We were speaking of the syssitia, which will be a natural institution in a Cretan colony.  Whether they shall be established after the model of Crete or Lacedaemon, or shall be different from either, is an unimportant question which may be determined without difficulty.  We may, therefore, proceed to speak of the mode of life among our citizens, which will be far less complex than in other cities; a state which is inland and not maritime requires only half the number of laws.  There is no trouble about trade and commerce, and a thousand other things.  The legislator has only to regulate the affairs of husbandmen and shepherds, which will be easily arranged, now that the principal questions, such as marriage, education, and government, have been settled.

Let us begin with husbandry:  First, let there be a law of Zeus against removing a neighbour’s landmark, whether he be a citizen or stranger.  For this is ‘to move the immoveable’; and Zeus, the God of kindred, witnesses to the wrongs of citizens, and Zeus, the God of strangers, to the wrongs of strangers.  The offence of removing a boundary shall receive two punishments—­the first will be inflicted by the God himself; the second by the judges.  In the next place, the differences between neighbours about encroachments must be guarded against.  He who encroaches shall pay twofold the amount of the injury; of all such matters the wardens of the country shall be the judges, in lesser cases the officers, and in greater the whole number of them belonging to any one division.  Any injury done by cattle, the decoying of bees, the careless firing of woods, the planting unduly near a neighbour’s ground, shall all be visited with proper damages.  Such details have been determined by previous legislators, and need not now be mixed up with greater matters.  Husbandmen have had of old excellent rules about streams and waters; and we need not ’divert their course.’  Anybody may take water from a common stream, if he does not thereby cut off a private spring; he may lead the water in any direction, except through a house or temple, but he must do no harm beyond the channel.  If land is without water the occupier shall dig down to the clay, and if at this depth he find no water, he shall have a right of getting water from his neighbours for his household; and if their supply is limited, he shall receive from them a measure of water fixed by the wardens of the country.  If there be heavy rains, the dweller on the higher ground must not recklessly suffer the water to flow down upon a neighbour beneath him, nor must he who lives upon lower ground or dwells in an adjoining house refuse an outlet.  If the two parties cannot agree, they shall go before the wardens of the city or country, and if a man refuse to abide by their decision, he shall pay double the damage which he has caused.