The principles and regulations in this section are largely self-explanatory. As we should expect, Plato sees sport as a means to a moral end. Correct physical training ensures that the body functions in perfect harmony with the soul and prevents both from becoming ‘slack’. The purpose of military training is not aggrandizement in war, but the preservation of the state.
ARRANGEMENTS FOR FESTIVALS
ATHENIAN: Now then, the next job is to enlist the aid of the [BK VIII] oracles reported from Delphi to draw up a programme of [828a] festivals to be established by law, and discover what sacrifices the state will find it ‘meet and right’1 to offer and which gods should receive them. It will probably be within our own discretion to decide the number and the occasions.
CLEINIAS: Yes, I dare say the number will be up to us.
ATHENIAN: So let’s deal with that first. There are to be no less than three hundred and sixty-five of them, so as to ensure [b] that there is always at least one official sacrificing to some god or spirit on behalf of the state, its citizens and their property. The Expounders, Priests, Priestesses and Prophets are to hold a meeting with the Guardians of the Laws and fill in the details the legislator has inevitably omitted (in fact, this same combined board will also have to spot where such deficiencies exist in the first place). The law will provide for twelve festivals in honour of the twelve gods who give their [c] names to the individual tribes. Every month the citizens should sacrifice to each of these gods and arrange chorus performances and cultural and gymnastic contests, varied according to the deity concerned and appropriate to the changing seasons of the year; and they must divide festivals for women into those that must be celebrated in the absence of men, and those that need not be. Further, they must not confuse the cult of the gods of the underworld with that of the ‘heavenly’ gods (as we must style them) and their retinue. They are to keep the two kinds of celebration separate, and [d] put the former by law in the twelfth month, which is sacred to Pluto.2 Men of battle should feel no horror for such a god as this – on the contrary, they should honour him as a great friend of the human race. The union of body and soul, you see, can never be superior to their separation (and I mean that quite seriously).
MILITARY TRAINING
There’s a further point they will have to appreciate if they are going to allocate these events satisfactorily. Although on the score of leisure-time and abundance of all necessities our state has no rivals at the present day, it still has to live the good [829a] life, just like the individual person; and the first requirement for a happy life is to do yourself no injury nor allow any to be done to you by others. Of course, the first half of the requirement presents no great problem; the difficulty lies in becoming strong enough to be immune to injury – and the one and only thing that brings such immunity is complete virtue. The same applies to a state: if it adopts the ways of virtue, it can live in peace; but if it is wicked, war and civil war will plague it. That’s the situation in a nutshell, and it [b] means that each and every citizen must undertake military training in peace-time, and not leave it till war breaks out. So a state that knows its business should reserve at least one day per month (and more than one, if the authorities think fit) for military manoeuvres, to be held without regard for the weather, come rain come shine. Men, women and children should participate, and the authorities will decide from time to time whether to take them out on manoeuvres en masse or in sections. They must never fail to mount a programme of wholesome recreation, accompanied by sacrifices; and the programme ought to include ‘war-games’ which should simulate the conditions of actual fighting as realistically as possible. [c] On each field-day they should distribute prizes and awards of merit, and compose speeches in commendation or reproof of each other according to the conduct of individuals not only in the contests but in daily life too: those who are deemed to have acquitted themselves particularly well should be honoured, while the failures should be censured. But not everyone should produce such compositions. For a start, a composer must be at least fifty years old, and he must not be one of those people who for all their poetical and musical competence have not a single noble or outstanding achievement [d] to their credit. The compositions that ought to be sung (even if in terms of art they leave something to be desired) are those of citizens who have achieved a high standard of conduct and whose personal merits have brought them distinction in the state. The official in charge of education, together with the other Guardians of the Laws, are to select them and grant them alone the privilege of giving their Muses free rein; other people are to be entirely forbidden. No one should dare to sing any unauthorized song, not even if it is sweeter than [e] the hymns of Orpheus or of Thamyras.3 Our citizens must confine themselves to such pieces as have been given the stamp of approval and consecrated to the gods, and to compositions which on the strength of their authors’ reputation are judged to be suitable vehicles for commendation or censure. (I intend the same regulations to apply to men and women alike, both as regards military excursions and freedom to compose unsupervised.)
