§5. THE LESSONS OF HISTORY (2): MONARCHY AND DEMOCRACY

The Athenian now suggests that the Persian monarchy, which represents one extreme of government, was destroyed because of the unbridled power and lust for pleasure of the monarch, and his unduly repressive regime; the other extreme, Athenian democracy, was corrupted by the opposite fault, an excess of liberty. If a state is to be happy, the authority of the rulers and the liberty of the subjects must be combined in judicious proportions. The faults of the Persian monarch sprang from a bad education, and those of the Athenian people from a lack of the ‘fear’ called ‘respect’: thus two prominent themes of §§1–3 take on a new significance in the context of political organization.

At the very end of the section Cleinias mentions that he has the task of framing laws for a new Cretan colony, and suggests they try to gauge the practical value of these theoretical considerations by applying them to actual legislation. His two companions agree, and the discussion of the new state gets under way.

TWO MOTHER-CONSTITUTIONS

THE PERSIAN MONARCHY

ATHENIAN: Then let’s listen to the story. Under Cyrus, the life of the Persians was a judicious blend of liberty and subjection, and after gaining their own freedom they became the masters of a great number of other people. As rulers, they granted a degree of liberty to their subjects and put them on the same footing as themselves, with the result that soldiers felt more affection for their commanders and displayed greater zeal in [b] the face of danger. The king felt no jealousy if any of his subjects was intelligent and had some advice to offer; on the contrary, he allowed free speech and valued those who could contribute to the formulation of policy; a sensible man could use his influence to help the common cause. Thanks to freedom, friendship and the practice of pooling their ideas, during that period the Persians made progress all along the line.

CLEINIAS: It does rather look as if that was the situation in the period you describe.

[c] ATHENIAN: So how are we to explain the disaster under Cambyses, and the virtually complete recovery under Darius?1 To help our reconstruction of events, shall we have a shot at some inspired guessing?

CLEINIAS: Yes, because this topic we’ve embarked on will certainly help our inquiry.

ATHENIAN: My guess, then, about Cyrus, is that although he was doubtless a good commander and a loyal patriot, he never considered, even superficially, the problem of correct education; and as for running a household, I’d say he never paid any attention to it at all.

CLEINIAS: And what interpretation are we to put on a remark like that?

[d] ATHENIAN: I mean that he probably spent his entire life after infancy on campaign, and handed over his children to the women to bring up. These women reared them from their earliest years as though they were already Heaven’s special favourites and darlings, endowed with all the blessings that implies. They wouldn’t allow anyone to thwart ‘their Beatitudes’ in anything, and they forced everybody to rhapsodize about what the children said or did. You can imagine the sort of person they produced.

CLEINIAS: And a fine old education it must have been, to judge from your account.

[e] ATHENIAN: It was a womanish education, conducted by the royal harem. The teachers of the children had recently come into considerable wealth, but they were left all on their own, without men, because the army was preoccupied by wars and constant dangers.

CLEINIAS: That makes sense.

ATHENIAN: The children’s father, for his part, went on accumulating herds and flocks for their benefit – and many a herd of human beings too, quite apart from every other sort of animal; [695a] but he didn’t know that his intended heirs were not being instructed in the traditional Persian discipline. This discipline (the Persians being shepherds, and sons of a stony soil) was a tough one, capable of producing hardy shepherds who could camp out and keep awake on watch and turn soldier if necessary. He just didn’t notice that women and eunuchs had given his sons the education of a Mede,2 and that it had been debased by their so-called ‘blessed’ status. That is why Cyrus’ children turned out as children naturally do when their [b] teachers have never corrected them. So, when they succeeded to their inheritance on the death of Cyrus, they were living in a riot of unrestrained debauchery. First, unwilling to tolerate an equal, one of them killed the other; next, he himself, driven out of his senses by liquor and lack of self-control, was deprived of his dominions by the Medes and ‘the Eunuch’ (as he was then called), to whom the idiot Cambyses was an object of contempt.3

CLEINIAS: So the story goes, and it seems probable enough. [c]

ATHENIAN: And it goes on, I think, to say that the empire was regained for the Persians by Darius and ‘the Seven’.

