Book 11
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Ath. but if he has previously received some noble work of a military kind and fails to pay for it, the law will blame him. So, touching this matter, let there be laid down this law, coupled with laudation,—a law which counsels rather than compels the mass of citizens to honor as second in merit those brave men who, either by bold deeds or by military devices, are protectors of the State; for first in merit come those on whom the greatest reward must be bestowed—namely, those who have proved themselves able pre-eminently to honor the written code of the good lawgivers. Cp. Plat. Laws 919d, Plat. Laws 919e. We have now made regulations for most of the more important business dealings between man and man, excepting those regarding orphans and the care of orphans by their guardians; so, after those now dealt with, these matters must necessarily receive some kind of regulation. All these have their starting-points either in the desire of those at the point of death to devise their property, or in the accidental cases of those who die without making a testament; and it was in view of the complex and difficult nature of these cases, Clinias, that I made use of the word necessarily. And it is, indeed, impossible to leave them without regulation; for individuals might set down many wishes both at variance with one another and contrary to the laws as well as to the dispositions of the living, and also to their own former dispositions in the days before they proposed making a will, if any will that a man makes were to be granted absolute and unconditional validity, no matter what his state of mind at the end of his life. For most of us are more or less in a dull and enfeebled state of mind, when we imagine that we are nearly at the point of death.
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Clin. What do you mean by this, Stranger?
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Ath. A man at the point of death, Clinias, is a difficult subject, and overflowing with speech that is most alarming and vexatious to a lawgiver.
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Clin. How so?
