offend your legislator by a friendly examination of his laws. 'Take any
freedom which you like.'
My first observation is, that your lawgiver ordered you to endure
hardships, because he thought that those who had not this discipline
would run away from those who had. But he ought to have considered
further, that those who had never learned to resist pleasure would be
equally at the mercy of those who had, and these are often among the
worst of mankind. Pleasure, like fear, would overcome them and take away
their courage and freedom. 'Perhaps; but I must not be hasty in giving
my assent.'
Next as to temperance: what institutions have you which are adapted
to promote temperance? 'There are the common meals and gymnastic
exercises.' These are partly good and partly bad, and, as in medicine,
what is good at one time and for one person, is bad at another time and
for another person. Now although gymnastics and common meals do good,
they are also a cause of evil in civil troubles, and they appear to
encourage unnatural love, as has been shown at Miletus, in Boeotia, and
at Thurii. And the Cretans are said to have invented the tale of Zeus
and Ganymede in order to justify their evil practices by the example of
the God who was their lawgiver. Leaving the story, we may observe that
all law has to do with pleasure and pain; these are two fountains which
are ever flowing in human nature, and he who drinks of them when and as
much as he ought, is happy, and he who indulges in them to excess, is
miserable. 'You may be right, but I still incline to think that the
Lacedaemonian lawgiver did well in forbidding pleasure, if I may judge
from the result. For there is no drunken revelry in Sparta, and any one
found in a state of intoxication is severely punished; he is not excused
as an Athenian would be at Athens on account of a festival. I myself
have seen the Athenians drunk at the Dionysia--and at our colony,
Tarentum, on a similar occasion, I have beheld the whole city in a
state of intoxication.' I admit that these festivals should be properly
regulated. Yet I might reply, 'Yes, Spartans, that is not your vice; but
look at home and remember the licentiousness of your women.' And to
all such accusations every one of us may reply in turn:--'Wonder not,
Stranger; there are different customs in different countries.' Now this
may be a sufficient answer; but we are speaking about the wisdom of
lawgivers and not about the customs of men. To return to the question of
drinking: shall we have total abstinence, as you have, or hard drinking,
like the Scythians and Thracians, or moderate potations like the
Persians? 'Give us arms, and we send all these nations flying before
us.' My good friend, be modest; victories and defeats often arise
from unknown causes, and afford no proof of the goodness or badness of
institutions. The stronger overcomes the weaker, as the Athenians have
overcome the Ceans, or the Syracusans the Locrians, who are, perhaps,