[1264a] And this very point also must not be ignored, that attention must be paid to length of time and to the long period of years, in which it would not have escaped notice if these measures were good ones; for nearly all of them have been discovered already, although some of them have not been collected together and others though brought to knowledge are not put into practice.[loeb_subsection_11] And their value would become most manifest if one could see such a constitution in actual process of formation; for one will only be able to construct Plato’s state by introducing its partitions and dividing up the community into common messes and also into brotherhoods and tribes. So that in the upshot no other regulation will have been enacted except the exemption of the Guardians from the work of agriculture, which is a measure that even now the Spartans attempt to introduce.
Moreover, the working of the constitution as a whole in regard to the members of the state has also not been described by Socrates, nor is it easy to say what it will be. Yet the general mass of the citizens of the other classes make almost the bulk of the state, and about these no definite regulations are laid down, as to whether the Farmers also are to have their property in common or to hold it in private ownership, and also whether community of wives and children is to apply to them or not.[loeb_subsection_12] For if the Farmers are to have the same complete communism, what will be the difference between them and the Guardian class? or what advantage will they gain by submitting to their government? or what consideration will induce them to submit tothe government, unless the Guardians adopt some clever device like that of the Cretans? These have conceded to their slaves all the same rights as they have themselves except that they are forbidden gymnastic exercises and the possession of arms. But if the family life and property of the Farmers are to be such as they are in other states, what sort of communism will there be? For there will inevitably be two states in one, and these antagonistic to one another. For Socrates makes the Guardians a sort of garrison, while the Farmers, Artisans and other classes are the citizens.Or (omitting τοὺς before τεχνίτας) For Socrates makes one set of men guardians, a sort of garrison, and another set farmers and artisans and citizens of the other sorts. [loeb_subsection_13] But quarrels and lawsuits and all the other evils which according to Socrates exist in actual states will all be found among his citizens too. Yet he says that owing to their education they will not need many regulations such as city and market by-laws and the other regulations of that sort, although he assigns his education only to the Guardians. Again, he makes the Farmers the masters of the estates, for which they pay rent; but they are likely to be far more unmanageable and rebellious than the classes of helots, serfs and slaves in certain states today.[loeb_subsection_14] However, whether this communism is to be compulsory for the Farmers in the same way as for the Guardians or whether it is not, has as a matter of fact not been definitely stated anywhere, nor is there any information about the connected questions, what are to be the political functions and the education of the lower classes, and the laws affecting them. But it is not easy to discover the answers to these questions, yet the character of the lower classes is of no small importance for the preservation of the community of the Guardians.
[1264b] But again, if Socrates intends to make the Farmers have their wives in common but their property private, who is to manage the household in the way in which the women’s husbands will carry on the work of the farms? And if the property and the wives of the Farmers are to be common A passage has been lost here.
[loeb_subsection_15] It is also strange that Socrates employs the comparison of the lower animals to show that the women are to have the same occupations as the men, considering that animals have no households to manage. Also Socrates’ method of appointing the magistrates is not a safe one. For he makes the same persons hold office always; but this occasions rebellion even among people of no special distinction, much more so then among high-spirited and warlike men. But it is clear that he is compelled to make the same persons govern always, for the god-given admixture of gold in the soul is not bestowed on some at one time and others at another time, but is always in the same men, and Socrates says that at the moment of birth some men receive an admixture of gold and others of silver and those who are to be the Artisans and Farmers an admixture of copper and iron. [loeb_subsection_16] And again, although he deprives the Guardians of happiness, he says that it is the duty of the law-giver to make the whole city happy. But it is not possible for the whole to be happy unless most or all of its parts, or some of them, possess happiness. For happiness is not a thing of the same sort as being an even number: that may belong to a whole but not to either of its parts, but happiness cannot belong to the whole and not to its parts. But yet, if the Guardians are not happy, what other class is? For clearly the Artisans and the general mass of the vulgar classes are not.
The Republic discussed by Socrates therefore possesses these difficulties and also others not smaller than these.
[loeb_section_3] [loeb_subsection_1] And almost the same holds good of the Laws also, which was written later, so that it will be advantageous to make some small examination of the constitution described in that book as well. For in the Republic Socrates has laid down details about very few matters—regulations about community of wives and children and about property, and the structure of the constitution (for the mass of the population is divided into two parts, one forming the Farmer class and the other the class that defends the state in war, and there is a third class drawn from these latter that forms the council and governs the state), but about the Farmers and the Artisans, whether they are excluded from government or have some part in it, and whether these classes also are to possess arms and to serve in war with the others or not, on these points Socrates has made no decision, but though he thinks that the women ought to serve in war with the Guardians and share the same education, the rest of the discourse he has filled up with external topics, and about the sort of education which it is proper for the Guardians to have.The last clause, and about—to have, has almost certainly been misplaced by a copyist, and should come near the beginning of the sentence, after about property.