Complete Works

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

  MEGILLUS: That’s quite right.

  ATHENIAN: Temenus became king of Argos, Cresphontes of Messene, and Procles and Eurysthenes of Sparta.

  MEGILLUS: True.

  ATHENIAN: And all their contemporaries swore to them that they would [e] go to their help if anybody tried to subvert their thrones.

  MEGILLUS: Precisely.

  ATHENIAN: Now when a monarchy is overthrown (and indeed when any other type of authority has been destroyed at any time) surely no one but the rulers themselves are to blame? That was the line we took when the subject cropped up a little time ago—or have we forgotten by now?

  MEGILLUS: No, of course not.

  ATHENIAN: So now we can put our thesis on a firmer footing, because it looks as if our study of history has led us to the same conclusion as before. This means we shall carry on our investigation on the basis of the [684] actual facts rather than conjecture. The facts are, of course, as follows: each of the three royal families, and each of the three royal states they ruled, exchanged oaths in accordance with mutually binding laws which they had adopted to regulate the exercise of authority and obedience to it. The kings swore never to stiffen their rule as the nation continued down the years; the others undertook, provided the rulers kept to their side of the bargain, never themselves to overthrow the kingships nor tolerate an [b] attempt to do so by others. The kings would help the kings and peoples if they were wronged, and the peoples would help the peoples and the kings likewise. That’s right, isn’t it?

  MEGILLUS: Certainly.

  ATHENIAN: Now whether it was the kings or someone else who laid down laws for this political system thus established in the three states, the crucial provision, surely, was this—

  MEGILLUS: What?

  ATHENIAN: Whenever a given state broke the established laws, an alliance of the other two would always be there to take the field against it.

  MEGILLUS: Obviously.

  ATHENIAN: Of course, most people only ask their legislators to enact the [c] kind of laws that the population in general will accept without objection. But just imagine asking your trainer or doctor to give you pleasure when he trains or cures your body!

  MEGILLUS: Exactly.

  ATHENIAN: In fact, you often have to be satisfied if you can restore your body to health and vigor without undue pain.

  MEGILLUS: True.

  ATHENIAN: In another respect too the people of that time were particularly [d] well placed to make legislation a painless process.

  MEGILLUS: What respect?

  ATHENIAN: Their legislators’ efforts to establish a certain equality of property among them were not open to one particularly damaging accusation which is frequently made in other states. Suppose a legal code is being framed and someone adopts the policy of a change in the ownership of land and a cancellation of debts, because he sees that this is the only way in which equality can be satisfactorily achieved. ‘Hands off fundamentals’ [e] is the slogan everybody uses to attack a legislator who tries to bring in that kind of reform, and his policy of land-redistribution and remission of debts earns him only curses. It’s enough to make any man despair. So here is another tremendous advantage the Dorians enjoyed: the absence of resentment. No one could object to the way the land was parceled out, and large long-standing debts did not exist.

  MEGILLUS: True.

  ATHENIAN: Then why on earth, my friends, did this foundation and its legislation turn out such a dismal failure?

  [685] MEGILLUS: What do you mean by that? What’s your objection?

  ATHENIAN: Three states were founded but in two of them the political system and the legal code were quickly corrupted. Only the third settlement survived—that of your state, Sparta.

  MEGILLUS: A pretty difficult problem you’re posing!

  ATHENIAN: Nevertheless, it demands our attention. So now let’s look into it, and while away the journey, as we said when we set out, by amusing ourselves with laws—it’s a dignified game and it suits our time [b] of life.

  MEGILLUS: Of course. We must do as you say.

  ATHENIAN: No laws could form a better subject for our investigation than those by which these states have been administered. Or are there any bigger or more famous states whose foundation we might examine?

  MEGILLUS: No, it’s not easy to think of alternatives.

