Book 11 - Platonic Foundation

Laws

––––– BOOK XI –––––

ATHENIAN: What is needed after all this is proper regulation of our dealings with one another. The

simple rule, I believe, is this: as far as possible, no one should touch my personal property,

nor indeed disturb it in the slightest unless he has my full consent. And I, if I have any

sense, would act on the same basis in relation to the property of others. Let us speak, in the

first place, of treasure which someone who is not an ancestor of mine has set aside as a

hoard for himself and his own people. I must never pray to the gods that I may discover

such treasure, nor if I find it should I disturb it, nor indeed should I take advice from the

so-called prophets who are certain to advise me to “take up what has been deposited in the

earth”. For I would never gain as much benefit in terms of wealth by taking it up as I would

increase the store of my soul’s virtue and justice by letting it lie. For by acquiring one pos-

session instead of another, the better one in my better part, I prefer to acquire justice in my

soul rather than riches in my estate. This is one of the many cases where it is well said that

“the immovable is not to be moved”. And we should also heed the stories that are told about

these matters whereby nothing of this sort is advantageous to future generations. And who-

ever pays no heed to children disregards the one who enacted the law, and takes up, without

the permission of the person who put it there, what neither himself nor his ancestors put

down. He thus subverts the most sublime of all laws, the simplest one, enacted by a truly

noble man,

which states, “don’t take up what you have not put down.” But what should

happen to someone who despises these two lawgivers

and takes up what he himself has

not put down, a treasure of some significance, often quite enormous? What the gods will

do to him, God knows, but the first person to become aware of the offence is to report it. If

this sort of thing happens in the city, he informs the city police, or the market police if it

happens in a city marketplace, and if it occurs elsewhere in the country, the rural police and

those in charge of them are to be informed. Once they have been informed, the city is to

send a delegation to Delphi, and whatever the god ordains in relation to the treasure or the

person who disturbed it is to be enacted by the city in subservience of the pronouncements

of the god. If the person who disclosed the offence be a free-born citizen, let him be famed

for his excellence, or indeed for his depravity if he does not disclose the offence. If a slave

discloses the crime, it would be right for the city to give him his freedom, having compen-

sated his master, but he should be sentenced to death for failure to do so.

Following on from this, there would be a related rule concerning major and minor

matters alike. If someone leaves behind anything of his own, anywhere, either intentionally

or unintentionally, whoever comes across the item should let it lie in the belief that anything

of this sort is under the protection of the goddess of the wayside, the goddess to whom such

items are consecrated by the law. If anyone, acting contrary to these precepts, takes the

items up and takes them home, and the offender be a slave and the items of little value,

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1,238 | LAWS XI – 913a–914b

Laws XI, David Horan translation, 18 Nov 25

whoever comes across him shall, if over thirty years of age, whip the fellow thoroughly. If

the offender be a free-born citizen, he is to be regarded as someone unworthy of freedom

who has no involvement with the laws, and he should pay the owner ten times the value of

whatever goods he disturbed. If one person accuses another of being in possession of some

of his property and the accused admits that he has the property but denies that it belongs to

the accuser, then, if the property be legally registered with the officials, the possessor is to

be called before the court and he is to produce the item there. Once it is on display, if it has

been duly recorded in the register and it is obvious which of the disputants it belongs to, let

him take it and depart. If it belongs to someone else who is not present, whoever provides

the most acceptable surety should take it away, by his legitimate right of removal on behalf

of the absent person, in order to return the item to that person. If the disputed item has not

been registered with the officials, let it remain with three of the oldest officials until the

case is decided. And if the pledged item be a beast, whoever loses the relevant case shall

compensate the officials for its upkeep. The officials shall decide the case within three days.

Anyone may handle his own slave as he pleases, provided he is sensible, using him

as he wishes for any legitimate purposes. And he may also handle a runaway slave for safe-

keeping on behalf of someone else from among his own family or friends. If someone is

being led away as a slave and someone else removes him to freedom, whoever is leading

him should let him go, while the person removing him should put three acceptable sureties

in place and remove him to freedom on these terms, but not otherwise. And if anyone

removes the person contrary to these conditions, he may be charged with assault, and, on

conviction, shall pay double the registered damages to the deprived party. One may also

lay hands upon a freed slave if he does not attend to those who freed him or does so inad-

equately. The attention involves visiting the home of those who freed him three times a

month, and offering to do whatever needs to be done, provided it is fair and within his

capacity. When it comes to marriage he should do whatever his former master consents to.

He is not allowed to become more wealthy than the man who freed him, and any excess is

to belong to the former master. The freed slave may not remain in the country for more than

twenty years. Rather, just like the other foreigners, he too must depart, taking all of his own

property unless he persuades the officials and the person who freed him, to let him stay. If

the freed slave, or indeed any other foreigners, come to have more wealth than the size of

the third property valuation, let them depart, taking their own property, within thirty days

of the day on which this threshold is reached. And in this case no application to remain is

to be granted by the officials. If some foreigner disobeys these precepts and is brought to

court and convicted, let him be put to death and let all his wealth become public property.

These cases are to be tried before the tribal courts unless the charges against one another

have been resolved previously before their neighbours or specially selected jurors.

If anyone claims another person’s animal as his own, or some other item of the

person’s property, the person who has the item should refer the matter to the person who,

as its deserving and rightful owner, sold it to him or gave it to him or conveyed it to him in

some other legitimate way. In the case of a citizen, or a foreigner residing in the city, this

should happen within thirty days, or in the case of a foreign delivery, five months, the middle

month of which is to include the summer solstice. Whatever one citizen exchanges with

another through sale or purchase is to be handed over in the location specified for each item

in the marketplace, and nowhere else. It must be paid for there and then, upon receipt, and

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LAWS XI – 914c–915e | 1,239

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The reference here is to Solon.

The two are Solon and the lawgiver for the society they are establishing in Magnesia.

no purchase or sale is to be conducted on credit. This is the process of exchange. If someone

carries out any exchange at all with someone else, in a different way or in a different place,

because he trusts the person he is dealing with, let him do so on the understanding that no

legal redress is available in relation to anything that is not sold in conformity with the reg-

ulations just described. In the case of private associations, anyone who wishes may sub-

scribe as a friend to fellow friends, but if any dispute arises about the subscription payment,

they must proceed on the basis that no legal redress is to be available in relation to these

matters. Whoever sells something and receives a price of more than fifty drachmas must

remain in the city for ten days, and the purchaser is to be told where the vendor lives because

of the accusations that tend to be made in relation to such transactions and on account of

legal rights to return goods. Let the legal rights to return goods or not be as follows. If some-

one sells a slave suffering from consumption or stone or strangury or the so-called ‘sacred

disease’

or some other disease, physical or mental, that goes unnoticed by most people and

is long-lasting and hard to cure, then if the sale is to a physician or to a trainer, let there be

no right of return in such circumstances, nor if the purchaser was told the truth at the time

of the sale. If such a practitioner makes such a sale to an ordinary person, the purchaser has

a right of return for six months except in the case of the sacred disease, where he is allowed

to return the sick slave within twelve months. The case is to be judged by a panel of physi-

cians proposed and selected jointly by the two parties, and, on conviction, a seller shall pay

double the selling price. If one private citizen sells to another, let there be a right of return

and a procedure for trial as previously described, and let a vendor, on conviction, pay the

mere selling price. If someone sells a murderer and both parties know this, let there be no

right to return such a purchase. But if the buyer did not know, then he has a right of return

once he becomes aware of the fact. The case is to be decided before five of the youngest

guardians of the law, and if it is decided that the seller knew about the murder, let him purify

the purchaser’s household according to the prescription of the interpreters of the divine law,

and pay him three times the selling price.

