bly
be elected before there are any magistrates; and yet they must be
elected in some way, and they are not to be inferior men, but the
best possible. For as the proverb says, 'a good beginning is half the
business'; and 'to have begun well' is praised by all, and in my opinion
is a great deal more than half the business, and has never been praised
by any one enough.

CLEINIAS: That is very true.

ATHENIAN: Then let us recognize the difficulty, and make clear to our
own minds how the beginning is to be accomplished. There is only
one proposal which I have to offer, and that is one which, under our
circumstances, is both necessary and expedient.

CLEINIAS: What is it?

ATHENIAN: I maintain that this colony of ours has a father and mother,
who are no other than the colonizing state. Well I know that many
colonies have been, and will be, at enmity with their parents. But in
early days the child, as in a family, loves and is beloved; even if
there come a time later when the tie is broken, still, while he is in
want of education, he naturally loves his parents and is beloved by
them, and flies to his relatives for protection, and finds in them his
only natural allies in time of need; and this parental feeling already
exists in the Cnosians, as is shown by their care of the new city; and
there is a similar feeling on the part of the young city towards Cnosus.
And I repeat what I was saying--for there is no harm in repeating a
good thing--that the Cnosians should take a common interest in all these
matters, and choose, as far as they can, the eldest and best of the
colonists, to the number of not less than a hundred; and let there
be another hundred of the Cnosians themselves. These, I say, on their
arrival, should have a joint care that the magistrates should be
appointed according to law, and that when they are appointed they should
undergo a scrutiny. When this has been effected, the Cnosians
shall return home, and the new city do the best she can for her own
preservation and happiness. I would have the seven-and-thirty now, and
in all future time, chosen to fulfil the following duties:--Let them,
in the first place, be the guardians of the law; and, secondly, of the
registers in which each one registers before the magistrate the amount
of his property, excepting four minae which are allowed to citizens of
the first class, three allowed to the second, two to the third, and a
single mina to the fourth. And if any one, d