Chapter XXXIX · LEGES AND EPINOMIS. (continued 3)

Throughout all this Treatise De Legibus, in regard both to civil and criminal enactments, Plato has borrowed largely from Attic laws and procedure. But in regard to homicide and wounds, he has borrowed more largely than in any other department. Both the general character, and the particular details, of his provisions respecting homicide, are in close harmony with ancient Athenian sentiment, and with the embodiments of that sentiment by the lawgivers Drako and Solon. At Athens, though the judicial procedure generally, as well as the political constitution, underwent great modification between the time of Solon and that of Demosthenes, yet the procedure in the case of homicide remained without any material change. It was of a sanctified character, depending mainly upon ancient religious tradition. The person charged with homicide was not tried before the general body of Dikasts, drawn by lot, but before special ancient tribunals and in certain consecrated places, according to the circumstances under which the act of homicide was charged. The principal object contemplated, was to protect the city and its public buildings against the injurious consequences arising from the presence of a tainted man — and to mollify the posthumous wrath of the person slain. This view of the Attic procedure332 against homicide is copied by the Platonic. Plato keeps prominently in view the religious bearing and consequences of such an act; he touches comparatively little upon its consequences in causing distress and diminishing the security of life. He copies the Attic law both in the justifications which he admits for homicide, and in the sentence of banishment which he passes against both animals and inanimate objects to whom any man owes his death. He goes beyond the Attic law in the solemnity and emphasis of his details about homicide among members of the same family and relatives: as well as in the severe punishment which he imposes upon the surviving relatives of the person slain, if they should neglect their obligation of indicting.333 Throughout all this chapter, Plato not only follows the Attic law, but overpasses it, in dealing with homicide as a portion of the Jus Sacrum rather than of the Jus Civile.

In respect to the offence of beating, he does not follow the Attic law, when he permits it between citizens of the same age, and throws the beaten person upon his powers of self-defence. This is Spartan, not Athenian. It is also Spartan when he makes the criminality, in giving blows, to turn upon the want of reverence for age: upon the circumstance, that the person beaten is twenty years older than the beater.334

Impiety or outrage offered to divine things or places.

From these various crimes — sacrilege or plunder of holy places, theft, homicide, wounding, beating — Plato passes in the tenth book to insult or outrage (ὕβρις). These outrages (he considers) are essentially the acts of wild young men. Outrage may be offered towards five different subjects. 1. Public temples. 2. Private chapels and sepulchres. 3. Parents. 4. The magistrates, in their dignity or their possessions. 5. Private citizens, in respect of their civic rights and dignity.335 The tenth book is devoted entirely to the two first-mentioned heads, or to impiety and its alleged sources: the others come elsewhere, not in any definite order.336

All impiety arises from one or other of three heresies. 1. No belief in the Gods. 2. Belief that the Gods interfere very little. 3. Belief that they may be appeased by prayer and sacrifice.

Plato declares that all impiety, either in word or deed, springs from one of three heretical doctrines. 1. The heretic does not believe in the Gods at all. 2. He believes the Gods to exist, but believes also that they do not interest themselves about human affairs; or at least that they interfere only to a small extent. 3. He believes that they exist, and that they direct every thing; but that it is perfectly practicable to appease their displeasure, and to conciliate their favour, by means of prayer and sacrifice.337

Punishment for these three heretical beliefs, with or without overt act.

If a person displays impiety, either by word or deed, in either of these three ways, he shall be denounced to the archons by any citizen who becomes acquainted with the fact. The archons, on pain of taking the impiety on themselves, shall assemble the dikastery, and put the person accused on trial. If found guilty, he shall be put in chains and confined in one or other of the public prisons. These public prisons are three in number: one in the market-place, for ordinary offenders: a second, called the House of Correction (σωφρονιστήριον), attached to the building in which the Supreme Board of Magistrates hold their nocturnal sittings: a third, known by some designation of solemn penalty, in the centre of the territory, but in some savage and desolate spot.338

Heretic, whose conduct has been virtuous and faultless, to be imprisoned for five years, perhaps more.

Suppose the heretic, under either one of the three heads, to be found guilty of heresy pure and simple — but that his conduct has been just, temperate, unexceptionable, and his social dispositions steadily manifested, esteeming the society of just men, and shunning that of the unjust.339 There is still danger that by open speech or scoffing he should shake the orthodox belief of others: he must therefore be chained in the house of Correction for a term not less than five years. During this term no citizen whatever shall be admitted to see him, except the members of the Nocturnal Council of Magistrates. These men will constantly commune with him, administering exhortations for the safety of his soul and for his improvement. If at the expiration of the five years, he appears to be cured of his heresy and restored to a proper state of mind, he shall be set at liberty, and allowed to live with other proper-minded persons. But if no such cure be operated, and if he shall be found guilty a second time of the same offence, he shall suffer the penalty of death.340

Heretic with bad conduct — punishment to be inflicted.

Again — the heretic may be found guilty, not of heresy pure and simple in one of its three varieties, but of heresy manifesting itself in bad conduct and with aggravating circumstances. He may conceal his real opinion, and acquire the reputation of the best dispositions, employing that reputation to overreach others, and combining dissolute purposes with superior acuteness and intelligence: he may practise stratagems to succeed as a despot, a public orator, a general, or a sophist: he may take up, and will more frequently take up, the profession of a prophet or religious ritualist or sorcerer, professing to invoke the dead or to command the aid of the Gods by prayer and sacrifice. He may thus try to bring ruin upon citizens, families, and cities.341 A heretic of this description (says Plato) deserves death not once or twice only, but several times over, if it were possible.342 If found guilty he must be kept in chains for life in the central penal prison — not allowed to see any freemen — not visited by any one, except the slave who brings to him his daily rations. When he dies, his body must be cast out of the territory without burial: and any freeman who may assist in burying it, shall himself incur the penalty of impiety. From the day that the heretic is imprisoned, he shall be considered as civilly dead; his children being placed under wardship as orphans.343

No private worship or religious rites allowed. Every citizen must worship at the public temples.

As a still farther assurance for reaching and punishing these dangerous heretics, Plato enacts — No one shall erect any temple or altar, no one shall establish any separate worship or sacrifice, in his own private precincts. No one shall propitiate the Gods by secret prayer and sacrifice of his own. When a man thinks fit to offer prayer and sacrifice, he must do it at the public temples, through and along with recognised priests and priestesses. If a man keep in his house any sacred object to which he offers sacrifice, the archons shall require him to bring it into the public temples, and shall punish him until he does so. But if he be found guilty of sacrificing either at home or in the public temples, after the commission of any act which the Dikastery may consider grave impiety — he shall be condemned to death.344

Uncertain and mischievous action of the religious sentiment upon individuals, if not controuled by public authority.

In justifying this stringent enactment, Plato not only proclaims that the proper establishment of temples and worship can only be dictated by a man of the highest intelligence, but he also complains of the violent and irregular working of the religious feeling in the minds of individuals. Many men (he says) when sick, or in danger and troubles of what kind soever, or when alarmed by dreams or by spectres seen in their waking hours, or when calling to mind and recounting similar narratives respecting the past, or when again experiencing unexpected good fortune — many men under such circumstances, and all women, are accustomed to give a religious colour to the situation, and to seek relief by vows, sacrifices, and altars to the Gods. Hence the private houses and villages become full of such foundations and proceedings.345 Such religious sentiments and fears, springing up spontaneously in the minds of individuals, are considered by Plato to require strict repression. He will allow no religious worship or manifestation, except that which is public and officially authorised.

Intolerant spirit of Plato’s legislation respecting uniformity of belief.