When someone exchanges money in return for money or for anything else, animate

or inanimate, then in conformity with the law, what is given or received must not be coun-

terfeit in any way. And as we did with the other laws, let us also allow a prelude concerning

this general malaise. Everyone needs to appreciate that counterfeiting, lying and deception,

constitute a single kind, which most people are inclined, mistakenly, to regard as the right

thing to do on many occasions, once the action is opportune, but the how and the when of

what is opportune they leave unspecified and undefined. For this precept they themselves

pay a high price and they impose the same upon others. But the lawgiver is not allowed to

leave this matter undefined; rather, upper or lower limits should always be spelled out, and

indeed these should be specified now. No one, calling upon the gods, is to engage in any

falsehood, deceit, or counterfeiting either in word or in deed, if he is to avoid being detested

by the gods as someone who swears false oaths, with no regard for the gods, or, less so, as

someone who lies to those who are his own superiors. Now, the better people are superiors

of the worse, the older are generally superiors of the younger, and so, parents are superiors

of children, men of women and children, and rulers of those who are ruled. It would be

appropriate for everyone to revere all these people, those who hold any position of authority,

and especially those who hold office in the state, and this is what our present argument has

been dealing with. For anyone who engages in counterfeiting of the commodities of the

market place is lying and deceiving, and, calling upon the gods, he swears an oath in the

face of the market police and their protections, showing neither reverence for his fellow

man, nor piety towards the gods. It is certainly a good practice not to have free recourse to

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Laws XI, David Horan translation, 18 Nov 25

the names of the gods, and hold to the purity and scrupulousness that most of us generally

and consistently adhere to in anything concerning them. If this is not heeded, the law is as

follows. Anyone selling anything in the marketplace should never state two prices for what

he is selling; he is simply to state one price, and if he does not get this price, it is only right

that he take the goods away again and not increase or decrease the price on the same day;

and he is to refrain from singing the praises of wares, and swearing oaths about them. If

anyone disobeys these regulations, any townsman over thirty years of age who comes across

him is to punish the oath taker by beating him, with impunity, but if he ignores the offence

and disregards this requirement, he is liable to censure for betraying the laws. Someone

who sells anything counterfeit and is not amenable to influence by our present argument is

to be challenged before the officials by whatever knowledgeable person comes across him

and is able to mount a challenge, and if he be a slave or a resident foreigner, let him keep

the counterfeit item. A citizen who does not challenge him is to be proclaimed a criminal

for defrauding the gods, but if he does issue a challenge, he is to dedicate the item to the

gods of the market place. Whoever is caught selling something of this sort, as well as being

deprived of the counterfeit item, is to be scourged with one lash for each drachma of the

selling price, and a herald is to proclaim in the market place the reason why the fellow is

about to be beaten. The market police and the guardians of the law, having found out about

the various counterfeits and malpractices from those who have the relevant experience of

each craft, are to write up the details of what a seller should and should not do, and inscribe

this on a tablet placed before the office of the market police as clear legal information for

those doing business in the market place.

The duties of the market police have been sufficiently explained previously, but if

anything more is thought necessary, they are to confer with the guardians of the law, write

down the required details, and place on a tablet in front of the office of the city police the

initial and subsequent regulations governing their responsibility.

After counterfeit activities, the business of retailing trade follows directly. We shall

first offer advice and argument concerning this matter as a whole, and then put a law in

place. Indeed, the natural purpose for which there is retailing within a city is not to do harm,

but the very opposite. For how could someone who brings about a balanced and measured

distribution of goods, which had previously been unbalanced and out of measure, be any-

thing but a benefactor? The power of money, we must declare, brings this about, and we

should say that this is also the role assigned to the merchant. And, indeed, the hireling, the

innkeeper and others, some well regarded, some held in low esteem, all have the ability to

provide satisfaction of everyone’s needs and an even distribution of wealth. So, why exactly

is this regarded as ignoble and unseemly, and why has it come to be disparaged? Let us

look at this so that we provide a legal remedy, for parts of it at least, if not for all of it. This,

it seems, is no ordinary undertaking and requires a significant degree of excellence.

CLINIAS: How so?

ATHENIAN: Dear Clinias, some small section of humanity, naturally few in number, trained to the

utmost, is able to hold fast to measure whenever they are afflicted by various needs and

desires, and are sober when they are in a position to acquire great wealth, choosing measure

in preference to excess. The broad mass of humanity is in the opposite situation to these

people: when they have needs they know no bounds, and when they are able to make

measured gains, they choose greed instead. That is why all those involved in retailing, mer-

chant trading and inn-keeping are disparaged and subject to shameful criticism. But there

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LAWS XI – 917c–918d | 1,241

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Epilepsy was known as the ‘sacred disease’ on account of its presumed connection with the divine.

is something which I pray may never happen and surely never will, something which sounds

ridiculous and which I propose to speak of nevertheless. What if someone were to compel

the very best men, for a time, to do inn-keeping or retailing or engage in some other activity

of that sort, or indeed compel the women by force of necessity to get involved in some such

occupation? We would then realise that each of these occupations is a welcome friend, and

provided they are conducted on incorruptible principles, all such occupations are to be

respected as a mother and a nurse. But nowadays someone sets up his dwelling in an isolated

place, a long way from anywhere, in order to conduct retail trade. There he receives into

his welcoming abode the distressed travellers and refugees from fierce and violent storms,

providing them with quiet shelter or cool respite from extreme heat. But then, rather than

receiving them as companions and providing them with friendly hospitality as well as enter-

tainment, he treats them as captured enemies to be released in return for an enormous, unjust

and heinous ransom. These transgressions and the like, in all occupations of this sort, pro-

vide proper grounds for criticism of this care for the distressed. For these the lawgiver must

consistently find a remedy. Indeed, it has rightly been said of old that it is hard to fight

against two foes and from opposite sides, as is the case with various diseases and in many

