Book 1 - Platonic Foundation

Laws

––––– BOOK I –––––

persons in the dialogue: ATHENIAN STRANGER

CLINIAS of Cnossus, Crete

MEGILLUS of Sparta

scene: ascending from Cnossus to the cave of Zeus

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ATHENIAN: Well, my friends, was it a god or some human who was responsible for establishing

your laws?

CLINIAS: A god, stranger. Yes, that is the fairest answer. Among ourselves in Crete it was Zeus,

while among the Spartans, where this man comes from, I think they say it was Apollo. Is

this so?

MEGILLUS: Yes.

ATHENIAN: Don’t you say, as Homer does, that Minos used to make regular visits every ninth

year to be with his father, Zeus, and he set down the laws for your cities based upon his

pronouncements?

CLINIAS: Yes, that is what we say. And, indeed, we also say that his brother, Rhadamanthus – you

have heard the name I am sure – was exceedingly just. And we Cretans would maintain

that he won this reputation, deservedly, based on the way he dealt with the legal issues of

the time.

ATHENIAN: A good reputation indeed, and most befitting to a son of Zeus. And since yourself and

this man have been brought up under such lawful customs as these, I presume that spending

time now, listening to one another speak about civic affairs and laws, would not be an

unpleasant prospect as we proceed on our journey. The road from Cnossus to the cave and

sanctuary of Zeus is quite a long one I am told, but there are it seems resting places, shaded

from this extreme heat, along the way, among the tall trees. At our age it would be appro-

priate that we take a rest often among them, relax and exchange stories with one another,

and thus complete the entire journey with ease.

CLINIAS: Yes indeed, my friend, and as we proceed there are tall cypress trees of wonderful beauty

in the groves, and there are meadows too in which we may take a rest and converse.

ATHENIAN: You are right to suggest this.

CLINIAS: Yes, indeed, and we will say so all the more when we see them. So let us proceed, and

may good fortune attend us.

ATHENIAN: So be it. But tell me this. Why is it that the law regulates your common meals, physical

exercise, and the nature of your military equipment?

CLINIAS: Well, my friend, I think that our arrangements are easy for anyone to understand. Indeed,

the entire Cretan countryside is not, as you see, flat like Thessaly, and so they make more

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use of horses; while we are runners, since our territory is rugged and more suited to exercise

that involves running. In a country like this then, it is necessary to wear light armour rather

than trying to run in heavy armour, and the lightness of bows and arrows seems to fit in

with this. All these arrangements equip us for war, and, as I see it, the lawmaker had this in

mind when he made all the regulations. And that is probably why he got people together

for common meals, seeing that all those who are ever on military campaign necessarily

have meals together for their own protection, for the duration, because of the circumstances.

Here, I believe, he is demeaning of the stupidity of the broad mass of people who do not

understand that there is always constant warfare going on against all of the cities throughout

one’s life. Now, if it is necessary when there is a war on to have meals together for purposes

of protection, and for some rulers and some subjects to act in turn as their guards, the same

thing should be done in time of peace. For what most of the people call peace is so in name

only, while in fact all the cities are, by nature, always involved in undeclared warfare against

all other cities. And if you look at it in this way, you will surely find that the Cretan lawgiver

had an eye to warfare when he instituted all these regulations of ours, be they public or pri-

vate. And he gave us the task of protecting the laws based on these principles, because noth-

ing else at all, no possessions or pursuits, are of any use unless we prevail in war, since all

the goods of the defeated city go to the victorious one.

ATHENIAN: Well, stranger, when it comes to the thorough understanding of Cretan law, you seem

to me to have been very well trained. But explain something to me more clearly. The defi-

nition you gave of a well-governed city seems to me to be saying that it should be organised

and managed so that it is victorious in war against other cities. Is this so?

CLINIAS: Yes, indeed. And I believe that this man here agrees with this.

MEGILLUS: Heavens! How could any Spartan say otherwise?

ATHENIAN: Now, although this is true of a city in relation to another city, does something different

apply to a village in relation to another village?

CLINIAS: Not at all.

ATHENIAN: Is it the same?

CLINIAS: Yes.

ATHENIAN: What about one household in the village in relation to another, and one man against

another? Is it the same?

CLINIAS: The same.

ATHENIAN: And what about the man himself, in relation to himself? Should he think of himself as

an enemy? Or what do we say in this case?

CLINIAS: O Athenian stranger! I am not prepared to refer to you as a mere inhabitant of Attica, for

I think you really deserve to be named after the goddess,

since you have correctly brought

the argument back to its source and made it clearer. As a result, you will easily discover

that we were right to say just now that all are enemies to all, at the level of the community

or of the individual, and each individual is an enemy of himself.

ATHENIAN: That is surprising! What do you mean?

CLINIAS: That is to say he himself, winning a victory over himself, my friend, is the first and the

best of all victories, while he himself, being defeated by himself, is the worst and most

shameful defeat of all. Indeed, these statements are indicating that there is a war going on

in each of us, against our own selves.

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LAWS I – 625e–626e | 1,053

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Odyssey xix.178-179. Minos was the legendary king of Crete, son of Zeus and Europa, who, every nine years, made

King Aegeus select fourteen children (seven girls and seven boys) to be devoured by the Minotaur.

The goddess referred to here is Athena, the goddess of wisdom and foundress of the city of Athens.

ATHENIAN: Well, let us turn the argument around again. For since each one of us is both better than

himself and worse than himself, should we maintain that the same holds for a household, a

village and a city, or not?

CLINIAS: Are you asking about being better than itself and worse than itself?

ATHENIAN: Yes.

CLINIAS: And you are right to ask, for this certainly is the case, very much so, especially in cities.

For in any cities, where the superior people win a victory over the majority, who are inferior,

the city may rightly be said to be better than itself, and the city may quite justly be praised

for such a victory. And the opposite applies under the opposite circumstances.

ATHENIAN: Let us set aside the possibility that the inferior might somehow be better than the supe-

rior, since that would involve a longer argument. But as I now understand you, you are say-

ing that unjust citizens, of the same stock, born in the same city, will sometimes get together

in large numbers and forcibly enslave just citizens who are fewer in number. Whenever

they prevail, the city itself may rightly be said to be worse than itself and bad, and whenever

they are defeated, the city itself may be said to be better than itself and good.

CLINIAS: What you are describing is most unusual, stranger. Nevertheless, we have to agree that

this is most necessarily so.

ATHENIAN: Hold there. Let us consider this once more. Many brothers may presumably be born,

sons of one father and one mother, and it would not of course be a surprise if more of them

turned out to be unjust, and less of them to be just.

CLINIAS: It would not.

ATHENIAN: And it would not be appropriate for you and me to pursue the point that the entire

household, and the family, would be referred to as worse than itself if the evildoers were

victorious, and as better than itself if they were defeated. For what we are now considering,

in relation to the argument of the majority, is not concerned with the appropriateness or

inappropriateness of verbal expressions, but with laws, and the precise nature of correctness

and freedom from error in them.

CLINIAS: Very true, my friend.

