_Sokr._--Can you tell me which of the ancient kings has the glory of having been a good lawgiver, so that his laws still remain in force as divine institutions? _Comp._--I cannot tell. _Sokr._--But can you not say which among the Greeks have the most ancient laws? _Comp._--Perhaps you mean the Lacedæmonians and Lykurgus? _Sokr._--Why, the Lacedæmonian laws are hardly more than three hundred years old: besides, whence is it that the best of them come? _Comp._--From Krete, they say. _Sokr._--Then it is the Kretans who have the most ancient laws in Greece? _Comp._--Yes. _Sokr._--Do you know those good kings of Krete, from whom these laws are derived--Minos and Rhadamanthus, sons of Zeus and Europa? _Comp._--Rhadamanthus certainly is said to have been a just man, Sokrates; but Minos quite the reverse--savage, ill-tempered, unjust. _Sokr._--What you affirm, my friend, is a fiction of the Attic tragedians. It is not stated either by Homer or Hesiod, who are far more worthy of credit than all the tragedians put together. _Comp._--What is it that Homer and Hesiod say about Minos?[26] [Footnote 26: Plato, Minos, 318 E.] [Side-note: Question about the character of Minos--Homer and Hesiod declare him to have been admirable, the Attic tragedians defame him as a tyrant, because he was an enemy of Athens.] Sokrates replies by citing, and commenting upon, the statements of Homer and Hesiod respecting Minos, as the cherished son, companion, and pupil, of Zeus; who bestowed upon him an admirable training, teaching him wisdom and justice, and thus rendering him consummate as a lawgiver and ruler of men. It was through these laws, divine as emanating from the teaching of Zeus, that Krete (and Sparta as the imitator of Krete) had been for so long a period happy and virtuous. As ruler of Krete, Minos had made war upon Athens, and compelled the Athenians to pay tribute. Hence he had become odious to the Athenians, and especially odious to the tragic poets who were the great teachers and charmers of the crowd. These poets, whom every one ought to be cautious of offending, had calumniated Minos as the old enemy of Athens.[27] [Footnote 27: Plato, Minos, 319-320.] [Side-note: That Minos was really admirable--and that he has found out truth and reality respecting the administration of the city--we may be sure from the fact that his laws have remained so long unaltered.]