Book 7 - Platonic Foundation

Laws

––––– BOOK VII –––––

ATHENIAN: Now that our children, male and female, have been born, it’s only right that their nurture

and education should be spoken of next. It is impossible to avoid mentioning this topic at

all, yet when dealing with education, it would apparently be better to make use of instruction

and exhortation rather than legislation. For privately, in domestic situations, a lot happens

that is trivial and this goes unnoticed by most people. Because of their individual pains,

pleasures and desires, which run counter to the intentions of the lawgiver, a huge variety of

inconsistent habits arises all too easily among the citizens. This is bad for the cities because,

on the one hand, the triviality and frequency of these transgressions make it inappropriate

and unseemly to impose legal penalties, yet, on the other hand, the transgressions subvert

the laws that have already been passed by accustoming the people to acting contrary to the

laws in lots of trivial situations. Consequently, although we are at a loss as to how to legislate

about these matters, we can’t remain silent either. I shall try to clarify what I mean by pre-

senting some examples, since at the moment what I am saying sounds somewhat obscure.

CLINIAS: Very true.

ATHENIAN: Now I presume it was right to say that a correct upbringing must demonstrate an ability

to produce bodies and souls that are as beautiful and excellent as possible in every respect.

CLINIAS: Indeed.

ATHENIAN: And in the case of children, having very beautiful bodies means, I presume, in the sim-

plest terms, that they should grow as straight as they possibly can from their earliest years.

CLINIAS: Of course.

ATHENIAN: What about this? Aren’t we aware that in every living organism the first shoots of

growth are the greatest and most extensive. Consequently, many people contend that the

height increase in human beings is greater during the first five years than in the following

twenty years.

CLINIAS: True.

ATHENIAN: Now we know, don’t we, that without plenty of appropriate exercise, rapid growth

causes lots of physical problems?

CLINIAS: Of course.

ATHENIAN: Therefore, most exercise is required at the time when most nutriment is being provided

to our bodies.

CLINIAS: What’s this, stranger? Shall we prescribe most exercise for new-born babes and infants?

ATHENIAN: Not just then, but even before then, when they are still being nurtured within their own

mothers.

CLINIAS: What do you mean, my friend? Are you referring to babies in the womb?

ATHENIAN: Yes. It is not surprising that you are unaware of the physical training that is appropriate

at that stage of life, but since this is so unusual, I would like to explain it to you.

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Laws VII, David Horan translation, 18 Nov 25

CLINIAS: By all means, do so.

ATHENIAN: Well, there is more awareness of this sort of training among my own countrymen

because some people there are more involved in sport and games than they should be. In

fact, among ourselves, not just children, but even some older men rear wild birds to fight

with one another. Now, they are far indeed from believing that the exercises in which they

train such creatures by pitting them against one another constitute adequate training. Indeed,

besides these exercises, each owner keeps his bird concealed about his person, smaller ones

in their hands, and larger ones under their arm. They go about, walking mile after mile, to

ensure not just that their own bodies, but the bodies of these creatures too are in good con-

dition. This much should make it obvious to anyone who is observant enough, that all bodies

are benefited and invigorated when they are moved by any sort of shaking or motion,

whether they are moved of their own volition, or by a swaying vehicle, by a ship at sea,

from horse-riding, or by any other means of bodily transport. Because of all these, our bod-

ies assimilate the nourishment of food and drink and can become a source of health, beauty

and general robustness for us.

Now, in the light of these arguments, how would we say we should proceed? Would

you like us to risk ridicule by explicitly implementing laws whereby pregnant women are

to take walks, mould the newborn child like wax while it is still supple, and wrap it in

swaddling clothes for the first two years of its life? And should we also use legal penalties

to compel the nurses always to carry the children, somehow or other, to the fields, the tem-

ples, or to their relatives until they are well able to stand upright themselves? And then,

should they persist in carrying the new arrivals until they turn three as a precaution in case

their legs get deformed when they are young from bearing their full weight? And shall we

prescribe that there should be more than one nurse per child and that they should be as

strong as possible? And should we specify a penalty for every case of failure to follow these

directions? Or is this too extreme? Indeed, it would result in far too much of the outcome I

just mentioned.

CLINIAS: Which was?

ATHENIAN: The enormous ridicule we would attract. And what’s more, we would be unlikely to

make much impression upon the feminine and servile characters of the nurses.

CLINIAS: Why, then, did we think it necessary to mention all this?

ATHENIAN: Here’s why. The characters of the masters and free men in our cities may perhaps be

more receptive to hearing this, and come to the conclusion, rightly, that any notion of a

stable body of laws for communal affairs is a vain dream in the absence of correct regulation

of private life in our cities. A citizen who recognises this may well adopt the suggestions

we have just made as laws, resort to them to manage the city nicely, and his own household

too, and live in happiness.

CLINIAS: A very likely outcome.

ATHENIAN: So, let us not move on from this sort of legislation until we have also given a detailed

account of the various activities concerned with the souls of the young children, just as we

went through corresponding accounts related to their bodies when we began.

CLINIAS: That is the right way to proceed, very much so.

ATHENIAN: Well, let us adopt this as a common principle applicable to both body and soul – that

the nursing and motion of the bodies and souls of the very young, particularly of the

youngest infants, when maintained as best we can day and night, is beneficial in all cases.

Indeed, if it were possible, it would be good for them to spend their lives as if they were

constantly sailing the seas. But as matters stand, in the case of our new born infants, we

should get as close to this ideal as possible. The following examples provide additional evi-

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dence. Nurses of small children adopt this procedure and recognise its usefulness, and so

do the women who treat corybantic conditions.

Indeed, that is why mothers who want to

lull sleepless children to sleep do not resort to stillness but, on the contrary, to movement,

rocking them continually in their arms, using some sort of melody rather than silence, as

they literally charm the children. The nurses use the combined motion of dance and music,

just like the priestess who charms those who are out of their minds using cures from the

Bacchic rites.

CLINIAS: What, stranger, is the cause of all this?

ATHENIAN: That is not particularly difficult to appreciate.

CLINIAS: What is it then?

ATHENIAN: Both these responses presumably involve being frightened, and fright originates in

some degenerate state of the soul. However, when someone brings external rocking to bear

upon such responses as these, the externally applied motion overcomes the internal motion,

which is fear and frenzy, and once the external motion prevails, it produces a manifest tran-

quillity in the soul and a relief from the distressing agitation of the heart that had been present

in each case. This results in complete satisfaction, bringing sleep to the sleepless, and sanity

in place of their frenzied state of mind to the others who are wide awake, as they are drawn

into dancing and music-making, aided by the gods to whom they offer propitious sacrifices.

And this account, although brief, is a plausible explanation of these matters.

CLINIAS: Very much so.

ATHENIAN: Given that these measures have this sort of power, we need to recognise, in the case of

these people, that every soul experiencing such frights from its earliest years is more likely

to develop the habit of being fearful. And we would all agree, I presume, that this constitutes

the practice of cowardice rather than courage.

CLINIAS: Of course.

ATHENIAN: And we would accept that the opposite course, the pursuit of courage from our very

earliest years, consists in being victorious over any frights and fears that assail us.

CLINIAS: Correct.

ATHENIAN: According to us then, this one factor, the training of very young children through various

movements, contributes enormously to developing one part of the soul’s excellence.

CLINIAS: Very much so.

ATHENIAN: And, indeed, absence of discontent would play a significant role in developing a good

soul, while discontent would produce a bad soul.

CLINIAS: Inevitably.

ATHENIAN: Now, in what way may we implant either of these two qualities from the very outset,

at will, in the new-born babes? We need to make an effort to state how and to what extent

these two qualities are within our control.

CLINIAS: Of course.

ATHENIAN: The view held among ourselves is that a soft life produces in the young people habits

of discontent, bad temper, and a strong tendency to get agitated over trifles. Yet, on the

other hand, the opposite sort of regime, based on excessive harsh subjugation, renders them

unsuited to life in society by turning them into cringing, servile creatures who hate their

fellow man.

CLINIAS: But how should the city as a whole set about the task of rearing children who don’t yet

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–––––

The Corybantes, offspring of the god Apollo, were legendary armed and crested dancers who worshipped the goddess

Cybele (Rhea) through their ritual dancing and drumming. Corybantic conditions were pathological compulsions to

dance, thought to have been caused by divine possession.

Laws VII, David Horan translation, 18 Nov 25

understand speech and cannot yet partake of education generally?

ATHENIAN: As follows. It is usual for every creature, human beings included, somehow to utter a

loud scream as soon as they are born, and, indeed, human children, in addition to the scream,

are more prone to crying than other creatures.

CLINIAS: Yes, indeed.

ATHENIAN: Now, when the nurses are trying to discover what a child wants, they are guided as to

what to give it by these various sounds. When an offering is greeted with silence, she con-

cludes that all is well, but when the child cries out and screams, she knows there is a prob-

lem. So you see that the infants indicate what they love and hate by these cries and screams,

a most unfortunate set of signals, and this phase lasts for at least three years, and that is no

small part of one’s life to spend well or ill.

CLINIAS: You are right about that.

ATHENIAN: Now, don’t you both think that a discontented person, who is not at all gracious, will

be morose, and for the most part, more given to moaning than a good person should be?

CLINIAS: Well, I think so, anyway.

ATHENIAN: Well then, if during those three years we were to try our best, by all possible means, to

ensure that our charges experience distress, fear, and any form of pain to the least possible

extent, don’t you think that the soul of the child we are rearing would then be rendered

more cheerful and gracious?

CLINIAS: Of course, stranger, especially if we provide him with lots of pleasures too.

