Complete Works

by Plato, Cooper, John M. , Hutchinson, D. S.

  [e] Well then, Clinias and Megillus, who will make all these arrangements about these officials in our state, and their scrutiny? We can surely appreciate that as the state apparatus is as yet only rudimentary such people have to be on hand; but they could hardly be available before any officials at all have been appointed. Even so, we must have them, and these two hundred persons mustn’t be feeble specimens, either, but men of the highest caliber. As the proverb says, ‘getting started is half the battle’, and a good [754] beginning we all applaud. But in my view a good start is more than ‘half’, and no one has yet given it the praise it deserves.

  CLINIAS: That’s quite true.

  ATHENIAN: So as we acknowledge the value of a good beginning, let’s not skip discussion of it in this case. Let’s get it quite clear in our own minds how we can tackle it. I’ve no particular points to make, except one, which is vitally relevant to the situation.

  CLINIAS: And what’s that?

  ATHENIAN: Apart from the city which is founding it, this state we are [b] about to settle has, so to speak, no father or mother. I’m quite aware, of course, that many a foundation has quarreled repeatedly with its founder-state, and will again, but in the present circumstances we have, as it were, the merest infant on our hands. I mean, any child is going to fall out with his parents sooner or later, but while he’s young and can’t help himself, he loves them and they love him; he’s forever scampering back to his family and finding his only allies are his relatives. That’s exactly the way [c] I maintain our young state regards the citizens of Cnossus and how they regard it, in virtue of their role as its guardians. I therefore repeat what I said just now—there’s no harm in saying a good thing twice—that the citizen of Cnossus should choose colleagues from among the newly arrived colonists and take charge of all these arrangements; they should choose at least a hundred of them, the oldest and most virtuous they can find; and they themselves should contribute another hundred. They should enter the new state and collaborate in seeing that the officials are designated [d] according to law, and after designation, scrutinized. When they’ve done all that, the citizens of Cnossus should resume living in Cnossus and leave the infant state to work out its own salvation and flourish unaided.

  The duties for which the members of the body of thirty-seven should be appointed are as follows (not only here and now, but permanently): first, they are to act as Guardians of the Laws; second, they are to take charge of the documents in which each person has made his return to the officials of his total property. (A man may leave four hundred drachmas undeclared if he belongs to the highest property-class, three hundred if to the second, two [e] hundred if to the third, and one hundred if he belongs to the fourth.)

  5. If anyone is found to possess anything in addition to the registered sum,

  the entire surplus should be confiscated by the state,

  and on top of that anyone who wants to should bring a charge against him—and an ugly, discreditable and disgraceful charge it will be, if the man is convicted of being enticed by the prospect of gain to hold the laws in contempt. The accuser, who may be anyone, should accordingly enter a charge of ‘money-grubbing’ against him, and prosecute in the court of the Law-Guardians themselves.

  6. If the defendant is found guilty,

  he must be excluded from the common resources of the state, and when [755] a grant of some kind is made, he must go without and be limited to his holding; and for as long as he lives his conviction should be recorded for public inspection by all and sundry.

  A Law-Guardian must not hold office for longer than twenty years; he should be not less than fifty years old on appointment, and if he is appointed at sixty, his maximum tenure must be ten years, and so on. And if a man survives beyond seventy, he should no longer expect to hold [b] such an important post as membership of this board.

  That gives us three duties to assign to the Guardians of the Laws. As the legal code is extended, every new law will give this body of men additional duties to perform, over and above the ones we’ve mentioned.

  Now for the election of the other officials, one by one.

  Next, then, we have to elect Generals and their aides-de-camp, so to [c] speak: Cavalry-Commanders, Tribe-Leaders, and controllers of the tribal companies of infantry (‘Company-Commanders’ will be a good name for these officers, which is in fact what most people do call them).

