Book 2
1274b
It was due then to a reason of this nature that they went to live at Thebes; but Philolaus became the Thebans’ lawgiver in regard to various matters, among others the size of families,—the laws called by the Thebans laws of adoption; about this Philolaus enacted special legislation, in order that the number of the estates in land might be preserved. There is nothing special in the code of Charondas except the trials for false witness (for he was the first to introduce the procedure of denunciation), but in the accuracy of his laws he is a more finished workman even than the legislators of today. (Peculiar to PhaleasDealt with already in 4. is the measure for equalizing properties; to Plato,Above, 1-3 community of wives and children and of property, and the common meals for the women, and also the law about drunkenness, enacting that sober persons are to be masters of the drinking-bouts, and the regulation for military training to make men ambidextrous during drill, on the ground that it is a mistake to have one of the two hands useful but the other useless.) There are laws of Draco,Author of the first written code at Athens, 621 B.C. (though in Aristot. Ath. Pol. 4, his legislation is hardly mentioned; he appears there as the framer of the constitution). but he legislated for an existing constitution, and there is nothing peculiar in his laws that is worthy of mention, except their severity in imposing heavy punishment. PittacusOf Mitylene in Lesbos, one of the Seven Sages, dictator 589-579 B.C. also was a framer of laws, but not of a constitution; a special law of his is that if men commit any offence when drunk,they are to pay a larger fine than those who offend when sober; because since more men are insolent when drunk than when sober he had regard not to the view that drunken offenders are to be shown more mercy, but to expediency. AndrodamasOtherwise unknown. of Rhegium also became lawgiver to the Chalcidians in the direction of Thrace, Chalcidice, the peninsula in the N. Aegean, was colonized from Chalcis in Euboea. and to him belong the laws dealing with cases of murder and with heiresses; however one cannot mention any provision that is peculiar to him.
