[1331a] particularly in view of the inventions that have now been made in the direction of precision with missiles and artillery for sieges. [loeb_subsection_7] To claim not to encompass cities with walls is like desiringPerhaps a word should be added to the Greek giving desiring to make the country easy to invade, and to strip it—. the country to be easy to invade and stripping it of hilly regions, and similarly not surrounding even private dwellings with house-walls on the ground that the inhabitants will be cowardly. Another point moreover that must not be forgotten is that those who have walls round the city can use their cities in both ways, both as walled cities and as open ones, whereas cities not possessing walls cannot be used in both ways. [loeb_subsection_8] If then this is so, not only must walls be put round a city, but also attention must be paid to them in order that they may be suitable both in regard to the adornment of the city and in respect of military requirements, especially the new devices recently invented. For just as the attackers of a city are concerned to study the means by which they can gain the advantage, so also for the defenders some devices have already been invented and others they must discover and think out; for people do not even start attempting to attack those who are well prepared.
And since the multitude of citizens must be distributedin separate messes, and the city walls must be divided up by guard-posts and towers in suitable places, it is clear that these facts themselves call for some of the messes to be organized at these guard-posts. These things then might be arranged in this manner.
[loeb_section_11] [loeb_subsection_1] But it is fitting that the dwellings assigned to the gods and the most important of the official messes should have a suitable site, and the same for all, excepting those temples which are assigned a special place apart by the law or else by some utterance of the Pythian oracle. And the site would be suitable if it is one that is sufficiently conspicuous in regard to the excellence of its position, and also of superior strength in regard to the adjacentparts of the city. [loeb_subsection_2] It is convenient that below this site should be laid out an agora of the kind customary in Thessalywhich they call a free agora, that is, one which has to be kept clear of all merchandise and into which no artisan or farmer or any other such person may intrude unless summoned by the magistrates. It would give amenity to the site if the gymnasia of the older men were also situated here—for it is proper to have this institution also divided according to ages,Or for in this noble practice different ages should be separated (Jowett). and for certain magistrates to pass their time among the youths while the older men spend theirs with the magistrates; for the presence of the magistrates before men’s eyes most engenders true respect and a freeman’s awe.
[1331b] The agora for merchandise must be different from the free agora, and in another place; it must have a site convenient for the collection there of all the goods sent from the seaport and from the country. [loeb_subsection_3] And as the divisions of the state’s populace includePerhaps the Greek should be altered to τὸ προεστός, as the governing class is divided into. priests and magistrates, it is suitable that the priests’ mess-rooms also should have their position round that of the sacred buildings. And all the magistracies that superintend contracts, and the registration of actions at law, summonses and other such matters of administration, and also those that deal with the control of the markets and with what is termed policing the city, should have buildings adjacent to an agora or some public place of resort, and such a place is the neighborhood of the business agora, for we assign the upper agora as the place in which to spend leisure, and this one for necessary business.
[loeb_subsection_4] The arrangements in the country also should copy the plan described; there too the magistrates called in some states Wardens of the Woods and in others Land-superintendents must have their guard-posts and mess-rooms for patrol duty, and also temples must be distributed over the country, some dedicated to gods and some to heroes. But to linger at this point over the detailed statement and discussion of questions of this kind is waste of time.The difficulty with such things is not so much in the matter of theory but in that of practice; to lay down principles is a work of aspiration, but their realization is the task of fortune. Hence we will relinquish for the present the further consideration of matters of this sort.
[loeb_section_12] [loeb_subsection_1] We must now discuss the constitution itself, and ask what and of what character should be the components of the state that is to have felicity and good government. There are two things in which the welfare of all men consists: one of these is the correct establishment of the aim and end of their actions, the other the ascertainment of the actions leading to that end. (For the end proposed and the means adopted may be inconsistent with one another, as also they may be consistent; sometimes the aim has been correctly proposed, but people fail to achieve it in action, sometimes they achieve all the means successfully but the end that they posited was a bad one, and sometimes they err as to both—for instance, in medicine practitioners are sometimes both wrong in their judgement of what qualities a healthy body ought to possess and unsuccessful in hitting on effective means to produce the distinctive aim that they have set before them; whereas in the arts and sciences both these things have to be secured, the end and the practical means to the end.) [loeb_subsection_2] Now it is clear that all men aim at the good life and at happiness, but though some possess the power to attain these things, some do not, owing to some factor of fortune or of nature