Complete Works

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

  But suppose some impatient young man were standing here, bursting with seed, and heard us passing this law. He’d probably raise the echoes with his bellows of abuse, and say our rules were stupid and unrealistic. Now this is just the sort of protest I had in mind when I remarked that I knew of a very simple—and yet very difficult—way of putting this law [c] into effect permanently. It’s easy to see that it can be done, and easy to see how: if the rule is given sufficient religious backing, it will get a grip on every soul and intimidate it into obeying the established laws. But in fact we’ve reached a point where people still think we’d fail, even granted those conditions. It’s just the same with the supposed impossibility of the common meals: people see no prospect of a whole state keeping up the [d] practice permanently. The proven facts of the case in your countries do nothing to convince your compatriots that it would be natural to apply the practice to women. It was this flat disbelief that made me remark on the difficulty of turning either proposal into an established law.

  MEGILLUS: You’re absolutely right.

  ATHENIAN: Even so, I could put up quite a convincing case for supposing that the difficulties are not beyond human powers, and can be overcome. Do you want me to try to explain?

  CLINIAS: Of course.

  ATHENIAN: When will a man find it easier to keep off sex, and do as he’s [e] told in a decent and willing spirit? When he’s not neglected his training and is in the pink of condition, or when he’s in poor shape?

  CLINIAS: He’ll find it a great deal easier if he’s in training.

  ATHENIAN: Now of course we’ve all heard the story of how Iccus of [840] Tarentum set about winning contests at Olympia and elsewhere. He was so ambitious to win, they say, and his expertise was strengthened by a character of such determination and self-discipline, that he never had a woman or even a boy during the whole time he was under intensive training. In fact, we are told very much the same about Crison, Astylus, Diopompus, and a great many others. And yet, Clinias, their characters were far less well educated than the citizens you and I have to deal with, and physically they were much lustier. [b]

  CLINIAS: Yes, you’re right—our ancient sources are quite definite that these athletes did in fact do as you say.

  ATHENIAN: Well then, they steeled themselves to keep off what most people regard as sheer bliss, simply in order to win wrestling matches and races and so forth. But there’s a much nobler contest to be won than that, and I hope the young people of our state aren’t going to lack the stamina for it. After all, right from their earliest years we’re going to tell them stories and talk to them and sing them songs, so as to charm them, [c] we trust, into believing that this victory is the noblest of all.

  CLINIAS: What victory?

  ATHENIAN: The conquest of pleasure. If they win this battle, they’ll have a happy life—but so much the worse for them if they lose. That apart, the fear that the act is a ghastly sin will, in the end, enable them to tame the passions that their inferiors have tamed before them.

  CLINIAS: Quite likely.

  [d] ATHENIAN: So thanks to the general corruption, that’s the predicament we’ve got into at this point in our consideration of the law about sex. My position, therefore, is that the law must go ahead and insist that our citizens’ standards should not be lower than those of birds and many other wild animals which are born into large communities and live chaste and unmarried, without intercourse, until the time comes for them to breed. At [e] the appropriate age they pair off; the male picks a wife, and female chooses a husband, and forever afterwards they live in a pious and law-abiding way, firmly faithful to the promises they made when they first fell in love. Clearly our citizens ought to reach standards higher than the animals’. But if they are corrupted by seeing and hearing how most other Greeks and non-Greeks go in for ‘free’ love on a grand scale, they may prove unable to keep themselves in check. In that case, the law-guardians must turn themselves into law-makers and frame a second law for people to observe.

  [841] CLINIAS: So if they find it impossible to enforce the ideal law now proposed, what other law do you advise them to pass?

  ATHENIAN: The second best, Clinias, obviously.

  CLINIAS: Namely?

  ATHENIAN: My point is that the appetite for pleasures, which is very strong and grows by being fed, can be starved (you remember) if the body is given plenty of hard work to distract it. We’d get much the same result if we were incapable of having sexual intercourse without feeling ashamed; our shame [b] would lead to infrequent indulgence, and infrequent indulgence would make the desire less compulsive. So in sexual matters our citizens ought to regard privacy—though not complete abstinence—as a decency demanded by usage and unwritten custom, and lack of privacy as disgusting. That will establish a second legal standard of decency and indecency—not the ideal standard, but the next to it. People whose characters have been corrupted (they form a single group we call the ‘self-inferior’) will be made prisoners [c] of three influences that will compel them not to break the law.

  CLINIAS: What influences do you mean?

  ATHENIAN: Respect for religion, the ambition to be honored, and a mature passion for spiritual rather than physical beauty. ‘Pious wishes!’ you’ll say; ‘what romance!’ Perhaps so. But if such wishes were to come true, the world would benefit enormously.