ATHENIAN: Now, on this point I can no longer go along with Clinias, wonderful and all as he is. In

fact, such a practice is, for us, enormously destructive in every respect, since it is introduced,

in every case, at the very start of the child’s upbringing. Let us see if I have a point here.

CLINIAS: Explain what you mean, please.

ATHENIAN: I am saying that the issue before us now is far from trivial. You should consider this

too, Megillus, and help us arrive at a decision. Now, the position I hold maintains that the

right way to live is neither to chase after pleasures, nor again to entirely avoid all pain, but

to embrace the mean, which I described just now as gracious, a condition which belongs to

God, as we all rightly declare on the basis of a prophetic utterance. So, I maintain that any

of us who are to be like God should pursue this state of the soul, neither giving ourselves

over entirely to pleasure because we realise that we cannot avoid pain, nor are we allowed

to tolerate the same behaviour in someone else, old or young, male or female, and least of

all, if we can help it, in the newly born, for that’s the time when character, on the whole, is

chiefly determined through habit. But I would still like to insist, at the risk of sounding friv-

olous, that all women who are with child should be shown special care for the duration of

their pregnancy to ensure that the expectant mother does not indulge in frequent, excessive

pleasures, or pains either, and cultivates a gracious, kindly and gentle spirit throughout.

CLINIAS: Stranger, there is no need for you to ask Megillus here which of us has spoken more cor-

rectly, since I myself agree with you that everyone should avoid the life of unadulterated

pleasure or pain, and always adopt some mean. What you have said is to the point, and so

is my response.

ATHENIAN: And correct too, Clinias, very much so. So the three of us should apply our minds to

the following issue.

CLINIAS: Which is?

ATHENIAN: That all the precepts we are now recounting are what most people call ‘unwritten reg-

ulations’, and everything of this sort, taken together, is exactly the same as what they refer

to as the ‘ancestral laws’. And what is more, the argument that occurred to us just now, that

these precepts should neither be designated as law nor left unspoken, was quite right. For

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in all political systems these act as bonds between all their enactments, those that have

already been written down and are in place, and those that will be enacted in future. They

really do constitute a body of ancestral regulations, truly ancient, which, rightly enacted

and practised, shelter the existing laws in total safety. But if they stray outside of the bonds

of what’s right into disorder, and the ancient supports collapse, it’s as if the supports installed

by carpenters in a building were to give way, causing everything to tumble into everything

else, one thing lying on top of another, both the supports and the rightly constructed later

superstructure. With these principles in mind, then, Clinias, we should bind this city of

yours together, totally, while it is still new, doing our best to omit nothing large or small, be

they laws, customs, practices or whatever they are called. For a city is bound together by

everything of this sort, and neither of these is stable without the other. Accordingly, we

should not be surprised if the inclusion of lots of seemingly trivial regulations and customs

makes our laws quite lengthy.

CLINIAS: Well, you are right to point this out, and we shall bear this in mind.

ATHENIAN: So, if we could implement these measures precisely until a boy or girl reaches the age

of three, and not treat what has been said casually, these would be of no small advantage to

our young charges. But the souls of three-year-olds, and four-, five- and even six-year-olds,

would need games, and the gentleness should then give way to punishments which are not

demeaning or violent, neither provoking anger in the chastised child, nor spoiling him

through lack of correction. In other words, we should apply the same principles to the free

born as we prescribed earlier for slaves.

Now, there are certain games that come naturally to children at that age, and they

readily work these out for themselves when they get together. So at that stage, the three- to

six-year-olds should gather at the village temples so that all the children of each village

come together in the same place. What’s more, the nurses are to be responsible for the

orderly conduct or misbehaviour of the children, and one woman in each case, one of the

twelve who have already been mentioned, is to be put in charge of the nurses themselves,

and of each group as a whole, for one year. These are to be appointed by the guardians of

the law, while the women who are responsible for overseeing marriages should select the

twelve, one from each tribe, the same age as themselves. Once appointed, she should pay

an official visit to the temple each day, assisted by some of the city servants, punishing any

wrongdoer, slave or foreigner, whether male or female. In the case of a citizen, where there

is a dispute over the punishment, she should refer the matter to the city wardens, but where

there is no dispute, she herself should punish even a citizen.

After the age of six, the sexes should then be separated, boys being made to associate

with boys, girls with girls. Each needs to turn their attention to various courses of instruction,

the boys going to teachers of horsemanship, archery and the use of javelins and slings. The

girls too may take instruction in these, if they wish, especially in the use of weapons. For

the prevailing view on such matters is, for the most part, misguided.

CLINIAS: What view?

ATHENIAN: The view that when it comes to using our hands for various activities, the right and the

left are different by nature, whereas in tasks involving our feet and lower limbs, no such

difference is apparent. But due to ignorance on the part of nurses and mothers, each of us

has turned out more or less disadvantaged when it comes to manual activities. For although

the limbs are more or less equally balanced on each side, we ourselves have made them

different through habitual incorrect use. Now, in activities of no great importance this

doesn’t really matter. For instance, it matters little if someone holds the lyre in his left hand

and the plectrum in his right, but it borders upon stupidity to use these examples as our

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Laws VII, David Horan translation, 18 Nov 25

models in other situations where there is no need to adopt such a practice. The Scythian

practice of using the right hand and the left hand interchangeably to draw the bow and to

string the arrow, rather than using just one hand for each, illustrates the point. And there

are lots of similar examples, from chariot-driving and so on, which are enough to show us

that those who train the left side to be weaker than the right are training them contrary to

nature. Now, as we said, this makes little difference with plectrums made of bone, and other

such implements, but it matters a great deal when iron weapons such as bows and arrows,

javelins and the like are to be used in war, and it matters enormously in the clash of weapons

with weapons where there is a huge difference between someone who has learned the skill

and someone who has not, someone who has been trained and someone who has not. For

instance, a perfectly trained pancratiast or boxer or wrestler is well able to fight to his left,

and he is not handicapped, dragging himself about in disarray whenever an opponent puts

him under pressure by switching sides. So too, in my view, in the case of weapons or any-

thing else, it is only right to accept that someone possessed of two sets of limbs with which

to defend himself or attack others should do his best to avoid leaving either side to lie idle

and untaught. Indeed, someone endowed with the physique of a Geryon or a Briareus

ought

to be able to throw one hundred darts with all of those one hundred hands of his. All this

should be looked after by those who are in charge, male and female, the women acting as

supervisors of the games and general upbringing, the men of the courses of instruction, to

ensure that all boys and girls turn out sure-footed and good with their hands, with none of

their natural endowments marred by acquired habits, insofar as this is possible.

The courses of instruction would fall, more or less, under two headings – physical

training relating to the body, and music for the sake of a good soul. Physical training, in

turn, has two aspects – dancing and wrestling. In one form of dancing the eloquence of the

Muse is imitated, preserving both dignity and freedom. Another form aims at fitness, light-

ness and beauty, ensuring the appropriate flexibility and reach of the limbs and other parts

of the body itself, and at bestowing upon each of them a beautiful rhythmic motion of their

own, which pervades and consistently accompanies all kinds of dancing. As far as wrestling

is concerned, the techniques invented by Antaeus and Cercyon for the sake of useless ambi-

tion, or those developed by Epeius or Amycus for boxing, being of no use in the conduct

of warfare, don’t deserve to be dignified with a mention.

But the techniques of stand-up

wrestling, to free one’s neck, arms or ribs, practised with ardour and a good physique, for

the sake of health and strength, these are useful for all purposes and should not be neglected.

So when we come to the appropriate point in our laws, we should direct the teachers to

impart all knowledge of this sort generously, and the pupils to receive it graciously. Nor,

again, should we neglect in the choral performances any imitative actions that are appro-

priate to the particular place, the armed games of the curetes on this island

and of the

Dioscuri in Sparta. And, indeed, among my own people, our Virgin Queen,

delighting in

the entertainment of the dance, thought it wrong to play the game with empty hands, and

right to perform the dance adorned in full battle array. So it would be most fitting then for

our boys, and girls too, to copy these out of respect for the grace of the goddess, for their

military benefit and for the sake of the festivals. So, from the outset, until they are of age

for military service, the children should, I suggest, when in processions to any gods and

when involved in parades, always be equipped with horses and armour as they pay their

respects to the gods and their offspring with marches or dances, quick or slow. And their

sole purposes in competitions, or preparing for competitions, should be these and these

alone. For competitions in peace or war are beneficial to a state and to private households,

while other exertions, sports or business related to the body are not worthy of a free people.

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Now Megillus and Clinias, I have more or less described in detail the gymnastics that I said

in our initial discussions needed to be described. There it is in its entirety. If you have any-

thing better to offer, please share it with us.

CLINIAS: Stranger, if we reject this account it won’t be easy to come up with anything better to say

about gymnastics or competition either.

ATHENIAN: We thought earlier that we had dealt comprehensively with the related matter of the

gifts of the Muses and of Apollo, and that the only topic remaining was gymnastics. But

what still needs to be said to everyone, and that it should be said at the very outset, is now

obvious. So let’s state this, systematically.

CLINIAS: Certainly. That’s what we should do.

ATHENIAN: Listen to me, then. You have done so already, but the speaker, and the listeners too,

need to be extremely careful when the proposition is highly unusual and unfamiliar, as is

the case now. I shall advance my argument with some trepidation; nevertheless, I shall sum-

mon up my courage and not be put off.

CLINIAS: What is your argument, stranger?

