simple melodies; and their education is to conclude with the rudiments of science, which should, if possible, be taught in an interesting manner.
There must be a religious festival (continues the Athenian) on every day in the year, and a monthly meeting of all the citizens to practise warlike exercises, when there should be public races for the youths and maidens.
In the Ninth Book, we have the somewhat wearisome details of a criminal code, in which Plato justifies the title given to him by Numenius of "the Moses who wrote in Attic Greek." Certainly some of the regulations are much in the spirit of the writer of Leviticus—such as, that no man shall remove his neighbour's landmark, or cut off his supply of water; that the traveller may pluck the grapes at the time of vintage; and we have also, as in the law of Moses, the "avenger of blood" and purification by the priest.
Plato here, as elsewhere, attributes crime in a great measure to ignorance—a sort of moral blindness. We should (he says), if possible, heal the distemper of the criminal soul, or, if he be incurable, he must be put to death. There are certain unpardonable offenders—the profaner of temples, the would-be tyrant, the traitor or conspirator, and the wilful shedder of innocent blood,—these must all suffer the extreme penalty. He distinguishes between the various kinds of homicide,—in some cases a fine, in others exile, is sufficient punishment; but for the parricide he reserves a more awful doom—he shall be slain by the judges, and his body exposed where three ways meet, and then cast
