u will not be unwilling to give an account of your government and
laws; on our way we can pass the time pleasantly in talking about them,
for I am told that the distance from Cnosus to the cave and temple of
Zeus is considerable; and doubtless there are shady places under the
lofty trees, which will protect us from this scorching sun. Being no
longer young, we may often stop to rest beneath them, and get over the
whole journey without difficulty, beguiling the time by conversation.

CLEINIAS: Yes, Stranger, and if we proceed onward we shall come to
groves of cypresses, which are of rare height and beauty, and there are
green meadows, in which we may repose and converse.

ATHENIAN: Very good.

CLEINIAS: Very good, indeed; and still better when we see them; let us
move on cheerily.

ATHENIAN: I am willing--And first, I want to know why the law has
ordained that you shall have common meals and gymnastic exercises, and
wear arms.

CLEINIAS: I think, Stranger, that the aim of our institutions is easily
intelligible to any one. Look at the character of our country: Crete is
not like Thessaly, a large plain; and for this reason they have horsemen
in Thessaly, and we have runners--the inequality of the ground in our
country is more adapted to locomotion on foot; but then, if you have
runners you must have light arms--no one can carry a heavy weight when
running, and bows and arrows are convenient because they are light.
Now all these regulations have been made with a view to war, and
the legislator appears to me to have looked to this in all his
arrangements:--the common meals, if I am not mistaken, were instituted
by him for a similar reason, because he saw that while they are in the
field the citizens are by the nature of the case compelled to take their
meals together for the sake of mutual protection. He seems to me to have
thought the world foolish in not understanding that all men are always
at war with one another; and if in war there ought to be common meals
and certain persons regularly appointed under others to protect an army,
they should be continued in peace. For what men in general term peace
would be said by him to be only a name; in reality every city is in a
natural state of war with every other, not indeed proclaimed by heralds,
but everlasting. And if you look closely, you will find that this was
the intention of the Cretan legislator; all institutions, private as
well as public, were arranged by him wit