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360 BC

LAWS

by Plato

translated by Benjamin Jowett

BOOK I

PERSONS OF THE DIALOGUE: An ATHENIAN STRANGER; CLEINIAS, a

Cretan; MEGILLUS, a Lacedaemonian

Athenian Stranger. Tell me, Strangers, is a God or some man supposed

to be the author of your laws?

Cleinias. A God, Stranger; in very truth a, God: 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.

Ath. 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?

Cle. 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.

Ath. Yes, and a noble reputation it was, worthy of a son of Zeus. As

you and Megillus have been trained in these institutions, I dare say

that you will not be unwilling to give an account of your government

and laws; on our way we can pass the time pleasantly in 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.

Cle. 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.

Ath. Very good.

Cle. Very good, indeed; and still better when we see them; let us

move on cheerily.

Ath. 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.

Cle. I think, Stranger, that the aim of our institutions 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

horsemen 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

instituted 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 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 institutions, 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 institutions are of any value to him

who is defeated in battle; for all the good things of the conquered

pass into the hands of the conquerors.

Ath. You appear to me, Stranger, to have been thoroughly trained

in the Cretan institutions, 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?

Cle. Certainly; and our Lacedaemonian friend, if I am not

mistaken, will agree with me.

Meg. Why, my good friend, how could any Lacedaemonian say anything

else?

Ath. And is what you say applicable only to states, or also to

villages?

Cle. To both alike.

Ath. The case is the same?

Cle. Yes.

Ath. And in the village will there be the same war of family against

family, and of individual against individual?

Cle. The same.

Ath. And should each man conceive himself to be his own

enemy:-what shall we say?

Cle. O Athenian Stranger-inhabitant of Attica I will not call you,

for you seem to deserve rather to be named after the goddess

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.

(Ath. My good sir, what do you mean?)--

Cle..... 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.

Ath. 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?

Cle. You mean that in each of them there is a principle of

superiority or inferiority to self?

Ath. Yes.

Cle. 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

classes 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.

Ath. 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.

Cle. Your remark, Stranger, is a paradox, and yet we cannot possibly

deny it.

Ath. 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.

Cle. Very possibly.

Ath. 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.

Cle. What you say, Stranger, is most true.

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

Ath. Again; might there not be a judge over these brethren, of

whom we were speaking?

Cle. Certainly.

Ath. 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.

Cle. The last would be by far the best sort of judge and legislator.

Ath. And yet the aim of all the laws which he gave would be the

reverse of war.

Cle. Very true.

Ath. And will he who constitutes the state and orders the life of

man have in view external war, or that kind of intestine war called

civil, which no one, if he could prevent, would like to have occurring

in his own state; and when occurring, every one would wish to be

quit of as soon as possible?

Cle. He would have the latter chiefly in view.

Ath. And would he prefer that this civil war should be terminated by

the destruction of one of the parties, and by the victory of the

other, or that peace and friendship should be re-established, and

that, being reconciled, they should give their attention to foreign

enemies?

Cle. Every one would desire the latter in the case of his own state.

Ath. And would not that also be the desire of the legislator?

Cle. Certainly.

Ath. And would not every one always make laws for the sake of the

best?

Cle. To be sure.

Ath. But war, whether external or civil, is not the best, and the

need of either is to be deprecated; but peace with one another, and

good will, are best. Nor is the victory of the state over itself to be

regarded as a really good thing, but as a necessity; a man might as

well say that the body was in the best state when sick and purged by

medicine, forgetting that there is also a state of the body which

needs no purge. And in like manner no one can be a true statesman,

whether he aims at the happiness of the individual or state, who looks

only, or first of all, to external warfare; nor will he ever be a

sound legislator who orders peace for the sake of war, and not war for

the sake of peace.

Cle. I suppose that there is truth, Stranger, in that remark of

yours; and yet I am greatly mistaken if war is not the entire aim

and object of our own institutions, and also of the Lacedaemonian.

Ath. I dare say; but there is no reason why we should rudely quarrel

with one another about your legislators, instead of gently questioning

them, seeing that both we and they are equally in earnest. Please

follow me and the argument closely:-And first I will put forward

Tyrtaeus, an Athenian by birth, but also a Spartan citizen, who of all

men was most eager about war: Well, he says, "I sing not, I care

not, about any man, even if he were the richest of men, and

possessed every good (and then he gives a whole list of them), if he

be not at all times a brave warrior." I imagine that you, too, must

have heard his poems; our Lacedaemonian friend has probably heard more

than enough of them.

Meg. Very true.

Cle. And they have found their way from Lacedaemon to Crete.

Ath. Come now and let us all join in asking this question of

Tyrtaeus: O most divine poet, we will say to him, the excellent praise

which you have bestowed on those who excel in war sufficiently

proves that you are wise and good, and I and Megillus and Cleinias

of Cnosus do, as I believe, entirely agree with you. But we should

like to be quite sure that we are speaking of the same men; tell us,

then, do you agree with us in thinking that there are two kinds of

war; or what would you say? A far inferior man to Tyrtaeus would

have no difficulty in replying quite truly, that war is of two kinds

one which is universally called civil war, and is as we were just

now saying, of all wars the worst; the other, as we should all

admit, in which we fall out with other nations who are of a

different race, is a far milder form of warfare.

Cle. Certainly, far milder.

