nals of our own city (Sais) have been preserved eight thousand
years in our sacred writings ... your state has a priority over ours of a
thousand years.... I will briefly describe the law and more illustrious
actions of those states which have existed nine thousand years ...' "
(Timaeus). It is interesting at this point to recall also the familiar
statements made by the priests of Sais to Solon, concerning the immense
antiquity of the human race and the "multitude and variety of destructions
which have been and will be undergone by the human race ... after which
nations become young again, as at first, knowing nothing of the events of
ancient times" (Timaeus, V).

Referring the reader to the original text I merely point out here that the
priest of Sais, referring to the sacred writings themselves, assigned to
remotest antiquity the principle of distribution and arrangement on which
the state had originally been founded and established. In the Critias the
description of the Athenian state, which "had been founded nine thousand"
years before, contains the following particulars which will appear
familiar to the reader. "To the gods was once locally allotted the whole
earth.... Obtaining a country agreeable to them by just allotment, they
chose regions for their habitations.... Different gods received by lot
different regions.... Hephaestus and Athene, a brother and sister, both
received one region as their common allotment ... their temple was built
on the Acropolis ... whose northern and southern slopes were respectively
associated with separate winter and summer residences." The population was
divided into classes and each caste occupied a fixed place of residence.
"The outer parts, down the flanks (of the Acropolis) were inhabited by
craftsmen and husbandmen who tilled the neighboring land; the
warrior-classes lived separately, by themselves, in the more elevated
parts around the temple of Athene and Hephaestus, which they had formed,
as it were, into the garden of a single dwelling by encircling it with one
enclosure" (The Critias, VI). "... On this site was a single fountain
which furnished every part with abundant water...." "The 'guardians of the
state' were the 'leaders' of the Greeks and as to their number they paid
special attention that they should always have the same number of men and
women that might serve in war, the whole being about twenty thousand."

In the description given, in the Critias, of the state o