| Plato, Laws (English) (XML Header) [genre: prose] [word count] [lemma count] [Pl. Leg.]. | ||
| <<Pl. Leg. 944b | Pl. Leg. 946b (Greek) | >>Pl. Leg. 948a |
945cIt is by no means easy to find an officer of officers, who surpasses them in excellence, but still one must try to find some examiners of a divine quality. In fact, the case stands thus:—The dissolution of a polity, like that of a ship's frame, depends upon many critical factors: these (in the case of a ship) though one in nature are separated into many parts, and we call them by many names—such as stays, under-girders, bracing-ropes. For the preservation, or dissolution and disappearance, of a polity the office of examiner is such a critical factor, and that of the gravest kind.
945dFor if those who act as examiners of the magistrates are better men than they, and if they act blamelessly with blameless justice, then the whole of the State and country flourishes and is happy; but if the examination of the magistrates is carried out otherwise, then the bond of justice which binds all political elements into one is dissolved, and in consequence every office is torn apart from every other, and they no longer tend all to the same end; and thus out of one State they make many, note and by filling it with civil strife they speedily bring it to ruin.
945eWherefore it is most necessary that the examiners should be men of admirably complete virtue. Let us contrive to bring them into being in some such way as this:—Every year, after the summer solstice, note the whole State must assemble at the common precincts of Helios and Apollo, there to present before the god the names of three out of their own number,—
946aeach citizen proposing that man, not less than fifty years old, whom (with the exception of himself) he regards as in all respects the best. Of those so nominated they shall choose out those who have gained most votes—half of the total number nominated, if that number be even, but if it be an odd number, they shall reject the one who has least votes and retain the even half, marking them off according to the number of the votes received; and if several have an equal number of votes, thus causing the upper half-section to be too large, they shall remove the excess by rejecting those that are youngest;
946bthe rest being retained on the list, they shall vote again on these, and they shall continue the same process until three be left with an unequal number of votes. If, however, all of these, or two of them, have equal votes, they shall commit the matter to good luck and chance, and distinguish by lot between the first, the second, and the third, and crown them with olive-wreaths; and when they have thus awarded the distinctions, they shall make this public proclamation:—The State of the Magnetes,—which, by God's grace, has again won salvation,—has presented to Helios the three best of its own men, and now it dedicates them,
946caccording to the ancient law, as a joint offering to Apollo and Helios of its choicest first fruits, for so long a time as they pursue their judicial task. Twelve such examiners shall be appointed in the first year, until each of them has come to the age of seventy-five; and thereafter three shall be added annually. And they, after dividing all the public offices into twelve sections, shall employ all tests, of a gentlemanly kind, in investigating them. So long as they are serving as examiners, they shall reside within the precincts of Apollo and Helios,
946dwhere they were chosen. When they have judged—either each one singly or in consultation with one another—the State officials, they shall publish, by means of records placed in the market, a statement concerning what each official should suffer or pay according to the decision of the examiners. If any official claims that he has not been judged justly, he shall summon the examiners before the select judges; note and if he be acquitted in respect of the examiners' charges, he shall, if he wishes,
946eprosecute the examiners themselves; but if he be convicted, in case the penalty imposed on him by the examiners be death, he shall simply be put to death (one death only being possible), but in the case of other penalties which admit of being doubled, he shall pay a double penalty. As regards the examinations of these examiners themselves, it is right for us to hear what they are to be, and how they are to be conducted. During their lifetime these men, who have been deemed worthy of the highest distinction by the whole State,
947ashall have the front seats at every festival; and from their number, too, shall be chosen the heads of every sacred mission sent out to take part in any public sacrifices, congresses or other such sacred assemblies of the Hellenes; and these alone of all the citizens shall be adorned with a crown of laurel; and they all shall be priests of Apollo and Helios, and every year that one of them who has been adjudged first of those appointed in that year shall be the high-priest, and his name they shall inscribe at the head of the year,
947bthat it may serve as a measure of the date, so long as the State remains. When they die, their laying-out, funeral and interment shall be different from that of other citizens: nothing but white raiment shall be used at it, and there shall be no dirges or lamentations; a choir of girls and another of boys shall stand round the bier, and they shall chant alternately a laudation for the priests in the form of a hymn in verse, glorifying them with their hymnody all the day long;
| Plato, Laws (English) (XML Header) [genre: prose] [word count] [lemma count] [Pl. Leg.]. | ||
| <<Pl. Leg. 944b | Pl. Leg. 946b (Greek) | >>Pl. Leg. 948a |
