ess difficult--half as many laws will be enough, and
much less than half; and they will be of a kind better suited to free
men. For he has nothing to do with laws about shipowners and merchants
and retailers and inn-keepers and tax collectors and mines and
moneylending and compound interest and innumerable other things--bidding
good-bye to these, he gives laws to husbandmen and shepherds and
bee-keepers, and to the guardians and superintendents of their
implements; and he has already legislated for greater matters, as
for example, respecting marriage and the procreation and nurture of
children, and for education, and the establishment of offices--and
now he must direct his laws to those who provide food and labour in
preparing it.

Let us first of all, then, have a class of laws which shall be called
the laws of husbandmen. And let the first of them be the law of Zeus,
the God of boundaries. Let no one shift the boundary line either of a
fellow-citizen who is a neighbour, or, if he dwells at the extremity of
the land, of any stranger who is conterminous with him, considering
that this is truly 'to move the immovable,' and every one should be more
willing to move the largest rock which is not a landmark, than the
least stone which is the sworn mark of friendship and hatred between
neighbours; for Zeus, the god of kindred, is the witness of the citizen,
and Zeus, the god of strangers, of the stranger, and when aroused,
terrible are the wars which they stir up. He who obeys the law will
never know the fatal consequences of disobedience, but he who despises
the law shall be liable to a double penalty, the first coming from the
Gods, and the second from the law. For let no one wilfully remove the
boundaries of his neighbour's land, and if any one does, let him who
will inform the landowners, and let them bring him into court, and if
he be convicted of re-dividing the land by stealth or by force, let the
court determine what he ought to suffer or pay. In the next place,
many small injuries done by neighbours to one another, through their
multiplication, may cause a weight of enmity, and make neighbourhood
a very disagreeable and bitter thing. Wherefore a man ought to be very
careful of committing any offence against his neighbour, and especially
of encroaching on his neighbour's land; for any man may easily do harm,
but not every man can do good to another. He who encroaches on his
neighbour's land, and transgresses his bound