The following are to be the regulations respecting handicrafts:—­No citizen, or servant of a citizen, is to practise them.  For the citizen has already an art and mystery, which is the care of the state; and no man can practise two arts, or practise one and superintend another.  No smith should be a carpenter, and no carpenter, having many slaves who are smiths, should look after them himself; but let each man practise one art which shall be his means of livelihood.  The wardens of the city should see to this, punishing the citizen who offends with temporary deprival of his rights—­the foreigner shall be imprisoned, fined, exiled.  Any disputes about contracts shall be determined by the wardens of the city up to fifty drachmae—­above that sum by the public courts.  No customs are to be exacted either on imports or exports.  Nothing unnecessary is to be imported from abroad, whether for the service of the Gods or for the use of man—­neither purple, nor other dyes, nor frankincense,—­and nothing needed in the country is to be exported.  These things are to be decided on by the twelve guardians of the law who are next in seniority to the five elders.  Arms and the materials of war are to be imported and exported only with the consent of the generals, and then only by the state.  There is to be no retail trade either in these or any other articles.  For the distribution of the produce of the country, the Cretan laws afford a rule which may be usefully followed.  All shall be required to distribute corn, grain, animals, and other valuable produce, into twelve portions.  Each of these shall be subdivided into three parts—­one for freemen, another for servants, and the third shall be sold for the supply of artisans, strangers, and metics.  These portions must be equal whether the produce be much or little; and the master of a household may distribute the two portions among his family and his slaves as he pleases—­the remainder is to be measured out to the animals.

Next as to the houses in the country—­there shall be twelve villages, one in the centre of each of the twelve portions; and in every village there shall be temples and an agora—­also shrines for heroes or for any old Magnesian deities who linger about the place.  In every division there shall be temples of Hestia, Zeus, and Athene, as well as of the local deity, surrounded by buildings on eminences, which will be the guard-houses of the rural police.  The dwellings of the artisans will be thus arranged:—­The artisans shall be formed into thirteen guilds, one of which will be divided into twelve parts and settled in the city; of the rest there shall be one in each division of the country.  And the magistrates will fix them on the spots where they will cause the least inconvenience and be most serviceable in supplying the wants of the husbandmen.