spect, and being easily guarded will be infinitely better for security.
Until the original building is completed, these should be the principal
objects of the inhabitants; and the wardens of the city should
superintend the work, and should impose a fine on him who is negligent;
and in all that relates to the city they should have a care of
cleanliness, and not allow a private person to encroach upon any public
property either by buildings or excavations. Further, they ought to
take care that the rains from heaven flow off easily, and of any other
matters which may have to be administered either within or without the
city. The guardians of the law shall pass any further enactments which
their experience may show to be necessary, and supply any other points
in which the law may be deficient. And now that these matters, and the
buildings about the agora, and the gymnasia, and places of instruction,
and theatres, are all ready and waiting for scholars and spectators,
let us proceed to the subjects which follow marriage in the order of
legislation.

CLEINIAS: By all means.

ATHENIAN: Assuming that marriages exist already, Cleinias, the mode
of life during the year after marriage, before children are born, will
follow next in order. In what way bride and bridegroom ought to live in
a city which is to be superior to other cities, is a matter not at all
easy for us to determine. There have been many difficulties already,
but this will be the greatest of them, and the most disagreeable to the
many. Still I cannot but say what appears to me to be right and true,
Cleinias.

CLEINIAS: Certainly.

ATHENIAN: He who imagines that he can give laws for the public conduct
of states, while he leaves the private life of citizens wholly to take
care of itself; who thinks that individuals may pass the day as they
please, and that there is no necessity of order in all things; he, I
say, who gives up the control of their private lives, and supposes that
they will conform to law in their common and public life, is making a
great mistake. Why have I made this remark? Why, because I am going to
enact that the bridegrooms should live at the common tables, just as
they did before marriage. This was a singularity when first enacted by
the legislator in your parts of the world, Megillus and Cleinias, as
I should suppose, on the occasion of some war or other similar danger,
which caused the passing of the law, and which would be likely to occur
i