ATHENIAN: I maintain that in all cities there is total ignorance about games in general, and how

extremely influential they are in relation to the enactment of laws, and in determining

whether or not laws endure once they have been enacted. For when there is regulation ensur-

ing that the same children always play the same games, under the same conditions, in the

same way, and enjoy the same playthings, this provision also allows the existing regulations

on more serious matters to be free from disturbance. However, when there are variations

and innovations in games, and changes are constantly being introduced, and the children’s

tastes are never the same for long, when they never settle upon a standard of what’s seemly

or unseemly in the deportment of their own bodies, or in anything they make use of, they

then develop undue respect for anyone who constantly innovates by introducing something

new and different from what they are accustomed to, in terms of shape, colour and every-

thing of that sort, and I think we may safely say that no greater harm could befall a city

than such a person as this. For he is surreptitiously changing the habits of the young, making

them despise what is old, and honour whatever is new. So, I say again that nothing does

more damage to any city than the expression of such a doctrine as this. Listen, and I will

tell you just how bad it is.

CLINIAS: Are you referring to criticism of the ancient traditions of our cities?

ATHENIAN: Very much so.

CLINIAS: You won’t find this particular argument falling on deaf ears with us. We’ll do our best to

give you a good hearing.

ATHENIAN: So I expect.

CLINIAS: Please proceed.

ATHENIAN: Come on then, let us surpass ourselves both as listeners and as speakers. The fact is

that all change, except when it deals with evils, will be found to be extremely precarious,

whether it affects the seasons, the winds, our bodily regimen, or the tendencies of our souls.

And this is not, as we might say, sometimes so and sometimes not so, but always so, except,

as I said just now, in the case of evils. Look at our bodies, for instance. We see that they

become accustomed to all sorts of food, drink and exercises, even though they were dis-

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Geryon and Briareus were, according to myth, two fearsome many-limbed giants.

The techniques referred to here are dropping to the floor in the case of wrestling, and the use of gloves in the case of

boxing.

The curetes were the Corybantic dancers on Crete who worshipped Rhea and protected infant Zeus

The ‘Virgin Queen’ of Athens was Athena.

Laws VII, David Horan translation, 18 Nov 25

turbed by these at first. Then, over time, from these very materials they grow flesh that is

akin to these, and having developed a fondness, familiarity and understanding of this entire

regimen in terms of pleasure and health, they live an excellent life. But if someone is ever

compelled to change once more to some other worthy regimen, the person is disturbed in

the beginning by various diseases, and only gradually recovers as he gets accustomed again

to the diet. Now, we should presume that the same thing also applies to people’s minds, and

at the same time to the natures of their souls too. For when the laws they have been reared

under are, through some divine good fortune, stable over a long period of time, so that no

one remembers or has even heard of them being different from the way they are at the

moment, all the soul reveres them and is afraid to alter anything that has been in place for

so long. So the lawgiver should discover, somehow or other, the means whereby his city

will secure this advantage. My suggestion is as follows. All lawgivers are of the view that

changes in children’s games, as we said before, are in themselves a mere game, and that no

great or serious harm comes from them. Consequently, instead of trying to avert them, they

go along with them compliantly, and it never occurs to them that children who engage in

innovation in their games necessarily become very different people than the previous gen-

eration of children. Once they become different they seek a different life, and in their search

they develop a desire for different pursuits and laws, and none of them fears the arrival of

what we have just called the greatest evil afflicting our cities. Other changes, affecting mere

externals, would be less productive of evils, but frequent changes in what is praised or cen-

sured in the characters of people, are, I believe, the most influential of all, and should be

treated with the utmost caution.

CLINIAS: Of course.

ATHENIAN: Well now, do we still believe the previous arguments in which we asserted that rhythms,

and music in general, are imitations of the manners of better people or worse people? Or

where do we stand?

CLINIAS: Our opinion on the matter would remain unchanged.

ATHENIAN: Should we maintain then that every possible means must be devised to ensure that our

children neither develop the desire to come up with alternative imitations, in dance or in

song, nor that anyone lures them in that direction with pleasures of all sorts?

CLINIAS: Correct.

ATHENIAN: For such purposes, can any of us suggest any device better than what the Egyptians use?

CLINIAS: What are you referring to?

ATHENIAN: Making all dance and all song sacred, having first regulated the festivals by drawing

up an annual list prescribing which festivals are to be celebrated, at what times, dedicated

to what particular gods, children of gods or daimons. After this, certain people must first

ordain which hymn is to be sung at the various sacrifices to the gods, and with which dances

the sacrifice is to be graced on that occasion. Once these have been ordained, all the citizens,

communally, having performed sacrifices to the Fates and to all the other gods, should con-

secrate the relevant hymns to the particular gods and divinities. But if anyone introduces

other hymns or dances besides these to any god, the priests and priestesses, assisted by the

guardians of the law, shall be performing a sacred and lawful act in excluding the offender

from the festival. And if he is unwilling to accept his exclusion, he shall, for the rest of his

life, be subject to a charge of impiety by anyone who wishes to pursue the matter.

CLINIAS: And rightly so.

ATHENIAN: Well, having embarked upon this argument, we should behave in a manner that

becomes us.

CLINIAS: What are you referring to?

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ATHENIAN: No young person, presumably, not to mention the elderly, on seeing or hearing anything

strange and not at all familiar, would ever, I imagine, rush to some hasty resolution of the

difficulties on the spot. He would pause, like someone who had arrived at a crossroads as

he travelled alone or with others and did not really know the right road to take. He would

question himself and others in the light of the difficulty and would not proceed further until

he had settled the question of where precisely the road would lead him. And that is exactly

what we should do now. For having just come across a strange argument in relation to laws,

we need to investigate it thoroughly, I presume, and not, at our age, make pronouncements

so glibly on such important matters, insisting there and then that we have something illu-

minating to impart.

CLINIAS: Very true.

ATHENIAN: Now, although we should allow time for this and only settle the issue after a compre-

hensive investigation, we do not wish to be prevented needlessly from completing the sub-

sequent arrangement of the laws that are now before us, so we should go on to the end of

them. For perhaps, God willing, once this exposition as a whole reaches a conclusion, it

may also proffer an adequate solution to our present difficulty.

CLINIAS: That’s an excellent suggestion, stranger, let’s do as you say.

ATHENIAN: So let’s accept this unusual doctrine. We say that our hymns have become ‘measures’,

and that is just what the men of old seem to have called their harp-tunes too, so perhaps

these people would not distance themselves entirely from what we are now saying, and one

of them, I suspect, had an inspired vision of this whilst asleep, or in a waking dream. So let

the following pronouncement be made on this matter. No one, in action or utterance, is to

depart from the publicly prescribed tunes, rituals or choral performances of the young, any

more than he would depart from any of the other legal measures. Whoever conforms shall

suffer no penalty, but whoever disobeys, as we said just now, shall be punished by the

guardians of the law, the priestesses and the priests. May we now take it that these issues

have been settled by our argument?

CLINIAS: We may.

ATHENIAN: In what way, then, could someone legislate on these matters without becoming a total

laughing stock? Let us look at this further issue concerning them. The safest approach is to

contrive some aspects theoretically first. So I suggest the following. Suppose a sacrifice

has been conducted and the offerings have been burned in accordance with the law, and

some individual, a son or a brother, standing close to the altar and the offerings, were to

utter all sorts of outright blasphemies; wouldn’t we expect this outburst to fill his father

and other relations with despair, foreboding, and ominous apprehensions?

CLINIAS: Indeed.

ATHENIAN: Well, in our part of the world this is more or less what happens in almost all the cities.

Whenever some official conducts a sacrifice in public, along comes not a single chorus,

but a host of them, who stand not at a distance from the altars but sometimes right beside

them, pouring out utter blasphemy over the sacred offerings, afflicting the souls of the gath-

ering with their words, rhythms and mournful harmonies, and whoever provokes most tears

from the sacrificing city carries off the victory prize there and then. Now, we shall cast our

vote against such a practice, shan’t we? And if our citizens ever actually need to give ear to

such doleful strains on certain days that are not holy or noteworthy, wouldn’t it be better

that the choruses be hired in from outside for the occasion, just like the paid performers

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LAWS VII – 799d–800e | 1,165

–––––

A play on the word nomes, which can mean either ‘laws’ or ‘melodies’ or ‘chants’. Here the word is translated as ‘mea-

sures’ in an attempt to reflect this ambiguity.

Laws VII, David Horan translation, 18 Nov 25

with their doleful Carian music who escort the dead at funerals? Some such arrangement

would presumably be suitable for songs of this sort, and the costumes appropriate for per-

forming these funereal dirges would not consist of garlands and gold embroidery, but to

get the topic over with as quickly as I can, the direct opposite. I would just like us to ask

ourselves this particular question once again. Are we satisfied that the first aspect of hymns,

for us, would be this one?

CLINIAS: Which?

ATHENIAN: Reverent delivery. And, indeed, our hymns in general must be entirely reverent in every

respect or is there no need to repeat the question? May I simply impose this regulation.

CLINIAS: Yes, impose it by all means. Indeed, this measure would win the vote unanimously.

ATHENIAN: Well, after reverent delivery, what would the second law belonging to music be? Is it

that there should always be prayers to the gods to whom the sacrifice is being offered?

CLINIAS: Of course.

ATHENIAN: Our third law, I believe, is that the poets, recognising that prayers are requests made of

the gods, are to be extremely careful in case they ever unwittingly ask for bad as though it

were good. In fact, making a prayer of this sort would in my view be an absurd state of affairs.

CLINIAS: Indeed.

ATHENIAN: Now, weren’t we persuaded by our argument a moment ago that wealth in the form of

silver or gold should neither settle nor find a home in our city?

CLINIAS: We certainly were.

