# Plato, *Minos*

## ΜΙΝΩΣ

The Greek text of John Burnet (Oxford, 1907; a later impression, printed by John Johnson, not before 1936), with a new English translation and notes.

**The complete dialogue · 313a–321d · Greek and English, with Notes**

Translation by Diotimos Editions, 2026.

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## Introduction

### The dialogue

The *Minos* is a conversation of two: Socrates and a companion whom the dialogue does not name; the list of persons calls him only *hetairos*, “companion”. There is no setting and no narrator. Socrates opens with a question, “What is law, for us?” (313a), and the talk runs on to the end without a word about where or when it takes place. Burnet names the speakers at the head of each speech; from 314c he runs most of the short exchanges together into a single paragraph, and this edition does the same on both pages.

It is short, nine pages of Stephanus’ edition (313a–321d), thirteen of Burnet’s. The ancient arrangement of Plato’s works by Thrasyllus, which Diogenes Laertius preserves (3.60), puts it first in the ninth and last tetralogy, before the *Laws*, the *Epinomis* and the *Letters*, with the subtitle “or On Law”, and classes it as “political”; Burnet’s fifth volume opens with it. Diogenes does not list it among the dialogues that were agreed to be spurious (3.62). Whether Plato wrote it has nevertheless been doubted since August Boeckh, in 1806, gave it to Simon the shoemaker, a companion of Socrates whose dialogues, Diogenes says, included one *On Law* (2.122); many scholars since have thought it the work of a later writer of Plato’s school, and some have defended it as Plato’s. This edition does not argue the question.

Nothing in the conversation fixes its date. The nearest thing to a clue is a remark of Socrates about the laws of the Spartans and their lawgiver Lycurgus: they are “not yet three hundred years old, perhaps, or a little more than that” (318c). Since Lycurgus’ date was disputed already in antiquity, the remark fixes nothing.

### The question and the answers

Socrates asks what law is, and he means it as a whole. Laws differ from one another no more than one piece of gold differs from another “in respect of being gold”: “each of them is law equally, not one more and another less. It is just this that I am asking: what law is, as a whole” (313a–b). The companion’s first answer is “what is accepted” (313b). Socrates shows him by examples that speech is not the things spoken, nor sight the things seen, nor hearing the things heard, and so law is not what is accepted (313b–c). What, then, is that law by which “what is accepted is accepted”? Is it “some perception or revealing”, as the things learned are learned by knowledge revealing them, or “some finding”, as medicine finds what is healthy and prophecy what the gods have in mind (314a–b)?

The companion’s second answer is “These resolutions and decrees”: law is “a resolution of the city” (314b–c). Socrates turns the word at once: “It is opinion, it seems, that you say law is: political opinion” (314c). He then gets the companion to agree that law is “something most fine”, that it preserves cities as lawlessness destroys them, and that it must be sought “as a good” (314d). Since some resolutions are “decent” and others “base”, and law was not base, law cannot simply be the city’s resolution; if it is opinion, it is decent opinion, and decent opinion is true opinion, and true opinion is “the discovery of what is”. So, Socrates concludes, “Law, then, wishes to be the discovery of what is” (314d–315a).

### The argument’s main stretch

The companion objects from experience. If law is the discovery of what is, why do we not always use the same laws about the same things (315a)? Socrates answers that law wishes none the less to be the discovery of what is, and that those who do not always use the same laws “are, it turns out, not always able to discover what law wishes, what is” (315a–b). The companion presses the point: laws differ from people to people and from age to age; the Carthaginians sacrifice human beings, some of them even their own sons; so do Greeks in Lycaea and the descendants of Athamas; and the Athenians themselves once slaughtered victims before a funeral and earlier still buried their dead in the house (315b–d). Socrates now changes the method: as long as each of them speaks by himself, “in a long speech”, they will never come to terms, but if what is looked into “is put in common”, they might agree (315d–e).

In short questions he then shows that what is accepted as just, as heavier, as fine, is the same everywhere, and that “it is the things that are that are accepted as being, not the things that are not, both among us and among all others”; so “Whoever misses what is, then, misses the lawful” (315e–316b). The companion is still not persuaded, since “we never stop changing our laws up and down” (316b–c). Socrates turns to the crafts. Doctors write about health what they also accept as being, and those who know accept the same things everywhere and always; the writings of doctors are laws of medicine, as those of farmers, gardeners and cooks are laws of farming, gardening and cookery (316c–317a). The writings about the ordering of a city belong to those who know how to rule cities, “the statesmen and the kingly men”, and these are writings “which people call laws, writings of kings and good men” (317a–b). Those who know how will not write different things at different times about the same things, nor change their lawful usages; so whatever is right is lawful, and “what is right is kingly law”, while what is not right, though it seems law to those who do not know, “is lawless” (317b–c). “Rightly, then, we agreed that law is the finding of what is” (317d).

Socrates then turns to *nemein*, “distribute”, the verb from which the word for law comes, though he never names the connection (see Key Words, *Distribute, distributor; tend*). A farmer is “a good distributor” of seeds, giving each soil the seeds that are due to it, and his laws and distributions in these matters are right; so with the flute-player and the cithara-player, the trainer of the body, the shepherd and the oxherd; and the best laws “for the souls of men” are the king’s (317d–318a).

### The ending

The talk turns to the oldest laws. In music, the good lawgiver of old was Marsyas, with Olympus, his beloved, whose tunes “alone move and reveal those who are in need of the gods” (318b). Among kings, the laws of the Spartans are younger; the best of them, the companion says, came from Crete, whose people use the oldest laws, and their makers were Minos and Rhadamanthys (318c–d). When the companion repeats the Athenian view of Minos as “a savage one, harsh and unjust”, Socrates calls it “an Attic tale … and a tragic one”, and sets against it Homer and Hesiod (318d–e). He reads Homer’s line on Minos as saying that he met Zeus every ninth year “in words” and was educated by him, “as by a sophist”, a privilege Homer gave to no other hero (319b–320b); Rhadamanthys, Minos’ pupil, served the kingly craft as a judge, and Talos guarded the laws in the villages of Crete (320b–c); Hesiod’s “scepter of Zeus” is the education by which Minos guided Crete (320d). Minos’ bad name, Socrates says, comes from the poets, who “have great power over opinion”: Minos made war on Athens, a city full of poets, and in tragedy, Socrates says, “we stretch Minos out and take vengeance on him” for the tribute he exacted (320e–321a). The greatest sign that he was good, Socrates says, is that his laws are “unmoved” (321b).

The last exchange returns to the distributor. If someone should ask what the good lawgiver and distributor for the body distributes to the body to make it better, they would answer, well and briefly: food and labors (321c). But if he asked what the good lawgiver and distributor distributes to the soul to make it better, Socrates asks what answer they could give and not be ashamed, and the companion admits, “This I can no longer say.” Socrates ends with the shame of it: our souls “should appear not to know the things within them”, though they have looked into the things of the body (321d).

### What is most exposed

A first-time reader is likely to be troubled at four points. The first is the step from law’s being something most fine to its being true opinion (314d–315a): it shows only that a base resolution is not law. That law is opinion at all is kept a condition, “if law is opinion”, though Socrates says it appears so to him too (314e); and that decent opinion is true opinion rests on the companion’s “Yes”. The second is the answer to the companion’s objection. Socrates does not deny that cities differ in their customs; he shows that what is accepted as heavy or as fine is the same everywhere, and that the writings of those who know are the same, and from this he concludes that whatever is not right is not law at all (317c). The companion’s human sacrifices are not examined again: Carthage and Lycaea return only as places where things that weigh more are accepted as heavier (316a); the reader must decide whether they have been answered or set aside. The third is the praise of Minos (318d–321b). Its main support is Socrates’ reading of one line of Homer: he takes *enneōros*, “nine-yearly”, a word of uncertain sense, with “confidant”, of a meeting with Zeus every ninth year, and he takes *oaristēs*, “confidant”, to mean “one who is with another in words”, for education, against those who make the confidant Zeus’s “drinking-companion and playfellow”; the note at 319b gives what is known of *enneōros*. The fourth is the ending: the dialogue asks what the good lawgiver distributes to the soul and does not say.

### The manner

The manner is plainer than in many of Socrates’ conversations. The companion is quick to answer and quick to object, and Socrates is patient with him, but there is wit. His first reply, “Why? Is there anything in which law differs from law in this very respect, in being law?” (313a), turns back the companion’s question “Which of the laws are you asking about?” The long exchanges that Burnet runs together move fast, a word or two to each answer, as when Socrates asks “Then the lawful too are lawful by law?” and, on the companion’s “Yes”, “And the lawless are lawless by lawlessness?” (314c–d). The companion’s version of Minos is answered with a joke at Athens’ expense, “That is an Attic tale you are telling, my excellent friend, and a tragic one” (318d), and the warning that follows, about the god’s indignation at those who censure the good, is solemn and a little grand. The last turn against the poets is sharp: Minos’ mistake was “waging war against this city, in which there is much wisdom besides, and poets of every sort”, and so Athens, which once paid him tribute, now takes its vengeance in tragedy (320e–321a).

### On reading this edition

Each left-hand page is one page of Burnet’s Greek, line for line, with his margin and apparatus; the right-hand page opposite translates it. The letters in the margins of both pages (a–e) mark the sections of Stephanus’ pages, by which Plato is cited; the numbers 314 to 321 mark where each of his pages begins. Where Burnet runs short exchanges together, the speakers’ names follow a dash within the paragraph, in the Greek and in the English alike. Words in angle brackets ⟨ ⟩ are supplied by editors and are not in the manuscripts (316a, 321d). The notes are numbered afresh on each page. At the back of the volume are an Outline of the argument, an Editorial Note on Burnet’s text, his apparatus and the translation, a Glossary of the key terms with the places where they occur, and a Note on how this edition was made.

### A note on the persons

The companion is no one in particular: the dialogue gives him no name and no age, and Socrates calls him only “my excellent friend”. He is an Athenian, for he speaks of “us” and our laws; he knows the Athenian customs he cites, and his picture of Minos, Socrates says, comes from the makers of tragedy.

Minos and Rhadamanthys are, for Socrates, “the sons of Zeus and Europa” (318d); Homer has Zeus name their mother only as the daughter of Phoenix (*Iliad* 14.321–322). Socrates’ Minos is the lawgiver of Crete, taught by Zeus; the Athenian tradition he rejects is that of a savage and unjust king. He does not deny the tribute that Minos exacted from Athens (321a); the story that it was a tribute of young Athenians for the Minotaur, and that Minos was always ill spoken of in the Attic theaters, is told later by Plutarch (*Theseus* 15–16). Talos, in Socrates’ account the guardian of the laws in the villages of Crete, called “bronze” because he carried the laws on bronze tablets, is in Apollonius of Rhodes a man of bronze who runs round the island (*Argonautica* 4.1638–1648). Marsyas, the satyr, and Olympus the Phrygian were the legendary masters of the flute. Lycurgus was the lawgiver of Sparta, whose date was disputed already in antiquity. Thespis was said to have been the first to produce tragedy at Athens, and Phrynichus, called his pupil, was among the earliest tragic poets after him; Socrates denies that tragedy began with either. The notes identify each of them where he appears.

## Key Words of the Dialogue

Each entry says what the word meant in Athens, what the dialogue does with it, and how it is rendered. The Glossary at the back lists the renderings with the places where they matter.

### Law (nomos)

*Nomos* meant both “law” and “custom”: the laws written up by a city and voted by its Assembly, and the usages a people keeps without writing them down. The dialogue begins by asking what it is “as a whole” (313b), and the companion’s answers draw on both senses: “what is accepted” is custom, “a resolution of the city” is the written law. The word also had a sense in music: a *nomos*, a nome, was a traditional piece for the flute or the cithara, and Socrates speaks of “the laws for the flute” (318b) and the one “most skilled in law” among flute-players (317e). The English renders *nomos* “law” every time, so that the play can be followed; the notes say where the musical sense is in play. The word comes from the verb *nemein*, “distribute”, which the argument uses at 317d (see *Distribute, distributor; tend*).

### Accept, what is accepted (nomizein, ta nomizomena)

*Nomizein*, the verb made from *nomos*, meant “hold as customary”, and so “accept”, “believe”, “think”. The companion’s first definition is *ta nomizomena*, “what is accepted” (313b), the things a people holds as right; the question Socrates imagines being put to them turns on the root: “what is accepted is accepted by law” (314a). The verb recurs throughout the argument: just things are “accepted” as just, things that weigh more as heavier, the things that are as being (315e–316b), those who know “accept the same things” (316d), and Minos set down as lawful usages “what he accepted as fine” (320a–b). The English renders it “accept” every time. It cannot keep the root, which the Greek hears in every use, but it keeps the repetition. The series’ earlier volumes, where the word is incidental, render it as the sense asks: “consider” (*Lovers* 133b), “hold” (*Alcibiades I* 130d).

### Lawful, lawless (nomimos, ta nomima; anomos, anomia)

*Nomimos*, “lawful”, is what accords with *nomos*; *ta nomima*, “lawful usages”, are the customs and rules of a people or a craft. The dialogue uses them to tie law to justice and to what is: “the lawful too are lawful by law” (314c), and “Whoever misses what is, then, misses the lawful” (316b). The writings of the crafts are “writings and lawful usages” (316e–317a), and “whatever is right, we shall say it is lawful” (317b). *Anomos* and *anomia*, “lawless” and “lawlessness”, are what lacks law: the lawless are unjust (314d), and what is not right, though it seems law to those who do not know, “is lawless” (317c). The English keeps one rendering for each, so that the family of *nomos* stays visible.

### Distribute, distributor; tend (nemein, dianemein, dianomē; nomeus)

*Nemein* meant “distribute”, “deal out”, and also “pasture”, “graze” a flock; from it comes *nomos* itself, and *nomeus*, which meant both “distributor” and “herdsman”. At 317d–318a Socrates uses the family to say what a law is: the farmer is “a good distributor” of seeds, giving each soil those due to it, and his “laws and distributions” are right; the flute-player distributes strokes for the tunes, the trainer food to the body. With a herd as its object the verb is “tend”: the trainer tends “the human herd in its body”, the shepherd the sheep (318a). The two senses meet again at the end, where the best lawgivers are “distributors and shepherds of men” (321c), and the last question asks what the good lawgiver distributes to the soul (321d). The English keeps “distribute” and “distributor” every time, and “tend” where the object is a herd.

### Resolution, decree, opinion (dogma, psēphisma, doxa)

A *dogma* was what “seemed good” (*dokein*) to a body that decided, as in the Assembly’s formula “it seemed good to the people”; a *psēphisma* was a measure passed by vote. The companion’s second answer is “These resolutions and decrees” (314b). Socrates turns *dogma* into *doxa*, “opinion”, from the same verb: “political opinion” (314c). The argument then works with opinion: law is not the base opinion, so it is the decent one, and decent opinion is true opinion (314e–315a). *Doxa* also meant one’s standing in others’ opinion, and at the end the poets “have great power over opinion”, so that Minos “has come to be held in worse opinion” (320e–321b). The English renders *dogma* “resolution”, *psēphisma* “decree” and *doxa* “opinion” throughout, the last as the series does.

### Decent and base (chrēstos, ponēros)

*Chrēstos*, from the verb “use”, meant “useful”, “good” in the sense of serviceable and honest; *ponēros*, “bad”, “worthless”, “wicked”. The argument needs the pair at 314e: there are “decent resolutions, and base ones”, law was “not base”, and so law is “the decent” opinion. They return in the warning at 319a: one must learn “to distinguish decent men from base”, for of all these the base human being is “the most polluted”. The English uses “decent” and “base”, as the series does, and keeps “good” for *agathos*, the word of 314d (“seek it as a good”) and of the good lawgiver and distributor (317d–321d).

### What is; find, discover (to on; heuriskein, exeuriskein)

*To on*, “what is”, the participle of “to be” with the article, meant both “what exists” and “what is so”, “the truth”. The dialogue’s central definition is that law “wishes to be the discovery of what is” (315a), and its proof is that “it is the things that are that are accepted as being” (316b). The finding of things is first the work of craft: “craft … is our finding of things” (314b). The Greek has two verbs, *heuriskein*, “find”, with *heuresis*, “finding”, and the compound *exeuriskein*, “discover”, with *exeuresis*, “discovery”; the English keeps them apart. Law is “the discovery of what is” at 315a, and “the finding of what is” in the recapitulation at 317d; and Minos’ laws are unmoved “as of one who discovered well the truth” (321b).

