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 who lead the tribes,and who are in a manner their kings,allowing them to choose those which they think best.These persons will themselves be called legislators,and will appoint the magistrates,framing some sort of aristocracy,or perhaps monarchy,out of the dynasties or lordships,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,in which 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 a city of speaking men;but they were still dwelling at the foot of many-fountained Ida.
For indeed,in these verses,and in what he said of the Cyclopes,he speaks the words of God and nature;for poets are a divine race and often in their strains,by the aid of the Muses and the Graces,they attain truth.
Cle.Yes.
Ath.Then now let us proceed with the rest of our tale,which will probably be found to illustrate in some degree our proposed design:-Shall we do so?
Cle.By all means.
Ath.Ilium was built,when they descended from the mountain,in a large and fair plain,on a sort of low hill,watered by many rivers descending from Ida.
Cle.Such is the tradition.
Ath.And we must suppose this event to have taken place many ages after the deluge?
Ath.A marvellous forgetfulness of the former destruction would appear to have come over them,when they placed their town right under numerous streams flowing from the heights,trusting for their security to not very high hills,either.
Cle.There must have been a long interval,clearly.
Ath.And,as population increased,many other cities would begin to be inhabited.
Cle.Doubtless.
Ath.Those cities made war against Troy-by sea as well as land-for at 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 besieging Ilium,the homes of the besiegers were falling into an evil plight.
Their youth revolted;and when the soldiers returned to their own cities and families,they did not receive them properly,and as they ought to have done,and numerous deaths,murders,exiles,were the consequence.The exiles came again,under a new name,no longer Achaeans,but Dorians-a name which they derived from Dorieus;for it was he who gathered them together.The rest of the story is told by you Lacedaemonians as part of the history of Sparta.
Meg.To be sure.
Ath.Thus,after digressing from the original subject of laws into music and drinking-bouts,the argument has,providentially,come back to the same point,and presents to us another handle.For we have reached the settlement of Lacedaemon;which,as you truly say,is in laws and in institutions the sister of Crete.And we are all the better for the digression,because we have gone through various governments and settlements,and have been present at the foundation of a first,second,and third state,succeeding one another in infinite time.And now there appears on the horizon a fourth state or nation which was once in process of settlement and has continued settled to this day.If,out of all this,we are able to discern what is well or ill settled,and what laws are the salvation and what are the destruction of cities,and what changes would make a state happy,O Megillus and Cleinias,we may now begin again,unless we have some fault to find with the previous discussion.
Meg.If some God,Stranger,would promise us that our new enquiry about legislation would be as good and full as the present,I would go a great way to hear such another,and would think that a day as long as this-and we are now approaching the longest day of the year-was too short 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 Lacedaemon and Argos and Messene and the rest of the Peloponnesus were all in complete subjection,Megillus,to your ancestors;for afterwards,as the 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 they would assist them,if any one subverted their kingdom.
Meg.True.
Ath.But can a kingship be destroyed,or was any other form of government ever destroyed,by any but the rulers themselves?No indeed,by Zeus.Have we already forgotten what was said a little while ago?
Meg.No.
Ath.And may we not now further confirm what was then mentioned?For we have come upon facts which have brought us back again to the same principle;so that,in resuming the discussion,we shall not be enquiring about an empty theory,but about events which actually happened.The case was as follows:-Three royal heroes made oath to three cities which were under a kingly government,and the cities to the kings,that both rulers and subjects should govern and be governed according to the laws which were common to all of them:the rulers promised that as time and the race went forward they would not make their rule more arbitrary;and the subjects said that,if the rulers observed these conditions,they would never subvert or permit others to subvert those kingdoms;the kings were to assist kings and peoples when injured,and the peoples were to assist peoples and kings in like manner.Is not this the fact?
Meg.Yes.