ATHENIAN: So can we say what precise aspect has been highlighted by this argument? Is it that

poets in general are not really up to the task of recognising, unequivocally, what is good

and what is not? Of course, when a poet falls into this error of praying in the wrong way,

either in his words or in the melody, he will make our citizens utter prayers in matters of

the utmost importance, contrary to our directions. And, indeed, as we said, it would be hard

to find an error more serious than this. So shall we institute this as one of our legal models

relating to music?

CLINIAS: What are you instituting? Explain this more clearly please.

ATHENIAN: The poet is to compose nothing contrary to what the city holds to be lawful and just,

noble and good. He is not allowed to display his compositions before any private citizens

until they have first been shown to and approved by the judges appointed to consider these

matters, and by the guardians of the law. And these people have effectively been appointed

by us already when we selected lawgivers concerned with music, and our supervisor of

education. Well then, to repeat my question, shall we lay this down as a third model or

aspect of our law? What do you think?

CLINIAS: Do so, indeed.

ATHENIAN: After these issues are settled, the right thing to do would be to sing hymns and praises

to the gods, combined with prayers, and then, in like manner, prayers and praises to the dai-

mons and the heroes, as appropriate to each.

CLINIAS: Of course.

ATHENIAN: And after this there could be no objections to an immediate law whereby praises may

be properly sung for any citizens approaching life’s end, who have noble achievements to

show for their hard work, physical or mental, and who have been obedient to the laws.

CLINIAS: How could anyone object?

ATHENIAN: As for those who are still alive, it is not safe to honour them with praises and hymns

until their entire life has run its course and has attained a noble end. Then all these honours

may be allowed to men and to women, without distinction, who have been conspicuous for

their goodness. As for the songs and the dances, these should be organised as follows.

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Among the works of the ancients there are many beautiful traditional musical compositions,

and the same may be said of dances too for our bodies. And we are free to select from these

whatever is appropriate and suitable for the constitution we are establishing. To make the

selection, scrutinisers of these poems and dances are to be chosen who are more than fifty

years of age. Whatever works of the ancients are deemed satisfactory should be accepted,

while those deemed deficient or totally unsuitable are to be either rejected out of hand, or

revised and corrected, as the case may be. For this we shall employ the services of the musi-

cal and poetical folk, making use of their ability as composers without surrendering to their

tastes and preferences, with rare exceptions. Rather, by interpreting the wishes of the law-

giver, we shall institute dancing, singing and choral performance in general, as much in

accord with those overall intentions as possible.

Any disordered musical activity is improved a thousandfold once it is regulated,

even without the addition of the honey-sweet Muse. Pleasure is a common feature of all

kinds of music. For someone who has lived his life from his earliest childhood until the age

of maturity and good sense in the presence of a sober and measured style of music hates

the opposite style when he hears it, and declares it to be unworthy of a free people. But

someone who is brought up on popular sweet music regards the opposite style as cold and

joyless. And so, as I said just now, neither the pleasure nor the joylessness has prevailed in

either case, but the styles differ insofar as one makes those who are brought up on it better,

while the other makes them worse.

CLINIAS: You have expressed that very well.

ATHENIAN: It would be necessary, in addition, to make a rough division, distinguishing between

songs suited to females and those suited to males, and it would be important to set them to

appropriate harmonies and rhythms. Indeed, it would be terrible for the overall harmony,

and the rhythms too, to be discordant, because the songs are not assigned what is suitable

and appropriate in each case. So it will be necessary to legislate on these matters, at least

in general terms. Now, although it is possible to assign the required harmony and rhythm

to both kinds of songs, what songs are assigned to the female should be determined by the

actual distinction between the natures of the sexes. Whatever is exalted and inclines towards

courage should be pronounced manly, while anything that tends more towards order and

sound-mindedness should, by our tradition of language and of law, be regarded as more

feminine. This then is the arrangement. After this, we shall speak of teaching and passing

on these subjects, the manner in which this is to be done in each case, to whom, and when.

I seem to be behaving much like a shipbuilder who begins his design by laying down the

keel and sketching the vessel in general outline. I am trying to set various lives before you

in various terms, based upon the manner of people’s souls, actually laying down their keels,

to give proper consideration to this important question: how may we best navigate this jour-

ney of life? By what manner or means of living is this to be done? Now, human affairs are

not worthy of extreme seriousness, but be serious we must, more’s the pity. Yet, since we

are here in this world, if we were somehow or other to be serious in an appropriate way,

that would probably be the right measure for us. But what precisely do I mean? Someone

would probably challenge me with that question, and rightly so.

CLINIAS: Indeed so.

ATHENIAN: I maintain that we should take what’s serious seriously, and not be serious about what’s

trivial. God is naturally worthy of the utmost beneficent seriousness, while humans, as I

said before, have been constructed as a plaything of God, and that really is what’s best about

us. Every man and woman then should live their lives accordingly, adopting this way of living

by playing the game as beautifully as they can, in total contrast to their present attitude.

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Laws VII, David Horan translation, 18 Nov 25

CLINIAS: How so?

ATHENIAN: Nowadays they are of the view, it seems, that anything serious should be undertaken

with play as the objective. And so, they believe that warfare, being a serious business, should

properly be undertaken for the sake of peace. But the fact is that in warfare there never has

been any play, nor indeed any education worth mentioning, nor is there now, nor will there

ever be, and this I maintain is the most serious issue for us. So each of us should spend our

lives, for the most part, in peace and excellence. What, then, is the right way to do this?

Our lives are to be lived playing certain games which involve performing sacrifices, singing

hymns, and dancing, so as to be able to secure the favour of the gods, and, indeed, repel

our enemies and defeat them in battle. By what sorts of singing and dancing may both these

objectives be attained? This has already been answered in broad outline, and the path has,

in a sense, been opened up for us to tread, confident that the poet was right to say:

Telemachos, some of it you yourself will see in your own heart,

and some the divinity will put in your mind. I do not

think you could have been born and reared without the gods’ will.

So, our charges too should be of the same mind as the poet; they must accept that what has

been said is sufficient, and that in the case of sacrifices and dances, the daimon and god

will make suggestions as to the particular gods to whom they are to offer their games in

propitiation. And so, they will live out their lives in accord with the sort of nature they pos-

sess, being for the most part puppets, occasionally getting a glimpse of the truth.

MEGILLUS: You are belittling the human race mightily, stranger.

ATHENIAN: Do not be surprised, Megillus, just forgive me. I was intent upon God just now, and I

said what I said in the light of that experience. So, if you prefer, let us allow that this human

race of ours is not lowly, but deserves to be taken seriously.

To continue with the original subject, we spoke of buildings for public gymnasia

and schools, three of them in the centre of the city, and, indeed, three training grounds and

open spaces for horses outside the city on the periphery, fitted out for instructing and training

the young in archery and long-range warfare in general. And if it turns out that these were

not described in sufficient detail earlier, let us incorporate them now into our argument and

laws. In all these places there are to be teachers in residence for each subject, foreigners

attracted by the pay to teach any subjects that are concerned with warfare, or, indeed, with

music, to those who attend. And it is not that the children are to attend if their father so

wishes, and be exempt from the education if he does not. No, if possible, every “man and

boy”, as they say, being children of the city more so than of their parents, has to be educated.

And, indeed, in the case of females, my law would mandate the very same provision as for

males; the training of males and females should be identical. And in stating this argument,

I have no reservations about horsemanship and gymnastics being appropriate for men but

not for women. In fact, I have been convinced of this by hearing time-old stories, and nowa-

days I know that there are, so to speak, thousands and thousands of women living around

the Black Sea – Sarmatian women, they are called – who have been directed to get involved

to the same extent as the men, not only in horsemanship but in archery and the use of

weapons generally, and they train to the very same extent. Besides, I have a particular view-

point on these issues, as follows. If it really is possible to arrange matters in this way, then

the current practice in our parts of the world is the height of folly. It is sheer folly that all

men and women don’t conspire, with all their might, to engage in the same pursuits. As

matters stand, almost every city turns out, more or less, to be only half what it might be,

based upon the same expenditure and effort. And that, surely, constitutes an astonishing

error on the part of the lawgiver.

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CLINIAS: So it seems, stranger. Nevertheless, much of what is now being suggested runs counter

to our customary civic practices. You said that the argument should be allowed to run its

course and we should draw conclusions only when it is over. That suggestion was most rea-

sonable, and I must rebuke myself for saying what I have just said. So, proceed with the

argument as you think best.

ATHENIAN: Well, Clinias, what seems best to me is what I said previously; if current practices did

not provide sufficient evidence that these proposals can actually be implemented, perhaps

it might have been possible to contradict the argument. But now someone who won’t accept

this law of ours must pursue a different course, and our injunction will not be nullified by

these arguments. The female sex must share, as much as possible, with the male sex both in

education and in everything else. And, indeed, this somehow is the way in which we need

to think about these issues. Suppose that women do not participate in common with men in

every aspect of their lives, won’t we need to make some different arrangements for them?

CLINIAS: Yes, we would need to do that.

ATHENIAN: If we had to pick some arrangement that is currently established somewhere in prefer-

ence to this common participation that we are now imposing on them, which arrangement

would we choose? Would it be the system used by the Thracians and many other peoples

whereby their womenfolk tend the land, mind the oxen and sheep, perform menial tasks,

and are not much different from slaves? Or should we do as all of us do in our region?