other situations too. And now, in particular, our battle against these transgressions is a battle

against twin foes, poverty and wealth. One corrupts the soul of humanity with luxury, while

the other drives it to shamelessness out of sheer pain. What remedy might there be for this

disease in a city possessed of reason? The remedy is, firstly, to make the least possible use

of retailers as a class; secondly, to assign the role to those whose corruption would not con-

stitute a major outrage for the city; and thirdly, some means must be found whereby those

involved in these roles do not end up too easily with a character possessed of unchecked

shamelessness and meanness of soul. After these preliminaries, by good fortune we may

have a law as follows. Of the Magnesians whom the god is restoring and settling anew,

none of the 5,040 landholders who belong to the associated households shall become a

retailer, either intentionally or under compulsion, nor a trader either, nor shall he provide a

service of any kind to private individuals who do not render an equal service to himself,

except to his father and mother, to prior generations, and to all his elders, free citizens whom

he freely serves. It is not easy to determine precisely by law what constitutes free service

and its opposite, so this should be decided by those who have acquired a peerless reputation

for their detestation of the one and their love of the other. Whoever gets involved, by any

device, in retailing that is not free, may be prosecuted by anyone who wishes before those

with the foremost reputation for excellence. And if he is adjudged to have sullied his own

ancestral hearth by an unworthy occupation, he is to be imprisoned for one year to discour-

age such activity. If he repeats the offence he is to be imprisoned for two years, and the

term of imprisonment is to be doubled for each repetition thereafter. There is to be a second

law whereby the person who intends to engage in retailing must be a resident alien or a for-

eigner, and thirdly, let there be a third law to ensure that such a person, dwelling among us

in our city shall be as good as possible, or evil to the least possible extent. To this end, the

guardians of the law should bear in mind that they are guardians not only of those people

whom it is easy to guard from lawlessness and evil ways, of those who have been well edu-

cated by their family and upbringing; rather they should exercise even more guardianship

of those who are not like this and engage in activities which have a strong tendency to turn

people to evil ways. Accordingly, retailing, which is quite extensive, and the numerous

debasing activities it includes, those whose continuance in the city is regarded as absolutely

necessary, shall be the subject of a meeting of the guardians of the law with those who are

experienced in the particulars of the relevant area of retailing. This is similar to the proce-

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1,242 | LAWS XI – 918e–920c

Laws XI, David Horan translation, 18 Nov 25

dure prescribed earlier in the case of counterfeiting – a closely related matter. When they

meet, they are to see what rate of income and expenditure makes a moderate profit for the

retailer, and the resulting rates of income and expenditure are to be set down in writing and

enforced by the police of the market, the city and the country. In this way, retailing might

be of benefit to everyone, while doing the least harm to those who practise it in our cities.

If someone agrees to a contract and fails to act in accordance with the agreement,

except in cases where the laws or a decree prevent its fulfilment, or an agreement is made

under unfair compulsion or force, or when someone is hindered, despite his intentions, by

unforeseen circumstances, let there be for all other unfulfilled agreements a trial before the

tribal courts, unless they are able to settle the matter in advance before arbitrators or their

neighbours. The class of craftsmen who help in providing for our daily life with their skills

are sacred to Hephaestus and Athena, while others who safeguard the products of the crafts-

men using different, defensive skills are sacred to Ares and Athena, and it is only right that

these people as a class are also sacred to these gods. Indeed, they all continuously look after

the country and its people, one group by taking charge of military conflicts, while the others

produce, for a wage, various tools and wares. And out of reverence for their ancestral gods,

it would be improper for such people to be deceitful in respect of such activities. So, if any

craftsman malevolently fails to complete his work within a specified time because he does

not revere the god who provides his livelihood, and believes, blindly, that the god is for-

giving because of their kinship, he shall firstly pay a penalty to the god, and secondly an

associated law is to be put in place. He is to owe the value of the works which were the

subject of his falsehood towards his employer, and he must do the work again, from the

beginning, within the specified time, free of charge. The law will advise the contractor

undertaking the work in the same way as it directed the vendors. They were told not to take

advantage by setting a higher price, but to ask simply for what the item is worth, and the

contractor is told to do the same since a craftsman is aware of the real value. So, in a city

of the free, the craftsman should never use his skill, which, by nature, is pure and free of

deception, to impose craftily upon private individuals, and there is to be a legal remedy

available for the victim against the wrongdoer in such cases. If, on the other hand, someone

engages a craftsman and does not pay him his due wages according to their legal agreement

– all for love of petty profit, dishonouring Zeus, protector of the city, and Athena, and their

joint role in civic affairs – he thereby weakens our vital communal spirit. So, let there be a

law to preserve this divinely ordained civic bond, as follows. Someone who has received

goods and has not paid the contractor within the agreed time shall be liable for double the

amount. And if a year should elapse, although all other money lending is to be interest-free,

this person shall pay one obol on the drachma for each month of arrears.

Actions in such

cases are to be heard before the tribal courts.

As we have dealt with craftsmen in general, it is only right to speak in passing of

the craftsmen responsible for our safety in war, such as generals and those possessed of

skills in the area. Whatever applies to these also applies to those who are craftsmen of a

different sort. So if any of them undertakes public service, either as a volunteer or as a con-

script, and he does a good job, the law will never tire in its praise of the citizen who recom-

penses him with the soldiers' wages, namely honour. But if he receives some noble military

service but offers no recompense, the law will censure him. So, let there be a law associated

with our praise of these people which gives advice to the broad mass of citizens rather than

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LAWS XI – 920d–921e | 1,243

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One drachma was equivalent to six obols, thus making the interest on the arrears in a case such as this equal to 200%

per year.

compelling them. They are to honour, in second place, those good men who act as saviours

of the entire city, either by their courageous deeds or military exploits, for the greatest

respect is due to those in the first rank, those who are pre-eminently capable of honouring

the enactments of the good lawgivers.

We have now, more or less, made regulations concerning the most important con-

tracts that people enter into, except for those relating to orphans and the care of orphans by

their guardians. So after all we have said so far, we need somehow or other to regulate these

matters too. The origins of all these contracts lie in the desires of those who are about to

die to put their affairs in order and the vagaries of those who make no such arrangements

at all. And I used the word ‘need’, Clinias, because I had noted the complexity and difficulty

of such situations. We cannot leave this area unregulated either. Indeed, if unquestioned

authority were granted to any will that anyone makes, regardless of his disposition as his

life draws to a close, people might make arrangements that were self-contradictory, or con-

trary to the laws, or to the ways of their fellow men, or to their own ways prior to the making

of their will. For most of us, when we believe that our end is nigh, become unreasonable or

broken in spirit.

CLINIAS: What of it, stranger?

ATHENIAN: A person who is about to die presents a challenge and is gripped by an alarming notion,

difficult for the lawgiver to deal with.