### Wish (boulesthai)

The definition says that law “wishes to be” the discovery of what is (315a). *Boulesthai* is the ordinary verb for wishing and wanting; said of a thing, it can also mean “mean” or “tend to be”, and Lamb’s Loeb translation takes it so here (“tends to be”). The English keeps “wish”, because Socrates’ answer to the companion turns on the gap between what law wishes and what men achieve: people who do not always use the same laws “are, it turns out, not always able to discover what law wishes, what is” (315b).

### Writing, those who know (syngramma; epistēmōn, epistasthai)

A *syngramma* was any written work, a treatise or a code. Socrates’ answer to the objection rests on the writings of the crafts: “a writing about the health of the sick” (316c), writings on farming, gardening and cookery, and the writings about the ordering of a city, writings “which people call laws, writings of kings and good men” (317a–b). Those who write them are “those who have knowledge” (*epistēmones*) and “those who know how” (*epistasthai*, with an infinitive expressed or understood), and the argument turns on the fact that they “will not write different things at different times about the same things” (317b). The English keeps “writing” throughout; it renders *epistēmōn* “one who has knowledge” and *epistasthai* “know how”, as the series does, and keeps “know” for *eidenai*, the word of “those who know” (316d, 317c) and of the souls that do not know (321d).

### Kingly; statesmen (basilikos; politikoi)

*Basilikos*, “kingly”, is the word Socrates gives the craft of ruling: “the statesmen and the kingly men” are those who know how to rule cities (317a), “what is right is kingly law” (317c), and the king’s laws are best for souls (318a). Rhadamanthys had been educated “not in the whole of the kingly craft, but in service to the kingly craft” (320c). *Politikos*, from *polis*, “city”, is “political” in “political opinion” (314c); the *politikoi* are “statesmen”, as in the series, and their works are “statesmen’s writings” (317a).

### Being with; confidant (synousia, synousiastēs, syngignesthai; oaristēs)

*Synousia*, “being with”, was the ordinary word for time spent together, and for the bond between a teacher and his pupils. Socrates reads Homer’s word for Minos, *oaristēs*, “confidant”, from *oaroi*, “confidences”, as meaning “one who is with another in words” (319e); Minos “used to come to be with Zeus in the ninth year, in words” (319c), and “this being with was, as I say, through words, for education towards virtue” (320b). The English keeps “being with” and “come to be with” as the series does (the *Theages*), and renders *synousiastēs*, a word new to the series, “one who is with”, so that the family is heard.

### Education, sophist (paideia, paideuein; sophistēs)

*Paideia*, from *pais*, “child”, meant the rearing and training of the young, and so “education”; *paideuein* is “educate”. The praise of Minos turns on his being educated by Zeus: Zeus “is a sophist”, and Minos went to him “to be educated by Zeus, as by a sophist” (319c). *Sophistēs* had once meant any master of a skill or of wisdom; by Socrates’ time it was the name of the paid teachers, and Socrates gives it to Zeus as Minos’ teacher, whose craft is “a very fine one” (319c). Rhadamanthys “had been educated by Minos” (320b–c), and the report the companion asks about makes Minos “an uneducated and harsh man” (320e). The English keeps “education”, “educate” and “sophist”.

*In this reading text each Burnet page is given as Greek (line for line, with Burnet’s margin numbers in bold at the line ends; italic marks his letterspaced quotation), his apparatus, then the English and its notes.*

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## 313a–313c

### Greek (Burnet, page 1)

**ΜΙΝΩΣ ἢ ΠΕΡΙ ΝΟΜΟΥ** · ΣΩΚΡΑΤΗΣ ΕΤΑΙΡΟΣ · *St. II p. 313*

 ΣΩ. Ὁ νόμος ἡμῖν τί ἐστιν; **a**\
 ΕΤ. Ὁποῖον καὶ ἐρωτᾷς τῶν νόμων;\
 ΣΩ. Τί δ’; ἔστιν ὅτι διαφέρει νόμος νόμου κατ’ αὐτὸ\
τοῦτο, κατὰ τὸ νόμος εἶναι; σκόπει γὰρ δὴ ὃ τυγχάνω\
ἐρωτῶν σε. ἐρωτῶ γάρ, ὥσπερ εἰ ἀνηρόμην τί ἐστιν χρυσός, **5**\
εἴ με ὡσαύτως ἀνήρου ὁποῖον καὶ λέγω χρυσόν, οἴομαί σε\
οὐκ ἂν ὀρθῶς ἐρέσθαι. οὐδὲν γάρ που διαφέρει οὔτε χρυσὸς\
χρυσοῦ οὔτε λίθος λίθου κατά γε τὸ λίθος εἶναι καὶ κατὰ **b**\
τὸ χρυσός· οὕτω δὲ οὐδὲ νόμος που νόμου οὐδὲν διαφέρει,\
ἀλλὰ πάντες εἰσὶν ταὐτόν. νόμος γὰρ ἕκαστος αὐτῶν ἐστιν\
ὁμοίως, οὐχ ὁ μὲν μᾶλλον, ὁ δ’ ἧττον· τοῦτο δὴ αὐτὸ ἐρωτῶ,\
τὸ πᾶν τί ἐστιν νόμος. εἰ οὖν σοι πρόχειρον, εἰπέ. **5**\
 ΕΤ. Τί οὖν ἄλλο νόμος εἴη ἄν, ὦ Σώκρατες, ἀλλ’ ἢ τὰ\
νομιζόμενα;\
 ΣΩ. Ἦ καὶ λόγος σοι δοκεῖ εἶναι τὰ λεγόμενα, ἢ ὄψις\
τὰ ὁρώμενα, ἢ ἀκοὴ τὰ ἀκουόμενα; ἢ ἄλλο μὲν λόγος, ἄλλο\
δὲ τὰ λεγόμενα· καὶ ἄλλο μὲν ὄψις, ἄλλο δὲ τὰ ὁρώμενα· **c**

> *Apparatus:* **a** 1 ὁ F: abscisso margine periit in A   **a** 2 ὁποῖον A F Alexander: ποῖον Hermann   τῶν νόμων A F Alexander: τὸν νόμον vulg.   **a** 5 εἰ ἀνηρόμην A: εἰ ἀνηρώμην F: ἂν εἰ ἠρόμην Hermann   **a** 6 με A: μὲν F   ἀνήρου A: ἂν ἤρου F   οἴομαί A: οἶμαί F   **a** 7 ἔρεσθαι A: αἴρεσθαι F   **b** 5 εἰπέ A: εἶπε F   **b** 9 ἄλλο δὲ A: ἄλλα δὲ F (et mox ἄλλα δὲ τὰ ὁρώμενα)   **c** 1 καὶ ἄλλο . . . ὁρώμενα F: om. A

### English

**Soc.** **[313]** What is law, for us?[^1]

**Comp.** Which of the laws are you asking about?[^2]

**Soc.** Why? Is there anything in which law differs from law in this very respect, in being law? Just look into what I am in fact asking you. For I am asking as I would if I had asked what gold is: if you had asked me in the same way which gold I meant, I think you would not have asked rightly. For gold does not differ at all, I suppose, **[b]** from gold, nor stone from stone, in respect at least of being stone and in respect of being gold; and so too law, I suppose, does not differ from law at all; they are all the same thing. For each of them is law equally, not one more and another less. It is just this that I am asking: what law is, as a whole. So if you have it ready to hand, tell me.

**Comp.** What else, then, would law be, Socrates, but what is accepted?[^3]

**Soc.** Do you also think that speech is the things spoken, or sight the things seen, or hearing the things heard? Or is speech one thing **[c]** and the things spoken another, and sight one thing and the things seen another,

[^1]: *Law*: *nomos*, here and throughout. The word also means “custom”, “usage”; the argument needs one English word, and the companion’s first definition (313b) turns on its root.

[^2]: *Comp.*: the list of persons calls Socrates’ partner only *hetairos*, “companion”; the dialogue does not name him.

[^3]: *What is accepted*: *ta nomizomena*, the participle of *nomizein*, “hold as customary, accept, believe”, the verb made from *nomos*. The English renders *nomizein* “accept” every time; the play on the root in “what is accepted is accepted by law” (314a, *nomōi ta nomizomena nomizetai*) cannot be heard in English.

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## 313c–314c

### Greek (Burnet, page 2)

καὶ ἄλλο μὲν ἀκοή, ἄλλο δὲ τὰ ἀκουόμενα, καὶ ἄλλο δὴ\
νόμος, ἄλλο δὲ τὰ νομιζόμενα; οὕτως ἢ πῶς σοι δοκεῖ;\
 ΕΤ. Ἄλλο μοι νῦν ἐφάνη.\
 ΣΩ. Οὐκ ἄρα νόμος ἐστὶν τὰ νομιζόμενα. **5**\
 ΕΤ. Οὔ μοι δοκεῖ.\
 ΣΩ. Τί δῆτ’ ἂν εἴη νόμος; ἐπισκεψώμεθ’ αὐτὸ ὧδε. εἴ\
τις ἡμᾶς τὰ νυνδὴ λεγόμενα ἀνήρετο, “Ἐπειδὴ ὄψει φατὲ\
τὰ ὁρώμενα ὁρᾶσθαι, τίνι ὄντι τῇ ὄψει ὁρᾶται;” ἀπεκρινάμεθ’ **314**\
ἂν αὐτῷ ὅτι αἰσθήσει ταύτῃ τῇ διὰ τῶν ὀφθαλμῶν δηλούσῃ\
τὰ πράγματα· εἰ δ’ αὖ ἤρετο ἡμᾶς, “Τί δέ; ἐπειδὴ ἀκοῇ τὰ\
ἀκουόμενα ἀκούεται, τίνι ὄντι τῇ ἀκοῇ;” ἀπεκρινάμεθ’ ἂν\
αὐτῷ ὅτι αἰσθήσει ταύτῃ τῇ διὰ τῶν ὤτων δηλούσῃ ἡμῖν τὰς **5**\
φωνάς. οὕτω τοίνυν καὶ εἰ ἀνέροιτο ἡμᾶς, “Ἐπειδὴ νόμῳ\
τὰ νομιζόμενα νομίζεται, τίνι ὄντι τῷ νόμῳ νομίζεται;\
πότερον αἰσθήσει τινὶ ἢ δηλώσει, ὥσπερ τὰ μανθανόμενα **b**\
μανθάνεται δηλούσῃ τῇ ἐπιστήμῃ, ἢ εὑρέσει τινί, ὥσπερ τὰ\
εὑρισκόμενα εὑρίσκεται, οἷον τὰ μὲν ὑγιεινὰ καὶ νοσώδη\
ἰατρικῇ, ἃ δὲ οἱ θεοὶ διανοοῦνται, ὥς φασιν οἱ μάντεις, μαν-\
τικῇ; ἡ γάρ που τέχνη ἡμῖν εὕρεσίς ἐστιν τῶν πραγμάτων· **5**\
ἦ γάρ;”\
 ΕΤ. Πάνυ γε.\
 ΣΩ. Τί οὖν ἂν τούτων ὑπολάβοιμεν μάλιστα τὸν νόμον\
εἶναι;\
 ΕΤ. Τὰ δόγματα ταῦτα καὶ ψηφίσματα, ἔμοιγε δοκεῖ. **10**\
τί γὰρ ἂν ἄλλο τις φαίη νόμον εἶναι; ὥστε κινδυνεύει, ὃ\
σὺ ἐρωτᾷς, τὸ ὅλον τοῦτο, νόμος, δόγμα πόλεως εἶναι. **c**\
 ΣΩ. Δόξαν, ὡς ἔοικε, λέγεις πολιτικὴν τὸν νόμον.\
 ΕΤ. Ἔγωγε.

> *Apparatus:* **c** 2 ἄλλο δὲ A: ἄλλα δὲ F   **c** 3 ἄλλο δὲ A: ἄλλα δὲ F   post νομιζόμενα b8 ἦ καὶ . . . c3 νομιζόμενα (omissis b9 ἢ ἄλλο . . . c2 ἀκουόμενα) iterat F   **c** 4 ἄλλό μοι A: ἀλλ’ ὅμοιον F   **c** 8 ἀνήρετο A: ἂν ἤρετο F   **a** 3 τὰ πράγματα A F: ἡμῖν τὰ χρώματα vulg.   ἡμᾶς A F: om. vulg.   ἀκοῇ A: om. F   **a** 5 ὅτι αἰσθήσει ταύτῃ in marg. A²: ὅτι αἰσθήσει F: om A   **b** 3 καὶ A: καὶ τὰ F   **b** 4 μαντικῇ· ἡ A: μαντικὴ F

### English

and hearing one thing and the things heard another, and so law one thing and what is accepted another? Is it so, or how does it seem to you?

**Comp.** Now they appear to me to be different.

**Soc.** So law is not what is accepted.

**Comp.** I do not think so.

**Soc.** Then what might law be? Let us look into it in this way. If someone had asked us about the things we were just saying, “Since you say that **[314]** the things seen are seen by sight, what is the sight by which they are seen?”, we would have answered him that it is perception, the kind that reveals things through the eyes. And if again he had asked us, “Well? Since the things heard are heard by hearing, what is the hearing?”, we would have answered him that it is perception, the kind that reveals sounds to us through the ears. So too, then, if he should ask us, “Since what is accepted is accepted by law, what is the law by which it is accepted? **[b]** Is it some perception or revealing, as the things learned are learned by knowledge revealing them, or some finding, as the things found are found: what is healthy and what is sickly, for instance, by medicine, and what the gods have in mind, as the prophets say, by prophecy? For craft, I suppose, is our finding of things; isn’t that so?”

**Comp.** Certainly.

**Soc.** Then which of these would we most take law to be?

**Comp.** These resolutions and decrees,[^4] I think. For what else would anyone say law is? So it looks as though what **[c]** you are asking about, this whole thing, law, is a resolution of the city.

**Soc.** It is opinion, it seems, that you say law is: political opinion.

**Comp.** I do.

[^4]: *Resolutions*: *dogmata*, from *dokein*, “seem (good)”, the verb of the Assembly’s formula “it seemed good to the people”; *decrees*: *psēphismata*, measures passed by vote. Socrates turns *dogma* at once into *doxa*, “opinion”, from the same verb.

