Complete Works
Page 200
SOCRATES: And don’t the doctors in their treatises on health write what [e] they accept as being so?
FRIEND: Yes.
SOCRATES: Then these treatises of the doctors are medical, and laws of medicine.
FRIEND: Medical, to be sure.
SOCRATES: So farming treatises too are laws of farming?
FRIEND: Yes.
SOCRATES: And whose are the treatises and accepted ideas on working a garden?
FRIEND: Gardeners.
SOCRATES: Then these are our laws of gardening.
FRIEND: Yes.
SOCRATES: Formulated by people who know how to manage a garden?
FRIEND: Obviously.
SOCRATES: And it is the gardeners who have the knowledge?
FRIEND: Yes.
SOCRATES: And whose are the treatises and accepted ideas on preparing a meal?
FRIEND: Cooks.
SOCRATES: Then these are the laws of cookery?
FRIEND: Cookery.
[317] SOCRATES: Formulated, as it appears, by people who know how to manage the preparation of a meal?
FRIEND: Yes.
SOCRATES: And it is the cooks who have the knowledge, as they claim?
FRIEND: Yes, they have the knowledge.
SOCRATES: Very well. But then, whose are the treatises and accepted ideas on administration of a city? Isn’t it those who know how to manage cities?
FRIEND: In my view it is.
SOCRATES: And does anyone possess this knowledge except those who are skilled in politics and kingship?
FRIEND: Those it is.
SOCRATES: Then these writings which people call laws are treatises on [b] politics—treatises by kings and good men.
FRIEND: What you say is true.
SOCRATES: Then surely those who possess knowledge will not write different things at different times on the same matters?
FRIEND: No.
SOCRATES: Nor yet will they ever change one set of accepted ideas for another on the same matters?
FRIEND: Certainly not.
SOCRATES: So if we see anyone doing this anywhere, shall we say that those who do it are in possession of knowledge, or not in possession?
FRIEND: Not in possession.
SOCRATES: And won’t we also say that whatever is correct is the accepted idea in each sphere, whether in medicine or in cookery or in gardening?
FRIEND: Yes.
[c] SOCRATES: And whatever is not correct, we shall never again say that it is the accepted idea?
FRIEND: Never again.
SOCRATES: Then it proves to be unlawful.
FRIEND: It must be.
SOCRATES: And in treatises on what is just and unjust and in general on the organization of a city and on how one should administer a city, isn’t what is correct a law of royal skill? But not what is not correct, although it is taken to be law by those who don’t know. That is unlawful.
FRIEND: Yes.
SOCRATES: Then we were correct in agreeing that law is discovery of reality. [d]
FRIEND: It seems so.
SOCRATES: Now to a further point that we need to note carefully on the topic. Who has knowledge of how to distribute seed over land?
FRIEND: A farmer.
SOCRATES: Does he distribute appropriate seed for each sort of land?
FRIEND: Yes.
SOCRATES: Then the farmer is a good apportioner of it, and his laws and distributions are correct in this sphere?
FRIEND: Yes.
SOCRATES: And who is a good apportioner of notes in songs?1 Whose laws are correct here?
FRIEND: The laws of the flautist and the lute-player. [e]
SOCRATES: Then the person whose laws are most authoritative in this sphere is the person whose command of flute-playing is best.
FRIEND: Yes.
SOCRATES: And who is best at distributing nourishment for human bodies? Is it not the person who distributes it appropriately?
FRIEND: Yes.
SOCRATES: Then his distributions and laws are best, and the person whose laws are most authoritative in this sphere is also the best apportioner.
FRIEND: Certainly.
SOCRATES: Who is this person?
FRIEND: A trainer. [318]
SOCRATES: He is supreme at driving a human herd?2
FRIEND: Yes.
SOCRATES: And who is supreme at driving a herd of sheep? What is his name?
FRIEND: A shepherd.
SOCRATES: Then it is the laws of the shepherd that are best for the sheep.
FRIEND: Yes.
SOCRATES: And the laws of the cowherd for cattle?
FRIEND: Yes.
