that their offspring may be born of reasonable beings; for on what day or night Heaven will give them increase, who can say?  Moreover, they ought not to begetting children when their bodies are dissipated by intoxication, but their offspring should be compact and solid, quiet and compounded properly; whereas the drunkard is all abroad in all his actions, and beside himself both in body and soul.  Wherefore, also, the drunken man is bad and unsteady in sowing the seed of increase, and is likely to beget offspring who will be unstable and untrustworthy, and cannot be expected to walk straight either in body or mind.  Hence during the whole year and all his life long, and especially while he is begetting children, he ought to take care and not intentionally do what is injurious to health, or what involves insolence and wrong; for he cannot help leaving the impression of himself on the souls and bodies of his offspring, and he begets children in every way inferior.  And especially on the day and night of marriage should a man abstain from such things.  For the beginning, which is also a God dwelling in man, preserves all things, if it meet with proper respect from each individual.  He who marries is further to consider, that one of the two houses in the lot is the nest and nursery of his young, and there he is to marry and make a home for himself and bring up his children, going away from his father and mother.  For in friendships there must be some degree of desire, in order to cement and bind together diversities of character; but excessive intercourse not having the desire which is created by time, insensibly dissolves friendships from a feeling of satiety; wherefore a man and his wife shall leave to his and her father and mother their own dwelling-places, and themselves go as to a colony and dwell there, and visit and be visited by their parents; and they shall beget and bring up children, handing on the torch of life from one generation to another, and worshipping the Gods according to law for ever.

In the next place, we have to consider what sort of property will be most convenient.  There is no difficulty either in understanding or acquiring most kinds of property, but there is great difficulty in what relates to slaves.  And the reason is, that we speak about them in a way which is right and which is not right; for what we say about our slaves is consistent and also inconsistent with our practice about them.

Megillus:  I do not understand, Stranger, what you mean.

Athenian:  I am not surprised, Megillus, for the state of the Helots among the Lacedaemonians is of all Hellenic forms of slavery the most controverted and disputed about, some approving and some condemning it; there is less dispute about the slavery which exists among the Heracleots, who have subjugated the Mariandynians, and about the Thessalian Penestae.  Looking at these and the like examples, what ought we to do concerning property in slaves?  I made a remark, in passing, which naturally elicited a question about my meaning from you.  It was this:—­We know that all would agree that we should have the best and most attached slaves whom we can get.  For many a man has found his slaves better in every way than brethren or sons, and many times they have saved the lives and property of their masters and their whole house—­such tales are well known.