Greek Texts & Translations

The State which I mentioned just now, Stranger, lies about eighty stades, roughly speaking, from the sea.

Well, has it harbors on the sea-board side, or is it quite without harbors?

It has excellent harbors on that side, Stranger, none better. 704c

Dear me! how unfortunate! ^note But what of the surrounding country? Is it productive in all respects, or deficient in some products?

There is practically nothing that it is deficient in.

Will there be any State bordering close on it?

None at all, and that is the reason for settling it. Owing to emigration from this district long ago, the country has lain desolate for ever so long.

How about plains, mountains and forests? What extent of each of these does it contain? 704d

As a whole, it resembles in character the rest of Crete.

You would call it hilly rather than level?

Certainly.

Then it would not be incurably unfit for the acquisition of virtue. For if the State was to be on the sea-coast, and to have fine harbors, and to be deficient in many products, instead of productive of everything,—in that case it would need a mighty savior and divine lawgivers, if, with such a character, it was to avoid having a variety of luxurious and depraved habits. ^note As things are, however, there is consolation in the fact of that eighty stades. Still, it lies unduly near the sea, and the more so because, as you say, its harbors are good; that, however, we must make the best of. 705aFor the sea is, in very truth, “a right briny and bitter neighbor,” ^note although there is sweetness in its proximity for the uses of daily life; for by filling the markets of the city with foreign merchandise and retail trading, and breeding in men's souls knavish and tricky ways, it renders the city faithless and loveless, not to itself only, but to the rest of the world as well. But in this respect 705bour State has compensation in the fact that it is all-productive; and since it is hilly, it cannot be highly productive as well as all-productive; if it were, and supplied many exports, it would be flooded in return with gold and silver money—the one condition of all, perhaps, that is most fatal, in a State, to the acquisition of noble and just habits of life,—as we said, if you remember, in our previous discourse. ^note

We remember, and we endorse what you said both then and now. 705c

Well, then, how is our district off for timber for ship-building?

There is no fir to speak of, nor pine, and but little cypress; nor could one find much larch or plane, which shipwrights are always obliged to use for the interior fittings of ships.

Those, two, are natural features which would not be bad for the country.

Why so? 705d

That a State should not find it easy to copy its enemies in bad habits is a good thing.

To which of our statements does this observation allude?

My dear Sir, keep a watch on me, with an eye cast back on our opening ^note statement about the Cretan laws. It asserted that those laws aimed at one single object; and whereas you declared that this object was military strength, I made the rejoinder that, while it was right that such enactments should have virtue for their aim, I did not at all approve of that aim being restricted to a part, instead of applying to the whole. 705eSo do you now, in turn, keep a watch on my present lawmaking, as you follow it, in case I should enact any law either not tending to virtue at all, or tending only to a part of it. For I lay it down as an axiom that no law is rightly enacted which does not aim always, like an archer, at that object, and that alone, which is constantly 706aaccompanied by something ever-beautiful,—passing over every other object, be it wealth or anything else of the kind that is devoid of beauty. To illustrate how the evil imitation of enemies, which I spoke of, comes about, when people dwell by the sea and are vexed by enemies, I will give you an example (though with no wish, of course, to recall to you painful memories). When Minos, once upon a time, reduced the people of Attica 706bto a grievous payment of tribute, he was very powerful by sea, whereas they possessed no warships at that time such as they have now, nor was their country so rich in timber that they could easily supply themselves with a naval force. Hence they were unable quickly to copy the naval methods of their enemies and drive them off by becoming sailors themselves. And indeed it would have profited them to lose seventy times seven children