Ath. Let us then discourse a little more at length about intoxication, which is a very important subject, and will seriously task the discrimination of the legislator. I am not speaking of drinking, or not drinking, wine at all, but of intoxication. Are we to follow the custom of the Scythians, and Persians, and Carthaginians, and Celts, and Iberians, and Thracians, who are all warlike nations, or that of your countrymen, for they, as you say, altogether abstain ? But the Scythians and Thracians, both men and women, drink unmixed wine, which they pour on their garments, and this they think a happy and glorious institution. The Persians, again, are much given to other practices of luxury which you reject, but they have more moderation in them than the Thracians and Scythians.
Meg. O best of men, we have only to take arms into our hands, and we send all these nations flying before us.
Ath. Nay, my good friend, do not say that ; there have been, as there always will be, flights and pursuits of which no account can be given, and therefore we cannot say that victory or defeat in battle affords more than a doubtful proof of the goodness or badness of institutions. For when the greater states conquer and enslave the lesser, as the Syracusans have done the Locrians, who appear to be the best-governed people in their part of the world, or as the Athenians have done the Ceans (and there are ten thousand other instances of the same sort of thing), all this is not to the point ; let us endeavour rather to form a conclusion about each institution in itself and say nothing, at present, of victories and defeats. Let us only say that such and such a custom is honourable, and another not. And first permit me to tell you how good and bad are to be estimated in reference to these very matters.
Meg. How do you mean ?
Ath. All those who are ready at a moment’s notice to praise or censure any practice which is matter of discussion, seem to me to proceed in a wrong way. Let me give you an illustration of what I mean : — You may suppose a person to be praising wheat as a good kind of food, whereupon another person instantly blames wheat, without ever enquiring into its effect or use, or in what way, or to whom, or with what, or in what state and how, wheat is to be given. And that is just what we are doing in this discussion. At the very mention of the word intoxication, one side is ready with their praises and the other with their censures ; which is absurd. For either side adduce their witnesses and approvers, and some of us think that we speak with authority because we have many witnesses ; and others because they see those who abstain conquering in battle, and this again is disputed by us. Now I cannot say that I shall be satisfied, if we go on discussing each of the remaining laws in the same way. And about this very point of intoxication I should like to speak in another way, which I hold to be the right one ; for if number is to be the criterion, are there not myriads upon myriads of nations ready to dispute the point with you, who are only two cities ?
Meg. I shall gladly welcome any method of enquiry which is right.
Ath. Let me put the matter thus : — Suppose a person to praise the keeping of goats, and the creatures themselves as capital things to have, and then some one who had seen goats feeding without a goatherd in cultivated spots, and doing mischief, were to censure a goat or any other animal who has no keeper, or a bad keeper, would there be any sense or justice in such censure ?
Meg. Certainly not.
Ath. Does a captain require only to have nautical knowledge in order to be a good captain, whether he is sea-sick or not ? What do you say ?
Meg. I say that he is not a good captain if, although he have nautical skill, he is liable to sea-sickness.
Ath. And what would you say of the commander of an army ? Will he be able to command merely because he has military skill if he be a coward, who, when danger comes, is sick and drunk with fear ?
Meg. Impossible.
Ath. And what if besides being a coward he has no skill ?
Meg. He is a miserable fellow, not fit to be a commander of men, but only of old women.
Ath. And what would you say of some one who blames or praises any sort of meeting which is intended by nature to have a ruler, and is well enough when under his presidency ? The critic, however, has never seen the society meeting together at an orderly feast under the control of a president, but always without a ruler or with a bad one : — when observers of this class praise or blame such meetings, are we to suppose that what they say is of any value ?
Meg. Certainly not, if they have never seen or been present at such a meeting when rightly ordered.
Ath. Reflect ; may not banqueters and banquets be said to constitute a kind of meeting ?
Meg. Of course.
Ath. And did any one ever see this sort of convivial meeting rightly ordered ? Of course you two will answer that you have never seen them at all, because they are not customary or lawful in your country ; but I have come across many of them in many different places, and moreover I have made enquiries about them wherever I went, as I may say, and never did I see or hear of anything of the kind which was carried on altogether rightly ; in some few particulars they might be right, but in general they were utterly wrong.
Cle. What do you mean, Stranger, by this remark ? Explain ; For we, as you say, from our inexperience in such matters, might very likely not know, even if they came in our way, what was right or wrong in such societies.
Ath. Likely enough ; then let me try to be your instructor : You would acknowledge, would you not, that in all gatherings of man, kind, of whatever sort, there ought to be a leader ?
Cle. Certainly I should.
Ath. And we were saying just now, that when men are at war the leader ought to be a brave man ?
Cle. We were.
Ath. The brave man is less likely than the coward to be disturbed by fears ?
Cle. That again is true.
Ath. And if there were a possibility of having a general of an army who was absolutely fearless and imperturbable, should we not by all means appoint him ?