Such is the Act of Uniformity promulgated by Plato for his new community of the Magnêtes, and such the terrible sanctions by which it is enforced. The lawgiver is the supreme and exclusive authority, spiritual as well as temporal, on matters religious as well as on matters secular. No dissenters from the orthodoxy prescribed by him are admitted. Those who believe more than he does, and those who believe less, however blameless their conduct, are condemned alike to pass through a long solitary imprisonment to execution. Not only the speculations of enquiring individual reason, but also the spontaneous inspirations of religious disquietude or terror, are suppressed and punished.346

We seem to be under a legislation imbued with the persecuting spirit and self-satisfied infallibility of mediaeval Catholicism and the Inquisition. The dissenter is a criminal, and among the worst of criminals, even if he do nothing more than proclaim his opinions.347 How striking is the contradiction between this spirit and that in which Plato depicts the Sokrates of the Phædon, the Apology, and the Gorgias! How fully does Sokrates in the Phædon348 recognise and respect the individual reason of his two friends, though dissenting from his own! How emphatically does he proclaim, in the Apology and Gorgias, not merely his own individual dissent from his fellow-citizens, but also his resolution to avow and maintain it against one and all, until he should hear such reasons as convinced him that it was untrue! How earnestly does he declare (in the Apology) that he has received from the Delphian God a mission to cross-examine the people of Athens, and that he will obey the God in preference to them:349 thus claiming to himself that special religious privilege which his accuser Melêtus imputes to him as a crime, and which Plato, in his Magnêtic colony, also treats as a crime, interdicting it under the severest penalties! During the interval of forty-five years (probably) between the trial of Sokrates and the composition of the Leges, Plato had passed from sympathy with the free-spoken dissenter to an opposite feeling — hatred of all dissent, and an unsparing employment of penalties for upholding orthodoxy. I have already remarked on the Republic, and I here remark it again — if Melêtus lived long enough to read the Leges, he would have found his own accusation of Sokrates amply warranted by the enactments and doctrines of the most distinguished Sokratic Companion.350

The persons denounced by Plato as heretics, and punished as such, would have included a majority of the Grecian world.

It is true that the orthodoxy which Plato promulgates, and forbids to be impugned, in the Magnêtic community, is an orthodoxy of his own, different from that which was recognised at Athens; but this only makes the case more remarkable, and shows the deep root of intolerance in the human bosom — esteemed as it frequently is, by a sincere man, among the foremost of his own virtues. Plato marks out three varieties of heresy, punishable by long imprisonment, and subsequent death in case of obstinate persistence. Now under one or other of the three varieties, a large majority of actual Greeks would have been included. The first variety — those who did not believe the Gods to exist — was doubtless confined to a small minority of reflecting men; though this minority (according to Plato351), not contemptible even in number, was distinguished in respect to intellectual accomplishments. The second variety — that of those who believed the Gods to exist, but believed them to produce some results only, not all — was more numerous. And the third variety — that of those who believed them to be capable of being appeased or won over by prayer and sacrifice — was the most numerous of all. Plato himself informs us352 that this last doctrine was proclaimed by the most eminent poets, rhetors, prophets, and priests, as well as by thousands and tens of thousands besides. That prayer and sacrifice were means of appeasing the displeasure or unfavourable dispositions of the Gods — was the general belief of the Grecian world, from the Homeric times downwards. The oracles or individual prophets were constantly entreated to inform petitioners, what was the nature or amount of expiatory ceremony which would prove sufficient for any specific case; but that there was some sort of expiatory ceremony which would avail, was questioned by few sincere believers.353 All these would have been ranked as heretics by Plato. If the Magnêtic community had become a reality, the solitary cells of the Platonic Inquisition might have been found to include Anaxagoras, and most of the Ionic philosophers, under the first head of heresy; Aristotle and Epikurus under the second; Herodotus and Nikias under the third. Indeed most of the 5040 Magnêtic colonists must have adjusted anew their canon of orthodoxy in order to satisfy the exigence of the Platonic Censors.

Proëm or prefatory discourse of Plato, for these severe laws against heretics.

To these severe laws and penalties against heretics, Plato prefixes a Proëm or Prologue of considerable length, commenting upon and refuting their doctrines. In the earlier part of this dialogue he had taken credit to himself for having been the first to introduce his legal mandates by a prefatory harangue, intended to persuade and conciliate the persons upon whom the mandate was imposed, and to procure cheerful obedience.354 For such a purpose the Proëm in the tenth Book would be badly calculated. But Plato here introduces it with a different view:355 partly to demonstrate a kosmical and theological theory, partly to excite alarm and repugnance in the heretics whom he marks out and condemns. How many among them might be convinced by Plato’s reasonings, I do not know; but the large majority of them could not fail to be offended and exasperated by the tone of his Proëm or prefatory discourse. Confessing his inability to maintain completely the calmness and dignity of philosophical discussion, he addresses them partly with passionate asperity, partly with the arrogant condescension of a schoolmaster lecturing indocile pupils. He describes them now as hateful and unprincipled men — now as presumptuous youths daring to form opinions before they are competent, and labouring under a distemper of reason;356 and this too, although he intimates that the first-named variety of heresy was adopted by most of the physical philosophers; and the third variety by many of the best poets, rhetors, prophets, and priests.357 Such unusual vehemence is justified by Plato on the ground of a virtuous indignation against the impugners of orthodox belief. We learn from the Platonic and Xenophontic Apologies, that Melêtus and Anytus, when they accused Sokrates of impiety before the Dikastery, indulged in the same invective, announced the same justification, and felt the same confidence that they were righteous champions of the national faith, against an impious and guilty assailant.

The third variety of heresy is declared to be the worst — the belief in Gods persuadable by prayer and sacrifice.

Among the three varieties of heresy, Plato considers the third to be the worst. He accounts it a greater crime to believe in indulgent and persuadeable Gods, than not to believe in any Gods at all.358 Respecting the entire unbelievers, he acknowledges that a certain proportion are so from intellectual, not from moral, default: and that there are, among them, persons of blameless life and disposition.359 It must be remembered that the foremost of these unbelievers, and the most obnoxious to Plato, were the physical astronomers: those who did not agree with him in recognising the Sun, Moon, and Stars as animated and divine Beings — those who studied their movements as if they were mechanical agents. Plato gives a brief summary of various cosmogonic doctrines professed by these heretics, who did not recognise (he says) either God, or reason, or art, in the cosmogonic process; but ascribed to nature, chance, and necessity, the genesis of celestial and terrestrial substances, which were afterwards modified by human art and reason. Among these matters regulated by human art and reason, were included (these men said) the beliefs of each society respecting the Gods and religion, respecting political and social arrangements, respecting the just and the beautiful: though there were (they admitted) certain things beautiful by nature, yet not those which the lawgiver declared to be such. Lastly, these persons affirmed (Plato tells us) that the course of life naturally right was, for each man to seize all the wealth, and all the power over others, which his strength enabled him to secure, without any regard to the requirements of the law. And by such teaching they corrupted the minds of youth.360

Heretics censured by Plato — Sokrates censured before the Athenian Dikasts.

Who these teachers were, whom Plato groups together as if they taught the same doctrine, we do not know. Having no memorials from themselves, we cannot fully trust the description of their teaching given by an opponent: especially when we reflect, that it coincides substantially with the accusation which Melêtus and Anytus urged against Sokrates before the Athenian Dikastery — viz.: that he was irreligious, and that he corrupted youth by teaching them to despise both the laws and their senior relatives — of which corruption Kritias and Alkibiades were cited as examples. Such allegations, when advanced against Sokrates, are noted both by Plato and Xenophon as the stock-topics, always ready at hand for those who wished to depreciate philosophers.361

In so far as these heretics affirmed that right as opposed to wrong, just as opposed to unjust, true belief as opposed to false respecting the Gods, were determined by the lawgiver and not by any other authority — Plato has little pretence for blaming them: because he himself claims such authority explicitly in his Magnêtic community, and punishes severely not merely those who disobey his laws in act, but those who contradict his dogmas in speech or argument. Before he proclaims his intended punishments in a penal law, he addresses the heretics in a proëm or prefatory discourse intended to persuade or win them over: a discourse which was the more indispensable, since their doctrines (he tells us) were disseminated everywhere.362 If he seriously intended to persuade real dissentients, his attempt is certainly a failure: for the premisses on which he reasons are such as would not have been granted by them — nor indeed by many who agreed in the conclusion which he was himself trying to prove.

Kosmological and Kosmogonical theory announced in Leges.

The theory here given by Plato, represents the state of his own convictions at the time when the Leges were composed. It is a theory of kosmology of universal genesis: different in many respects from what he propounds in the Timæus, since it comprises no mention of the extra-kosmical Demiurgus — nor of the eternal Ideas — nor of the primordial chaotic movements called Necessity — while it contains (what we do not find in the Timæus) the allegation of a twofold or multiple soul pervading the universe — the good soul (one or more), being co-existent and co-eternal with others (one or more), that are bad.363

Soul — older, more powerful in the universe than Body. Different souls are at work in the universe — the good soul and the bad soul.

