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And I think a lyre-maker would be more willing and eager to make a lyre if he knew that the future owner of that lyre was to build the walls of the city of Thebes, as Amphion did,According to the legend, when Amphion played on his lyre, the stones of their own accord formed the walls of Thebes. or, like Thales, Nothing is known of a musician or poet Thales. The musician Thaletas is said to have taught the lawgiver Lycurgus, but we do not hear of his putting an end to faction at Sparta. was to put an end to faction among the Lacedaemonians by the music of his charms and his exhortations; and a carpenter likewise in making a tiller would be more pleased if he knew that it would steer the flagship of Themistocles fighting in defence of Hellas, or that of Pompey when he overcame the pirates. WTiat, then, do you imagine the philosopher thinks about his teaching, when he reflects that the statesman or ruler who accepts it will be a public blessing by dispensing justice, making laws, punishing the wicked, and making the orderly and the good to prosper? And I imagine that a clever shipbuilder, too, would take greater pleasure in making a tiller if he knew that it was to steer the Argo, the concern of all, Homer, Od. xii. 70. and a carpenter would not be so eager to make a plough or a wagon as the axones In his Life of Solon, xxv., Plutarch says that Solon’s laws were originally inscribed on revolving wooden tablets (axones) in wooden framers. The axones were set up in the Royal Stoa. Toward the end of the fifth century, the wooden text having disintegrated and the laws having been modified, a new edition of Solon’s laws was inscribed on both sides of a marble wall built in the Royal Stoa and of this a fragment has recently come to light in the Athenian Agora. See J. H. Oliver, Hesperia, iv. 5 ff., whose views are represented in the above statement. on which the laws of Solon were to be engraved. And surely the teachings of philosophers, if they are firmly engraved in the souls of rulers and statesmen and control them, acquire the force of laws; and that is why Plato sailed to Sicily, in the hope that his teachings would produce laws and actions in the government of Dionysius; but he found Dionysius, like a book which is erased and written over, already befouled with stains and incapable of losing the dye of his tyranny, since by length of time it had become deeply fixed and hard to wash out. No, it is while men are still at their best that they should accept the worthy teachings.
