The Great Flood

The third form of government is where all other forms and conditions of polities and cities concur.

Homer says this form follows the second.

This third form arose when Dardanus founded Dardania:

‘For not as yet had the holy Ilium been built on the plain to be a city of speaking men; but they were still dwelling at the foot of many-fountained Ida.’

In what he said of the Cyclopes, he speaks the words of God and nature.

For poets are a divine race, and often in their strains, by the aid of the Muses and the Graces, they attain truth.

Ilium was built after the Flood, when they descended from the mountain, in a large and fair plain, on a sort of low hill, watered by many rivers descending from Ida.

As population increased, many other cities would begin to be inhabited.

Those cities made war against Troy—by sea as well as land—for at that time men were ceasing to be afraid of the sea.

The Achaeans remained ten years, and overthrew Troy.

During the 10 years in which the Achaeans were besieging Ilium, the homes of the besiegers were falling into an evil plight.

Their youth revolted; and when the soldiers returned to their own cities and families, they did not receive them properly, and as they ought to have done, and numerous deaths, murders, exiles, were the consequence.

The exiles came again, under a new name, no longer Achaeans, but Dorians,—a name which they derived from Dorieus; for it was he who gathered them together.

The rest of the story is the history of Sparta.

Thus, after digressing from the original subject of laws into music and drinking-bouts, the argument has, providentially, come back to the same point, and presents to us another handle.

We have reached Sparta which is in laws and in institutions the sister of Crete.

And we are all the better for the digression, because we have gone through various governments and settlements, and have been present at the foundation of a first, second, and third state, succeeding one another in infinite time.

And now there appears on the horizon a fourth state or nation which was once in process of settlement and has continued settled to this day.

If, out of all this, we are able to discern what is well or ill settled, and what laws are the salvation and what are the destruction of cities, and what changes would make a state happy, O Megillus and Cleinias, we may now begin again, unless we have some fault to find with the previous discussion.

Let us place ourselves in thought at the moment when Sparta and Argos and Messene and the rest of the Peloponnesus were all in complete subjection, Megillus, to your ancestors.

They then divided their army into 3 and settled 3 cities:

1. Argos ruled by Temenus
2. Messene ruled by Cresphontes
3. Sparta ruled by Procles and Eurysthenes

To these kings all the men of that day made oath that they would assist them, if any one subverted their kingdom.

But a kingship or any other form of government can only be destroyed by the rulers themselves.

3 royal heroes made oath to 3 cities which were under a kingly government, and the cities to the kings, that both rulers and subjects should govern and be governed according to the laws which were common to all of them: the rulers promised that as time and the race went forward they would not make their rule more arbitrary.

The subjects said that, if the rulers observed these conditions, they would never subvert or permit others to subvert those kingdoms; the kings were to assist kings and peoples when injured, and the peoples were to assist peoples and kings in like manner. Is not this the fact?

The 3 states to whom these laws were given, whether their kings or any others were the authors of them, had therefore the greatest security for the maintenance of their constitutions – that the other 2 states were always to come to the rescue against a rebellious third.

Many persons say that legislators should impose such laws as the mass of the people will be ready to receive.

But this is just as if one were to command gymnastic masters or physicians to treat or cure their pupils or patients in an agreeable manner.

Whereas the physician may often be too happy if he can restore health, and make the body whole, without any very great infliction of pain.

There was also another advantage possessed by the men of that day, which greatly lightened the task of passing laws.

The legislators of that day, when they equalized property, escaped the great accusation which generally arises in legislation, if a person attempts to disturb the possession of land, or to abolish debts, because he sees that without this reform there can never be any real equality.

When the legislator attempts to make a new settlement of such matters, every one meets him with the cry, that ‘he is not to disturb vested interests,’—declaring with imprecations that he is introducing agrarian laws and cancelling of debts, until a man is at his wits’ end; whereas no one could quarrel with the Dorians for distributing the land,—there was nothing to hinder them; and as for debts, they had none which were considerable or of old standing.

But why did the settlement and legislation of their country turn out so badly?

There were 3 kingdoms. 2 quickly corrupted their original constitution and laws. Only Sparta remained.

What laws are more worthy of our attention than those which have regulated such cities? or what settlements of states are greater or more famous?

Can we doubt that your ancestors intended these institutions not only for the protection of Peloponnesus, but of all the Hellenes, in case they were attacked by the barbarian?

For the inhabitants of the region about Ilium, when they provoked by their insolence the Trojan war, relied upon the power of the Assyrians and the Empire of Ninus, which still existed and had a great prestige; the people of those days fearing the united Assyrian Empire just as we now fear the Great King.

The second capture of Troy was a serious offence against them, because Troy was a portion of the Assyrian Empire.

To meet the danger the single army was distributed between three cities by the royal brothers, sons of Heracles,—a fair device, as it seemed, and a far better arrangement than the expedition against Troy. For, firstly, the people of that day had, as they thought, in the Heraclidae better leaders than the Pelopidae; in the next place, they considered that their army was superior in valour to that which went against Troy; for, although the latter conquered the Trojans, they were themselves conquered by the Heraclidae—Achaeans by Dorians. May we not suppose that this was the intention with which the men of those days framed the constitutions of their states?

Would not men who had shared with one another many dangers, and were governed by a single race of royal brothers, and had taken the advice of oracles, and in particular of the Delphian Apollo, be likely to think that such states would be firmly and lastingly established?

Yet these institutions, of which such great expectations were entertained, seem to have all rapidly vanished away; with the exception, as I was saying, of that small part of them which existed in your land. And this third part has never to this day ceased warring against the two others; whereas, if the original idea had been carried out, and they had agreed to be one, their power would have been invincible in war.