---

## 314c–315a

### Greek (Burnet, page 3)

 ΣΩ. Καὶ ἴσως καλῶς λέγεις· τάχα δὲ ὧδε ἄμεινον εἰσό-\
μεθα. λέγεις τινὰς σοφούς;—ΕΤ. Ἔγωγε.—ΣΩ. Οὐκοῦν **5**\
οἱ σοφοί εἰσιν σοφίᾳ σοφοί;—ΕΤ. Ναί.—ΣΩ. Τί δέ; οἱ\
δίκαιοι δικαιοσύνῃ δίκαιοι;—ΕΤ. Πάνυ γε.—ΣΩ. Οὐκοῦν\
καὶ οἱ νόμιμοι νόμῳ νόμιμοι;—ΕΤ. Ναί.—ΣΩ. Οἱ δὲ\
ἄνομοι ἀνομίᾳ ἄνομοι;—ΕΤ. Ναί.—ΣΩ. Οἱ δὲ νόμιμοι δί- **d**\
καιοι;—ΕΤ. Ναί.—ΣΩ. Οἱ δὲ ἄνομοι ἄδικοι;—ΕΤ. Ἄδικοι.\
—ΣΩ. Οὐκοῦν κάλλιστον ἡ δικαιοσύνη τε καὶ ὁ νόμος;—\
ΕΤ. Οὕτως.—ΣΩ. Αἴσχιστον δὲ ἡ ἀδικία τε καὶ ἡ ἀνομία;\
—ΕΤ. Ναί.—ΣΩ. Καὶ τὸ μὲν σῴζει τὰς πόλεις καὶ τἆλλα **5**\
πάντα, τὸ δὲ ἀπόλλυσι καὶ ἀνατρέπει;—ΕΤ. Ναί.—ΣΩ. Ὡς\
περὶ καλοῦ ἄρα τινὸς ὄντος δεῖ τοῦ νόμου διανοεῖσθαι, καὶ\
ὡς ἀγαθὸν αὐτὸ ζητεῖν.—ΕΤ. Πῶς δ’ οὔ;\
 ΣΩ. Οὐκοῦν δόγμα ἔφαμεν εἶναι πόλεως τὸν νόμον;—\
ΕΤ. Ἔφαμεν γάρ.—ΣΩ. Τί οὖν; οὐκ ἔστιν τὰ μὲν χρηστὰ **e**\
δόγματα, τὰ δὲ πονηρά;—ΕΤ. Ἔστιν μὲν οὖν.—ΣΩ. Καὶ\
μὴν νόμος γε οὐκ ἦν πονηρός.—ΕΤ. Οὐ γάρ.—ΣΩ. Οὐκ\
ἄρα ὀρθῶς ἔχει ἀποκρίνεσθαι οὕτως ἁπλῶς ὅτι νόμος ἐστὶ\
δόγμα πόλεως.—ΕΤ. Οὐκ ἔμοιγε δοκεῖ.—ΣΩ. Οὐκ ἄρα **5**\
ἁρμόττοι ἂν τὸ πονηρὸν δόγμα νόμος εἶναι.—ΕΤ. Οὐ δῆτα.\
 ΣΩ. Ἀλλὰ μὴν δόξα γέ τις καὶ αὐτῷ μοι καταφαίνεται\
ὁ νόμος εἶναι· ἐπειδὴ δὲ οὐχ ἡ πονηρὰ δόξα, ἆρα οὐκ ἤδη\
τοῦτο κατάδηλον, ὡς ἡ χρηστή, εἴπερ δόξα νόμος ἐστί;—\
ΕΤ. Ναί.—ΣΩ. Δόξα δὲ χρηστὴ τίς ἐστιν; οὐχ ἡ ἀληθής; **10**\
—ΕΤ. Ναί.—ΣΩ. Οὐκοῦν ἡ ἀληθὴς δόξα τοῦ ὄντος ἐστὶν **315**\
ἐξεύρεσις;—ΕΤ. Ἔστιν γάρ.—ΣΩ. Ὁ νόμος ἄρα βούλεται\
τοῦ ὄντος εἶναι ἐξεύρεσις.\
 ΕΤ. Πῶς οὖν, ὦ Σώκρατες, εἰ ὁ νόμος ἐστὶν τοῦ ὄντος\
ἐξεύρεσις, οὐκ ἀεὶ τοῖς αὐτοῖς νόμοις χρώμεθα περὶ τῶν **5**\
αὐτῶν, εἰ τὰ ὄντα γε ἡμῖν ἐξηύρηται;

> *Apparatus:* **d** 1 ἄνομοι (bis) A: ἀνόμιμοι (bis) F   **d** 8 αὐτὸ A: αὐτῶ F   **e** 1 χρηστὰ A: χρυσὰ F   **e** 7 αὐτῷ A: αὐτό F   **e** 10 οὐχ ἡ A: οὐχὶ F   **a** 3 ἐστὶν τοῦ ὄντος A: τοῦ ὄντος ἐστὶν F

### English

**Soc.** And perhaps you speak well; but perhaps we shall know better in this way. Do you say that some people are wise?—**Comp.** I do.—**Soc.** Then the wise are wise by wisdom?—**Comp.** Yes.—**Soc.** Well? The just are just by justice?—**Comp.** Certainly.—**Soc.** Then the lawful too are lawful by law?—**Comp.** Yes.—**Soc.** And the **[d]** lawless are lawless by lawlessness?—**Comp.** Yes.—**Soc.** And the lawful are just?—**Comp.** Yes.—**Soc.** And the lawless unjust?—**Comp.** Unjust.—**Soc.** Then justice and law are something most fine?—**Comp.** Just so.—**Soc.** And injustice and lawlessness most shameful?—**Comp.** Yes.—**Soc.** And the one preserves cities and everything else, and the other destroys and overturns them?—**Comp.** Yes.—**Soc.** Then we must think about law as about something fine, and seek it as a good.—**Comp.** Of course.

**Soc.** Now, we said that law is a resolution of the city?—**Comp.** **[e]** We did.—**Soc.** Well then? Are there not decent resolutions, and base ones?—**Comp.** There are indeed.—**Soc.** And law, at least, was not base.—**Comp.** No.—**Soc.** Then it is not right to answer so simply that law is a resolution of the city.—**Comp.** I do not think so.—**Soc.** Then a base resolution could not fittingly be law.—**Comp.** No indeed.

**Soc.** And yet to me too law appears to be opinion of some kind; and since it is not the base opinion, is it not now quite clear that it is the decent one, if law is opinion?—**Comp.** Yes.—**Soc.** And what opinion is decent? Is it not the true one?—**Comp.** **[315]** Yes.—**Soc.** Then true opinion is the discovery of what is?—**Comp.** It is.—**Soc.** Law, then, wishes to be the discovery of what is.[^5]

**Comp.** How then, Socrates, if law is the discovery of what is, do we not always use the same laws about the same things, if the things that are have indeed been discovered by us?

[^5]: *Wishes to be*: *boulesthai*, which can also mean “means to be” or “tends to be”. The English keeps the verb literal, because the answer turns on what law wishes and what men fail to discover (315a–b).

---

## 315a–315e

### Greek (Burnet, page 4)

 ΣΩ. Βούλεται μὲν οὐδὲν ἧττον ὁ νόμος εἶναι τοῦ ὄντος\
ἐξεύρεσις· οἱ δ’ ἄρα μὴ τοῖς αὐτοῖς ἀεὶ νόμοις χρώμενοι\
ἄνθρωποι, ὡς δοκοῦμεν, οὐκ ἀεὶ δύνανται ἐξευρίσκειν ὃ **b**\
βούλεται ὁ νόμος, τὸ ὄν. ἐπεὶ φέρε ἴδωμεν ἐὰν ἄρα ἡμῖν\
ἐνθένδε κατάδηλον γένηται εἴτε τοῖς αὐτοῖς ἀεὶ νόμοις χρώ-\
μεθα ἢ ἄλλοτε ἄλλοις, καὶ εἰ ἅπαντες τοῖς αὐτοῖς ἢ ἄλλοι\
ἄλλοις. **5**\
 ΕΤ. Ἀλλὰ τοῦτό γε, ὦ Σώκρατες, οὐ χαλεπὸν γνῶναι,\
ὅτι οὔτε οἱ αὐτοὶ ἀεὶ τοῖς αὐτοῖς νόμοις χρῶνται ἄλλοι τε\
ἄλλοις. ἐπεὶ αὐτίκα ἡμῖν μὲν οὐ νόμος ἐστὶν ἀνθρώπους\
θύειν ἀλλ’ ἀνόσιον, Καρχηδόνιοι δὲ θύουσιν ὡς ὅσιον ὂν\
καὶ νόμιμον αὐτοῖς, καὶ ταῦτα ἔνιοι αὐτῶν καὶ τοὺς αὑτῶν **c**\
ὑεῖς τῷ Κρόνῳ, ὡς ἴσως καὶ σὺ ἀκήκοας. καὶ μὴ ὅτι βάρ-\
βαροι ἄνθρωποι ἡμῶν ἄλλοις νόμοις χρῶνται, ἀλλὰ καὶ οἱ\
ἐν τῇ Λυκαίᾳ οὗτοι καὶ οἱ τοῦ Ἀθάμαντος ἔκγονοι οἵας\
θυσίας θύουσιν Ἕλληνες ὄντες. ὥσπερ καὶ ἡμᾶς αὐτοὺς **5**\
οἶσθά που καὶ αὐτὸς ἀκούων οἵοις νόμοις ἐχρώμεθα πρὸ τοῦ\
περὶ τοὺς ἀποθανόντας, ἱερεῖά τε προσφάττοντες πρὸ τῆς\
ἐκφορᾶς τοῦ νεκροῦ καὶ ἐγχυτιστρίας μεταπεμπόμενοι· οἱ\
δ’ αὖ ἐκείνων ἔτι πρότεροι αὐτοῦ καὶ ἔθαπτον ἐν τῇ οἰκίᾳ **d**\
τοὺς ἀποθανόντας· ἡμεῖς δὲ τούτων οὐδὲν ποιοῦμεν. μυρία\
δ’ ἄν τις ἔχοι τοιαῦτα εἰπεῖν· πολλὴ γὰρ εὐρυχωρία τῆς\
ἀποδείξεως ὡς οὔτε ἡμεῖς ἡμῖν αὐτοῖς ἀεὶ κατὰ ταὐτὰ νομί-\
ζομεν οὔτε ἀλλήλοις οἱ ἄνθρωποι. **5**\
 ΣΩ. Οὐδέν τοι θαυμαστόν ἐστιν, ὦ βέλτιστε, εἰ σὺ μὲν\
ὀρθῶς λέγεις, ἐμὲ δὲ τοῦτο λέληθεν. ἀλλ’ ἕως ἂν σύ τε\
κατὰ σαυτὸν λέγῃς ἅ σοι δοκεῖ μακρῷ λόγῳ καὶ πάλιν ἐγώ,\
οὐδὲν μή ποτε συμβῶμεν, ὡς ἐγὼ οἶμαι· ἐὰν δὲ κοινὸν τεθῇ **e**\
τὸ σκέμμα, τάχ’ ἂν ὁμολογήσαιμεν. εἰ μὲν οὖν βούλει,

> *Apparatus:* **a** 8 ἐξεύρεσις A: εὕρεσις F   οἱ A: εἰ F   χρώμενοι re vera A F: χρῶνται Par. 1642   **b** 7 τε A: γε F   **c** 1 καὶ τοὺς αὑτῶν A: om. F   **c** 2 καὶ σὺ Par. 1642: σὺ A: καὶ οὐκ F   **c** 6 ἐχρώμεθα A: χρώμεθα F   **c** 8 ἐγχυτιστρίας A F: ἐγχυτριστρίας vulg.   οἱ δ’ A: οὐδ’ F   **d** 1 ἔτι A: om. F

### English

**Soc.** Law wishes none the less to be the discovery of what is; but **[b]** people who do not, as we think, always use the same laws are, it turns out, not always able to discover what law wishes, what is. For come, let us see if from here it may become quite clear to us whether we always use the same laws or different ones at different times, and whether all use the same, or different people different ones.

**Comp.** Why, that at least is not hard to know, Socrates: that the same people do not always use the same laws, and that different people use different ones. For instance, with us it is not law but unholy to sacrifice human beings, while the Carthaginians sacrifice them as something holy **[c]** and lawful for them, and some of them, what is more, even their own sons, to Cronus, as perhaps you too have heard.[^6] And not only do barbarian peoples use laws other than ours, but those people in Lycaea too, and the descendants of Athamas: what sacrifices they make, though they are Greeks![^7] So too with ourselves: you know, I suppose, having heard it yourself too, what sort of laws we formerly used about the dead, slaughtering victims before the carrying out of the corpse and sending for the women who pour offerings;[^8] **[d]** and those still earlier than they even buried the dead there in the house; but we do none of these things. One could name countless such things; for there is plenty of room for proof that neither do we always accept things in the same way as ourselves, nor do people accept them in the same way as one another.

**Soc.** It is nothing to wonder at, my excellent friend, if you are speaking rightly and this has escaped me. But as long as you say by yourself, in a long speech, what seems so to you, and I in turn say what seems so to me, **[e]** we shall never come to terms, as I think; but if what is looked into is put in common, we might perhaps agree. So if you like,

[^6]: Greek writers called the chief god of Carthage Cronus; Diodorus (20.14) tells of children of the leading families sacrificed to him in 310 BC.

[^7]: *Lycaea*: the district of Mount Lycaeus in Arcadia, where human victims were said to be offered to Zeus Lycaeus (*Republic* 565d; Pausanias 8.2.3). *Athamas*: at Halus in Achaea Phthiotis the eldest of his descendants who entered the town hall was sacrificed (Herodotus 7.197).

[^8]: *The women who pour offerings*: *enchytistriai*, a rare word of uncertain sense. Ancient lexica explain it as women who brought libations to the dead (Suda ε 191, among other senses); the vulgate’s spelling *enchytristriai* (from *chytra*, “pot”) suggests women who gathered the bones into an urn, as LSJ takes it.

---

## 315e–316c

### Greek (Burnet, page 5)

πυνθανόμενός τι παρ’ ἐμοῦ κοινῇ μετ’ ἐμοῦ σκόπει· εἰ δ’ αὖ\
βούλει, ἀποκρινόμενος.\
 ΕΤ. Ἀλλ’ ἐθέλω, ὦ Σώκρατες, ἀποκρίνεσθαι ὅτι ἂν **5**\
βούλῃ.\
 ΣΩ. Φέρε δὴ σύ, πότερα νομίζεις τὰ δίκαια ἄδικα εἶναι\
καὶ τὰ ἄδικα δίκαια, ἢ τὰ μὲν δίκαια δίκαια, τὰ δὲ ἄδικα\
ἄδικα;—ΕΤ. Ἐγὼ μὲν τά τε δίκαια δίκαια καὶ τὰ ἄδικα\
ἄδικα.—ΣΩ. Οὐκοῦν καὶ παρὰ πᾶσιν οὕτως ὡς ἐνθάδε νο- **316**\
μίζεται;—ΕΤ. Ναί.—ΣΩ. Οὐκοῦν καὶ ἐν Πέρσαις;—⟨ΕΤ.\
Καὶ ἐν Πέρσαις⟩.—ΣΩ. Ἀλλὰ ἀεὶ δήπου;—ΕΤ. Ἀεί.—\
ΣΩ. Πότερον δὲ τὰ πλεῖον ἕλκοντα βαρύτερα νομίζεται\
ἐνθάδε, τὰ δὲ ἔλαττον κουφότερα, ἢ τοὐναντίον;—ΕΤ. Οὔκ, **5**\
ἀλλὰ τὰ πλεῖον ἕλκοντα βαρύτερα, τὰ δὲ ἔλαττον κουφό-\
τερα.—ΣΩ. Οὐκοῦν καὶ ἐν Καρχηδόνι καὶ ἐν Λυκαίᾳ;—\
ΕΤ. Ναί.—ΣΩ. Τὰ μὲν καλά, ὡς ἔοικε, πανταχοῦ νομίζεται\
καλὰ καὶ τὰ αἰσχρὰ αἰσχρά, ἀλλ’ οὐ τὰ αἰσχρὰ καλὰ οὐδὲ **b**\
τὰ καλὰ αἰσχρά.—ΕΤ. Οὕτως.—ΣΩ. Οὐκοῦν, ὡς κατὰ πάν-\
των εἰπεῖν, τὰ ὄντα νομίζεται εἶναι, οὐ τὰ μὴ ὄντα, καὶ παρ’\
ἡμῖν καὶ παρὰ τοῖς ἄλλοις ἅπασιν.—ΕΤ. Ἔμοιγε δοκεῖ.—\
ΣΩ. Ὃς ἂν ἄρα τοῦ ὄντος ἁμαρτάνῃ, τοῦ νομίμου ἁμαρτάνει. **5**\
 ΕΤ. Οὕτω μέν, ὦ Σώκρατες, ὡς σὺ λέγεις, καὶ φαίνεται\
ταῦτα νόμιμα καὶ ἡμῖν ἀεὶ καὶ τοῖς ἄλλοις· ἐπειδὰν δ’ ἐν-\
νοήσω ὅτι οὐδὲν παυόμεθα ἄνω κάτω μετατιθέμενοι τοὺς **c**\
νόμους, οὐ δύναμαι πεισθῆναι.\
 ΣΩ. Ἴσως γὰρ οὐκ ἐννοεῖς ταῦτα μεταπεττευόμενα ὅτι\
ταὐτά ἐστιν. ἀλλ’ ὧδε μετ’ ἐμοῦ αὐτὰ ἄθρει. ἤδη ποτὲ\
ἐνέτυχες συγγράμματι περὶ ὑγιείας τῶν καμνόντων;—ΕΤ. **5**\
Ἔγωγε.—ΣΩ. Οἶσθα οὖν τίνος τέχνης τοῦτ’ ἐστὶ τὸ σύγ-

> *Apparatus:* **e** 7 πότερα A: πότερον F   **a** 2 οὐκοῦν καὶ ἐν Πέρσαις; A F: om. Herm., qui ἐν Πέρσαις pro παρὰ πᾶσιν supra   **a** 3 καὶ ἐν Πέρσαις add. vulg.: om. A F   ἀλλά: A, sed ά: in ras.: ἀλλ’ F   **a** 4 δὲ A: om. F   πλεῖον A: πλείονα F (et mox a6)   **a** 6 βαρύτερα F: βαρύτερα νομίζεται ἐνθάδε A   **b** 2 πάντων A: πάντα F   **b** 5 ἁμαρτάνῃ A: ἁμάρτοι F   **b** 6 καὶ φαίνεται ταῦτα A: ταῦτα φαίνεται καὶ F: ταὐτὰ φαίνεται Basileensis altera

### English

look into it in common with me by finding something out from me; or again, if you like, by answering.

