That is a danger which, as I am saying, is escaped by us, and yet we had better say how, if we had not escaped, we might have escaped; and we may venture now to assert that no other way of escape, whether narrow or broad, can be devised but freedom from avarice and a sense of justice--upon this rock our city shall be built; for there ought to be no disputes among citizens about property.

If there are quarrels of long standing among them, no legislator of any degree of sense will proceed a step in the arrangement of the state until they are settled.

But that they to whom God has given, as He has to us, to be the founders of a new state as yet free from enmity--that they should create themselves enmities by their mode of distributing lands and houses, would be superhuman folly and wickedness.
How then can we rightly order the distribution of the land?
In the first place, the number of the citizens has to be determined, and also the number and size of the divisions into which they will have to be formed; and the land and the houses will then have to be apportioned by us as fairly as we can.

The number of citizens can only be estimated satisfactorily in relation to the territory and the neighbouring states.

The territory must be sufficient to maintain a certain number of inhabitants in a moderate way of life--more than this is not required; and the number of citizens should be sufficient to defend themselves against the injustice of their neighbours, and also to give them the power of rendering efficient aid to their neighbours when they are wronged.