The legislator should think things over and employ this sort of analogy: ‘Let’s see, now, once I’ve organized the state as a whole, what sort of citizen do I want to produce? Athletes are what I want – competitors against a million rivals in the [830a] most vital struggles of all. Right?’ ‘Very much so,’ one would reply, correctly. Well then, if we were training boxers or pankratiasts4 or competitors in some other similar contest should we go straight into the ring unprepared by a daily work-out against an opponent? If we were boxers, surely we’d have spent days on end before the contest in strenuous practice, learning how to fight, and trying out all those [b] manoeuvres we intended to use when the time came to fight to win? We’d come as close as we could to the real conditions of the contest by putting on practice-gloves instead of thongs,5 so as to get as much practice as possible in delivering and dodging punches. And if we ran particularly short of sparring partners then we’d go to the trouble of hanging up a lifeless dummy to practise against; and we certainly wouldn’t be put off by the idiots who might laugh at us. Come to that, if one [c] day we ran out of sparring partners completely, living or otherwise, and had no one to practise with at all, we’d go so far as to box against our own shadows – shadow-boxing with a vengeance! After all, how else can you describe a practice-session in which you just throw punches at the air?
CLEINIAS: No, sir, there’s no other term for it than the one you’ve just used.
ATHENIAN: Very well. So when the fighting force of our state comes to brace itself to face the most important contest of all [d] – to fight for life and children and property and the entire state – is it really to be after less intensive training than combatants such as these have enjoyed? Is our citizens’ legislator going to be so scared that their practice against each other may look silly to some people that he will neglect his duty? I mean his duty of instructing that manoeuvres on a small scale, without arms, should be held every day, if possible (and for this purpose he should arrange teams to compete in every kind of gymnastic exercise), whereas the ‘major’ exercises, in which arms are carried, should be held not less than once per month. The citizens will compete with each other throughout [e] the entire country, to see who is best at occupying positions and laying ambushes, and they must reproduce the conditions of every kind of battle (that will give them real practice, because they will be aiming at the closest possible approximation to the real targets).6 And they should use missiles that are moderately dangerous: we don’t want the competitions they hold against each other to be entirely unalarming, but to inspire them with fear and do something to reveal the brave man and the coward; and the legislator should confer honours or inflict disgrace as appropriate, so as to prepare the whole [831a] state to be an efficient fighter in the real struggle that lasts a lifetime. In fact, if anyone is killed in such circumstances, the homicide should be regarded as involuntary, and the legislator should decree that the killer’s hands are clean when once he has been purified according to law.7 After all, the lawgiver will reflect, even if a few people do die, others who are just as good will be produced to replace them, whereas if fear dies (so to speak), he’ll not be able to find in all these activities a yardstick to separate the good performers from the bad – and that would be a bigger disaster for the state than the other. [b]
CLEINIAS: Yes, sir, we’d agree that this is the sort of law that every state should pass and observe.
OBSTACLES TO CORRECT MILITARY TRAINING
ATHENIAN: Now we all know, don’t we, the reason why this kind of team-work and competition is not to be found in any state at the present time, except on a very modest scale indeed? I suppose we’d say it was because the masses and their legislators suffer from ignorance?
CLEINIAS: Maybe so.
ATHENIAN: Not a bit of it, my dear Cleinias! We ought to say there are two causes, and pretty powerful ones at that.
CLEINIAS: What are they?
ATHENIAN: The first is a passion for wealth which makes men unwilling to devote a minute of their time to anything except their own personal property. This is what every single citizen concentrates on with all his heart and soul; his ruling passion is his daily profit and he’s quite incapable of worrying about anything else. Everyone is out for himself, and is very quick off the mark indeed to learn any skill and apply himself to any technique that fills his pocket; anything that doesn’t do [d] that he treats with complete derision. So we can treat this as one reason why states are not prepared to undertake this8 or any other praiseworthy activity in a serious spirit, whereas their insatiable desire for gold and silver makes them perfectly willing to slave away at any ways and means, fair or foul, that promise to make them rich. It doesn’t matter whether something is sanctioned by heaven, or forbidden and absolutely disgusting – it’s all the same to them, and causes not the slightest scruple, provided it enables them to make pigs of [e] themselves by wallowing in all kinds of food and drink and indulging every kind of sexual pleasure.