**Comp.** Why, I am willing, Socrates, to answer whatever you like.

**Soc.** Come then, you tell me: do you accept that just things are unjust and unjust things just, or that just things are just and unjust things unjust?—**Comp.** For my part I accept that just things are just and unjust things **[316]** unjust.—**Soc.** Then among all people too it is accepted so, as here?—**Comp.** Yes.—**Soc.** Then among the Persians too?—⟨**Comp.** Among the Persians too⟩.[^9]—**Soc.** But always, surely?—**Comp.** Always.—**Soc.** And are things that weigh more accepted here as heavier, and those that weigh less as lighter, or the opposite?—**Comp.** No: those that weigh more as heavier, and those that weigh less as lighter.—**Soc.** Then in Carthage and in Lycaea too?—**Comp.** Yes.—**Soc.** Fine things, it seems, are accepted everywhere **[b]** as fine, and shameful things as shameful, but not shameful things as fine, nor fine things as shameful.—**Comp.** Just so.—**Soc.** Then, to speak of all things, it is the things that are that are accepted as being, not the things that are not, both among us and among all others.—**Comp.** I think so.—**Soc.** Whoever misses what is, then, misses the lawful.

**Comp.** Put in the way you put it, Socrates, these things do appear lawful both to us, always, and to the others; but when I think of **[c]** how we never stop changing our laws up and down, I cannot be persuaded.

**Soc.** That may be because you do not think of these things, moved about as at draughts, as being the same.[^10] But look at them with me in this way. Have you ever come across a writing about the health of the sick?—**Comp.** I have.—**Soc.** Then do you know which craft this writing belongs to?

[^9]: ⟨ ⟩: the companion’s reply is supplied by earlier editors; A and F do not have it. Hermann instead removed Socrates’ question and read “among the Persians” for “among all people” above.

[^10]: *Moved about as at draughts*: *metapetteuomena*, from *petteuein*, to play *petteia*, a board game whose pieces are moved from place to place.

---

## 316c–317a

### Greek (Burnet, page 6)

γραμμα;—ΕΤ. Οἶδα, ὅτι ἰατρικῆς.—ΣΩ. Οὐκοῦν ἰατροὺς\
καλεῖς τοὺς ἐπιστήμονας περὶ τούτων;—ΕΤ. Φημί.—ΣΩ.\
Πότερον οὖν οἱ ἐπιστήμονες ταὐτὰ περὶ τῶν αὐτῶν νομί- **d**\
ζουσιν ἢ ἄλλοι ἄλλα;—ΕΤ. Ταὐτὰ ἔμοιγε δοκοῦσι.—ΣΩ.\
Πότερον οἱ Ἕλληνες μόνοι τοῖς Ἕλλησιν ἢ καὶ οἱ βάρβαροι\
αὑτοῖς τε καὶ τοῖς Ἕλλησι, περὶ ὧν ἂν εἰδῶσι, ταὐτὰ νομί-\
ζουσι;—ΕΤ. Ταὐτὰ δήπου πολλὴ ἀνάγκη ἐστὶν τοὺς εἰδότας **5**\
αὐτοὺς αὑτοῖς συννομίζειν καὶ Ἕλληνας καὶ βαρβάρους.—\
ΣΩ. Καλῶς γε ἀπεκρίνω. οὐκοῦν καὶ ἀεί;—ΕΤ. Ναί,\
καὶ ἀεί.\
 ΣΩ. Οὐκοῦν καὶ οἱ ἰατροὶ συγγράφουσι περὶ ὑγιείας ἅπερ\
καὶ νομίζουσιν εἶναι;—ΕΤ. Ναί.—ΣΩ. Ἰατρικὰ ἄρα καὶ **e**\
ἰατρικοὶ νόμοι ταῦτα τὰ συγγράμματα ἐστὶν τὰ τῶν ἰατρῶν.\
—ΕΤ. Ἰατρικὰ μέντοι.—ΣΩ. Ἆρ’ οὖν καὶ τὰ γεωργικὰ συγ-\
γράμματα γεωργικοὶ νόμοι εἰσίν;—ΕΤ. Ναί.—ΣΩ. Τίνων\
οὖν ἐστιν τὰ περὶ κήπων ἐργασίας συγγράμματα καὶ νόμιμα; **5**\
—ΕΤ. Κηπουρῶν.—ΣΩ. Κηπουρικοὶ ἄρα νόμοι ἡμῖν εἰσιν\
οὗτοι.—ΕΤ. Ναί.—ΣΩ. Τῶν ἐπισταμένων κήπων ἄρχειν;\
—ΕΤ. Πῶς δ’ οὔ;—ΣΩ. Ἐπίστανται δ’ οἱ κηπουροί.—ΕΤ.\
Ναί.—ΣΩ. Τίνων δὲ τὰ περὶ ὄψου σκευασίας συγγράμματά\
τε καὶ νόμιμα;—ΕΤ. Μαγείρων.—ΣΩ. Μαγειρικοὶ ἄρα οὗτοι **10**\
νόμοι εἰσί;—ΕΤ. Μαγειρικοί.—ΣΩ. Τῶν ἐπισταμένων, ὡς\
ἔοικεν, ὄψου σκευασίας ἄρχειν;—ΕΤ. Ναί.—ΣΩ. Ἐπί- **317**\
στανται δέ, ὥς φασιν, οἱ μάγειροι;—ΕΤ. Ἐπίστανται γάρ.\
—ΣΩ. Εἶεν· τίνων δὲ δὴ τὰ περὶ πόλεως διοικήσεως συγ-\
γράμματά τε καὶ νόμιμά ἐστιν; ἆρ’ οὐ τῶν ἐπισταμένων\
πόλεων ἄρχειν;—ΕΤ. Ἔμοιγε δοκεῖ.—ΣΩ. Ἐπίστανται δὲ **5**\
ἄλλοι τινὲς ἢ οἱ πολιτικοί τε καὶ οἱ βασιλικοί;—ΕΤ. Οὗτοι\
μὲν οὖν.—ΣΩ. Πολιτικὰ ἄρα ταῦτα συγγράμματά ἐστιν,

> *Apparatus:* **d** 2 ἄλλοι ἄλλα A: ἄλλοι ἄλλοι F   **d** 4 αὑτοῖς A: αὐτοὶ F   εἰδῶσι A: ἴδωσι F   **d** 9 οἱ A: om. F   **e** 4 γεωργικοὶ F: om. A   **e** 6 κηπουρῶν A: κηπωρῶν F sed ου supra ω F   νόμοι A: οἱ νόμιμοι F   ἡμῖν A et s. v. F: om F   **e** 10 οὗτοι F: om. A   **a** 6 τε A: om. F   **a** 7 ταῦτα συγγράμματα A: τὰ συγγράμματα ταῦτα F

### English

—**Comp.** I know: it is medicine’s.—**Soc.** Then you call those who have knowledge of these things doctors?—**Comp.** I say so.—**Soc.** **[d]** Then do those who have knowledge accept the same things about the same things, or different people different things?—**Comp.** The same, I think.—**Soc.** Do Greeks alone accept the same things as Greeks, or do barbarians too, about whatever they know, accept the same things both among themselves and with the Greeks?—**Comp.** Surely it is absolutely necessary that those who know accept the same things in common with one another, both Greeks and barbarians.—**Soc.** Well answered. Then always too?—**Comp.** Yes, and always.

**Soc.** Then doctors too write about health just what **[e]** they also accept as being?—**Comp.** Yes.—**Soc.** Then these writings of the doctors are writings of medicine, and laws of medicine.—**Comp.** Of medicine, certainly.—**Soc.** And are writings on farming, too, laws of farming?—**Comp.** Yes.—**Soc.** Whose, then, are the writings and lawful usages about the working of gardens?—**Comp.** Gardeners’.—**Soc.** Then these, for us, are laws of gardening.—**Comp.** Yes.—**Soc.** Of those who know how to rule gardens?—**Comp.** Of course.—**Soc.** And the gardeners know how.—**Comp.** Yes.—**Soc.** And whose are the writings and lawful usages about the preparation of dishes?—**Comp.** Cooks’.—**Soc.** Then these are laws of cookery?—**Comp.** Of cookery.—**Soc.** Of those, **[317]** it seems, who know how to rule the preparation of dishes?—**Comp.** Yes.—**Soc.** And the cooks, as they say, know how?—**Comp.** Yes, they know how.—**Soc.** Very well. And whose, then, are the writings and lawful usages about the ordering of a city? Are they not of those who know how to rule cities?—**Comp.** I think so.—**Soc.** And does anyone else know how, other than the statesmen and the kingly men?—**Comp.** These, certainly.—**Soc.** Then these are statesmen’s writings,

---

## 317a–317e

### Greek (Burnet, page 7)

οὓς οἱ ἄνθρωποι νόμους καλοῦσι, βασιλέων τε καὶ ἀνδρῶν\
ἀγαθῶν συγγράμματα.—ΕΤ. Ἀληθῆ λέγεις. **b**\
 ΣΩ. Ἄλλο τι οὖν οἵ γε ἐπιστάμενοι οὐκ ἄλλοτε ἄλλα\
συγγράψουσι περὶ τῶν αὐτῶν;—ΕΤ. Οὔ.—ΣΩ. Οὐδὲ μετα-\
θήσονταί ποτε περὶ τῶν αὐτῶν ἕτερα καὶ ἕτερα νόμιμα;—\
ΕΤ. Οὐ δῆτα.—ΣΩ. Ἐὰν οὖν ὁρῶμέν τινας ὁπουοῦν τοῦτο **5**\
ποιοῦντας, πότερα φήσομεν ἐπιστήμονας εἶναι ἢ ἀνεπιστή-\
μονας τοὺς τοῦτο ποιοῦντας;—ΕΤ. Ἀνεπιστήμονας.—ΣΩ.\
Οὐκοῦν καὶ ὃ μὲν ἂν ὀρθὸν ᾖ, νόμιμον αὐτὸ φήσομεν ἑκάστῳ\
εἶναι, ἢ τὸ ἰατρικὸν ἢ τὸ μαγειρικὸν ἢ τὸ κηπουρικόν;—\
ΕΤ. Ναί.—ΣΩ. Ὃ δ’ ἂν μὴ ὀρθὸν ᾖ, οὐκέτι φήσομεν τοῦτο **c**\
νόμιμον εἶναι;—ΕΤ. Οὐκέτι.—ΣΩ. Ἄνομον ἄρα γίγνεται.\
—ΕΤ. Ἀνάγκη.—ΣΩ. Οὐκοῦν καὶ ἐν τοῖς συγγράμμασι\
τοῖς περὶ τῶν δικαίων καὶ ἀδίκων καὶ ὅλως περὶ πόλεως\
διακοσμήσεώς τε καὶ περὶ τοῦ ὡς χρὴ πόλιν διοικεῖν, τὸ μὲν **5**\
ὀρθὸν νόμος ἐστὶ βασιλικός, τὸ δὲ μὴ ὀρθὸν οὔ, ὃ δοκεῖ\
νόμος εἶναι τοῖς μὴ εἰδόσιν· ἔστιν γὰρ ἄνομον.—ΕΤ. Ναί.\
—ΣΩ. Ὀρθῶς ἄρα ὡμολογήσαμεν νόμον εἶναι τοῦ ὄντος **d**\
εὕρεσιν.—ΕΤ. Φαίνεται.\
 ΣΩ. Ἔτι δὲ καὶ τόδε ἐν αὐτῷ διαθεώμεθα. τίς ἐπιστήμων\
διανεῖμαι ἐπὶ γῇ τὰ σπέρματα;—ΕΤ. Γεωργός.—ΣΩ. Οὗτος\
δὲ τὰ ἄξια σπέρματα ἑκάστῃ γῇ διανέμει;—ΕΤ. Ναί.— **5**\
ΣΩ. Ὁ γεωργὸς ἄρα νομεὺς ἀγαθὸς τούτων, καὶ οἱ τούτου\
νόμοι καὶ διανομαὶ ἐπὶ ταῦτα ὀρθαί εἰσιν;—ΕΤ. Ναί.—\
ΣΩ. Τίς δὲ κρουμάτων ἐπὶ τὰ μέλη ἀγαθὸς νομεύς, καὶ τὰ\
ἄξια νεῖμαι; καὶ οἱ τίνος νόμοι ὀρθοί εἰσιν;—ΕΤ. Οἱ τοῦ\
αὐλητοῦ καὶ τοῦ κιθαριστοῦ.—ΣΩ. Ὁ νομικώτατος ἄρα ἐν **e**\
τούτοις, οὗτος αὐλητικώτατος.—ΕΤ. Ναί.—ΣΩ. Τίς δὲ τὴν

> *Apparatus:* **a** 8 οἱ A: om. F   νόμους A: om. F   ἀνδρῶν F: om. A   **b** 3 συγγράψουσι A: συγγράφουσι F   οὔ . . . b4 τῶν αὐτῶν A: om. F   **b** 5 ὁπου:οῦν A: ὁποιοῦν F   **b** 8 ἂν F: om. A   **c** 6 ὃ A: om. F Stob.   **c** 7 εἶναι A: εἶναι βασιλικὸς F   **d** 3 διαθεώμεθα Hermann: διαθώμεθα A: θεασώμεθα F Stob.   **d** 4 ἐπὶ γῇ A: ἐπειγεῖ F (ἐν τῇ γῇ Stob. A)   **d** 7 καὶ A Stob.: καὶ αἱ F   **d** 8 καὶ secl. Hermann: νέμει pro d9 νεῖμαι Boeckh

### English

which people call laws, **[b]** writings of kings and good men.—**Comp.** What you say is true.

**Soc.** Then surely those who know how will not write different things at different times about the same things?—**Comp.** No.—**Soc.** Nor ever change their lawful usages about the same things, now to some and now to others?—**Comp.** No indeed.—**Soc.** So if we see some people anywhere doing this, shall we say that those who do it have knowledge or are without knowledge?—**Comp.** Without knowledge.—**Soc.** Then whatever is right, we shall say it is lawful for each, whether that of medicine or that of cookery or that of gardening?—**Comp.** **[c]** Yes.—**Soc.** And whatever is not right, we shall no longer say it is lawful?—**Comp.** No longer.—**Soc.** Then it becomes lawless.—**Comp.** Necessarily.—**Soc.** Then in the writings too about just things and unjust and, in general, about the arrangement of a city and how a city should be ordered, what is right is kingly law, and what is not right, which seems to be law to those who do not know, is not; for it is lawless.—**Comp.** Yes.—**Soc.** **[d]** Rightly, then, we agreed that law is the finding of what is.—**Comp.** It appears so.

**Soc.** And let us go on to view this in it as well.[^11] Who has the knowledge to distribute seeds on the soil?—**Comp.** A farmer.—**Soc.** And he distributes to each soil the seeds that are due to it?—**Comp.** Yes.—**Soc.** Then the farmer is a good distributor of these, and his laws and distributions in these matters are right?[^12]—**Comp.** Yes.—**Soc.** And who is a good distributor of strokes for the tunes, and good at distributing what is due? And whose laws are right?—**Comp.** The **[e]** flute-player’s and the cithara-player’s.—**Soc.** Then the one most skilled in law in these things is the most skilled flute-player.[^13]—**Comp.** Yes.—**Soc.** And who

[^11]: *Let us … view*: *diatheōmetha*, Hermann’s conjecture, which Burnet prints; A has *diathōmetha*, “let us set out”, F and Stobaeus *theasōmetha*, the same verb without its prefix.

[^12]: *Distributor*: *nomeus*, from *nemein*, “distribute”, the verb from which *nomos* itself comes; so too *dianemein* “distribute” and *dianomē* “distribution”. *Nomeus* is also the ordinary word for a herdsman, and *nemein* for pasturing a flock (318a).

[^13]: *Most skilled in law*: *nomikōtatos*. On *nomos* as a form of music, see 318b.