CLEINIAS: Certainly.

ATHENIAN: Now let’s carry on with this story of ours and see what happened. Darius was no royal prince, and his upbringing had not encouraged him to self-indulgence. When he came and seized the empire with the aid of the other six, he split it up into seven divisions, of which some faint outlines still survive today. He thought the best policy was to govern it by new laws of his own which introduced a certain degree of equality for all; and he also included in his code regulations about the tribute promised to the people by Cyrus. His generosity [d] in money and gifts rallied all the Persians to his side, and stimulated a feeling of community and friendship among them; consequently his armies regarded him with such affection that they added to the territory Cyrus had bequeathed at least as much again. But Darius was succeeded by Xerxes, whose education had reverted to the royal pampering of old. (‘Darius’ – as perhaps we’d be entitled to say to him – ‘you haven’t learnt from Cyrus’ mistake, so you’ve brought up [e] Xerxes in the same habits as Cyrus brought up Cambyses.’) So Xerxes, being a product of the same type of education, naturally had a career that closely reproduced the pattern of Cambyses’ misfortunes. Ever since then, hardly any king of the Persians has been genuinely ‘great’, except in style and title. I maintain that the reason for this is not just bad luck, but [696a] the shocking life that the children of dictators and fantastically rich parents almost always lead: no man, you see, however old or however young, will ever excel in virtue if he has had this sort of upbringing. We repeat that this is the point the legislator must look out for, and so must we here and now. And in all fairness, my Spartan friends, one must give your state credit for at least this much: rich man, poor man, commoner and king are held in honour to the same degree and are educated in the same way, without privilege, except as determined by the supernatural instructions you received [b] from some god when your state was founded.4 A man’s exceptional wealth is no more reason for a state to confer specially exalted office on him than his ability to run, his good looks, or his physical strength, in the absence of some virtue – or even if he has some virtue, if it excludes self-control.

MEGILLUS: What do you mean by that, sir?

ATHENIAN: Courage, I take it, is one part of virtue.

MEGILLUS: Of course.

ATHENIAN: So now that you’ve heard the story, use your own judgement: would you be glad to have as a resident in your house or as a neighbour a man who in spite of considerable courage was immoderate and licentious?

[c] MEGILLUS: Heaven forbid!

ATHENIAN: Well then, what about a skilled workman, knowledgeable in his own field, but unjust?

MEGILLUS: No, I’d never welcome him.

ATHENIAN: But surely, in the absence of self-control, justice will never spring up.

MEGILLUS: Of course not.

ATHENIAN: Nor indeed will the ‘wise’ man we put forward just now,5 who keeps his feelings of pleasure and pain in tune with right reason and obedient to it.

MEGILLUS: No, he certainly won’t.

MEGILLUS: And what is that?

ATHENIAN: If we found self-control existing in the soul in isolation from all other virtue, should we be justified in admiring it? Or not?

MEGILLUS: I really couldn’t say.

ATHENIAN: A very proper reply. If you had opted for either alternative it would have struck an odd note, I think.

MEGILLUS: So my reply was all right, then.

ATHENIAN: Yes. But if you have something which in itself deserves to be admired or execrated, a mere additional element isn’t worth talking about: much better pass it over [e] and say nothing.

MEGILLUS: Self-control is the element you mean, I suppose.

ATHENIAN: It is. And in general, whatever benefits us most, when this element is added, deserves the highest honour, the second most beneficial thing deserves the second highest honour, and so on: as we go down the list, everything will get in due order the honour it deserves.

MEGILLUS: True. [697a]

ATHENIAN: Well then, shan’t we insist again6 that the distribution of these honours is the business of the legislator?

MEGILLUS: Of course.

ATHENIAN: Would you prefer us to leave the entire distribution to his discretion and let him deal with the details of each individual case? But as we too have something of a taste for legislation, perhaps you’d like us to try our hands at a three-fold division and distinguish the most important class, then the second and the third.

MEGILLUS: Certainly.

