[778d]
partly because therein they deal with holy matters, and partly because they are the seats of holy gods; and in these will fittingly be held trials for murder and for all crimes worthy of death. As to walls, Megillus, I would agree with your Sparta in letting the walls lie sleeping in the ground, and not wake them up, and that for the following reasons. It is a fine saying of the poet,1 and often repeated, that walls should be made of bronze and iron
1 Unknown. Cp. Aristot. Pol. 1330b 32 ff., and the saying of Lycurgas (quoted by Plutarch,Lycurg. xix.) οὐκ ἂν ἔιη ἀτείχιστος πόλις ἅτις ἀνδράσι οὐ πλίνθοις ἐστεφάνωται. “Earth” (likeπλίνθοι) here means really “stone,” the soil of Greece being rocky.
Plato. Plato in Twelve Volumes, Vols. 10 & 11 translated by R.G. Bury. Cambridge, MA, Harvard University Press; London, William Heinemann Ltd. 1967 & 1968.
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