| Plato, Laws (English) (XML Header) [genre: prose] [word count] [lemma count] [Pl. Leg.]. | ||
| <<Pl. Leg. 848d | Pl. Leg. 850d (Greek) | >>Pl. Leg. 855a |
849eand at what time he pleases. As to all other goods and utensils that each party requires, they shall be brought for sale to the public market, each kind to its appointed place, wherever the Law-wardens and market-stewards, with the help of the city-stewards, have marked out suitable sites and set up the stalls for market-stuff: there they shall exchange coins for goods and goods for coins, and no man shall give up his share to the other without receiving its equivalent; and if any does thus give it up, as it were on credit, he shall make the best of his bargain, note whether or not he recovers what is due to him, since in such transactions he can no longer sue.
850aAnd if the purchase or sale is greater or more costly than is allowed by the law stating the limits of increase or decrease of property beyond which both of these transactions are forbidden, the amount of difference must at once (in the case of excess) be registered with the Law-wardens, and (in the case of deficiency) be cancelled. The same rule shall hold good regarding the registration of property in the case of resident aliens. Whosoever wishes shall enter on residence as an alien on fixed terms, since residence is permitted to a foreigner who is willing and able to reside,
850bprovided that he has a craft and remains in the country not more than twenty years from the date of his registration, without the payment of even a small aliens' tax, except virtuous conduct, or indeed any other tax for any buying or selling; and when his time has expired, he shall depart, taking with him his own property. And if within the period of twenty years it should happen that he has proved his merit by doing some signal service to the State, and if he believes that he can persuade the Council and Assembly to grant his request and authorize a
850cpostponement of his departure, or even an extension of his residence for life, whatever request he thus succeeds in persuading the State to grant to him shall be carried out for him in full. For the children of resident aliens, who are craftsmen and over fifteen years of age, the period of residence shall commence from the fifteenth year, and such an one, after remaining for twenty years from that date, shall depart whither he pleases, or if he desires to remain, he shall gain permission in like manner, and so remain; and he that departs
850dshall go after first cancelling the entries which were previously made by him in the register at the magistrates' office.
853aAthenian
The method of our legislation requires that we should deal next with the judicial proceedings connected with all the transactions hitherto described. The matters which involve such proceedings have been stated note in part (those, namely, which concern farming and all industries dependent thereon), but we have not stated as yet the most important of such matters; so our next step must be to state them in full, enumerating in detail what penalty must attach to each offence,
853band before what court it must be tried.CliniasTrue.
AthenianIt is, in a sense, a shameful thing to make all those laws that we are proposing to make in a State like ours, which is, as we say, to be well managed and furnished with all that is right for the practice of virtue. In such a State, the mere supposition that any citizen will grow up to share in the worst forms of depravity practiced in other States, so that one must forestall and denounce by law the appearance of any such character,
853cand, in order to warn them off or punish them, enact laws against them, as though they were certain to appear,—this, as I have said, is in a sense shameful. But we are not now legislating, like the ancient lawgivers, for heroes and sons of gods, note—when, as the story goes, both the lawgivers themselves and their subjects were men of divine descent: we, on the contrary, are but mortal men legislating for the seed of men, and therefore it is permitted to us to dread lest any of our citizens should prove horny-hearted 853dand attain to such hardness of temper as to be beyond melting; and just as those “horn-struck” note beans cannot be softened by boiling on the fire, so these men should be uninfluenced by laws, however powerful. So, for the sake of these gentlemen, no very gentle law shall be stated first concerning temple-robbery, in case anyone dares to commit this crime. That a rightly nurtured citizen should be infected with this disease is a thing that we should neither desire nor expect; but such attempts might often be made by their servants, and by foreigners or foreigners' slaves. Chiefly, then, on their account, and also as a precaution against 854athe general infirmity of human nature, I will state the law about temple-robbing, and all other crimes of a like kind which are hard, if not impossible, to cure. And, in accordance with our rule as already approved, note we must prefix to all such laws preludes as brief as possible. By way of argument and admonition one might address in the following terms the man whom an evil desire urges by day and wakes up at night, driving him to rob some sacred object—| Plato, Laws (English) (XML Header) [genre: prose] [word count] [lemma count] [Pl. Leg.]. | ||
| <<Pl. Leg. 848d | Pl. Leg. 850d (Greek) | >>Pl. Leg. 855a |
