The Project Gutenberg EBook of Laws, by Plato

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Title: Laws

Author: Plato

Posting Date: October 29, 2008 [EBook #1750]
Release Date: May, 1999

Language: English

Character set encoding: ASCII

*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK LAWS ***

Produced by Sue Asscher

LAWS

By Plato

Translated By Benjamin Jowett

INTRODUCTION AND ANALYSIS.

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 lo