  ATHENIAN: Well then, it’s pretty obvious that they intended the arrangements [c] they made to protect adequately not only the Peloponnese but the Greeks in general against any possible attack by non-Greeks—as for example occurred when those who then lived in the territory of Ilium trusted to the power of the Assyrian empire, which Ninos had founded, and provoked the war against Troy by their arrogance. You see, a good deal of the splendor of the Assyrian empire still remained, and the dread of its united organization was the counterpart in that age of our fear of the Great King of Persia today. The Assyrians had a tremendous grudge [d] against the Greeks: Troy, which was part of the Assyrian empire, had been captured for a second time.7 To meet such dangers the Dorian army formed a single unified body, although at that period it was distributed among the three states under the command of the kings (who were brothers, being sons of Hercules). It seemed to be excellently conceived and equipped—better even than the army which sailed against Troy. For a start, people thought the sons of Hercules were, as commanders, a cut above the grandsons [e] of Pelops;8 secondly, they rated the prowess of the army itself higher than that of the expedition which went to Troy. After all, they calculated, that had consisted of Achaeans, the very people the Dorians had defeated. So may we take it that this was the nature and purpose of the arrangements they made?

  MEGILLUS: Certainly.

  ATHENIAN: And for various reasons they probably expected these arrangements [686] would be permanent and last a long time. They had been comrades in a great many toils and dangers in the past, and now they had been brought under the control of a single family (the kings being brothers); and they had also consulted a large number of prophets, notably Apollo’s at Delphi.

  MEGILLUS: Yes, that’s probable enough, of course.

  ATHENIAN: But apparently these large expectations evaporated pretty quickly, except, as we said a minute ago, in the case of just one small part [b] of the alliance—your state, Sparta. And right up to the present day Sparta has never stopped fighting the other two members. But if they had done as they intended and had agreed on a common policy, their power would have been irresistible, militarily speaking.

  MEGILLUS: It certainly would.

  ATHENIAN: So just how did their plans misfire? This is surely a problem we ought to look into: why was such a vast and tremendous organization unlucky enough to be destroyed?

  MEGILLUS: True: this is the right direction to look. Neglect these, and [c] you’ll never find any other laws or political systems preserving (or eliminating) such remarkable and important features.

  ATHENIAN: What a stroke of luck! It looks as if we’ve somehow got on to a crucial point.

  MEGILLUS: No doubt about it.

  ATHENIAN: Well now, my fine fellow, what hackneyed thoughts we’ve been having, without realizing it! When people see some tremendous achievement, they always think to themselves, ‘What terrific results it would have led to, if someone had known how to set about putting it to [d] proper use!’ Here and now, perhaps our ideas on the topic we are discussing are just as wrong and unrealistic as anybody else’s who looks at anything in that sort of way.

  MEGILLUS: Well really, what do you mean? What are we supposed to think you’re driving at when you say that?

  ATHENIAN: I was poking fun at no one but myself, my friend. I was thinking about the army we are discussing and it occurred to me how splendid it was and what a marvellous tool (as I said) had been put into the hands of the Greeks—if only someone had put it to the proper use at the time!

  MEGILLUS: And you were quite right and sensible in everything you said, [e] and we heartily agreed with you—equally rightly and sensibly.

 
ATHENIAN: Maybe so. Still, my view is that everyone who sets eyes on something big and strong and powerful immediately gets the feeling that if the owner knew how to take advantage of its size and scale he would get tremendous results and be a happy man.

  [687] MEGILLUS: And this again is surely right and proper. Or do you see it differently?

  ATHENIAN: Well now, just consider what criteria a man ought to employ if he is going to be ‘right’ to give such praise in an individual case. What about the one we are discussing, for a start? Suppose those who undertook the organization of the army in that age had known their job: somehow, they would have succeeded in it—but the question is how. They ought, of course, to have consolidated their army and kept it on a permanent footing; this would have ensured them their own freedom while they ruled over anybody else they liked, and in general it would have enabled them to [b] do whatever they or their children wanted all over the world, among Greeks and non-Greeks indifferently. This is what men would praise them for, isn’t it?

  MEGILLUS: It is indeed.

  ATHENIAN: Again, anyone who notices a case of great wealth or exceptional family distinction or something like that takes precisely the same line. He assumes that just because a man enjoys these advantages his every wish will be granted—or at any rate most of them, and the most important ones.

