Laws Part 9

CLEINIAS: Probably.

ATHENIAN: But there was already existing a form of government which, if I am not mistaken, is generally termed a lordship, and this still remains in many places, both among h.e.l.lenes and barbarians (compare Arist. Pol.), and is the government which is declared by Homer to have prevailed among the Cyclopes:- 'They have neither councils nor judgments, but they dwell in hollow caves on the tops of high mountains, and every one gives law to his wife and children, and they do not busy themselves about one another.' (Odyss.) CLEINIAS: That seems to be a charming poet of yours; I have read some other verses of his, which are very clever; but I do not know much of him, for foreign poets are very little read among the Cretans.

MEGILLUS: But they are in Lacedaemon, and he appears to be the prince of them all; the manner of life, however, which he describes is not Spartan, but rather Ionian, and he seems quite to confirm what you are saying, when he traces up the ancient state of mankind by the help of tradition to barbarism.

ATHENIAN: Yes, he does confirm it; and we may accept his witness to the fact that such forms of government sometimes arise.

CLEINIAS: We may.

ATHENIAN: And were not such states composed of men who had been dispersed in single habitations and families by the poverty which attended the devastations; and did not the eldest then rule among them, because with them government originated in the authority of a father and a mother, whom, like a flock of birds, they followed, forming one troop under the patriarchal rule and sovereignty of their parents, which of all sovereignties is the most just?

CLEINIAS: Very true.

ATHENIAN: After this they came together in greater numbers, and increased the size of their cities, and betook themselves to husbandry, first of all at the foot of the mountains, and made enclosures of loose walls and works of defence, in order to keep off wild beasts; thus creating a single large and common habitation.

CLEINIAS: Yes; at least we may suppose so.

ATHENIAN: There is another thing which would probably happen.

CLEINIAS: What?

ATHENIAN: When these larger habitations grew up out of the lesser original ones, each of the lesser ones would survive in the larger; every family would be under the rule of the eldest, and, owing to their separation from one another, would have peculiar customs in things divine and human, which they would have received from their several parents who had educated them; and these customs would incline them to order, when the parents had the element of order in their nature, and to courage, when they had the element of courage. And they would naturally stamp upon their children, and upon their children's children, their own likings; and, as we are saying, they would find their way into the larger society, having already their own peculiar laws.

CLEINIAS: Certainly.

ATHENIAN: And every man surely likes his own laws best, and the laws of others not so well.

CLEINIAS: True.

ATHENIAN: Then now we seem to have stumbled upon the beginnings of legislation.

CLEINIAS: Exactly.

ATHENIAN: The next step will be that these persons who have met together, will select some arbiters, who will review the laws of all of them, and will publicly present such as they approve to the chiefs who lead the tribes, and who are in a manner their kings, allowing them to choose those which they think best. These persons will themselves be called legislators, and will appoint the magistrates, framing some sort of aristocracy, or perhaps monarchy, out of the dynasties or lordships, and in this altered state of the government they will live.

CLEINIAS: Yes, that would be the natural order of things.

ATHENIAN: Then, now let us speak of a third form of government, in which all other forms and conditions of polities and cities concur.

CLEINIAS: What is that?

ATHENIAN: The form which in fact Homer indicates as following the second. This third form arose when, as he says, Darda.n.u.s founded Dardania:- 'For not as yet had the holy Ilium been built on the plain to be a city of speaking men; but they were still dwelling at the foot of many-fountained Ida.'

For indeed, in these verses, and in what he said of the Cyclopes, he speaks the words of G.o.d and nature; for poets are a divine race, and often in their strains, by the aid of the Muses and the Graces, they attain truth.

CLEINIAS: Yes.

ATHENIAN: Then now let us proceed with the rest of our tale, which will probably be found to ill.u.s.trate in some degree our proposed design:-Shall we do so?

CLEINIAS: By all means.

ATHENIAN: Ilium was built, when they descended from the mountain, in a large and fair plain, on a sort of low hill, watered by many rivers descending from Ida.

CLEINIAS: Such is the tradition.

ATHENIAN: And we must suppose this event to have taken place many ages after the deluge?

ATHENIAN: A marvellous forgetfulness of the former destruction would appear to have come over them, when they placed their town right under numerous streams flowing from the heights, trusting for their security to not very high hills, either.

CLEINIAS: There must have been a long interval, clearly.

ATHENIAN: And, as population increased, many other cities would begin to be inhabited.

CLEINIAS: Doubtless.

ATHENIAN: Those cities made war against Troy-by sea as well as land-for at that time men were ceasing to be afraid of the sea.

CLEINIAS: Clearly.

ATHENIAN: The Achaeans remained ten years, and overthrew Troy.

CLEINIAS: True.

