Laws
- Language:
- English
- Status:
- Complete work
- Authorship:
- Written by the author
- Condition of the text:
- Clean text
- Extent:
- ~240,000 words · 1,129 passages
Cite this work
- APAPlato. (n.d.). Laws. SigPhi. https://sigphiai.com/en/works/plato/laws
- MLAPlato. "Laws." SigPhi, https://sigphiai.com/en/works/plato/laws.
- ChicagoPlato. Laws. SigPhi. https://sigphiai.com/en/works/plato/laws.
What it is about
The Laws: three old men talking as they walk up to a temple, designing along the way the entire legislation of a new city.
Context and history
It is Plato's longest work and his last: he left it unrevised at his death, and the construction shows it. One detail surprises anyone coming from the other dialogues: Socrates does not appear. The conversation is led by an unnamed figure, 'the Athenian stranger'. Nor is this the city of the Republic: here Plato accepts written law, property and the family, and what results is far harsher and far less ideal.
Editorial context, not a citable source: unlike the passages of the work itself, these statements cannot be checked against the corpus.
The genuineness of the Laws is sufficiently proved (1) by more than twenty citations of them in the writings of Aristotle, who was residing at Athens during the last twenty years of the life of Plato, and who, having left it after his death (B.C. 347), returned thither twelve years later (B.C. 335); (2) by the allusion of Isocrates (Oratio ad Philippum missa, p.84: To men tais paneguresin enochlein kai pros apantas legein tous sunprechontas en autais pros oudena legein estin, all omoios oi toioutoi ton logon (sc. speeches in the assembly) akuroi tugchanousin ontes tois nomois kai tais politeiais tais upo ton sophiston gegrammenais.) --writing 346 B.C., a year after the death of Plato, and probably not more than three or four years after the composition of the Laws--who speaks of the Laws and Republics written by philosophers (upo ton sophiston); (3) by the reference (Athen.) of the comic poet Alexis, a younger contemporary of Plato (fl. B.C 356-306), to the enactment about prices, which occurs in Laws xi., viz that the same goods should not be offered at two prices on the same day (Ou gegone kreitton nomothetes tou plousiou Aristonikou tithesi gar nuni nomon, ton ichthuopolon ostis an polon tini ichthun upotimesas apodot elattonos es eipe times, eis to desmoterion euthus apagesthai touton, ina dedoikotes tes axias agaposin, e tes esperas saprous apantas apopherosin oikade. Meineke, Frag. Com. Graec.); (4) by the unanimous voice of later antiquity and the absence of any suspicion among ancient writers worth speaking of to the contrary; for it is not said of Philippus of Opus that he composed any part of the Laws, but only that he copied them out of the waxen tablets, and was thought by some to have written the Epinomis (Diog. Laert.) That the longest and one of the best writings bearing the name of Plato should be a forgery, even← Back to Plato