y
producing all things at home; and yet, owing to the ruggedness of
the soil, not providing anything in great abundance. Had there been
abundance, there might have been a great export trade, and a great
return of gold and silver; which, as we may safely affirm, has the most
fatal results on a State whose aim is the attainment of just and noble
sentiments: this was said by us, if you remember, in the previous
discussion.

CLEINIAS: I remember, and am of opinion that we both were and are in the
right.

ATHENIAN: Well, but let me ask, how is the country supplied with timber
for ship-building?

CLEINIAS: There is no fir of any consequence, nor pine, and not much
cypress; and you will find very little stone-pine or plane-wood, which
shipwrights always require for the interior of ships.

ATHENIAN: These are also natural advantages.

CLEINIAS: Why so?

ATHENIAN: Because no city ought to be easily able to imitate its enemies
in what is mischievous.

CLEINIAS: How does that bear upon any of the matters of which we have
been speaking?

ATHENIAN: Remember, my good friend, what I said at first about the
Cretan laws, that they looked to one thing only, and this, as you both
agreed, was war; and I replied that such laws, in so far as they tended
to promote virtue, were good; but in that they regarded a part only, and
not the whole of virtue, I disapproved of them. And now I hope that
you in your turn will follow and watch me if I legislate with a view
to anything but virtue, or with a view to a part of virtue only. For I
consider that the true lawgiver, like an archer, aims only at that on
which some eternal beauty is always attending, and dismisses everything
else, whether wealth or any other benefit, when separated from virtue.
I was saying that the imitation of enemies was a bad thing; and I was
thinking of a case in which a maritime people are harassed by enemies,
as the Athenians were by Minos (I do not speak from any desire to recall
past grievances); but he, as we know, was a great naval potentate, who
compelled the inhabitants of Attica to pay him a cruel tribute; and
in those days they had no ships of war as they now have, nor was the
country filled with ship-timber, and therefore they could not readily
build them. Hence they could not learn how to imitate their enemy at
sea, and in this way, becoming sailors themselves, directly repel their
enemies. Better for them to have lost many times over the seven youths,