The fundamental principle which he lays down (in this tenth Book De Legibus) is — That soul or mind is older, prior, and more powerful, than body. Soul is the principle of self-movement, activity, spontaneous change. Body cannot originate any movement or change by itself. It is simply passive, receiving movement from soul, and transmitting movement onward. The movement or change which we witness in the universe could never have begun at first, except through the originating spontaneity of soul. None of the four elements — earth, water, air, or fire — is endowed with any self-moving power.364 As soul is older and more powerful than body, so the attributes of soul are older and more powerful than those of body: that is, pleasure, pain, desire, fear, love, hatred, volition, deliberation, reason, reflection, judgment true or false — are older and more powerful than heat, cold, heaviness, lightness, hardness, softness, whiteness, sweetness, &c.365 The attributes and changes of body are all secondary effects, brought about, determined, modified, or suspended, by the prior and primitive attributes and changes of soul. In all things that are moved there dwells a determining soul: which is thus the cause of all effects however contrary — good and bad, just and unjust, honourable and base. But it is one variety of soul which works to good, another variety which works to evil.366 The good variety of soul works under the guidance of Νοῦς or Reason — the bad variety works irrationally.367 Now which of the two (asks Plato) directs the movements of the celestial sphere, the Sun, Moon, and Stars? Certainly, the good soul, and not the bad. This is proved by the nature and character of their movements: which movements are rotatory in a circle, and exactly uniform and equable. Now among all the ten different sorts of motion or change, rotatory motion in a circle is the one which is most akin or congenial to Reason.368 The motion of Reason, and the motion of the stars, is alike rotatory, and the same, and unchangeable — in the same place, round the same centre, and returning into itself. The bad soul, acting without reason, produces only irregular movements, intermittent, and accompanied by constant change of place.369 Though it is the good variety of soul which produces the celestial rotation, yet there are many distinct and separate souls, all of this same variety, which concur to the production of the result. The Sun, the Moon, and each of the Stars, has a distinct soul inherent in itself or peculiar to its own body.370 Each of these souls, invested in the celestial substance and in each of the visible celestial bodies, is a God: and thus all things are full of Gods.371

Plato’s argument is unsatisfactory and inconsistent.

In this argument — which Plato tells us that no man will be insane enough to dispute,372 and which he proclaims to be a triumphant refutation of the unbelievers — we find, instead of the extra-kosmical Demiurgus and pre-kosmical Chaos or necessity (the doctrine of the Platonic Timæus373), two opposing primordial forces both intra-kosmical: the good soul and the bad soul, there being a multiplicity of each. Though Plato here proclaims his conclusion with an unqualified confidence which contrasts greatly with the modest reserve often expressed in his Timæus — yet the conclusion is rather disproved than proved by his own premisses. It cannot be true that all things are full of Gods, since there are two varieties of soul existing and acting, the bad as well as the good: and Plato calls the celestial bodies Gods, as endowed with and moved by good and rational souls. Aristotle in his theory draws a marked distinction between the regularity and perfection of the celestial region, and the irregularity and imperfection of the terrestrial and sublunary: Plato’s premisses as here laid out would have called upon him to do the same, and to designate the Kosmos as the theatre of counteracting agencies, partly divine, partly not divine. So he terms it indeed in the Timæus.374

Reverence of Plato for uniform circular rotation.

There is another feature, common both to the Timæus and the Leges, which deserves attention as illustrating Plato’s point of view. It is the reverential sentiment with which he regards uniform rotatory movement in the same place. This he pronounces to be the perfect, regular, movement appertaining and congenial to Reason and the good variety of soul. Because the celestial bodies move thus and only thus, he declares them to be Gods. It is this circular rotation which continues with perfect and unchangeable regularity in the celestial sphere of the Kosmos, and also, though imperfect and perturbed, in the spherical cranium of man.375 Aristotle in his theory maintains unabated the reverence for this mode of motion, as the perfection of reason and regularity. The feeling here noted exercised a powerful and long-continued influence over the course of astronomical speculations.

Argument of Plato to confute the second class of heretics.

Having demonstrated to his own full satisfaction, from the regularity of the celestial rotations, that the heavenly bodies are wise and good Gods, and that all things are full of Gods — Plato applies this conclusion to refute the second class of heretics — those who did not believe that the Gods directed all human affairs, the small things as well as the great;376 that is, the lot of each individual person as well as that of the species or of its component aggregates. He himself affirms that they direct all things. It is inconsistent with their attributes of perfect intelligence, power, and goodness (he maintains) that they should leave anything, either small or great, without regulation. All good human administrators, generals, physicians, pilots, &c., regulate all things, small and great, in their respective provinces: the Gods cannot be inferior to them, and must be held to do the same. They regulate every thing with a view to the happiness of the whole, in which each man has his share and interest; and each man has his special controuling Deity watching over his minutest proceedings, whether the individual sees it or not.377 Soul, both in its good variety and its bad variety, is essentially in change from one state to another, and passes from time to time out of one body into another. In the perpetual conflict between the good and the bad variety of soul, according as each man’s soul inclines to the better or to the worse, the Gods or Fate exalt it to a higher region or degrade it to a lower. By this means the Gods do the best they can to ensure triumph to virtue, and defeat to vice, in the entire Kosmos. This reference to the entire Kosmos is overlooked by the heretics who deny the all-pervading management of the Gods.378

Contrary doctrine of Plato in Republic.

Plato gives here an outburst of religious eloquence which might prove impressive when addressed to fellow-believers — but which, if employed for the avowed purpose of convincing dissentients, would fail of its purpose, as involving assumptions to which they would not subscribe. As to the actual realities of human life, past as well as present, Plato himself always gives a very melancholy picture of them. “The heaven is full of good things, and also full of things opposite to good: but mostly of things not good.”379 Moreover, when we turn back to the Republic, we find Plato therein expressly blaming a doctrine very similar to what he declares true here in the Leges — as a dangerous heresy, although extensively believed, from the time of Homer downward. “Since God is good” (Plato had there affirmed380) “he cannot be the cause of all things, as most men pronounce him to be. He is the cause of a few things, but of most things he is not the cause: for the good things in our lot are much fewer than the evil. We must ascribe all the good things to him, but for the evil things we must seek some other cause, and not God.” The confessed imperfection of the actual result381 was one of the main circumstances urged by those heretics, who denied that all-pervading administration of the Gods which Plato in the Leges affirms.382 If he undertook to convince them at all, he would have done well to state and answer more fully their arguments, and to clear up the apparent inconsistencies in his own creed.

Argument of Plato to refute the third class of heretics.

A similar criticism may be made still more forcibly, upon the demonstration whereby he professes to refute the third and most culpable class of heretics — “Those who believe that the Gods exercise an universal agency, but that they can be persuaded by prayer and conciliated by sacrifice”. Here he was treading on dangerous ground: for he was himself a heretic, by his own confession, if compared with Grecian belief generally. Not merely the ordinary public, but the most esteemed and religious persons among the public383 — poets, rhetors, prophets, and priests — believed the doctrine which he here so vehemently condemns. Moreover it was the received doctrine of the city384 — that is, it was assumed as the basis of the official and authorised religious manifestations: and the law of the city was recognised by the Delphian oracle385 as the proper standard of reference for individual enquirers who came there to ask for information on matters of doubtful religious propriety. In the received Grecian conception of religious worship, prayer and sacrifice were correlative and inseparable: sacrifice was the gift of man to the Gods, accompanying the prayer for gifts from the Gods to man, and accounted necessary to render the prayer efficacious.386 The priest was the professional person competent and necessary to give advice as to the details: but as a general principle, it was considered disrespectful to ask favours from the Gods without tendering to them some present, suitable to the means of the petitioner.

General belief in Greece about the efficacy of prayer and sacrifice to appease the Gods.

Plato himself states this view explicitly in his Politikus.387 Moreover, when a man desired information from the Gods on any contemplated project or on any grave matter of doubt, he sought it by means of sacrifice.388 Such sacrifice was a debt to the God: and if it remained unpaid, his displeasure was incurred.389 The motive for sacrificing to the Gods was thus, not simply to ensure the granting of prayers, but to pay a debt: and thus either to prevent or to appease the wrath of the Gods. The religious practice of Greece rested upon the received belief that the Gods were not merely pleased with presents, but exacted them as a mark of respect, and were angry if they were not offered: yet that being angry, their wrath might be appeased by acceptable presents and supplications.390 To learn what proceedings of this kind were suitable, a man went to consult the oracle, the priests, or the Exêgêtæ: in cases wherein he believed that he had incurred the displeasure of the Gods by any wrong or omission.391

Incongruities of Plato’s own doctrine.

Now it is against this latter sentiment — that which recognised the Gods as placable or forgiving392 — that Plato declares war as the worst of all heresies. He admits indeed, implicitly, that the Gods are influenced by prayer and sacrifice; since he directs both the one and the other to be constantly offered up, by the citizens of his Magnêtic city, in this very Treatise. He even implies that the Gods are too facile and compliant: for in his second Alkibiadês, Sokrates is made to remark that it was dangerous for an ignorant man to pray for specific advantages, because he might very probably bring ruin upon himself by having his prayers granted —

“Evertêre domos totas, optantibus ipsis, Di faciles.”

Farthermore Plato does not scruple to notice393 it as a real proceeding of the Gods, that they executed the prayer or curse of Theseus, by bringing a cruel death upon the blameless youth Hippolytus; which Theseus himself is the first to deplore when he becomes acquainted with the true facts. That the Gods should inflict punishment on a person who did not deserve it, Plato accounts not unworthy of their dignity: but that they should remit punishment in any case where he conceives it to have been deserved, he repudiates with indignation. Though accessible and easily influenced by prayer and sacrifice from other persons, they are deaf and inexorable to those who have incurred their displeasure by wrong-doing.394 The prayer so offered is called by Plato a treacherous cajolery, the sacrifice a guilty bribe, to purchase their indulgence.395 Since, in human affairs, no good magistrate, general, physician, pilot, &c., will allow himself to be persuaded by prayers or presents to betray his trust: much less can we suppose (he argues) the Gods to be capable of such betrayal.396

Both Herodotus and Sokrates dissented from Plato’s doctrine.

The general doctrine, upon which Plato here lays so much stress, and the dissent from which he pronounces to be a capital offence — that the Gods, though persuadeable by every one else, were thoroughly unforgiving, deaf to any prayer or sacrifice from one who had done wrong — is a doctrine from which Sokrates397 himself dissented; and to which few of Plato’s contemporaries, perhaps hardly even himself, consistently adhered. The argument, upon which Plato rests for convincing all these numerous dissentients, is derived from his conception of the character and functions of the Gods. But this, though satisfactory to himself, would not have been granted by his opponents. The Gods were conceived by Herodotus as jealous, meddlesome, intolerant of human happiness beyond a narrow limit, and keeping all human calculations in a state of uncertainty:398 in this latter attribute Sokrates also agreed. He affirmed that the Gods kept all the important results essentially unpredictable by human study, reserving them for special revelations by way of prophecy to those whom they preferred. These were privileged and exclusive communications to favoured individuals, among whom Sokrates was one:399 and Plato, though not made a recipient of the same favour as Sokrates, declares his own full belief in the reality of such special revelations from the Gods, to particular persons and at particular places.400 Aristotle, on the other hand, pronounces action and construction, especially action in details, to be petty and unworthy of the Gods; whom he regards as employed in perpetual contemplation and theorising, as the only occupation worthy to characterise their blessed immortality.401 Epikurus and his numerous followers, though not agreeing with Aristotle in regarding the Gods as occupied in intellectual contemplation, agreed with him fully in considering the existence of the Gods as too dignified and enviable to be disturbed by the vexation of meddling with human affairs, or to take on the anxieties of regard for one man, displeasure towards another.

Great opposition which Plato’s doctrine would have encountered in Greece.

The orthodox religious belief, which Plato imposes upon his 5040 Magnêtic citizens under the severest penalties, would thus be found inconsistent with the general belief, not merely of ordinary Greeks, but also of the various lettered and philosophical individuals who thought for themselves. Most of these latter would have passed, under one of the three heads of Platonic heresy, into the Platonic prison for five years, and from thence either to recantation or death. The arguments which Plato considered so irresistible, that none but silly youths could be deaf to them — did not appear conclusive to Aristotle and other intelligent contemporaries. Plato makes up his own mind, what proceedings he thinks worthy and unworthy of the Gods, and then proclaims with confidence as a matter of indisputable fact, that they act conformably. But neither Herodotus, nor Aristotle, would have granted his premisses: they conceived the attributes and character of the Gods differently from him, and differently from each other. And if we turn to the Kratylus of Plato, we find Sokrates there declaring, that men knew nothing about the Gods: that speculations about the Gods were in reality speculations about the opinions of men respecting the Gods.402

Local infallibility was claimed as a rule in each community, though rarely enforced with severity: Plato both claims it more emphatically, and enforces it more rigorously.

Such opinions were local, traditional, and dissentient, among the numerous distinct cities and tribes which divided the inhabited earth between them in Plato’s time.403 Each of these claimed a local infallibility, principally as to religious rites and customs, indirectly also as to dogmas and creed: and Plato’s Magnêtic community, if it had come into existence, would have added one to the number of distinct varieties. To this general sentiment, deeply rooted in the emotions and unused to the scrutiny of reason, the philosophers were always more or less odious, as dissenters, enquirers, and critics, each on his own ground.404 At Athens the sentiment manifested itself occasionally in severe decrees and judicial sentences against obnoxious freethinkers, especially in the case of Sokrates. If the Athenians had carried out consistently and systematically the principle involved in their sentence against Sokrates, philosophy must have been banished from Athens.405 The school of Plato could never have been maintained. But the principle of intolerance was usually left dormant at Athens: philosophical debate continued active and unshackled, so that the school of Plato subsisted in the city without interruption for nearly forty years until his death. We might have expected that the philosophers, to whose security toleration of free dissent and debate was essential, would have upheld it as a general principle against the public. But here we find the most eminent among them, at the close of a long life, not only disallowing all liberty of philosophising to others, and assuming to himself the exclusive right of dictating the belief, as well as the conduct, of his imaginary citizens — but also enforcing this exclusive principle with an amount of systematic rigour, which I do not believe to have been equalled in any actual Grecian city. This is a memorable fact in the history of Grecian philosophy. The Stoic Kleanthes, in the century after Plato’s death, declared that the Samian astronomer Aristarchus ought to be indicted for impiety, because he had publicly advocated the doctrine of the Earth’s rotation round the Sun. Kleanthês and Plato thus stand out as known examples, among Grecian philosophers before the Christian era, of that intolerance which would apply legal penalties against individual dissenters and competitors.406

Farther civil and political regulations for the Magnêtic community. No evidence that Plato had studied the working of different institutions in practice.

The eleventh Book of the Treatise De Legibus, and the larger portion of the twelfth, are devoted to a string of civil and political regulations for the Magnêtic community. Each regulation is ushered in with an expository prologue, often with severe reproof towards persons committing the various forbidden acts. There is little of systematic order in the enumeration of subjects. In general we may remark that neither here nor elsewhere in the Treatise is there any proof, that Plato — though doubtless he had visited Italy, Sicily, and Egypt, perhaps other countries — had taken much pains to acquaint himself with the practice of human life, or that he had studied and compared the working of different institutions in different communities. His experience seems all derived from Athenian law and practice: the criticisms and modifications which he applies to it flow from his own sentiment and theory: from his religious or ethical likings or dislikings. He sets up a type of character which he desires to enforce among his citizens, and which he guards against adulteration by very stringent interference. The displeasure of the Gods is constantly appealed to, as a justification for the penalties which he proposed: sometimes even the current mythes are invoked as authority, though in other places Plato so greatly disparages them.407

Modes of acquiring property — legitimate and illegitimate.

Various modes of acquiring property are first forbidden as illegitimate. The maxim408 — “That which you have not put down, do not take up” — is rigorously enforced: any man who finds a buried treasure is prohibited from touching it, though he find it by accident and though the person who buried it be unknown. If a man violates this law, every one, freeman or slave, is invited and commanded to inform against him. Should he be found guilty, a special message must be sent to the Delphian oracle, to ask what is to be done both with the treasure and with the offender. So again, an article of property left on the highway is declared to be under protection of the Goddess or Dæmon of the Highway: whoever finds and takes it, if he be a slave, shall be severely flogged by any freeman above thirty years of age who meets him: if he be a freeman, he shall be disgraced and shall pay, besides, ten times its value to the person who left it.409 These are average specimens of Plato’s point of view and manner of handling offences respecting property.

