Orphans. A ward must proceed against a guardian whom he suspects of fraud within five years of the expiration of the guardianship. This provision is common to Plato (Laws XI 928 C) and to Athenian law (Telfy, 1584). Further, the latter enacted that the nearest male relation should marry or provide a husband for an heiress (Telfy, 1046)—a point in which Plato follows it closely (Laws XI 925 and following).
Contracts. Plato’s law (XI 920 D) that “when a man makes an agreement which he does not fulfil, unless the agreement be of a nature which the law or a vote of the assembly does not allow, or which he has made under the influence of some unjust compulsion, or which he is prevented from fulfilling against his will by some unexpected chance—the other party may go to law with him,” according to Pollux (quoted in Telfy’s note on 1492) prevailed also at Athens.
Trade regulations. (a) Lying was forbidden in the agora both by Plato and at Athens (Laws XI 917: Telfy, 1543). (b) Athenian law allowed an action of recovery against a man who sold an unsound slave as sound (Telfy, 1499). Plato’s enactment is more explicit: he allows only an unskilled person (i.e. one who is not a trainer or physician) to take proceedings in such a case (XI 916). (c) Plato diverges from Athenian practice in the disapproval of credit, and does not even allow the supply of goods on the deposit of a percentage of their value (Telfy, 1495, 1496). He enacts that “when goods are exchanged by buying and selling, a man shall deliver them and receive the price of them at a fixed place in the agora, and have done with the matter” (XI 915 D), and that “he who gives credit must be satisfied whether he obtain his money or not, for in such exchanges he will not be protected by law” (VIII 850 A). (d) Athenian law forbad an extortionate rate of interest (Telfy, 1505); Plato allows interest in one case only—if a contractor does not receive the price of his work within a year of the time agreed—and at the rate of 200 per cent. per annum (“for every drachma a monthly interest of an obol”; Laws XI 921). (e) Both at Athens and in the Laws sales were to be registered (Telfy, 1496: Laws XI 914 C), as well as births (Telfy, 1324: Laws VI 785).
Sumptuary laws. Extravagance at weddings (Telfy, 1357, 1,359: Laws VI 774), and at funerals (Laws XII 959: Telfy, note on 1443) was forbidden at Athens and also in the Magnesian state.
There remains the subject of family life, which in Plato’s Laws partakes both of an Athenian and Spartan character. Under this head may conveniently be included the condition of women and of slaves. To family life may be added citizenship.
As at Sparta, marriages are to be contracted for the good of the state (VI 773 E); and they may be dissolved on the same ground, where there is a failure of issue (VI 784 B)—the interest of the state requiring that every one of the 5,040 lots should have an heir. Divorces are likewise permitted by Plato where there is an incompatibility of temper (XI 929 E), as at Athens by mutual consent. The duty of having children is also enforced by a still higher motive, expressed by Plato in the noble words:—“A man should cling to immortality, and leave behind him children’s children to be the servants of God in his place” (VI 774 A; compare IV 721 C). Again, as at Athens, the father is allowed to put away his undutiful son, but only with the consent of impartial persons (XI 929: Telfy, 1329), and the only suit which may be brought by a son against a father is for imbecility (XI 929). The class of elder and younger men and women are still to regard one another, as in the Republic, as standing in the relation of parents and children. This is a trait of Spartan character rather than of Athenian. A peculiar sanctity and tenderness was to be shown towards the aged; the parent or grandparent stricken with years was to be loved and worshipped like the image of a God, and was to be deemed far more able than any lifeless statue to bring good or ill to his descendants (XI 931). Great care is to be taken of orphans: they are entrusted to the fifteen