ATHENIAN: And during the ten years in which the Achaeans were besieging Ilium, the homes of the besiegers were falling into an evil plight. Their youth revolted; and when the soldiers returned to their own cities and families, they did not receive them properly, and as they ought to have done, and numerous deaths, murders, exiles, were the consequence. The exiles came again, under a new name, no longer Achaeans, but Dorians,-a name which they derived from Dorieus; for it was he who gathered them together. The rest of the story is told by you Lacedaemonians as part of the history of Sparta.

MEGILLUS: To be sure.

ATHENIAN: Thus, after digressing from the original subject of laws into music and drinking-bouts, the argument has, providentially, come back to the same point, and presents to us another handle. For we have reached the settlement of Lacedaemon; which, as you truly say, is in laws and in inst.i.tutions the sister of Crete. And we are all the better for the digression, because we have gone through various governments and settlements, and have been present at the foundation of a first, second, and third state, succeeding one another in infinite time. And now there appears on the horizon a fourth state or nation which was once in process of settlement and has continued settled to this day. If, out of all this, we are able to discern what is well or ill settled, and what laws are the salvation and what are the destruction of cities, and what changes would make a state happy, O Megillus and Cleinias, we may now begin again, unless we have some fault to find with the previous discussion.

MEGILLUS: If some G.o.d, Stranger, would promise us that our new enquiry about legislation would be as good and full as the present, I would go a great way to hear such another, and would think that a day as long as this-and we are now approaching the longest day of the year-was too short for the discussion.

ATHENIAN: Then I suppose that we must consider this subject?

MEGILLUS: Certainly.

ATHENIAN: Let us place ourselves in thought at the moment when Lacedaemon and Argos and Messene and the rest of the Peloponnesus were all in complete subjection, Megillus, to your ancestors; for afterwards, as the legend informs us, they divided their army into three portions, and settled three cities, Argos, Messene, Lacedaemon.

MEGILLUS: True.

ATHENIAN: Temenus was the king of Argos, Cresphontes of Messene, Procles and Eurysthenes of Lacedaemon.

MEGILLUS: Certainly.

ATHENIAN: To these kings all the men of that day made oath that they would a.s.sist them, if any one subverted their kingdom.

MEGILLUS: True.

ATHENIAN: But can a kingship be destroyed, or was any other form of government ever destroyed, by any but the rulers themselves? No indeed, by Zeus. Have we already forgotten what was said a little while ago?

MEGILLUS: No.

ATHENIAN: And may we not now further confirm what was then mentioned? For we have come upon facts which have brought us back again to the same principle; so that, in resuming the discussion, we shall not be enquiring about an empty theory, but about events which actually happened. The case was as follows:-Three royal heroes made oath to three cities which were under a kingly government, and the cities to the kings, that both rulers and subjects should govern and be governed according to the laws which were common to all of them: the rulers promised that as time and the race went forward they would not make their rule more arbitrary; and the subjects said that, if the rulers observed these conditions, they would never subvert or permit others to subvert those kingdoms; the kings were to a.s.sist kings and peoples when injured, and the peoples were to a.s.sist peoples and kings in like manner. Is not this the fact?

MEGILLUS: Yes.

ATHENIAN: And the three states to whom these laws were given, whether their kings or any others were the authors of them, had therefore the greatest security for the maintenance of their const.i.tutions?

MEGILLUS: What security?

ATHENIAN: That the other two states were always to come to the rescue against a rebellious third.

MEGILLUS: True.

ATHENIAN: Many persons say that legislators ought to impose such laws as the ma.s.s of the people will be ready to receive; but this is just as if one were to command gymnastic masters or physicians to treat or cure their pupils or patients in an agreeable manner.

MEGILLUS: Exactly.

ATHENIAN: Whereas the physician may often be too happy if he can restore health, and make the body whole, without any very great infliction of pain.

MEGILLUS: Certainly.

ATHENIAN: There was also another advantage possessed by the men of that day, which greatly lightened the task of pa.s.sing laws.

MEGILLUS: What advantage?

ATHENIAN: The legislators of that day, when they equalized property, escaped the great accusation which generally arises in legislation, if a person attempts to disturb the possession of land, or to abolish debts, because he sees that without this reform there can never be any real equality. Now, in general, when the legislator attempts to make a new settlement of such matters, every one meets him with the cry, that 'he is not to disturb vested interests,'-declaring with imprecations that he is introducing agrarian laws and cancelling of debts, until a man is at his wits' end; whereas no one could quarrel with the Dorians for distributing the land,-there was nothing to hinder them; and as for debts, they had none which were considerable or of old standing.

MEGILLUS: Very true.

ATHENIAN: But then, my good friends, why did the settlement and legislation of their country turn out so badly?

MEGILLUS: How do you mean; and why do you blame them?

