h who is standing by, and who, on hearing this
enactment, declares in scurrilous terms that we are making foolish and
impossible laws, and fills the world with his outcry. And therefore I
said that I knew a way of enacting and perpetuating such a law, which
was very easy in one respect, but in another most difficult. There is no
difficulty in seeing that such a law is possible, and in what way; for,
as I was saying, the ordinance once consecrated would master the soul of
every man, and terrify him into obedience. But matters have now come to
such a pass that even then the desired result seems as if it could not
be attained, just as the continuance of an entire state in the practice
of common meals is also deemed impossible. And although this latter is
partly disproven by the fact of their existence among you, still even in
your cities the common meals of women would be regarded as unnatural and
impossible. I was thinking of the rebelliousness of the human heart
when I said that the permanent establishment of these things is very
difficult.

MEGILLUS: Very true.

ATHENIAN: Shall I try and find some sort of persuasive argument which
will prove to you that such enactments are possible, and not beyond
human nature?

CLEINIAS: By all means.

ATHENIAN: Is a man more likely to abstain from the pleasures of love
and to do what he is bidden about them, when his body is in a good
condition, or when he is in an ill condition, and out of training?

CLEINIAS: He will be far more temperate when he is in training.

ATHENIAN: And have we not heard of Iccus of Tarentum, who, with a view
to the Olympic and other contests, in his zeal for his art, and also
because he was of a manly and temperate disposition, never had any
connexion with a woman or a youth during the whole time of his training?
And the same is said of Crison and Astylus and Diopompus and many
others; and yet, Cleinias, they were far worse educated in their minds
than your and my citizens, and in their bodies far more lusty.

CLEINIAS: No doubt this fact has been often affirmed positively by the
ancients of these athletes.

ATHENIAN: And had they the courage to abstain from what is ordinarily
deemed a pleasure for the sake of a victory in wrestling, running, and
the like; and shall our young men be incapable of a similar endurance
for the sake of a much nobler victory, which is the noblest of all, as
from their youth upwards we will tell them, charming them, as we