Politics

But their being trained in this manner, so that the legislator himself distrusts them as not being good men, is not safe. And those who have shared in this office are seen to be both taking bribes and showing favoritism in many of the public affairs. Wherefore it would be better for them not to be exempt from audit; but now they are. It might seem that the office of the ephors audits all offices; but this is too great a gift to the ephorate, and we say that audits should not be given in this manner. Furthermore, the election which they make of the elders is also childish in its judgment, and it is not right that the person who is to be deemed worthy of the office should himself ask for it; for the man who is worthy of the office ought to rule, whether he wishes to or not. But now, the legislator appears to do just what he does in the rest of the constitution; for, in making the citizens ambitious, he has used this ambition for the election of the elders; for no one would ask to rule unless he were ambitious. And yet, most of the voluntary wrongs among men occur because of ambition and because of avarice. Concerning kingship, whether it is better for cities to have it or not, let there be another discussion; but surely it is better that it should not be as it is now, but that each of the kings should be judged according to his own life. And that the legislator himself does not think he can make men truly good is clear; at any rate, he distrusts them as not being sufficiently good men; for this reason they used to send enemies as joint ambassadors, and they regarded the factional strife of the kings as safety for the city. Nor was the legislation concerning the common meals called phiditia well enacted by him who first established them. For the gathering ought rather to have been supported from common funds, as in Crete; but among the Laconians, each individual must contribute, even though some are extremely poor and unable to afford this expense, so that the opposite of the legislator’s intention occurs. For although he wishes the institution of common meals to be democratic, it becomes least democratic when legislated in this way. For it is not easy for the very poor to participate, and yet this is their traditional limit of the constitution, that he who is not able to pay this contribution does not participate in it. Some others have also criticized the law concerning the admirals, and they criticize it rightly. For it becomes a cause of faction; for over the kings, who are lifelong generals, the admiralty has been established almost as another kingship. And one might criticize the hypothesis of the legislator in this way, just as Plato also criticized it in the Laws: