Book I - Page 2

for a
similar reason, because he saw that while they are in the field the
citizens are by the nature of the case compelled to take their meals
together for the sake of mutual protection. He seems to me to have thought
the world foolish in not understanding that all men are always at war with
one another; and if in war there ought to be common meals and certain
persons regularly appointed under others to protect an army, they should
be continued in peace. For what men in general term peace would be said by
him to be only a name; in reality every city is in a natural state of war
with every other, not indeed proclaimed by heralds, but everlasting. And
if you look closely, you will find that this was the intention of the
Cretan legislator; all institutions, private as well as public, were
arranged by him with a view to war; in giving them he was under the
impression that no possessions or institutions are of any value to him who
is defeated in battle; for all the good things of the conquered pass into
the hands of the conquerors.

ATHENIAN: You appear to me, Stranger, to have been thoroughly trained in
the Cretan institutions, and to be well informed about them; will you tell
me a little more explicitly what is the principle of government which you
would lay down? You seem to imagine that a well-governed state ought to be
so ordered as to conquer all other states in war: am I right in supposing
this to be your meaning?

CLEINIAS: Certainly; and our Lacedaemonian friend, if I am not mistaken,
will agree with me.

MEGILLUS: Why, my good friend, how could any Lacedaemonian say anything
else?

ATHENIAN: And is what you say applicable only to states, or also to
villages?

CLEINIAS: To both alike.

ATHENIAN: The case is the same?

CLEINIAS: Yes.

ATHENIAN: And in the village will there be the same war of family against
family, and of individual against individual?

CLEINIAS: The same.

ATHENIAN: And should each man conceive himself to be his own enemy:--what
shall we say?

CLEINIAS: O Athenian Stranger--inhabitant of Attica I will not call you,
for you seem to deserve rather to be named after the goddess herself,
because you go back to first principles,--you have thrown a light upon the
argument, and will now be better able to understand what I was just
saying,--that all men are publicly one another's enemies, and each man
privately his own.

(ATHENIAN: My good sir, what do you mean?)--

CLEINIAS:...Moreover, there is a victory and defeat--the first and best of
victories, the lowest and worst of defeats--which each man gains or
sustains at the hands, not of another, but of himself; this shows that
there is a war against ourselves