Greek Texts & Translations

Probably God will be willing.

Probably he will; and with him as leader let us observe this also—

What?

How bold and adventurous is the fashion in which we shall now have founded this State of ours.

What is now specially in your mind, and what makes you say so?

The fact that we are legislating lightheartedly and boldly for inexperienced men, in the hope that they will accept the laws we have now enacted. Thus much at least is plain, Clinias, to almost everyone—even to the meanest intelligence— 752cthat they will not readily accept any of those laws at the start; but if those laws could remain unchanged until those who have imbibed them in infancy, and have been reared up in them and grown fully used to them, have taken part in elections to office in every department of State,—then, when this has been effected (if any means or method can be found to effect it rightly) , we have, as I think, a strong security that, after this transitional period of disciplined adolescence, the State will remain firm. 752d

It is certainly reasonable to suppose so.

Let us then consider whether we might succeed in providing an adequate means to this end on the following lines. For I declare, Clinias, that you Cnosians, above all other Cretans, not only ought to deal in no perfunctory manner with the soil which you are now settling, but ought also to take the utmost care that the first officials are appointed in the best and most secure way possible. The selection of the rest of them will be a less serious task; but it is imperatively necessary 752efor you to choose your Law-wardens first with the utmost care.

What means can we find for this, or what rule?

This: I assert, O ye sons of Crete, that, since the Cnosians take precedence over most of the Cretan cities, they should combine with those who have come into this community to select thirty-seven persons in all from their own number and the community—nineteen from the latter body, and the rest from Cnosus itself; 753aand those men the Cnosians should make over to your State, and they should make you in person a citizen of this colony and one of the eighteen—using persuasion or, possibly, a reasonable degree of compulsion.

Why, pray, have not you also, Stranger, and Megillus lent us a hand in our constitution?

Athens is haughty, Clinias, and Sparta also is haughty, and both are far distant: but for you this course is in all respects proper, as it is likewise for the rest of the founders of the colony, 753bto whom also our recent remarks about you apply. Let us, then, assume that this would be the most equitable arrangement under the conditions at present existing. Later on, if the constitution still remains, the selection of officials shall take place as follows:—In the selection of officials all men shall take part who carry arms, as horse-soldiers or foot-soldiers, or who have served in war so far as their age and ability allowed. They shall make the selection in that shrine which the State shall deem the most sacred; 753cand each man shall bring to the altar of the god, written on a tablet, the name of his nominee, with his father's name and that of his tribe and of the deme he belongs to, and beside these he shall write also his own name in like manner. Any man who chooses shall be permitted to remove any tablet which seems to him to be improperly written, and to place it in the market-place for not less than thirty days. The officials shall publicly exhibit, for all the State to see, 753dthose of the tablets that are adjudged to come first, to the number of 300; and all the citizens shall vote again in like manner, each for whomsoever of these he wishes. Of these, the officials shall again exhibit publicly the names of those who are adjudged first, up to the number of 100. The third time, he that wishes shall vote for whomsoever he wishes out of the hundred, passing between slain victims ^note as he does so: then they shall test the thirty-seven men who have secured most votes, and declare them to be magistrates. 753eWho, then, are the men, O Clinias and Megillus, who shall establish in our State all these regulations concerning magisterial offices and tests? We perceive (do we not?) that for States that are thus getting into harness for the first time some such persons there must necessarily be; but who they can be, before any officials exist, it is impossible to see. Yet somehow or other they must be there—and men, too, of no mean quality, but of the highest quality possible. For, as the saying goes, “well begun is half done,” ^note and every man always commends a good beginning; but it is truly, as I think, something more than the half, and no man has ever yet commended as it deserves 754aa beginning that is well made.

Very true.

Let us not then wittingly leave this first step unmentioned, nor fail to make it quite clear to ourselves how it is to be brought about. I, however, am by no means fertile in resource, save for one statement which, in view of the present situation, it is both necessary and useful to make.

What statement is that?

I assert that the State for whose settlement we are planning has nobody in the way of parents except