was given him against the cruelty of his master...It was a singular privilege granted, both by the Athenian and Magnesian law, to a murdered man, that he might, before he died, pardon his murderer, in which case no legal steps were afterwards to be taken against him. This law is the remnant of an age in which the punishment of offences against the person was the concern rather of the individual and his kinsmen than of the state...Plato's division of crimes into voluntary and involuntary and those done from pa.s.sion, only partially agrees with the distinction which modern law has drawn between murder and manslaughter; his attempt to a.n.a.lyze them is confused by the Socratic paradox, that 'All vice is involuntary'...It is singular that both in the Laws and at Athens theft is commonly punished by a twofold rest.i.tution of the article stolen. The distinction between civil and criminal courts or suits was not yet recognized...Possession gives a right of property after a certain time...The religious aspect under which certain offences were regarded greatly interfered with a just and natural estimate of their guilt...As among ourselves, the intent to murder was distinguished by Plato from actual murder...We note that both in Plato and the laws of Athens, libel in the market-place and personality in the theatre were forbidden...Both in Plato and Athenian law, as in modern times, the accomplice of a crime is to be punished as well as the princ.i.p.al...Plato does not allow a witness in a cause to act as a judge of it...Oaths are not to be taken by the parties to a suit...Both at Athens and in Plato's Laws capital punishment for murder was not to be inflicted, if the offender was willing to go into exile...Respect for the dead, duty towards parents, are to be enforced by the law as well as by public opinion...Plato proclaims the n.o.ble sentiment that the object of all punishment is the improvement of the offender... Finally, he repeats twice over, as with the voice of a prophet, that the crimes of the fathers are not to be visited upon the children. In this respect he is n.o.bly distinguished from the Oriental, and indeed from the spirit of Athenian law (compare Telfy,-dei kai autous kai tous ek touton atimous einai), as the Hebrew in the age of Ezekial is from the Jewish people of former ages.

Of all Plato's provisions the object is to bring the practice of the law more into harmony with reason and philosophy; to secure impartiality, and while acknowledging that every citizen has a right to share in the administration of justice, to counteract the tendency of the courts to become mere popular a.s.semblies.

Thus we have arrived at the end of the writings of Plato, and at the last stage of philosophy which was really his. For in what followed, which we chiefly gather from the uncertain intimations of Aristotle, the spirit of the master no longer survived. The doctrine of Ideas pa.s.sed into one of numbers; instead of advancing from the abstract to the concrete, the theories of Plato were taken out of their context, and either a.s.serted or refuted with a provoking literalism; the Socratic or Platonic element in his teaching was absorbed into the Pythagorean or Megarian. His poetry was converted into mysticism; his unsubstantial visions were a.s.sailed secundum artem by the rules of logic. His political speculations lost their interest when the freedom of h.e.l.las had pa.s.sed away. Of all his writings the Laws were the furthest removed from the traditions of the Platonic school in the next generation. Both his political and his metaphysical philosophy are for the most part misinterpreted by Aristotle. The best of him-his love of truth, and his 'contemplation of all time and all existence,' was soonest lost; and some of his greatest thoughts have slept in the ear of mankind almost ever since they were first uttered.

We have followed him during his forty or fifty years of authorship, from the beginning when he first attempted to depict the teaching of Socrates in a dramatic form, down to the time at which the character of Socrates had disappeared, and we have the latest reflections of Plato's own mind upon h.e.l.las and upon philosophy. He, who was 'the last of the poets,' in his book of Laws writes prose only; he has himself partly fallen under the rhetorical influences which in his earlier dialogues he was combating. The progress of his writings is also the history of his life; we have no other authentic life of him. They are the true self of the philosopher, stripped of the accidents of time and place. The great effort which he makes is, first, to realize abstractions, secondly, to connect them. In the attempt to realize them, he was carried into a transcendental region in which he isolated them from experience, and we pa.s.s out of the range of science into poetry or fiction. The fancies of mythology for a time cast a veil over the gulf which divides phenomena from onta (Meno, Phaedrus, Symposium, Phaedo). In his return to earth Plato meets with a difficulty which has long ceased to be a difficulty to us. He cannot understand how these obstinate, unmanageable ideas, residing alone in their heaven of abstraction, can be either combined with one another, or adapted to phenomena (Parmenides, Philebus, Sophist). That which is the most familiar process of our own minds, to him appeared to be the crowning achievement of the dialectical art. The difficulty which in his own generation threatened to be the destruction of philosophy, he has rendered unmeaning and ridiculous. For by his conquests in the world of mind our thoughts are widened, and he has furnished us with new dialectical instruments which are of greater compa.s.s and power. We have endeavoured to see him as he truly was, a great original genius struggling with unequal conditions of knowledge, not prepared with a system nor evolving in a series of dialogues ideas which he had long conceived, but contradictory, enquiring as he goes along, following the argument, first from one point of view and then from another, and therefore arriving at opposite conclusions, hovering around the light, and sometimes dazzled with excess of light, but always moving in the same element of ideal truth. We have seen him also in his decline, when the wings of his imagination have begun to droop, but his experience of life remains, and he turns away from the contemplation of the eternal to take a last sad look at human affairs.