Plato’s general regulations leave little room for disputes about ownership.

The general constitution of Plato’s community restricts within comparatively narrow limits the occasions of proprietary dispute. His 5040 lots of land are all marked out, unchangeable, and indivisible, each possessed by one citizen. No man is allowed to acquire or possess movable property to a greater value than four times the lot of land: every article of property possessed by every man is registered by the magistrates. Disputes as to ownership, if they arise, are settled by reference to this register.410 If the disputed article be not registered, the possessor is bound to produce the seller or donor from whom he received it. All purchases and sales are required to take place in the public market before the Agoranomi: and all for ready-money, or by immediate interchange and delivery. If a man chooses to deliver his property, without receiving the consideration, or in any private place, he does so at his own risk: he has no legal claim against the receiver.411 So likewise respecting the Eranoi or Associations for mutual Succour and Benefit. Plato gives no legal remedy to a contributor or complainant respecting any matter arising out of these associations. He requires that every man shall contribute at his own risk: and trust for requital to the honesty or equity of his fellow-contributors.412

Plato’s principles of legislation, not consistent — comparison of them with the Attic law about Eranoi.

A remark must here be made upon Plato’s refusal to allow any legal redress in such matters as sale on credit, or payments for the purpose of mutual succour and relief. Such refusal appears to contradict his general manner of proceeding: for his usual practice is, to estimate offences not according to the mischief which they inflict, but according to the degree of wickedness or impiety which he supposes them to imply in the doer. Now the contributor to an association for mutual succour, who, after paying his contributions for the aid of his associates, finds that they refuse to contribute to his aid when the hour of his necessity arrives — suffers not only heavy calamity but grievous disappointment: which implies very bad dispositions on the part of those who, not being themselves distressed, nevertheless refuse. Of such dispositions Plato takes no notice in the present case. He does not expatiate (as he does in many other cases far more trifling and disputable) upon the displeasure of the Gods when they see a man who has been benefited in distress by his neighbour’s contributions, refusing all requital at the time of that neighbour’s need. Plato indeed treats it as a private affair between friends. You do a service to your friend, and you must take your chance whether he will do you a service in return: you must not ask for legal redress, if he refuses: what you have contributed was a present voluntarily given, not a loan lent to be repaid. This is an intelligible point of view, but it excludes those ethical and sentimental considerations which Plato usually delights in enforcing.413 His ethics here show themselves by leading him to turn aside from that which takes the form of a pecuniary contract. It was in this form that the Eranoi or Mutual Assurance Associations were regarded by Attic judicature: that is, they seem to have been considered as a sort of imperfect obligation, which the Dikastery would enforce against any citizen whose circumstances were tolerably prosperous, but not against one in bad circumstances. Such Eranic actions before the Attic Dikastery were among those that enjoyed the privilege of speedy adjudication (ἔμμηνοι δίκαι).414

Regulations about slaves, and about freedmen.

As to property in slaves, Plato allows any owner to lay hold of a fugitive slave belonging either to himself or to any friend. If a third party reclaims the slave as being not rightfully in servitude, he must provide three competent sureties, and the slave will then be set free until legal trial can be had. Moreover, Plato enacts, respecting one who has been a slave, but has been manumitted, that such freedman (ἀπελεύθρος), if he omits to pay “proper attention” to his manumitter, may be laid hold of by the latter and re-enslaved. Proper attention consists in: 1. Going three times per month to the house of his former master, to tender service in all lawful ways. 2. Not contracting marriage without consulting his former master. 3. Not acquiring so much wealth as to become richer than his former master: if he should do so the latter may appropriate all that is above the limit. The freed man, when liberated, does not become a citizen, but is only a non-citizen or metic. He is therefore subject to the same necessity as all other metics — of departing from the territory after a residence of twenty years,415 and of never acquiring more wealth than is possessed by the second class of citizens enrolled in the Schedule.

The duties imposed by Plato on the freedman towards his former master — involving a formal recognition at least of the prior dependence, and some positive duties besides — are deserving of remark, as we know so little of the condition or treatment of this class of persons in antiquity.

Provisions in case a slave is sold, having a distemper upon him.

Regulations are made to provide for the case where a slave, sold by his master, is found to be distempered or mad, or to have committed a murder. If the sale has been made to a physician or a gymnast, Plato holds that these persons ought to judge for themselves about the bodily condition of the slave bought: he therefore grants them no redress. But if the buyer be a non-professional man, he may within one month restore the distempered slave (or within one year, if the distemper be the Morbus Sacer), and may cause a jury of physicians to examine the case. Should they decide the distemper of the slave to be undoubted, the seller must take him back: repaying the full price, if he be a private man — double the price, if he be a professional man, who ought to have known, and perhaps did know, the real condition of the slave sold.416

Retailers. Strict regulations about them. No citizen can be a retailer.

In regard to Retail Selling, and to frauds committed either in sale or in barter, Plato provides or enjoins strict regulations. The profession of the retailer, and the function of money as auxiliary to it, he pronounces to be useful and almost indispensable to society, for the purpose of rendering different articles of value commensurable with each other, and of ensuring a distribution suitable to the requirements of individuals. This could not be done without retailers, merchants, hired agents, &c.417 But though retailing is thus useful, if properly conducted, it slides easily and almost naturally into cheating, lying, extortion, &c., from the love of money inherent in most men. Such abuses must be restrained: at any rate they must not be allowed to corrupt the best part of the community. Accordingly, none of the 5040 citizens will be allowed either to practise retailing, or to exercise any hired function, except under his own senior relatives, and of a dignified character. The discrimination of what is dignified and not dignified must be made according to the liking or antipathy of a court of honour, composed of such citizens as have obtained prizes for virtue.418 None must be permitted to sell by retail except metics or non-citizens: and these must be kept under strict watch by the Nomophylakes, who, after enquiring into the details of each article, will fix its price at such sum as will afford to the dealer a moderate profit.419

Frauds committed by sellers — severe punishments on them.

If there be any fraud committed by the seller (which is nearly akin to retailing),420 Plato prescribes severe penalty. The seller must never name two prices for his article during the same day. He must declare his price: and if no one will give it, he must withdraw the article for the day.421 He is not allowed to praise his own articles, or to take any oath respecting them. If he shall take any oath, any citizen above thirty years of age shall be held bound to thrash him, and may do so with impunity: such citizen, if he neglect to thrash the swearer, will himself be amenable to censure for betraying the laws. If the seller shall sell a spurious or fraudulent article, the magistrates must be informed of it by any one cognizant. The informer, if a slave or a metic, shall be rewarded by having the article made over to him. If he be a citizen, he will receive the article, but is bound to consecrate it to the Gods who preside over the market: if being cognizant he omits to inform, he shall be proclaimed a wicked man, for defrauding the Gods of that to which they are entitled. The magistrates, on receiving information, will not only deprive the seller of the spurious article, but will cause him to be flogged by the herald in the market-place — one stripe for every drachma contained in the price demanded. The herald will publicly proclaim the reason why the flogging is given. Besides this, the magistrates will collect and write up in the market-place both regulations of detail for the sellers, and information to put buyers on their guard.422

Comparison with the lighter punishment inflicted by Attic law.

Compare this enactment in Plato with the manner in which the Attic law would have dealt with the like offence. The defrauded buyer would have brought his action before the Dikastery against the fraudulent seller, who, if found guilty, would have been condemned in damages to make good the wrong: perhaps fined besides. The penalties inflicted by the usual course of law at Athens were fine, disfranchisement, civil disability of one kind or other, banishment, confiscation of property: occasionally imprisonment — sometimes, though rarely, death by the cup of hemlock in prison.423 Except in very rare cases, an accused person might retire into banishment if he chose, and might thus escape any penalty worse than banishment and confiscation of property. But corporal punishment was never inflicted by the law at Athens. The people, especially the poorer citizens, were very sensitive on this point,424 regarding it as one great line of distinction between the freeman and the slave. At Sparta, on the contrary, corporal chastisement was largely employed as a penalty: moreover the use of the fist in private contentions, by the younger citizens, was encouraged rather than forbidden.425

Plato follows the analogy of Sparta in preference to that of Athens. Here, as elsewhere, he employs corporal punishment abundantly as a penalty. Here, as elsewhere, he not only prescribes that it shall be inflicted by a public agent under the supervision of magistrates, but also directs it to be administered, against certain offenders, by private unofficial citizens. I believe that this feature of his system would have been more repugnant than any other, to the feelings of all classes of Athenian citizens — to all the different types of character represented by Perikles, Nikias, Kleon, Isokrates, Demosthenes, and Sokrates. Abstinence from manual violence was characteristic of Athenian manners. Whatever licence might be allowed to the tongue, it was at least a substitute for the aggressive employment of the arm and hand. Athens exhibited marked respect for the sanctity of the person against blows — much equality of dealing between man and man — much tolerance, public as well as private, of individual diversity in taste and character — much keenness of intellectual and oral competition, liable to degenerate into unfair stratagem in political, forensic, professional, and commercial life, as well as in rhetorical, dialectical, and philosophical exercises. All these elements, not excepting even the first, were distasteful to Plato. But those who copy the disparaging judgment which he pronounces against Athenian manners, ought in fairness to take account of the point of view from which that judgment is delivered. To a philosopher whose ideal is depicted in the two treatises De Republicâ and De Legibus, Athenian society would appear repulsive enough. We learn from these two treatises what it was that a great speculative politician of the day desired to establish as a substitute.