  However, God willing, perhaps we’ll succeed in imposing one or other of [d] two standards of sexual conduct. (1) Ideally, no one will dare to have relations with any respectable citizen woman except his own wedded wife, or sow illegitimate and bastard seed in courtesans, or sterile seed in males in defiance of nature. (2) Alternatively, while suppressing sodomy entirely, we might insist that if a man does have intercourse with any woman (hired or procured in some other way) except the wife he wed in holy marriage with [e] the blessing of the gods, he must do so without any other man or woman getting to know about it. If he fails to keep the affair secret, I think we’d be right to exclude him by law from the award of state honors, on the grounds that he’s no better than an alien. This law, or ‘pair’ of laws, as perhaps we should say, should govern our conduct whenever the sexual urge and the passion of love impel us, wisely or unwisely, to have intercourse. [842]

  MEGILLUS: Speaking for myself, sir, I’d be very glad to adopt this law of yours. Clinias must tell us his view on the subject himself.

  CLINIAS: I’ll do that later, Megillus, when I think a suitable moment has arrived. For the nonce, let’s not stop our friend from going on to the next stage of his legislation.

  MEGILLUS: Fair enough.

  ATHENIAN: Well then, this is the stage we’ve reached now. We can assume [b] that communal meals have been established (a thing that would be a problem in other countries, we notice, but not in Crete, where no one would think of doing anything else). But how should they be organized? On the Cretan model, or the Spartan? Or is there some third type that would suit us better than either? I don’t think this is a difficulty, and there’s not much to be gained from settling the point. The arrangements we have made are quite satisfactory as they are.

  The next question is the organization of a food-supply in keeping with [c] our communal meals. In other states the sources of supply are many and varied—in fact, at least twice as many as in ours, because most Greeks draw on both the land and the sea for their food, whereas our citizens will use the land alone. For the legislator, this makes things simpler. It’s not just that half the number of laws or even substantially fewer will do, [d] but they’ll be more suitable laws for gentlemen to observe. Our state’s legislator, you see, need not bother his head very much about the merchant-shipping business, trading, retailing, inn-keeping, customs duties, mining, money-lending and compound interest. Waving aside most of these and a thousand other such details, he’ll legislate for farmers, shepherds, bee-keepers, for the protectors of their stock and the supervisors of their equipment. [e] His laws already cover such major topics as marriage and the birth and rearing of children, as w
ell as their education and the appointment of the state’s officials, so the next topic to which he must turn in his legislation is their food, and the workers who co-operate in the constant effort to produce it.

  Let’s first specify the ‘agricultural’ laws, as they’re called. The first law—sanctioned by Zeus the Protector of Boundaries—shall run as follows:

  No man shall disturb the boundary stones of his neighbor, whether fellow citizen or foreigner (that is, when a proprietor’s land is on the boundary of the state), in the conviction that this would be ‘moving the immovable’9 in the crudest sense. Far better that a man should want to [843] try to move the biggest stone that does not mark a boundary, than a small one separating friend’s land from foe’s, and established by an oath sworn to the gods. Zeus the God of Kin is witness in the one case, Zeus the Protector of Foreigners in the other. Rouse him in either capacity, and the most terrible wars break out. If a man obeys the law he will escape its penalties, but if he holds it in contempt he is to be liable to two punishments, [b] the first at the hands of the gods, the second under the law. No man, if he can help it, must move the boundary stones of his neighbor’s land, but if anyone does move them, any man who wishes should report him to the farmers, who should take him to court.

  26. If anyone is found guilty of such a charge,

  he must be regarded as a man who has tried to reallocate land, whether clandestinely or by force; and the court must bear that in mind when assessing what penalty he should suffer or what fine he should pay.

  Next we come to those numerous petty injuries done by neighbor to neighbor. The frequent repetition of such injuries makes feelings run high, so that relations between neighbors become intolerably embittered. That’s [c] why everyone should do everything he can to avoid offending his neighbor; above all, he must always go out of his way to avoid all acts of encroachment. Hurting a man is all too easy, and we all get the chance to do that; but it’s not everyone who is in a position to do a good turn.

  27. If a man oversteps his boundaries and encroaches on his neighbor’s land,

  he should pay for the damage, and also, by way of cure for such uncivilized [d] and inconsiderate behavior, give the injured party a further sum of twice that amount.

  In all these and similar cases the Country-Wardens should act as inspectors, judges and assessors (the entire divisional company in the graver cases, as indicated earlier,10 and the Guards-in-Chief in the more trivial).

  28. If a man lets his cattle graze on someone else’s land,

  these officials must inspect the damage, reach a decision, and assess the penalty.

  [e] 29. If anyone takes over another man’s bees, by making rattling noises to please and attract them, so that he gets them for himself,

  he must pay for the injury he has done.

  30. If anyone burns his own wood without taking sufficient precautions to protect his neighbor’s,

  he must be fined a sum decided by the officials.

  31. If when planting trees a man fails to leave a suitable gap between them and his neighbor’s land,

  the same regulation is to apply.