ATHENIAN: We maintain that if a state is going to survive to enjoy all the happiness that mankind can achieve, it is vitally [b] necessary for it to distribute honours and marks of disgrace on a proper basis. And the proper basis is to put spiritual goods at the top of the list and hold them – provided the soul exercises self-control – in the highest esteem; bodily goods and advantages should come second, and third those said to be provided by property and wealth. If a legislator or a state ever ignores these guide-lines by valuing riches above all or [c] by promoting one of the other inferior goods to a more exalted position, it will be an act of political and religious folly. Shall we take this line, or not?

MEGILLUS: Yes, emphatically and unambiguously.

ATHENIAN: It was our scrutiny of the political system of the Persians that made us go into this business at such length. Our verdict was that their corruption increased year by year; and the reason we assign for this is that they were too strict in depriving the people of liberty and too energetic in introducing authoritarian government, so that they destroyed all [d] friendship and community of spirit in the state. And with that gone, the policy of rulers is framed not in the interests of their subjects the people, but to support their own authority: let them only think that a situation offers them the prospect of some profit, even a small one, and they wreck cities and ruin friendly nations by fire and sword; they hate, and are hated in return, with savage and pitiless loathing. When they come to need the common people to fight on their behalf, they discover the army has no loyalty, no eagerness to face danger [e] and fight. They have millions and millions of soldiers – all useless for fighting a war, so that just as if manpower were in short supply, they have to hire it, imagining that mercenaries and foreigners will ensure their safety. Not only this, they [698a] inevitably become so stupid that they proclaim by their very actions that as compared with gold and silver everything society regards as good and valuable is in their eyes so much trash.

MEGILLUS: Exactly.

ATHENIAN: So let’s have done with the Persians. Our conclusion is that the empire is badly run at the moment because the people are kept in undue subjection and the rulers excessively authoritarian.

MEGILLUS: Precisely.

ATHENS AND THE PERSIAN WARS

ATHENIAN: Next we come to the political system of Attica. We have to demonstrate, on the same lines as before, that complete freedom from all authority is infinitely worse than [b] submitting to a moderate degree of control.

At the time of the Persian attack on the Greeks – on virtually everyone living in Europe, is perhaps a better way of putting it – we Athenians had a constitution, inherited from the distant past, in which a number of public offices were held on the basis of four property-classes. Lady Modesty was the mistress of our hearts, a despot who made us live in willing subjection to the laws then in force. Moreover, the enormous size of the army that was coming at us by land and sea made us desperately afraid, and served to increase our obedience to [c] the authorities and the law. For all these reasons we displayed a tremendous spirit of co-operation. You see, about ten years before the battle of Salamis, Datis had arrived at the head of a Persian army; he had been sent by Darius against the Athenians and the Eretrians with explicit instructions to make slaves of them and bring them home, and he had been warned that failure would mean death.7 With his vast numbers of soldiers, Datis made short work of the Eretrians, whom he [d] completely overpowered and captured. He then sent to Athens a blood-curdling report that not a single Eretrian had got away – propaganda which asked us to believe that Datis’ soldiers, hand in hand in a long line, had combed over every inch of Eretria. Well, whatever the truth or otherwise of this tale, it terrified the Greeks; the Athenians were particularly scared, and they sent off envoys in all directions, but no one was prepared to help them except the Spartans – who were, [e] however, prevented by the Messenian war, which was going on at that time, or perhaps by some other distraction (I’m not aware of any information being given on the point). However that may be, the Spartans arrived at Marathon one day too late for the battle.8 After this, reports of vast preparations and endless threats on the part of the king came thick and fast. The years went by, and then we were told that Darius was dead, but that his son, young and impetuous, had inherited the kingdom and was determined not to give up the invasion.9 [699a] The Athenians reckoned that all these preparations were directed against themselves, because of what had happened at Marathon; and when they heard of the canal that had been dug through Athos, the bridging of the Hellespont and the huge number of Xerxes’ ships, they calculated that neither land nor sea offered any prospects of safety. No one, they thought, would come to help them. They remembered the previous attack and the success of the Persians in Eretria: no one had assisted the Athenians then, no one had faced the [b] danger by fighting at their side. On land they expected the same thing to happen this time; and as for the sea, they realized that escape by this route was out of the question, in view of the thousand or more ships coming to the attack. They could think of only one hope, and a thin, desperate hope it was; but there was simply no other. Their minds went back to the previous occasion, and they reflected how the victory they won in battle had been gained in equally desperate circumstances. Sustained by this hope, they began to recognize that no one but they themselves and their gods could [c] provide a way out of their difficulties. All this inspired them with a spirit of solidarity. One cause was the actual fear they felt at the time, but there was another kind too, encouraged by the traditional laws of the state. I mean the ‘fear’ they had learned to experience as a result of being subject to an ancient code of laws. In the course of our earlier discussion10 we have called this fear ‘modesty’ often enough, and we said that people who aspire to be good must be its slave. A coward, on the other hand, is free of this particular kind of fear and never experiences it. And if ‘ordinary’11 fear had not overtaken the cowards on that occasion, they would never have combined to defend themselves or protected temples, tombs, fatherland, and friends and relatives as well, in the way they did. We [d] would all have been split up and scattered over the face of the earth.12

