Laws. Платон

our attention. These require for their regulation that mixture of law and admonition of which we have often spoken; e.g., in what we were saying about the nurture of young children. And therefore the whole duty of the citizen will not consist in mere obedience to the laws; he must regard not only the enactments but also the precepts of the legislator. I will illustrate my meaning by an example. Of hunting there are many kinds – hunting of fish and fowl, man and beast, enemies and friends; and the legislator can neither omit to speak about these things, nor make penal ordinances about them all. 'What is he to do then?' He will praise and blame hunting, having in view the discipline and exercise of youth. And the young man will listen obediently and will regard his praises and censures; neither pleasure nor pain should hinder him. The legislator will express himself in the form of a pious wish for the welfare of the young: – O my friends, he will say, may you never be induced to hunt for fish in the waters, either by day or night; or for men, whether by sea or land. Never let the wish to steal enter into your minds; neither be ye fowlers, which is not an occupation for gentlemen. As to land animals, the legislator will discourage hunting by night, and also the use of nets and snares by day; for these are indolent and unmanly methods. The only mode of hunting which he can praise is with horses and dogs, running, shooting, striking at close quarters. Enough of the prelude: the law shall be as follows: —

      Let no one hinder the holy order of huntsmen; but let the nightly hunters who lay snares and nets be everywhere prohibited. Let the fowler confine himself to waste places and to the mountains. The fisherman is also permitted to exercise his calling, except in harbours and sacred streams, marshes and lakes; in all other places he may fish, provided he does not make use of poisonous mixtures.

      BOOK VIII. Next, with the help of the Delphian Oracle, we will appoint festivals and sacrifices. There shall be 365 of them, one for every day in the year; and one magistrate, at least, shall offer sacrifice daily according to rites prescribed by a convocation of priests and interpreters, who shall co-operate with the guardians of the law, and supply what the legislator has omitted. Moreover there shall be twelve festivals to the twelve Gods after whom the twelve tribes are named: these shall be celebrated every month with appropriate musical and gymnastic contests. There shall also be festivals for women, to be distinguished from the men's festivals. Nor shall the Gods below be forgotten, but they must be separated from the Gods above – Pluto shall have his own in the twelfth month. He is not the enemy, but the friend of man, who releases the soul from the body, which is at least as good a work as to unite them. Further, those who have to regulate these matters should consider that our state has leisure and abundance, and wishing to be happy, like an individual, should lead a good life; for he who leads such a life neither does nor suffers injury, of which the first is very easy, and the second very difficult of attainment, and is only to be acquired by perfect virtue. A good city has peace, but the evil city is full of wars within and without. To guard against the danger of external enemies the citizens should practise war at least one day in every month; they should go out en masse, including their wives and children, or in divisions, as the magistrates determine, and have mimic contests, imitating in a lively manner real battles; they should also have prizes and encomiums of valour, both for the victors in these contests, and for the victors in the battle of life. The poet who celebrates the victors should be fifty years old at least, and himself a man who has done great deeds. Of such an one the poems may be sung, even though he is not the best of poets. To the director of education and the guardians of the law shall be committed the judgment, and no song, however sweet, which has not been licensed by them shall be recited. These regulations about poetry, and about military expeditions, apply equally to men and to women.

      The legislator may be conceived to make the following address to himself: – With what object am I training my citizens? Are they not strivers for mastery in the greatest of combats? Certainly, will be the reply. And if they were boxers or wrestlers, would they think of entering the lists without many days' practice? Would they not as far as possible imitate all the circumstances of the contest; and if they had no one to box with, would they not practise on a lifeless image, heedless of the laughter of the spectators? And shall our soldiers go out to fight for life and kindred and property unprepared, because sham fights are thought to be ridiculous? Will not the legislator require that his citizens shall practise war daily, performing lesser exercises without arms, while the combatants on a greater scale will carry arms, and take up positions, and lie in ambuscade? And let their combats be not without danger, that opportunity may be given for distinction, and the brave man and the coward may receive their meed of honour or disgrace. If occasionally a man is killed, there is no great harm done – there are others as good as he is who will replace him; and the state can better afford to lose a few of her citizens than to lose the only means of testing them.

      'We agree, Stranger, that such warlike exercises are necessary.' But why are they so rarely practised? Or rather, do we not all know the reasons? One of them (1) is the inordinate love of wealth. This absorbs the soul of a man, and leaves him no time for any other pursuit. Knowledge is valued by him only as it tends to the attainment of wealth. All is lost in the desire of heaping up gold and silver; anybody is ready to do anything, right or wrong, for the sake of eating and drinking, and the indulgence of his animal passions. 'Most true.' This is one of the causes which prevents a man being a good soldier, or anything else which is good; it converts the temperate and orderly into shopkeepers or servants, and the brave into burglars or pirates. Many of these latter are men of ability, and are greatly to be pitied, because their souls are hungering and thirsting all their lives long. The bad forms of government (2) are another reason – democracy, oligarchy, tyranny, which, as I was saying, are not states, but states of discord, in which the rulers are afraid of their subjects, and therefore do not like them to become rich, or noble, or valiant. Now our state will escape both these causes of evil; the society is perfectly free, and has plenty of leisure, and is not allowed by the laws to be absorbed in the pursuit of wealth; hence we have an excellent field for a perfect education, and for the introduction of martial pastimes. Let us proceed to describe the character of these pastimes. All gymnastic exercises in our state must have a military character; no other will be allowed. Activity and quickness are most useful in war; and yet these qualities do not attain their greatest efficiency unless the competitors are armed. The runner should enter the lists in armour, and in the races which our heralds proclaim, no prize is to be given except to armed warriors. Let there be six courses – first, the stadium; secondly, the diaulos or double course; thirdly, the horse course; fourthly, the long course; fifthly, races (1) between heavy-armed soldiers who shall pass over sixty stadia and finish at a temple of Ares, and (2) between still more heavily-armed competitors who run over smoother ground; sixthly, a race for archers, who shall run over hill and dale a distance of a hundred stadia, and their goal shall be a temple of Apollo and Artemis. There shall be three contests of each kind – one for boys, another for youths, a third for men; the course for the boys we will fix at half, and that for the youths at two-thirds of the entire length. Women shall join in the races: young girls who are not grown up shall run naked; but after thirteen they shall be suitably dressed; from thirteen to eighteen they shall be obliged to share in these contests, and from eighteen to twenty they may if they please and if they are unmarried. As to trials of strength, single combats in armour, or battles between two and two, or of any number up to ten, shall take the place of wrestling and the heavy exercises. And there must be umpires, as there are now in wrestling, to determine what is a fair hit and who is conqueror. Instead of the pancratium, let there be contests in which the combatants carry bows and wear light shields and hurl javelins and throw stones. The next provision of the law will relate to horses, which, as we are in Crete, need be rarely used by us, and chariots never; our horse-racing prizes will only be given to single horses, whether colts, half-grown, or full-grown. Their riders are to wear armour, and there shall be a competition between mounted archers. Women, if they have a mind, may join in the exercises of men.

      But enough of gymnastics, and nearly enough of music. All musical contests will take place at festivals, whether every third or every fifth year, which are to be fixed by the guardians of the law, the judges of the games, and the director of education, who for this purpose shall become legislators and arrange times and conditions. The principles on which such contests are to be ordered have been often repeated by the first legislator; no more need be said of them, nor are the details of them important. But there is another subject of the highest importance, which, if possible, should be determined by the laws,