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Laws I-II Trans & Comm 1 Plato: Laws, Books I and II Translated with commentary © Susan Sauvé Meyer 2012 (penultimate draft) to be published by Oxford University Press Clarendon Plato Series corrections welcome! [email protected] 2 Preface/Foreward Why the present volume? Students of Plato’s Laws already have the benefit of a several excellent commentaries and translations produced in the last century. England’s magisterial commentary on the Greek text (1922) continues to be a valuable resource to readers in English, as is the more limited set of notes on the text in Saunders 1972. Neither, however, offers much guidance on points of philosophical, as opposed to philological, interpretation. On many fronts both have been superseded by the excellent commentary in German, with accompanying translation, recently completed by Schöpsdau (1994-2011). The latter contains considerably more historical material than England, and is an indispensable resource for any serious scholarship on the Laws. Readers of Spanish or French have the benefit of up-to-date scholarly translations with accompanying notes by Lisi 1999 and Brisson/Pradeua (2006), respectively. The closest that readers in English have to a philosophical commentary on the Laws are the notes and long interpretive essay that accompany the 1980 translation by Pangle, and the detailed analysis by Strauss 1975, but the aggressively “Straussian” orientation of these works makes them less helpful to readers of other philosophical persuasions. Of course, no philosophical commentary can plausibly claim to be without theoretical presuppositions, and the orientation of the present work reflects presuppositions characteristic of scholarship on Plato by so-called “analytic” philosophers in the English-speaking world over the last four or five decades. The translation aims to be more idiomatic than Pangle’s, and is heavily indebted to the very elegant and readable translation by Saunders 1972. The latter translation reflects a detailed and nuanced appreciation of Plato’s Greek text that it would be a formidable task to match, but it is often less precise in its rendering of that text, on points crucial to the interpretation of the philosophical issues and arguments in the work, than is optimal for the Greekless reader. It is to the needs of such a reader that the present translation is addressed. The main concern of the commentary is to understand how the work is structured as a complex piece of argumentation, and to appreciate the theories (legal, ethical, and psychological) expounded and criticized within it. For the most part, it pays attention to textual or philological issue only when these have implications for these philosophical issues. While preparing the translation and commentary I have benefitted from the generosity and advice of many colleagues, friends, and correspondents: Elizabeth Asmis, Chris Bobonich, Anna Cremaldi, Radcliffe Edmonds III, Margaret Graver, Brad Inwood, Charles Kahn, Grace Ledbetter, Ralph Rosen, Krisanna Scheiter, Peter Struck, Christian Wildberg, and Emily Wilson, as well as an anonymous referee for Oxford University Press. I learned much from the students in my graduate seminar on the Laws in 2008 and have profited greatly from the research assistance provided by Nora Donovan, Jesse Dubois, and Jan Maximillian Robitzsch. Grants from School of Arts and Science and from the University Research Foundation of the University of Pennsylvania supported the 3 preparation of the final version of the manuscript, and a sabbatical leave from that same university gave me the intellectual leisure in which to complete the project. Susan Sauvé Meyer Philadelphia, Pennsylvania September 2012 4 THE LAWS OF PLATO Persons in the Dialogue: An Athenian, Clinias of Crete, Megillus of Sparta BOOK I 624a ATH: Is it a god or a human being, Strangers, who gets the credit for establishing your laws? CL: A god, Stranger, most assuredly a god! Here, we say it is Zeus while among the Spartans, where this man comes from, I believe they say it is Apollo. Isn’t that so? MEG: Yes. ATH: Isn’t your story the one in Homer, that Minos b established the laws for your cities by making pilgrimage to his father every nine years and following the oracles he received from him? CL: That is exactly what we say here, and also that his brother Rhadamanthus—you’ve heard the name, I’m sure— 625a was a paragon of justice. We Cretans would say he deserves this accolade from the excellent way he meted out justice in legal disputes. ATH: A fine reputation indeed, most appropriate to a son of Zeus. Now since you and our friend here have been raised under such distinguished laws, I expect you would not find it unpleasant if we spent our journey together in conversation about constitutions and laws. b In any case, the road from Knossos to the sacred cave of Zeus is fairly long, we are told, with shady places to rest along the way under tall trees. As the day is likely to be very hot, those at our stage of life would do well to take frequent breaks there and refresh ourselves with conversation. That way the distance will pass quite easily. CL: In fact, Stranger, there are cypress trees of wondrous 5 c height and beauty up ahead in the sacred groves, as well as meadows in which we might spend our time when resting along the way. ATH: A very good idea. CL: Indeed. When we see for ourselves, we shall think so all the more. So let us be off, and may good fortune go with us. ATH: Amen. Now tell me, on what principle has the law ordained your common meals, your regime of athletic training, and your style of arms? CL: I think our ways are pretty easy for anyone to understand, Stranger. The nature of the terrain all over Crete, you may observe, d is unlike the flat land of the Thessalians, which is why they train mainly on horseback and we on foot, our uneven terrain being well suited to foot racing. Our arms must accordingly be lightweight, so that we aren’t burdened down while we run. The lightness of bows and arrows, then, makes them the perfect weapons for us to use. All this equips us well for war, e and it is with the same end in view, I believe, that the lawgiver devised all our institutions—even our common meals. He organized these, I would venture, based on the observation that an army on the battlefield is compelled to eat together in order to maintain a proper guard. He had contempt for the folly of most people, who fail to grasp that everyone is engaged in a continuous life-long war against all other cities. If we must eat together in order to be on our guard during times of war, 626a with a roster of sentinels and their officers to keep watch, we should do likewise in peacetime—for what most people call peace is nothing but a name, while in fact every city is by nature always in an undeclared war against every other. If you look at it this way, you will discover, I submit, that it is with war in mind that the Cretan lawgiver established all the institutions that govern our public and private life. He b endowed us with laws to stand guard on the understanding that those who fail to prevail in war derive no benefit from anything else, whether possession or practice, since all the goods of the vanquished go to the victors. ATH: You evidently have a well trained understanding, Stranger, of Cretan institutions. But please clarify one point for me about the criterion you gave for a well governed city. c You are saying, I gather, that its affairs must be arranged to make it victorious in war over other cities. Isn’t that so? CL: Absolutely, and I think that our friend here agrees with me. MEG: How, sir, could a Spartan answer any differently? 6 ATH: Do you think that this is correct about the relations between cities, but that between villages it is different? CL: Not at all. ATH: So is it the same there? CL: Yes. ATH: What about relations between households within villages and between individual men? Is it still the same? CL: It is the same. d ATH: And a man in relation to himself— should we think of him as one enemy pitted against another? What is our position here? CL: Well done, Stranger from Athens—for I would not want to address you, as hailing from Attica, when are evidently more deserving of an appellation invoking the goddess! You invoke quite correctly the fundamental principle that clarifies the matter and will enable you to discover the truth of our present contention. Everyone is the enemy of everyone else in public life, and in private each person is pitted against himself. e ATH: My goodness! What do you mean? CL: In the latter contest, Stranger, victory over oneself is the highest and most excellent of all victories, whereas being “worsted by oneself” is the most shameful and wretched of defeats. These ways of speaking indicates that each of us is engaged in an internal war against himself. ATH: Well, let’s apply this thesis back to the previous cases. Since each of us as a single individual is either master of or worsted by himself, 627a should we say that the same thing happens in households, villages, and cities? Or should we deny it? CL: You are asking whether some of them are masters of themselves and others worsted by themselves? ATH: Yes. CL: Another good question. This sort of thing most emphatically does occur, especially within cities.
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