ATHENIAN: There were three kingdoms, and of these, two quickly corrupted their original const.i.tution and laws, and the only one which remained was the Spartan.

MEGILLUS: The question which you ask is not easily answered.

ATHENIAN: And yet must be answered when we are enquiring about laws, this being our old man's sober game of play, whereby we beguile the way, as I was saying when we first set out on our journey.

MEGILLUS: Certainly; and we must find out why this was.

ATHENIAN: What laws are more worthy of our attention than those which have regulated such cities? or what settlements of states are greater or more famous?

MEGILLUS: I know of none.

ATHENIAN: Can we doubt that your ancestors intended these inst.i.tutions not only for the protection of Peloponnesus, but of all the h.e.l.lenes, in case they were attacked by the barbarian? For the inhabitants of the region about Ilium, when they provoked by their insolence the Trojan war, relied upon the power of the a.s.syrians and the Empire of Ninus, which still existed and had a great prestige; the people of those days fearing the united a.s.syrian Empire just as we now fear the Great King. And the second capture of Troy was a serious offence against them, because Troy was a portion of the a.s.syrian Empire. To meet the danger the single army was distributed between three cities by the royal brothers, sons of Heracles,-a fair device, as it seemed, and a far better arrangement than the expedition against Troy. For, firstly, the people of that day had, as they thought, in the Heraclidae better leaders than the Pelopidae; in the next place, they considered that their army was superior in valour to that which went against Troy; for, although the latter conquered the Trojans, they were themselves conquered by the Heraclidae-Achaeans by Dorians. May we not suppose that this was the intention with which the men of those days framed the const.i.tutions of their states?

MEGILLUS: Quite true.

ATHENIAN: And would not men who had shared with one another many dangers, and were governed by a single race of royal brothers, and had taken the advice of oracles, and in particular of the Delphian Apollo, be likely to think that such states would be firmly and lastingly established?

MEGILLUS: Of course they would.

ATHENIAN: Yet these inst.i.tutions, of which such great expectations were entertained, seem to have all rapidly vanished away; with the exception, as I was saying, of that small part of them which existed in your land. And this third part has never to this day ceased warring against the two others; whereas, if the original idea had been carried out, and they had agreed to be one, their power would have been invincible in war.

MEGILLUS: No doubt.

ATHENIAN: But what was the ruin of this glorious confederacy? Here is a subject well worthy of consideration.

MEGILLUS: Certainly, no one will ever find more striking instances of laws or governments being the salvation or destruction of great and n.o.ble interests, than are here presented to his view.

ATHENIAN: Then now we seem to have happily arrived at a real and important question.

MEGILLUS: Very true.

ATHENIAN: Did you never remark, sage friend, that all men, and we ourselves at this moment, often fancy that they see some beautiful thing which might have effected wonders if any one had only known how to make a right use of it in some way; and yet this mode of looking at things may turn out after all to be a mistake, and not according to nature, either in our own case or in any other?

MEGILLUS: To what are you referring, and what do you mean?

ATHENIAN: I was thinking of my own admiration of the aforesaid Heracleid expedition, which was so n.o.ble, and might have had such wonderful results for the h.e.l.lenes, if only rightly used; and I was just laughing at myself.

MEGILLUS: But were you not right and wise in speaking as you did, and we in a.s.senting to you?

ATHENIAN: Perhaps; and yet I cannot help observing that any one who sees anything great or powerful, immediately has the feeling that-'If the owner only knew how to use his great and n.o.ble possession, how happy would he be, and what great results would he achieve!'

MEGILLUS: And would he not be justified?

ATHENIAN: Reflect; in what point of view does this sort of praise appear just: First, in reference to the question in hand:-If the then commanders had known how to arrange their army properly, how would they have attained success? Would not this have been the way? They would have bound them all firmly together and preserved them for ever, giving them freedom and dominion at pleasure, combined with the power of doing in the whole world, h.e.l.lenic and barbarian, whatever they and their descendants desired. What other aim would they have had?

MEGILLUS: Very good.

ATHENIAN: Suppose any one were in the same way to express his admiration at the sight of great wealth or family honour, or the like, he would praise them under the idea that through them he would attain either all or the greater and chief part of what he desires.

MEGILLUS: He would.

ATHENIAN: Well, now, and does not the argument show that there is one common desire of all mankind?

MEGILLUS: What is it?

ATHENIAN: The desire which a man has, that all things, if possible,-at any rate, things human,-may come to pa.s.s in accordance with his soul's desire.

MEGILLUS: Certainly.

ATHENIAN: And having this desire always, and at every time of life, in youth, in manhood, in age, he cannot help always praying for the fulfilment of it.

MEGILLUS: No doubt.

ATHENIAN: And we join in the prayers of our friends, and ask for them what they ask for themselves.