was a great security. 'Clearly.' Such a provision is in opposition to the common notion that the lawgiver should make only such laws as the people like; but we say that he should rather be like a physician, prepared to effect a cure even at the cost of considerable suffering. 'Very true.' The early lawgivers had another great advantage—they were saved from the reproach which attends a division of land and the abolition of debts. No one could quarrel with the Dorians for dividing the territory, and they had no debts of long standing. 'They had not.' Then what was the reason why their legislation signally failed? For there were three kingdoms, two of them quickly lost their original constitution. That is a question which we cannot refuse to answer, if we mean to proceed with our old man's game of enquiring into laws and institutions. And the Dorian institutions are more worthy of consideration than any other, having been evidently intended to be a protection not only to the Peloponnese, but to all the Hellenes against the Barbarians. For the capture of Troy by the Achaeans had given great offence to the Assyrians, of whose empire it then formed part, and they were likely to retaliate. Accordingly the royal Heraclid brothers devised their military constitution, which was organised on a far better plan than the old Trojan expedition; and the Dorians themselves were far superior to the Achaeans, who had taken part in that expedition, and had been conquered by them. Such a scheme, undertaken by men who had shared with one another toils and dangers, sanctioned by the Delphian oracle, under the guidance of the Heraclidae, seemed to have a promise of permanence. 'Naturally.' Yet this has not proved to be the case. Instead of the three being one, they have always been at war; had they been united, in accordance with the original intention, they would have been invincible.
And what caused their ruin? Did you ever observe that there are beautiful things of which men often say, 'What wonders they would have effected if rightly used?' and yet, after all, this may be a mistake. And so I say of the Heraclidae and their expedition, which I may perhaps have been justified in admiring, but which nevertheless suggests to me the general reflection—'What wonders might not strength and military resources have accomplished, if the possessor had only known how to use them!' For consider: if the generals of the army had only known how to arrange their forces, might they not have given their subjects everlasting freedom, and the power of doing what they would in all the world? 'Very true.' Suppose a person to express his admiration of wealth or rank, does he not do so under the idea that by the help of these he can attain his desires? All men wish to obtain the control of all things, and they are always praying for what they desire. 'Certainly.' And we ask for our friends what they ask for themselves. 'Yes.' Dear is the son to the father, and yet the son, if he is young and foolish, will often pray to obtain what the father will pray that he may not obtain. 'True.' And when the father, in the heat of youth or the dotage of age, makes some rash prayer, the son, like Hippolytus, may have reason to pray that the word of his father may be ineffectual. 'You mean that a man should pray to have right desires, before he prays that his desires may be fulfilled; and that wisdom should be the first object of our prayers?' Yes; and you will remember my saying that wisdom should be the principal aim of the legislator; but you said that defence in war came first. And I replied, that there were four virtues, whereas you acknowledged one only—courage, and not wisdom which is the guide of all the rest. And I repeat—in jest if you like, but I am willing that you should receive my words in earnest—that 'the prayer of a fool is full of danger.' I will prove to you, if you will allow me, that the ruin of those states was not caused by cowardice or ignorance in war, but by ignorance of human affairs. 'Pray proceed: our attention will show better than compliments that we prize your words.' I maintain that ignorance is, and always has been, the ruin of states; wherefore the legislator should seek to banish it from the state; and the greatest ignorance is the love of what is known to be evil, and the hatred of what is known to be good; this is the last and greatest conflict of pleasure and reason in the soul. I say the greatest, because affecting the greater part of the soul; for the passions are in the individual what the people are in a state. And when they become opposed to reason or law, and instruction no longer avails—that is the last and greatest ignorance of states and men. 'I agree.' Let this, then, be our first principle:—That the citizen who does not know how to choose between good and evil must not have authority, although he possess great mental gifts, and many accomplishments; for he is really a fool. On the other hand, he who has this knowledge may be unable either to read or swim; nevertheless, he shall be counted wise and permitted to rule. For how can there be wisdom where there is no harmony?—the wise man is the saviour, and he who is devoid of wisdom is the destroyer of states and households. There are rulers and there are subjects in states. And the first claim to rule is that of parents to rule over their children; the second, that of the noble to rule over the ignoble; thirdly, the elder must govern the younger; in the fourth place, the slave must obey his master; fifthly, there is the power of the stronger, which the poet Pindar declares to be according to nature; sixthly, there is the rule of the wiser, which is also according to nature, as I must inform Pindar, if he does not know, and is the rule of law over obedient subjects. 'Most true.' And there is a seventh kind of rule which the Gods love—in this the ruler is elected by lot.
Then, now, we playfully say to him who fancies that it is easy to make laws:—You see, legislator, the many and inconsistent claims to authority; here is a spring of troubles which you must stay. And first of all you must help us to consider how the kings of Argos and Messene in olden days destroyed their famous empire—did they forget the saying of Hesiod, that 'the half is better than the whole'? And do we suppose that the ignorance of this truth is less fatal to kings than to peoples? 'Probably the evil is increased by their way of life.' The kings of those days transgressed the laws and violated their oaths. Their deeds were not in harmony with their words, and their folly, which seemed to them wisdom, was the ruin of the state. And how could the legislator have prevented this evil?—the remedy is easy to see now, but was not easy to foresee at the time. 'What is the remedy?' The institutions of Sparta may teach you, Megillus. Wherever there is excess, whether the vessel has too large a sail, or the body too much food, or the mind too much power, there destruction is certain. And similarly, a man who possesses arbitrary power is soon corrupted, and grows hateful to his dearest friends. In order to guard against this evil, the God who watched over Sparta gave you two kings instead of one, that they might balance one another; and further to lower the pulse of your body politic, some human wisdom, mingled with divine power, tempered the strength and self-sufficiency of youth with the moderation of age in the institution of your senate. A third saviour bridled your rising and swelling power by ephors, whom he assimilated to officers elected by lot: and thus the kingly power was preserved, and became the preserver of all the rest. Had the constitution been arranged by the original legislators, not even the portion of Aristodemus would have been saved; for they had no political experience, and imagined that a youthful spirit invested with power could be restrained by oaths. Now that God has instructed us in the arts of legislation, there is no merit in seeing all this, or in learning wisdom after the event. But if the coming danger could have been foreseen, and the union preserved, then no Persian or other enemy would have dared to attack Hellas; and indeed there was not so much credit to us in defeating the enemy, as discredit in our disloyalty to one another. For of the three cities one only fought on behalf of Hellas; and of the two others, Argos refused her aid; and Messenia was actually at war with Sparta: and if the Lacedaemonians and Athenians had not united, the Hellenes would have been absorbed in the Persian empire, and dispersed among the barbarians. We make these reflections upon past and present legislators because we desire to find out what other course could have been followed. We were saying just now, that a state can only be free and wise and harmonious when there is a balance of powers. There are many words by which we express the aims of the legislator—temperance, wisdom, friendship; but we need not be disturbed by the variety of expression—these words have all the same meaning. 'I should like to know at what in your opinion the legislator should aim.' Hear me, then. There are two mother forms of states—one monarchy, and the other democracy: the Persians have the first in the highest form, and the Athenians the second; and no government can be well administered which does not include both. There was a time when both the Persians and Athenians had more the character of a constitutional state than they now have. In the days of Cyrus the Persians were freemen as well as lords of others, and their soldiers were free and equal, and the kings used and honoured all the talent which they could find, and so the nation waxed great, because there was freedom and friendship and communion of soul. But Cyrus, though a wise general, never troubled himself