Under music is included reading, writing, playing on the lyre, arithmetic, geometry, and a knowledge of astronomy sufficient to preserve the minds of the citizens from impiety in after-life.

Gymnastics are to be practised chiefly with a view to their use in war.

The discussion of education, which was lightly touched upon in Book ii, is here completed.
The eighth book contains regulations for civil life, beginning with festivals, games, and contests, military exercises and the like.

On such occasions Plato seems to see young men and maidens meeting together, and hence he is led into discussing the relations of the sexes, the evil consequences which arise out of the indulgence of the passions, and the remedies for them.

Then he proceeds to speak of agriculture, of arts and trades, of buying and selling, and of foreign commerce.
The remaining books of the Laws, ix-xii, are chiefly concerned with criminal offences.