Greek Texts & Translations

Of course.

Yet, brave though these men are, we still maintain that they are far surpassed in bravery by those who are conspicuously brave in the greatest of wars; and we also have a poet for witness,—Theognis (a citizen of Sicilian Megara), who says: In the day of grievous feud, O Cyrnus, the loyal warrior is worth his weight in silver and gold.
Theognis 5.77-8 Bergk ^note Such a man, in a war much more grievous, is, we say, ever so much better than the other—nearly as much better, in fact, as the union of justice, prudence and wisdom 630bwith courage is better than courage by itself alone. For a man would never prove himself a loyal and sound in civil war if devoid of goodness in its entirety; whereas in the war of which Tyrtaeus speaks there are vast numbers of mercenaries ready to die fighting ^note “with well-planted feet apart,” of whom the majority, with but few exceptions, prove themselves reckless, unjust, violent, and pre-eminently foolish. What, then, is the conclusion to which our present discourse is tending, and what point is it trying to make clear by these statements? Plainly it is this: both the Heaven-taught legislator of Crete 630cand every legislator who is worth his salt will most assuredly legislate always with a single eye to the highest goodness and to that alone; and this (to quote Theognis) consists in “loyalty in danger,” and one might term it “complete righteousness.” But that goodness which Tyrtaeus specially praised, 630dfair though it be and fitly glorified by the poet, deserves nevertheless to be placed no higher than fourth in order and estimation. ^note

We are degrading our own lawgiver, Stranger, to a very low level!

Nay, my good Sir, it is ourselves we are degrading, in so far as we imagine that it was with a special view to war that Lycurgus and Minos laid down all the legal usages here and in Lacedaemon.

How, then, ought we to have stated the matter?

In the way that is, as I think, true and proper 630ewhen talking of a divine hero. That is to say, we should state that he enacted laws with an eye not to some one fraction, and that the most paltry, of goodness, but to goodness as a whole, and that he devised the laws themselves according to classes, though not the classes which the present devisers propound. For everyone now brings forward and devises just the class which he needs: one man deals with inheritances and heiresses, another with cases of battery, and so on 631ain endless variety. But what we assert is that the devising of laws, when rightly conducted, follows the procedure which we have now commenced. Indeed, I greatly admire the way you opened your exposition of the laws; for to make a start with goodness and say that that was the aim of the lawgiver is the right way. But in your further statement that he legislated wholly with reference to a fraction of goodness, and that the smallest fraction, you seemed to me to be in error, and all this latter part of my discourse was because of that. What then is the manner of exposition I should have liked to have heard from you? 631bShall I tell you?

Yes, by all means.

“O Stranger” (thus you ought to have said), “it is not for nothing that the laws of the Cretans are held in superlatively high repute among all the Hellenes. For they are true laws inasmuch as they effect the well-being of those who use them by supplying all that are good. Now goods are of two kinds, human and divine; and the human goods are dependent on the divine, and he who receives the greater acquires also the less, or else he is bereft of both. 631cThe lesser goods are those of which health ranks first, beauty second; the third is strength, in running and all other bodily exercises; and the fourth is wealth—no blind god Plutus, but keen of sight, provided that he has wisdom for companion. And wisdom, in turn, has first place among the goods that are divine, and rational temperance of soul comes second; from these two, when united with courage, there issues justice, as the third; 631dand the fourth is courage. Now all these are by nature ranked before the human goods, and verily the law-giver also must so rank them. Next, it must be proclaimed to the citizens that all the other instructions they receive have these in view; and that, of these goods themselves, the human look up to the divine, and the divine to reason as their chief. And in regard to their marriage connections, and to their subsequent breeding and rearing of children, male and female, both during youth and in later life