THE PREFACE TO THE LAWS OF CHARONDAS THE CATANEAN
FROM THE GODS should begin any deliberation or performance, for according to the old proverb, "God should be the cause of all our deliberation and works." Further, we should abstain from base actions, especially if we desire to consult with the Gods, for there is no communication between God and the unjust.
Next, everyone should help himself, inciting himself to the undertaking and performance of such things as are conformable to his abilities, for it seems sordid and illiberal for a man to extend himself similarly to small and great undertakings. You should carefully avoid rushing into things too extensive, or of too great an importance. In every undertaking you should measure your own desert and power, so as to succeed and gain credit.
A man or woman condemned by the city should not be assisted by anybody; anyone who should associate with him should be disgraced, as similar to the condemned. But it is well to love men who have been voted approved, and to associate with them to imitate and acquire similar virtue and honor, thus being initiated in the greatest and most perfect of the mysteries, for no man is perfect without virtue.
Assistance should be given to an injured citizen whether he is in his own or in a foreign country. But let every stranger who was venerated in his own country, and conformably to the proper laws of that country, be received or dismissed with auspicious cordiality, calling to mind hospitable Zeus as a God who is established by all nations in common, and who is the inspective guardian of hospitality and inhospitality.
Let the older men preside over the younger so that the latter may be deterred from, and be ashamed of vice, through reverence and fear of the former. For where the elders are shameless, so also are their children and grandchildren. Shamelessness and impudence result in insolence and injustice, and of this the end is death.
Let none be impudent, but rather modest and temperate; for he will thus earn the propitiousness of the Gods, and for himself achieve salvation. But no vicious man is dear to divinity. Let everyone honor probity and truth, hating what is base and false. These are the indications of virtue and vice. From their very youth children should therefore be accustomed [to worthy manners] by punishing those who love falsehood and delighting those who love the truth, so as to implant in each what is most beautiful, and most prolific of virtue.
Each citizen should be more anxious for a reputation for temperance than for wisdom, the pretense of which often indicates ignorance of probity and is also a sign of cowardliness. The pretense to temperance should lead to a possession of it; for no one should feign with his tongue that he performs beautiful deeds when destitute of worthiness and good intentions.
Men should preserve kindness towards their rulers, obeying and venerating them as if they were parents; for whoever cannot see the propriety of this will suffer the punishment of bad counsels from the divinities who are the inspective guardians of the seat of the empire. Rulers are the guardians of the city, and of the safety of the citizens.
Governors must preside justly over their subjects in a manner similar to that over their own children, in passing sentences on others, and in propitiating hatred and anger.
Praise and renown is due the rich who have assisted the indigent; they should be considered saviors of the children and defenders of their country. The wants of those who are poor through bad fortune should be relieved, but not the wants resulting from indolence or intemperance. While fortune is common to all men, indolence and intemperance is peculiar to bad men.
Let it be considered as a worthy deed to point out anyone who has acted unjustly, in order that the state may be saved, having many guardians of its proprieties. Let the informer be considered a pious man, though his information affect his most familiar acquaintance; for nothing is more intimate or kindred to a man than his country. However let not the information regard things done through involuntary ignorance, but of such crimes as have been committed from a previous knowledge of their enormity. A criminal who shows enmity to the informer should be generally despised, that he may suffer the punishment of ingratitude, through which he deprives himself of being cured of the greatest of diseases, namely injustice.
Further, let contempt of the Gods be considered as the greatest of iniquities, including voluntary injury to parents, neglecting of rulers and laws, and voluntary dishonoring of justice. Let him be considered as a most just and holy citizen who honors these things, and indicates to the rulers and the citizens those that despise them.
Let it be esteemed more honorable for a man to die for his country than, through a desire of life, to desert it, along with honor; for it is better to die well than to live basely and disgracefully.
We should honor each of the dead not with tears or lamentations, but with good remembrance, and with an oblation of annual fruits. For when we grieve immoderately for the dead we are ungrateful to the terrestrial divinities.
Let no one curse him by whom he has been injured; praise is more divine than defamation.
He who is superior to anger should be considered a better citizen than he who thereby offends.
Not praiseworthy, but shameful is it to surpass temples and palaces in the sumptuousness of one's expense. Nothing private should be more magnificent and venerable than things of a public nature.
Let him who is a slave to wealth and money be despised as cowardly and illiberal, being impressed by sumptuous possessions yet leading a tragic and vile life. The magnanimous man foresees all human concerns and is not disturbed by any accident of fortune.
Let no one speak obscenely, lest his thoughts lead him to base deeds and defile his soul with impudence. Proper and lovely things it is well and legal to advertise, but such things are honored by being kept silent. It is base even to mention something disgraceful.
Let everyone dearly love his lawful wife and beget children by her. But let none shed the seed due his children into any other person, and let him not disgrace that which is honorable by both nature and law. For nature produced the seed for the sake of producing children, and not for the sake of lust.
A wife should be chaste and refuse impious connection with other men, for otherwise she will subject herself to the vengeance of the daimons, whose office it is to expel those to whom they are hostile from their houses, and to produce hatred.
He who gives a step-mother to his children should not be praised, but disgraced as the cause of domestic dissension.
As it is proper to observe these mandates, let him who transgresses them be subjected to political execration.
The law also orders that these introductory suggestions be known by all the citizens, and should be read in the festivals after the hymns to Apollo called paeons, by him who is appointed for this purpose by the master of the feast, so that the precepts may germinate in the minds of all who hear them.