heavy-armed men, two archers, two slingers, three stone-shooters, and three javelin-men, who were skirmishers, and four sailors to make up a complement of twelve hundred ships. Such was the order of war in the royal city; that of the other nine governments was different in each of them, and would be wearisome to narrate. As to offices and honours, the following was the arrangement from the first-Each of the ten kings, in his own division and in his own city, had the absolute control of the citizens, and in many cases of the laws, punishing and slaying whomsoever he would.

"Now, the relations of their governments to one another were regulated by the injunctions of Poseidon, as the law had handed them down. These were inscribed by the first men on a column of orichalcum, which was situated in the middle of the island, at the temple of Poseidon, whither the people were gathered together every fifth and sixth year alternately, thus giving equal honour to the odd and to the even number. And when they were gathered together they consulted about public affairs, and inquired if anyone had transgressed in anything, and passed judgment on him accordingly; and before they passed judgment they gave their pledges to one another in this wise: There were bulls which had the range of the temple of Poseidon; and the ten who were left alone in the temple, after they had offered prayers to the gods that they might take the sacrifices which were acceptable to them, hunted the bulls without weapons, but with staves and nooses; and the bull which they caught they led up to the column. The victim was then struck on the head by them, and slain over the sacred inscription.

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'Now, on the column, besides the law, there was inscribed an oath invoking mighty curses on the disobedient. When, therefore, after offering sacrifice according to their customs, they had burned the limbs of the bull, they mingled a cup and cast in a clot of blood for each of them; the rest of the victim they took to the fire, after having made a purification of the column all round. Then they drew from the cup in golden vessels, and, pouring a libation on the fire, they swore that they would judge according to the laws on the column, and would punish anyone who had previously transgressed; and that for the future they would not, if they could help, transgress any of the inscriptions, and would not command or obey any ruler who commanded them to act otherwise than according to the laws of their father, Poseidon. This was the prayer which each of them offered up for himself and for his family, at the same time drinking, and dedicating the vessel in the temple of the god; and, after spending some necessary time at supper, when darkness came on and the fire about the sacrifice was cool, all of them put on most beautiful azure robes, and, sitting on the ground at night near the embers of the sacrifices on which they had sworn, and extinguishing all the fire about the temple, they received and gave judgment, if any of them had any accusation to bring against anyone; and, when they had given judgment, at daybreak they wrote down their sentences on a golden tablet, and deposited them as memorials with their robes. There were many special laws which the several kings had inscribed about the temples, but the most important was the following:-That they were not to take up arms against one another, and they were all to

come to the rescue if anyone in any city attempted to overthrow the royal house. Like their ancestors, they were to deliberate in common about war and other matters, giving the supremacy to the family of Atlas; and the king was not to have the power of life and death over any of his kinsmen, unless he had the assent of the majority of the ten kings.

"Such was the vast power which the god settled in the lost island of Atlantis; and this he afterwards directed against our land on the following pretext, as traditions tell :-For many generations, as long as the divine nature lasted in them, they were obedient to the laws, and well-affectioned toward the gods, who were their kinsmen; for they possessed true and in every way great spirits, preaching gentleness and wisdom in the various chances of life, and in their intercourse with one another. They despised everything but virtue, not caring for their present state of life, and thinking lightly on the possession of gold and other property, which seemed only a burden to them; neither were they intoxicated with luxury, nor did wealth deprive them of their self-control, but they were sober, and saw clearly that all these goods are increased by virtuous friendship with one another, and that by excessive zeal for them, and honour of them, the good of them is lost, and friendship perishes with them.

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'By such reflections, and by the continuance in them of a divine nature, all that which we have described, waxed, and increased in them; but when this divine portion began to fade away in them, and became diluted too often, and with too much of the mortal admixture, and the human nature got the

upper-hand, then they, being unable to bear their fortune, became unseemly, and to him who had an eye to see, they began to appear base and had lost the fairest of their precious gifts; but to those who had no eye to see the true happiness, they still appeared glorious and blessed at the very time when they were filled with unrighteous avarice and power. Zeus, the god of gods, who rules with law, and is able to see into such things, perceiving that an honourable race was in a most wretched state, and wanting to inflict punishment on them, that they might be chastened and improved, collected all the gods into his most holy habitation, which, being placed in the centre of the world, sees all things that partake of generation, and when he had called them together he spake as follows:""

[Here Plato's story abruptly ends.]

APPENDIX B

THE LATIN TEXT OF THE BULL OF POPE ALEXANDER VI., DATED 4TH DAY OF MAY 1493.

"ALEXANDER, Episcopus, servus servorum Dei, Charissimo in Christo filio Ferdinando Regi, et Charissimæ in Christo filiæ Elizabeth Regina Castellæ, Legionis, Aragonum, Siciliæ, et Granatæ, illustribus, salutem et Apostolicam benedictionem. Inter cætera Divinæ majestati beneplacita opera et cordis nostri desiderabilia illud profecto potisimum existit, ut fides Catholica et Christiana religio nostris præsertim temporibus exaltetur, ac ubilibet amplietur ac dilatetur, animarunq' salus procuretur, ac barbaræ nationes deprimantur, et ad fidem ipsam reducantur. Unde cum ad hanc sacram Petri sedem, Divina favente clementia (meritis licet imparibus), evocati fueremus, cognoscentes vos tanquam veros Catholicos Reges et Principes, quales semper fuisse novimus, et a vobis præclare gesta, toti pone orbi notissima demonstrant, nedum id exoptare, sed omni conatu, studio, et diligentia, nullis laboribus, nullis impensis, nullisq' parcendo periculis, etiam proprium sanguinem effundendo efficere, ac omnem animum vestrum, omnesq' conatus ad hoc jam dudum dedicasse, quemadmodum recuperatio regni Granatæ a tyrannis de Sarracenorum hodiernis temporibus per