Regulations about Orphans and Guardians: also about Testamentary powers.

Plato next goes on to make regulations about orphans and guardians, and in general for cases arising out of the death of a citizen. The first question presenting itself naturally is, How far is the citizen to be allowed to direct by testament the disposition of his family and property? What restriction is to be placed upon his power of making a valid will? Many persons (Plato says) affirmed that it was unjust to impose any restriction: that the dying man had a right to make such dispositions as he chose, for his property and family after his death. Against this view Plato enters his decided protest. Each man — and still more each man’s property — belongs not to himself, but to his family and to the city: besides which, an old man’s judgment is constantly liable to be perverted by decline of faculties, disease, or the cajoleries of those around him.426 Accordingly Plato grants only a limited liberty of testation. Here, as elsewhere, he adopts the main provisions of the Attic law, with such modifications as were required by the fundamental principles of his Magnêtic city: especially by the fixed total of 5040 lots or fundi, each untransferable and indivisible. The lot, together with the plant or stock for cultivating it,427 must descend entire to one son: but the father, if he has more than one son, may determine by will to which of them it shall descend. If there be any one among the sons whom another citizen (being childless) is disposed to adopt, such adoption can only take place with the father’s consent. But if the father gives his consent, he cannot bequeath his own lot to the son so adopted, because two lots cannot be united in the same possessor. Whatever property the father possesses over and above his lot and its appurtenances, he may distribute by will among his other sons, in any proportion he pleases. If he dies, leaving no sons, but only daughters, he may select which of them he pleases; and may appoint by will some suitable husband, of a citizen family, to marry her and inherit his lot. If a citizen (being childless) has adopted a son out of any other family, he must bequeath to that son the whole of his property, except one-tenth part of what he possesses over and above his lot and its appurtenances: this tenth he may bequeath to any one whom he chooses.428

If the father dies intestate, leaving only daughters, the nearest relative who has no lot of his own shall marry one of the daughters, and succeed to the lot. The nearest is the brother of the deceased; next, the brother of the deceased’s wife (paternal and maternal uncles of the maiden); next, their sons; next, the parental and maternal uncle of the deceased father, and their sons. If all these relatives be wanting, the magistrates will provide a suitable husband, in order that the lot of land may not remain unoccupied.429 If a citizen die both intestate and childless, two of his nearest unmarried relatives, male and female, shall intermarry and succeed to his property: reckoning in the order of kinship above mentioned.430 In thus imposing marriage as a legal obligation upon persons in a certain degree of kinship, Plato is aware that there will be individual cases of great hardship and of repugnance almost insurmountable. He treats this as unavoidable: providing however that there shall be a select judicial Board of Appeal, before which persons who feel aggrieved by the law may bring their complaints, and submit their grounds for dispensation.431

Plato’s general coincidence with Attic law and its sentiment.

These provisions deserve notice as showing how largely Plato coincides with the prevalent Attic sentiment respecting family and relationship. He does not award the slightest preference to primogeniture, among brothers: he grants to agnates a preference over cognates: he regards it as a public misfortune that any house shall be left empty, so as to cause interruption of the sacred rites of the family: lastly, he ensures that the family, in default of lineal male heirs, shall be continued by inter-marriage with the nearest relatives — and he especially approves the marriage of an heiress with her paternal or maternal uncle. On these points Plato is in full harmony with his countrymen, though he dissents widely from modern sentiment.

Tutelage of Orphans — Disagreement of Married Couples — Divorce.

Respecting tutelage of orphans, he makes careful provision against abuse, as the Attic law also did: he tries also to meet the cases of family discord, where father and son are in bitter wrath against each other. A father may formally renounce his son, but not without previously obtaining the concurrence of a conseil de famille: if the father has become imbecile with age, and wastes his substance, the son may institute a suit as for lunacy, but not without the permission of the Nomophylakes.432 Respecting disagreement between married couples, ten of the Nomophylakes, together with ten women chosen as supervisors of marriages, are constituted a Board of reference,433 to obtain a reconciliation, if it be possible: but if this be impossible, then to divorce the couple, and unite each with some more suitable partner. The lawgiver must keep in view, as far as he can, to obtain from each married couple a sufficiency of children — that is, one male and one female child from each, whereby the total of 5040 lots may be kept up.434 If a husband loses his wife before he has these two children, the law requires him to marry another wife: but if he becomes a widower, having already the sufficiency of children, he is advised not to marry a second wife (who will become stepmother), though not prohibited from doing so, if he chooses. So also, if a woman becomes a widow, not having the sufficient number of children, she must be compelled to marry again: if she already has the sufficient number, she is directed to remain in the house, and to bring them up. In case she is still young, and her health requires a husband, her relatives will apply to the Female Supervisors of Marriage, and will make such arrangements as may seem advisable.435

Neglect of Parents.

Against neglect of aged parents by their children, Plato both denounces the most stringent legal penalties, and delivers the most emphatic reproofs: commending with full faith the ancient traditional narratives, that the curse of an offended parent against his sons was always executed by the Gods, as in the cases of Œdipus, Theseus, Amyntor, &c.436 In the event of lunacy, he directs that the lunatic shall be kept in private custody by his relatives, who will be fined if they neglect the duty.437

Hurt or damage, not deadly, done by one man to another. — Plato enumerates two different modes of inflicting damage:— 1. By drugs (applied externally or internally), magic, or sorcery. 2. By theft or force.438

Poison — Magic — Incantations — Severe punishment.

As to the first mode, if the drug be administered by a physician, he must be put to death: if by one not a physician, the Dikasts will determine the nature of his punishment. And in the case of magical arts, or incantations, if the person who resorts to them be a prophet, or an inspector of prodigies, he must be put to death: another person doing the same will be punished at the discretion of the Dikasts. Here we see that the prophet is ranked as a professional person (the like appears in Homer) along with the physician,439 — who must know what he is about, while another person perhaps may not know. But Plato’s own opinion respecting magical incantations is delivered with singular reserve. He will neither avouch them nor reject them. He intimates that a man can hardly find out what is true on the subject; and even if he could, it would be harder still to convince others. Most men are in serious alarm when they see waxen statuettes hung at their doors or at their family tombs; and it is useless to attempt to tranquillise them by reminding them that they have no certain evidence on the subject.440 Here we see how Plato discourages the received legends and the current faith, when he believes them to be hurtful — as contrasted with his vehemence in upholding them when he thinks them useful: as in the case of the paternal curse, and the judgments of the Gods. The question of their truth is made to depend on their usefulness.441 The Gods are made to act exactly as he thinks they ought to act. They are not merely invoked, but positively counted on, as executioners of Plato’s ethical sentences.

Punishment is inflicted with a view to future prevention or amendment.

Respecting the second mode of damage — by theft or violence — Plato’s law forms a striking contrast to that which has been just set forth. The person who inflicts damage must repay it, or make full compensation for it, to the sufferer: small, if the damage be small — great, if it be great. Besides this, the guilty person must undergo some farther punishment with a view to correction or reformation. This will be smaller, if he be young and seduced by the persuasion of others; but it must be graver, if he be self-impelled by his own desires, fears, wrath, jealousy, &c. Understand, however (adds Plato), that such ulterior punishment is not imposed on account of the past misdeed — for the past cannot be recalled or undone — but on account of the future: to ensure that he shall afterwards hate wrong-doing, and that those who see him punished shall hate it also. The Dikasts must follow out in detail the general principle here laid down.442

This passage proclaims distinctly an important principle in regard to the infliction of legal penalties: which principle, if kept in mind, might have lead Plato to alter or omit a large portion of the Leges.