CLINIAS: In what way?

ATHENIAN: In seeking supreme authority over everything, he is inclined to speak in anger.

CLINIAS: What sort of things does he say?

ATHENIAN: Ye Gods! He will say, “What a terrible thing it is if I am not allowed to bestow or with-

hold my own property from whomsoever I please, giving more to one and less to another

who has proven to be good to me, or not so good, when sufficiently tested in sickness, old

age, and the various other circumstances of life.”

CLINIAS: Yes, stranger, but don’t you think they have a point?

ATHENIAN: I think that the ancient lawgivers were too soft, Clinias, and passed laws based upon a

narrow view of human affairs and a partial understanding.

CLINIAS: How so?

ATHENIAN: For fear of this argument, my good man, they enacted the law allowing anyone to make

any arrangement he pleases in relation to his own property, without restriction. But you and

I will respond more suitably to those in your city who are about to die. “Friends,” we shall

say, “veritable creatures of a day, it is difficult for you now to know your own possessions,

and also, in accord with the Delphic maxim, to know your own selves too. So I, as your

lawgiver, decree that neither yourselves nor this property belongs to you, but to your kinfolk

as a whole that was and will be hereafter, and, even more so, that all of your kindred and

its property belong to the city. And this being the case, I shall not willingly give my consent

if someone persuades you, when you are distressed by sickness or old age, to make a will

that is contrary to what’s best by stealing upon you with flatteries. I shall legislate from the

overall perspective of what is best for the city and the people, justly assigning less impor-

tance to a single individual. So you should proceed with us in tranquillity and goodwill,

continuing along this journey, the natural course of mankind. Everything else of yours will

be looked after by ourselves, exercising the very best care, without any exceptions or omis-

sions. These shall be our consolations and preliminaries, Clinias, addressed to the living

and to those who are about to die, and let the law be as follows: Whoever is making a will

disposing of his own property should, if he is the father of children, first indicate which of

his sons he deems worthy to be his heir, and he should also include the name of any of his

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Laws XI, David Horan translation, 18 Nov 25

other children whom he gives in adoption to someone else. If there is, besides, any other

son who has not been adopted as heir to some holding who hopes to be sent legally to a

colony, the father is allowed to give him as much as he wishes from the rest of his wealth,

apart from the family holding and its associated provision. If there are a number of them,

the father may allocate to them anything he owns, over and above the holding, in any pro-

portion he wishes. Nothing is to be allocated to a son who already owns a house, and like-

wise he shall make no allocation to a daughter who is already betrothed to a man, but he is

to make an allocation if she is not betrothed. If it turns out, after the will has been made,

that a son or a daughter has come into possession of a local holding, they are to leave it in

the hands of the heir of the person who made the will. If there is no male issue but there is

female issue, the testator is to bequeath a man as husband to any daughter he chooses, and

as a son to himself as his designated heir. In case a son, begotten or adopted, dies as a child

before he can attain manhood, a provision is to be included to meet such a situation whereby

the will is to specify the child who is to succeed this son, with better fortune. If someone

completely childless makes a will, he may set aside one tenth of his excess wealth, and if

he wishes to gift it to anyone, he may do so, having given everything else over to the

adopted heir whom he shall make his son, legally, with integrity on one side and acceptance

on the other.

When the children require guardians and the person dies having made a will speci-

fying whom he wants as guardians and their number, and they willingly agree to act in that

capacity, the choice of guardians, documented in this way, shall be final. If someone dies

without having made any will at all, or the selection of guardians is omitted, the official

guardians are to be the closest relatives on the father’s and mother’s side, two from each

side, plus one friend of the deceased person, and these are to be appointed by the guardians

of the law for any orphan who needs them. All aspects of guardianship and orphans should

always be looked after by fifteen guardians of the law, the most senior of all, who are to

divide themselves into three groups according to their age. Three are to act for one year,

and another three for the next, until five periods of office have completed their cycle, and

as far as possible there are to be no exceptions to this procedure.

If anyone dies without having made a will at all, and he leaves children requiring

guardians, his needy children shall avail themsleves of these same laws. If a man meets

with an unexpected misfortune, leaving daughters behind him, he must be forgiving to-

wards the lawgiver who arranges the betrothal of the daughters if he observes only two of

three important precepts – namely, close family kinship and the preservation of the fam-

ily holding – and neg-lects the third one which a father would look to, which is to find,

by assessing the entire citizen body, someone suited in character and manners as a son to

himself and a bridegroom to his daughter. This the lawgiver abandons as an impossible

task.

Let’s do our best, then, to have the following law enacted in relation to such matters.

If someone with no will dies, leaving daughters behind, a brother of the deceased, having

the same father or the same mother, who does not have a holding, shall take responsibility

for the daughter and the holding of the deceased. If there is no brother but there is a brother’s

child, the same arrangement applies, provided they are the right age for one another. If nei-

ther of these is available but there is a sister’s child, then the same arrangement applies.

The fourth option is a father’s brother, fifth is his child, and sixth the offspring of his father’s

sister. And so, the line always proceeds, based upon proximity of kinship, through brothers,

brothers’ children, first the males then the females, in a single family, whenever someone

leaves female children behind. A judge is to decide, by inspection, upon the match or mis-

match of their ages for marriage, by looking at the males naked and the females naked from

923 d

923 e

924 a

924 b

924 c

924 d

924 e

925 a

LAWS XI – 923d–925a | 1,245

the waist up. If there is a deficit of relatives within the family as far as brothers’ grandchil-

dren on the one hand, or grandfather’s children on the other, then whichever willing citizen

the girl with her guardians willingly chooses from among the citizen body shall become

the heir of the deceased and the bridegroom of his daughter.

But circumstances vary, and there may come a time when there are even fewer eli-

gible males in the city itself. If a young lady, at a loss for a husband locally, sees someone

who had been previously sent to a colony and has in mind that the man become heir to her

father’s property, then if he is related to her he may proceed to the holding in accordance

with the direction of the law. If he is from outside her family, and no one in the city is her

near relative, then based upon the selection of the deceased’s daughter and her guardians,

he is authorised to marry her and return home to take over the holding of the intestate man.