CLEINIAS: You’re quite right.
ATHENIAN: So I’ve described one cause: let’s treat this obsession as the first obstacle that prevents states from following an adequate course of training, either for military or for any other purposes: naturally decent folk are turned into traders or merchant-venturers or just plain servants, and bold fellows [832a] are made into robbers and burglars, and become bellicose and overbearing. Quite often, though, they are not naturally corrupt: they’re simply unlucky.
CLEINIAS: How do you mean?
ATHENIAN: Well, if you have to live out your life with a continual hunger in your soul, aren’t you ‘unlucky’ to a degree? What other term could I use?
CLEINIAS: Very well, that’s one reason. What’s your second, sir?
ATHENIAN: Ah, yes, thank you for jogging my memory.
CLEINIAS: According to you, one cause is the insatiable and [b] lifelong acquisitive urge which obsesses us all and stops us undertaking military training in the proper way. All right – now tell us the second.
ATHENIAN: I dare say it looks as if I’m putting off getting round to it because I don’t know what to say?
CLEINIAS: No, but you do seem to be such a ‘good hater’ of this sort of character that you’re berating it more than the subject in hand requires.
ATHENIAN: That’s a very proper rebuke, gentlemen. So you’re all ready for the next point, it seems.
CLEINIAS: Just tell us, that’s all!
ATHENIAN: The cause I want to put forward are those ‘non-constitutions’ that I’ve often mentioned earlier9 in our conversation [c] – democracy, oligarchy and tyranny. None of these is a genuine political system: the best name for them all would be ‘party rule’, because under none of them do willing rulers govern willing subjects: that is, the rulers are always willing enough, but they never hold power with the consent of the governed. They hold it by constant resort to a degree of force, and they are never prepared to allow any of their subjects to cultivate virtue or acquire wealth or strength or courage – and least of all will they tolerate a man who can fight. So much for the two main roots of pretty nearly all evil, and certainly the main roots of the evils we’re discussing. However, the political system which we are now establishing by law has avoided both of them. Our state enjoys unparalleled [d] leisure, the citizens live free of interference from each other, and I reckon these laws of ours are quite unlikely to turn them into money-grubbers. So it’s a reasonable and natural supposition that a political system organized along these lines will be unique among contemporary constitutions in finding room for the military training-cum-sport10 that we’ve just described – and described in the detail it deserves, too.
CLEINIAS: Splendid.
RACES
ATHENIAN: The next thing we have to bear in mind about any athletic contest is this: if it helps us to train for war we must [e] go in for it and put up prizes for the winners, but leave it strictly alone if it does not. Isn’t that right? It will be better to stipulate from the start the contests we want, and provide for them by law. First, I take it we should arrange races, and contests of speed in general?
CLEINIAS: Yes, we should.
ATHENIAN: At any rate, what makes a man a fine soldier more than anything else is general agility, a ready use of his hands as well as his feet. If he’s a good runner, he can make a capture [833a] or show a clean pair of heels, and versatile hands will stand him in good stead in tangling with the enemy in close combat, where strength and force are essential.
CLEINIAS: Certainly.
ATHENIAN: But if he hasn’t any weapons, neither ability will help him as much as it might.
CLEINIAS: Of course not.
ATHENIAN: So in our contests the first competitor our herald will summon will be (as now) the single-length runner, and he will come forward armed; we shan’t put up any prizes for competitors who are unarmed. So, as I say, the competitor who intends to run one length will come on first, carrying his [b] arms; second will come the runner over two lengths, and third the middle-distance runner; the long-distance man will come on fourth. The fifth competitor we shall call the ‘heavy-armed’ runner, from his heavier equipment. We shall start by sending him in full armour over a distance of sixty lengths to some temple of Ares and back. His course will be over comparatively level ground, whereas the other runner,11 an archer in full archer rig, will run a course of 100 lengths over hills and constantly changing terrain to a temple of Apollo and [c] Artemis. While we’re waiting for these runners to return, we’ll hold the other contests and finally award the prizes to the winners of each event.