Ath. Well, now, when you praise and blame war in this high-flown

strain, whom are you praising or blaming, and to which kind of war are

you referring? I suppose that you must mean foreign war, if I am to

judge from expressions of yours in which you say that you abominate

those

Who refuse to look upon fields of blood, and will not draw near

and strike at their enemies.

And we shall naturally go on to say to him-You, Tyrtaeus, as it seems,

praise those who distinguish themselves in external and foreign war;

and he must admit this.

Cle. Evidently.

Ath. They are good; but we say that there are still better men whose

virtue is displayed in the greatest of all battles. And we too have

a poet whom we summon as a witness, Theognis, citizen of Megara in

Sicily:

Cyrnus, he who is faithful in a civil broil is worth his weight in

gold and silver.

And such an one is far better, as we affirm, than the other in a

more difficult kind of war, much in the same degree as justice and

temperance and wisdom, when united with courage, are better than

courage only; for a man cannot be faithful and good in civil strife

without having all virtue. But in the war of which Tyrtaeus speaks,

many a mercenary soldier will take his stand and be ready to die at

his post, and yet they are generally and almost without exception

insolent, unjust, violent men, and the most senseless of human beings.

You will ask what the conclusion is, and what I am seeking to prove: I

maintain that the divine legislator of Crete, like any other who is

worthy of consideration, will always and above all things in making

laws have regard to the greatest virtue; which, according to Theognis,

is loyalty in the hour of danger, and may be truly called perfect

justice. Whereas, that virtue which Tyrtaeus highly praises is well

enough, and was praised by the poet at the right time, yet in place

and dignity may be said to be only fourth rate.

Cle. Stranger, we are degrading our inspired lawgiver to a rank

which is far beneath him.

Ath. Nay, I think that we degrade not him but ourselves, if we

imagine that Lycurgus and Minos laid down laws both in Lacedaemon

and Crete mainly with a view to war.

Cle. What ought we to say then?

Ath. What truth and what justice require of us, if I am not

mistaken, when speaking in behalf of divine excellence;-at the

legislator when making his laws had in view not a part only, and

this the lowest part of virtue, but all virtue, and that he devised

classes of laws answering to the kinds of virtue; not in the way in

which modern inventors of laws make the classes, for they only

investigate and offer laws whenever a want is felt, and one man has

a class of laws about allotments and heiresses, another about

assaults; others about ten thousand other such matters. But we

maintain that the right way of examining into laws is to proceed as we

have now done, and I admired the spirit of your exposition; for you

were quite right in beginning with virtue, and saying that this was

the aim of the giver of the law, but I thought that you went wrong

when you added that all his legislation had a view only to a part, and

the least part of virtue, and this called forth my subsequent remarks.

Will you allow me then to explain how I should have liked to have

heard you expound the matter?

Cle. By all means.

Ath. You ought to have said, Stranger-The Cretan laws are with

reason famous among the Hellenes; for they fulfil the object of

laws, which is to make those who use them happy; and they confer every

sort of good. Now goods are of two kinds: there are human and there

are divine goods, and the human hang upon the divine; and the state

which attains the greater, at the same time acquires the less, or, not

having the greater, has neither. Of the lesser goods the first is

health, the second beauty, the third strength, including swiftness

in running and bodily agility generally, and the fourth is wealth, not

the blind god [Pluto], but one who is keen of sight, if only he has

wisdom for his companion. For wisdom is chief and leader of the divine

dass of goods, and next follows temperance; and from the union of

these two with courage springs justice, and fourth in the scale of

virtue is courage. All these naturally take precedence of the other

goods, and this is the order in which the legislator must place

them, and after them he will enjoin the rest of his ordinances on

the citizens with a view to these, the human looking to the divine,

and the divine looking to their leader mind. Some of his ordinances

will relate to contracts of marriage which they make one with another,

and then to the procreation and education of children, both male and

female; the duty of the lawgiver will be to take charge of his

citizens, in youth and age, and at every time of life, and to give

them punishments and rewards; and in reference to all their

intercourse with one another, he ought to consider their pains and

pleasures and desires, and the vehemence of all their passions; he

should keep a watch over them, and blame and praise them rightly by

the mouth of the laws themselves. Also with regard to anger and

terror, and the other perturbations of the soul, which arise out of

misfortune, and the deliverances from them which prosperity brings,

and the experiences which come to men in diseases, or in war, or

poverty, or the opposite of these; in all these states he should

determine and teach what is the good and evil of the condition of

each. In the next place, the legislator has to be careful how the

citizens make their money and in what way they spend it, and to have

an eye to their mutual contracts and dissolutions of contracts,

whether voluntary or involuntary: he should see how they order all

this, and consider where justice as well as injustice is found or is

wanting in their several dealings with one another; and honour those

who obey the law, and impose fixed penalties on those who disobey,

until the round of civil life is ended, and the time has come for

the consideration of the proper funeral rites and honours of the dead.

And the lawgiver reviewing his work, will appoint guardians to preside

over these things-some who walk by intelligence, others by true

opinion only, and then mind will bind together all his ordinances

and show them to be in harmony with temperance and justice, and not

with wealth or ambition. This is the spirit, Stranger, in which I

was and am desirous that you should pursue the subject. And I want

to know the nature of all these things, and how they are arranged in

the laws of Zeus, as they are termed, and in those of the Pythian

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