---

## 317e–318d

### Greek (Burnet, page 8)

τροφὴν ἐπὶ τὰ τῶν ἀνθρώπων σώματα διανεῖμαι ἄριστος; οὐχ\
ὅσπερ τὴν ἀξίαν;—ΕΤ. Ναί.—ΣΩ. Αἱ τούτου ἄρα διανομαὶ\
καὶ οἱ νόμοι βέλτιστοι, καὶ ὅστις περὶ ταῦτα νομικώτατος, **5**\
καὶ νομεὺς ἄριστος.—ΕΤ. Πάνυ γε.—ΣΩ. Τίς οὗτος;—\
ΕΤ. Παιδοτρίβης.—ΣΩ. Οὗτος τὴν ἀνθρωπείαν ἀγέλην τοῦ **318**\
σώματος νέμειν κράτιστος;—ΕΤ. Ναί.—ΣΩ. Τίς δὲ τὴν τῶν\
προβάτων ἀγέλην κράτιστος νέμειν; τί ὄνομα αὐτῷ;—ΕΤ.\
Ποιμήν.—ΣΩ. Οἱ τοῦ ποιμένος ἄρα νόμοι ἄριστοι τοῖς προ-\
βάτοις.—ΕΤ. Ναί.—ΣΩ. Οἱ δὲ τοῦ βουκόλου τοῖς βουσί.— **5**\
ΕΤ. Ναί.—ΣΩ. Οἱ δὲ τοῦ τίνος νόμοι ἄριστοι ταῖς ψυχαῖς\
τῶν ἀνθρώπων; οὐχ οἱ τοῦ βασιλέως; φάθι.—ΕΤ. Φημὶ δή.\
 ΣΩ. Καλῶς τοίνυν λέγεις. ἔχοις ἂν οὖν εἰπεῖν τίς τῶν **b**\
παλαιῶν ἀγαθὸς γέγονεν ἐν τοῖς αὐλητικοῖς νόμοις νομο-\
θέτης; ἴσως οὐκ ἐννοεῖς, ἀλλ’ ἐγὼ βούλει σε ὑπομνήσω;—\
ΕΤ. Πάνυ μὲν οὖν.—ΣΩ. Ἆρ’ οὖν ὁ Μαρσύας λέγεται καὶ\
τὰ παιδικὰ αὐτοῦ Ὄλυμπος ὁ Φρύξ;—ΕΤ. Ἀληθῆ λέγεις.— **5**\
ΣΩ. Τούτων δὴ καὶ τὰ αὐλήματα θειότατά ἐστι, καὶ μόνα\
κινεῖ καὶ ἐκφαίνει τοὺς τῶν θεῶν ἐν χρείᾳ ὄντας· καὶ ἔτι καὶ\
νῦν μόνα λοιπά, ὡς θεῖα ὄντα.—ΕΤ. Ἔστι ταῦτα.—ΣΩ. Τίς δὲ **c**\
λέγεται τῶν παλαιῶν βασιλέων ἀγαθὸς νομοθέτης γεγονέναι,\
οὗ ἔτι καὶ νῦν τὰ νόμιμα μένει ὡς θεῖα ὄντα;—ΕΤ. Οὐκ ἐννοῶ.\
 ΣΩ. Οὐκ οἶσθα τίνες παλαιοτάτοις νόμοις χρῶνται τῶν\
Ἑλλήνων; **5**\
 ΕΤ. Ἆρα Λακεδαιμονίους λέγεις καὶ Λυκοῦργον τὸν νομο-\
θέτην;\
 ΣΩ. Ἀλλὰ ταῦτά γε οὐδέπω ἴσως ἔτη τριακόσια ἢ ὀλίγῳ\
τούτων πλείω. ἀλλὰ τούτων τῶν νομίμων τὰ βέλτιστα πόθεν\
ἥκει; οἶσθα; **d**\
 ΕΤ. Φασί γε ἐκ Κρήτης.\
 ΣΩ. Οὐκοῦν οὗτοι παλαιοτάτοις νόμοις χρῶνται τῶν\
Ἑλλήνων;

> *Apparatus:* **a** 2 σώματος A F (sed ος in ras. A et α ut vid. s. v. A²)   **b** 2 ἐν F: om. A (γέγονε τοῖς)   νόμοις secl. Hermann   **c** 1 λοιπά A: λοιπά ἐστιν F   **c** 6 λέγεις A: λέγοις F

### English

is best at distributing food to the bodies of men? Is it not the one who distributes what is due?—**Comp.** Yes.—**Soc.** Then his distributions and his laws are best, and whoever is most skilled in law about these things is also the best distributor.—**Comp.** Certainly.—**Soc.** Who is he?—**Comp.** **[318]** A trainer.—**Soc.** He is the ablest to tend the human herd in its body?[^14]—**Comp.** Yes.—**Soc.** And who is the ablest to tend the herd of sheep? What is his name?—**Comp.** Shepherd.—**Soc.** Then the shepherd’s laws are best for the sheep.—**Comp.** Yes.—**Soc.** And the oxherd’s for the oxen.—**Comp.** Yes.—**Soc.** And whose laws are best for the souls of men? Are they not the king’s? Say so.—**Comp.** I say so.

**Soc.** **[b]** Well said, then. Now could you tell me who among the men of old proved a good lawgiver in the laws for the flute?[^15] Perhaps you are not thinking of him; but do you want me to remind you?—**Comp.** Certainly.—**Soc.** Is it Marsyas, then, as is said, and his beloved, Olympus the Phrygian?—**Comp.** What you say is true.—**Soc.** Their flute-tunes, indeed, are also the most divine, and they alone move and reveal those who are in need of the gods; and still even **[c]** now they alone are left, as being divine.[^16]—**Comp.** That is so.—**Soc.** And who among the kings of old is said to have proved a good lawgiver, whose lawful usages still even now remain, as being divine?—**Comp.** I cannot think of one.

**Soc.** Do you not know which of the Greeks use the oldest laws?

**Comp.** Do you mean the Lacedaemonians, and Lycurgus the lawgiver?

**Soc.** But these things, at least, are not yet three hundred years old, perhaps, or a little more than that. But where do the best of these lawful usages **[d]** come from? Do you know?

**Comp.** From Crete, they say.[^17]

**Soc.** Then these people use the oldest laws among the Greeks?

[^14]: *Tend*: *nemein* again (317d), here with a herd as its object, “pasture”.

[^15]: *Laws for the flute*: *aulētikoi nomoi*. The nome (*nomos*) was a traditional type of melody, sung to the cithara or the flute or, as here, played on the flute alone (LSJ s.v. *nomos*).

[^16]: Marsyas was the satyr who challenged Apollo with the flute; Olympus, his pupil and beloved, was the legendary maker of flute-tunes still played in classical times (Aristotle, *Politics* 8.5, 1340a). In the *Symposium* (215c) Alcibiades says that the tunes Olympus played, “which I say are Marsyas’”, alone make men possessed and reveal those who are in need of the gods and of initiations.

[^17]: Lycurgus’ date was disputed in antiquity (Plutarch, *Lycurgus* 1); that his laws came from Crete is told by Herodotus (1.65) and Aristotle (*Politics* 2.10, 1271b).

---

## 318d–319b

### Greek (Burnet, page 9)

 ΕΤ. Ναί. **5**\
 ΣΩ. Οἶσθα οὖν τίνες τούτων ἀγαθοὶ βασιλῆς ἦσαν;\
Μίνως καὶ Ῥαδάμανθυς, οἱ Διὸς καὶ Εὐρώπης παῖδες, ὧν\
οἵδε εἰσὶν οἱ νόμοι.\
 ΕΤ. Ῥαδάμανθύν γέ φασιν, ὦ Σώκρατες, δίκαιον ἄνδρα,\
τὸν δὲ Μίνων ἄγριόν τινα καὶ χαλεπὸν καὶ ἄδικον. **10**\
 ΣΩ. Ἀττικόν, ὦ βέλτιστε, λέγεις μῦθον καὶ τραγικόν.\
 ΕΤ. Τί δέ; οὐ ταῦτα λέγεται περὶ Μίνω; **e**\
 ΣΩ. Οὔκουν ὑπό γε Ὁμήρου καὶ Ἡσιόδου· καίτοι γε\
πιθανώτεροί εἰσιν ἢ σύμπαντες οἱ τραγῳδοποιοί, ὧν σὺ\
ἀκούων ταῦτα λέγεις.\
 ΕΤ. Ἀλλὰ τί μὴν οὗτοι περὶ Μίνω λέγουσιν; **5**\
 ΣΩ. Ἐγὼ δή σοι ἐρῶ, ἵνα μὴ καὶ σὺ ὥσπερ οἱ πολλοὶ\
ἀσεβῇς. οὐ γὰρ ἔσθ’ ὅτι τούτου ἀσεβέστερόν ἐστιν οὐδ’ ὅτι\
χρὴ μᾶλλον εὐλαβεῖσθαι, πλὴν εἰς θεοὺς καὶ λόγῳ καὶ ἔργῳ\
ἐξαμαρτάνειν, δεύτερον δὲ εἰς τοὺς θείους ἀνθρώπους· ἀλλὰ\
πάνυ πολλὴν χρὴ προμήθειαν ποιεῖσθαι ἀεί, ὅταν μέλλῃς **10**\
ἄνδρα ψέξειν ἢ ἐπαινέσεσθαι, μὴ οὐκ ὀρθῶς εἴπῃς. τούτου καὶ **319**\
ἕνεκα χρὴ μανθάνειν διαγιγνώσκειν χρηστοὺς καὶ πονηροὺς\
ἄνδρας. νεμεσᾷ γὰρ ὁ θεός, ὅταν τις ψέγῃ τὸν ἑαυτῷ\
ὅμοιον ἢ ἐπαινῇ τὸν ἑαυτῷ ἐναντίως ἔχοντα· ἔστι δ’ οὗτος\
ὁ ἀγαθός. μὴ γάρ τι οἴου λίθους μὲν εἶναι ἱεροὺς καὶ ξύλα **5**\
καὶ ὄρνεα καὶ ὄφεις, ἀνθρώπους δὲ μή· ἀλλὰ πάντων\
τούτων ἱερώτατόν ἐστιν ἄνθρωπος ὁ ἀγαθός, καὶ μιαρώτατον\
ὁ πονηρός.\
 Ἤδη οὖν καὶ περὶ Μίνω, ὡς αὐτὸν Ὅμηρός τε καὶ Ἡσίοδος\
ἐγκωμιάζουσι, τούτου ἕνεκα φράσω, ἵνα μὴ ἄνθρωπος ὢν **b**\
ἀνθρώπου εἰς ἥρω Διὸς ὑὸν λόγῳ ἐξαμαρτάνῃς. Ὅμηρος\
γὰρ περὶ Κρήτης λέγων ὅτι πολλοὶ ἄνθρωποι ἐν αὐτῇ εἰσιν

> *Apparatus:* **d** 7 prius καὶ A: τε καὶ F   **d** 10 μίνων A: μίνω F   **e** 1 τί δὲ (δαὶ A²) οὐ ταῦτα A: οὐ ταῦτα δέ τι F   **e** 2 γε re vera A: τε F   **e** 3 τραγῳδιοποιοί A F   **e** 7 οὐδ’ ὅτι A: οὐδ’ οὕτω F   **a** 1 ἐπαινέσεσθαι A: ἐπαινέσθαι (sic) F   **a** 5 τι A F: τοι vulg.   **a** 7 τούτων A: om. F   ὁ A: om. F   **a** 9 μίνω ὡς A: μίνωος F   **b** 3 ἐν αὐτῇ εἰσιν A: εἰσὶν ἐν αὐτῇ F

### English

**Comp.** Yes.

**Soc.** Do you know, then, who among them were good kings? Minos and Rhadamanthys, the sons of Zeus and Europa, whose laws these are.[^18]

**Comp.** Rhadamanthys, yes, they say was a just man, Socrates; but Minos a savage one, harsh and unjust.

**Soc.** That is an Attic tale you are telling, my excellent friend, and a tragic one.[^19]

**Comp.** **[e]** Why? Is that not what is said about Minos?

**Soc.** Not by Homer and Hesiod, at any rate; and yet they are more persuasive than all the makers of tragedy together, from whom you have heard what you say.

**Comp.** Well, what do they say about Minos?

**Soc.** I will tell you, so that you too may not be impious like the many. For there is nothing more impious than this, nor anything one should be more wary of: to make mistakes in word and deed against the gods, and second against divine human beings. But one must always take very great forethought, whenever you are about to **[319]** censure a man or praise him, lest you should not speak rightly. It is for this reason too that one must learn to distinguish decent men from base. For the god is indignant whenever someone censures one like himself, or praises one who is the opposite of himself; and the one like him is the good man. For do not think that stones and wood and birds and snakes are sacred, but human beings not; no: of all these the most sacred is the good human being, and the most polluted the base one.

Now about Minos too, how Homer and Hesiod **[b]** eulogize him, I will tell you for this reason: so that you, a human being, the son of a human being, may not make a mistake in word against a hero, the son of Zeus. For Homer, saying of Crete that there are many people in it

[^18]: Homer has Zeus name their mother only as “the daughter of far-famed Phoenix” (*Iliad* 14.321–322); Herodotus (1.173) calls Minos a son of Europa.

[^19]: In Attic tradition Minos exacted from Athens a tribute of young men and women for the Minotaur (Plutarch, *Theseus* 15), and he was always ill spoken of and reviled in the Attic theaters (*Theseus* 16.3); Socrates returns to both at 321a.

---

## 319b–320a

### Greek (Burnet, page 10)

καὶ *ἐνενήκοντα πόληες,* *τῇσι δέ,* φησίν—\
    ἔνι Κνωσὸς μεγάλη πόλις, ἔνθα τε Μίνως **5**\
   ἐννέωρος βασίλευε Διὸς μεγάλου ὀαριστής.\
ἔστιν οὖν τοῦτο Ὁμήρου ἐγκώμιον εἰς Μίνων διὰ βραχέων **c**\
εἰρημένον, οἷον οὐδ’ εἰς ἕνα τῶν ἡρώων ἐποίησεν Ὅμηρος.\
ὅτι μὲν γὰρ ὁ Ζεὺς σοφιστής ἐστιν καὶ ἡ τέχνη αὕτη\
παγκάλη ἐστί, πολλαχοῦ καὶ ἄλλοθι δηλοῖ, ἀτὰρ καὶ ἐνταῦθα.\
λέγει γὰρ τὸν Μίνων συγγίγνεσθαι ἐνάτῳ ἔτει τῷ Διὶ ἐν **5**\
λόγοις καὶ φοιτᾶν παιδευθησόμενον ὡς ὑπὸ σοφιστοῦ ὄντος\
τοῦ Διός. ὅτι οὖν τοῦτο τὸ γέρας οὐκ ἔστιν ὅτῳ ἀπένειμεν\
Ὅμηρος τῶν ἡρώων, ὑπὸ Διὸς πεπαιδεῦσθαι, ἄλλῳ ἢ Μίνῳ,\
τοῦτ’ ἔστιν ἔπαινος θαυμαστός. καὶ Ὀδυσσείας ἐν Νεκυίᾳ **d**\
δικάζοντα χρυσοῦν σκῆπτρον ἔχοντα πεποίηκε τὸν Μίνων,\
οὐ τὸν Ῥαδάμανθυν· Ῥαδάμανθυν δὲ οὔτ’ ἐνταῦθα δικά-\
ζοντα πεποίηκεν οὔτε συγγιγνόμενον τῷ Διὶ οὐδαμοῦ. διὰ\
ταῦτά φημ’ ἐγὼ Μίνων ἁπάντων μάλιστα ὑπὸ Ὁμήρου **5**\
ἐγκεκωμιάσθαι. τὸ γὰρ Διὸς ὄντα παῖδα μόνον ὑπὸ Διὸς\
πεπαιδεῦσθαι οὐκ ἔχει ὑπερβολὴν ἐπαίνου—τοῦτο γὰρ ση-\
μαίνει τὸ ἔπος τὸ—\
   ἐννέωρος βασίλευε Διὸς μεγάλου ὀαριστής,\
συνουσιαστὴν τοῦ Διὸς εἶναι τὸν Μίνων. οἱ γὰρ ὄαροι λόγοι **e**\
εἰσίν, καὶ ὀαριστὴς συνουσιαστής ἐστιν ἐν λόγοις—ἐφοίτα\
οὖν δι’ ἐνάτου ἔτους εἰς τὸ τοῦ Διὸς ἄντρον ὁ Μίνως, τὰ μὲν\
μαθησόμενος, τὰ δὲ ἀποδειξόμενος ἃ τῇ προτέρᾳ ἐννεετηρίδι\
ἐμεμαθήκει παρὰ τοῦ Διός. εἰσὶν δὲ οἳ ὑπολαμβάνουσι τὸν **5**\
ὀαριστὴν συμπότην καὶ συμπαιστὴν εἶναι τοῦ Διός, ἀλλὰ\
τῷδε ἄν τις τεκμηρίῳ χρῷτο ὅτι οὐδὲν λέγουσιν οἱ οὕτως\
ὑπολαμβάνοντες· πολλῶν γὰρ ὄντων ἀνθρώπων καὶ Ἑλ- **320**