  MEGILLUS: Quite likely.

  [c] ATHENIAN: Now then, this shows that there is one specific desire common to all mankind. Isn’t this the upshot of our discussion?

  MEGILLUS: What desire?

  ATHENIAN: That events should obey whatever orders one feels like giving—invariably, if possible, but failing that, at least where human affairs are concerned.

  MEGILLUS: Very true.

  ATHENIAN: So seeing that this is the constant wish of us all, right from childhood to old age, isn’t it inevitably what we are always praying for too?

  MEGILLUS: Of course.

  [d] ATHENIAN: And I suppose our prayers on behalf of those whom we love will be for precisely what they themselves pray for on their own behalf?

  MEGILLUS: Certainly.

  ATHENIAN: A man who is a father loves the child who is his son?

  MEGILLUS: Of course.

  ATHENIAN: Yet there is a good deal in the son’s prayers that the father will beg the gods never to grant.

  MEGILLUS: You mean when the son who prays is still young and irresponsible?

  ATHENIAN: Yes, and I’m thinking too of when the father is senile or even [e] unduly impulsive because of second childhood, and has lost all sense of what is right and proper. He gets into the same state as Theseus when he dealt with Hippolytus, who died so wretchedly,9 and his prayers become very vehement indeed. But if the son understands the situation, do you think he will join in his father’s prayers, given those circumstances?

  MEGILLUS: I know what you mean. Your point, I take it, is that you should demand your own way in your prayers only if your wishes are supported by your rational judgment—and this, a rational outlook, should be the object of the prayers and efforts of us all, states and individuals alike.

  ATHENIAN: It should indeed, and in particular—let me remind myself—it [688] should always be the aim of a state’s legislator when he frames the provisions of his laws. And I remind you again—to recollect the beginning of our discussion—of what you two recommended: you said that the good legislator should construct his entire legal code with a view to war;10 for my part, I maintained that this was to order him to establish his laws with an eye on only one virtue out of the four. I said he ought to keep virtue [b] as a whole in mind but especially and preeminently the virtue that heads the list—judgment and wisdom, and a strength of mind such that desires and appetites are kept under control. Our discussion has come full circle, and being the speaker at the moment I make the same point as before. You can treat it as a joke if you like, but if you prefer, you can take it seriously: I maintain that, if you lack wisdom, praying is a risky business, because you get the opposite of what you want. If you like to suppose [c] that I am in earnest, do so: I’m confident that if you follow the line of argument we opened up a moment ago you’ll soon discover that the cause of the ruin of the kings and the whole enterprise was not cowardice nor a lack of military expertise in the commanders or in those whose role it was to obey them. The disaster was caused by every other sort of vice, and in particular ignorance about mankind’s most vital concerns. And if [d] that was true then it is even more so today; and precisely the same will be true in the future. If you like, I’ll try to press on with the next stages in the argument and develop the point. As you are my friends, I’ll do my very best to make it clear.

  CLINIAS: To make a speech in your praise, sir, would be a tasteless thing to do. Our actions rather than our words will show our regard for you: we shall give you our closest attention. This is the best way to tell whether a gentleman approves or not.

  MEGILLUS: Well said, Clinias. Let’s do as you say. [e]

  CLINIAS: And so we shall, God willing. Now let’s have your explanation.

  ATHENIAN: Well then, to go back on to the track of the argument, we maintain that crass ignorance destroyed that great empire, and that it has a natural tendency to produce precisely the same results today. If this is so, it means that the legislator must try to inspire states with as much good sense as possible, and eradicate folly, as far as he can.

  CLINIAS: Obviously.

  [689] ATHENIAN: So what kind of ignorance would deserve the title ‘crass’? See if you agree with my description. I suggest this kind.

  CLINIAS: What?

