Greek Texts & Translations

Very good; we quite agree.

So much for that, then! Now, what are we to say about the origin of government? Would not the best and easiest way of discerning it be from this standpoint?

What standpoint?

That from which one should always observe the progress of States as they move towards either goodness or badness.

What point is that?

The observation, as I suppose, of an infinitely long period of time 676band of the variations therein occurring.

Explain your meaning.

Tell me now: do you think you could ever ascertain the space of time that has passed since cities came into existence and men lived under civic rule?

Certainly it would be no easy task.

But you can easily see that it is vast and immeasurable?

That I most certainly can do.

During this time, have not thousands upon thousands of States come into existence, and, on a similar computation, just as many perished? 676cAnd have they not in each case exhibited all kinds of constitutions over and over again? And have they not changed at one time from small to great, at another from great to small, and changed also from good to bad and from bad to good?

Necessarily.

Of this process of change let us discover, if we can, the cause; for this, perhaps, would show us what is the primary origin of constitutions, as well as their transformation.

You are right; and we must all exert ourselves,—you to expound your view about them, and we to keep pace with you. 677a

Do you consider that there is any truth in the ancient tales?

What tales?

That the world of men has often been destroyed by floods, plagues, and many other things, in such a way that only a small portion of the human race has survived.

Everyone would regard such accounts as perfectly credible.

Come now, let us picture to ourselves one of the many catastrophes,—namely, that which occurred once upon a time through the Deluge. ^note

And what are we to imagine about it? 677b

That the men who then escaped destruction must have been mostly herdsmen of the hills, scanty embers of the human race preserved somewhere on the mountain-tops.

Evidently.

Moreover, men of this kind must necessarily have been unskilled in the arts generally, and especially in such contrivances as men use against one another in cities for purposes of greed and rivalry and all the other villainies which they devise one against another. 677c

It is certainly probable.

Shall we assume that the cities situated in the plains and near the sea were totally destroyed at the time?

Let us assume it.

And shall we say that all implements were lost, and that everything in the way of important arts or inventions that they may have had,—whether concerned with politics or other sciences,— perished at that time? For, supposing that things had remained all that time ordered just as they are now, how, my good sir, could anything new have ever been invented? 677d

Do you mean that these things were unknown to the men of those days for thousands upon thousands of years, and that one or two thousand years ago some of them were revealed to Daedalus, some to Orpheus, some to Palamedes, musical arts to Marsyas and Olympus, lyric to Amphion, and, in short, a vast number of others to other persons—all dating, so to say, from yesterday or the day before?

Are you aware, Clinias, that you have left out your friend who was literally a man of yesterday?

Is it Epimenides ^note you mean?

Yes, I mean him. For he far outstripped everybody you had, my friend, by that invention of his of which he was the actual producer, as you Cretans say, although Hesiod ^note had divined it and spoken of it long before.