Cleinias:  Very good.

Athenian:  The city being new and hitherto uninhabited, care ought to be taken of all the buildings, and the manner of building each of them, and also of the temples and walls.  These, Cleinias, were matters which properly came before the marriages;—­but, as we are only talking, there is no objection to changing the order.  If, however, our plan of legislation is ever to take effect, then the house shall precede the marriage if God so will, and afterwards we will come to the regulations about marriage; but at present we are only describing these matters in a general outline.

Cleinias:  Quite true.

Athenian:  The temples are to be placed all round the agora, and the whole city built on the heights in a circle (compare Arist.  Pol.), for the sake of defence and for the sake of purity.  Near the temples are to be placed buildings for the magistrates and the courts of law; in these plaintiff and defendant will receive their due, and the places will be regarded as most holy, partly because they have to do with holy things:  and partly because they are the dwelling-places of holy Gods:  and in them will be held the courts in which cases of homicide and other trials of capital offences may fitly take place.  As to the walls, Megillus, I agree with Sparta in thinking that they should be allowed to sleep in the earth, and that we should not attempt to disinter them (compare Arist.  Pol.); there is a poetical saying, which is finely expressed, that ’walls ought to be of steel and iron, and not of earth;’ besides, how ridiculous of us to be sending out our young men annually into the country to dig and to trench, and to keep off the enemy by fortifications, under the idea that they are not to be allowed to set foot in our territory, and then, that we should surround ourselves with a wall, which, in the first place, is by no means conducive to the health of cities, and is also apt to produce a certain effeminacy in the minds of the inhabitants, inviting men to run thither instead of repelling their enemies, and leading them to imagine that their safety is due not to their keeping guard day and night, but that when they are protected by walls and gates, then they may sleep in safety; as if they were not meant to labour, and did not know that true repose comes from labour, and that disgraceful indolence and a careless temper of mind is only the renewal of trouble.  But if men must have walls, the private houses ought to be so arranged from the first that the whole city may be one wall, having all the houses capable of defence by reason of their uniformity and equality towards the streets (compare Arist.  Pol.).  The form of the city being that of a single dwelling will have an agreeable aspect, and being easily guarded will be infinitely better for security.  Until the original building is completed, these should be the principal objects of the inhabitants; and the wardens of the city should