> *Apparatus:* **b** 5 κνωσσὸς A F   **b** 6 ἐννέωρος A: ἐννέορος F (et infra d9)   **c** 4 παγκάλη A: παγκάλης F   **c** 5 λέγει F: λέγοι A   μίνων A: μίνω F   **d** 1 νεκυία F: νεκυείᾳ A   **d** 3 ῥαδάμανθυν alterum A: om. F   δικάζοντα πεποίηκεν A: πεποίηκε δικάζοντα F   **d** 5 ÷ ἁπάντων A: πάντων F   **d** 9 ὁ ἀριστής F (et mox)   **e** 4 προτέρᾳ F: προτεραίᾳ A   **e** 5 ἐμεμαθήκει A: μεμάθηκε F

### English

and ninety cities, “and among them,” he says,

> *is Cnossus, a great city, where Minos*\
> *was king, nine-yearly confidant of great Zeus.[^20]*

**[c]** This, then, is Homer’s eulogy of Minos, spoken briefly, such as Homer made for not a single one of the heroes. For that Zeus is a sophist, and that this craft is a very fine one, he reveals in many other places, and here too. For he says that Minos used to come to be with Zeus in the ninth year, in words, and to go to be educated by Zeus, as by a sophist. That this privilege, then, to have been educated by Zeus, is one Homer distributed to no other of the heroes than Minos, **[d]** this is wonderful praise. And in the Nekyia of the *Odyssey* he has made Minos the one judging, holding a golden scepter, not Rhadamanthys;[^21] but Rhadamanthys he has made neither judging there nor coming to be with Zeus anywhere. That is why I say that Minos has been eulogized by Homer above all men. For to have been, as a son of Zeus, the only one educated by Zeus leaves no room to praise more highly; for this is what the verse means—

> *was king, nine-yearly confidant of great Zeus,[^22]*

**[e]** that Minos was one who was with Zeus. For confidences are words, and a confidant is one who is with another in words. So Minos used to go every ninth year to the cave of Zeus, to learn some things, and to show the things he had learned from Zeus in the nine years before. There are some who take the confidant to be Zeus’s drinking-companion and playfellow; but one might use this as evidence that those who **[320]** take it so are talking nonsense: for though there are many peoples, Greek

[^20]: *Odyssey* 19.178–179; “ninety cities” is 19.174. *Enneōros*, “nine-yearly”, is of uncertain sense in Homer: LSJ suggests “at nine years old” or “after nine years”, and notes that Socrates takes it with “confidant”, of meeting Zeus every ninth year (319c, 319e). *Confidant*: *oaristēs*, “familiar friend”, from *oaroi*, “confidences”.

[^21]: The *Nekyia*, the “calling up of the dead”, the ancient name of *Odyssey* 11, where Odysseus sees Minos “holding a golden scepter, giving judgment to the dead”, seated (11.568–570).

[^22]: *Odyssey* 19.179 again.

---

## 320a–320d

### Greek (Burnet, page 11)

λήνων καὶ βαρβάρων, οὐκ ἔστιν οἵτινες ἀπέχονται συμποσίων\
καὶ ταύτης τῆς παιδιᾶς, οὗ ἔστιν οἶνος, ἄλλοι ἢ Κρῆτες καὶ\
Λακεδαιμόνιοι δεύτεροι, μαθόντες παρὰ Κρητῶν. ἐν Κρήτῃ\
δὲ εἷς οὗτός ἐστι τῶν ἄλλων νόμων οὓς Μίνως ἔθηκε, μὴ **5**\
συμπίνειν ἀλλήλοις εἰς μέθην. καίτοι δῆλον ὅτι ἃ ἐνόμιζεν\
καλὰ εἶναι, ταῦτα νόμιμα ἔθηκεν καὶ τοῖς αὑτοῦ πολίταις.\
οὐ γάρ που, ὥσπερ γε φαῦλος ἄνθρωπος, ὁ Μίνως ἐνόμιζεν **b**\
μὲν ἕτερα, ἐποίει δὲ ἄλλα παρ’ ἃ ἐνόμιζεν· ἀλλὰ ἦν αὕτη\
ἡ συνουσία ὥσπερ ἐγὼ λέγω, διὰ λόγων ἐπὶ παιδείᾳ εἰς\
ἀρετήν. ὅθεν δὴ καὶ τοὺς νόμους τούτους ἔθηκε τοῖς αὑτοῦ\
πολίταις, δι’ οὓς ἥ τε Κρήτη τὸν πάντα χρόνον εὐδαιμονεῖ **5**\
καὶ Λακεδαίμων, ἀφ’ οὗ ἤρξατο τούτοις χρῆσθαι, ἅτε θείοις\
οὖσιν.\
 Ῥαδάμανθυς δὲ ἀγαθὸς μὲν ἦν ἀνήρ· ἐπεπαίδευτο γὰρ\
ὑπὸ τοῦ Μίνω. ἐπεπαίδευτο μέντοι οὐχ ὅλην τὴν βασιλικὴν **c**\
τέχνην, ἀλλ’ ὑπηρεσίαν τῇ βασιλικῇ, ὅσον ἐπιστατεῖν ἐν\
τοῖς δικαστηρίοις· ὅθεν καὶ δικαστὴς ἀγαθὸς ἐλέχθη εἶναι.\
νομοφύλακι γὰρ αὐτῷ ἐχρῆτο ὁ Μίνως κατὰ τὸ ἄστυ, τὰ δὲ\
κατὰ τὴν ἄλλην Κρήτην τῷ Τάλῳ. ὁ γὰρ Τάλως τρὶς **5**\
περιῄει τοῦ ἐνιαυτοῦ κατὰ τὰς κώμας, φυλάττων τοὺς νόμους\
ἐν αὐταῖς, ἐν χαλκοῖς γραμματείοις ἔχων γεγραμμένους τοὺς\
νόμους, ὅθεν χαλκοῦς ἐκλήθη. εἴρηκε δὲ καὶ Ἡσίοδος ἀδελφὰ\
τούτων εἰς τὸν Μίνων. μνησθεὶς γὰρ αὐτοῦ τοῦ ὀνόματος **d**\
φησίν—\
   ὃς βασιλεύτατος γένετο θνητῶν βασιλήων,\
   καὶ πλείστων ἤνασσε περικτιόνων ἀνθρώπων,\
   Ζηνὸς ἔχων σκῆπτρον· τῷ καὶ πολέων βασίλευεν. **5**\
καὶ οὗτος λέγει τὸ τοῦ Διὸς σκῆπτρον οὐδὲν ἄλλο ἢ τὴν\
παιδείαν τὴν τοῦ Διός, ᾗ εὔθυνε τὴν Κρήτην.

> *Apparatus:* **a** 3 οὗ A: οὔτ’ F   **b** 3 ἐγὼ A: om. F   παιδείᾳ A: παιδείαις F   **c** 1 μίνω A: μίνως F   **c** 5 τάλῳ A (sed λ in ras.): τἄλλω F   τάλως A: τἄλλως F   **c** 7 γραμματείοις A: γραμματίοις F   **d** 3 γένετο A: γένοιτο F   βασιλήων A: βασιλειῶν F

### English

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.[^23] Now it is clear that what he accepted as fine, these things he set down as lawful usages for his own citizens too. **[b]** 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 **[c]** 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.[^24] And Hesiod too has said things akin **[d]** 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.[^25]*

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

[^23]: So in the *Laws* the Spartan Megillus says that his city’s law has driven out drinking parties (1.637a), and the Athenian tells him and the Cretan Clinias that such parties are not customary or lawful among them (1.639d).

[^24]: In Apollonius of Rhodes (*Argonautica* 4.1638–1648) Talos is a man of bronze, given by Zeus to Europa to guard Crete, who runs round the island three times on his bronze feet; in Apollodorus (*Library* 1.9.26), three times a day.

[^25]: Hesiod, fragment 144 (Merkelbach–West), known from this passage.

---

## 320d–321c

### Greek (Burnet, page 12)

 ΕΤ. Διὰ τί οὖν ποτε, ὦ Σώκρατες, αὕτη ἡ φήμη κατε-\
σκέδασται τοῦ Μίνω ὡς ἀπαιδεύτου τινὸς καὶ χαλεποῦ ὄντος; **e**\
 ΣΩ. Δι’ ὃ καὶ σύ, ὦ βέλτιστε, ἐὰν σωφρονῇς, εὐλαβήσῃ,\
καὶ ἄλλος πᾶς ἀνὴρ ὅτῳ μέλει τοῦ εὐδόκιμον εἶναι, μηδέποτε\
ἀπεχθάνεσθαι ἀνδρὶ ποιητικῷ μηδενί. οἱ γὰρ ποιηταὶ μέγα\
δύνανται εἰς δόξαν, ἐφ’ ὁπότερα ἂν ποιῶσιν εἰς τοὺς ἀνθρώ- **5**\
πους, ἢ εὐλογοῦντες ἢ κακηγοροῦντες. ὃ δὴ καὶ ἐξήμαρτεν\
ὁ Μίνως, πολεμήσας τῇδε τῇ πόλει, ἐν ᾗ ἄλλη τε πολλὴ\
σοφία ἐστὶ καὶ ποιηταὶ παντοδαποὶ τῆς τε ἄλλης ποιήσεως\
καὶ τραγῳδίας. ἡ δὲ τραγῳδία ἐστὶν παλαιὸν ἐνθάδε, οὐχ **321**\
ὡς οἴονται ἀπὸ Θέσπιδος ἀρξαμένη οὐδ’ ἀπὸ Φρυνίχου, ἀλλ’\
εἰ θέλεις ἐννοῆσαι, πάνυ παλαιὸν αὐτὸ εὑρήσεις ὂν τῆσδε\
τῆς πόλεως εὕρημα. ἔστιν δὲ τῆς ποιήσεως δημοτερπέστατόν\
τε καὶ ψυχαγωγικώτατον ἡ τραγῳδία· ἐν ᾗ δὴ καὶ ἐντείνοντες **5**\
ἡμεῖς τὸν Μίνων τιμωρούμεθα ἀνθ’ ὧν ἡμᾶς ἠνάγκασε τοὺς\
δασμοὺς τελεῖν ἐκείνους. τοῦτο οὖν ἐξήμαρτεν ὁ Μίνως,\
ἀπεχθόμενος ἡμῖν, ὅθεν δή, ὃ σὺ ἐρωτᾷς, κακοδοξότερος\
γέγονεν. ἐπεὶ ὅτι γε ἀγαθὸς ἦν καὶ νόμιμος, ὅπερ καὶ ἐν τοῖς **b**\
πρόσθεν ἐλέγομεν, νομεὺς ἀγαθός, τοῦτο μέγιστον σημεῖον,\
ὅτι ἀκίνητοι αὐτοῦ οἱ νόμοι εἰσίν, ἅτε τοῦ ὄντος περὶ πόλεως\
οἰκήσεως ἐξευρόντος εὖ τὴν ἀλήθειαν.\
 ΕΤ. Δοκεῖς μοι, ὦ Σώκρατες, εἰκότα τὸν λόγον εἰρηκέναι. **5**\
 ΣΩ. Οὐκοῦν εἰ ἐγὼ ἀληθῆ λέγω, δοκοῦσί σοι παλαι-\
οτάτοις Κρῆτες οἱ Μίνω καὶ Ῥαδαμάνθυος πολῖται νόμοις\
χρῆσθαι;\
 ΕΤ. Φαίνονται.\
 ΣΩ. Οὗτοι ἄρα τῶν παλαιῶν ἄριστοι νομοθέται γεγό- **10**\
νασιν, νομῆς τε καὶ ποιμένες ἀνδρῶν, ὥσπερ καὶ Ὅμηρος **c**\
ἔφη *ποιμένα λαῶν* εἶναι τὸν ἀγαθὸν στρατηγόν.

> *Apparatus:* **e** 2 εὐλαβήσηι A (sed ηι in ras.): εὐλαβὴς ἦ F   **e** 6 prius ἢ A: om. F   κακηγοροῦντες F: κατηγοροῦντες A   **a** 2 οἴονται A: οἷόν τε F   **a** 5 ψυχαγωγικώτατον A: ψυχαγωγιμώτατον F   **a** 7 δασμοὺς A: δεσμοὺς F   **b** 5 εἰρηκέναι re vera A F   **b** 7 κρῆτες A F: κριταῖς s. v. F   μίνωος A F   ῥαδαμάνθυος A: ῥαδάμανθυς F

### English

**Comp.** Why then, Socrates, has this report been spread abroad **[e]** about Minos, that he was an uneducated and harsh man?

**Soc.** For a reason for which you too, my excellent friend, if you are temperate, will be wary of ever incurring the hatred of any poetic man at all, and so will every other man who cares about being well thought of. For the poets have great power over opinion, in whichever direction they make their poems about people, whether speaking well of them or speaking ill. That is just where Minos made a mistake, in waging war against this city, in which there is much wisdom besides, and poets of every sort, of the other kinds of poetry **[321]** and of tragedy. Tragedy is old here, not, as people think, beginning from Thespis or from Phrynichus;[^26] but if you are willing to think of it, you will find that it is a very old finding of this city. And of poetry the most delightful to the people and the most able to lead souls is tragedy; in which, indeed, we stretch Minos out and take vengeance on him, in return for his compelling us to pay that tribute.[^27] This, then, is where Minos made a mistake, in incurring our hatred; and that is why, to answer what you ask, **[b]** he has come to be held in worse opinion. For that he was good and lawful, as we were also saying before, a good distributor, this is the greatest sign: that his laws are unmoved, as of one who discovered well the truth of what is concerning the administration of a city.

**Comp.** I think, Socrates, that you have made a reasonable argument.

**Soc.** Then if what I say is true, do the Cretans, the citizens of Minos and Rhadamanthys, seem to you to use the oldest laws?

**Comp.** They appear so.

**Soc.** Then these have proved the best lawgivers among the men of old, **[c]** distributors and shepherds of men, just as Homer too said that the good general is “shepherd of the people”.[^28]

[^26]: The Suda dates Thespis’ plays to the 61st Olympiad, 536–533 BC, and reports the view that he was the first tragic poet (θ 282); Phrynichus, called his pupil, was one of the earliest tragedians after him (φ 762).

[^27]: *Stretch out*: *enteinein*, “stretch tight”, is also used of putting a story into verse (*Phaedo* 60d); LSJ takes it here as “attack”. A play on the verse sense is possible (an interpretation).

[^28]: *Shepherd of the people*: *poimēn laōn*, Homer’s formula for kings and leaders (e.g. *Iliad* 2.243, of Agamemnon).