  Generals. The Guardians of the Laws must compile a preliminary list of candidates, restricted to citizens, and the Generals should then be elected from this list by all those who have served in the armed forces at the proper age, or are serving at the time. If anybody thinks that someone [d] not on the preliminary list is better qualified than someone who is, he must name his proposed substitute, and say whom he should replace; then, having sworn his oath, he must propose the alternative candidate. Whichever of the two the voting favors should be a candidate in the election. The three candidates who receive most votes should become Generals and take over the organization of military affairs, after being scrutinized in the same way as the Guardians of the Laws.

  [e] Company-Commanders. The elected Generals should make their own preliminary list of twelve Company-Commanders, one for each tribe; the counter-nominations, the election and the scrutiny must be conducted as they were for the Generals themselves.

  The Elections. For the moment, before a council and executive committees have been chosen, your assembly must be convened by the Guardians of the Laws in the holiest and most capacious place they can find; and they must seat the heavy-armed soldiers, the cavalry, and finally all other ranks, in separate blocks. The Generals and Cavalry-Commanders should be [756] elected by the whole assembly, the Company-Commanders by the shield-bearers, and their Tribe-Leaders by the entire cavalry; as for light-armed troops, archers, or whatever other ranks there may be, the appointment of their leaders should be left to the Generals’ discretion.

  Cavalry-Commanders. That will leave us with the appointment of the Cavalry-Commanders. The preliminary list must be drawn up by the same persons as drew up the list of Generals, and the election and counterproposals should be conducted in the same way; the cavalry must hold [b] the election watched by the infantry, and the two candidates with the most votes must become leaders of the entire mounted force.

  Disputed Votes. Votes may be disputed no more than twice. If anyone contests the vote on the third occasion, the tellers must decide the issue by voting among themselves.

  The council should have thirty dozen members, as three hundred sixty will be a convenient number for subdivision. The total will be divided [c] into four sections of ninety, this being the number of members to be elected from each property-class. The first step in the election is to be compulsory for all: everyone must take part in the nomination of members of the highest class, and anybody who neglects his duty must pay the approved fine. When the nominations are completed, the names must be noted down.

  On the next day, using the same procedure as before, they will nominate members of the second class.

  On the third day, nominating for Councillors from the third class will [d] be optional, except for voters of the first three classes: voters of the fourth and lowest class will be exempted from the fine if they do not care to make a nomination.

  The fourth day will see the nomination for representatives of the fourth and lowest class; everyone must take part, but voters of the third and fourth class who do not wish to nominate should not be fined—unlike voters of the second and first classes, who must be fined treble and quadruple the standard fine respectively if they do not make a nomination.

  On the fifth day the officials must display to the entire citizen body the [e] names duly noted down, and on the basis of these lists every man must cast his vote or pay the standard fine. One hundred eighty must be selected from each property-class, and half of them finally chosen by lot. These, after scrutiny, are to be Councillors for the year.

  A system of selection like that will effect a comprom
ise between a monarchical and a democratic constitution, which is precisely the sort of compromise a constitution should always be. You see, even if you proclaim that a master and his slave shall have equal status, friendship between [757] them is inherently impossible. The same applies to the relations between an honest man and a scoundrel. Indiscriminate equality for all amounts to inequality, and both fill a state with quarrels between its citizens. How correct the old saying is, that ‘equality leads to friendship’! It’s right enough and it rings true, but what kind of equality has this potential is a problem which produces ripe confusion. This is because we use the same term for [b] two concepts of ‘equality’, which in most respects are virtual opposites. The first sort of equality (of measures, weights and numbers) is within the competence of any state and any legislator: that is, one can simply distribute equal awards by lot. But the most genuine equality, and the best, is not so obvious. It needs the wisdom and judgment of Zeus, and only in a limited number of ways does it help the human race; but when states or even individuals do find it profitable, they find it very profitable indeed. The general method I mean is to grant much to the great and less to the [c] less great, adjusting what you give to take account of the real nature of each—specifically, to confer high recognition on great virtue, but when you come to the poorly educated in this respect, to treat them as they deserve. We maintain, in fact, that statesmanship consists of essentially this—strict justice. This is what we should be aiming at now, Clinias: this [d] is the kind of ‘equality’ we should concentrate on as we bring our state into the world. The founder of any other state should also concentrate on this same goal when he frames his laws, and take no notice of a bunch of dictators, or a single one, or even the power of the people. He must always make justice his aim, and this is precisely as we’ve described it: it consists of granting the ‘equality’ that unequals deserve to get. Yet on occasion a state as a whole (unless it is prepared to put up with a degree of friction in one part or another) will be obliged to apply these concepts in a rather rough and ready way, because complaisance and toleration, which always [e] wreck complete precision, are the enemies of strict justice. You can now see why it was necessary to avoid the anger of the man in the street by giving him an equal chance in the lot (though even then we prayed to the gods of good luck to make the lot give the right decisions). So though force of circumstances compels us to employ both sorts of equality, we should employ the second, which demands good luck to prove successful, [758] as little as possible.