MEGILLUS: Yes, I agree. This has been very well expressed so far.

ATHENIAN: Then let us look at the following question too. The brothers that were spoken of just

now would, presumably, have a judge?

CLINIAS: Yes, indeed.

ATHENIAN: Now, which of these two would be superior, a judge who destroyed the bad people

among them, and directed the better people to rule over themselves, or one who made the

good people rule, while allowing the inferior types to live on as their willing subjects? And

there is perhaps a third judge we should mention in terms of excellence – if such a person

exists – one who takes a single quarrelling family in hand, does not destroy anyone, but

reconciles them for the future, and would be able to ensure that they are on friendly terms

with one another by giving them laws.

CLINIAS: This sort of judge, who is also a lawgiver, would be far superior.

ATHENIAN: And yet, he would not be enacting laws for them with a view to war. The very opposite

would be the case.

CLINIAS: That is true.

ATHENIAN: What about the one who brings the city together in harmony? Does he order the life of

the city with a view to external warfare, rather than looking out for warfare that arises from

time to time within the city, which is called faction? And this is something that no one ever

wants in his own city, and when it arises he wants it to be eliminated as quickly as possible.

CLINIAS: He will look out for faction, of course.

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ATHENIAN: What if faction were to come to a peaceful end because some people had been destroyed

while others had been victorious? Would that be preferable to reconciliation of the faction

and having to turn their thoughts then to external enemies, in friendship and peace with one

another?

CLINIAS: In the case of their own city, the reconciliation is what everyone would prefer.

ATHENIAN: Doesn’t the same apply to the lawgiver?

CLINIAS: Of course.

ATHENIAN: And wouldn’t every lawgiver institute all the regulations for the sake of what is best?

CLINIAS: How could he do otherwise?

ATHENIAN: And what is best is neither warfare nor faction. It would be terrible if we needed these.

What is best is peace and a friendly disposition towards one another at the same time. What

is more, it seems the city itself, winning a victory over itself, is not to be counted among

the best outcomes, but among those that are necessary. It is as if someone were to think that

a sick body, which had undergone medical purgation, was then in the best possible condition

and did not pay any attention to a body that did not need any treatment at all. In like manner,

no one would ever become a true statesman by focusing exclusively and primarily upon

external warfare as a means of ensuring the happiness of the city and of the individual. Nor

would he ever be a lawgiver in the strict sense of the word, unless he instituted laws relating

to warfare for the sake of peace, rather than instituting laws relating to peace for the sake

of warfare.

CLINIAS: It appears somehow that this argument of yours, my friend, has been formulated correctly.

And, yet, I wonder if the regulations here, and those in Sparta too, have not been enacted,

in all seriousness, for the sake of warfare.

ATHENIAN: Perhaps so. Yet we should not do battle with them aggressively, but question them

gently about the issues, since we are most serious about all this, and so are they. Follow

along with my argument then. At any rate, let us introduce Tyrtaeus,

an Athenian by birth,

who later became a citizen of Sparta. He, of all men, was particularly interested in these

matters, and he said that

I would make no mention of a man or take account of him,

even if he were the wealthiest of men even if he possessed goods aplenty...

and here he lists almost all of them

...unless he turned out to be consistently excellent in warfare.

I presume that you have heard these poems too, while I am sure that our friend here has

had his fill of them.

MEGILLUS: I certainly have.

CLINIAS: Yes, indeed, and they have reached us here too, imported from Sparta.

ATHENIAN: Come on, then. Let us question this poet together in some such manner as this: “O

Tyrtaeus, you are surely the most divine of poets, for you seem to us to be wise and good

indeed, because you have sung the praises of those who excel in war, and you have excelled

in doing so. Now, I myself, and this man, and Clinias of Cnossus, are already in full agree-

ment with you on this matter, or so we think, but we would like to know for certain whether

or not we are both talking about the same people. So tell us, do you think, for certain, as we

do, that there are two kinds of warfare? Or what do you think?”

In response to this, I believe, even a far lesser man than Tyrtaeus would state the

truth, that there are two, one which all of us call faction, which is the most bitter of all kinds

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LAWS I – 628c–629d | 1,055

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Tyrtaeus was an elegiac poet who lived in Sparta. He was noted for his poetry, which exhorted the Spartans to fight

courageously in defence of their city. The Athenian stranger quotes the first line of the poem and paraphrases the

subsequent nine lines.

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of warfare, as we ourselves said just now. And we shall all propose, I believe, that the other

kind of warfare is what we engage in when quarrelling with other peoples externally, and

this is much milder than internal faction.

CLINIAS: Of course.

ATHENIAN: “Come on then, which warfare were you praising? And which men did you praise so

highly, or criticise? It seems it was the men involved in external warfare, for you say in

your poems that you simply cannot stand the sort of men who shrink at the sight of blood-

drenched slaughter, and will not grapple with the enemy at close quarters.” And after all

this, shouldn’t we also say that “It seems, Tyrtaeus, that you lavish most praise on those

who achieve fame in external warfare against foreigners.” I presume he would agree with

this, and accept the point.

CLINIAS: Of course.

ATHENIAN: But although these men are good, we maintain that those who excel conspicuously in

the greatest warfare are better by far. And we have a poet as witness to this too, Theognis,

a citizen of Megara in Sicily, who says, “In a bitter contest, a faithful man is worth his

weight in silver and gold, Cyrnus.” We maintain then that this man turns out to be altogether

better than that other man in more bitter warfare. He is better to much the same extent as

justice, sound-mindedness and wisdom, combined with courage, are better than courage

just by itself. For faith and soundness in the midst of faction would never arise in the absence

of overall excellence. But in the external warfare that Tyrtaeus speaks of, there are vast

numbers of mercenaries ready and willing to stand their ground and die fighting, almost all

of whom turn out to be reckless, unjust, arrogant and devoid of intelligence, with some few

exceptions.

Well, where will this present argument of ours finally lead? And what precise point

is it trying to make by saying all this? Obviously it is this. The god-inspired lawgiver of

this country, and any lawgiver who confers even a little benefit, always institutes laws while

looking, above all, to nothing else except the very greatest excellence. This, according to

Theognis, is “faithfulness in the midst of danger”, which may be called ‘perfect justice’.

But what Tyrtaeus for his part has praised most – although it is noble, and has been appro-

priately glorified by the poet – should nevertheless, properly speaking, be placed fourth in

terms of its status and the respect it commands.

CLINIAS: My friend, we are relegating our own lawgiver to the lowest rank.

ATHENIAN: No, my friend, we are not doing it to him. We are relegating ourselves whenever we

believe that Lycurgus and Minos instituted all the regulations,

here and in Sparta, mainly

with a view to warfare.

CLINIAS: How should we have spoken of this?

