Seite - 1439 - in The Complete Plato
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The building of these and the like works will be useful and ornamental;
they will provide a pleasing amusement, but they will be a serious
employment too; for the sixty wardens will have to guard their several
divisions, not only with a view to enemies, but also with an eye to professing
friends. When a quarrel arises among neighbours or citizens, and any one,
whether slave or freeman wrongs another, let the five wardens decide small
matters on their own authority; but where the charge against another relates to
greater matters, the seventeen composed of the fives and twelves, shall
determine any charges which one man brings against another, not involving
more than three minae. Every judge and magistrate shall be liable to give an
account of his conduct in office, except those who, like kings, have the final
decision. Moreover, as regards the aforesaid wardens of the country, if they do
any wrong to those of whom they have the care, whether by imposing upon
them unequal tasks, or by taking the produce of the soil or implements of
husbandry without their consent; also if they receive anything in the way of a
bribe, or decide suits unjustly, or if they yield to the influences of flattery, let
them be publicly dishonoured; and in regard to any other wrong which they
do to the inhabitants of the country, if the question be of a mina, let them
submit to the decision of the villagers in the neighbourhood; but in suits of
greater amount, or in case of lesser, if they refuse to submit, trusting that their
monthly removal into another part of the country will enable them to escape
—in such cases the injured party may bring his suit in the common court, and
if he obtain a verdict he may exact from the defendant, who refused to submit,
a double penalty.
The wardens and the overseers of the country, while on their two years
service, shall have common meals at their several stations, and shall all live
together; and he who is absent from the common meal, or sleeps out, if only
for one day or night, unless by order of his commanders, or by reason of
absolute necessity, if the five denounce him and inscribe his name the agora
as not having kept his guard, let him be deemed to have betrayed the city, as
far as lay in his power, and let him be disgraced and beaten with impunity by
any one who meets him and is willing to punish him. If any of the
commanders is guilty of such an irregularity, the whole company of sixty
shall see to it, and he who is cognizant of the offence, and does not bring the
offender to trial, shall be amenable to the same laws as the younger offender
himself, and shall pay a heavier fine, and be incapable of ever commanding
the young. The guardians of the law are to be careful inspectors of these
matters, and shall either prevent or punish offenders. Every man should
remember the universal rule, that he who is not a good servant will not be a
good master; a man should pride himself more upon serving well than upon
commanding well: first upon serving the laws, which is also the service of the
1439
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Buch The Complete Plato"
The Complete Plato
- Titel
- The Complete Plato
- Autor
- Plato
- Datum
- ~347 B.C.
- Sprache
- englisch
- Lizenz
- PD
- Abmessungen
- 21.0 x 29.7 cm
- Seiten
- 1612
- Schlagwörter
- Philosophy, Antique, Philosophie, Antike, Dialogues, Metaphysik, Metaphysics, Ideologie, Ideology, Englisch
- Kategorien
- Geisteswissenschaften
- International