[320c]
not in the whole of the kingly art, but in one subsidiary to the kingly, enough for presiding in law courts; so that he was spoken of as a good judge. For Minos used him as guardian of the law in the city, and Talos1 as the same for the rest of Crete. For Talos thrice a year made a round of the villages, guarding the laws in them, by holding their laws inscribed on brazen tablets, which gave him his name of “brazen.” And what Hesiod2 also has said
1 Talos, the brazen man who was given to Minos by Zeus, is described by Apoll. Rhod. iv. 1639ff., and Apollodorus i. 9. 26 (where see J. G. Frazer's note in this series).
2 The passage quoted does not occur in our text of Hesiod, nor is it quoted by any other writer. The meter of the first line would be improved if we could read βασιλευτότατος, from the βασιλευτός used by Aristotle, Pol. iii. 17. 1.
Plato. Plato in Twelve Volumes, Vol. 9 translated by W.R.M. Lamb. Cambridge, MA, Harvard University Press; London, William Heinemann Ltd. 1925.
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