cleinas:
the greater part of crete is going to send out a colony, and they have entrusted the management of the affair to the cnosians; and the cnosian government to me and nine others. and they desire us to give them any laws which we please, whether taken from the cretan model or from any other; and they do not mind about their being foreign if they are better....

... and now let us imagine a state of which we will suppose ourselves to be the original founders:

athenian stranger:
... what will this city be? I do not mean to ask what is or will hereafter be the name of the place; that may be determined by the accident of locality or of the original settlement,- a river or fountain, or some local deity may give the sanction of a name to the newly-founded city; but I do want to know what the situation is, whether maritime or inland.

cleinias:
I should imagine, stranger, that the city of which we are speaking is about eighty stadia distant from the sea.

ath:
and are there harbours on the seaboard?

cle:
excellent harbours, stranger; there could not be better.

ath:
alas! what a prospect! and is the surrounding country productive, or in need of importations?

cle:
hardly in need of anything.

ath:
and is there any neighbouring state?

cle:
none whatever, and that is the reason for selecting the place; in days of old, there was a migration of the inhabitants, and the region has been deserted from time immemorial.

ath:
and has the place a fair proportion of hill, and plain, and wood?

cle:
like the rest of crete in that.

ath:
you mean to say that there is more rock than plain?

cle:
exactly.

ath:
if you order rightly the city of magnesia, or whatever name god may give it, you will obtain the greatest glory; or at any rate you will be thought the most courageous of men in the estimation of posterity. dear companions, if this our divine assembly can only be established, to them we will hand over the city; none of the present company of legislators, as I may call them, would hesitate about that. and the state will be perfected and become a waking reality, which a little while ago we attempted to create as a dream and in idea only, mingling together reason and mind in one image, in the hope that our citizens might be duly mingled and rightly educated; and being educated, and dwelling in the citadel of the land, might become perfect guardians, such as we have never seen in all our previous life, by reason of the saving virtue which is in them.

meg:
the athenian must give his help. dear cleinias, after all that has been said, either we must detain the stranger, and by supplications and in all manner of ways make him share in the foundation of the city, or we must give up the undertaking.

cle:
very true, megillus; and you must join with me in detaining him.

meg:
I will.