If someone dies without issue, male or female, and without a will, let the law in such a sit-

uation be, in general, the same as the previous one, and let a male and female family member

occupy the deserted home as consorts, so to speak, in each case, and let their claim to the

lot be ratified. The order of succession shall be sister first, brother’s daughter second, a sis-

ter’s child third, a father’s sister fourth, the daughter of a father’s brother fifth, and the

daughter of a father’s sister sixth. These shall reside with the male kinsmen according to

their closeness of kinship and their right as decreed in our earlier legislation. Now, we

should not overlook the burden associated with laws of this sort since they sometimes

harshly direct a relative of the deceased to marry a close relation, while seeming to take no

account of countless impediments which make someone reluctant to comply with such com-

mands, and prefer to suffer any other fate at all. This happens when there are physical or

mental diseases or defects in either of the parties to the proposed marriage. The lawgiver

might seem to show no regard for these factors, but this is not the case. So, let there be a

statement in the interests of the lawgiver and whoever is subject to the law, a sort of general

preamble, asking those who are given directions to be forgiving towards the lawgiver,

because in his care for public interests he may not always be able, at the same time, to man-

age the particular difficulties of private individuals. And those who are subject to the laws

should, in turn, be forgiven if they are sometimes naturally unable to fulfil the directions of

the lawgiver, directions he gave in ignorance of those difficulties.

CLINIAS: Well, stranger, what would be the most reasonable course of action under such circum-

stances?

ATHENIAN: Arbitrators need to be selected, Clinias, for these laws, and for those who are subject

to them.

CLINIAS: How do you mean?

ATHENIAN: Sometimes a nephew with a rich father might be unwilling to take his uncle’s daughter

in marriage, giving himself airs, with his mind set upon a more significant match. There

are times, too, when the lawgiver gives a direction that presents enormous difficulty, and a

person is compelled to disobey the law because, for instance, he is being forced to marry

into a family where there is madness or various other terrible difficulties of body or soul

which make life unbearable. So let our statement on the matters be a law, as follows. If any-

one finds fault with the laws in place concerning a will or anything else at all, especially if

it concerns marriages, and insists that the lawgiver himself, were he alive and present, would

never have insisted upon such a course of action and forced the couple to marry, as is now

proposed, while some relative or guardian, on the other hand, says otherwise, then we

declare that the lawgiver has left the fifteen guardians of the law as arbitrators and fathers

to the orphans, male and female, and the disputants are to go to these people and submit to

their judgement, and their pronouncements are to be final. If someone believes that too

925 b

925 c

925 d

925 e

926 a

926 b

926 c

926 d

1,246 | LAWS XI – 925b–926d

Laws XI, David Horan translation, 18 Nov 25

much power has been entrusted to these guardians of the law, he may take them to court,

the court of selected judges, and submit to their judgement regarding the points in dispute.

If he loses the case, he must accept censure and disgrace from the lawgiver, a penalty more

grievous to a man of reason than any large fine.

So the orphaned children would now undergo a kind of second birth. How they are

all to be reared and educated after their first birth has already been described. After their

second birth, being bereft of parents, some means must be devised by which their orphan

plight will give the least cause for pity at the misfortune of those who have been orphaned.

Firstly, we say that they are to be given, by law, guardians of the law in place of their natural

fathers, and every bit as good, and, what is more, we direct these people to look after them,

year by year, as if they were their own. And we now add a preamble on the rearing of

orphans, appropriate to these people themselves and to the guardians. I now see that there

was something opportune in what we mentioned earlier about the souls of the departed,

even after death, possessing a certain power whereby they still care about human affairs.

Although the accounts dealing with this are true, they are quite lengthy, but we should

believe the general tradition concerning these matters, varied and most ancient as they are.

What is more, we should also believe the lawgivers who maintain that this is the case, unless

we see them as utter fools. If this is the natural state of affairs, there should be fear, first

and foremost, of the gods above, who are aware of the loneliness of orphans; secondly of

the souls of the departed, which naturally care greatly for their own offspring, honour those

who are kind to them and have no respect for those who are unkind. Finally, there should

be fear of those who are still alive but well advanced in years and much respected. Where

a city flourishes and has good laws, our children’s children live happily in tender love for

such people who have sharp eyes and keen ears for these matters and are kind to those who

act justly in this area, while they get exceedingly angry with those who mistreat a lonely

orphan whom they regard as a mighty and sacred responsibility. A guardian or official with

any sense should pay attention to all these people and take care of the upbringing and edu-

cation of orphans as if he were providing sustenance to himself and his own kindred, and

do his very best to benefit them in every possible way. Whoever heeds the message of our

preamble to the law and does not mistreat a single orphan shall not unleash the unbridled

wrath of the lawgiver against such crimes, but whoever heeds it not and wrongs someone

who has no father or mother, shall pay twice the total compensation payable by a person

who behaves badly towards someone with two living parents.

When it comes to general legislation for guardians in relation to orphans, and for

officials in relation to their responsibility for guardians, if, on the one hand, they had never

come across a model for the rearing of free-born children themselves in rearing their own

children and looking after their own property, and if they did not have laws setting out the

relevant details properly, it would make sense to have a law of guardianship framed specif-

ically for this purpose, distinguishing the life of orphans from that of others by certain spe-

cific features. But nowadays, among ourselves, although the status of an orphan is not much

different in all these respects from someone under paternal care, they do tend to differ

greatly in terms of the level of respect they are shown and the level of care they bestow.

For this very reason our law has been quite serious about encouragement and threats in its

legislation concerning orphans. But a threat of the following kind would still be most timely.

Whoever acts as a guardian to a girl or a boy, and any guardian of the law who has been put

in charge of a guardian, is to be just as affectionate to an orphan as to his own offspring,

and shall look after the property of someone under his care just as zealously as he looks

after his own property, or even better. Anyone acting as a guardian shall adhere to this single

926 e

927 a

927 b

927 c

927 d

927 e

928 a

928 b

LAWS XI – 926e–928b | 1,247

law about orphans. If anyone acts otherwise in such matters, contrary to the law, then in

the case of a guardian, the official is to fine him, and in the case of an official, the guardian

is to take him before the court of selected judges and fine him twice the penalty adjudged

by the court. If a guardian is deemed by the child’s relatives, or any of the other citizens, to

have neglected his duty or acted badly, he is to be brought to the same court. And on con-

viction, he is to pay four times the assessed damages, one half being payable to the child

and the other half to whoever brought the case. Once an orphan has come of age, he may

take legal action in relation to his guardianship within a five-year period from its termina-

tion, if he believes the guardian behaved badly. And if the guardian is found guilty, the court

is to impose the appropriate penalty or fine. If, however, one of the officials is deemed to

have harmed an orphan through neglect, the court is to decide the amount he is to pay to

the child, but if he harmed him through an unjust act, then in addition to the fine, he is to

be removed from office as a guardian of the law, and the civic authority is to appoint another

in his place for the country and the city.