MEGILLUS: Yes, sir, you are quite right, and your remarks reflect credit both on your country and yourself.

ATHENIAN: No doubt, Megillus; and it is only right and proper to tell you of the history of that period, seeing that you’ve been blessed with your ancestors’ character. Now then, you and Cleinias, consider: have these remarks of ours any relevance at all to legislation? After all, this is the object of the exercise – I’m not going through all this simply for the story. [e] Look: in a way, we Athenians have had the same experience as the Persians. They, of course, reduced the people to a state of complete subjection, and we encouraged the masses to the opposite extreme of unfettered liberty, but the discussion we have had serves well enough as a pointer to the next step in the argument, and shows us the method to follow.

MEGILLUS: Splendid! But do try to be even more explicit about [700a] what you mean.

THE CORRUPTION OF THE ATHENIAN DEMOCRACY

ATHENIAN: Very well. When the old laws applied, my friends, the people were not in control: on the contrary, they lived in a kind of ‘voluntary slavery’ to the laws.

MEGILLUS: Which laws have you in mind?

ATHENIAN: I’m thinking primarily of the regulations about the music13 of that period (music being the proper place to start a description of how life became progressively freer of controls). In those days Athenian music comprised various categories and forms. One type of song consisted of prayers to [b] the gods, which were termed ‘hymns’; and there was another quite different type, which you might well have called ‘laments’. ‘Paeans’14 made up a third category, and there was also a fourth, called a ‘dithyramb’ (whose theme was, I think, the birth of Dionysus). There existed another kind of song too, which they thought of as a separate class, and the name they gave it was this very word that is so often on our lips: ‘nomes’15 (‘for the lyre’, as they always added). Once these categories and a number of others had been fixed, no one was allowed to pervert them by using one sort of tune in a [c] composition belonging to another category. And what was the authority which had to know these standards and use its knowledge in reaching its verdicts, and crack down on the disobedient? Well, certainly no notice was taken of the catcalls and uncouth yelling of the audience, as it is nowadays, nor yet of the applause that indicates approval. People of taste and education made it a rule to listen to the performance with silent attention right through to the end; children and their attendants and the general public could always be disciplined and controlled by a stick. Such was the rigour with which the [d] mass of the people was prepared to be controlled in the theatre, and to refrain from passing judgement by shouting. Later, as time went on, composers arose who started to set a fashion of breaking the rules and offending good taste. They did have a natural artistic talent, but they were ignorant of the correct and legitimate standards laid down by the Muse. Gripped by a frenzied and excessive lust for pleasure, they jumbled together laments and hymns, mixed paeans and dithyrambs, and even imitated pipe tunes on the lyre. The [e] result was a total confusion of styles. Unintentionally, in their idiotic way, they misrepresented their art, claiming that in music there are no standards of right and wrong at all, but that the most ‘correct’ criterion is the pleasure of a man who enjoyed the performance, whether he is a good man or not. On these principles they based their compositions, and they accompanied them with propaganda to the same effect. Consequently they gave the ordinary man not only a taste for breaking the laws of music but the arrogance to set himself [701a] up as a capable judge. The audiences, once silent, began to use their tongues; they claimed to know what was good and bad in music, and instead of a ‘musical meritocracy’, a sort of vicious ‘theatrocracy’16 arose. But if this democracy had been limited to gentlemen and had applied only to music, no great harm would have been done; in the event, however, music proved to be the starting-point of everyone’s conviction that he was an authority on everything, and of a general disregard for the law. Complete licence was not far behind. The conviction that they knew made them unafraid, and [b] assurance engendered effrontery. You see, a reckless lack of respect for one’s betters is effrontery of peculiar viciousness, which springs from a freedom from inhibitions that has gone much too far.

