76 The Laws 



from the indications in Xenophon and other authorities, agriculture 

 and the various industries of Attica were now steadily passing into the 

 hands of slave-owning capitalists, and small men going to the wall, 

 there would be much to set a philosopher thinking and seeking some 

 way of establishing a wholesomer state of things. On this supposition 

 speculations, however fantastic and incapable of realization in fact, 

 might call attention to practical evils and at least prepare men's minds 

 for practical remedies. In admitting the difficulty of making a fresh 

 start, and the certainty that even his model state would in time lose 

 its purity 1 and pass through successive phases of decay, Plato surely 

 warns us not to take his constructive scheme seriously. But whether 

 he really believed that free handworkers could (save in an oligarchy, 

 which 2 he detests,) be induced to submit to a ruling class, and be 

 themselves excluded on principle from political interests of any kind, 

 is more than I can divine. 



That the scheme outlined in the Republic was not a practical one 

 was confessed by Plato in his old age by producing the Laws, a work 

 in which the actual circumstances of Greek life were not so completely 

 disregarded. The main points that concern us are these. Government 

 is to be vested in a detailed code of laws, administered by magistrates 

 elected by the citizens. There is a Council and an Assembly. Pressure 

 is put upon voters, especially 3 on the wealthier voters, to make them 

 vote. The influence of the Solonian model is obvious. Provision is 

 made 4 for getting over the difficulties of the first start, while the people 

 are still under old traditions which the new educational system will in 

 due course supersede. But, so far from depending on perfect Guardians 

 with absolute power, and treating law as a general pattern 5 modifiable 

 in application by the Guardians at their discretion, we have law 

 supreme and Guardians dependent on the people's will. It is a kind 

 of democracy, but Demos is to be carefully trained, and protected from 

 his own vagaries by minute regulations. The number of citizens 6 is by 

 law fixed at 5040. Each one has an allotment of land, a sacred ic\fjpo<: 

 that cannot be sold. This passes by inheritance from father to son as 

 an undivided whole. Extinction of a family may be prevented by 

 adoptions under strict rules. Excess of citizen population may be re- 

 lieved by colonies. Poverty is excluded 7 by the minimum guaranteed 

 in the inalienable land-lot, excessive wealth by laws fixing a maximum. 

 It is evident that in this detailed scheme of the Laws agriculture must 

 have its position more clearly defined than in the Republic. 



1 Republ 547 b foil. 2 Republ 550-2. 



3 Laws 756 See Rep 565 a with Adam's note. 4 Laws 754. 



5 See Polilicus 293-7, Grote's Plato ill pp 309-10. 



6 Laws 737 foil, 922 a 9240;, called yew/j.6poi 919^ 7 Laws 744 </, e. 