Among ourselves nowadays, our practice on these issues is as follows. We accumulate all

of our wealth under one roof, so called, and to the women we hand over the management

of provisions and responsibility for weaving and wool-working in general. Or should we

propose the middle ground, Megillus, the Spartan approach? Are the young girls to be

involved in gymnastics and music too, while the women, although excused from wool-

working, weave for themselves a busy life that is not at all commonplace or paltry, reaching

a middle ground consisting of service, management of provisions and child-rearing, without

having any involvement in warfare? So, if some necessity ever arises to do battle on behalf

of the city and its children, are they to be unable to use a bow skilfully like the Amazons

can, or use any other kind of projectile either? Could they even imitate the goddess

picking up a shield and spear, taking a noble stand against the devastation of their native

land, and be able, at very least, to strike fear into their enemies by being seen in battle for-

mation? Based upon their manner of living, they could never attempt to imitate the

Sarmatian Amazons at all; alongside your women, those women would look like men. So,

if anyone wishes to sing the praises of your lawgivers, let him do so. For my part, I can

only say what I have just said: the lawgiver is to be fully committed and not half do the job

by allowing the female sex a luxurious, profligate and disorderly lifestyle, while paying

close attention to the male sex, thus endowing the city with just half of a completely happy

life, rather than the whole thing.

MEGILLUS: What are we to do, Clinias? Shall we allow the stranger to denigrate Sparta in our pres-

ence in this way?

CLINIAS: Yes. Having granted him freedom of speech we must allow him free rein until such time

as we have gone through the laws in sufficient detail.

MEGILLUS: You’re right.

ATHENIAN: What comes next? Shall I now try to tell you?

CLINIAS: Of course.

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–––––

Odyssey iii.26-28, Lattimore.

A reference to Athena.

Laws VII, David Horan translation, 18 Nov 25

ATHENIAN: What sort of life, then, would people have if all their needs were met in due measure,

all skilled labour had been handed over to others, and their farms had been entrusted to

slaves, yielding a return sufficient for people who live orderly lives? What if communal

meals were arranged, with men eating apart, while members of their household dined close

by, including female children and their mothers? Suppose supervisors, male and female,

were appointed to break up the gatherings on each occasion, having kept the conduct of the

meals under observation, ensuring that everyone went on their way, in due course and order,

after the supervisor and the others had poured a libation to the gods to whom that day and

night happened to be sacred. For people living under such arrangements, what necessary

work is there? What work is really appropriate? Is each of them to spend their life like a

fatted beast? No, that, I maintain, is neither just nor noble, nor could someone living in this

way fail to get what is due to him, and what is due to an idle creature, fattening itself in

indolence, is generally to fall prey to some other creature, one that has been worn thin by

vigorous hard work.

Now, if we sought to implement these measures, as now described properly in detail,

they would probably never see the light of day as long as there are private wives, children

and dwellings, and everything of this sort is arranged on a private basis for each and every

one of us. But if, instead, we could implement the second-best arrangements, the ones we

are describing, that would be most reasonable. And yet, we maintain that for people living

in this way, the task entrusted to them is far from trivial or commonplace; a just law has

assigned them the most important task of all.

Consider, then, a life that affords no leisure for any other activities at all, the life of

someone intent upon victory in the Olympic or Pythian games, for instance. Well, the life

that is concerned with the overall care of both body and soul in terms of excellence, the

one that may most truly be called a life, is twice – indeed, more than twice – as busy. Indeed,

no other tasks should act as a distraction, impeding the provision of the appropriate exercise

and nutriment to the body, or, indeed, of the necessary instruction and habituation to the

soul. All day and all night is scarcely enough for someone engaged in this task to derive

full and complete benefit from these pursuits. And this being the case, all these free people

should have a regulated lifestyle all of the time, beginning more or less at dawn on one day

and continuing without any interruption until dawn and sunrise on the next. Now, any law-

giver who makes lots of detailed trivial pronouncements about private domestic arrange-

ments would be a sorry sight, especially when these are concerned with how long people

should remain awake at night if they are to be accomplished and attentive guardians of the

entire city. Indeed, for any of our citizens to spend the whole of any night in slumber, and

not be seen wide awake by his entire household because he got up first, should be regarded

by everyone as disgraceful and unworthy of a free people, whether such behaviour is dic-

tated by law or by practice. And, indeed, for the lady of the house to be awakened by some

attendants rather than herself wakening everyone else first should be proclaimed a disgrace

among the servants themselves, male and female, young and old, and even, if possible, by

the very building itself. A good proportion of civic and household affairs should be dealt

with whilst awake during the night hours by those in authority in the city, and by masters

and mistresses in private households. For a lot of sleep is not naturally suitable either for

our bodies or for our souls, or, indeed, when dealing with all these affairs. No one who is

asleep is good for anything, any more than a dead person. But those of us who care most

for being alive and using our minds, remain awake as much as we can, making sure that we

get only as much sleep as is needed for our health, and that is not much once the habit has

been well established. When the rulers in cities are awake during the night hours, they strike

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1,170 | LAWS VII – 806e–808c

fear into evil doers, be they external enemies or fellow citizens, yet they are admired and

respected by the just, sound-minded people, and are a source of benefit to themselves and

to the city in its entirety.

In addition to all the benefits we have listed, spending the night in this way will also

equip the souls of everyone who resides in these cities with some courage. And when day

breaks once again at dawn, the children make their way to their teachers, for children should

not be allowed to live without someone in charge of them, nor slaves without masters, any

more than sheep or any other beast should be without herdsmen. Of all beasts, the young

child is the most difficult to take in hand, since the fact that he, in particular, possesses a

fount of intelligence that is as yet uncontrolled makes him a scheming, shrewd and

extremely unruly creature. That is why a child needs to be reined in by lots of bridles, as it

were, firstly, when he is away from his nurse and his mother, by attendants to deal with his

childish immaturity; then by teachers of any subjects at all, and by instruction that befits a

free people. And yet he must also be treated as a slave who may be punished by any free

man who comes across the child himself, or his attendant or teacher, engaging in any trans-

gression. What is more, if the person who comes across them fails to inflict a just punish-

ment, he is first and foremost to be held in the utmost contempt. Then the guardian of the

law who has been put in charge of the children shall keep a close eye on this person who

came across the transgression we are referring to and did not impose the required punish-

ment or did so in an improper manner. This guardian of ours should be extremely vigilant,

pay particular attention to the rearing of the children, and guide their development by con-

stantly turning them towards what is good and lawful.

As for the guardian himself, how might this law of ours provide him with adequate

instruction? As matters stand, it has not so far said anything that is sufficiently clear; some

issues have been dealt with, others not. But in the case of this man, the law should do its

best to omit nothing and expound a full account so that he in turn may expound this to

others and look after them. The types of choral performances, by which we mean songs

and dances, which should be selected, corrected and consecrated, have already been dealt

with. But, O most excellent overseer of children, we have not described the kinds of written

compositions, devoid of metre, to be used by your charges, and the manner in which they

should be used. Now, you already have an account of what they should learn and study in

relation to warfare. Then there are letters and the lyre, and also calculation, of which we

said there should be as much as each person needs to learn for the purposes of warfare,

household management and the administration of the city. For the same reasons, they should

also learn whatever is useful concerning the orbits of the heavenly bodies, the sun, moon

and stars, and any provisions that any city needs to make with reference to these. What I

am referring to is the arrangement of the days into cycles of months, and the months into

each recurring year, so that seasons, sacrifices and festivals are each celebrated in accord

with the natural order because they have each been assigned their own appropriate place.

These keep the city alive and alert, bestow honours upon its gods, and render the people

more intelligent about these matters. These issues have not so far been adequately explained

to you by the lawgiver, my friend. So pay attention to what is to be said next.

Now, in the first place, we are saying that you have not had adequate instruction

about the written word. What is our objection? It is this: it has not yet been explained to

you whether someone who is to be a reasonable citizen is to go into the subject in detail or

set it aside entirely, and the same consideration applies to playing the lyre. Well, we are

now saying that these studies should not be set aside. For a ten-year-old, three years on

writing is more or less enough, and if he takes up the lyre at the age of thirteen, three years

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Laws VII, David Horan translation, 18 Nov 25

is a good measure of time to spend on it. And neither the child himself nor his father may

be permitted to prolong or curtail the time spent on these subjects out of love or distaste for

them, and go against the law by so doing. Whoever does not comply is to be deprived of

the educational honours which we shall describe shortly.

You should first understand what precisely the young people should learn in those

years, and, again, what the teachers should teach. And we should not insist upon high

achievement, in terms of speed or beauty, in students whose development is naturally slower

during the specified time periods. For the purpose of instruction in written compositions

not set to music, some having metre, others devoid of rhythmical subdivisions, consisting

in fact of the spoken word alone, bereft of rhythm and harmony; for this purpose we have

been left writings that are fraught with danger by some of the numerous authors of this

kind. So, most excellent guardians of the law, what are you to do with these? And what

exact directions for using them would the lawgiver give you if he were to proceed aright?

I think this will challenge him mightily.

CLINIAS: What exactly do you mean, stranger? You are apparently describing your own personal

perplexity.

ATHENIAN: Your suspicion is correct, Clinias, and, indeed, since the two of you are my partners in

this discussion of laws, I need to explain where the difficulties seem to lie and where they

do not.

CLINIAS: Well then, what point are you making now, and what is bothering you?

ATHENIAN: I will tell you, then, although it is not at all easy to speak in opposition to tens of thou-

sands of voices.

CLINIAS: What’s this? Do you think that what we have said already about laws goes against majority

opinion, merely on a few insignificant matters?

ATHENIAN: Very true, in fact you seem to be telling me, as I see it, that although the same course

is anathema to the majority, it is perhaps acceptable to just as many others, and even if there

are fewer of them, they are every bit as good as the majority. You are now encouraging me

to take my chances with these few, not to give up, but proceed courageously along the leg-

islative course prescribed by our present arguments.

CLINIAS: Indeed.

