It is necessary that the laws should not be enclosed in houses, and
by gates, but in the manners of the citizens. What, therefore, is the
principle of every polity? The education of youth. For vines will
never bear useful fruit, unless they are well cultivated; nor will
horses ever become excellent, if colts are not properly trained.
For recently produced fruit receives a figure especially similar to
that which touches and is near to it. And men prudently attend to
the manner in which vines ought to be cut and taken care of; but in
things pertaining to the education of their own species, they conduct
themselves negligently and rashly; though neither vines nor wine
govern men, but man and the soul of man. And we commit the nurture
of a plant, indeed, to a man of some worth, and think that he who
takes care of it, deserves no less than two mina; but we commit the
education of youth to some Illyrian or Thracian, who are men of no
worth. The first legislators, however, as they could not render the
middle class of mankind stable, adjoined [in their education] dancing
and rhythm, which participate of motion alone and order; and besides
these they added sports, some of which exhorted them to fellowship,
but others to truth and mental acuteness. In a similar manner also
they instituted for those who through intoxication or repletion
had committed any crime, the pipe and harmony, by which they gave
an arrangement to the mind, so that the manners being matured and
rendered mild, they might be capable of being adorned.