Cleinias:  What do you mean?

Athenian:  I mean that the earth of necessity produces and nourishes the various articles of food, sometimes better and sometimes worse.

Cleinias:  Of course.

Athenian:  Such being the case, let no one of the three portions be greater than either of the other two—­neither that which is assigned to masters or to slaves, nor again that of the stranger; but let the distribution to all be equal and alike, and let every citizen take his two portions and distribute them among slaves and freemen, he having power to determine the quantity and quality.  And what remains he shall distribute by measure and number among the animals who have to be sustained from the earth, taking the whole number of them.

In the second place, our citizens should have separate houses duly ordered; and this will be the order proper for men like them.  There shall be twelve hamlets, one in the middle of each twelfth portion, and in each hamlet they shall first set apart a market-place, and the temples of the Gods, and of their attendant demi-gods; and if there be any local deities of the Magnetes, or holy seats of other ancient deities, whose memory has been preserved, to these let them pay their ancient honours.  But Hestia, and Zeus, and Athene will have temples everywhere together with the God who presides in each of the twelve districts.  And the first erection of houses shall be around these temples, where the ground is highest, in order to provide the safest and most defensible place of retreat for the guards.  All the rest of the country they shall settle in the following manner:  They shall make thirteen divisions of the craftsmen; one of them they shall establish in the city, and this, again, they shall subdivide into twelve lesser divisions, among the twelve districts of the city, and the remainder shall be distributed in the country round about; and in each village they shall settle various classes of craftsmen, with a view to the convenience of the husbandmen.  And the chief officers of the wardens of the country shall superintend all these matters, and see how many of them, and which class of them, each place requires; and fix them where they are likely to be least troublesome, and most useful to the husbandman.  And the wardens of the city shall see to similar matters in the city.

Now the wardens of the agora ought to see to the details of the agora.  Their first care, after the temples which are in the agora have been seen to, should be to prevent any one from doing any wrong in dealings between man and man; in the second place, as being inspectors of temperance and violence, they should chastise him who requires chastisement.  Touching articles of sale, they should first see whether the articles which the citizens are under regulations to sell to strangers are sold to them, as the law ordains.  And let the law be as follows:  On the first day of the month, the persons in charge,