Book 3
677
Ath. Yes, I mean him. For he far outstripped everybody you had, my friend, by that invention of his of which he was the actual producer, as you Cretans say, although HesiodHes. WD 640f. νήπιοι, οὐδὲ ἴασιν ὅσῳ πλέον ἥμισυ παντός, οὐδ’ ὅσον ἐν μαλάχῃ τε καὶ ἀσφοδέλῳ μέγ’ ὄνειαρ. Hesiod’s allusion to the great virtue residing in mallow and asphodel is supposed to have suggested to Epimenides his invention of a herbal concoction, or elixir of life. had divined it and spoken of it long before.
677
Clin. We do say so.
678
Ath. Shall we, then, state that, at the time when the destruction took place, human affairs were in this position: there was fearful and widespread desolation over a vast tract of land; most of the animals were destroyed, and the few herds of oxen and flocks of goats that happened to survive afforded at the first but scanty sustenance to their herdsmen?
678
Clin. Yes.
678
Ath. And as to the matters with which our present discourse is concerned—States and statecraft and legislation,—do we think they could have retained any memory whatsoever, broadly speaking, of such matters?
678
Clin. By no means.
678
Ath. So from those men, in that situation, there has sprung the whole of our present order—States and constitutions, arts and laws, with a great amount both of evil and of good?
678
Clin. How do you mean?
678
Ath. Do we imagine, my good Sir, that the men of that age, who were unversed in the ways of city life—many of them noble, many ignoble,—were perfect either in virtue or in vice?
678
Clin. Well said! We grasp your meaning.
678
Ath. As time went on and our race multiplied, all things advanced—did they not?—to the condition which now exists.
678
Clin. Very true.
678
Ath. But, in all probability, they advanced, not all at once, but by small degrees, during an immense space of time.
678
Clin. Yes, that is most likely.
678
Ath. For they all, I fancy, felt as it were still ringing in their ears a dread of going down from the highlands to the plains.
678
Clin. Of course.