Penalty for abusive words — for libellous comedy. Mendicity forbidden.

Respecting words of abuse, or revilement, or insulting derision. — These are altogether forbidden. If used in any temple, market, or public and frequented place, the magistrate presiding must punish the offender forthwith, as he thinks fit: if elsewhere, any citizen by-stander, being older than the offender, is authorised thrash him.443 No writer of comedy is allowed to ridicule or libel any citizen.

Mendicity is strictly prohibited. Every mendicant must be sent away at once, in order that the territory may be rid of such a creature.444 Every man, who has passed an honest life, will be sure to have made friends who will protect him against the extremity of want.

Regulations about witnesses on judicial trials.

The rules provided by Plato about witnesses in judicial trials and indictments for perjury, are pretty much the same as those prevalent at Athens: with some peculiarities. Thus he permits a free woman to bear witness, and to address the court in support of a party interested, provided she be above forty years of age. Moreover, she may institute a suit, if she have no husband: but not if she be married.445 A slave or a child may bear witness at a trial for murder; provided security be given that they will remain in the city to await an indictment for perjury, if presented against them.

Censure of forensic eloquence, and the teachers of it. Penalties against contentious litigation.

Among Plato’s prohibitions, we are not surprised to find one directed emphatically against forensic eloquence, and against those who professed to teach it. Every thing beneficial to man (says he) has its accompanying poison and corruption. Justice is a noble thing, the great civilising agent in human affairs: to aid any one in obtaining justice, is of course a noble thing also. But these benefits are grossly abused by men, who pretend to possess an art, whereby every one may be sure of judicial victory, either as principal or as auxiliary, whether his cause be just or unjust:— and who offer to teach this art to all who pay a stipulated price. Whether this be (as they pretend) a real art, or a mere inartificial knack — it would be a disgrace to our city, and must be severely punished. Whoever gives show of trying to pervert the force of justice in the minds of the Dikasts, or indulges in unseasonable and frequent litigation, or even lends his aid to other litigants — may be indicted by any citizen as guilty of abuse of justice, either as principal or auxiliary. He shall be tried before the Court of Select Judges: who, if they find him guilty, will decide whether he has committed the offence from love of money, or from love of contention and ambitious objects. If from love of contention, he shall be interdicted, for such time as the Court may determine, from instituting any suit at law on his own account as well as from aiding in any suit instituted by others.446 If from love of money, the citizen found guilty shall be capitally punished, the non-citizen shall be banished in perpetuity. Moreover the citizen convicted of committing this offence even from love of contention, if it be a second conviction for the offence, shall be put to death also.447

Many of Plato’s laws are discharges of ethical antipathy. The antipathy of Melêtus against Sokrates was of the same character.

The vague and undefined character of this offence, for which Plato denounces capital punishment, shows how much his penal laws are discharges of ethical antipathy and hostility against types of character conceived by himself — rather than measures intended for application, in which he had weighed beforehand the practical difficulties of singling out and striking the right individual. On this matter the Athenian public had the same ethical antipathy as himself; and Melêtus took full advantage of it, when he brought his accusation against Sokrates. We know both from the Apologies of Plato and Xenophon, and from the Nubes of Aristophanes — that Sokrates was rendered odious to the Athenian people and Dikasts, partly as heterodox and irreligious, but partly also as one who taught the art of using speech so as to make the worse appear the better reason. Both Aristophanes and Melêtus would have sympathised warmly with the Platonic law. If there had been any Solonian law to the same effect, which Melêtus could have quoted in his accusatory speech, his case against Sokrates would have been materially strengthened. Especially, he would have had the express sanction of law for his proposition of death as the penalty: a proposition to which the Athenian Dikasts would not have consented, had they not been affronted and driven to it by the singular demeanour of Sokrates himself when before them. It would be irrelevant here to say that Sokrates was not guilty of what was imputed to him: that he never came before the Dikastery until the time of his trial — and that he did not teach “the art of words”. If he did not teach it, he was at least believed to teach it, not merely by Aristophanes and by the Athenian Dikasts, but also by intelligent men like Kritias and Charikles,448 who knew him perfectly well: while the example of Antiphon shows that a man might be most acute and efficacious as a forensic adviser, without coming in person before the Dikastery.449 What the defence really makes us feel is, the indefinite nature of the charge: which is neither provable nor disprovable, and which is characterised, both by Xenophon and in the Platonic Apology, as one of the standing calumnies against all philosophising men.450 Here, in the Platonic Leges, this same unprovable offence is adopted and made capital: the Select Platonic Dikasts being directed to ascertain, not only whether a man has really committed it, but whether he has been impelled to commit it by love of money, or by love of victory and personal consequence.

Penalty for abuse of public trust — wrongful appropriation of public money — evasion of military service.

The twelfth and last Book of the Treatise De Legibus deals with various cases of obligation, not towards individuals, but towards the public or the city. Abuse of trust in the character of a public envoy is declared punishable. This offence (familiar to us at Athens through the two harangues of Demosthenes and Æschines) is invested by Plato with a religious colouring, as desecrating the missions and commands of Hermês and Zeus.451 Wrongful appropriation of the public money by a citizen is also made capital. The penalty is to be inflicted equally whether the sum appropriated be large or small: in either case the guilt is equal, and the evidence of wicked disposition the same, for one who has gone through the public education and training.452 This is quite different from Plato’s principle of dealing with theft or wrongful abstraction of property from private persons: in which case, the sentence of Plato was, that the amount of damage done, small or great, should be made good by the offender, and that a certain ulterior penalty should be inflicted sufficient to deter him as well as others from a repetition.

Provision is farther made for punishing any omission of military service either by males or females, or any discreditable abandonment of arms.453 The orders of the military commander must be implicitly and exactly obeyed. The actions of all must be orderly, uniform, and simultaneous. Nothing can be more mischievous than that each should act for himself, separately and apart from others. This is confessedly true as to war; but it is no less essential as to the proceedings in peace.454 Suppression of individuality, and conversion of life into a perpetual, all-pervading, drill and discipline — is a favourite aspiration always present to Plato.

A Board of Elders is constituted by Plato, as auditors of the proceedings of all Magistrates after their term of office.455 The mode of choosing these Elders, as well as their duties, liabilities, privileges, and honours, both during life and after death, are prescribed with the utmost solemnity.

Oaths. Dikasts, Judges, Electors, are to be sworn: but no parties to a suit, or interested witnesses, can be sworn.

Plato forbids the parties in any judicial suit from swearing: they will present their case to the court, but not upon oath. No judicial oath is allowed to be taken by any one who has a pecuniary interest in the matter on hand. The Dikasts — the judges in all public competitions — the Electors before they elect to a public trust — are all to be sworn: but neither the parties to any cause, nor (seemingly) the witnesses. If oaths were taken on both sides, one or other of the parties must be perjured: and Plato considers it dreadful, that they should go on living with each other afterwards in the same city. In aforetime Rhadamanthus (he tells us) used to settle all disputes simply, by administering an oath to the parties: for in his time no one would take a false oath: men were then not only pious, but even sons or descendants of the Gods. But now (in the Platonic days) impiety has gained ground, and men’s oaths are no longer to be trusted, where anything is to be gained by perjury.456

Regulations about admission of strangers, and foreign travel of citizens.

Strict regulations are provided, as to exit from the Platonic city, and ingress into it. Plato fears contamination to his citizens from converse with the outer world. He would introduce the peremptory Spartan Xenelasy, if he were not afraid of the obloquy attending it. He strictly defines the conditions on which the foreigner will be allowed to come in, or the citizen to go out. No citizen is allowed to go out before he is forty years of age.457 Envoys must be sent on public missions; and sacred legations (theôries) must be despatched to the four great Hellenic festivals — Olympic, Pythian, Nemean, and Isthmian. But private citizens are not permitted to visit even these great festivals at their own pleasure. The envoys sent must be chosen and trustworthy men: moreover, on returning, they will assure their youthful fellow-citizens, that the home institutions are better than anything that can be seen abroad.458

Special travellers, between the ages of fifty and sixty, will also be permitted to go abroad, and will bring back reports to the Magistrates of what they have observed. Strangers are admitted into the city or its neighbourhood, under strict supervision; partly as observers, partly as traders, for the limited amount of traffic which the lawgiver tolerates.459 Thus scanty is the worship which Plato will allow his Magnêtes to pay to Zeus Xenius.460 He seems however to take credit for it as liberal dealing.

