Ath. The next step will be that these persons who have met together,will select some arbiters, who will review the laws of all of them,and will publicly present such as they approve to the chiefs wholead the tribes, and who are in a manner their kings, allowing them tochoose those which they think best. These persons will themselves becalled legislators, and will appoint the magistrates, framing somesort of aristocracy, or perhaps monarchy, out of the dynasties orlordships, and in this altered state of the government they will live.
Cle. Yes, that would be the natural order of things.
Ath. Then, now let us speak of a third form of government, inwhich all other forms and conditions of polities and cities concur.
Cle. What is that?
Ath. The form which in fact Homer indicates as following the second.
This third form arose when, as he says, Dardanus founded Dardania:
For not as yet had the holy Ilium been built on the plain to be acity of speaking men; but they were still dwelling at the foot ofmany-fountained Ida.
For indeed, in these verses, and in what he said of the Cyclopes, hespeaks the words of God and nature; for poets are a divine race andoften in their strains, by the aid of the Muses and the Graces, theyattain truth.
Cle. Yes.
Ath. Then now let us proceed with the rest of our tale, which willprobably be found to illustrate in some degree our proposeddesign:-Shall we do so?
Cle. By all means.
Ath. Ilium was built, when they descended from the mountain, in alarge and fair plain, on a sort of low hill, watered by many riversdescending from Ida.
Cle. Such is the tradition.
Ath. And we must suppose this event to have taken place many agesafter the deluge?
Ath. A marvellous forgetfulness of the former destruction wouldappear to have come over them, when they placed their town right undernumerous streams flowing from the heights, trusting for their securityto not very high hills, either.
Cle. There must have been a long interval, clearly.
Ath. And, as population increased, many other cities would beginto be inhabited.
Cle. Doubtless.
Ath. Those cities made war against Troy-by sea as well as land-forat that time men were ceasing to be afraid of the sea.
Cle. Clearly.
Ath. The Achaeans remained ten years, and overthrew Troy.
Cle. True.
Ath. And during the ten years in which the Achaeans were besiegingIlium, the homes of the besiegers were falling into an evil plight.
Their youth revolted; and when the soldiers returned to their owncities and families, they did not receive them properly, and as theyought to have done, and numerous deaths, murders, exiles, were theconsequence. The exiles came again, under a new name, no longerAchaeans, but Dorians-a name which they derived from Dorieus; for itwas he who gathered them together. The rest of the story is told byyou Lacedaemonians as part of the history of Sparta.
Meg. To be sure.
Ath. Thus, after digressing from the original subject of laws intomusic and drinking-bouts, the argument has, providentially, comeback to the same point, and presents to us another handle. For we havereached the settlement of Lacedaemon; which, as you truly say, is inlaws and in institutions the sister of Crete. And we are all thebetter for the digression, because we have gone through variousgovernments and settlements, and have been present at the foundationof a first, second, and third state, succeeding one another ininfinite time. And now there appears on the horizon a fourth stateor nation which was once in process of settlement and has continuedsettled to this day. If, out of all this, we are able to discernwhat is well or ill settled, and what laws are the salvation andwhat are the destruction of cities, and what changes would make astate happy, O Megillus and Cleinias, we may now begin again, unlesswe have some fault to find with the previous discussion.
Meg. If some God, Stranger, would promise us that our new enquiryabout legislation would be as good and full as the present, I would goa great way to hear such another, and would think that a day as longas this-and we are now approaching the longest day of the year-was tooshort for the discussion.
Ath. Then I suppose that we must consider this subject?
Meg. Certainly.
Ath. Let us place ourselves in thought at the moment when Lacedaemonand Argos and Messene and the rest of the Peloponnesus were all incomplete subjection, Megillus, to your ancestors; for afterwards, asthe legend informs us, they divided their army into three portions,and settled three cities, Argos, Messene, Lacedaemon.
Meg. True.
Ath. Temenus was the king of Argos, Cresphontes of Messene,Procles and Eurysthenes of Lacedaemon.
Meg. Certainly.
Ath. To these kings all the men of that day made oath that theywould assist them, if any one subverted their kingdom.
Meg. True.
Ath. But can a kingship be destroyed, or was any other form ofgovernment ever destroyed, by any but the rulers themselves? Noindeed, by Zeus. Have we already forgotten what was said a littlewhile ago?
Meg. No.
Ath. And may we not now further confirm what was then mentioned? Forwe have come upon facts which have brought us back again to the sameprinciple; so that, in resuming the discussion, we shall not beenquiring about an empty theory, but about events which actuallyhappened. The case was as follows:-Three royal heroes made oath tothree cities which were under a kingly government, and the cities tothe kings, that both rulers and subjects should govern and be governedaccording to the laws which were common to all of them: the rulerspromised that as time and the race went forward they would not maketheir rule more arbitrary; and the subjects said that, if the rulersobserved these conditions, they would never subvert or permit othersto subvert those kingdoms; the kings were to assist kings andpeoples when injured, and the peoples were to assist peoples and kingsin like manner. Is not this the fact?
Meg. Yes.
Ath. And the three states to whom these laws were given, whethertheir kings or any others were the authors of them, had thereforethe greatest security for the maintenance of their constitutions?
Meg. What security?
Ath. That the other two states were always to come to the rescueagainst a rebellious third.
Meg. True.