  So much, my friends, for the justification of our policy, which is the policy a state must follow if it means to survive. The state is just like a ship at sea, which always needs someone to keep watch night and day: as it is steered through the waves of international affairs, it lives in constant peril of being captured by all sorts of conspiracies. Hence the need of an [b] unbroken chain of authority right through the day and into the night and then on into the next day, guard relieving guard in endless succession. But a large body will never be able to act quickly enough, and most of the time we have to leave the majority of council members free to live their private lives and administer their own establishments. We must therefore divide the members of the council into twelve groups, one for [c] each month, and have them go on guard by turns. They must be available promptly, whenever anyone from abroad or from within the state itself approaches them wishing to give information or inquire about those topics on which a state must arrange to answer the questions of other states and receive replies to its own. They must be particularly concerned with the [d] constant revolutions of all kinds that are apt to occur in a state; if possible, they must prevent them, but failing that they must see that the state gets to know as soon as possible, so that the outbreak can be cured. That is why this executive committee has to be in charge of convening and dissolving not only statutory meetings but also those held in some national emergency. The authority that should see to all this—a twelfth of the council—will of course be off duty for eleven-twelfths of the year: it’s the section of the council on duty that must co-operate with other officials and keep a watchful eye on the state.

  [e] That will be a reasonable arrangement for the city, but what about the rest of the country? How should it be superintended and organized? Well now, the entire city and the entire country have been divided into twelve sections; there are the roads of the central city; there are houses, public buildings, harbors, the market, and fountains; there are, above all, sacred enclosures and similar places. Shouldn’t all these things have officials appointed to look after them?

  CLINIAS: Naturally.

  [759] ATHENIAN: We can say, then, that the temples should have Attendants and Priests and Priestesses. Next, there are the duties of looking after streets and public buildings, ensuring that they reach the proper standards, stopping men and animals doing them damage, and seeing that conditions both in the suburbs and the city itself are in keeping with a civilized life. All these duties require three types of officials to be chosen: the ‘City-Wardens’ (as they will be called) will be responsible for the points we’ve just mentioned, and the ‘Market-Wardens’ for the correct conduct of the market.

  [b] Priests or Priestesses of temples who have hereditary priesthoods should not be turned out of office. But if (as is quite likely in a new foundation) few or no temples are thus provided for, the deficiencies must be made good by appointing Priests and Priestesses to be Attendants in the temples of the gods. In all these cases the appointments should be made partly by election and partly by lot, so that a mixture of democratic and non-democratic methods in every rural and urban division may lead to the greatest possible feeling of solidarity. In electing Priests, one should leave it to the god himself to express his wishes, and allow him to guide the luck of the [c] draw. But the man whom the lot favors must be screened to see that he is healthy and legitimate, reared in a family whose moral standards could hardly be higher, and that he himself and his father and mother have lived unpolluted by homicide and all such offenses against heaven.

