Book 3
679
Ath. And shall we not say that people living in this fashion for many generations were bound to be unskilled, as compared with either the antediluvians or the men of today, and ignorant of arts in general and especially of the arts of war as now practised by land and sea, including those warlike arts which, disguised under the names of law-suits and factions, are peculiar to cities, contrived as they are with every device of word and deed to inflict mutual hurt and injury; and that they were also more simple and brave and temperate, and in all ways more righteous? And the cause of this state of things we have already explained.
679
Clin. Quite true.
680
Ath. We must bear in mind that the whole purpose of what we have said and of what we are going to say next is this,—that we may understand what possible need of laws the men of that time had, and who their lawgiver was.
680
Clin. Excellent.
680
Ath. Shall we suppose that those men had no need of lawgivers, and that in those days it was not as yet usual to have such a thing? For those born in that age of the world’s history did not as yet possess the art of writing, but lived by following custom and what is called patriarchal law.
680
Clin. That is certainly probable.
680
Ath. But this already amounts to a kind of government.
680
Clin. What kind?
680
Ath. Everybody, I believe, gives the name of headship to the government which then existed,—and it still continues to exist to-day among both Greeks and barbarians in many quarters.Cp. Aristot. Pol. 1252b 17ff. This headship, which is the hereditary personal authority of the father of a family or chief of a clan, we should term patriarchy. And, of course, Homer mentions its existence in connection with the household system of the Cyclopes, where he says— No halls of council and no laws are theirs,But within hollow caves on mountain heightsAloft they dwell, each making his own law. For wife and child; of others reck they naught.Hom. Od. 9.112