ATHENIAN: I shall not give up, then. Now, I am saying that we have countless poets who compose

in hexameters, in trimeters, and in all the metrical forms you could mention, some whose

intention is serious, others intent upon raising a laugh. The tens of thousands of voices

maintain that properly educated young people should be brought up on these verses and

saturated in them, thus turning them into highly learned folk who have heard a lot, having

committed entire poems to memory. There are others who select highlights from all the

poets’ works, compile whole extracts, and maintain that these must be studied and commit-

ted to memory if our young charge is to be good and wise, because of this extensive expe-

rience and learning. Are you telling me, then, to be frank with these people and point out

the rights and wrongs of what they are saying?

CLINIAS: Of course.

ATHENIAN: Well then, is there a single statement I can make about all of these poets that will suffice?

I think that something along the following lines may be enough, something on which most

people will agree with me. Each of these poets has said much that is good and much that is

not. If this is the case, then I maintain that for children, extensive learning is fraught with

danger.

CLINIAS: So what advice would you give to the guardian of the law?

ATHENIAN: About what?

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CLINIAS: About the guideline he is to refer to as to what all the young folk should be allowed to

learn and what should be forbidden. Tell us and hold nothing back.

ATHENIAN: Good man, Clinias, I suspect that I have somehow been fortunate.

CLINIAS: In what respect?

ATHENIAN: Insofar as I am not entirely at a loss for a standard. In fact, as I look back now at the

discussions we have conducted from dawn up to this point, not, I believe, without some

inspiration from the gods, these seem to me to have been delivered from start to finish like

some poem. Indeed, as I surveyed our own arguments, gathered together as it were, it is

surely no surprise that I experienced great delight. In fact, of all the many discourses I have

learned or listened to, in poetry or in a flood of words like ours, these to me are evidently

the most measured, and especially appropriate for young people to hear. So I don’t think I

would be able to propose a better standard than this to an educator and guardian of the law,

or do better than encourage him to instruct those who teach children, to teach them these

discourses. And if in his enquiries he should somehow come across poetical compositions

that are related to or similar to these, in the form of prose writings or simple unwritten

works, akin to these discourses, he is not to let them go at all, but get them written down.

Firstly, he is to compel the teachers themselves to learn and to praise these, and any of the

teachers who don’t like them are not to be employed as colleagues, while those who go

along with his praise are to be employed and entrusted with the instruction and education

of the young. And so, with this, let my story about the written word and the teachers thereof

be concluded.

CLINIAS: Well, stranger, looking at our initial intention, I don’t think we have gone outside of the

bounds of the discussions we intended. But it is hard to say for certain whether we are still

adopting the correct approach or not.

ATHENIAN: That, dear Clinias, as we have said on many occasions, is likely to become clearer of

itself once we come to the end of our entire exposition concerning laws.

CLINIAS: You’re right.

ATHENIAN: So, after the teacher of the written word, shouldn’t we deal next with the harp teacher?

CLINIAS: Indeed.

ATHENIAN: Well then, in the case of harp teachers, I think we shall assign them their appropriate

roles as instructors and as educators in such subjects generally, if we bring our previous

discussions to mind.

CLINIAS: Discussions about what?

ATHENIAN: We said, I believe, that the sixty-year-old singers of the chorus of Dionysus have to be

exceptionally perceptive in relation both to the rhythms and to the constructions of the har-

monies in melodic imitations, which may be good or bad in terms of how they affect the

soul. This will ensure that there is someone who can distinguish between the likenesses

associated with a good imitation and those of a bad one, reject the latter, give pride of place

to the former, and sing these to the young folk to charm their souls, encouraging each of

them to hold fast to the acquisition of excellence which they should understand by means

of the imitations.

CLINIAS: Very true.

ATHENIAN: To this end, the harp teacher and the student should make use of its sounds for the sake

of the distinctness of its strings by matching the notes of the instrument to those of the

voice. But the harp exhibits contrast and variation, so that one tune comes from the strings,

another from the composer of the melody, especially when lots of notes are sounded with

very few, fast tempo with slow, high pitch with low, and likewise all sorts of variations in

rhythm can be incorporated into the notes of the harp. All such devices are to be avoided if

Laws VII, David Horan translation, 18 Nov 25

our pupils are to derive benefit from music in the short space of three years. For this clash

of opposites with one another makes learning difficult, but it is most important that our

young people learn easily. Indeed, the compulsory subjects we are assigning to them are

neither few nor trivial, but the progress of our discussion will reveal these in due course.

So, our educator is to look after these matters for us in this way. As for the musical compo-

sitions themselves, and the words that the choral instructors should teach, and what these

should be like, all this we have already described in detail. We stated that they should each

be consecrated and assigned to the appropriate festival, thus benefiting the cities by pro-

viding them with propitious pleasure.

CLINIAS: True. You have explained this.

ATHENIAN: True, indeed. And our chosen supervisor of music is to assume responsibility for this,

and may good fortune attend him. Our contribution will be to add to what has already been

said about dance and physical training in general. Just as in the case of musical instruction

we contributed what was missing, so we should also do the very same in the case of physical

training. For the children, male and female, must indeed learn to dance and to train their

bodies. Isn’t this so?

CLINIAS: Yes.

ATHENIAN: The boys and the girls should have dancing teachers, male and female, so that this exer-

cise may be of service to them.

CLINIAS: They should.

ATHENIAN: Then let us call once again upon the person who will have most duties to perform, the

one in charge of our children, who, being responsible for both musical and physical training,

will be very busy indeed.

CLINIAS: How will he be able, at his age, to be responsible for so much?

ATHENIAN: Easily enough, my friend. For in exercising this responsibility, the law has given him,

and will always give him, the support of any of the citizens, male or female, whom he

wishes to enlist. And he will know the people he needs, and will resolve to make no error

in selecting them because he has the intelligence to recognise and respect the importance

of his own role, and come to the realisation that when the young have been, and continue

to be, well brought up, everything holds to a steady course for us. But if not, the conse-

quences should not even be spoken of, and we are not to speak of them now in the case of

our new city out of respect for those who are highly superstitious. On these matters too,

concerning dancing, and movement related to bodily exercises in general, we have said a

great deal already.

For we are instituting gymnasia and the various bodily exercises related to warfare:

archery, throwing missiles, skirmishing, all sorts of armour fighting, tactical manoeuvres,

various marches of armies and encampments, and the subjects involved in cavalry training.

Indeed, there should be public instructors in all these, earning a wage from the city, and

their pupils should be the boys and men of the city. And the girls, and women too, must be

knowledgeable about all these matters, having practised dancing and fighting in armour

while still young, and in womanhood having taken part in manoeuvres, drills, and the plac-

ing and taking up of arms. If nothing else, this will ensure that if it ever proves necessary

for our entire fighting force to leave the city on military campaign, those who are left guard-

ing the children and the city at large, will at least be up to the task. Or if, on the other hand,

and this is nothing unusual, some external enemy, Greek or barbarian, were to invade with

huge power and might, and there had to be a battle for the city itself, it would presumably

be a vile disgrace to the state if the women had been so badly brought up that they were not

prepared to do as birds do and fight for their young against the strongest of beasts in the

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face of death and all sorts of dangers, but instead they made straight for refuge in the tem-

ples, crowding all the shrines and altars, pouring upon human beings the reputation for

being the most cowardly creatures of all.

CLINIAS: No, by Zeus, stranger. If this were to happen in the city, apart from the harm it would do,

it would be most unseemly.

ATHENIAN: Should we enact a law to this effect – that to the extent indicated at least, women are

not to neglect military matters, but all citizens, male and female, are to attend to them?

CLINIAS: Well, I agree with you at any rate.

ATHENIAN: Now, as for wrestling, much has been said, but I would maintain that we have not yet

dealt with its most important aspect, nor is it easy to do so without a physical demonstration

to illustrate what is being said. So, we shall only make a decision on this when word follows

deed and makes something about the various issues we have spoken of quite clear – that of

all movements, the sort of wrestling we are referring to is very closely related to military

combat, and, indeed, the wrestling should be pursued for the sake of the combat, and not

the other way around.

CLINIAS: You are right about that anyway.

ATHENIAN: Let that be enough said for now on the efficacy of wrestling. Movement of the entire

body, other than in wrestling, may, for the most part, properly be described as dancing. We

should think of this as having two forms, one being the dignified representation of the move-

ment of beautiful bodies, the other being the base representation of the motion of ugly bod-

ies. And again, the base and the serious movements have two further subdivisions. One

form of the serious movement occurs in warfare and in the strenuous exertions of beautiful

bodies and a courageous soul, the other is the motion of a moderate soul in success, amidst

measured pleasures, and this would naturally be called the dance of peace. The warlike

kind, which is quite different from the peaceful one, may properly be referred to as Pyrrhic.

This imitates various means of avoiding blows and missiles by ducking, yielding, jumping

upwards, and by crouching, and their opposites too, motions that involve postures of attack,

attempting to imitate the shooting of arrows and darts and the inflicting of all sorts of blows.

In these dances, the upright and well-braced posture, when imitating the good bodies and

souls, preserving for the most part the straightness of the limbs of the body, is the sort of

imitation we accept as correct, while imitations of the opposite of these are wrong. In the

case of the peace dance, the following question needs to be considered in each case. Does

the performer, in his dances, succeed or fail in persistently adopting the noble dancing in a

manner appropriate to people with good laws?