MEGILLUS: You’re absolutely right.

ATHENIAN: This freedom will then take other forms. First people grow unwilling to submit to the authorities, then they refuse to obey the admonitions of their fathers and mothers and elders. As they hurtle along towards the end of this primrose path, they try to escape the authority of the laws; and the very end of the road comes when they cease to care [c] about oaths and promises and religion in general. They reveal, reincarnated in themselves, the character of the ancient Titans17 of the story, and thanks to getting into the same position as the Titans did, they live a wretched life of endless misery. Again I ask: what’s the purpose of saying all this? My tongue has been galloping on and obviously I ought to curb it constantly; I must keep a bridle in my mouth and not let myself be carried away by the argument so as to ‘take a toss from [d] the hoss’ as the saying is. Let me repeat the question: what’s the point of this speech I’ve made?

RECAPITULATION

ATHENIAN: The point is one we’ve made before.

MEGILLUS: What?

ATHENIAN: We said18 that a lawgiver should frame his code with an eye on three things: the freedom, unity and wisdom of the city for which he legislates. That’s right, isn’t it?

MEGILLUS: Certainly.

ATHENIAN: That was why we selected two political systems, [e] one authoritarian in the highest degree, the other representing an extreme of liberty; and the question is now, which of these two constitutes correct government? We reviewed a moderate authoritarianism and a moderate freedom, and saw the result: tremendous progress in each case. But when either the Persians or the Athenians pushed things to extremes (of subjection in the one case and its opposite in the other), it did neither of them any good at all.

[702a] MEGILLUS: You’re quite right.

ATHENIAN: We19 had precisely the same purpose when we looked at the settlement of the Dorian forces, Dardanus’ dwellings in the foothills, the foundation by the sea and the original survivors of the flood; earlier, we discussed music and drink from the same point of view, as well as other topics before that. The object was always to find out what would be [b] the ideal way of administering a state, and the best principles the individual can observe in running his own life. But has it been worth our while? I wonder, Cleinias and Megillus, if there’s some test of this that we could set ourselves?

THE PROPOSED NEW CRETAN COLONY

CLEINIAS: I think I can see one, sir. As luck would have it, I find that all the subjects we have discussed in our conversation are relevant to my needs here and now. How fortunate that [c] I’ve fallen in with you and Megillus! I won’t keep you in the dark about my position – indeed, I think that meeting you is a good omen for the future. The greater part of Crete is attempting to found a colony, and has given responsibility for the job to the Cnossians; and the state of Cnossos has delegated it to myself and nine colleagues. Our brief is to compose a legal code on the basis of such local laws as we find satisfactory, and to use foreign laws as well – the fact that they are not Cretan must not count against them, provided their quality seems superior. So what about doing me – [d] and you – a favour? Let’s take a selection of the topics we have covered and construct an imaginary community, pretending that we are its original founders. That will allow us to consider the question before us, and it may be that I’ll use this framework for the future state.

ATHENIAN: Well, Cleinias, that’s certainly welcome news! You may take it that I for my part am entirely at your disposal, unless Megillus has some objection.

CLEINIAS: Splendid!

MEGILLUS: Yes, I too am at your service.

CLEINIAS: I’m delighted you both agree. Now then, let’s try – initially only in theory – to found our state. [e]