Disputes can arise between fathers and their own sons, and between sons and their

fathers, that are more serious than they should be. In such cases, the fathers are inclined to

the view that the lawgiver should grant them the legal right, if they wish, to proclaim pub-

licly through the herald that their son is no longer legally their son, while sons, in turn,

expect to be allowed to take legal action claiming insanity on the part of their fathers because

they are laid low by sickness or old age. Such situations tend to arise from the thoroughly

bad characters of the people involved, since if the badness was on one side only, the son

being bad but not the father, or vice versa, the difficulties would not give rise to such a

degree of hostility. Now, under another civic arrangement, a disinherited child would not

necessarily lose the right of citizenship, but in our society, for which these laws are pro-

posed, someone who has been disowned by his father needs to resettle in another country,

for the addition of one more household to our 5,040 holdings is not permitted. Therefore,

whoever is to suffer this fate legally must be disowned, not alone by his father, but by the

entire family. Such matters should be dealt with based upon a law, somewhat, as follows.

If anyone, with justification or without, beset by accursed anger, wishes to expel from his

own family someone whom he has begotten and reared, he should not be allowed to do so

there and then without due process. He shall first gather his own kindred together, as far as

cousins and his son’s kindred on his mother’s side in like manner, and lay his accusation

before these people, explaining that his son deserves formal expulsion from the family by

everyone. The son is to be given equal speaking time to argue that he does not deserve to

suffer such a fate at all. If the father prevails and secures the votes of more than half of all

the family members, excluding the votes of the father himself, the mother, the defendant,

and any male or female who has not yet come of age, then in this way and upon these terms

the father is permitted to disown his son, but not otherwise. If some citizen wants to adopt

the disowned son as his own, no law should stand in the way, for the characters of the young

naturally undergo numerous changes during their lives. But if within ten years no one offers

to adopt the dispossessed son, those responsible for excess offspring who are about to be

resettled elsewhere shall be responsible for such cases too, so that they may be duly included

in the same resettlement. It may happen that sickness, old age, difficult behaviour, or indeed

a combination of them all, makes someone exceptionally deranged and this goes unnoticed

by everyone except those who live with him, and he squanders his own wealth as he has

the authority to do so. His son, too, may be at a loss and be reluctant to take legal proceed-

ings on grounds of insanity. In this case, let there be a law that decrees that the son should

first go to the most senior guardians of the law and describe the father’s affliction. Having

928 c

928 d

928 e

929 a

929 b

929 c

929 d

929 e

1,248 | LAWS XI – 928c–929e

Laws XI, David Horan translation, 18 Nov 25

looked into the matter sufficiently, they are to advise him either to take legal action or not.

If they advise him to proceed, they shall act both as witnesses and advocates for the pros-

ecution, and if the father loses the case he is no longer to have the slightest authority to

administer his own property, and he shall live out the rest of his life just like a child.

If a husband and wife are no longer getting along with one another at all because

their behaviour is so bad, ten of the guardians of the law, in middle age, should take constant

charge of such people, along with ten of the women responsible for marriages. If they are

able to bring about a reconciliation, such arrangements shall be binding, but if feelings are

running too high, they shall do their best to find suitable alternative partners for each of

them. Such people are unlikely to have gentle dispositions, and so they should try to match

them with partners of a more sedate and gentle character. Disputants who are childless or

who have very few children are to make the fresh match with a view to producing children,

while those who have sufficient children should separate and form fresh unions for the sake

of companionship and mutual care in their old age.

If a wife dies leaving behind both male and female children, there shall be a law,

advisory rather than prescriptive, that the father is to bring up the existing children without

introducing a stepmother. If there are no children, the widower must remarry until such

time as he has begotten sufficient children for his household and the city. If the husband

dies leaving sufficient children behind, the mother of the children is to remain there and

bring them up. But if she seems too youthful to live healthily without a husband, the relatives

shall confer with the women responsible for marriage and do whatever seems best to them-

selves and the women. If there are not enough children, then children should be considered,

and, by law, one boy and one girl shall constitute a specified minimum. When the question

of parentage is undisputed but a decision is required as to which parent a child should cleave

to, the law is to be as follows; if a female slave lies with another slave or with a free man

or a freedman, the offspring shall belong in every case to her master. If a free woman lies

with a slave, the offspring is to belong to the slave’s master; if a man has a child by his own

slave or a woman by hers, and the facts are beyond dispute, then the women are to send the

woman’s child away to another country, along with its father, while the guardians of the

law are to send the man’s child away, along with the woman who bore it.

No god or man with any sense would ever advise anyone to neglect parents, and we

need to recognise that the following preamble concerning the worship of the gods would

fit well with the subject of parental respect and disrespect. The ancient laws concerning the

gods are, in every case, twofold. Some of the gods whom we honour are in plain sight,

whereas we set up statues of others as images which we worship even though they are life-

less, believing that those living gods, because of these images, are well disposed to us and

grateful. So if anyone has a father or mother, or fathers and mothers, of such people, laid

up like treasures in his home, infirm with old age, he should never presume that any statue

could be more potent when he has a living image like this at home by his hearth, provided

its possessor worships it in the right way.

CLINIAS: What do you mean by the right way?

ATHENIAN: I shall tell you, for this sort of thing, my friends, deserves to be heard.

CLINIAS: Speak on.

ATHENIAN: Oedipus, we say, having been dishonoured, called down curses upon his own children

which by all accounts were heard by the gods, and fulfilled. Amyntor, in a fit of anger,

cursed his own son Phoenix, Theseus cursed Hippolytus, and countless other fathers cursed

just as many sons. These curses of parents upon their children are obviously heard by the

gods, for it is only right that a parent’s curse upon their offspring be unlike any other curse

930 a

930 b

930 c

930 d

930 e

931 a

931 b

931 c

LAWS XI – 930a–931c | 1,249

upon anyone else. Let’s not suppose then that it is natural for a god to give a special hearing

to the imprecations of a father or mother when they have been dishonoured by their children,

yet when they are actually honoured and are very pleased about this and pray earnestly to

the gods that good will befall their children, let’s not believe that they do not pay just as

much heed to prayers like these, and respond accordingly. No, if that were the case they

would never be just in dispensing their blessings, and for gods that would really be most

inappropriate.

CLINIAS: Indeed.

ATHENIAN: And so, we should be of the view, as we said a little earlier, that we can possess no

statue that is more honourable in the eyes of the gods than a father or grandfather laid low

by old age, or a mother with the same capacity. When these people are exalted with honours,

God rejoices, otherwise he would not hear their prayers. Indeed, for us, an ancestor is a

wondrous image, more so than anything lifeless. For those that are alive always join in our

prayers when we serve them, and pray against us when we do not, whereas the lifeless

images do neither. And so, provided we treat fathers, grandfathers and anyone else of that

sort in the right way, we would have images that are unsurpassed in securing a portion of

divine favour.

CLINIAS: You expressed that very well.