---

## 321c–321d

### Greek (Burnet, page 13)

 ΕΤ. Πάνυ μὲν οὖν.\
 ΣΩ. Φέρε δὴ πρὸς Διὸς φιλίου· εἴ τις ἡμᾶς ἔροιτο, ὁ τῷ\
σώματι ἀγαθὸς νομοθέτης τε καὶ νομεὺς τί ἐστιν ταῦτα ἃ **5**\
διανέμων ἐπὶ τὸ σῶμα βέλτιον αὐτὸ ποιεῖ, εἴποιμεν ἂν καλῶς\
τε καὶ διὰ βραχέων ἀποκρινόμενοι, ὅτι τροφήν τε καὶ πόνους,\
τῇ μὲν αὔξων, τοῖς δὲ γυμνάζων καὶ συνιστὰς τὸ σῶμα αὐτό.\
 ΕΤ. Ὀρθῶς γε.\
 ΣΩ. Εἰ οὖν δὴ μετὰ τοῦτο ἔροιτο ἡμᾶς, “Τί δὲ δή ποτε **d**\
ἐκεῖνά ἐστιν, ⟨ἃ⟩ ὁ ἀγαθὸς νομοθέτης τε καὶ νομεὺς διανέμων\
ἐπὶ τὴν ψυχὴν βελτίω αὐτὴν ποιεῖ;” τί ἂν ἀποκρινάμενοι\
οὐκ ἂν αἰσχυνθεῖμεν καὶ ὑπὲρ ἡμῶν αὐτῶν καὶ τῆς ἡλικίας\
αὑτῶν; **5**\
 ΕΤ. Οὐκέτι τοῦτ’ ἔχω εἰπεῖν.\
 ΣΩ. Ἀλλὰ μέντοι αἰσχρόν γε τῇ ψυχῇ ἡμῶν ἐστιν\
ἑκατέρου, τὰ μὲν ἐν αὐταῖς φαίνεσθαι μὴ εἰδυίας, ἐν οἷς\
αὐταῖς ἔνεστι καὶ τὸ ἀγαθὸν καὶ τὸ φλαῦρον, τὰ δὲ τοῦ\
σώματος καὶ τὰ τῶν ἄλλων ἐσκέφθαι. **10**

> *Apparatus:* **c** 5 ἀγαθὸς νομοθέτης A: νομοθέτης ἀγαθὸς F   **d** 2 ἃ om. A F   **d** 4 αὐτῶν F et s. v. A²: om. A   τῆς A: ὑπὲρ τῆς F   **d** 8 ἐν αὐταῖς A: ἑαυταῖς F   **d** 9 ἀγαθὸν καὶ F et καὶ s. v. A²: ἀγαθὸν A   φλαῦρον A: φαῦρον F

### English

**Comp.** Certainly.

**Soc.** Come then, by Zeus of Friendship:[^29] if someone should ask us what these things are that the good lawgiver and distributor for the body distributes to the body and so makes it better, we would say, answering well and briefly, that they are food and labors: by the one making the body grow, by the others exercising it and giving it firmness.

**Comp.** Rightly.

**Soc.** **[d]** If after this, then, he should ask us, “And what, pray, are those things ⟨that⟩ the good lawgiver and distributor distributes to the soul and so makes it better?”, what answer could we give and not be ashamed for ourselves and for our age?[^30]

**Comp.** This I can no longer say.

**Soc.** And yet it is shameful, surely, for the soul of each of us that our souls should appear not to know the things within them, in which both what is good and what is poor are present in them, while they have looked into the things of the body and of the others.

[^29]: *Zeus Philios*, Zeus as guardian of friendship, by whom Socrates swears also in the *Euthyphro* (6b), the *Gorgias* (500b, 519e) and the *Alcibiades I* (109d).

[^30]: ⟨that⟩: the relative is not in A or F; it is supplied in Burnet’s text.

---

## Outline

The divisions follow the argument. References are to Stephanus pages and sections, which stand in the margins of both pages of the text.

### I. What is law? (313a–314c)

**313a–b** “What is law, for us?” Law does not differ from law “in this very respect, in being law”; Socrates asks “what law is, as a whole”.

**313b–c** The companion’s first answer: law is “what is accepted”. As speech is not the things spoken, nor sight the things seen, “So law is not what is accepted.”

**313c–314b** What is the law by which “what is accepted is accepted”? Is it “some perception or revealing”, or “some finding”, as medicine and prophecy find? “For craft, I suppose, is our finding of things”.

**314b–c** The second answer: “These resolutions and decrees”; law is “a resolution of the city”. Socrates: “It is opinion, it seems, that you say law is: political opinion.”

### II. Law and true opinion (314c–315a)

**314c–d** The lawful are lawful by law, the just by justice; “justice and law are something most fine”, and we must “seek it as a good”.

**314d–e** There are “decent resolutions, and base ones”, and law was not base; so “it is not right to answer so simply that law is a resolution of the city”.

**314e–315a** If law is opinion, it is the decent opinion, the true one, and “true opinion is the discovery of what is”. “Law, then, wishes to be the discovery of what is.”

### III. The objection from the laws of peoples (315a–316b)

**315a–b** The companion: “How then, Socrates, if law is the discovery of what is, do we not always use the same laws about the same things, if the things that are have indeed been discovered by us?” Socrates: those who do not “are, it turns out, not always able to discover what law wishes, what is”.

**315b–d** The companion’s examples: human sacrifice at Carthage, in Lycaea and among the descendants of Athamas; the old Athenian customs about the dead.

**315d–e** Long speeches will not settle it; “if what is looked into is put in common, we might perhaps agree”.

**315e–316b** Just things are accepted as just among all people, things that weigh more as heavier, and fine things as fine everywhere; “it is the things that are that are accepted as being”. “Whoever misses what is, then, misses the lawful.”

### IV. The writings of those who know (316b–317d)

**316b–c** The companion: “when I think of how we never stop changing our laws up and down, I cannot be persuaded.”

**316c–e** These things, “moved about as at draughts”, are the same. A writing about health is medicine’s; those who have knowledge accept the same things, Greeks and barbarians, and always; so doctors write “just what they also accept as being”, and their writings are “laws of medicine”; and so with farming, gardening and cookery.

**317a–b** The writings about the ordering of a city belong to “the statesmen and the kingly men”: writings “which people call laws, writings of kings and good men”.

**317b–d** Those who know how will not write different things at different times about the same things; “what is right is kingly law”, and what is not right “is lawless”. “Rightly, then, we agreed that law is the finding of what is.”

### V. The good distributor (317d–318a)

**317d–e** The farmer is “a good distributor” of seeds; so the flute-player and the cithara-player; “the one most skilled in law in these things is the most skilled flute-player”.

**317e–318a** The one best at distributing food to the bodies of men, the trainer, is the ablest to tend “the human herd in its body”; the shepherd tends the sheep, and his laws are best for them, as the oxherd’s for the oxen; the king’s laws are best “for the souls of men”.

### VI. The oldest laws (318b–d)

**318b–c** The good lawgiver of old in the laws for the flute: “Marsyas, then, as is said, and his beloved, Olympus the Phrygian”, whose tunes “alone move and reveal those who are in need of the gods”.

**318c–d** The kings of old: the laws of the Lacedaemonians and Lycurgus are “not yet three hundred years old, perhaps”; the best of these lawful usages came from Crete, whose people “use the oldest laws among the Greeks”.

### VII. Minos (318d–320d)

**318d–e** Minos and Rhadamanthys, “the sons of Zeus and Europa”, made the laws of Crete. The companion: Minos was “a savage one, harsh and unjust”. Socrates: “That is an Attic tale you are telling, my excellent friend, and a tragic one.”

**318e–319a** The warning: nothing is more impious than “to make mistakes in word and deed against the gods, and second against divine human beings”; “the most sacred is the good human being, and the most polluted the base one.”

**319b–d** Homer’s lines on Minos, “confidant of great Zeus”: Minos “used to come to be with Zeus in the ninth year, in words”, and alone of the heroes was educated by Zeus; in the Nekyia he judges, “holding a golden scepter”.

**319d–320b** The verse means that Minos was “one who was with Zeus”: “a confidant is one who is with another in words”, and Minos went to the cave of Zeus every ninth year. Those who take the confidant to be Zeus’s “drinking-companion and playfellow” are “talking nonsense”: Minos’ law in Crete forbids drinking parties, and the Lacedaemonians learned it from the Cretans; Minos did not “accept one thing and do another”, and “this being with was, as I say, through words, for education towards virtue”.

**320b–d** Rhadamanthys, educated by Minos, a good judge and “guardian of the laws in the town”; Talos, who went round the villages “guarding the laws in them”; Hesiod’s “scepter of Zeus” is “the education of Zeus, by which he guided Crete”.

### VIII. Minos and the poets (320d–321c)

**320d–321a** Why Minos is called “an uneducated and harsh man”: “the poets have great power over opinion”, and Minos waged war on Athens, where tragedy is “a very old finding of this city”; in tragedy “we stretch Minos out and take vengeance on him”.

**321b** The greatest sign that Minos was “a good distributor”: “his laws are unmoved”.

**321b–c** The Cretans “use the oldest laws”; their lawgivers are “distributors and shepherds of men”, as the good general is “shepherd of the people”.

### IX. The body and the soul (321c–d)

**321c** What the good lawgiver and distributor distributes to the body: “food and labors”.

**321d** What he distributes to the soul. The companion: “This I can no longer say.” Socrates: “And yet it is shameful, surely, for the soul of each of us that our souls should appear not to know the things within them”.

## Editorial Note

**The Greek text.** The Greek is John Burnet’s, from the fifth volume of his Oxford Classical Text of Plato (1907), which holds the ninth of Thrasyllus’ tetralogies (the *Minos*, the *Laws*, the *Epinomis* and the *Letters*), the *Definitions* and the spurious dialogues; its first part, which the *Minos* opens, holds the *Minos* and Books I–VIII of the *Laws*. The copy reproduced is a later impression of that first part: its title page carries no date; its verso names the printer, John Johnson, Printer to the University of Oxford from 1925 to 1946; the Preface is dated November 1906, with an addendum of November 1913 reporting the rediscovery of the manuscript O (Vaticanus graecus 1); and the publisher’s list bound in at the end is dated October 1936, so that the copy was issued no earlier than that. The list names no second edition of the volume, so the text is that of the first edition (1907). The text is reproduced page for page and line for line: each left-hand page of this edition is one page of Burnet, with his line-ends, his marginal section letters and line numbers, and his apparatus criticus at the foot. In the margin, “St. II p. 313” at the head of the dialogue gives the volume and page of Stephanus’ edition at which it begins; where each later page of Stephanus begins, its number stands in place of the letter a; and within each section every fifth line is numbered. Burnet sets these in the outer margin of his page, this edition in the right-hand margin; his running heads are not reproduced. The words were taken from the Perseus Digital Library’s digital transcription of Burnet, and every line was then checked against the photographs of this copy; where the two differ, this edition prints what Burnet printed. Burnet’s title, ΜΙΝΩΣ ἢ ΠΕΡΙ ΝΟΜΟΥ, “Minos, or On Law”, and his list of the persons beneath it (ΣΩΚΡΑΤΗΣ ΕΤΑΙΡΟΣ, Socrates and a companion) are kept, with his abbreviations of the speakers’ names (ΣΩ., ΕΤ.), his capitals at the openings of speeches and of quoted speech, and his quotation marks (313c–314b, 321d). A new speech usually begins a new, indented paragraph; but from 314c Burnet runs most short exchanges together within one paragraph, joining the speeches by dashes (“σοφούς;—ΕΤ. Ἔγωγε.—ΣΩ. Οὐκοῦν”), and this edition does the same, on both pages. Where Socrates turns to a new matter within his speech, Burnet begins a new paragraph without a speaker’s name (319a9, 320b8), and so does this edition. The lines of Homer and Hesiod are set as verse (319b, 319d, 320d); Homer’s words run into the prose at 319b4 and the phrase “shepherd of the people” at 321c2 are letterspaced, as Burnet prints them. Angle brackets ⟨ ⟩ in the text enclose words that are not in the manuscripts and that Burnet supplies: the companion’s reply at 316a2–3, which he takes from the early printed editions (*add. vulg.*), and the relative ἃ at 321d2, whose source he does not name. His misprints in the apparatus are kept (“om A” at 314a5 and “om F” at 316e6, each without a point, and the key “a 3” for an entry that belongs to line a 4 of 315a).

**Reading the apparatus.** The notes at the foot of each Greek page are Burnet’s, unaltered. Entries are keyed by section letter and line as numbered in the margin, so that “a 4” is the fourth line of section a. The section letters begin again with each Stephanus page, so that on a page that runs from one Stephanus page into the next, “a 1” after “e 7” belongs to the new page (319a1). A further entry on the same line follows after a wider space without repeating the key. Usually the reading printed in the text comes first, followed by the witnesses that have it; a colon separates it from the alternatives, each followed by its witnesses. Entries with no colon report a scholar’s deletion without listing the witnesses for the text (318b2), a repetition in F (313c3), or only what the manuscripts have where Burnet notes it: a form other than the one he prints (318e3, 319b5, 319d9, 321b7), the reading he prints, confirmed (321b5) or with the corrections made to it in A (318a2), or the omission of a word he supplies (321d2). Spaced points . . . stand for the words between the first and last words of a lemma, which the entry covers but does not write out (313c1, 313c3, 317b3–4); round brackets enclose a remark on the entry (313b9, 316a4, 318a2), a further reading inside it (317d4, 318e1), or, at 318b2, the words of A on either side of the ἐν it lacks (γέγονε τοῖς). Forms are given as the manuscripts have them, without the capitals of the text (μίνων, ῥαδάμανθυν, κρῆτες), and with their own spellings and accents. A colon inside a reported reading belongs to the manuscript: A has ἀλλά: at 316a3, where the final ά and the colon are written over an erasure, and ὁπου:οῦν at 317b5. A marks a change of speaker with such a dicolon; at 317b5, inside a word within a speech of Socrates, it can mark none.

**Names and abbreviations.** Stephanus is Henri Estienne, whose edition of 1578 supplies the page numbers by which Plato is cited; the *Minos* fills pages 313–321 of his second volume. A scholar’s name standing alone after a reading marks that scholar’s reading. The scholars named are Karl Friedrich Hermann (*Herm.* at 316a2), whose edition of Plato appeared in 1851–53, and August Boeckh, who wrote on the *Minos* (1806). Alexander, cited at 313a2 for the wording of the companion’s question, is an ancient author who quotes it; Burnet does not say which Alexander. *Stob.* is Stobaeus, the anthologist of the fifth century AD, who quotes 317c–318a in the chapter of his *Anthology* on laws and customs (4.2; Wachsmuth–Hense, vol. IV, pp. 120–121); “Stob. A” is one manuscript of the *Anthology*. *Basileensis altera* is the second Basel edition of Plato (1556). *Par. 1642* is a manuscript at Paris (Parisinus graecus 1642). *vulg.* (*vulgata*) is the text of the early printed editions. *om.* means that a witness, or an editor (316a2), leaves the words out; *add.*, that they are added; *secl.*, “set apart”, that a scholar deletes them; *in marg.*, that a reading is written in the margin; *in ras.*, that it is written over an erasure; *s. v.* (*supra versum*), that it is written above the line, and *supra*, “above”, that letters are written over others (316e6) or that a word stands earlier in the text (316a2); *qui … pro …*, “who (reads) … in place of …” (316a2; *pro* alone at 317d8); *abscisso margine periit in A*, “lost in A where the margin is cut away” (313a1); *post*, “after”, and *iterat*, “repeats”, with *omissis*, “leaving out” (313c3: after νομιζόμενα F repeats the words from b8 to c3, leaving out those from b9 to c2); *ut vid.* (*ut videtur*), “as it seems”; *re vera*, “in fact”, that the manuscripts really have the reading (315a8, 318e2, 321b5); *sic*, “so”, that the odd form is the manuscript’s (319a1); *bis*, “twice”; *prius*, “the first” and *alterum*, “the second” of two like words in the line; *et mox*, “and soon after”, and *et infra*, “and below”, that the same reading recurs; *sed*, “but”; *et*, “and”. The sign ÷ before A’s reading at 319d5 is printed as Burnet prints it: it is the mark with which A as a rule fills an erased space, and so shows an erasure in A before ἁπάντων.

**The witnesses.** Burnet’s apparatus to this dialogue rests on two manuscripts. A is the Paris manuscript of Plato (Parisinus graecus 1807), written in the ninth century, which his Preface calls by far the soundest witness for this tetralogy; A² is A as corrected in its revision (*diorthōsis*), by the same hand, as it seems. F is the Vienna manuscript (Vindobonensis 55, suppl. phil. Gr. 39), which Burnet believed to have been copied from an exemplar in uncial letters; it has nothing after the *Minos*. Letters written together share a reading, so that “A F” is A and F.

**The English.** The translation is new. It aims to be exact, with every clause answering to a clause of the Greek, and to keep Socrates’ manner: his patient questioning, his solemn warning about impiety, and his warning, near the end, never to incur the hatred of a poet. Nothing is added to make it livelier; where a joke or a play on words depends on the Greek, a note explains it. The speakers are named in small capitals, as Burnet names them, at the head of each speech and, in the exchanges he runs together, after the dash. The reading Burnet prints is translated, including the words he prints in angle brackets, which keep their brackets in the English (316a, 321d); where his choice makes a real difference to the sense, a note gives the other reading (315c, 316a, 317d, 321d).

Each right-hand page translates the Greek page opposite. When a sentence runs over the turn of Burnet’s page, the English breaks at the nearest point English word order allows. The Stephanus section letters in the margin of the English mark where each section begins.