ATHENIAN: In a way that is true and just, I believe, since we are conversing on behalf of a divine

personage. We should not say that he instituted laws with a view to a portion of excellence,

and the most commonplace portion at that, but with a view to excellence in its entirety. And

we should say that he sought to institute the laws kind by kind, but not the kinds proposed

by those who institute laws nowadays. For at present each seeks to propose whatever kind

he needs, so one person is concerned with inheritances and heiresses, another with assaults,

others with countless other cases like these. But we maintain that the search for laws, when

properly conducted, proceeds just as we have now begun. And I thoroughly admire your

attempt to explain the laws, for beginning with excellence, and saying that the lawgiver

instituted the laws for the sake of this, is correct. But when you went on to maintain that he

institutes laws by referring everything to a mere portion of excellence, and the smallest por-

tion at that, I thought you were clearly mistaken, and that is why the latter part of our dis-

cussion was needed. Well then, what sort of distinction would I have liked to hear you mak-

ing as you spoke? Would you like me to tell you?

CLINIAS: Yes, certainly.

ATHENIAN: You should have said: “Stranger, it is not for nothing that the laws of Crete are held in

exceptionally high regard among all Greeks. They are correct laws that bring about happi-

ness in those who use them, for they provide everything that is good. Now, goods are of

two kinds – human and divine – and the human goods depend upon the divine. And if a

city receives the greater it also acquires the lesser, but if it receives not the greater it is

deprived of both. Of the lesser goods, health is the leader, beauty comes second, third comes

strength in running and the other activities of the body, fourth comes wealth – not blind,

but keen-sighted, provided it follows wisdom. Now, the first of the divine goods, and their

leader, is wisdom; second is a sound-minded disposition of the soul, imbued with reason;

and third, from the combination of these two with courage, comes justice; while courage

itself is fourth. All of these have a natural priority over the human goods, and that indeed

is how the lawgiver must rank them. After all this, the citizens must be told that the other

civic regulations have these goods in view; the human look to the divine, and the divine all

look together to their leader, reason.

“In their connections through marriage, and afterwards in the birth of their children

and their nurture, be they male or female, when they are young or when they get older and

into old age, it is necessary to care for them by bestowing honour or dishonour in the right

way. And in all their interactions, in their pleasures, pains, desires and intense passions,

they should be watched and supervised, and censure or praise should be bestowed in the

right way, through the laws themselves. In anger too, and in fear, and amidst any tribulations

that arise in their souls because of bad fortune – and the escape from such tribulations in

good fortune – and amidst the effects that disease, war, poverty and their opposites have

upon people when they occur, under all such circumstances, what is good and what is bad

about the situation should be defined and taught in each case.

“Besides this, it is necessary for the lawgiver to watch over the acquisition and dis-

position of property by the citizens, regardless of how they do it, and to oversee their joint

ventures in furtherance of this, and the dissolution of these, be they voluntary or involuntary,

noting the way in which they behave towards one another in each of these ventures, and

which are just, and which are not. He should assign honours to those who are obedient to

the laws, and impose legally prescribed penalties upon those who disobey them. When he

reaches the end of the entire constitution, he would look to the manner in which the dead

should be buried in each case, and what honours should be assigned to them. Having sur-

veyed this, the one who instituted the laws will, over all these, appoint guardians, some

who proceed through wisdom, some who work through true opinion, so that reason may

bind them all together and declare that they are following sound-mindedness and justice,

rather than wealth and ambition.”

So, my friends, that is how I at least wanted, and still wish even now, to hear you

describe how all these are present in the laws that are said to come from Zeus, or in the

laws of Pythian Apollo, which Minos and Lycurgus instituted. And I also want you to

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Theognis was a lyric poet. Despite what the Athenian stranger says here, he is likely to have hailed from the Megara

near Athens rather than the Megara in Sicily. His poetry was lively, and provided practical advice about life and com-

mentary on civic matters.

According to tradition, Lycurgus and Minos established the Spartan and Cretan constitutions.

Plutus, the god and personification of wealth, was, in some contexts, depicted as being blind so that he could distribute

his benefits without prejudice.

explain how the order they have acquired is evident to someone experienced in the laws,

either technically or practically, while it is not at all apparent to the rest of us.

CLINIAS: Well, my friend, what should we say next?

ATHENIAN: In my opinion we should go through this again from the beginning, starting, as we did

at the outset, with activities conducive to courage, and then if you wish we shall go through

another kind of excellence, and another one after that. Once we have described the first

one, we should try to set this up as a model, and pass the journey nicely by discussing the

others in the same way. Later, god willing, we shall demonstrate that what we have described

just now has excellence in its entirety in view.

MEGILLUS: That is a good suggestion. Let us try to put our friend here, who praises Zeus, to the

test first.

ATHENIAN: I shall also try to test yourself and myself, since the argument is common to us all. So

tell me, do we maintain that the common meals and physical training were devised by the

lawgiver for the purposes of warfare?

MEGILLUS: Yes.

ATHENIAN: And what comes third and fourth? For it may perhaps be necessary, in the case of the

rest of excellence, to rank the parts, or whatever they should be called, in this way, as long

as our meaning is clear.

MEGILLUS: Well I myself, and anyone from Sparta, would say that he devised hunting third.

ATHENIAN: We should try to say what comes fourth or fifth if we can.

MEGILLUS: In fourth place, I would still try to argue, lies the endurance of pain, which is so impor-

tant to us both in our boxing matches and in the robberies we devise, in which there is

always a lot of physical violence. Then there is our so-called ‘secret service’,

which

involves a lot of pain, but teaches endurance wonderfully. They go without shoes in winter,

sleeping on the ground, wandering through the entire countryside by day and by night, look-

ing after themselves without any attendants. Our naked games too are formidable tests of

endurance, battling against the raging heat of summer. And there are so many other exam-

ples that someone who tried to recite them all would almost never stop.

ATHENIAN: Well said, Spartan stranger. But come now, what should we propose courage is? Is it

simply, as you say, doing battle only against fears and pains, or is it set against desires and

pleasures too, and against certain formidable corrupting flatteries, that soften the hearts

even of those who think they are above this sort of thing?

MEGILLUS: Yes, that is what I think. It is set against them all.

ATHENIAN: Well, if we recall the earlier arguments, this man here spoke of a city that is worse than

itself, and of such a man too. Is this so, stranger from Cnossus?

CLINIAS: Very much so.

ATHENIAN: And are we now saying that the man who is worse than the pains is bad, or is the man

who is worse than the pleasures bad too?

CLINIAS: In my opinion, the one who is worse than the pleasures is more so. Indeed, we all say,

presumably, that someone who is ruled by pleasures is worse than himself, shamefully so,

rather than someone who is ruled by pains.

ATHENIAN: Now, surely Zeus’ lawgiver and the Pythian one did not institute a crippled courage

capable of resisting only the things on its left-hand side, but unable to resist the allurements

and flatteries on its right? Or can it resist on both sides?

CLINIAS: On both sides, I would say.

ATHENIAN: Shall we say then, once more, what formal activities of both our cities involve tasting

the pleasures rather than avoiding them, just as the other activities did not avoid pains but

immersed people in them, and used honour to compel or persuade people to rule over the

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pains? Where then, in the laws, is the same arrangement in relation to pleasures?

Let us say what this arrangement of yours is that makes the same people courageous,

in like manner, in the face of pains and in the face of pleasures, winning victories over what

they should, and never coming off worst against their own closest and harshest enemies.

