Laws
Plato (428–347 BC)
Plato's Laws in the Greek text edited by John Burnet, with R. G. Bury's English translation.
Book 1
Section 624
Section 625
Section 626
Section 627
Section 628
Section 629
Section 630
Section 631
Section 632
Section 633
Section 634
Section 635
Section 636
Section 637
Section 638
Section 639
Section 640
Section 641
Section 642
Section 643
Section 644
Section 645
Section 646
Section 647
Section 648
Section 649
Section 650
Book 2
Section 652
Section 653
Section 654
Section 655
Section 656
Section 657
Section 658
Section 659
Section 660
Section 661
Section 662
Section 663
Section 664
Section 665
Section 666
Section 667
Section 668
Section 669
Section 670
Section 671
Section 672
Section 673
Section 674
Book 3
Section 676
Section 677
Section 678
Section 679
Section 680
Section 681
Section 682
Section 683
Section 684
Section 685
Section 686
Section 687
Section 688
Section 689
Section 690
Section 691
Clin. Probably this is, in the main, a disease of kings, in whom luxury breeds pride of life.
Ath. Is it not plain that what those kings strove for first was to get the better of the established laws, and that they were not in accord with one another about the pledge which they had approved both by word and by oath; and this discord—reputed to be wisdom, but really, as we affirm, the height of ignorance, owing to its grating dissonance and lack of harmony, brought the whole Greek world to ruin?
Clin. It would seem so, certainly.
Ath. Very well then: what precaution ought the legislator to have taken at that time in his enactments, to guard against the growth of this disorder? Verily, to perceive that now requires no great sagacity, nor is it a hard thing to declare; but the man who foresaw it in those days—if it could possibly have been foreseen—would have been a wiser man than we.
Meg. To what are you alluding?
Ath. If one looks at what has happened, Megillus, among you Lacedaemonians, it is easy to perceive, and after perceiving to state, what ought to have been done at that time.
Meg. Speak still more clearly.
Ath. The clearest statement would be this—
Meg. What?
Ath. If one neglects the rule of due measure, and gives things too great in power to things too small—sails to ships, food to bodies, offices of rule to souls—then everything is upset, and they run, through excess of insolence, some to bodily disorders, others to that offspring of insolence, injustice. What, then, is our conclusion? Is it not this? There does not exist, my friends, a mortal soul whose nature, when young and irresponsible, will ever be able to stand being in the highest ruling position upon earth without getting surfeited in mind with that greatest of disorders, folly, and earning the detestation of its nearest friends; and when this occurs, it speedily ruins the soul itself and annihilates the whole of its power. To guard against this, by perceiving the due measure, is the task of the great lawgiver. So the most duly reasonable conjecture we can now frame as to what took place at that epoch appears to be this—
Meg. What?