the number of births by rewards and stigmas, or we may meet
the evil by the elder men giving advice and administering rebuke to the
younger--in this way the object may be attained. And if after all
there be very great difficulty about the equal preservation of the 5040
houses, and there be an excess of citizens, owing to the too great love
of those who live together, and we are at our wits' end, there is still
the old device often mentioned by us of sending out a colony, which will
part friends with us, and be composed of suitable persons. If, on the
other hand, there come a wave bearing a deluge of disease, or a plague
of war, and the inhabitants become much fewer than the appointed number
by reason of bereavement, we ought not to introduce citizens of spurious
birth and education, if this can be avoided; but even God is said not to
be able to fight against necessity.

Wherefore let us suppose this 'high argument' of ours to address us
in the following terms:--Best of men, cease not to honour according to
nature similarity and equality and sameness and agreement, as regards
number and every good and noble quality. And, above all, observe the
aforesaid number 5040 throughout life; in the second place, do not
disparage the small and modest proportions of the inheritances which you
received in the distribution, by buying and selling them to one another.
For then neither will the God who gave you the lot be your friend, nor
will the legislator; and indeed the law declares to the disobedient that
these are the terms upon which he may or may not take the lot. In the
first place, the earth as he is informed is sacred to the Gods; and in
the next place, priests and priestesses will offer up prayers over a
first, and second, and even a third sacrifice, that he who buys or sells
the houses or lands which he has received, may suffer the punishment
which he deserves; and these their prayers they shall write down in the
temples, on tablets of cypress-wood, for the instruction of posterity.
Moreover they will set a watch over all these things, that they may be
observed;--the magistracy which has the sharpest eyes shall keep watch
that any infringement of these commands may be discovered and punished
as offences both against the law and the God. How great is the
benefit of such an ordinance to all those cities, which obey and are
administered accordingly, no bad man can ever know, as the old proverb
says; but only a man of experience