MEGILLUS: Well, stranger, although I was able to describe, as I did, many laws that are set against

pains, I would probably not be so well provided with significant or obvious instances if I

had to speak about pleasures. But I might come up with some minor instances.

CLINIAS: Nor could I myself point to an obvious instance of this sort in the laws of Crete.

ATHENIAN: Best of strangers, that is no surprise. But if any one of us is going to censure anything

about each other’s own domestic laws because he wishes to discern the truth, and what is

best too, we should accept one another’s censures submissively, and not make difficulties.

CLINIAS: Rightly said, Athenian stranger. We should heed that.

ATHENIAN: Yes, Clinias. It would not be appropriate for men of our age to make difficulties.

CLINIAS: Indeed, it would not.

ATHENIAN: Whether or not someone is right to criticise the constitution of Crete or Sparta is another

matter. However, when it comes to the views expressed by most people, I am probably

better able to state them than either of you. If your laws have indeed been arranged properly,

one of the best laws would be that no young person may conduct an enquiry as to which

laws are worthy and which are not, but all must declare together, with one voice, from a

single mouth, that all is well with what the gods have ordained. If anyone says otherwise,

he is not given a hearing at all. Yet if any old person has some issue on his mind about your

laws, he presents arguments of this sort to someone in authority, someone of his own age,

with no young person present.

CLINIAS: What you are saying is quite correct, stranger. And although you are far removed in time

from whoever instituted them, it seems you have now guessed his thinking on the matter

quite well, like a prophet, and you really are speaking the truth.

ATHENIAN: Well, there are no young people among us just now. So if the lawgiver permits us, on

account of our old age, to discuss these matters just by ourselves, we would be doing no

great harm, would we?

CLINIAS: This is so. And do not hold yourself back from criticising our laws, since recognising

something that is not good is not disrespectful. In fact, a remedy can be a consequence of

this, provided that what is said is received without resentment, in a good spirit.

ATHENIAN: Very well, but I shall not speak critically of your laws just yet, not until I have inves-

tigated them to the best of my ability, and am more certain about them. Instead, I shall tell

you of my difficulties. As far as we can discover, your lawgiver is the only one, among

Greeks or non-Greeks, who gave directions to refrain from the greatest pleasures and

amusements, and not to taste of them at all. Yet when it came to pains and fears, as we

explained earlier, he believed that if someone flees from these from his earliest years, in

the end whenever he meets with unavoidable hardships, fears and pains, he is going to flee

from people who are trained and practised in these, and he will be enslaved by them. I am

of the view then that the same lawgiver should have thought the very same thing about

pleasures, saying to himself that “If our citizens grow up from their very childhood with

no experience of the greatest pleasures, and become totally unpractised in enduring in the

face of pleasures, and in resisting the urge to perform shameful acts, their weakness of

spirit when it comes to pleasures will place them in the same predicament as those who

are overcome by fears. They will be enslaved, in a different and even more shameful way,

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An official group of young Spartan citizens who were tasked with ensuring the compliance of the slaves (helots).

by people who are able to practise endurance in the face of pleasures, and who have mas-

tered the realm of pleasure, people who are sometimes thoroughly bad. The state of their

own soul will be partly slave, partly free, and they will not be worthy of being hailed as

courageous and free without reservation.” So think about whether anything that has been

said is of any particular relevance.

CLINIAS: Well, although the argument somehow seems to us to make sense, it might well be both

naïve and foolish to be persuaded, so quickly and easily, about matters of such significance.

ATHENIAN: But if we turn to the next topic we proposed to discuss after courage, which was sound-

mindedness, then, Clinias and my friend from Sparta, we should ask a question. What char-

acteristic difference shall we find between these systems of government and systems that

are managed in a more random manner? In the case of courage, the difference related to

warfare. Where does it lie in the case of sound-mindedness?

MEGILLUS: Hardly an easy question, but it does seem that the common meals and physical training

have been well devised to promote both virtues.

ATHENIAN: It does, of course, seem hard, strangers, for anything relating to constitutions to be as

uncontroversial in practice as it is in theory. Indeed, it is probably like the human body, for

which it is not possible to prescribe a single activity for a single body, which would not

turn out to be harmful to our bodies in some respects, but beneficial in other respects. So

too these physical exercises and common meals, although they benefit the cities in lots of

other ways, give rise to the problem of faction, as the young people of Miletus, Boeotia and

Thurii demonstrate. What is more, this practice seems to have corrupted an ancient law that

also accords with nature, concerning the sexual pleasures not just of humans, but also of

animals. And your cities might be held primarily responsible for these, along with any other

cities that place most emphasis upon physical training. And whether such matters are taken

lightly or seriously, we should note that when the female and male natures combine for pro-

creation, the associated pleasure seems to have been bestowed naturally. But combining

male with male, or female with female, seems contrary to nature, and the daring of those

who first did this seems to have arisen from uncontrolled desire. And, indeed, we all accuse

the Cretans of making up the story about Ganymede.

Since their laws are believed to have

come from Zeus, they added this story about Zeus so that they could still enjoy this harvest

of pleasure while following their god.

But let us bid farewell to the story. Yet, when human beings are considering laws,

almost the entire enquiry is about pleasures and pains, either in the city, or in the behaviour

of individuals. For pleasure and pain are two springs sent forth by nature. Drawing from

the right one at the right time and in the right quantity leads to happiness in like manner for

a city, an individual, or any living being. But whoever draws in ignorance and at the wrong

time lives a life that is the very opposite.

MEGILLUS: What has been said, stranger, is in a sense all very well, and it leaves us speechless as

to what to say in response. Nevertheless, I still think that the Spartan lawgiver was right to

exhort us to flee from pleasures. As for the laws of Cnossus, our friend here can defend

them if he wants to. But it seems to me that the regulations in Sparta relating to pleasure

are the best in the world. For our law has cast out, from the entire country, the practice that

is most inclined to plunge people into extremes of pleasure, arrogance and utter mindless-

ness. Neither in the countryside nor in the cities that are under Spartan control would you

ever see drinking parties, and all the pleasures that are set in train with such force by what-

ever goes on there. There is no man among us who would not impose a severe penalty, there

and then, upon any drunken reveller he came across, and the feast of Dionysus would not

serve as an excuse to get him off. I saw this sort of thing once on the festival wagons in

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your country. And among our own colonies, in Tarentum, I saw the entire city drunk at a

festival of Dionysus.

There is nothing like this among us.

