Politics

​For in Egypt it is in this way even now, and also the things concerning Crete; the things concerning Egypt, as they say, having been thus legislated by Sesostris, and those concerning Crete by Minos. And the arrangement of common meals also seems to be ancient, those in Crete having come into being around the reign of Minos, and those in Italy being much older than these. For those among the inhabitants there who are learned in history say that a certain Italus became king of Oenotria, from whom they changed their name and were called Italians instead of Oenotrians, and this peninsula of Europe took the name of Italy, as much of it as happens to be within the Scylletic and the Lametic gulfs; and these are distant from each other by a journey of half a day. They say indeed that this Italus made the Oenotrians, who were nomads, into farmers, and established other laws for them and set up the common meals first; wherefore even now still some of his descendants use the common meals and some of his laws. And there dwelt on the side towards Tyrrhenia the Opicans, both formerly and now called by the surname Ausones, and on the side towards Iapygia and the Ionian Sea the Chonians, in the region called Syrtis; and the Chonians also were Oenotrians by race. The arrangement of common meals, then, first arose from there, but the separation of the civic multitude according to classes arose from Egypt; for the reign of Sesostris far exceeds in time the reign of Minos. Nearly all other things too, therefore, must be thought to have been discovered many times in the course of long time, or rather infinitely. For necessary things indeed are likely to be taught by need itself, while those for elegance and abundance are reasonable to receive their growth when these are already present; so that it is necessary to think that the things concerning constitutions also are in the same way. And that all things are ancient, the things concerning Egypt are a sign; for these are thought to be the oldest, and they have always possessed laws and political arrangement. Wherefore it is necessary to make sufficient use of what has been discovered, and to try to search for what has been left aside. That indeed, then, the land must belong to those who possess arms and those who share in the constitution has been said before, and why those who farm it must be different from them, and how large and of what kind the land ought to be; but concerning the distribution of it and concerning those who farm, who and of what sort they ought to be, must be spoken of first, since we say that possession must not be common, as some have said,