So we have, in the first place, to make a distinction between controversial dancing

and the uncontroversial kind. What, then, is this distinction, and how may we distinguish

one kind from the other? Any Bacchic dances, or those of that ilk, which, as they say, mimic

so-called nymphs, pans, sileni and satyrs in a drunken state, which are performed during

certain purifications or initiations, all constitute a class of dancing that defies easy definition

as a peace dance or a war dance, nor is its purpose easy to define. I think that the most cor-

rect way to distinguish this dance is to insist that it is distinct from the warlike and the

peaceful kinds, declare this dance to be uncivilised, leave it aside, and return once more to

the warlike and peaceful dances which are, undeniably, ours. Whatever belongs to the non-

warlike Muse, dances in which people revere the gods and their offspring, constitutes a single

general class involving a sense of well-being. This may be divided into two parts. One imi-

tates people escaping from hardships and dangers and coming out well. This is more pleas-

urable. The other is milder in its pleasures, and it involves the preservation or increase of

goods that they already possess. And in these situations, presumably, a person moves more

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Laws VII, David Horan translation, 18 Nov 25

violently when the pleasures are greater, and less violently when they are less. Again, some-

one who is better behaved and better trained for courage moves less violently, while the

coward, and someone untrained for restraint, exhibits more violent and erratic changes in

his movements. In general, when the voice is being used, whether in song or in speech, no

one is able to keep the body totally still. And so, because there is imitation, in gesture, of

whatever is spoken, this has produced the art of dancing in its entirety. In all these situations,

some of us move in harmony with the utterances, others do not. Now, many of our other

traditional names should be given well-deserved praise for their excellence and their accord

with nature. One of these is the name given to the dances of people who are doing well and

are themselves measured in their use of pleasure. See how right the man was, and how

musical too, whoever he was, who, with good reason, named all these dances “harmonious”

and established two kinds of noble dances, one warlike, called “pyrrhic”, the other one

peaceful, called “harmonious”. He gave a suitable and fitting name to both. These the law-

giver should explain in general terms, while the legal guardian should scrutinise them, and

having completed his investigation, combine dance with music in general, and allocate to

the various sacrificial festivals whatever is appropriate to each, thus consecrating them all

in due order. Thereafter, there should be no change in anything involving dance or song.

And so, the same city and body of citizens should live well and live happily, being as like

unto one another as possible by enjoying the same pleasures in the same way.

So, that concludes the matter of beautiful bodies and noble souls engaged in choral

performances of the kind we have prescribed. But we also need to look at and take note of

ill-formed bodies and ill-formed notions, and those who engage in laughable clownish activ-

ity in speech, song or dance, using imitations of all these for comic effect. For it is not pos-

sible to understand the serious without considering the comic, or to understand anything

that has an opposite in the absence of its own opposite if we propose to develop our intel-

ligence. Nor indeed is it possible to engage in both if we really intend to share even in a

modicum of excellence. No, the very reason why we need to understand these is to ensure

that we never do or say ridiculous things out of ignorance when we shouldn’t. But such

mimicry is to be turned over to slaves and foreign hirelings, and it should never be taken

seriously. Nor should any free-born man or woman ever be seen engaging in its study, and

there should always be something novel about these imitative performances. So much then

for the laughable entertainment which we generally call comedy. It may be settled in this

way by law and by reason.

As for the so-called serious compositions of the tragic poets, suppose some of them

were to approach us and question us. “Strangers, may we or may we not visit your city and

its territory, and may we bring our poetry along with us, or how have you decided to deal

with such matters?” How might we respond to these divine men in the right way on these

issues? I suggest the following. “Visitors, best of men, we ourselves are authors of a tragedy,

the most beautiful and excellent one we are capable of. Indeed, our entire civic arrangement

has been constructed as an imitation of the most beautiful and excellent life, which, at least

according to us, really is the truest tragedy. So you are poets and we are poets too, of the

same sort, rival authors and rival actors in the most beautiful drama, which true law alone

naturally produces. That is what we believe. Do not presume then that we shall ever allow

you so easily to set up your stage in our midst in our market place, bringing in your honey-

voiced actors to drown out our sound, or trust you to speak publicly to our women and chil-

dren and the general populace, speaking on the same topics we speak on, not saying the

same things as we do, but for the most part, the complete opposite. In fact, we would be

completely mad, more or less, and so would any city that would allow you to do what is

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1,176 | LAWS VII – 816a–817d

now being suggested, before the officials had decided whether or not your works are fit to

be spoken and deserve a hearing among us. Well then, ye children sprung from the soft

Muses, once you have, in the first place, exhibited your own verses to the officials alongside

ours, then provided your pronouncements turn out to be every bit as good as ours or even

better, we shall grant you a public chorus. But if not, my friends, we could never do so. So,

if you agree, in the case of choral performance in general, and instruction in these matters,

let these customs be prescribed to accompany the laws, one set of arrangements for slaves,

a different set for their masters.

CLINIAS: How could we disagree, at this stage at least?

ATHENIAN: For a free people there are three subjects still remaining: calculation and whatever

involves number, one subject; measurement of length, area and volume is the second one;

while the third deals with the orbit of the stars, and their natural motion relative to one

another. It is not necessary for a lot of people to apply themselves to all these subjects in all

their detail. Only a few should do so. And we shall say who these people are as we come to

the end. That’s the appropriate place. It would be appropriate for the multitude to learn as

much of these subjects as is necessary, and it would be a disgrace, properly speaking, for

most people not to know that much at least. But for everyone to study them in detail would

neither be easy, nor at all practicable. Yet, what is necessary in them cannot be cast aside,

and it seems that whoever first devised the proverb about God had these in view when he

said that not even God would ever be seen doing battle against necessity, referring, I

believe, to necessities that are divine. Since, if the reference is to human necessities, which

is what most people have in mind when they say this sort of thing, then this is by far one of

the silliest of all sayings.

CLINIAS: What, stranger, are the necessities in these subjects that are not of this human sort, the

divine ones?

ATHENIAN: In my opinion they are those which, if they neither enacted nor learned them at all, no

god would be a god to humanity, nor would any daimon or hero be capable of exercising

any serious care of us humans. They would fall far short of the status even of a godly human

if they were completely unable to tell one from two or two from three or, in general, distin-

guish odd from even, or did not know how to count at all and were unable to demarcate

night and day, having no familiarity with the orbits of the sun and the moon and the other

stars. So all these studies are necessary for anyone who intends to attain any knowledge

whatsoever of the most exalted of subjects, and it is utter folly to think otherwise. The par-

ticular aspects of these that should be studied, the extent and timing of this, what goes with

what, which may be studied in isolation, and all combinations of these, this is what needs

to be understood first. We may then proceed, guided by these subjects, to learn the others.

For necessity has settled matters in this way, and against this we maintain none of the gods

now does battle, nor will they ever do so.

CLINIAS: It seems at the moment, stranger, when you put it like that, that this has been expressed

correctly and that what you are saying is in accordance with nature.

ATHENIAN: This is indeed the case, Clinias, yet although we have prearranged matters in this way,

it is difficult just now to enact any laws. But we might, if you agree, enact laws in greater

detail on some other occasion.

CLINIAS: You seem to us, stranger, to be concerned about the customary lack of experience in these

subjects among ourselves. But your fear is ill-founded, so try to explain yourself without

any reservation on those grounds.

ATHENIAN: Although I have concerns on the grounds you mention, I am even more fearful of those

who apply themselves to these particular subjects but do so in the wrong way. Complete

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and total inexperience is never a threat, nor is it a huge evil, but vast experience and learning,

accompanied by bad training, is much more damaging.

CLINIAS: True.

ATHENIAN: So I maintain that free people should learn as much of these various subjects as vast

hordes of children in Egypt learn when they are being taught to write. For beginning with

calculation, lessons have been devised for mere children, combining amusement and pleas-

ure with learning. They make distributions of some apples or garlands, allocating the same

fixed number to larger or smaller groups, or they arrange byes and pairings for boxers and

wrestlers, who take their turn in sequence as natural circumstances dictate. And, indeed,

they devise games in which saucers of gold, bronze and silver and other such materials are

mixed, or in other cases whole sets of these are distributed. By fitting the applications of

the rules of arithmetic into a game, as I said, they are of benefit to the students in terms of

the arranging, leading and marching of armies, and in household affairs too, and so they

produce people who are generally more useful to themselves and more alert. After this, in

the case of measurements of distance, area, and volume, they dispel the natural but laughable

and shameful ignorance about all these matters that is so widely prevalent.

CLINIAS: What do you mean? What sort of ignorance?

ATHENIAN: Dear Clinias, when I heard only recently of our general predicament in relation to these

matters, I was astonished, and it seemed to me more like the predicament not of humans,

but of lowly creatures like pigs, and I was ashamed not only for myself, but for the entire

Greek world.

CLINIAS: About what? Tell us what you mean, stranger.

ATHENIAN: I am telling you, but I will make the point clearer by using questions. Tell me briefly,

do you know what length is?

CLINIAS: Of course.

ATHENIAN: What about area?

CLINIAS: Absolutely.

ATHENIAN: Do you realise that these are two distinct things and that volume is a third?

CLINIAS: Certainly.

ATHENIAN: Now, do you think that all these can be measured against one another?

CLINIAS: Yes.

ATHENIAN: I mean, that length can naturally be measured against length, area against area, and the

same applies to volume.

CLINIAS: Very much so.

ATHENIAN: But what if this is neither very much so nor moderately so, but so in some cases and

not so in others, and you believe that it is so in all cases? How then, would you rate your

understanding of these matters?

CLINIAS: I’d rate it badly, of course.

ATHENIAN: Now, what about length and area with respect to volume, or length and area with respect

to one another? Aren’t we Greeks all of the view that they can somehow or other be meas-

ured against one another?

CLINIAS: Entirely so.

