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.

The care of the agora will fall to the wardens of the agora. Their
first duty will be the regulation of the temples which surround the
market-place; and their second to see that the markets are orderly and
that fair dealing is observed. They will also take care that the sales
which the citizens are required to make to strangers are duly executed.
The law shall be, that on the first day of each month the auctioneers to
whom the sale is entrusted shall offer grain; and at this sale a twelfth
part of the whole shall be exposed, and the foreigner shall supply his
wants for a month.