CLEINIAS: Fine.
ATHENIAN: Let’s arrange these contests in three groups, one for boys, one for youths and one for men. When youths and boys compete as archers and heavy-armed runners, we shall make the course for youths two-thirds of the full distance and for the boys one-half. As for females, girls below the age of puberty must enter (naked12) for the single-length, double-length, [d] middle and long distance races, their competition being confined to the stadium. Girls from thirteen till the marriage-age must enter till they are at least eighteen, but not beyond the age of twenty. (They, however, must put on some suitable clothing13 before presenting themselves as competitors in these races.)
CONTESTS IN ARMS
So much for men’s and women’s races; now to deal with trials of strength. Instead of wrestling and other he-man contests that are the fashion nowadays, we’ll have our citizens fight each other armed – man to man, two a side, and any number [e] per team up to ten. We ought to take our cue from the authorities in charge of wrestling, who have established criteria which will tell you whether a wrestler’s performance is good or bad. We must call in the leading exponents of armed combat and ask them to assist us in framing rules about the blows one needs to avoid or inflict to win in this sort of contest, and similarly the points we need to look for to decide [834a] the loser. The same set of rules should also apply to the female competitors (who must be below the age of marriage). To replace the pankration14 we shall establish a general contest of light-infantry; the weapons of the competitors are to be bows, light shields, javelins, and stones cast by hand and sling. Here too we’ll lay down rules, and give the honour of victory to the competitor who reaches the highest standard as defined by the regulations.
HORSE-RACING
The next thing for which we must provide rules is horse-racing. [b] In Crete, of course, horses are of rather limited use and you don’t find very many of them, so that the comparatively low level of interest in rearing and racing them is inevitable. No one in this country keeps a team of horses for a chariot, nor is ever likely to covet such a thing, so that if we established contests in something so foreign to the local customs, we’d be taken for idiots (and rightly). The way to [c] modify this sport for the local Cretan terrain is to put up prizes for skill in riding the animals – as foals, when half-grown, and when fully grown. So our law should provide for contests in which jockeys can compete with each other in these categories; Tribe-Leaders and Cavalry-Commanders should be entrusted with the job of deciding the actual courses and deciding which competitor has won (in full armour, of course: just as in the athletic events, if we established contests for [d] unarmed competitors we’d be failing in our duty as legislators). And since your Cretan is no fool at archery and javelin-throwing in the saddle, people should amuse themselves by competing in this sort of contest too. As for women, there’s no point in making it legally compulsory for them to join in all this, but if their previous training has got them into the habit, and girls and young women are in good enough shape to take part without hardship, then they should be permitted to do so and not discouraged.
CONCLUSION
That brings us to the end of our discussion of competitions and the teaching of physical training, and we’ve seen what [e] strenuous efforts are involved in the contests and the daily sessions with instructors. In fact, we’ve also dealt pretty thoroughly with the role of the arts, although arrangements about reciters of poetry and similar performers, and the chorus-competitions15 obligatory at festivals, can wait till the gods and the minor deities have had their days and months and years allocated to them; then we can decide whether festivals should be held at two-year or four-year intervals, [835a] or whether the gods suggest some other pattern. On these occasions we must also expect the various categories of competitions in the arts to be held. This is the province of the stewards of the games, the Minister of Education and the Guardians of the Laws, who should all meet as an ad hoc committee and produce their own regulations about the date of each chorus-competition and dance, and specify who should compete and who may watch. The original legislator has often enough explained the sort of thing each of these performances should be, and has dealt with the songs, the spoken addresses and the musical styles that accompany the [b] rhythmical movements of the dancers. His successors must emulate his example in their own legislation and match the right contests with the right sacrifices at the right times, and so provide festivals at which the state may make merry.