And so having brought into the world 'n.o.ble children' (Phaedr.), he rests from the labours of authorship. More than two thousand two hundred years have pa.s.sed away since he returned to the place of Apollo and the Muses. Yet the echo of his words continues to be heard among men, because of all philosophers he has the most melodious voice. He is the inspired prophet or teacher who can never die, the only one in whom the outward form adequately represents the fair soul within; in whom the thoughts of all who went before him are reflected and of all who come after him are partly antic.i.p.ated. Other teachers of philosophy are dried up and withered,-after a few centuries they have become dust; but he is fresh and blooming, and is always begetting new ideas in the minds of men. They are one-sided and abstract; but he has many sides of wisdom. Nor is he always consistent with himself, because he is always moving onward, and knows that there are many more things in philosophy than can be expressed in words, and that truth is greater than consistency. He who approaches him in the most reverent spirit shall reap most of the fruit of his wisdom; he who reads him by the light of ancient commentators will have the least understanding of him.

We may see him with the eye of the mind in the groves of the Academy, or on the banks of the Ilissus, or in the streets of Athens, alone or walking with Socrates, full of those thoughts which have since become the common possession of mankind. Or we may compare him to a statue hid away in some temple of Zeus or Apollo, no longer existing on earth, a statue which has a look as of the G.o.d himself. Or we may once more imagine him following in another state of being the great company of heaven which he beheld of old in a vision (Phaedr.). So, 'partly trifling, but with a certain degree of seriousness' (Symp.), we linger around the memory of a world which has pa.s.sed away (Phaedr.).

LAWS

BOOK I.

PERSONS OF THE DIALOGUE: An Athenian Stranger, Cleinias (a Cretan), Megillus (a Lacedaemonian).

ATHENIAN: Tell me, Strangers, is a G.o.d or some man supposed to be the author of your laws?

CLEINIAS: A G.o.d, Stranger; in very truth a G.o.d: 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.

ATHENIAN: 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?

CLEINIAS: 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.

ATHENIAN: Yes, and a n.o.ble reputation it was, worthy of a son of Zeus. As you and Megillus have been trained in these inst.i.tutions, I dare say that you will not be unwilling to give an account of your government and laws; on our way we can pa.s.s the time pleasantly in talking 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.

CLEINIAS: 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.

ATHENIAN: Very good.

CLEINIAS: Very good, indeed; and still better when we see them; let us move on cheerily.

ATHENIAN: 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.

CLEINIAS: I think, Stranger, that the aim of our inst.i.tutions 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 hors.e.m.e.n 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 inst.i.tuted 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 men 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 inst.i.tutions, 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 inst.i.tutions are of any value to him who is defeated in battle; for all the good things of the conquered pa.s.s into the hands of the conquerors.

ATHENIAN: You appear to me, Stranger, to have been thoroughly trained in the Cretan inst.i.tutions, 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?

CLEINIAS: Certainly; and our Lacedaemonian friend, if I am not mistaken, will agree with me.

MEGILLUS: Why, my good friend, how could any Lacedaemonian say anything else?

ATHENIAN: And is what you say applicable only to states, or also to villages?

CLEINIAS: To both alike.

ATHENIAN: The case is the same?

CLEINIAS: Yes.

ATHENIAN: And in the village will there be the same war of family against family, and of individual against individual?

CLEINIAS: The same.

ATHENIAN: And should each man conceive himself to be his own enemy:-what shall we say?

CLEINIAS: O Athenian Stranger-inhabitant of Attica I will not call you, for you seem to deserve rather to be named after the G.o.ddess 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.

(ATHENIAN: My good sir, what do you mean?)- CLEINIAS:...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.

ATHENIAN: 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?

CLEINIAS: You mean that in each of them there is a principle of superiority or inferiority to self?

ATHENIAN: Yes.

CLEINIAS: 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 cla.s.ses 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.

ATHENIAN: 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.

CLEINIAS: Your remark, Stranger, is a paradox, and yet we cannot possibly deny it.

ATHENIAN: 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.

CLEINIAS: Very possibly.

ATHENIAN: 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.

CLEINIAS: What you say, Stranger, is most true.

MEGILLUS: Quite excellent, in my opinion, as far as we have gone.

ATHENIAN: Again; might there not be a judge over these brethren, of whom we were speaking?

CLEINIAS: Certainly.

ATHENIAN: 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.