The following are to be the regulations respecting handicrafts:--No
citizen, or servant of a citizen, is to practise them. For the citizen
has already an art and mystery, which is the care of the state; and no
man can practise two arts, or practise one and superintend another. No
smith should be a carpenter, and no carpenter, having many slaves who
are smiths, should look after them himself; but let each man practise
one art which shall be his means of livelihood. The wardens of the city
should see to this, punishing the citizen who offends with temporary
deprival of his rights--the foreigner shall be imprisoned, fined,
exiled. Any disputes about contracts shall be determined by the wardens
of the city up to fifty drachmae--above that sum by the public courts.
No customs are to be exacted either on imports or exports. Nothing
unnecessary is to be imported from abroad, whether for the service of
the Gods or for the use of man--neither purple, nor other dyes, nor
frankincense,--and nothing needed in the country is to be exported.
These things are to be decided on by the twelve guardians of the law who
are next in seniority to the five elders. Arms and the materials of war
are to be imported and exported only with the consent of the generals,
and then only by the state. There is to be no retail trade either in
these or any other articles. For the distribution of the produce of the
country, the Cretan laws afford a rule which may be usefully followed.
All shall be required to distribute corn, grain, animals, and other
valuable produce, into twelve portions. Each of these shall be
subdivided into three parts--one for freemen, another for servants,
and the third shall be sold for the supply of artisans, strangers, and
metics. These portions must be equal whether the produce be much or
little; and the master of a household may distribute the two portions
among his family and his slaves as he pleases--the remainder is to be
measured out to the animals.
Next as to the houses in the country--there shall be twelve villages,
one in the centre of each of the twelve portions; and in every village
there shall be temples and an agora--also shrines for heroes or for
any old Magnesian deities who linger about the place. In every division
there shall be temples of Hestia, Zeus, and Athene, as well as of the
local deity, surrounded by buildings on eminences, which will be the
guard-houses of the rural police. The dwellings of the artisans will be
thus arranged:--The artisans shall be formed into thirteen guilds, one
of which will be divided into twelve parts and settled in the city; of
the rest there shall be one in each division of the country. And the
magistrates will fix them on the spots where they will cause the least
inconvenience and be most serviceable in supplying the wants of the
husbandmen.