He thought also [1268a] that they should not pass sentence by
votes; but that every one should bring with him a tablet, on which he
should write, that he found the party guilty, if it was so, but if
not, he should bring a plain tablet; but if he acquitted him of one
part of the indictment but not of the other, he should express that
also on the tablet; for he disapproved of that general custom already
established, as it obliges the judges to be guilty of perjury if they
determined positively either on the one side or the other. He also
made a law, that those should be rewarded who found out anything for
the good of the city, and that the children of those who fell in
battle should be educated at the public expense; which law had never
been proposed by any other legislator, though it is at present in use
at Athens as well as in other cities, he would have the magistrates
chosen out of the people in general, by whom he meant the three parts
before spoken of; and that those who were so elected should be the
particular guardians of what belonged to the public, to strangers, and
to orphans.
These are the principal parts and most worthy of notice in
Hippodamus's plan. But some persons might doubt the propriety of his
division of the citizens into three parts; for the artisans, the
husbandmen, and the soldiers are to compose one community, where the
husbandmen are to have no arms, and the artisans neither arms nor
land, which would in a manner render them slaves to the soldiery.
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