Plato, Laws

[847a] from that source than from his own craft; but each several craftsman in the State shall have one single craft,¹ and gain from it his living. This law the city-stewards shall labor to guard, and they shall punish the resident citizen, if he turn aside to any craft rather than to the pursuit of virtue, with reproofs and degradation, until they restore him to his own proper course; and if a foreigner pursue two crafts, they shall punish him by imprisonment, money-fines, [847b] and expulsion from the State, and so compel him to act as one man and not many. And as regards wages due to craftsmen, and the cancelings of work ordered, and any injustices done to them by another, or to another by them, the city-stewards shall act as arbitrators up to a value of fifty drachmae, and in respect of larger sums the public courts shall adjudicate as the law directs. No toll shall be paid in the State by anyone either on exported goods or on imports. Frankincense and all such foreign spices for use in religious rites, [847c] and purple and all dyes not produced in the country, and all pertaining to any other craft requiring foreign imported materials for a use that is not necessary, no one shall import; nor, on the other hand, shall he export any of the stuff which should of necessity remain in the country: and of all such matters the inspectors and supervisors shall consist of those twelve Law-wardens who remain next in order when five of the oldest are left out. In regard to arms and all instruments of war, [847d] if there is need to import any craft or plant or metal or rope or animal for military purposes, the hipparchs and generals shall have control of both imports and exports, when the State both gives and takes, and the Law-wardens shall enact suitable and adequate laws therefor; but no trading for the sake of gain, either in this matter or in any other, shall be carried on anywhere within the boundaries of our [847e] State and country. Touching food-supply and the distribution of agricultural produce, a system approaching that legalized in Crete would probably prove satisfactory. The whole produce of the soil must be divided by all into twelve parts, according to the method of its consumption. And each twelfth part—of wheat and barley, for instance (and all the rest of the crops must be distributed in the same way as these, as well as all marketable animals