Greek Texts & Translations

Certainly Megillus and I quite agree with what you say.

And shall we not say that people living in this fashion for many generations were bound to be unskilled, as compared with either the antediluvians or the men of today, and ignorant of arts in general and especially of the arts of war as now practised by land and sea, including those warlike arts which, disguised under the names of law-suits and factions, are peculiar to cities, contrived as they are with every device of word and deed to inflict mutual hurt and injury; 679eand that they were also more simple and brave and temperate, and in all ways more righteous? And the cause of this state of things we have already explained.

Quite true.

We must bear in mind that the whole purpose of what we have said and of what we are going to say next is this,—that we may understand 680awhat possible need of laws the men of that time had, and who their lawgiver was.

Excellent.

Shall we suppose that those men had no need of lawgivers, and that in those days it was not as yet usual to have such a thing? For those born in that age of the world's history did not as yet possess the art of writing, but lived by following custom and what is called patriarchal law.

That is certainly probable.

But this already amounts to a kind of government.

What kind? 680b

Everybody, I believe, gives the name of “headship” to the government which then existed,—and it still continues to exist to-day among both Greeks and barbarians in many quarters. ^note And, of course, Homer mentions its existence in connection with the household system of the Cyclopes, where he says— No halls of council and no laws are theirs,
But within hollow caves on mountain heights
Aloft they dwell, each making his own law.
680c For wife and child; of others reck they naught.
Hom. Od. 9.112

This poet of yours seems to have been a man of genius. We have also read other verses of his, and they were extremely fine; though in truth we have not read much of him, since we Cretans do not indulge much in foreign poetry.

But we Spartans do, and we regard Homer as the best of them; all the same, the mode of life he describes is always Ionian rather than Laconian. 680dAnd now he appears to be confirming your statement admirably, when in his legendary account he ascribes the primitive habits of the Cyclopes to their savagery.

Yes, his testimony supports us; so let us take him as evidence that polities of this sort do sometimes come into existence.

Quite right.

Did they not originate with those people who lived scattered in separate clans or in single households, owing to the distress which followed after the catastrophes; for amongst these the eldest holds rule, owing to the fact that the rule proceeds from the parents, 680eby following whom they form a single flock, like a covey of birds, and live under a patriarchal government and a kingship which is of all kingships the most just?

Most certainly.

Next, they congregate together in greater numbers, and form larger droves; and first they turn to farming on the hill-sides, 681aand make ring-fences of rubble and walls to ward off wild beasts, till finally they have constructed a single large common dwelling.

It is certainly probable that such was the course of events.

Well, is not this also probable?

What?

That, while these larger settlements were growing out of the original small ones, each of the small settlements continued to retain, clan by clan, both the rule of the eldest 681band also some customs derived from its isolated condition and peculiar to itself. As those who begot and reared them were different, so these customs of theirs, relating to the gods and to themselves, differed, being more orderly where their forefathers had been orderly, and more brave where they had been brave; and as thus the fathers of each clan in due course stamped upon their children and children's children their own cast of mind, these people came (as we say) into the larger community furnished each with their own peculiar laws.

Of course. 681c

And no doubt each clan was well pleased with its own laws, and less well with those of its neighbors.

True.

Unwittingly, as it seems, we have now set foot, as it were, on the starting-point of legislation.

We have indeed.

The next step necessary is that these people should come together and choose out some members of each clan who, after a survey of the legal usages of all the clans, shall notify publicly to the tribal leaders and chiefs (who may be termed their “kings”) which of those usages please them best,