[454] Plato, Legg. xii. pp. 942 B-945. ἑνί τε λόγῳ τὸ χωρίς τι τῶν ἄλλων πράττειν διδάξαι τὴν ψυχὴν ἔθεσι μήτε γιγνώσκειν μήτ’ ἐπίστασθαι τὸ παράπαν, ἀλλ’ ἀθρόον ἀεὶ καὶ ἅμα καὶ κοινὸν τὸν βίον ὅ, τι μάλιστα πᾶσι πάντων γίγνεσθαι.
A Board of Elders is constituted by Plato, as auditors of the proceedings of all Magistrates after their term of office.[455] The mode of choosing these Elders, as well as their duties, liabilities, privileges, and honours, both during life and after death, are prescribed with the utmost solemnity.
[455] Plato, Legg. xii. pp. 946-948.
Oaths. Dikasts, Judges, Electors, are to be sworn: but no parties to a suit, or interested witnesses, can be sworn.
Plato forbids the parties in any judicial suit from swearing: they will present their case to the court, but not upon oath. No judicial oath is allowed to be taken by any one who has a pecuniary interest in the matter on hand. The Dikasts — the judges in all public competitions — the Electors before they elect to a public trust — are all to be sworn: but neither the parties to any cause, nor (seemingly) the witnesses. If oaths were taken on both sides, one or other of the parties must be perjured: and Plato considers it dreadful, that they should go on living with each other afterwards in the same city. In aforetime Rhadamanthus (he tells us) used to settle all disputes simply, by administering an oath to the parties: for in his time no one would take a false oath: men were then not only pious, but even sons or descendants of the Gods. But now (in the Platonic days) impiety has gained ground, and men’s oaths are no longer to be trusted, where anything is to be gained by perjury.[456]
[456] Plato, Legg. xii. pp. 948-949.
Regulations about admission of strangers, and foreign travel of citizens.
Strict regulations are provided, as to exit from the Platonic city, and ingress into it. Plato fears contamination to his citizens from converse with the outer world. He would introduce the peremptory Spartan Xenelasy, if he were not afraid of the obloquy attending it. He strictly defines the conditions on which the foreigner will be allowed to come in, or the citizen to go out. No citizen is allowed to go out before he is forty years of age.[457] Envoys must be sent on public missions; and sacred legations (theôries) must be despatched to the four great Hellenic festivals — Olympic, Pythian, Nemean, and Isthmian. But private citizens are not permitted to visit even these great festivals at their own pleasure. The envoys sent must be chosen and trustworthy men: moreover, on returning, they will assure their youthful fellow-citizens, that the home institutions are better than anything that can be seen abroad.[458]
[457] Plato, Legg. xii. p. 950.
[458] Plato, Legg. xii. p. 951.