ATHENIAN: Anyone with any intelligence, then, fears and honours the prayers of parents, knowing

that in many cases these have so often proved effective. And since this is the natural order

of things, to good people aged ancestors are a boon to the very end of their lives and are

deeply mourned by the young when they depart, while they are truly a source of fear to bad

people. So, let everyone, in obedience to these precepts, honour their own parents with all

the honours ordained by law, but in case someone is, by all accounts, deaf to such prelim-

inaries, it is only right the following law should apply. If anyone in this city does not care

for his parents as much as he should, and does not look after all their interests and comply

with their wishes more so than his own sons, his own offspring and even himself, whoever

suffers such neglect is to report this in person to the three most senior guardians of the law,

and similarly to the three eldest women responsible for marriages. They shall take charge

and punish the offenders with beating and imprisonment if they are young, up to the age of

thirty for men and up to forty for women, who are to receive the same punishment. If they

persist in this parental abuse or mistreatment when they are older than this, they should be

brought before a court of 101 citizens, the most senior of all, and, if convicted, the court

shall assess what the fine or punishment should be, without restriction, up to the limit of

what a person is able to suffer or pay. If a victim is unable to speak on his own behalf, any

free-born citizen who discovers the neglect is to report the matter to the officials or else be

regarded as an evildoer and be liable to an action for damages by anyone who wishes. If a

slave informs them, let him be set free. If the slave belongs to the victim or the perpetrator,

he is to be freed by the court. If he belongs to some other citizen, the public treasury shall

pay compensation for the slave to the owner, and the officials are to take care that no one

wrongs the slave in revenge for acting as an informer.

Cases where one person harms another with poison with fatal consequences have

already been dealt with, but other cases of injury where someone does harm using potions,

foodstuffs or ointments, intentionally with premeditation, have not been dealt with so far.

The fact that poisonings are of two kinds because of the nature of human beings is some-

thing we must pause to consider. One kind has just been described explicitly where bodies

naturally injure other bodies. The other uses magic, enchantments and spells, not only to

convince those who are intent upon doing harm that these measures are effective, but to

931 d

931 e

932 a

932 b

932 c

932 d

932 e

933 a

1,250 | LAWS XI – 931d–933a

Laws XI, David Horan translation, 18 Nov 25

convince their victims, above all, that they really are being harmed by these people who

are able to bewitch others. Now, in relation to all such matters, in general it is not easy to

understand what precisely the natural state of affairs actually is, nor, having understood

this, is it easy to convince others. But when people are suspicious of one another in their

souls, there is no value in trying to convince them about this sort of thing and encourage

them to think nothing of it if they behold some imitation moulded in wax in a doorway, or

where three roads meet, or on a parent’s grave, because they have no clear appreciation of

these matters. So, having made a twofold division in our law about poisoning depending

upon how the person attempts to do it, we shall first request, exhort and counsel that such

a deed never be attempted. Nor should anyone scare the general population like frightened

children, nor indeed compel the lawgiver and judge to cure our people of such fears, because

to begin with, the person trying to administer poison does not know what he is doing in the

case of the body, unless he happens to be a knowledgeable physician, nor indeed in the case

of magic, unless he happens to be a prophet or diviner. So, let the law about poisoning be

stated as follows: whoever poisons someone so as to do harm, not fatally, either to that per-

son himself or to his people, or harms his cattle or his hives, with or without fatal conse-

quences, shall, if found guilty of poisoning, be put to death if he happens to be a physician,

or if he be an ordinary citizen, the court shall impose the appropriate fine or penalty. If it is

suspected that someone is apparently causing injury using spells, enchantments or charms,

or any other poisonings of this sort, he is to be executed if he happens to be a prophet or

diviner, but if he is convicted of poisoning with no knowledge of magic, then, as in the pre-

vious case, the court shall impose in this case too whatever fine or penalty it thinks he

should suffer.

In cases where one person injures another through theft or violence, the greater the

injury, the greater the compensation payable to the injured party, and the smaller the injury,

the lesser the compensation, but, above all, the compensation payable in every case is to be

sufficient to make good the harm done. In addition, each offender shall pay the penalty

associated with that particular crime to teach him self-control. When someone acts badly

because of the folly of another person, being unduly influenced because of his youth or for

some other reason, then the penalty should be lighter. However, when that bad deed is due

to the person’s own folly because of a lack of control over pleasure and pain, or due to

incurable desires, envy or anger, then the penalty should be heavier. The penalty is not

imposed because of the wrongdoing, for what has been done will never be undone, but with

an eye to the future so that the wrongdoer himself, and those who see him being punished,

will utterly detest the injustice, or at least recover to a large extent from such a dreadful

affliction. For all these reasons, and with a view to everything of this sort, the laws, like a

good archer, should aim to estimate the extent of the punishment in each case, and, above

all, the amount of the compensation. The judge must lend assistance to the lawgiver when-

ever, in executing the same task, the law entrusts him with assessing the punishment the

defendant is to suffer or the compensation he is to pay. The lawgiver, on the other hand, is

to outline some actions that illustrate conformity to the written law. That, indeed, is what

we must do now, Megillus and Clinias, as best and beautifully as we can. We should state

what the penalty should be for any acts of theft or violence, insofar as the gods or their chil-

dren allow us to enact such laws.

Someone who is insane is not to be at large in the city, and the relatives of such peo-

ple are to keep them indoors by any means at their disposal, or else be subject to a fine,

which, for the highest property class, shall be one hundred drachmas whether it is a slave

or a free citizen that is being supervised. A member of the second class shall pay four fifths

933 b

933 c

933 d

933 e

934 a

934 b

934 c

934 d

LAWS XI – 933b–934d | 1,251

of a mina, the third class shall pay three fifths and the fourth class two fifths. Now, many

people are insane and in many different ways. In the cases we are referring to now, the mad-

ness is due to diseases, but there are other cases where there is a bad innate tendency to

anger which is actually fostered. Such people, in minor disputes, raise their voices to speak

abusively and slanderously to one another, behaviour that is completely and utterly inap-

propriate in a well-regulated city. So, let there be a single law applicable to all cases of abu-

sive speech, as follows: no one is to verbally abuse anyone else. Any party to a verbal

dispute is to instruct and learn from his adversary and the company, refraining entirely from

all verbal abuse. Indeed, when people call down curses upon one another and employ dis-

graceful language in a shrewish tone, firstly, although the words are as light as air, from

these spring deeds that are heavy with hatred and hostility. For the speaker is embracing

anger, an unkind trait, feeding this urge to the full with a noxious banquet, and his soul,

once made gentle through education, is made wild again, and he becomes a beast who lives

in discontent, reaping the bitter harvest of his anger. What’s more, all those involved in

such encounters are inclined all too often to resort, somehow or other, to mocking their

opponent. And no one has ever adopted this habit without completely failing to retain their

own dignity or, in large part, losing their mental power. For these reasons, no one in a sacred

place is to express themselves in this way at all, nor at a public sacrifice, at the games, in

the marketplace, in court, or at any public gathering. And every transgression is to be pun-

ished by the official in charge on pain of being debarred from all public distinctions, as

someone who neither cares about the laws nor heeds the injunctions of the lawgiver. In

other situations, if someone either initiating the criticism or retaliating does not refrain from

such language, anyone older who comes across him is to defend the law by driving out with

blows those who are so fond of that evil companion, anger, or else be liable himself to the

appointed penalty. So, we are now saying that when someone is involved in criticism, he

cannot help attempting to resort to mockery, and this, when it is born of anger, is what we

are criticising.

