The Laws in Bronze

One Greek source keeps the circuit and throws the bronze away. The dialogue Minos, preserved among Plato's works and generally thought not to be his, makes Talos a man whom Minos sent round the villages of Crete three times a year, carrying the laws written out on bronze tablets so that people could be shown them. The metal moves off his body and onto his paperwork. It is a rationalising retelling — a recognised Greek habit, and one that ran alongside the bronze version rather than replacing it — and what survives the retelling intact is the rhythm: the circuits, the number three, the bronze.