ATHENIAN: Dear Spartan stranger, everything of this sort is laudable where there is an inherent

steadiness of character, but where this is let go, it all becomes quite stupid. Indeed, one of

our people, in his defence, might perhaps take you to task by pointing to the looseness of

your womenfolk. Yet in anything of this sort, in Tarentum, among ourselves or among your-

selves, a single response seems to do away with the notion that the behaviour is bad and

improper. For everyone will say to a stranger who is amazed at seeing something that is

unfamiliar among his own people, “Do not be surprised, stranger. This is the law among

us, and perhaps your law about the same things is different.” But our present argument is

not concerned with humanity in general, my dear friends, but with the badness and excel-

lence of the lawgivers themselves. Indeed, we should still say more about drunkenness in

general, for it is not a trivial matter, nor can an ordinary lawgiver understand it. And I am

not speaking about wine, and partaking of it, or not partaking of it at all, but about drunk-

enness itself. Should we have recourse to it as the Scythians and Persians do – and the

Carthaginians, Celts, Iberians, Thracians too, warrior races all – or should we avoid it totally,

as you do in Sparta? The Scythians and Thracians, women as well as men, drink completely

undiluted wine, pour it all over their garments, and regard this as a lovely, happy activity

to engage in. The Persians also indulge in this with great relish, and in the other luxuries

that you have banned, but they are more orderly than those other peoples.

MEGILLUS: But, my good man, once we take up arms we put all these people to flight.

ATHENIAN: Best of men, do not say that. In fact, there have been lots of victories and routs that

were unexplained, and there will be many more. Therefore, we should never say that victory

or defeat in battle is a decisive indicator of whether practices are good or bad. This is a

questionable criterion, since larger cities obviously defeat smaller ones in battle, and so we

find the Syracusans enslaving the Locrians, who are reputed to have the best laws in that

region, the Athenians enslave the Ceians, and you will find countless other examples of this

sort. So let us try to persuade ourselves, by speaking of each practice in its own right,

excluding victory and defeat from the argument for the moment. We should simply say how

a practice of one sort is good, while a practice of another sort is bad. But first, listen to me

as I explain how we should investigate what is useful about these practices themselves, and

what is not.

MEGILLUS: How do you say it should be done?

ATHENIAN: It seems to me that those who set about discussing some practice, and propose to crit-

icise it or praise it as soon as it is mentioned, are not proceeding in a proper manner at all.

They are acting like someone who has just heard cheese being praised as good food, and

immediately criticises it without enquiring as to the effect it has and the manner in which

it is administered, by whom, accompanied by what, and to people in what condition.

I think we are now doing the very same thing in these arguments, for at the mere

mention of drunkenness, as soon as we heard the word, some of us criticised it there and

then, while others praised it, most strangely in both cases. We each exalt our own position

by recourse to witnesses and praise. Some of us claim we have made a decisive point because

we produce so many witnesses, others because we can all see that those who refrain from

drunkenness are victorious in battle, and this claim too is a matter of dispute between us.

Now, if we are also going to go through each of the other legal regulations in this

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–––––

Ganymede was kidnapped and taken to Olympus to serve as Zeus’ cup-bearer, etc. Iliad xx.231 ff.

Dionysus was the god of wine and fertility. Festivals in his honour typically involved liberal consumption of wine.

way, that would not seem reasonable to me. But I am willing to describe another approach,

a necessary one in my view, in relation to this very practice, drunkenness. I shall try my

best to demonstrate the correct method of investigating anything of this sort, since thousands

upon thousands of people will enter the fray verbally on these issues, and argue against

both your cities.

MEGILLUS: And, indeed, if we have a correct method of investigating such matters, there should

be no reluctance to hear it.

ATHENIAN: Then let us conduct our enquiry along the following lines. Suppose someone were to

praise goat-rearing, and the animal itself as a good beast to own, while someone else, having

seen goats grazing without a goatherd, and wreaking havoc on farm land, were to criticise

them, and also disparage any other unruly animals he saw, or any that had bad minders, do

we think that the censure of such a person could ever be sound on any issue at all?

MEGILLUS: No, how could it be?

ATHENIAN: Would someone be useful to us in charge of a ship if he only had navigational knowl-

edge, regardless of whether he suffered from seasickness or not? What would you say?

MEGILLUS: He would not be useful at all if he had the skill, and the sickness you mentioned too.

ATHENIAN: And what about someone in charge of an army? Would he be up to the task if he had

military knowledge, despite being a coward in the face of dangers, seasick, and drunk with

fear?

MEGILLUS: How could he be?

ATHENIAN: What if he did not have the skill, and was a coward too?

MEGILLUS: Now, you are describing an utterly worthless fellow, who is not a ruler of men at all,

but of some thoroughly effeminate types.

ATHENIAN: Consider any community of any sort which has a natural leader, and which is beneficent

when that leader is present. What if someone were to praise or criticise this, without ever

having seen the community working properly together with its leader in place? What if he

had only seen it without a ruler, or with bad rulers? Do we think that an observer of this

sort, observing a community of this sort, would ever come up with any useful criticism or

praise?

MEGILLUS: How could he when he has never seen, or been involved in, any communities like this

when they are operating properly?

ATHENIAN: Hold there. Although there are lots of communities, may we suggest that companions

in drink and drinking parties constitute one such gathering?

MEGILLUS: Very much so.

ATHENIAN: Now, has anyone, so far, ever seen such a gathering operating properly? The two of

you can easily answer that you have not seen this at all, since these are not the custom of

your country, nor are they lawful. But I have come across lots of them in lots of places.

And what is more I have made a sort of study of them, and I have hardly seen or heard of

one that was properly conducted in its entirety. And even if a few minor details were some-

how right, most of them were almost completely wide of the mark.

CLINIAS: In what sense do you mean this, stranger? Explain this more clearly since we, as you

have acknowledged, have no experience of such gatherings. And even if we came across

them, we would probably not immediately recognise what was proper and improper about

the way they were being conducted.

ATHENIAN: What you say is quite likely, but try to understand from this explanation of mine. You

do understand, don’t you, that in all gatherings and communities associated with any activ-

ities whatsoever, it is always proper in each case that there be a leader?

CLINIAS: There must be.

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ATHENIAN: And, indeed, we said just now that the leader of men in battle must be courageous.

CLINIAS: He must.

ATHENIAN: Now, the courageous man is less troubled by fears than the cowards.

CLINIAS: This too must be so.

ATHENIAN: And if there had been some contrivance for putting an utterly fearless and untroubled

general in charge of an army, wouldn’t we have done so, by any possible means?

CLINIAS: Definitely.

ATHENIAN: But at the moment we are not talking about a leader of an army of men in time of war,

when enemies are set against enemies, but a leader of friends, communing with friends in

a spirit of friendship in time of peace.

CLINIAS: Quite right.

ATHENIAN: And yet, a gathering of this sort, since it will be accompanied by drunkenness, is not

without trouble. Is this so?

CLINIAS: On the contrary, I think trouble is inevitable.

ATHENIAN: So in the first place, don’t they too need a leader?

CLINIAS: Of course, especially in this situation.

ATHENIAN: Now, if possible, shouldn’t we provide the kind of leader who is untroubled?

CLINIAS: Of course.

ATHENIAN: And, indeed, he should be intelligent in relation to social gatherings, since he becomes

the guardian of their existing friendship, and responsible for ensuring that this increases

because of the current gathering.

CLINIAS: Very true.

ATHENIAN: Shouldn’t a sober and wise ruler be set over those who are drunk, and not the opposite?

For someone who was drunk, young, and not wise, would need a lot of good luck to avoid

causing harm on a large scale.