  ATHENIAN: The kind involved when a man thinks something is fine and good, but loathes it instead of liking it, and conversely when he likes and welcomes what he believes is wicked and unjust. I maintain that this disaccord between his feelings of pleasure and pain and his rational judgment constitutes the very lowest depth of ignorance. It is also the most [b] ‘crass’, in that it affects the most extensive element in the soul (the element that experiences pleasure and pain, which corresponds to the most extensive part of a state, the common people). So when the soul quarrels with knowledge or opinion or reason, its natural ruling principles, you have there what I call ‘folly’. This applies both to the state in which people disobey their rulers and laws, and to the individual, when the fine principles in which he really believes prove not only ineffective but actually harmful. It’s all these examples of ignorance that I should put down as [c] the worst kind of discord in a state and individual, not the mere professional ignorance of a workman. I hope you see what I mean, gentlemen.

  CLINIAS: We do, my friend, and we agree with what you say.

  ATHENIAN: So let’s adopt this as an agreed statement of policy: no citizens who suffer from this kind of ignorance should be entrusted with any degree of power. They must be reproved for their ignorance, even if their ability to reason is outstanding and they have worked hard at every nice [d] accomplishment that makes a man quick-witted. It is those whose characters are at the other extreme who must be called ‘wise’, even if, as the saying is, ‘they cannot read, they cannot swim’; and it is these sensible people who must be given the offices of state. You see, my friends, without concord, how could you ever get even a glimmer of sound judgment? It’s out of the question. But we should be entirely justified in styling the greatest and most splendid concord of all ‘the greatest wisdom’. Anyone who lives a rational life shares in this wisdom, but the man who lacks it will invariably turn out to be a spendthrift and no savior to the city—quite [e] the reverse, because he suffers from this particular kind of ignorance. So as we said just now, let’s adopt this as the statement of our views.

  CLINIAS: Adopted it is.

  ATHENIAN: Now, I take it that states must contain some people who govern and others who are governed?

  CLINIAS: Naturally.

  [690] ATHENIAN: Good. Well then, what titles are there to either rank? Can we count them? (I mean both in the state and in the family, in each case irr
espective of size.) One claim, surely, could be made by father and mother; and in general the title of parents to exercise control over their children and descendants would be universally acknowledged, wouldn’t it?

  CLINIAS: Of course.

  ATHENIAN: Close behind comes the title of those of high birth to govern those of low birth. Next in order comes our third demand: that younger people should consent to be governed by their elders.

  CLINIAS: Certainly.

  ATHENIAN: The fourth is that slaves should be subject to the control of [b] their masters.

  CLINIAS: No doubt about it.

  ATHENIAN: And I suppose the fifth is that the stronger should rule and the weaker should obey.

  CLINIAS: A pretty compelling claim to obedience, that!

  ATHENIAN: Yes, and one which prevails throughout the animal kingdom—by decree of nature, as Pindar of Thebes once remarked.11 But it looks as if the most important claim will be the sixth, that the ignorant man should follow the leadership of the wise and obey his orders. In spite of you, my clever Pindar, what I’d called the ‘decree of nature’ is in fact [c] the rule of law that governs willing subjects, without being imposed by force; I’m certainly not prepared to say it’s unnatural.

  CLINIAS: Quite right.

  ATHENIAN: And we persuade a man to cast lots, by explaining that this, the seventh title to authority, enjoys the favor of the gods and is blessed by fortune. We tell him that the fairest arrangement is for him to exercise authority if he wins, but to be subject to it if he loses.

  CLINIAS: That’s very true.

  ATHENIAN: ‘So you see, O legislator’ (as we might jocularly address [d] someone who sets about legislation with undue optimism), ‘you see how many titles to authority there are, and how they naturally conflict with each other. Now here’s a source of civil strife we’ve discovered for you, which you must put to rights. First, though, join us in trying to find out how the kings of Argos and Messene went astray and broke these rules, and so destroyed themselves and the power of Greece, for all its splendor at that time. Wasn’t it because they didn’t appreciate the truth of Hesiod’s [e] remark that the half is often greater than the whole?12 He thought that when it is harmful to get the whole, and the half is enough, then enough is better than a feast, and is the preferable alternative.’