The remark here cited indicates the small numerical scale upon which the calculations of a Greek politician were framed. But we can hardly be surprised at it, seeing that the new city is intended for the Island of Krete, where none even of the existing cities were considerable. Moreover Aristotle had probably present to his mind the analogy of Sparta. The Spartan citizens were in a situation more analogous to the 5040 than any other Grecian residents. But the Spartan citizens could not have been near so numerous as 5040 at that time; not even one-fifth of it — Aristotle tells us, Politic. ii. 9, 1270, a. 31. Aristotle goes on to remark on the definition given by Plato of the size and value of each lot of land sufficient for the citizen and his family to live σωφρόνως: it ought to be (says Aristotle) σωφρόνως καὶ ἐλευθερίως. These are the two modes of excellence, and the only two, which a man can display in the use of his property (1265, a. 35). But this change would only aggravate the difficulty as to the total area of land required for the 5040. Compare the remark of Aristotle on the scheme of Hippodamus, Politic. ii. 8, 1268, a. 42.
Plato reasserts his adherence to the principle of the Republic, though the repugnance of others hinders him from realising it.
We thus see that Plato, in laying down his fundamental principle (ὑπόθεσιν), recognises separate individual property and separate family among his citizens: both of which had been strenuously condemned and strictly excluded, in respect to the Guardians of his Republic. But he admits the principle only with the proviso that there shall be a peremptory limit to number of citizens, to individual wealth, and to individual poverty: moreover, even with this proviso, he admits it only as a second-best, because mankind will not accept, and are not sufficiently exalted to work out, what is in itself the best. He reasserts the principle of the Republic, that separate property and separate family are both essentially mischievous: that all individuality, either of interest or sympathy or sentiment, ought to be extinguished as far as possible.[159] Though constrained against his will to renounce this object, he will still approximate to it as near as he can in his second-best. Moreover, he may possibly, at some future time (D.V.), propose a third-best. When once departure from the genuine standard is allowed, the departure may be made in many different ways.
[159] Plato, Legg. v. pp. 739-740; vii. p. 807 B.
This declaration deserves notice as attesting the undiminished adhesion of Plato to the main doctrines of his Republic. The point here noted is one main difference of principle between the Treatise De Legibus and the Republic: the enactment of written fundamental laws with prologues serving as homilies to be preached to the citizens, is another. Both of them are differences of principle: each gives rise to many subordinate differences or corollaries.[160]
[160] Plato, Legg. v. p. 739 E. ἣν δὲ νῦν ἡμεῖς ἐπικεχειρήκαμεν, εἴη τε ἂν γενομένη πως ἀθανασίας ἐγγύτατα καὶ ἡ μία δευτέρως· τρίτην δὲ μετὰ ταῦτα, ἐὰν θεὸς ἐθέλῃ, διαπερανούμεθα. Upon this passage K. F. Hermann observes: “Hæc enim est quam ordine tertiam appellat Plato, quæ Aristoteli [Politic. iv. 1, 2] ἐξ ὑποθέσεως πολιτεία dicitur: quod tamen nolim ita accipi, ut à nonnullis factum est, ut hanc quoque olim singulari scripto persecuturum fuisse philosophum credamus, quasi tribus exemplis absolvi rerum publicarum formas censuisset; innumeræ enim pro singularum nationum et urbium fortuna esse possunt,” &c. (De Vestigiis Instit. Vet. imprimis Attic. per Plat. de Legg. libros indag., p. 16).
That Plato did intend to compose a third work upon an analogous subject appears to me clear from the words, — but it does not at all follow that he thought that three varieties would exhaust all possibility. Upon this point I dissent from Hermann, and also upon his interpretation of Aristotle’s phrase ἡ ἐξ ὑποθέσεως πολιτεία. Aristotle distinguishes three distinct varieties of end which the political constructor may propose to himself:— 1. τὴν πολιτείαν τὴν ἁπλῶς ἀρίστην, τὴν μάλιστα κατ’ εὐχήν. 2. Τὴν ἐκ τῶν ὑποκειμένων ἀρίστην. 3. Τὴν ἐξ ὑποθέσεως ἀρίστην. Now K. F. Hermann here maintains, and Boeckh had already maintained before him (ad Platonis Minoem et de Legibus, pp. 66-67), that the city sketched in Plato’s treatise De Legibus coincides with No. 2 in Aristotle’s enumeration, and that the projected τρίτη in Plato coincides with No. 3 — τὴν ἐξ ὑποθέσεως. I differ from them here. There is no ground for presuming that what Plato puts third must also be put by Aristotle third. I think that the Platonic city De Legibus corresponds to No. 3 in Aristotle and not to No. 2. It is a city ἐξ ὑποθέσεως, not ἐκ τῶν ὑποκειμένων ἀρίστην. Plato borrows little or nothing from τὰ ὑποκείμενα, and almost everything from his own ὑπόθεσις or assumed principle, which in this case is the fixed number of the citizens as well as of the lots of land, the imposition of a limit on each man’s proprietary acquisitions, and the recognition of separate family establishments subject to these limits. This is the ὑπόθεσις of Plato’s second city, to which all his regulations of detail are accommodated: it is substituted by him (unwillingly, because of the repugnance of others) in place of the ὑπόθεσις of his first city or the Republic, which ὑπόθεσις is perfect communism among the φύλακες, without either separate property or separate family. This last is Plato’s ἁπλως ἀρίστη.
Regulations about land, successions, marriages, &c. The number of citizens must not be allowed to increase.
Each citizen proprietor shall hold his lot of land, not as his own, but as part and parcel of the entire territory, which, taken as a whole, is Goddess and Mistress — conjointly with all the local Gods and Heroes — of the body of citizens generally. No citizen shall either sell or otherwise alienate his lot, nor divide it, nor trench upon its integrity. The total number of lots, the integrity of each lot, and the total number of citizens, shall all remain consecrated in perpetuity, without increase or diminution. Each citizen in dying shall leave one son as successor to his lot: if he has more than one, he may choose which of them he will prefer. The successor so chosen shall maintain the perpetuity of worship of the Gods, reverential rites to the family and deceased ancestors, and obligations towards the city.[161] If the citizen has other sons, they will be adopted into the families of other citizens who happen to be childless: if he has daughters, he will give them out in marriage, but without any dowry. Such family relations will be watched over by a special board of magistrates: with this peremptory condition, that they shall on no account permit either the number of citizen proprietors, or the number of separate lots, to depart from the consecrated 5040.[162] Each citizen’s name, and each lot of land, will be registered on tablets of cypress wood. These registers will be preserved in the temples, in order that the magistrates may be able to prevent fraud.[163]
[161] Plato, Legg. v. p. 740 A-B.