population is divided into two classes—one of husbandmen, and the other of warriors; from this latter is taken a third class of counsellors and rulers of the State. But Socrates has not determined whether the husbandmen and artists are to have a share in the government, and whether they too are to carry arms and share in military service or not. He certainly thinks that the women ought to share in the education of the guardians, and to fight by their side. The remainder of the work is filled up with digressions foreign to the main subject, and with discussions about the education of the guardians. In the ‘Laws’ there is hardly anything but laws; not much is said about the constitution. This, which he had intended to make more of the ordinary type, he gradually brings round to the other or ideal form. For with the exception of the community of women and property, he supposes everything to be the same in both states; there is to be the same education; the citizens of both are to live free from servile occupations, and there are to be common meals in both. The only difference is that in the ‘Laws’ the common meals are extended to women, and the warriors number about 5,000, but in the ‘Republic’ only 1,000.”
(ii) By Plato in the “Laws” (Book v. 739 B–E), from the side of the “Republic:”
“The first and highest form of the State and of the government and of the law is that in which there prevails most widely the ancient saying that ‘Friends have all things in common.’ Whether there is now, or ever will be, this communion of women and children and of property, in which the private and individual is altogether banished from life, and things which are by nature private, such as eyes and ears and hands, have become common, and all men express praise and blame, and feel joy and sorrow, on the same occcasions, and the laws unite the city to the utmost—whether all this is possible or not, I say that no man, acting upon any other principle, will ever constitute a State more exalted in virtue, or truer or better than this. Such a State, whether inhabited by gods or sons of gods, will make them blessed who dwell therein; and therefore to this we are to look for the pattern of the State, and to cling to this, and, as far as possible, to seek for one which is like this. The State which we have now in hand, when created, will be nearest to immortality and unity in the next degree; and after that, by the
