ubmitted to them by the anonymous Athenian who, according
to Cicero, Plutarch and Boeckh, was Plato himself.

In the case of "the Magnesians, whom a god is again raising up and
settling into a colony ... a divine polity...." Plato says: ... "It is
meet, in the first place, to build the city as much as possible in the
middle of the country.... After this to divide it into twelve parts(141)
and placing first the temple of Hestia, and Zeus and Athene, to call it
the Acropolis and to throw around a circular enclosure and from it to cut
the city and all the country into twelve parts. But the twelve parts ought
to be equalized ... and the allotments to be five thousand and forty....
After this to assign the twelve allotments to the twelve gods and to call
them by their names and to consecrate to each the portion attained by lot
and to call it a phyle; and again to divide the twelve sections of the
city in the same manner as they divided the rest of the country, and that
each should possess two habitations, one near the centre and the other
near the extremity, and thus let the method end ... (B. V, C. 14).... We
ought, in the first place, to resume the number five thousand and forty
because it had and has now convenient distributions, both the whole number
and that which was assigned to the wards, which we laid down as the
twelfth part of the whole, being exactly four hundred and twenty. And as
the whole number has twelve divisions, so also has that of the wards. Now
it is meet to consider each division as a sacred gift of a deity through
its _following both the months and revolutions of the universe_. (By this
is meant, says Ast, the twelve signs of the zodiac.) _Hence that which is
inherent leads every state, making them holy_.... Some persons indeed have
made a more correct distribution than others, and with better fortune have
dedicated the distribution to the gods. But we now assert that the number
five thousand and forty has been chosen most correctly, as it has all
divisions as far as twelve, beginning from one, except that by eleven; ...
let us distribute this number; and dedicating to a god ... each portion,
and giving the altars ... let us institute monthly two meetings relating
to sacrifices ... twelve according to the divisions of the wards and
twelve to that of the city ... for the sake of every kind of intercourse."

It should be noted here that, as in his Republic, Plato provides his ideal
state with female as we