SOCRATES: And whose laws are best for human souls? Isn’t it those of the king? Agreed?
FRIEND: I do agree.
[b] SOCRATES: You’re doing well in your answers. Can you now say who in antiquity proved himself a good lawgiver in the sphere of laws of flute-playing? Perhaps you don’t call him to mind—would you like me to remind you?
FRIEND: Certainly.
SOCRATES: Isn’t it said to be Marsyas, and his boyfriend Olympus the Phrygian?3
FRIEND: What you say is true.
SOCRATES: Now their flute tunes are absolutely divine, and alone stir [c] and make manifest those who are in need of the gods—and to this day there are still only these, because they are divine.
FRIEND: That is so.
SOCRATES: And who among the ancient kings is said to have proved himself to be a good lawgiver, so that even to this day his accepted provisions remain in force, because they are divine?
FRIEND: I cannot call him to mind.
SOCRATES: Don’t you know which of the Greeks make use of the most ancient laws?
FRIEND: Are you referring to the Spartans, and Lycurgus the lawgiver?
SOCRATES: But that is not yet three hundred years ago, perhaps, or a [d] little more than that. Where do the best of their accepted provisions come from? Do you know?
FRIEND: People say from Crete.
SOCRATES: So among the Greeks it is the Cretans who make use of the most ancient laws?
FRIEND: Yes.
SOCRATES: Then do you know who were their good kings? Minos and Rhadamanthus, the sons of Zeus and Europa: these laws were theirs.
FRIEND: People certainly claim that Rhadamanthus was a just man, Socrates; but they say Minos was savage and harsh and unjust.
SOCRATES: My good friend, you are telling a theatrical Attic version of the story.
FRIEND: Well, isn’t that what they say about Minos? [e]
SOCRATES: Not Homer and Hesiod. Yet they are more persuasive than all the tragedians put together—who are the people you are listening to if this is what you are saying.
FRIEND: And what is it that Homer and Hesiod say about Minos?
SOCRATES: I will tell you, so that you won’t commit impiety along with the mass of people. There cannot be anything more impious than this, nor anything over which one should take more precautions, than being mistaken in word and deed with regard to gods, and in second place, with regard to divine humans. You should always exercise very great forethought, when you are about to criticize or praise a man, to ensure [319] that you don’t speak incorrectly. This is why you should learn to distinguish admirable from wicked men. For god vents his anger when anyone criticizes someone similar to himself, or praises someone whose condition is opposite to his own; the former is the good man. For you really mustn’t think that there are sacred stones and pieces of wood and birds and snakes, but not humans.4 A good human being is the most sacred of all of these, and one who is wicked the most defiled.
So now I will speak about Minos, and how Homer and Hesiod sing his [b] praises, with this purpose in mind: that you, as a human and the son of a human, may not be mistaken in what you say about a hero who is son of Zeus. Homer when telling us about Crete and how there are many men in it and “ninety cities,” says:
Among them is Cnossus, a great city, where Minos was King in the ninth season, having converse
with great Zeus.5
This, then, is how Homer sings the praises of Minos: briefly expressed—but [c] Homer composed nothing like it for any of the heroes. That Zeus is a sophist and that this art of his is something altogether excellent, he makes clear here as well as in many other places. For he means that during the ninth year Minos got together with Zeus to discuss things, and went regularly to be educated by Zeus as though he were a sophist. So the fact that Homer assigns this privilege of being educated by Zeus to no one among the heroes but to Minos is extraordinary praise. And in the book of the dead in the Odyssey he represents Minos, not Rhadamanthus, [d] as giving judgment with a golden scepter.6 He does not represent Rhadamanthus as giving judgment in this passage, nor as associated with Zeus in any passage. For this reason I say that Minos beyond all others has had his praises sung by Homer.
