Complete Works

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

  60. If one of these people is found guilty,

  the court must sentence him to imprisonment as prescribed by law in the prison in the center of the country; no free man is to visit him at [c] any time, and slaves must hand him his ration of food fixed by the Guardians of the Laws. When he dies the body must be cast out over the borders of the state unburied.

  61. If any free man lends a hand in burying him,

  he must be liable to a charge of impiety at the hands of anyone who cares to prosecute.

  If the prisoner leaves children suitable for citizenship, the guardians of orphans must look after them too, from the day of their father’s conviction, no less than ordinary orphans. [d]

  All these offenders must be covered by one general law, which by forbidding illegal religious practices will cause most of them to sin less in word and deed against religion, and which in particular will do something to enlighten them. The following comprehensive law should be enacted to deal with all these cases.

  No one is to possess a shrine in his own private home. When a man takes it into his head to offer sacrifice, he is to go to the public shrines in order to do so, and he should hand over his offerings to the priests and [e] priestesses responsible for consecrating them; then he, and anyone else he may wish to participate, should join in the prayers. The grounds for these stipulations are as follows. To establish gods and temples is not easy; it’s a job that needs to be very carefully pondered if it is to be done properly. Yet look at what people usually do—all women in particular, invalids of every sort, men in danger or any kind of distress, or conversely when they have just won a measure of prosperity: they dedicate the first thing that [910] comes to hand, they swear to offer sacrifice, and promise to found shrines for gods and spirits and children of gods. And the terror they feel when they see apparitions, either in dreams or awake—a terror which recurs later when they recollect a whole series of visions—drives them to seek a remedy for each individually, with the result that on open spaces or any other spot where such an incident has occurred they found the altars and shrines that fill every home and village. The law now stated must be observed not only for all these reasons but also in order to deter the impious from managing to conduct these activities too in secret, by establishing shrines [b] and altars in private houses, calculating to win the favor of the gods on the quiet by sacrifices and prayers. This would make their wickedness infinitely worse, and bring the reproach of heaven both on themselves and on the virtuous people who tolerate them, so that, by a sort of rough justice, the whole state would catch the infection of their impiety. Still, God won’t blame the legislator, because this is the law to be enacted:

  [c] The possession of shrines in private houses is forbidden. If a man is proved to possess and worship at shrines other than the public ones, and the injustice committed is not an act of serious impiety (whether the possessor is a man or a woman), anyone who notices the fact must lay information before the Guardians of the Laws, who should give orders for the removal of the private shrines to public temples.

  62. (a) If the culprits disobey,

  they must be punished until they carry out the removal.

  (b) But if a man is proved guilty of a serious act of impiety typical of an adult, and not just the peccadillo of a child, either by establishing a shrine on private land or by sacrificing on public land to gods not included in the pantheon of the state,

  [d] he must be punished by death for sacrificing with impure hands.

  The Guardians of the Laws, after deciding whether the crime was a childish peccadillo or not, must then take the matter straight to court, and exact from the culprits the penalty for their impiety.

  1. See 854d ff.

  2. Or possibly, ‘by these entirely inanimate agencies’ (i.e., nature and chance).

  3. Inserting te after heautēn in c4.

  4. A remark attributed to Thales (c. 600 B.C.), traditionally the first philosopher.

  5. Works and Days 304.

  6. Deleting mē in e4.

  7. Odyssey xix.43.

  8.Iliad ix.500.

  9. See 961 ff.

  Book XI

  ATHENIAN: The next subject needing to be reduced to due order will be [913] our transactions with each other. I suppose something like this will serve as a general rule. Ideally, no one should touch my property or tamper with it, unless I have given him some sort of permission; and if I am sensible I shall treat the property of others with the same respect.

  Let’s take as our first example treasure which someone who was not one of my ancestors stored away for himself and his family. I should never pray to the gods to come across such a thing; and if I do, I must not disturb [b] it nor tell the diviners, as they are called, who (I shall find) can always invent some reason for advising one to remove something deposited in the ground. The financial benefit I’d get from removing it could never rival what I’d gain by way of virtue and moral rectitude by leaving it alone; by preferring to have justice in my soul rather than money in my pocket, I’d get—treasure for treasure—the better bargain, and for a better part of myself, too.

  ‘Hands off immovables’1 is aptly applied to a great many situations, and this is one of them. And we should put our trust in the traditional view [c] of such conduct—that it injures our descendants. Suppose a man takes no thought for his children and becomes indifferent to the legislator, and removes what neither he himself nor his father nor any of his fathers before him deposited, without the consent of the depositor; suppose he thus undermines the finest law there is, that simple rule of thumb, formulated as it was by a man of great nobility,2 ‘Don’t pick up what you didn’t put down’—well, when a man treats these two legislators3 so contemptuously [d] and picks up something he had not put down (and sometimes no bagatelle, either, but a huge treasure trove), what penalty should he suffer? God knows the penalty of heaven; but the first person to notice such an occurrence in the city should report it to the City-Wardens; if somewhere in the city’s market, to the Market-Wardens; and if in some place in the country, he should inform the Country-Wardens and their Chiefs. On [914] receiving the information the state should send to Delphi and in submission to the oracles of the god do whatever he ordains about the objects and the person who removed them. If the informant is a free man, he should acquire a reputation for virtue, but

  63. (a) if a free man fails to inform,

  he must get a reputation for vice.

