le fatted beast
is that he should be torn in pieces by some other valiant beast whose
fatness is worn down by brave deeds and toil. These regulations, if we
duly consider them, will never be exactly carried into execution under
present circumstances, nor as long as women and children and houses and
all other things are the private property of individuals; but if we can
attain the second-best form of polity, we shall be very well off. And
to men living under this second polity there remains a work to be
accomplished which is far from being small or insignificant, but is the
greatest of all works, and ordained by the appointment of righteous law.
For the life which may be truly said to be concerned with the virtue of
body and soul is twice, or more than twice, as full of toil and trouble
as the pursuit after Pythian and Olympic victories, which debars a
man from every employment of life. For there ought to be no bye-work
interfering with the greater work of providing the necessary exercise
and nourishment for the body, and instruction and education for the
soul. Night and day are not long enough for the accomplishment of their
perfection and consummation; and therefore to this end all freemen ought
to arrange the way in which they will spend their time during the whole
course of the day, from morning till evening and from evening till the
morning of the next sunrise. There may seem to be some impropriety
in the legislator determining minutely the numberless details of the
management of the house, including such particulars as the duty of
wakefulness in those who are to be perpetual watchmen of the whole city;
for that any citizen should continue during the whole of any night in
sleep, instead of being seen by all his servants, always the first to
awake and get up--this, whether the regulation is to be called a law or
only a practice, should be deemed base and unworthy of a freeman; also
that the mistress of the house should be awakened by her hand-maidens
instead of herself first awakening them, is what the slaves, male and
female, and the serving-boys, and, if that were possible, everybody and
everything in the house should regard as base. If they rise early, they
may all of them do much of their public and of their household business,
as magistrates in the city, and masters and mistresses in their private
houses, before the sun is up. Much sleep is not required by nature,
either for our souls or bodies, or for the actions