Minos

and barbarian, there are none who abstain from drinking parties and this play in which there is wine, other than the Cretans and, second, the Lacedaemonians, who learned it from the Cretans. In Crete this is one of the laws that Minos set down: not to drink with one another to the point of drunkenness.¹ Now it is clear that what he accepted as fine, these things he set down as lawful usages for his own citizens too. 320b For Minos did not, I suppose, like a sorry fellow, accept one thing and do another, contrary to what he accepted; no, this being with was, as I say, through words, for education towards virtue. That is why he set down these laws for his own citizens, because of which Crete has been happy for all time, and Lacedaemon too, ever since it began to use them, as they are divine.

Rhadamanthys was a good man; for he had been educated 320c by Minos. He had been educated, however, not in the whole of the kingly craft, but in service to the kingly craft, enough to preside in the courts; that is why he was said to be a good judge. For Minos used him as guardian of the laws in the town, and for the rest of Crete he used Talos. For Talos went round the villages three times a year, guarding the laws in them, holding the laws written on bronze tablets; that is why he was called bronze.² And Hesiod too has said things akin 320d to these about Minos. For when he mentions his name he says—

who became the kingliest of mortal kings, and ruled over the most people dwelling round, holding the scepter of Zeus; with it he was king over many too.³

And he too means by the scepter of Zeus nothing other than the education of Zeus, by which he guided Crete.