  They must get laws on all religious matters from Delphi, and appoint Expounders of them; that will provide them with a code to be obeyed.[d] Each priesthood must be held for a year and no longer, and anyone who intends to celebrate our rites in due conformity with religious law should not be less than sixty years old. The same rules should apply to Priestesses too.

  There should be three3 Expounders. The tribes will be arranged in three sets of four, and every man should nominate four persons, each from the same set as himself; the three candidates who receive most votes should be scrutinized, and nine names should then be sent to Delphi for the oracle to select one from each group of three. Their scrutiny, and the requirement as to age, should be the same as in the case of the Priests; these three must [e] hold office for life, and when one dies the group of four tribes in which the vacancy occurs should make nominations for a replacement.

  The highest property-class must elect Treasurers to control the sacred funds of each temple, and to look after the temple-enclosures and their [760] produce and revenues; three should be chosen to take charge of the largest temples, two for the less large, and one for the very small. The election and scrutiny of these officials should be conducted as it was for the Generals.

  So much by way of provision for the holy places.

  As far as practicable, nothing should be left unguarded. The protection of the city is to be the business of the Generals, Company-Commanders, Cavalry-Commanders, Tribe-Leaders and members of the Executive—and [b] the City-Wardens and Market-Wardens too, once we have them elected and satisfactorily installed in office. The whole of the rest of the country should be protected as follows. Our entire territory has been divided as exactly as possible into twelve equal sections, and every year one tribe must be allocated by lot to each of them. Every tribe must provide five ‘Country-Wardens’ or ‘Guards-in-Chief’, each of whom will be allowed to choose from his own tribe4 twelve young men who must be not younger than
twenty-five nor older than thirty. The effect of the lot will be that [c] each group will take a different section every month, so that they all get experience and knowledge of the entire country. The guards and their officers in charge are to hold their respective commissions for two years. Starting from the original sections (i.e., districts of the country) assigned [d] by lot, the Guards-in-Chief are to take their groups round in a circle, transferring them each month to the next district on the right (‘on the right’ should be understood to mean ‘to the East’). But it’s not enough that as many of the guards as possible should get experience of the country at only one season of the year: we want them to add to their knowledge of the actual territory by discovering what goes on in every district at every season. So their leaders for the time being should follow up the first [e] year by spending a second leading them back through the various districts, moving this time to the left. For the third year, a tribe must choose other Country-Wardens, and five new Guards-in-Chief, each in charge of twelve assistants.

  While stationed in the various districts, their duties should be as follows. To start with, they must see that the territory is protected against enemies as thoroughly as possible. They must dig ditches wherever necessary, and excavate trenches and erect fortifications to check any attempt to harm the [761] land and the livestock. They will requisition the beasts of burden and slaves of the local residents for these purposes, and employ them at their discretion, picking as far as possible times when they are not required for their normal duties. The wardens must arrange that the enemy would be impeded at every turn, whereas movement by our own side (by men or beasts of burden or cattle) would be facilitated; and they must see that every road is as easy for the traveler as can be managed.

  The rain God sends must do the countryside good, not harm, so the [b] wardens must see that the water flowing off the high ground down into any sufficiently deep ravines between the hills is collected by dikes and ditches, so that the ravines can retain and absorb it, and supply streams and springs for all the districts in the countryside below, and give even the driest of spots a copious supply of pure water. As for water that springs from the ground, the wardens must beautify the fountains and rivers that [c] form by adorning them with trees and buildings; they must use drains to tap the individual streams and collect an abundant supply, and any grove or sacred enclosure which has been dedicated nearby must be embellished by having a perennial flow of water directed by irrigation into the very temples of the gods. The young men should erect in every quarter gymnasia for themselves and senior citizens, construct warm baths for the old folk, and lay up a large stock of thoroughly dry wood. All this will help to [d] relieve invalids, and farmers wearied by the labor of the fields—and it will be a much kinder treatment than the tender mercies of some fool of a doctor.