Suretyship — Length of prescription for ownership, &c.

Plato proceeds with various enactments respecting suretyship — time of prescription for ownership — keeping men away by force either from giving testimony in court or from contending at the public matches — receiving of stolen goods — private war or alliance on the part of any individual citizen, without the consent of the city — receipt of bribes by functionaries — return and registration of each citizen’s property — dedications and offerings to the Gods.461 No systematic order or classification can be traced in the successive subjects.

Judicial trial — three stages. 1. Arbitrators. 2. Tribe-Dikasteries. 3. Select Dikastery.

In respect to judiciary matters, he repeats (what had before been directed) his constitution of three stages of tribunals. First, Arbitrators, chosen by both parties in the dispute. From their decision, either party may appeal to the Tribe-Dikasteries, composed of all the citizens of the Tribe or Dême: or at least, composed of a jury taken from these. After this, there is a final appeal to the Select Dikastery, chosen among all the Magistrates for the time being.462 Plato leaves to his successors the regulations of details, respecting the mode of impannelling and the procedure of these Juries.

Funerals — proceedings prescribed — expense limited.

Lastly come the regulations respecting funerals — the cost, ceremonies, religious proceedings, mode of showing sorrow and reverence, &c.463 These are given in considerable detail, and with much solemnity of religious exhortation.

Conservative organ to keep up the original scheme of the lawgiver. Nocturnal Council for this purpose — how constituted.

We have now reached the close. The city has received its full political and civil outfit: as much legal regulation as it is competent for the lawgiver to provide at the beginning. One guarantee alone is wanting. Some security must be provided for the continuance and durability of the enactments.464 We must have a special conservative organ, watching over and keeping up the scheme of the original lawgiver. For this function, Plato constitutes a Board, which, from its rule of always beginning its sittings before daybreak, he calls the Nocturnal council. It will comprise ten of the oldest Nomophylakes: all those who have obtained prizes for good conduct or orderly discipline: all those who have been authorised to go abroad, and have been approved on their return. Each of these members will introduce into the Synod one young man of thirty years of age, chosen by himself, but approved by the others.465 The members will thus be partly old, partly young.

This Nocturnal council is intended as the conservative organ of the Platonic city. It is, in the city, what the soul and head are in an animal. The soul includes Reason: the head includes the two most perfect senses — Sight and Hearing. The fusion, in one, of Reason with these two senses ensures the preservation of the animal.466 In the Nocturnal council, the old members represent Reason, the young members represent the two superior senses, serving as instruments and means of communication between Reason and the outer world. The Nocturnal council, embracing the agency of both, maintains thereby the life and continuity of the city.467

It is the special duty of this council, to serve as a perpetual embodiment of the original lawgiver, and to comprehend as well as to realise the main purpose for which the city was put together. The councillors must keep constantly in view this grand political end, as the pilot keeps in view safe termination of the voyage — as the military commander keeps in view victory, and the physician, recovery of health. Should the physician or the pilot either not know his end, or not know the conditions under which it may be attained — his labour will be in vain. So, if there does not exist in the city an authority understanding the great political end and the means (either by laws or human agents) of accomplishing it, the city will be a failure. Hence the indispensable necessity of the Nocturnal council, with members properly taught and organised.468

This Council must keep steadily in view the one great end of the city — Mistakes made by existing cities about the right end.

The great political end must be one, and not many. All the arrows aimed by the central Conservative organ must be aimed at one and the same point.469 This is the chief excellence of a well-constituted conservative authority. Existing cities err all of them in one of two ways. Either they aim at one single End, but that End bad or wrong: or they aim at a variety of Ends without giving exclusive attention to any one. Survey existing cities: you will find that in one, the great purpose, and the main feature of what passes for justice, is, that some party or faction shall obtain or keep political power, whether its members be better or worse than their fellow-citizens: in a second city, it is wealth — in a third freedom of individuals — in a fourth, freedom combined with power over foreigners. Some cities, again, considering themselves wiser than the rest, strive for all these objects at once or for a variety of others, without exclusive attention to any one.470 Amidst such divergence and error in regard to the main end, we cannot wonder that all cities fail in attaining it.

The one end of the city is the virtue of its citizens — that property which is common to the four varieties of Virtue — Reason, Courage, Temperance, Justice.

The One End proposed by our city is, the virtue of its citizens. But virtue is fourfold, or includes four varieties — Courage, Prudence, Temperance, Justice. Our End is and must be One. The medical Reason has its One End, Good Health:471 the stratêgic Reason has its One End — Victory: What is that One End (analogous to these) which the political Reason aims at? It must be that in which the four cardinal virtues — Courage, Prudence, Temperance, Justice — are One, or coincide: that common property, possessed by all and by each, which makes them to be virtue, and constitutes the essential meaning of the name, Virtue. We must know the four as four, that is, the points of difference between them: but it is yet more important to know them as One — to discern the point of essential coincidence and union between them.472

The Nocturnal Council must comprehend this unity of Virtue, explain it to others, and watch that it be carried out in detail.

To understand thoroughly this unity of virtue, so as to act upon it themselves, to explain it to others and to embody it in all their orders — is the grand requisite for the supreme Guardians of our city — the Nocturnal council. We cannot trust such a function in the hands of poets, or of visiting discoursers who announce themselves as competent to instruct youth. It cannot be confided to any less authority than the chosen men — the head and senses — of our city, properly and specially trained to exercise it.473 Upon this depends the entire success or failure of our results. Our guardians must be taught to see that one Idea which pervades the Multiple and the Diverse:474 to keep it steadily before their own eyes, and to explain and illustrate it in discourse to others. They must contemplate the point of coincidence and unity between Courage, Prudence, Temperance, Justice: as well as between the many different things called Beautiful, and the many different things called Good.475 They must declare whether the name Virtue, common to all the four, means something One — or a Whole or Aggregate — or both together.476 If they cannot explain to us whether Virtue is Manifold or Fourfold, or in what manner it is One — they are unfit for their task, and our city will prove a failure. To know the truth about these important matters — to be competent to explain and defend it to others — to follow it out in practice, and to apply it in discriminating what is well done and what is ill done — these are the imperative and indispensable duties of our Guardians.477

They must also adopt, explain, and enforce upon the citizens, an orthodox religious creed. Fundamental dogmas of such creed.

Farthermore it is also essential that they should adopt an orthodox religious creed, and should be competent to explain and defend it. The citizens generally must believe without scrutiny such dogmas as the lawgiver enjoins; but the Guardians must master the proofs of them.478 The proofs upon which, in Plato’s view, all true piety rests, are two479 (he here repeats them):— 1. Mind or soul is older than Body — anterior to Body as a moving power — and invested with power to impel, direct, and controul Body. 2. When we contemplate the celestial rotation, we perceive such extreme exactness and regularity in the movement of the stars (each one of the vast multitude maintaining its relative position in the midst of prodigious velocity of movement) that we cannot explain it except by supposing a Reason or Intelligence pervading and guiding them all. Many astronomers have ascribed this regular movement to an inherent Necessity, and have hereby drawn upon science reproaches from poets and others, as if it were irreligious. But these astronomers (Plato affirms) were quite mistaken in excluding Mind and Reason from the celestial bodies, and in pronouncing the stars to be bodies without mind, like earth or stones. Necessity cannot account for their exact and regular movements: no other supposition is admissible except the constant volition of mind in-dwelling in each, impelling and guiding them towards exact goodness of result. Astronomy well understood is, in Plato’s view, the foundation of true piety. It is only the erroneous astronomical doctrines which are open to the current imputations of irreligion.480

These are the capital religious or kosmical dogmas which the members of the Nocturnal Council must embrace and expound to others, together with the mathematical and musical teaching suitable to illustrate them. Application must be made of these dogmas to improve the laws and customs of the city, and the dispositions of the citizens.481

When this Nocturnal Council, with its members properly trained and qualified, shall be established in the akropolis — symbolising the conjunction of Reason with the head or with the two knowledge-giving senses — the Magnêtic City may securely be entrusted to it, with certainty of an admirable result.482