  If the informant is a slave, then as a reward he will deservedly be presented with freedom by the state, which will give4 his master what he is worth, but

  (b) if a slave fails to inform,

  he must be punished by death.

  [b] The natural thing to do next is to apply this same rule to all objects, important or trivial. If a man leaves some piece of his own property somewhere, deliberately or inadvertently, anyone who finds it should let it be, on the assumption that such things are under the protection of the goddess of the wayside, to whom they are consecrated by law.

  64. If in defiance of this rule someone picks up an object of no great value and takes it home, and

  (a) he is a slave,

  he should be soundly beaten by any passer-by who is not less than thirty years of age;

  [c] (b) if he is a free man,

  in addition to being thought ungentlemanly and lawless, he must pay the person who left the article ten times its value.

  If one man accuses another of being in possession of some piece of his own property, whether valuable or not, and the accused person admits he has it but denies that it belongs to the complainant, the latter should—if the object has been registered with the authorities according to law—summon the person in possession of it before the authorities, and the [d] possessor must produce it; then if on being presented for inspection it proves to have been recorded in the registers as the property of one of the disputants, the owner must take it and depart; but if it belongs to some other party not present, then whichever disputant fu
rnishes a credit-worthy guarantor should exercise the absent party’s right of removal and take the article away on his behalf for delivery into his possession. If on the other hand the article in dispute has not been registered with the authorities, it must be left with the three oldest officials pending settlement of the case; [e] and if it is an animal that is thus kept in safe custody, the loser of the suit must pay the officials for its keep. The officials are to settle the case within three days.

  Anyone who wishes—provided he’s in his right mind—may seize his own slave, and (within the permitted limits) treat him as he likes. He may also arrest a runaway slave, in order to stop him escaping, on behalf of a relative or friend. If anyone demands the release of someone who is being taken for a slave and arrested, the captor must let him go, but the releaser must furnish three credit-worthy sureties. On these terms and on no other the man may be released.

  65. If a man secures a release except on these conditions, he must be liable to a charge of violence and if convicted,

  [915] he must pay to the captor twice the damages claimed in the suit.

  Freedmen too may be arrested if they fail to perform their services to their manumittor, or perform them inadequately. (The services are these: three times a month a freedman must proceed to the home of his manumittor and offer to do anything lawful and practicable; and as regards marrying he must do whatever his former master thinks right.) He must not grow more wealthy than his manumittor; if he does, the excess must become [b] the property of the master. The freedman must not stay in the state longer than twenty years, but like the other aliens5 he must then take all his property and leave, unless he has gained permission from the authorities and his manumittor to remain. If a freedman or one of the other aliens acquires property in excess of the limit allowed the third property-class,6 then within thirty days of this event he must pack up and be off, without [c] any right to ask the authorities to extend his stay.

  66. If a freedman disobeys these regulations and is taken to court and convicted,

  he must be punished by death and his property confiscated by the state.

  Such cases should be tried in the tribal courts, unless the litigants have previously settled their charges against each other before their neighbors—that is, judges they have chosen themselves.

  If a man formally seizes as his own any animal or some other piece of [d] property of any other man7 the person in possession must return it to the warrantor or donor, provided the latter is suable and solvent, or to the person who validly transferred it to him by some other procedure. If he received it from a citizen or a resident alien, he must do so within thirty days; but if he took delivery from a complete alien, he must return it within the five months of which the third shall be the month in which the summer solstice occurs.

  When one person makes an exchange with another by buying or selling, the transfer must be made by handing over the article in the appointed part of the market-place (and nowhere else), and by receiving the price [e] on the nail; no payment for delivery later or sale on credit is to be allowed. If a man exchanges one thing for another in any other place or under any other arrangement, trusting to the honesty of the other party to the exchange, he must do so on the understanding that when sales are made other than under the rules now stated the law does not permit him to sue. (Anyone may collect contributions to clubs on a friendly basis, but if some disagreement arises over the collection he must do so on the understanding that in this business no one under any circumstances will be allowed to go to law.)