CLINIAS: A lot of luck, indeed.

ATHENIAN: Now, if someone were to criticise such gatherings, in cities where they are being prop-

erly conducted as best they could, because he finds fault with the activity itself, perhaps he

might be justified in his criticism. But if someone reviles a practice when he has only seen

it going wrong in every way possible, it is obvious, firstly, that he is unaware that this is

not being properly conducted, and secondly, that any activity at all will look bad under cir-

cumstances where it is performed without a sober master or leader. Or don’t you realise

that when he is drunk, a ship’s captain, or any leader of anything, overturns everything, be

it a ship, a chariot, an army, or whatever he happens to be in charge of?

CLINIAS: What you have said, stranger, is true in every respect. But tell us next what possible good

would it do us if this regulation about drinking were to operate properly. For instance, we

have just explained that if an army is led properly, the result is military victory for the troops,

and that is no small benefit. There are other examples too, but what significant benefit would

there be, to people or to a city, from a drinking party that is properly guided?

ATHENIAN: What about this? What great advantage would we say accrues to the city from a single

child, or even a single group, being guided in the right way? Or having put the question in

this way, would we reply that there might be some slight benefit to the city from a single

instance? But if we ask generally what great benefit the city derives from the education of

all its educated citizens, it is not difficult to reply that having been well educated they would

prove to be good men, and, as such, their general behaviour would be noble, and, what is

more, they would triumph over their enemies on the battlefield. Now, although education

also brings victory, victory sometimes undoes the education, for many people, having

become arrogant because of military victories, have then been filled up with countless other

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vices because of the arrogance. And although education has never proved counter-produc-

tive or Cadmeian,

humanity has won many such Cadmeian victories, and will do so again.

CLINIAS: You seem to us, my friend, to be saying that time spent drinking wine together, provided

it is properly conducted, is a significant contribution to education.

ATHENIAN: Why not?

CLINIAS: Well, could you now provide some justification that what you have said is true?

ATHENIAN: Stranger, with so much dispute as to how these matters stand, it belongs to God to assert

the truth with certainty. But if you want me to explain how it appears to me, I shan’t

begrudge you that, since we have now set about constructing arguments in relation to laws

and constitutions.

CLINIAS: That then is what we should try to understand, your opinion on the issues that are now in

dispute.

ATHENIAN: That is what we should do then. You should make an effort to understand the argument,

while I attempt somehow or other to expound it. But listen to the following point first. The

whole Greek world regards our city as fond of words and full of words, and Sparta as sparing

of words, while Crete cultivates thoughtfulness rather than being full of words. Now, I am

being careful not to give you the impression that I have a lot to say about something trivial,

by enunciating a vast argument about the insignificant matter of drunkenness. But it would

not be possible to consider the right treatment of this topic naturally, with sufficient clarity

in our discussions, without considering correctness in music; and this would never be pos-

sible without considering education in its entirety; and all these involve very lengthy dis-

cussions. So what should we do? Let us see. What if we leave those matters for the moment

and move on to some other argument relating to laws?

MEGILLUS: Athenian stranger, perhaps you do not know that our family is the local representative

of your city in Sparta. Now, it is probably the case with all children that once they hear that

they are the local representatives of some city, straight away, from their earliest years, a

certain goodwill towards that city develops in each of them, as if towards a second father-

land, second only to his own city. And that is what has now happened to me. For when the

Spartans were criticising or praising the Athenians for something, I would immediately hear

the other children saying, “That city of yours, Megillus,” they would say, “has treated us

badly” or “has treated us well”, and through entering the fray on your behalf, again and

again, against those who found fault with your city, I developed unreserved goodwill for it.

Even now your accent delights me. And when I hear so many people say that any Athenians

who are good are good in a special way, I think they are speaking the complete truth, for

Athenians are good by a divine portion, good by their own nature without any compulsion,

truly so, and not artificially so. Speak on then, as much as you like, and have no concerns

on my account.

CLINIAS: And, indeed, stranger, once you have heard my account too, and have accepted it, you

may speak on boldly and say as much as you wish. Now, you may have heard that

Epimenides, that divine man, was born in this country. He was a relative of ours, and ten

years before the Persian War he went to Athens, to your people, to comply with an oracle

of the god.

He performed some sacrifices that the god had ordained, and what is more,

since the Athenians lived in fear of the Persian expeditionary force, he told them that “They

will not arrive for another ten years, and when they get here they will depart without achiev-

ing anything they had hoped for, having suffered more harm than they inflicted.” That is

when our ancestors formed a bond of hospitality with yours, and I myself and my family

have been well disposed towards your people ever since.

ATHENIAN: Well then, it seems that you are both ready to play your part and listen. As for myself,

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although I am ready and willing, the capacity may be lacking as this is not at all easy, but I

must make the effort nevertheless. In the first place then, to develop the argument, we should

define what precisely education is, and what power it has. For we maintain that the argument

we have taken in hand should proceed along the path of education, until it reaches God.

CLINIAS: Yes, certainly. Let us do that, if it pleases you.

ATHENIAN: Well, what is education? What should we say it is? Let me answer that, and you should

decide if what I say is to your liking.

CLINIAS: Proceed.

ATHENIAN: What I say is this. I maintain that a man who is to be good at anything at all should

practice just that activity from his earliest years, both as a game and seriously, using the

particular tools that are appropriate to the activity. Take, for example, a man who is to be a

good farmer or house-builder. The builder should play at building toy houses, and the other

man should play at farming, and whoever is rearing them should provide each of them with

little tools, imitations of the real ones. And, indeed, any of the essential subjects should be

learned in advance. And so a carpenter should learn to measure and calculate, a military

type should learn horse-riding for sport, or do something else like that, and we should

endeavour to turn the pleasures and desires of the children, through games, to where they

should ultimately be directed.

We are saying then that the essence of education is the correct upbringing which

most effectively draws the soul of the child, as he plays, to an intense love of the activity

in which he will need to be perfect, in terms of its excellence, when he becomes a man.

Now, as promised, let us see if what I have said so far is to your liking.

CLINIAS: Of course it is.

ATHENIAN: Unless perhaps our description of education still lacks definition. For we are now crit-

icising and praising various upbringings, and we say that one of us has been educated while

another is uneducated, and sometimes we are speaking about people who have been thor-

oughly well educated in certain trades, or in merchant shipping and other such occupations.

But in our present argument we would not, it seems, regard any of these as education. We

mean education directed to excellence from earliest childhood, which produces an eager

desire to become a perfect citizen who knows how to rule and be ruled justly. This argument

of ours, having distinguished this particular upbringing from the others, would in my view

wish to refer to this alone as education. And it would say that an upbringing whose aim is

money, or some sort of strength, or even another kind of wisdom devoid of reason and jus-

tice, is base and slavish, and totally unworthy of being called education.

But let us not quarrel with one another over names. Let us hold to the argument we

have just agreed upon: that those who have been properly educated usually become good,

and education should be shown no disrespect anywhere, since it is foremost among the

fairest acquisitions that the best men have. And if it ever goes astray, it is possible to set it

right, and this is what everyone should do, unceasingly, to the very best of his ability

throughout his entire life.

