left to the whistling and clapping of the crowd; there was silence while
the judges decided, and the boys, and the audience in general, were kept
in order by raps of a stick. But after a while there arose a new race of
poets, men of genius certainly, however careless of musical truth and
propriety, who made pleasure the only criterion of excellence. That was a
test which the spectators could apply for themselves; the whole audience,
instead of being mute, became vociferous, and a theatrocracy took the
place of an aristocracy. Could the judges have been free, there would have
been no great harm done; a musical democracy would have been well enough--
but conceit has been our ruin. Everybody knows everything, and is ready to
say anything; the age of reverence is gone, and the age of irreverence and
licentiousness has succeeded. 'Most true.' And with this freedom comes
disobedience to rulers, parents, elders,--in the latter days to the law
also; the end returns to the beginning, and the old Titanic nature
reappears--men have no regard for the Gods or for oaths; and the evils of
the human race seem as if they would never cease. Whither are we running
away? Once more we must pull up the argument with bit and curb, lest, as
the proverb says, we should fall off our ass. 'Good.' Our purpose in what
we have been saying is to prove that the legislator ought to aim at
securing for a state three things--freedom, friendship, wisdom. And we
chose two states;--one was the type of freedom, and the other of
despotism; and we showed that when in a mean they attained their highest
perfection. In a similar spirit we spoke of the Dorian expedition, and of
the settlement on the hills and in the plains of Troy; and of music, and
the use of wine, and of all that preceded.

And now, has our discussion been of any use? 'Yes, stranger; for by a
singular coincidence the Cretans are about to send out a colony, of which
the settlement has been confided to the Cnosians. Ten commissioners, of
whom I am one, are to give laws to the colonists, and we may give any