Now Phidon
the Corinthian, one of the oldest legislators, thought the families
and the number of the citizens should continue the same; although it
should happen that all should have allotments at the first,
disproportionate to their numbers.
In Plato's Laws it is however different; we shall mention hereafter
what we think would be best in these particulars. He has also
neglected in that treatise to point out how the governors are to be
distinguished from the governed; for he says, that as of one sort of
wool the warp ought to be made, and of another the woof, so ought some
to govern, and others to be governed. But since he admits, that all
their property may be increased fivefold, why should he not allow the
same increase to the country? he ought also to consider whether his
allotment of the houses will be useful to the community, for he
appoints two houses to each person, separate from each other; but it
is inconvenient for a person to inhabit two houses. Now he is desirous
to have his whole plan of government neither a democracy nor an
oligarchy, but something between both, which he calls a polity, for it
is to be composed of men-at-arms. If Plato intended to frame a state
in which more than in any other everything should be common, he has
certainly given it a right name; but if he intended it to be the next
in perfection to that which he had already framed, it is not so; for
perhaps some persons will give the preference to the Lacedaemonian
form of government, or some other which may more completely have
attained to the aristocratic form.
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