Next concerning lawsuits.  Judges, or rather arbiters, may be agreed upon by the plaintiff and defendant; and if no decision is obtained from them, their fellow-tribesmen shall judge.  At this stage there shall be an increase of the penalty:  the defendant, if he be cast, shall pay a fifth more than the damages claimed.  If he further persist, and appeal a second time, the case shall be heard before the select judges; and he shall pay, if defeated, the penalty and half as much again.  And the pursuer, if on the first appeal he is defeated, shall pay one fifth of the damages claimed by him; and if on the second, one half.  Other matters relating to trials, such as the assignment of judges to courts, the times of sitting, the number of judges, the modes of pleading and procedure, as we have already said, may be determined by younger legislators.

These are to be the rules of private courts.  As regards public courts, many states have excellent modes of procedure which may serve for models; these, when duly tested by experience, should be ratified and made permanent by us.

Let the judge be accomplished in the laws.  He should possess writings about them, and make a study of them; for laws are the highest instrument of mental improvement, and derive their name from mind (nous, nomos).  They afford a measure of all censure and praise, whether in verse or prose, in conversation or in books, and are an antidote to the vain disputes of men and their equally vain acquiescence in each other’s opinions.  The just judge, who imbibes their spirit, makes the city and himself to stand upright.  He establishes justice for the good, and cures the tempers of the bad, if they can be cured; but denounces death, which is the only remedy, to the incurable, the threads of whose life cannot be reversed.

When the suits of the year are completed, execution is to follow.  The court is to award to the plaintiff the property of the defendant, if he is cast, reserving to him only his lot of land.  If the plaintiff is not satisfied within a month, the court shall put into his hands the property of the defendant.  If the defendant fails in payment to the amount of a drachma, he shall lose the use and protection of the court; or if he rebel against the authority of the court, he shall be brought before the guardians of the law, and if found guilty he shall be put to death.

Man having been born, educated, having begotten and brought up children, and gone to law, fulfils the debt of nature.  The rites which are to be celebrated after death in honour of the Gods above and below shall be determined by the Interpreters.  The dead shall be buried in uncultivated places, where they will be out of the way and do least injury to the living.  For no one either in life or after death has any right to deprive other men of the sustenance which mother earth provides for them.  No sepulchral mound is to be piled higher than five men can raise it in