**Key terms.** The words on which the argument turns have one rendering each throughout. *Nomos* is “law”, every time, including the musical *nomoi*, the “laws for the flute” (318b). *Nomizein*, the verb made from it, is “accept”, and *ta nomizomena*, the companion’s first definition, “what is accepted” (313b); *nomimos* is “lawful” and *ta nomima* “lawful usages”; *anomos* is “lawless” and *anomia* “lawlessness”; *nomothetēs* is “lawgiver”. *Nomeus* is “distributor”, and *nemein* and *dianemein* “distribute”; with a herd as its object *nemein* is “tend” (318a). *Dogma* is “resolution” and *psēphisma* “decree”; *doxa* is “opinion”, as in the series. *Chrēstos* is “decent” and *ponēros* “base”. *Heuriskein* is “find” and *heuresis* “finding”, kept apart from *exeuriskein* “discover” and *exeuresis* “discovery”. *To on* is “what is” and *ta onta* “the things that are”. *Syngramma* is “writing”; *epistēmōn* “one who has knowledge”; *technē* “craft”; *synousia* “being with”.

**The notes.** The notes identify persons, places and quotations, explain what the English cannot carry, and mark the places where Burnet’s choice of reading makes a real difference to the sense. Interpretations are labelled as such. They are numbered afresh on each page.

## Glossary of Key Terms

The English words on which the argument depends, in alphabetical order, with the Greek they render and the places where they matter, by Stephanus page. Where a word has a longer entry in the Key Words of the Dialogue, the Glossary says so.

**accept**, νομίζειν (*nomizein*); **what is accepted**, τὰ νομιζόμενα (*ta nomizomena*); **accept in common**, συννομίζειν (*synnomizein*). “What is accepted”, 313b–c, 314a; “accept”, 314a, 315d, 315e, 316a–b, 316d–e, 320a–b; “accept in common”, 316d. See Key Words, *Accept, what is accepted*.

**being with**, συνουσία (*synousia*); **one who is with**, συνουσιαστής (*synousiastēs*); **come to be with**, συγγίγνεσθαι (*syngignesthai*). “Come to be with”, 319c, 319d; “one who was with Zeus”, “one who is with another in words”, 319e; “this being with”, 320b. See **confidant** and Key Words, *Being with; confidant*.

**confidant**, ὀαριστής (*oaristēs*); **confidences**, ὄαροι (*oaroi*). 319b, 319d, 319e (note at 319b). See **being with** and Key Words, *Being with; confidant*.

**craft**, τέχνη (*technē*). “Craft … is our finding of things”, 314b; the craft of medicine, 316c; Zeus’ craft, 319c; “the kingly craft”, 320c.

**decent**, χρηστός (*chrēstos*); **base**, πονηρός (*ponēros*). Resolutions and opinion, 314e; “decent men from base”, “the most polluted the base one”, 319a. See Key Words, *Decent and base*.

**discover**, ἐξευρίσκειν (*exeuriskein*); **discovery**, ἐξεύρεσις (*exeuresis*). “The discovery of what is”, 315a; “not always able to discover what law wishes”, 315b; “one who discovered well the truth”, 321b. Kept apart from **find**. See Key Words, *What is; find, discover*.

**distribute**, νέμειν, διανέμειν, ἀπονέμειν (*nemein*, *dianemein*, *aponemein*); **distribution**, διανομή (*dianomē*); **distributor**, νομεύς (*nomeus*). With a herd as its object νέμειν is **tend**. 317d–e; “tend”, 318a (note); “distributed to no other of the heroes”, 319c; “a good distributor”, 321b; “distributors and shepherds of men”, 321c; 321c–d (note at 317d). See Key Words, *Distribute, distributor; tend*.

**educate**, παιδεύειν (*paideuein*); **education**, παιδεία (*paideia*); **uneducated**, ἀπαίδευτος (*apaideutos*). 319c, 319d, 320b, 320c, 320d; “uneducated”, 320e. See Key Words, *Education, sophist*.

**eulogize**, ἐγκωμιάζειν (*enkōmiazein*); **eulogy**, ἐγκώμιον (*enkōmion*); **praise**, ἐπαινεῖν, ἔπαινος (*epainein*, *epainos*); **censure**, ψέγειν (*psegein*). “Censure a man or praise him”, 319a; “eulogize”, 319b, 319d; “eulogy”, 319c; “wonderful praise”, “no room to praise more highly”, 319d.

**find**, εὑρίσκειν (*heuriskein*); **finding**, εὕρεσις, εὕρημα (*heuresis*, *heurēma*). 314b; “the finding of what is”, 317d; “a very old finding of this city”, 321a. Kept apart from **discover**. See Key Words, *What is; find, discover*.

**kingly**, βασιλικός (*basilikos*). “The kingly men”, 317a; “kingly law”, 317c; “the kingly craft”, 320c. See Key Words, *Kingly; statesmen*.

**know how**, ἐπίστασθαι (*epistasthai*); **one who has knowledge**, ἐπιστήμων (*epistēmōn*), plural ἐπιστήμονες (*epistēmones*); **without knowledge**, ἀνεπιστήμονες (*anepistēmones*); **know**, εἰδέναι (*eidenai*). “Those who have knowledge”, 316c–d, 317b; “without knowledge”, 317b; “Who has the knowledge to distribute seeds”, 317d; “know how”, 316e–317b; “know”, 314c, 315c, 316c–d, 317c, 318c–d, 321d. See Key Words, *Writing, those who know*.

**law**, νόμος (*nomos*); **most skilled in law**, νομικώτατος (*nomikōtatos*). Throughout; the question, 313a–b; “most skilled in law”, 317e (note); “the laws for the flute”, 318b (note); “the oldest laws”, 318c–d, 321b. See Key Words, *Law*.

**lawful**, νόμιμος (*nomimos*); **lawful usages**, τὰ νόμιμα (*ta nomima*). “Lawful”, 314c–d, 315c, 316b, 317b–c, 321b; “lawful usages”, 316e, 317a, 317b, 318c, 320a. See Key Words, *Lawful, lawless*.

**lawgiver**, νομοθέτης (*nomothetēs*); **guardian of the laws**, νομοφύλαξ (*nomophylax*). “Lawgiver”, 318b, 318c, 321b–d; “guardian of the laws”, 320c.

**lawless**, ἄνομος (*anomos*); **lawlessness**, ἀνομία (*anomia*). 314d, 317c. See Key Words, *Lawful, lawless*.

**make a mistake**, ἐξαμαρτάνειν (*examartanein*); **miss**, ἁμαρτάνειν (*hamartanein*). “Whoever misses what is, then, misses the lawful”, 316b; “make mistakes in word and deed”, 318e; “make a mistake in word against a hero”, 319b; “where Minos made a mistake”, 320e, 321a.

**opinion**, δόξα (*doxa*); **held in worse opinion**, κακοδοξότερος (*kakodoxoteros*). “Political opinion”, 314c; “true opinion”, 314e–315a; “great power over opinion”, 320e; “held in worse opinion”, 321a–b. See **resolution** and Key Words, *Resolution, decree, opinion*.

**resolution**, δόγμα (*dogma*); **decree**, ψήφισμα (*psēphisma*). 314b–e (note at 314b). See **opinion** and Key Words, *Resolution, decree, opinion*.

**right**, ὀρθός (*orthos*); **rightly**, ὀρθῶς (*orthōs*). “You would not have asked rightly”, 313a; “it is not right to answer so simply”, 314e; “if you are speaking rightly”, 315d; “whatever is right”, 317b; “what is right is kingly law”, 317c; “Rightly, then, we agreed”, “his laws and distributions in these matters are right”, 317d; “lest you should not speak rightly”, 319a; “Rightly”, 321c.

**sophist**, σοφιστής (*sophistēs*). Zeus, 319c. See Key Words, *Education, sophist*.

**soul**, ψυχή (*psychē*). “The souls of men”, 318a; what the good lawgiver distributes to “the soul”, 321d, as to the body, 321c.

**statesmen**, οἱ πολιτικοί (*hoi politikoi*); **political**, πολιτικός (*politikos*). “Political opinion”, 314c; “the statesmen”, “statesmen’s writings”, 317a. See Key Words, *Kingly; statesmen*.

**tend**: see **distribute**.

**what is**, τὸ ὄν (*to on*); **the things that are**, τὰ ὄντα (*ta onta*). “The discovery of what is”, 315a; “what law wishes, what is”, 315b; “the things that are”, 315a, 316b; “misses what is”, 316b; “the finding of what is”, 317d; “the truth of what is”, 321b. See Key Words, *What is; find, discover*.

**wish**, βούλεσθαι (*boulesthai*), of law. “Law, then, wishes to be the discovery of what is”, 315a; 315b (note at 315a). See Key Words, *Wish*.

**writing**, σύγγραμμα (*syngramma*); **write**, συγγράφειν (*syngraphein*). 316c–317c. See Key Words, *Writing, those who know*.

## Note on this Edition

### How the volume was made

The Greek was taken from the Perseus Digital Library’s digital transcription of Burnet and cut into Burnet’s lines by reading every line-end from the photographs of his page, in the impression described in the Editorial Note. Accents, breathings and iota subscripts were read on the sharpest image of each page that the scan provides, and a doubtful mark was settled by setting it beside sure examples of each form on the same page. The section letters and line numbers in the margin were computed from the Stephanus divisions rather than copied, and were then compared with Burnet’s margin, page by page, across the 352 lines of the dialogue. Burnet’s way of running short exchanges together, with the speakers’ names after a dash, was reproduced line by line, and the English follows it.

The dialogue was made in one block, all thirteen of Burnet’s pages. The block was checked by four independent reviewers: two, dividing its pages between them, compared the Greek and the apparatus with the page images letter by letter, one compared the English with the Greek clause by clause, and one checked every fact and reference in the notes. Each finding was examined again against the evidence before it was adopted, and not all were adopted. What that check caught is recorded at the end of this Note.

The volume was then read through again as one text, since a check made clause by clause cannot see some kinds of error: a word rendered one way here and another way there, a recapitulation that states a step in other words than the step itself, a rendering that departs from the earlier volumes of the series. The translator read the whole, and four further reviewers read it independently: one for the consistency of terms across the whole book and with the earlier volumes, two for sense, omissions and continuity in its two halves, and one for the Editorial Note against the scan of Burnet’s volume. The Introduction, the Key Words of the Dialogue, the Outline and the Glossary were then written from the finished English, and three more reviewers checked them, claim by claim and citation by citation, together with the corrections made in the final reading.

### What the final reading caught

It found some seventy points in the English and its notes that the block check had passed, most of them small, and several more in the Editorial Note. They fall into a few classes.

The largest class was renderings that had not been brought into line with the earlier volumes of the series or kept to one English word within this one. The set answers were made the series’ own: *Phēmi* is “I say so” (316c, as at 318a), and *Ou moi dokei* and *Ouk emoige dokei* “I do not think so” (313c, 314e). *Orthōs* is “rightly” at 319a too, where the draft had “incorrectly”; *ethelein* is “be willing” at 321a, as at 315e; *apodeixis* is “proof” (315d) and *dēloun* “reveal” (319c), as at 314a–b. The rare word for Minos’ relation to Zeus, *synousiastēs*, is now “one who is with” (319e), so that it is heard with “come to be with” (319c) and “this being with” (320b); the draft’s “companion” was also the speaker’s label. *Hoi politikoi* are “statesmen” and their writings “statesmen’s writings” (317a), and *epistasthai* is “know how” wherever the infinitive is understood (317b).

Some renderings changed the sense or missed the Greek. In Hesiod’s last line *poleōn* is the epic genitive of “many”, not of “cities” (320d), as a published translation had taken it. Homer’s line on Minos now reads “was king, nine-yearly confidant of great Zeus” (319b, 319d), so that the reader can see how Socrates takes “nine-yearly” with “confidant”. Socrates’ reply to the companion’s first question is “Is there anything in which law differs from law” (313a); *oikēsis poleōs* is “the administration of a city” (321b); the questioner at 321c is hypothetical, “if someone should ask us”, as at 321d; Minos “used to come to be with Zeus” (319c), a recurring meeting; and the last sentence names “our souls” as its subject and speaks of “what is good and what is poor” in them (321d). Several phrases that followed a published translation more closely than the Greek requires were reworded (315b, 316e–317a, 317e, 318b, 318e–319a, 320a–b). In the notes, the musical nome is described as LSJ describes it (318b), the reading of F and Stobaeus at 317d is described more exactly, Plutarch’s report that Minos was always ill spoken of in the Attic theaters was added (318d), and the date of Thespis is given as the Suda gives it (321a). The spelling of the volume was made American throughout, as in the series.

In the Editorial Note, the contents of Burnet’s volume and of its first part were corrected, and the date of the impression is now drawn from the publisher’s list. The spaced points and the colon inside A’s readings are described as Burnet uses them; the place of Stobaeus’ quotation was found (317c–318a); the sign ÷ is explained from Burnet’s practice in the *Laws*; and the Alexander cited at 313a2, whom the draft named Alexander of Aphrodisias, is left unnamed, since his works were searched without finding the quotation.

### What remains undone

The Alexander whom Burnet cites at 313a2 for the wording of the companion’s question has not been identified; the Editorial Note reports him as Burnet does. The number of Stobaeus’ excerpt within his chapter on laws has not been found. A few marks at the limit of the scan are printed as they were read: the separators in the apparatus at 315a3 and 315d1, which print with a tail, as colons, and the marks at 317b7, 317d5 and 317d7, which print without their tails, as question marks, since all three close questions.

The apparatus is Burnet’s alone. It has not been collated against the manuscripts, and readings proposed since 1907 are not reported. The translation follows Burnet’s text even where later scholars would print something else.

The notes are a reader’s aid, not a commentary. They were chosen to explain what the English cannot carry, and they label the more doubtful interpretations as such. The question of who wrote the dialogue is set out in the Introduction but not argued; a reader who wants the scholarly debate will need a commentary.

The checks described above were made by independent reviewers working from the same page images. The volume has not been read by a specialist outside the project, and a reader who finds an error is asked to report it.

### The record of the blocks

The notes that follow were written when the block was finished, and are kept as a record of what its check found. Where the final reading changed something they report, the text above says so.

### Block I: 313a–321d (Burnet pages 1–13)

**How it was made.** The whole dialogue was made as one block. The line-ends were read from the photographs of Burnet’s pages and the words cut from the digital transcription to match; the typesetting was extended to Burnet’s run-in exchanges, in which a speaker’s name follows a dash inside the line and the dash stands, as Burnet prints it, either at the end of a line or at the head of the next. The English was drafted against the Greek with the rulings settled with the publisher at the start: *nomos* “law” every time, *ta nomizomena* “what is accepted” and *nomizein* “accept”, in the register of the series.

**What the check caught in the Greek.** The text and the apparatus were found to agree with Burnet’s pages letter by letter, and the thirty marks that had been doubtful in transcription were all confirmed as read: among them a rough breathing that prints like an acute on short vowels, A’s dicolon in two readings, and the misprints “om A”, “om F” and “a 3” kept as printed. Two points of layout were corrected: Homer’s words run into the prose at 319b4 are letterspaced in Burnet, and the first verse line at 319b5 is set deeper than had been measured.

**What the check caught in the English.** About forty-five points were corrected. Two page joins had carried words across the turn of Burnet’s page (316c, 317e), and five Stephanus letters stood a word or two late (313c, 314a, 316b, 317a, 317b). At 317d the English had translated Boeckh’s conjecture “distributes” instead of the infinitive Burnet prints; at 321c “to the body” had been left out; “the things in themselves” at 321d, a philosophical term, became “the things within them”; the past conditions at 313c–314a were given their tense; and seven renderings were brought into line with the series, among them “make a mistake” for *examartanein*, “the opposite”, “equally” and “trainer”. Four phrases that followed a published translation were reworded.

**What the check caught in the notes.** Five errors were corrected: Lycaea is a place, not the festival of Zeus Lycaeus; the Talos who runs round Crete “three times a day” is Apollodorus’, not Apollonius’; the oath by Zeus of Friendship in the *Phaedrus* is Phaedrus’ own, not Socrates’; Homer does not name Europa; and a transliteration was wrong. The notes on the women who poured offerings, on the musical nome, on Marsyas and Olympus and on the drinking laws of Sparta and Crete were made to say only what their sources say.