CLINIAS: That is right. We agree with what you are saying.

ATHENIAN: And, indeed, we agreed some time ago that the good people are those with the ability

to rule over themselves, while the bad are those who cannot do so.

CLINIAS: What you are saying is correct.

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A Cadmeian victory is one that comes at a greater loss than the benefit it brings. It is a proverbial saying that references

Cadmus, the legendary founder of Thebes. It is comparable to our phrase ‘Pyrrhic victory’.

Epimenides was a legendary seer who was granted the power of prophecy after having slept for 57 years in a sacred

cave on Crete. Clinias’ description puts his birth about a century after its actual date.

ATHENIAN: Well, let us look at this again, more clearly this time, and say what precisely we mean.

And if you allow me, I shall explain this to you by means of an image, if I can.

CLINIAS: Proceed.

ATHENIAN: May we assume that each of us is, himself, one?

CLINIAS: Yes.

ATHENIAN: But we each possess, in ourselves, two opposed advisers, devoid of intelligence, which

we call pleasure and pain.

CLINIAS: This is so.

ATHENIAN: Besides these two, there are opinions relating to the future. These go by the general

name of ‘expectations’. But to be specific, the expectation prior to pain is called fear, while

the expectation prior to pleasure is called confidence. Then there is reasoning about all these

as to which is better and which is worse, and when reasoning becomes a doctrine that is

common to the city, it is given the name ‘law’.

CLINIAS: I am following you somehow, but with difficulty. However, assume that I am following

you, and tell me what comes next.

MEGILLUS: Yes, I feel the same way.

ATHENIAN: Then let us think about these matters as follows: let us consider each of us living crea-

tures as a puppet of the gods, constructed as their plaything, or for some serious purpose.

This we do not understand, but we do know that these emotions within us, like cords or

strings, are drawing us, and because they are opposites they are pulling against one another,

towards opposite activities, and here lies the boundary line between excellence and evil.

And the argument declares that we should each always follow the lead of one of these pulls,

and never forsake that one at all, but pull against the other cords. The cord to follow is the

golden and sacred guidance of reasoning, called the common law of the city. The other

cords are hard and of iron, and they occur in endless varieties, but this one is soft because

it is made of gold. We should co-operate then with the exalted guidance of the law. For rea-

soning, although it is noble, is also gentle and not violent, so its guidance needs our support,

so that the golden race within us may triumph over the others.

And so the story about excellence, the story about us being puppets, would be saved,

and the meaning of being better than oneself and worse than oneself would somehow

become clearer. It would also be more obvious that the individual should take to heart the

true account concerning these various pulls, follow this, and live accordingly; while the

city, having adopted an argument either from some god, or from this person who under-

stands these matters, should pass a law to govern its dealings with itself and other cities.

In this way too, the distinction between badness and excellence might be clearer to

us, and once this has become more evident, perhaps we shall have a better perspective on

education and the other practices. And in particular, although the pastime of wine drinking

might seem to be commonplace, and an odd topic to discuss at such great length, it may

well turn out to be worthy of a lengthy discourse after all.

CLINIAS: Well said. So let us proceed with whatever this discussion requires.

ATHENIAN: Come on, then. If we bring drunkenness to bear upon this puppet of ours, what sort of

effect will it have?

CLINIAS: Why do you ask? What’s the purpose of this enquiry?

ATHENIAN: Nothing in particular, I am just asking what sort of thing generally happens when this

interacts with that. But I shall try to explain what I mean more clearly. Does the consumption

of wine make pleasures and pains, anger and passion, more intense?

CLINIAS: Much more intense.

ATHENIAN: But what about sense perception, memory, opinions and intelligence? Do these become

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more intense in the same way? Or do they totally forsake a person once someone becomes

intensely drunk?

CLINIAS: Yes, they forsake him completely.

ATHENIAN: Doesn’t his soul revert to the same state it was in when he was a child?

CLINIAS: Indeed.

ATHENIAN: And that is when he would be least in control of himself?

CLINIAS: Least.

ATHENIAN: And don’t we say that a person like this is thoroughly bad?

CLINIAS: Thoroughly so.

ATHENIAN: So it is not just the old man, it seems, who experiences a ‘second childhood’, but the

drunkard too.

CLINIAS: Excellent, stranger. Well said.

ATHENIAN: In that case, is there any argument that will attempt to persuade us that this is a practice

we should indulge in, and not one we should flee from with all the strength we can muster?

CLINIAS: It seems that there is. At any rate, you maintain that there is such an argument, and you

were ready to state it a moment ago.

ATHENIAN: Yes, that is true, you remember. And I am now ready to do so, since you have both

declared your willingness and eagerness to listen.

CLINIAS: We shall listen. We simply must, if only because of your surprising and odd assertion

that a person should ever plunge himself, willingly, into an utterly depraved state.

ATHENIAN: Are you referring to the state of his soul? Is that what you mean?

CLINIAS: Yes.

ATHENIAN: What about this, stranger? Would we be surprised if someone ever, of his own free will,

got into a physical state of emaciation, ugliness and weakness?

CLINIAS: We would of course.

ATHENIAN: Now, do we imagine that people, who themselves go along to medical centres to be

treated with drugs, do not realise that shortly afterwards, and for many days, their body will

be in such a state that if they had to live like that for the rest of their lives, they could not

bear it? And we know, don’t we, that people who go to the gymnasium and do hard exercises

become weak at first.

CLINIAS: Yes, we know all this.

ATHENIAN: And don’t we also know that we engage in all these willingly, for the sake of the benefits

that follow from them?

CLINIAS: Quite so.

ATHENIAN: Shouldn’t we also think about any other practices in the same way?

CLINIAS: Yes, indeed.

ATHENIAN: In that case, we should also think of the pastime of wine drinking in the same way, if

it may, indeed, properly be thought of as one of these practices.

CLINIAS: Of course.

ATHENIAN: Now, if it turns out that this practice is beneficial to us, just as beneficial as the practices

associated with the body, it would still win out over physical exercise, because that is accom-

panied by pain in the beginning, while wine drinking is not.

CLINIAS: You are right about that, but I would be surprised if we were able to discover any such

benefit in this.

ATHENIAN: Then this, it seems, is just what we should now attempt to explain. So, tell me. Can we

discern two kinds of fear that are almost direct opposites?

CLINIAS: What kind of fears?

ATHENIAN: As follows. Presumably we are afraid of evils when we expect them to occur?

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CLINIAS: Yes.

ATHENIAN: And we are often afraid of opinion when we believe that people will form a bad opinion

about us, for doing or saying something that is not noble. And we ourselves, and I believe

everyone else too, refer to this fear as shame.

CLINIAS: Of course.

ATHENIAN: These are the two fears I meant. The second of them stands in opposition to pains, and

to the other fears, and also to the most numerous and intense pleasures.

CLINIAS: Correct.