To be the son of Zeus and then to be the only one educated by Zeus is praise that cannot be exceeded. For this verse, “was king in the ninth season, having converse with great Zeus” indicates that Minos was an [e] associate of Zeus. “Converses” are discussions, and someone who “has converse” is an associate in discussions. In other words, every nine years Minos would go into the Cave of Zeus, partly to learn and partly to demonstrate what he had learned from Zeus in the preceding ninth year. There are those who suppose that someone who “has converse” is a drinking and partying companion of Zeus, but one may use the following as [320] evidence that those who make this supposition talk nonsense. Of all the many human beings there are, Greeks and foreigners, none abstain from drinking sessions and the sort of partying there is when wine is present except Cretans and in second place Spartans, who have learned it from the Cretans. In Crete it is one of the laws Minos laid down that people are not to drink together to the point of drunkenness. And indeed it is clear that what he accepted as admirable he laid down as accepted practice [b] also for his own citizens. For Minos would surely not have accepted one thing but done something different from what he accepted, like a dishonest person. His form of association was as I say, through discourses for education into virtue. This is why he laid down for his own citizens those laws which have made Crete happy for all time, and Sparta from when she began to make use of them, because they are divine.
[c] Rhadamanthus was a good man: he had been educated by Minos. But he had been educated not in the art of kingship as a whole, but in one subsidiary to it, confined to presiding in law courts; that is why he was said to be a good judge. Minos used him as watcher over the law in the town, but Talos in the rest of Crete. Talos used to tour the villages three times a year, preserving a watch over the law in them by having the laws written on bronze tablets: this is why he was called “bronze.”
[d] Hesiod too has said some things akin to these with regard to Minos. After making mention of his name he says
Who proved to be most kingly of mortal kings, and ruled over most of the people in the countryside, holding the scepter of Zeus—with which he exercised kingship also over cities.7
He means by “the scepter of Zeus” nothing other than the education he received from Zeus, by means of which he governed Crete.
[e] FRIEND: Why, then, Socrates, has this rumor about Minos as someone who was uneducated and harsh ever been spread about?
SOCRATES: Because of something over which you, my good friend, will take precautions, if you are sensible, and so will anyone else who cares for a good reputation: never to fall out with any man who is skilled in poetry. The poets have great power where reputation is concerned, whichever mode—eulogy or abuse—they adopt in writing about people. Which was the mistake Minos made in waging war on this city, where as well as many other forms of wisdom there are poets of every kind, who compose tragedy as well as every other kind of poetry. Tragedy is an [321] ancient form here, not beginning with Thespis as some suppose nor with Phrynichus:8 if you care to consider the matter you will find it to be a very ancient discovery, made in this very city. Tragedy is that form of poetry which most delights the populace and which most seduces the soul. So it is in tragedy that we torture Minos and take vengeance upon him for that tribute he compelled us to pay.9 This, then, was the mistake Minos made, in falling out with us. And that is why, to answer your question, he has come to have a worse and worse reputation. He was good and lawabiding, [b] as we said at the outset, a good apportioner. And the greatest indication of this is that his laws are unaltered: that shows how well he did at discovering reality as regards habitation of a city.
FRIEND: In my view, Socrates, the account you have given is a likely one.
SOCRATES: Now if what I say is true, is it your view that the Cretans, who are citizens of Minos and Rhadamanthus, make use of the most ancient laws?
FRIEND: They seem to.
SOCRATES: Then these two have proved to be the best lawgivers among [c] the ancients, apportioners and shepherds of men, just as Homer said that the good general was “shepherd of the people.”10
FRIEND: Certainly.
SOCRATES: Please, now, by Zeus god of friendship: if someone were to ask us what are these things that the good lawgiver and apportioner for the body distributes to the body to make it better, we would say if we were to reply well and briefly: food and hard work, building it up with the one, and exercising and constituting the body itself with the other.
FRIEND: Quite correct.
SOCRATES: If then after this he were to ask us: “Whatever then are those [d] things that the good lawgiver and apportioner distributes to the soul to make it better?,” what reply would we make if we are not to be ashamed both of ourselves and of our mature years?
FRIEND: I don’t any more know what to say.
SOCRATES: Yet it really is a disgrace to the soul in each of us that it plainly doesn’t know what in it constitutes goodness and badness for it, whereas what constitutes goodness and badness for the body, and for other things, is something it has already considered.