But what about the comic writers who are keen on mocking people? Are we to accept

this provided they resort to this sort of mockery of our citizens without any anger? Or are

we to make a distinction between mockery in jest and mockery that is serious, and allow

anyone to mock anyone else without anger, but not allow them, as we have said, to do so

in earnest and in anger? This stipulation must not be retracted, but we must pass laws stating

who may do this and who may not. No composer of a comedy or any iambic or lyric song

should be allowed to mock any of our citizens, either in word or through imitation, whether

or not this is done in anger. If any of them disobeys this law, the officials in charge of the

competition are to expel him from the area entirely, on that very day, or be fined three minae,

dedicated to the god in whose honour the competition is being held. Those with permission,

as we said earlier, to compose works about one another are allowed to engage in mockery

in jest, but not in earnest or in a spirit of anger. Determination in this matter is to be left to

the person responsible for the overall education of the young, and the composer shall be

allowed to publicly present whatever that person approves, but whatever he rejects must

not be shown to anyone else, nor should he ever be found teaching it to any other person,

slave or free born, on pain of being regarded as a rogue who does not heed the laws.

It is not the person who is hungry or who suffers a similar misfortune who deserves

to be pitied, but the person who is sound-minded or possessed of some excellence, even in

part, who comes by misfortune in addition. So it would be surprising if someone like this,

slave or free, were to be totally neglected and reduced to utter beggary in a society or city

that was even moderately well managed. Therefore, there will be no threat to such people

934 e

935 a

935 b

935 c

935 d

935 e

936 a

936 b

1,252 | LAWS XI – 934e–936b

Laws XI, David Horan translation, 18 Nov 25

if the lawgiver enacts a law somewhat as follows. There is to be no begging in our city, and

if someone attempts to engage in such behaviour, scraping a life together through incessant

entreaties, the market police are to expel him from the marketplace, and the board of city

police are to expel him from the city, and the rural police from the rest of the country, driving

him beyond the border so that our land may be entirely purged of such creatures.

If a slave, male or female, damages anything at all that belongs to other people, and

the injured party himself is not partly responsible through ineptitude or some other irre-

sponsible actions, the owner of the slave that did the damage shall either make good the

damage in full, or hand that slave over to the victim. But if the slave’s owner issues a counter

claim that the charge involves collusion between the injured party and the culprit slave in

order to deprive him of that slave, he may take an action for conspiracy against the person

who claims to have suffered the damage, and if he is successful he is to receive twice the

value that the court sets upon the slave, but if he loses he is to pay for the damage and hand

over the slave. And if a draught animal, a horse or a dog, or some other beast, damages

anything belonging to a neighbour, compensation is to be paid on the same basis. If someone

won’t of his own volition act as a witness, the person who needs his evidence shall summon

him as a witness, and once summoned he shall appear in court, and if he has information

and is willing to give evidence, he should do so. But if he claims to have no information,

let him swear an oath to Zeus, Apollo and Themis, denying any knowledge, and be excused

from the case. But a person called as a witness who does not show up in court in response

is liable by law to an action for damages. If someone calls one of the judges at this trial to

act as a witness, then, having given evidence, the judge must not vote in that case. A free

woman is allowed to act as a witness or to support someone’s case provided she is over

forty, and she may initiate a legal action herself if she has no husband, but if she has a

husband who is alive, she may only act as a witness. A slave, male or female, or a child, is

permitted to act as a witness or a support only in a murder trial, provided that individual

furnishes a trustworthy guarantor to ensure that the witness will remain and await trial in

case the evidence is challenged as false. Either side in a case may challenge all or part of

the evidence before the verdict has been decided if he maintains that he is a victim of false

witness. The officials shall keep the challenges by both parties safely sealed up, and shall

produce them at the trial for false witness. If a person is twice convicted of false witness,

no law shall compel him to act as a witness thereafter. If it happens three times, he shall no

longer be permitted to act as a witness, and if he dares to give evidence having been con-

victed three times, anyone who wishes may report him to the authorities, who shall bring

him to court, and, if convicted, he shall be sentenced to death. In cases where evidence is

condemned by a court and it is adjudged that someone gave false evidence and ensured that

the victorious party won the case, then if more than half his evidence is condemned, the

case that was lost on that basis should be subject to review, and there should be argument

and an adjudication as to whether or not the original case was decided by the false evi-

dence, and this adjudication, whatever the outcome, shall determine how the previous

cases conclude.

Although there are many fine things in human life, most of them are beset by a sort

of plague that pollutes and defiles them. And, indeed, justice among us humans is undeni-

ably something fine which has civilised the life of man, and since this is fine, how could

judicial advocacy not be fine too? But a pernicious skill hiding behind a noble name brings

these fine things into disrepute. It begins by claiming that there is a certain contrivance for

dealing with judicial proceedings, which itself constitutes a means of conducting a case and

advocating on behalf of someone else, being capable of ensuring victory regardless of

936 c

936 d

936 e

937 a

937 b

937 c

937 d

937 e

LAWS XI – 936c–937e | 1,253

whether the behaviour of the defendant in the case had been just or not. It also claims that

this skill and the arguments it produces may be had as a gift to anyone who hands over

money. Now, regardless of whether this skill is indeed a skill or just a knack based upon

practice devoid of skill, it should never, if possible, take root in our city. The lawgiver asks

for obedience, that they don’t speak contrary to justice, or that they depart to another coun-

try, and if they comply, he has no more to say. If they do not comply, then the voice of the

law is as follows. Anyone suspected of attempting to turn the force of justice in the souls

of the jurors to the very opposite course, or of taking multiple legal actions opportunistically,

or advocating for others in such actions, is liable to prosecution by anyone who wishes, for

perversion of justice or supporting others in such perversion. The case should be tried by

the court of selected judges, and, on conviction, the court is to determine whether the defen-

dant was acting out of greed or out of ambition. If ambition was the motive, the court is to

decide for how long such a person is to be debarred from taking a legal action against any-

one else, or from advocacy in a legal action. If the motive was greed, a foreigner is to be

banished from the country, never to return, on pain of death, while a native, because he was

motivated by such out and out greed, is to be put to death. Someone who is convicted of

doing this sort of thing out of ambition, for a second time, is to be put to death.

–––––

938 a

938 b

938 c

1,254 | LAWS XI – 938a–938c

Laws XI, David Horan translation, 18 Nov 25