he Cretans, I shall say to
them, inasmuch as the Cnosians have precedence over the other states,
they should, in common with those who join this settlement, choose
a body of thirty-seven in all, nineteen of them being taken from the
settlers, and the remainder from the citizens of Cnosus. Of these latter
the Cnosians shall make a present to your colony, and you yourself shall
be one of the eighteen, and shall become a citizen of the new state; and
if you and they cannot be persuaded to go, the Cnosians may fairly use a
little violence in order to make you.

CLEINIAS: But why, Stranger, do not you and Megillus take a part in our
new city?

ATHENIAN: O, Cleinias, Athens is proud, and Sparta too; and they are
both a long way off. But you and likewise the other colonists are
conveniently situated as you describe. I have been speaking of the
way in which the new citizens may be best managed under present
circumstances; but in after-ages, if the city continues to exist, let
the election be on this wise. All who are horse or foot soldiers, or
have seen military service at the proper ages when they were severally
fitted for it (compare Arist. Pol.), shall share in the election of
magistrates; and the election shall be held in whatever temple the state
deems most venerable, and every one shall carry his vote to the altar
of the God, writing down on a tablet the name of the person for whom he
votes, and his father's name, and his tribe, and ward; and at the side
he shall write his own name in like manner. Any one who pleases may take
away any tablet which he does not think properly filled up, and exhibit
it in the Agora for a period of not less than thirty days. The tablets
which are judged to be first, to the number of 300, shall be shown by
the magistrates to the whole city, and the citizens shall in like manner
select from these the candidates whom they prefer; and this second
selection, to the number of 100, shall be again exhibited to the
citizens; in the third, let any one who pleases select whom he pleases
out of the 100, walking through the parts of victims, and let them
choose for magistrates and proclaim the seven-and-thirty who have the
greatest number of votes. But who, Cleinias and Megillus, will order for
us in the colony all this matter of the magistrates, and the scrutinies
of them? If we reflect, we shall see that cities which are in process of
construction like ours must have some such persons, who cannot possi