The works of Plato · Plato
TIMÆUS, CRITIAS, SOCRATES, HERMOCRATES.
It was of square shape, mostly straight and oblong; and where it ended, they bounded it by a trench dug round it,—the depth, breadth, and length of which, for a work of man’s making, besides the other connected undertakings, we can scarcely believe, though still we must report what we heard. It was excavated to the depth of a plethrum, and the breadth was a stadium in every part,—the whole excavation made round the plain being ten thousand stadia in length. This, receiving the streams coming down from the mountains, and conducted all round the plain, approached the city in some parts, and in this way was allowed to flow out to the sea. From above, likewise, straight canals were cut about a hundred feet broad along the plain, back into the ditch near the sea, distant from one another about one hundred stadia:—and it was by this that they brought down the timber from the mountains to the city, and carried on the rest of their shipping-traffic, cutting transverse canals of communication into each other, and towards the city. Their harvest, also, they gathered twice in the year; in winter availing themselves of the rains, and in summer introducing on the land the streams from the trenches.
SECT. XIV.—As to the quantity [of land,] it was ordered, that of the men on the plain fit for service, each individual leader should have his allotment, each allotment amounting in extent to a hundred stadia, and the total of the lots being sixty thousand;—and of those from the mountains and the rest of the country there was said to be an incalculable number of men, to all of whom, according to their dwellings and villages, were assigned certain lots by their respective leaders. To each leader, likewise, the task was appointed of furnishing for war the sixth portion of a war-chariot (to make up a total of ten thousand), two riding horses, and a two-horse car without a driver’s seat, having a mounted charioteer to direct the horses,[389] with another to dismount and fight at the side,—also two heavy-armed soldiers, two archers, two slingers, three each of light-armed men, stone-shooters and javelin-men, with four sailors to make up a complement of one thousand two hundred ships. Thus were the military affairs of this city arranged. And as respects the nine others, there were different other arrangements, which it would be tedious to narrate. ----- Footnote 389: Gr. ἔτι δὲ ξυνωρίδα χωρὶς δίφρου καταβάτην τε σμικρασπίδα καὶ τὸν ἀμφοῖν μετ’ ἐπιβάτην τοῖν ἵπποιν ἡνίοχον ἔχουσαν. The old editions read καταβάτας.
And when they were about to judge, they previously gave each other pledges, according to the following fashion:—As there were bulls grazing at liberty in the temple of Poseidon, ten men only of the whole number, after invoking the god to receive their sacrifice propitiously, went out to hunt swordless, with staves and chains, and whichever of the bulls they took, they brought it to the column and slaughtered it at its head under the inscriptions:—and on the column, besides the laws, there was an oath written, invoking curses on the disobedient. When, therefore, in compliance with their laws, they sacrificed and burnt all the limbs of the bull, they filled a goblet with clots of blood, and threw the rest into the fire, by way of purifying the column:—and after this, dipping out of the goblet with golden cups, they poured libations down on the fire, and swore to do justice according to the laws on the column, to punish any one who had previously transgressed them, and besides that, never afterwards willingly to transgress the inscribed laws, nor ever to rule or obey any ruler governing otherwise than according to his father’s laws.
Then after invoking these curses on themselves and their descendants, and after drinking and depositing the cup in the temple of the God, and abiding a necessary time at supper, as soon as it was dark, and the fire round the sacrifice had been cooled, all of them dressed themselves in beautiful dark-blue robes, and sitting on the ground near the embers of the sacrifice on which they had sworn, extinguished during the night all the fire about the temple, and then mutually judged each other as respects any accusations of transgressing the laws;—and after their acts of judgment were over, when day came, they inscribed their decisions on a golden tablet and deposited them as memorials, together with their dresses. There were many other individual laws also respecting the privileges of the kings,—the chief being, that they should never wage war on each other, and that all should lend their aid, in case that any one in any of their cities should try to destroy the royal race,—consulting in common, as their ancestors did before them, as to the right course both in war and other concerns, and assigning the empire to the Atlantic race. They did not allow the king, however, any authority to put to death any of his kinsmen, unless approved of by more than half of the ten.
SECT. XVI.—Such then, and so great being the power at that time in those places, the Deity transferred it to these regions, as report goes, on the following pretexts:—For many generations, as long as the natural power of the god sufficed them, they remained obedient to the laws and kindly affected towards the divine nature to which they were allied:—for they possessed true and altogether lofty ideas, and practised mildness united with wisdom, in reference to the casual occurrences of life and towards each other. Hence, looking above everything except virtue, they considered things present as of small importance, and contentedly bore, as a burden, the mass of gold and other property; nor were they deceived by the intoxication of luxury, or rendered intemperate through wealth;—but on the other hand being sober, they acutely perceived that all these things are increased through common friendship mingled with virtue, and that by too anxiously pursuing and honouring them, these goods themselves are corrupted, and with them [friendship] itself likewise perishes. To such a mode of reasoning then, and the abiding of such a nature, was it owing that they made all the progress that we before described.
Text from Project Gutenberg, public domain in the United States.