  A seller of an article who receives a price of fifty drachmas or more must be obliged to remain in the state for ten days, and the buyer (in view of the complaints that people are apt to make in this connection, and so [916] that, if necessary, restitution may be made according to law) must be informed of his address. Here are the rules under which legal restitution may be demanded or refused. If someone sells a slave suffering from consumption or stone or strangury or the so-called ‘sacred’ disease8 or some other mental or physical complaint that is chronic and difficult to cure and which the ordinary man could not diagnose, and if the purchase was made by a doctor or trainer, or if the facts were pointed out before the time of sale, the buyer shall have no right to return him to the vendor. [b] But if a layman is sold such a slave by a professional, the purchaser may return him within six months, except in the case of the ‘sacred’ disease, when the period for restitution is to be extended to a year. The case should be heard before a bench of three doctors appointed by joint nomination of the parties, and if the vendor loses he must pay twice the selling price. [c] If a layman sells to a layman there should be a right of restitution and a hearing as in the previous instance, but the loser should pay only the simple price. If the slave is a murderer, and both buyer and seller are aware of the fact, there shall be no right of restitution for the purchase; but if the buyer acted in ignorance he shall have a right of restitution as soon as he realizes the situation, and the case should be tried before the five youngest Guardians of the Laws; if the vendor is judged to have known the facts, he must purify the house of the buyer under the Expounders’ rules [d] and pay him three times the price.

  Anyone exchanging money for money or for anything else, animate or inanimate, should always give and receive full value as the law directs. Let’s do as we did in other parts of our legislation and allow ourselves a preface dealing with the whole range of crimes that arise in this connection.

  Everyone should think of adulteration as essentially the same sort of thing as lying and deceit—which in fact people commonly describe as [e] quite respectable. But they are wrong to defend this sort of conduct as ‘frequently justified, on appropriate occasions’, because what they mean by the ‘appropriate’ place and occasion they leave vague and indefinite, and their dictum does nothing but harm both to themselves and to others. Now a legislator cannot afford to leave this vague: he must always lay down precise limits, however wide or narrow they may be. So let’s define some limits now: a man must tell no lie, commit no deceit, and do no [917] fraud in word or deed when he calls upon the gods, unless he wants to be thoroughly loathed by them—as anyone is who snaps his fingers at them and swears false oaths, or (though they find this less offensive) tells lies in the presence of his superior. Now the ‘superiors’ of bad men are the good, and of the young their elders (usually)—which means that parents are the superiors of their offspring, men are (of course) the superiors of women and children, and rulers of their subjects. All these people in positions of authority deserve the respect of us all, and the authorities of the state deserve it in particular. This is in fact what prompted these remarks. Anyone who is so lacking in respect for men and reverence for [b] the gods as to pull off some swindle of the market-place by swearing oaths and calling heaven to witness (even though the rules and warnings of the Market-Wardens stare him in the face), is a liar and a cheat. So in view of the low level of religious purity and holiness most of us generally achieve, let me emphasize what a good habit it is to think twice before taking the names of the gods in vain.

  If any cases of disobedience arise, the following law should be invoked: the seller of any article in the market must never name two prices for his [c] goods, but only one, and if he doesn’t get it, he will (quite rightly) remove his wares without raising or lowering his price that day; and he must not push anything he has for sale, or take an oath on its quality.

  67. If a man disobeys these regulations,

  any citizen passing by, provided he is not less than thirty years of age, should punish the taker of the oath and beat him with impunity.

  68. If the passer-by ignores these instructions and disobeys them,

  he must be liable to the reproach of having betrayed the laws.

  If a man proves to be beyond persuasion by our present address and sells [d] a faulty article, the passer-by who has the knowledge and ability to expose him should prove his case before the authorities, and, if a slave or resident alien, may
then take the faulty article for himself; a citizen, however, should dedicate it to the gods of the marketplace.

  69. If a citizen fails to expose the offender,

  he should be pronounced a rogue, as he has cheated the gods.

  70. Anyone discovered selling such adulterated merchandise,

  apart from being deprived of it, must be whipped (one lash for every [e] drachma of the asking price of the object he was selling), after a herald has announced in the market-place the reason why the culprit is going to be flogged.

  The Market-Wardens and the Guardians of the Laws, having ascertained from experts the details of the adulterations and malpractices of sellers, should record in writing rules which specify what vendors must and must not do; these regulations should then be inscribed on a pillar and displayed in front of the Market-Wardens’ office for the information of those who [918] transact business in the market-place. (As for the City-Wardens, we have already given an adequate description of their duties, but if it seems some additional rules are needed, the wardens should consult the Guardians of the Laws, write out what they think missing, and record both the new and the old rules of their office on a pillar in front of their quarters.)

  Hard on the heels of tricks of adulteration come the practices of retail trade. First we should give a word of advice on the whole subject, then lay down legislation for it. The natural function in the state of retail trading [b] in general is not to do harm, but quite the opposite. When goods of any kind are distributed disproportionately and unequally, anyone who makes the distribution equal and even cannot fail to do good. It needs to be stated that this redistribution, in which money too plays an effective role, is precisely the purpose the trader is meant to serve. Hired laborers, innkeepers and other workmen of varying degrees of respectability all perform [c] the function of satisfying the needs of the community by ensuring an even distribution of goods. Why then is trading thought to be such a low and disreputable occupation? Why has it come to be so abused? Let’s see if we can discover the reason, so that we can use our legislation to reform at any rate some branches of commerce, even if not the whole institution. This looks like an important task that calls for exceptional resource.