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Section 317

COMRADE. This is true.

SOCRATES. Then if you see some people continually changing their laws, decreeing one thing now and another later, or differing from one another, would you say they possess the true knowledge of what is?

COMRADE. I would say they are ignorant.

SOCRATES. Because the true law, the discovery of what is, does not change. So, the laws of those who truly know are constant and universal. Now, let us consider who among the ancients was considered the best lawmaker, whose laws have remained unchanged for the longest time.

COMRADE. I do not know, Socrates.

SOCRATES. Do you not know whose laws are the most ancient among the Greeks?

COMRADE. Do you mean the laws of the Spartans and Lycurgus?

SOCRATES. The laws of the Spartans are indeed ancient, but there are older laws still. Where did the Spartans get their laws from?

COMRADE. From Crete.

SOCRATES. And who was the most ancient and greatest king of Crete, who gave them these laws?

COMRADE. Minos, the son of Zeus.

SOCRATES. That is right. Minos and his brother Rhadamanthys. But Minos was the elder and the greater. And Homer says of Minos that he was a familiar friend of Zeus, and that he received his laws directly from Zeus. For Homer says: "There is the great city of Cnossus, where Minos ruled as king for nine years, he who conversed with great Zeus."