  These are points that many legislators have dealt with perfectly adequately, and we should make use of their work rather than demand that the grand architect of our state should legislate on a mass of trivial details that can be handled by any run-of-the-mill lawgiver. For instance, the [844] water supply for farmers is the subject of some splendid old-established laws—but there’s no call to let them overflow into our discussion! It is fundamental that anyone who wants to conduct a supply of water to his own land may do so, provided his source is the public reservoirs and he does not intercept the surface springs of any private person. He may conduct the water by any route he likes, except through houses, temples and tombs, and he must do no damage beyond the actual construction of the conduit. But in some naturally dry districts the soil may fail to retain [b] the moisture when it rains, so that drinking water is in short supply. In that case the owner must dig down to the clay, and if he fails to strike water at that depth he should take from his neighbors sufficient drinking water for each member of his household. If the neighbors too are short of water, he should share the available supply with them and fetch his ration daily, the amount to be fixed by the Country-Wardens. A man may injure [c] the farmer or householder next door on higher ground by blocking the flow of rainwater; on the other hand he may discharge it so carelessly as to damage the man below. If the parties are not prepared to co-operate in this matter, anyone who wishes should report the matter to an official—a City-Warden in the city, and a Country-Warden in the country—and obtain a ruling as to what each side should do. Anyone refusing to abide by the ruling must take the consequences of being a grudging and ill-tempered [d] fellow:

  32. If found guilty,

  he should pay twice the value of the damage to the injured party as a penalty for disobeying the officials.

  Everyone should take his share of the fruit harvest on roughly the following principles. The goddess of the harvest has graciously bestowed two gifts upon us, (a) the fruit which pleases Dionysus so much, but which won’t keep, and (b) the produce which nature has made fit to store. So our law about the harvest should run as follows.

  33. Anyone who consumes any part of the coarse crop of grapes or figs, whether on his own land or another’s, before the rising of Arcturus11 [e] ushers in the vintage,

  must owe

  (a) fifty drachmas, to be presented to Dionysus, if he takes the fruit from his own trees,

  (b) one hundred if from his neighbor’s, and

  (c) sixty-six and two-thirds drachmas if from anyone else’s trees.

  If a man wants to gather in the ‘dessert’ grapes or figs (as they are called nowadays), he may do so whenever and however he likes, provided they come from his own trees; but

  34. (a) if he takes them from anyone else’s trees, without permission, he must be punished in accordance with the provisions of the law which [845] forbids the removal of any object except by the depositor.12

  (b) If a slave fails to get the landowner’s permission before touching any of this kind of fruit,

  he must be whipped, the number of lashes to be the same as the number of grapes in the bunch or figs picked off the fig tree.

  A resident alien may buy dessert fruit and gather it in as he wishes. If a foreigner on a visit from abroad feels inclined to eat some fruit as he travels along the road, he may, if he wishes, take some of the dessert crop gratis, [b] for himself and one attendant, as part of our hospitality. But foreigners must be prevented by law from sharing with us the ‘coarse’ and similar fruits.

  35. If a foreigner, master or slave, touches such fruit in ignorance of the law,

  (a) the slave is to be punished with a whipping;

  (b) the free man is to be dismissed with a warning and told to stick to the crop that is unsuitable to be kept in store in the form of raisins, wine, or dried figs.

  There should be nothing to be ashamed of in helping oneself inconspicuously to apples and pears and pomegranates and so on, but

  [c] 36. (a) if a man under thirty is caught at it,

  he should be cuffed and driven off, provided he suffers no actual injury.

  A citizen should have no legal redress for such an assault on his person. (A foreigner is to be entitled to a share of these fruits too, on the same terms as he may take some of the dessert grapes and figs.) If a man above thirty years of age touches some fruits, consuming them on the spot and taking none away with him, he shall share them all on the same terms as the foreigner, but

  (b) if he disobeys the law,

  [d] he should be liable to be disqualified from competing for awards of merit, if anyone draws the attention of the assessors to the facts when the awards are being decided.

  Water is the most nourishing food a garden can have, but it’s easily fouled, whereas the soil, the sun and the winds, which co-operate with the water in fostering the growth of th
e plants that spring up out of the ground, are not readily interfered with by being doctored or channeled off or stolen. But in the nature of the case, water is exposed to all these hazards. That is why it needs the protection of a law, which should run [e] as follows.

  If anyone deliberately spoils someone else’s water supply, whether spring or reservoir, by poisons or excavations or theft, the injured party should take his case to the City-Wardens and submit his estimate of the damage in writing.

  37. Anyone convicted of fouling water by magic poisons

  should, in addition to his fine, purify the spring or reservoir, using whatever method of purification the regulations of the Expounders13 prescribe as appropriate to the circumstances and the individuals involved.

  A man may bring home any crop of his own by any route he pleases, [846] provided he does no one any damage, or, failing that, benefits to at least three times the value of the damage he does his neighbor. The authorities must act as inspectors in this business, as well as in all other cases when someone uses his own property deliberately to inflict violent or surreptitious damage on another man or some piece of his property without his permission. When the damage does not exceed three minas, the injured party must report it to the magistrates and obtain redress; but if he has a larger claim to bring against someone, he must get his redress from the culprit by taking the case to the public courts. [b]