1. Conjecturally deleting kai ta axia neimai in d8–9.
2. Accepting a conjectural deletion of tou sōmatos in a1–2.
3. Marsyas was said to have invented a form of music for wind instruments (such as the aulos, here conventionally but misleadingly translated “flute”). Olympus was credited with bringing this music from the Near East to Greece and developing it further.
4. Reading toi for ti in a5.
5. Odyssey xix.178–79.
6. Odyssey xi.568–71.
7. Hesiod frg. 144 (Merkelbach-West).
8. Thespis was the first playwright to win a prize at the Athenian festival of Dionysus, about 535 B.C. Phrynichus was a tragic playwright active in the early fifth century.
9. According to legend, after Minos defeated the Athenians, he exacted a tribute every nine years of seven maidens and seven young men, whom he imprisoned in the Labyrinth, eventually to be devoured by the Minotaur, the ‘bull of Minos’.
10. Iliad i.263, Odyssey iv.532, and elsewhere.
LAWS
Translated by Trevor J. Saunders. Text: Budé, bks. I–VI ed. E. des Places, VII–XII ed. A. Diès, Paris (1951, 1956).
This work, Plato’s longest and a product of his last years, was left unpublished at his death, perhaps because he felt it still needed revision. Plato’s associate Philip of Opus is said to have transcribed it for publication. It seems to be complete as it stands.
Three elderly gentlemen, all apparently fictional—Clinias from Crete, Megillus, a Spartan, and an unnamed Athenian—begin a journey on foot from Cnossus in Crete to the shrine of Zeus’ birthplace on Mount Ida. The Athenian begins a conversation on ‘laws and constitutions’ (which continues till the end of book III) by querying the central purpose of his Cretan and Spartan friends’ famously similar civic institutions: the optimal conduct of war, as Clinias maintains. As one might expect in an Athenian, this strikes him as too narrow and exclusive a focus on one aspect of civic life, and that a secondary one: wars are undertaken to make secure the activities of peacetime. Laws should indeed see to the
training of citizens in the virtues of wartime, but also, and even more, in those of peace. A broader and culturally deeper education and range of experience are needed to produce truly good human beings. Athens itself, however, had been ruined by its predilection for the personal freedoms provided by democratic institutions; the best laws would follow the Cretan and Spartan lead by establishing strong civic authority and discipline, but they would aim at the fullest possible development of all the human virtues.
At the end of book III Clinias reveals that he is one of ten commissioners entrusted with establishing the laws for a new city being founded in Crete, and the conversation continues, with the Athenian now offering his advice on the laws that will be needed to achieve this objective. Since these are to be citizens of a free, self-governing state, the laws must have ‘preambles’ that explain the purposes for which they are instituted, so as to gain the willing acquiescence of those to whom they apply: commands backed by threats (contained in the bare text of the law) are otherwise not appropriately addressed to a free person (book IV). And it is in the preliminary discussion and preambles to the laws set out in the following books—running the gamut from family law and education to administrative, trade, property, and criminal law—that we find the philosophical core of the dialogue’s jurisprudence and social and political theory.
Of special note are the theory of punishment and its legitimate purposes in book IX and the elaborate argument in book X to prove the existence of gods and to establish the law forbidding behavior that denies them due deference and enacting the appropriate punishments for infractions.
Understandably, most people nowadays read the Laws for its theoretical ideas more than for any practical applications. Scholars debate whether the constitution of Laws replaces—and implicitly criticizes—the constitution of Republic, with its rule by philosopher-kings essentially untrammeled by law. And they compare—and contrast—the accounts of the rule of law and its philosophical basis given in Statesman and Laws. But Plato’s Academy was not merely an institute for higher education and for research in mathematics, the sciences, philosophy, and ethical and political thought; Plato and his associates were called upon also for concrete advice about ‘laws and constitutions’ in reforming existing states and founding new ones. In writing Laws Plato was perhaps not engaging in pure constitutional and legislative theory, as in Statesman and Republic. In considering Laws in relation to these other works, one should bear in mind this context of possible practical applications.