ATHENIAN: Now, doesn’t the lawgiver, and anyone else who is of any use, show the utmost respect

for this fear and refer to it as ‘reverence’? The boldness that is opposed to this he calls

‘irreverence’, and he regards this as the greatest possible evil, both for a private individual

and for a community.

CLINIAS: Correct.

ATHENIAN: Doesn’t this fear save us in many other ways, all of them important? And doesn’t this,

more so than anything else, ensure victory in war, and our safety in every case? For there

are two things that ensure victory: boldness in the face of enemies, and fear before our

friends of the evil associated with shame.

CLINIAS: Quite so.

ATHENIAN: So each of us should become fearless, and fearful, for the reasons we have distinguished

in either case.

CLINIAS: Certainly.

ATHENIAN: And, indeed, when we wish to make each person fearless in the face of many fears, we

ensure this by drawing him into fear, legally.

CLINIAS: Apparently so.

ATHENIAN: And what about our attempts to make someone fearful, in a manner that conforms to

justice? Shouldn’t we make him victorious in the battle against his own pleasures, by pitting

him against shamelessness, and training him to oppose it? A person should become perfect

in courage by doing battle against the cowardice in himself and defeating it. And, indeed,

anyone who has no experience or training in such struggles would not attain even half of

his own potential in terms of excellence. But in the case of sound-mindedness, can he ever

attain perfection without putting up a strong fight against the many pleasures and desires

that turn him to shamelessness and injustice, and prevailing against them with the aid of

reason, action and skill, both in play and seriously, rather than being devoid of experience

of this sort of thing?

CLINIAS: That would be quite unlikely.

ATHENIAN: What about this? Is there a drug for fear, that some god has given to humanity, such

that the more someone is willing to drink of it, the more he regards himself, with every

drop he drinks, as doomed to misfortune? He gets afraid of everything, present and future

alike, and in the end even the most courageous man there is gets consumed with fear. But

once he has slept off the potion and is rid of its effects, he always becomes himself once

again.

CLINIAS: Is there a potion like this, stranger? Can we claim that such a thing exists?

ATHENIAN: There is no such thing. But if it had existed somewhere, would it have been of any use

to the lawgiver in promoting courage? We might well have had a discussion with him about

this, somewhat as follows: “Come, lawgiver, whether you are proposing laws for Crete or

for any other people, would you like first to have a test at your disposal to determine the

courage and cowardice of the citizens?”

CLINIAS: Every legislator would obviously say, “Yes”.

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1,068 | LAWS I – 647a–648b

ATHENIAN: What about this? Would you like a test that is safe, and without significant risks, or the

opposite?

CLINIAS: The test should be safe. Everyone will agree on this.

ATHENIAN: And would you use the test by inducing these fears, and testing the people under these

circumstances, so as to compel them to become fearless by exhorting, warning and reward-

ing them? Would you dishonour anyone who did not obey you and thus become the sort of

person you directed them to be? And wouldn’t you let someone go without a penalty if he

had completed his training well and courageously, but impose some penalty if he had done

badly? Or would you not use the potion at all, even though you had nothing else to say

against it?

CLINIAS: How could he decline to use it, stranger?

ATHENIAN: In any case, my friend, in comparison with what is done nowadays, this training would

be wonderfully easy to apply to one person, a few, or to as many people as anyone might

ever wish. And what if someone preferred to be alone, in solitude, ashamed at the prospect

of being seen until he believed he was in good condition? Suppose he exercised against the

fears in this way, equipped only with the potion instead of lots and lots of practices?

Wouldn’t he be acting correctly? And so too would someone else who, trusting that he him-

self was properly equipped by nature and by practice, had no reluctance about engaging in

the exercise, along with numerous drinking companions, and demonstrating his capacity to

transcend this, and retain control in the face of the inevitable disturbance brought on by the

potion. And so, because of his excellence, he would not succumb to any serious disgraceful

conduct at all, nor would he behave differently. And before the last draught arrived, he

would quit the scene, for fear of the defeat that the potion finally inflicts upon everyone.

CLINIAS: Yes, stranger. In fact a person like this, acting like this, would be demonstrating sound-

mindedness.

ATHENIAN: Then, let us speak once more to the lawgiver as follows. “So be it, lawgiver. Although

no god has actually given a fear-inducing drug like this to humanity, nor have we devised

one ourselves – and I am excluding sorcerers – is there nevertheless a potion to induce

excessive courage at the wrong time, where it is not needed?”

What do we say?

CLINIAS: I presume he will reply that there is such a potion, and he will say that it is wine.

ATHENIAN: Doesn’t this have the very opposite effect to the one we described just now? Initially

it immediately makes the person who drinks it more cheerful than he was before, and the

more of it he imbibes the more he is filled with high hopes and with power too, or so he

thinks. And in the end, doesn’t a person like this behave like a wise man, and abound in

utter frankness, freedom, and complete fearlessness, so that he says anything at all without

hesitation, and acts in just the same way? I think everyone would agree with us on all this.

CLINIAS: Of course.

ATHENIAN: Let us remind ourselves then of the following. We declared that there are two things in

our souls that should be cultivated: one so that we may be as confident as possible, and the

other, its opposite, so that we may be as fearful as possible.

CLINIAS: This one we call reverence, I believe.

ATHENIAN: Well remembered. And since courage and fearlessness should be practised in situations

of fear, we have to decide whether their opposite would need to be cultivated under opposite

circumstances.

CLINIAS: Well, that is likely to be the case.

ATHENIAN: So, there are situations in which we naturally become exceptionally bold and daring.

And these are the situations in which we should practise being as free as we possibly can

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LAWS I – 648c–649c | 1,069

from shamelessness and audacity, and fearful of ever daring to say, feel, or do anything

shameful.

CLINIAS: So it seems.

ATHENIAN: Now, we are like this, aren’t we, in anger, passion, insolence, ignorance, avarice, cow-

ardice? And we may also include wealth, beauty, strength, and anything else that makes us

drunk with pleasure and drives us out of our minds. And when it comes firstly to providing

an inexpensive and harmless test of these, and for practising with them too, can we think

of any pleasure more measured than a playful trial in wine drinking, provided it is conducted

carefully? Let us consider this. Should we test for an intractable and wild soul, the source

of countless injustices, by entering into business dealings with the person, and run all the

associated risks, or is it safer to get together at a festival of Dionysus? Or should we carry

out a trial of a soul that is dominated by sexual desires by turning our own daughters, sons

and wives over to that person, thus putting our nearest and dearest in danger, in order to see

the condition of his soul? And, indeed, you could give countless examples, and still not

show just how superior this safe and secure method of observing people through play actu-

ally is.

And, indeed, I do not think the Cretans or any other peoples at all will dispute the

fact that in these matters, this is a fair way of testing one another. And in terms of its low

cost, safety and speed, it is superior to other tests.

CLINIAS: Well, that is true.

ATHENIAN: This then, the recognition of the natures and dispositions of souls, would be one of the

most useful things for that skill which involves caring for them. And this skill, according

to us, is I presume statesmanship. Is this so?

CLINIAS: Entirely so.

_____

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1,070 | LAWS I – 649d–650b