Cle. Assuredly.
Ath. Now, however, we are speaking not of a general who is to command an army, when foe meets foe in time of war, but of one who is to regulate meetings of another sort, when friend meets friend in time of peace.
Cle. True.
Ath. And that sort of meeting, if attended with drunkenness, is apt to be unquiet.
Cle. Certainly ; the reverse of quiet.
Ath. In the first place, then, the revellers as well as the soldiers will require a ruler ?
Cle. To be sure ; no men more so.
Ath. And we ought, if possible, to provide them with a quiet ruler ?
Cle. Of course.
Ath. And he should be a man who understands society ; for his duty is to preserve the friendly feelings which exist among the company at the time, and to increase them for the future by his use of the occasion.
Cle. Very true.
Ath. Must we not appoint a sober man and a wise to be our master of the revels ? For if the ruler of drinkers be himself young and drunken, and not over-wise, only by some special good fortune will he be saved from doing some great evil.
Cle. It will be by a singular good fortune that he is saved.
Ath. Now suppose such associations to be framed in the best way possible in states, and that some one blames the very fact of their existence — he may very likely be right. But if he blames a practice which he only sees very much mismanaged, he shows in the first place that he is not aware of the mismanagement, and also not aware that everything done in this way will turn out to be wrong, because done without the superintendence of a sober ruler. Do you not see that a drunken pilot or a drunken ruler of any sort will ruin ship, chariot, army — anything, in short, of which he has the direction ?
Cle. The last remark is very true, Stranger ; and I see quite clearly the advantage of an army having a good leader — he will give victory in war to his followers, which is a very great advantage ; and so of other things. But I do not see any similar advantage which either individuals or states gain from the good management of a feast ; and I want you to tell me what great good will be effected, supposing that this drinking ordinance is duly established.
Ath. If you mean to ask what great good accrues to the state from the right training of a single youth, or of a single chorus — when the question is put in that form, we cannot deny that the good is not very great in any particular instance. But if you ask what is the good of education in general, the answer is easy — that education makes good men, and that good men act nobly, and conquer their enemies in battle, because they are good. Education certainly gives victory, although victory sometimes produces forgetfulness of education ; for many have grown insolent from victory in war, and this insolence has engendered in them innumerable evils ; and many a victory has been and will be suicidal to the victors ; but education is never suicidal.
Cle. You seem to imply, my friend, that convivial meetings, when rightly ordered, are an important element of education.
Ath. Certainly I do.
Cle. And can you show that what you have been saying is true ?
Ath. To be absolutely sure of the truth of matters concerning which there are many opinions, is an attribute of the Gods not given to man, Stranger ; but I shall be very happy to tell you what I think, especially as we are now proposing to enter on a discussion concerning laws and constitutions.
Cle. Your opinion, Stranger, about the questions which are now being raised, is precisely what we want to hear.
Ath. Very good ; I will try to find a way of explaining my meaning, and you shall try to have the gift of understanding me. But first let me make an apology. The Athenian citizen is reputed among all the Hellenes to be a great talker, whereas Sparta is renowned for brevity, and the Cretans have more wit than words. Now I am afraid of appearing to elicit a very long discourse out of very small materials. For drinking indeed may appear to be a slight matter, and yet is one which cannot be rightly ordered according to nature, without correct principles of music ; these are necessary to any clear or satisfactory treatment of the subject, and music again runs up into education generally, and there is much to be said about all this. What would you say then to leaving these matters for the present, and passing on to some other question of law ?
Meg. O Athenian Stranger, let me tell you what perhaps you do not know, that our family is the proxenus of your state. I imagine that from their earliest youth all boys, when they are told that they are the proxeni of a particular state, feel kindly towards their second and this has certainly been my own feeling. I can well remember from the days of my boyhood, how, when any Lacedaemonians praised or blamed the Athenians, they used to say to me — “See, Megillus, how ill or how well,” as the case might be, “has your state treated us” ; and having always had to fight your battles against detractors when I heard you assailed, I became warmly attached to you. And I always like to hear the Athenian tongue spoken ; the common saying is quite true, that a good Athenian is more than ordinarily good, for he is the only man who is freely and genuinely good by the divine inspiration of his own nature, and is not manufactured. Therefore be assured that I shall like to hear you say whatever you have to say.
Cle. Yes, Stranger ; and when you have heard me speak, say boldly what is in your thoughts. Let me remind you of a tie which unites you to Crete. You must have heard here the story of the prophet Epimenides, who was of my family, and came to Athens ten years before the Persian war, in accordance with the response of the Oracle, and offered certain sacrifices which the God commanded. The Athenians were at that time in dread of the Persian invasion ; and he said that for ten years they would not come, and that when they came, they would go away again without accomplishing any of their objects, and would suffer more evil than they inflicted. At that time my forefathers formed ties of hospitality with you ; thus ancient is the friendship which I and my parents have had for you.