What regulations will be proper about examiners, seeing that some ofour magistrates are elected by lot, and for a year, and some for alonger time and from selected persons? Of such magistrates, who willbe a sufficient censor or examiner, if any of them, weighed down bythe pressure of office or his own inability to support the dignityof his office, be guilty of any crooked practice? It is by no meanseasy to find a magistrate who excels other magistrates in virtue,but still we must endeavour to discover some censor or examiner who ismore than man. For the truth is, that there are many elements ofdissolution in a state, as there are also in a ship, or in ananimal; they all have their cords, and girders, and sinews-onenature diffused in many places, and called by many names; and theoffice of examiner is a most important element in the preservation anddissolution of states. For if the examiners are better than themagistrates, and their duty is fulfilled justly and without blame,then the whole state and country flourishes and is happy; but if theexamination of the magistrates is carried on in a wrong way, then,by the relaxation of that justice which is the uniting principle ofall constitutions, every power in the state is rent asunder from everyother; they no longer incline in the same direction, but fill the citywith faction, and make many cities out of one, and soon bring all todestruction. Wherefore the examiners ought to be admirable in everysort of virtue. Let us invent a mode of creating them, which shallbe as follows:-Every year, after the summer solstice, the whole cityshall meet in the common precincts of Helios and Apollo, and shallpresent to the God three men out of their own number in the mannerfollowing:-Each citizen shall select, not himself, but some othercitizen whom he deems in every way the best, and who is not lessthan fifty years of age. And out of the selected persons who havethe greatest number of votes, they shall make a further selectionuntil they reduce them to one-half, if they are an even number; but ifthey are not an even number, they shall subtract the one who has thesmallest number of votes, and make them an even number, and then leavethe half which have the great number of votes. And if two persons havean equal number of votes, and thus increase the number beyondone-half, they shall withdraw the younger of the two and do awaywith the excess; and then including all the rest they shall againvote, until there are left three having an unequal number of votes.
But if all the three, or two out of the three, have equal votes, letthem commit the election to good fate and fortune, and separate off bylot the first, and the second, and the third; these they shall crownwith an olive wreath and give them the prize of excellence, at thesame time proclaiming to all the world that the city of theMagnetes, by providence of the Gods, is again preserved, andpresents to the Sun and to Apollo her three best men asfirst-fruits, to be a common offering to them, according to theancient law, as long as their lives answer to the judgment formed ofthem. And these shall appoint in their first year twelve examiners, tocontinue until each has completed seventy-five years, to whom threeshall afterwards be added yearly; and let these divide all themagistracies into twelve parts, and prove the holders of them by everysort of test to which a freeman may be subjected; and let them livewhile they hold office in the precinct of Helios and Apollo, inwhich they were chosen, and let each one form a judgment of somethings individually, and of others in company with his colleagues; andlet him place a writing in the agora about each magistracy, and whatthe magistrate ought to suffer or pay, according to the decision ofthe examiners. And if a magistrate does not admit that he has beenjustly judged, let him bring the examiners before the select judges,and if he be acquitted by their decision, let him, if he will,accuse the examiners themselves; if, however, he be convicted, andhave been condemned to death by the examiners, let him die (and ofcourse he can only die once):-but any other penalties which admit ofbeing doubled let him suffer twice over.