ce, nor, again, are there any contentions or envyings. And
therefore they were good, and also because they were what is called
simple-minded; and when they were told about good and evil, they in
their simplicity believed what they heard to be very truth and practised
it. No one had the wit to suspect another of a falsehood, as men do now;
but what they heard about Gods and men they believed to be true, and
lived accordingly; and therefore they were in all respects such as we
have described them.

CLEINIAS: That quite accords with my views, and with those of my friend
here.

ATHENIAN: Would not many generations living on in a simple manner,
although ruder, perhaps, and more ignorant of the arts generally, and
in particular of those of land or naval warfare, and likewise of
other arts, termed in cities legal practices and party conflicts,
and including all conceivable ways of hurting one another in word and
deed;--although inferior to those who lived before the deluge, or to the
men of our day in these respects, would they not, I say, be simpler and
more manly, and also more temperate and altogether more just? The reason
has been already explained.

CLEINIAS: Very true.

ATHENIAN: I should wish you to understand that what has preceded and
what is about to follow, has been, and will be said, with the intention
of explaining what need the men of that time had of laws, and who was
their lawgiver.

CLEINIAS: And thus far what you have said has been very well said.

ATHENIAN: They could hardly have wanted lawgivers as yet; nothing of
that sort was likely to have existed in their days, for they had no
letters at this early period; they lived by habit and the customs of
their ancestors, as they are called.

CLEINIAS: Probably.

ATHENIAN: But there was already existing a form of government which,
if I am not mistaken, is generally termed a lordship, and this still
remains in many places, both among Hellenes and barbarians (compare
Arist. Pol.), and is the government which is declared by Homer to have
prevailed among the Cyclopes:--

'They have neither councils nor judgments, but they dwell in hollow
caves on the tops of high mountains, and every one gives law to his
wife and children, and they do not busy themselves about one another.'
(Odyss.)

CLEINIAS: That seems to be a charming poet of yours; I have read some
other verses of his, which are very clever; but I do not know much of
him, for foreign poets are very l