Book 6
781
Ath. Let us listen, then. And do not be surprised if you find me taking the subject up again from an early point. For we are now enjoying leisure, and there is no pressing reason to hinder us from considering laws from all possible points of view.
781
Clin. Very true.
782
Ath. Let us, then, revert again to our first statements.Plat. Laws 676a. Thus much at least every man ought to understand,—that either the human race never had a beginning at all, and will never have an end, but always was and always will be, or else it must have been in existence an incalculable length of time from the date when it first began.
782
Clin. Undoubtedly.
782
Ath. Well then, do we not suppose that all the world over and in all sorts of ways there have been risings and fallings of States, and institutions of every variety of order and disorder, and appetites for food—both meats and drinks—of every kind, and all sorts of variations in the seasons, during which it is probable that the animals underwent innumerable changes?
782
Clin. Certainly.
782
Ath. Are we to believe, then, that vines, not previously existing, appeared at a certain stage; and olives, likewise, and the gifts of Demeter and Kore?Or Persephone, daughter of the Earth-mother, Demeter. Triptolemus was a mythical hero of EIeusis, worshipped as the inventor and patron of agriculture. And that some Triptolemus was the minister of such fruits? And during the period that these fruits were as yet non-existent, must we not suppose that the animals turned, as they do now, to feeding on one another.
782
Clin. Of course.