ATHENIAN: But if this is not possible in any way at all, but we Greeks, as I said, are of the view

that it is possible, are we not justified, out of shame on behalf of us all, in saying to them,

“Oh most excellent Greeks, this is one of those matters of which we said that ignorance

constitutes disgrace, although there is nothing particularly wonderful in knowledge of such

necessary matters either.”

CLINIAS: Of course.

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ATHENIAN: And besides these, there are other matters related to these in which, again, many errors

akin to these errors arise for us.

CLINIAS: Such as?

ATHENIAN: Issues concerning the nature of the interrelationship of things that are measurable

against one another and things that are not. In fact, we need to be able to distinguish between

these or else be very lowly creatures indeed. People should be constantly setting problems

like this for one another, competing in activities that are valuable to them, a much more

refined pastime for old men than draughts.

CLINIAS: Perhaps. After all, there is not a great deal of difference between draughts and these

subjects.

ATHENIAN: Well, Clinias, I maintain that the young folk should learn these subjects. Indeed, they

are neither harmful nor difficult, and when learned through the medium of play they will

benefit the city and do it no harm. Yet if anyone says otherwise, we should listen to him.

CLINIAS: Of course.

ATHENIAN: Well then, if this turns out to be how matters stand with these subjects, we should obvi-

ously include them in our scheme, but if this is not the case they should be excluded.

CLINIAS: Obviously, indeed.

ATHENIAN: In that case, stranger, shall we now let these be included among the subjects that need

to be learned so that there may be no gaps in our laws? But let us let them lie there like so

many pledges that can be revoked from the rest of the constitution, in case we who have

given them or you who are receiving them come to disapprove of them.

CLINIAS: A fair pledge.

ATHENIAN: Next we should consider teaching the young people about the stars, and whether you

approve of this or not.

CLINIAS: Proceed.

ATHENIAN: There is a major surprise in relation to these matters, a totally intolerable one.

CLINIAS: What is it?

ATHENIAN: We maintain, nowadays, that the greatest god and the entire universe should not be

subject to enquiry, nor should we busy ourselves in seeking out their causes, because to do

so is an unholy act. But it does seem that the very opposite course of action to this is the

correct course.

CLINIAS: What do you mean?

ATHENIAN: What I am saying is controversial and may be thought inappropriate to men of our

advanced years. However, once a person believes a particular teaching to be exalted, true,

beneficial to the city, and favoured completely by God, it is no longer at all possible for

him to refrain from speaking about it.

CLINIAS: Quite likely. But what teaching concerning the stars shall we find that matches your

description?

ATHENIAN: Good friends, nowadays all Greeks are, in a sense, telling a lie about the great gods –

the Sun and the Moon.

CLINIAS: What lie is this?

ATHENIAN: By calling these, and some other heavenly bodies along with them, planets, we are say-

ing that they never hold to the same course.

CLINIAS: Yes, by Zeus, stranger, that is true. Indeed, in my own lifetime, I myself have often

observed that the morning star and evening star, and certain others, never traverse the same

course, but wander in all sorts of ways, while the sun and the moon behave in a way that

presumably is familiar to us all.

ATHENIAN: That is the very reason, Megillus and Clinias, why I am now maintaining, in relation

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to the gods of the heaven, that our citizens and our young folk should learn at least enough

about all these matters to avoid blasphemy in this regard and speak always with reverence,

both when performing sacrifices and when uttering solemn prayers.

CLINIAS: That’s true, provided, firstly, that it is possible for whatever you are speaking of to be

learned, and secondly, that anything we are now expressing incorrectly about them will be

expressed correctly once we have learned this subject. If this is so, then I agree with you

that something like this, something of such importance, must be learned. So you should

attempt to explain, comprehensively, that this is indeed how matters stand, while we follow

along with you and learn.

ATHENIAN: Well, what I am speaking of is not easy to learn, nor again is it enormously difficult,

nor does it involve some huge time period. Here’s my evidence. Although I had not heard

about these matters in my early years, or long ago, I would nevertheless be able to explain

them to you both in a relatively short time, whereas if they were complicated, I, at my age,

would never be able to explain them to men of your age.

CLINIAS: True, but what exactly is this teaching which, according to you, is surprising, yet so appro-

priate for the young, and unknown to us? Please explain this much about it at least, as clearly

as you can.

ATHENIAN: Try I must. For this assertion, best of men, that the moon and the sun and the other

stars are wandering planets, in any sense, is incorrect; the exact opposite is the case. Each

of them always traverses one and the same circular course, not many, even though each

appears to follow many. What is more, the quickest of them is believed, incorrectly, to be

the slowest, and the slowest to be the quickest. Now, if this is the natural state of affairs,

but we believe otherwise, it’s as if we were forming such views about horses racing in the

Olympic Games, or about men running long distances, declaring the slowest to be quickest

and the quickest to be slowest, and singing our celebratory odes to the loser rather than the

winner. I imagine such odes would be misplaced, and not very well received by the com-

petitors, who are, after all, mere humans. Yet nowadays, when we fall into the very same

errors about the gods, can we not appreciate that what was incorrect and comical in that

example would, in this present case, be no laughing matter at all? It is surely not pleasing

to the gods that we are continually perpetuating a lie about them.

CLINIAS: Very true, if this is indeed how matters stand.

ATHENIAN: Well then, if we can demonstrate that this is how matters stand, then everything of this

sort should be learned, thus far at least, but if this cannot be demonstrated, then we should

leave them aside. Is this our agreement?

CLINIAS: It certainly is.

ATHENIAN: Well, at this stage we may declare that our regulations concerning the subjects of edu-

cation are concluded. So we should now apply our minds, in like manner, to hunting and

any other activities of this sort. In fact, the responsibility of a lawgiver seems to involve

more than instituting laws and leaving it at that. There is something else, besides the laws,

something that naturally lies somewhere between admonition and laws, something that has

come up frequently in our discussions, for instance, in connection with the nurture of very

young children. For we are not saying that these matters cannot be formulated, but in for-

mulating them it would be outright folly to imagine that we are enacting laws. So, when

the laws and the overall constitution have been written down like this, any praise of a citizen

for pre-eminent excellence is deficient when it maintains that a citizen is good merely

because he is an exceptional servant of the law who obeys them to the utmost. The praise

would be more comprehensive if it said that the best citizen is the one who spends his life,

through and through, in obedience to anything the lawgiver has written by way of legisla-

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tion, praise or censure. This statement in praise of a citizen is the most correct one, and so

the real lawgiver should not only write down the laws, but he should also intertwine his

views on what is good and what’s bad with the details of his laws. And the pre-eminent cit-

izen should uphold these, no less than those that are enforced by legal penalties.

But if we were to introduce our present topic as a sort of witness, that might make

our meaning clearer. Indeed, hunting is a very complex subject, encompassed more or less

by a single name. Hunting of water creatures is multifarious, and so is the hunting of birds,

and there are a whole variety of ways of hunting land creatures, not only beasts but humans

too, and this form of hunting deserves our attention. It operates in warfare and in hunting

based upon friendship, which is sometimes praiseworthy, sometimes the opposite. Capture

by kidnappers or armies is also a form of hunting. Now, the lawgiver, when enacting laws

about hunting, cannot avoid making these differences clear, nor can he set down legal reg-

ulations and directions applicable to every situation with penalties as a deterrent. What,

then, should be done about such matters? The lawgiver should praise or censure the various

aspects of hunting with a view to the endeavours of the young and their activities, while

the young, for their part, should listen and obey, uninfluenced by the pleasure or the pain

that is involved. They should comply more with whatever it is that the lawgiver praises,

and be more respectful of that than of any particular legal penalties instituted as a deterrent.

After these preliminary remarks, a measured praise and censure of hunting should follow,

praising the sort that makes the souls of the young better, and censuring the form that does

the opposite.

Next we should speak to the young people, addressing to them a prayer. Friends, we

pray that no desire or passion for hunting by sea may ever overtake you, nor for angling

either, nor for the hunting of water creatures in general, nor for lazy hunting using baskets

that work on your behalf whether you are awake or asleep. May you never be overtaken by

a longing for piracy, the pursuit of your fellow-man on the high seas, which would turn you

into wild and lawless hunters. As for thieving in the countryside or in the city, may the

thought never so much as cross your minds. And may none of you young folk be seized by

the seductive passion for bird-hunting, which is so unbecoming of a free people. What’s

left for our competitors, then, is only the hunting and pursuit of land animals. One form of

this, night hunting, is for idle men who take it in turns to sleep, and it deserves no praise. It

involves just as much rest as exertion, and the wildness and strength of the quarry is over-

kind of hunting left for everyone, and the best kind, is the hunting of four-footed beasts using

horses, hounds and their own limbs, where the hunters, those that cultivate a divine courage,

overcome all the creatures themselves with their own running, striking and shooting.

The discourse we have gone through would constitute our praise and our censure of

all these matters. The law would be as follows: no one is to prevent those truly sacred

hunters from hunting wherever and however they wish. But no one is ever to allow the

night hunter, who puts his faith in nets and snares, to hunt anywhere at all. The bird hunter

is not to be hindered in the open countryside or on the mountains, but anyone who comes

across him on cultivated land or sacred open countryside is to drive him away. The fisher-

man is allowed to catch fish anywhere except in harbours, sacred rivers, pools and lakes,

except that he may not make the water turbid with plant juices.

And now, at this stage, we may declare that all our regulations concerning education

have been completed.

CLINIAS: Well you may say so.

_____

823 a

823 b

823 c

823 d

823 e

824 a

824 b

824 c

LAWS VII – 823a–824c | 1,181

Laws VII, David Horan translation, 18 Nov 25