100 THE LAWS
who the people are that are to inhabit your colony; whether such as are willing from every part of Crete, so as that a great multitude will be collected from its several cities; or whether they are such as are chosen for the purpose of cultivating the land? For you do not collect such of the Greeks as are willing; though I see that some of you from Argos, and Angina, and other parts of Greece, inhabit this region, But inform me at present whence you will derive this army of citizens,
CLIN. I think it will be procured from the whole of Crete. And it appears to me that those from Peloponnesus will be received for inhabitants, in preference to the other Greeks. For, what you said just now you said truly: I mean, that these are from Argos: for the race which is most celebrated here at present is Gortynic, because it migrated hither from the Peloponnesian Gortyna.
GUEST. This establishment of a colony, therefore, is not similarly easy to cities, since it does not take place after the manner of a swarm of bees, one race of friends proceeding from one region, and from friends, in order to form a settlement, being as it were besieged by a certain narrowness of land, or forced by other inconveniences of a fimilar nature. But it sometimes happens that a part of a city, being violently urged by feditions, is compelled to settle in some other place. And sometimes a whole city is forced to fly, in consequence of being vanquished in war. It is, therefore, partly easy for these to be colonized, and governed by laws, and partly difficult. For, when a colony is of one race, speaking the same language, and obeying the same laws, it is united by a certain friendship, and has a communion of priests, and everything else of a similar kind; but it will not easily endure different laws, and a polity foreign to its own. But such a colony, having been forced to sedition through the badness of its laws, and still desiring through custom those pristine manners by which it was corrupted, becomes, in consequence of this, refratory and disobedient to its colonizer and legislator. But when a colony is composed of all-various tribes, it will perhaps be more willingly obedient to certain new laws; but to conspire together, and, like horses under one yoke, to blow as it is said the fame blast, requires a long time, and is extremely difficult. But legislation and the establishment of cities are the most perfect of all things with respect to the virtue of men.
