Ath.Suppose that we leave to him the arrangement of details.But the general division of laws according to their importance into a first and second and third class,we who are lovers of law may make ourselves.
Meg.Very;good.
Ath.We maintain,then,that a State which would be safe and happy,as far as the nature of man allows,must and ought to distribute honour and dishonour in the right way.And the right way is to place the goods of the soul first and highest in the scale,always assuming temperance to be the condition of them;and to assign the second place to the goods of the body;and the third place to money and property.And it any legislator or state departs from this rule by giving money the place of honour,or in any way preferring that which is really last,may we not say,that he or the state is doing an unholy and unpatriotic thing?
Meg.Yes;let that be plainly declared.
Ath.The consideration of the Persian governments led us thus far to enlarge.We remarked that the Persians grew worse and worse.And we affirm the reason of this to have been,that they too much diminished the freedom of the people,and introduced too much of despotism,and so destroyed friendship and community of feeling.And when there is an end of these,no longer do the governors govern on behalf of their subjects or of the people,but on behalf of themselves;and if they think that they can gain ever so small an advantage for themselves,they devastate cities,and send fire and desolation among friendly races.And as they hate ruthlessly and horribly,so are they hated;and when they want the people to fight for them,they find no community of feeling or willingness to risk their lives on their behalf;their untold myriads are useless to them on the field of battle,and they think that their salvation depends on the employment of mercenaries and strangers whom they hire,as if they were in want of more men.And they cannot help being stupid,since they proclaim by actions that the ordinary distinctions of right and wrong which are made in a state are a trifle,when compared with gold and silver.
Meg.Quite true.
Ath.And now enough of the Persians,and their present maladministration of their government,which is owing to the excess of slavery and despotism among them.
Meg.Good.
Ath.Next,we must pass in review the government of Attica in like manner,and from this show that entire freedom and the absence of all superior authority is not by any means so good as government by others when properly limited,which was our ancient Athenian constitution at the time when the Persians made their attack on Hellas,or,speaking more correctly,on the whole continent of Europe.
There were four classes,arranged according to a property census,and reverence was our queen and mistress,and made us willing to live in obedience to the laws which then prevailed.Also the vastness of the Persian armament,both by sea and on land,caused a helpless terror,which made us more and more the servants of our rulers and of the laws;and for all these reasons an exceeding harmony prevailed among us.About ten years before the naval engagement at Salamis,Datis came,leading a Persian host by command of Darius,which was expressly directed against the Athenians and Eretrians,having orders to carry them away captive;and these orders he was to execute under pain of death.Now Datis and his myriads soon became complete masters of Eretria,and he sent a fearful report to Athens that no Eretrian had escaped him;for the soldiers of Datis had joined hands and netted the whole of Eretria.And this report,whether well or ill founded,was terrible to all the Hellenes,and above all to the Athenians,and they dispatched embassies in all directions,but no one was willing to come to their relief,with the exception of the Lacedaemonians;and they,either because they were detained by the Messenian war,which was then going on,or for some other reason of which we are not told,came a day too late for the battle of Marathon.
After a while,the news arrived of mighty preparations being made,and innumerable threats came from the king.Then,as time went on,a rumour reached us that Darius had died,and that his son,who was young and hot-headed,had come to the throne and was persisting in his design.The Athenians were under the impression that the whole expedition was directed against them,in consequence of the battle of Marathon;and hearing of the bridge over the Hellespont,and the canal of Athos,and the host of ships,considering that there was no salvation for them either by land or by sea,for there was no one to help them,and remembering that in the first expedition,when the Persians destroyed Eretria,no one came to their help,or would risk the danger of an alliance with them,they thought that this would happen again,at least on land;nor,when they looked to the sea,could they descry any hope of salvation;for they were attacked by a thousand vessels and more.One chance of safety remained,slight indeed and desperate,but their only one.They saw that on the former occasion they had gained a seemingly impossible victory,and borne up by this hope,they found that their only refuge was in themselves and in the Gods.All these things created in them the spirit of friendship;there was the fear of the moment,and there was that higher fear,which they had acquired by obedience to their ancient laws,and which I have several times in the preceding discourse called reverence,of which the good man ought to be a willing servant,and of which the coward is independent and fearless.If this fear had not possessed them,they would never have met the enemy,or defended their temples and sepulchres and their country,and everything that was near and dear to them,as they did;but little by little they would have been all scattered and dispersed.
Meg.Your words,Athenian,are quite true,and worthy of yourself and of your country.