leonastic use of tanun, of os, of os eros eipein, of ekastote; and
the periphrastic use of the preposition peri. Lastly, he observes the
tendency to hyperbata or transpositions of words, and to rhythmical
uniformity as well as grammatical irregularity in the structure of the
sentences.

For nearly all the expressions which are adduced by Zeller as arguments
against the genuineness of the Laws, Stallbaum finds some sort of
authority. There is no real ground for doubting that the work was
written by Plato, merely because several words occur in it which are
not found in his other writings. An imitator may preserve the usual
phraseology of a writer better than he would himself. But, on the other
hand, the fact that authorities may be quoted in support of most of
these uses of words, does not show that the diction is not peculiar.
Several of them seem to be poetical or dialectical, and exhibit an
attempt to enlarge the limits of Greek prose by the introduction of
Homeric and tragic expressions. Most of them do not appear to have
retained any hold on the later language of Greece. Like several
experiments in language of the writers of the Elizabethan age, they were
afterwards lost; and though occasionally found in Plutarch and imitators
of Plato, they have not been accepted by Aristotle or passed into the
common dialect of Greece.

5. Unequal as the Laws are in style, they contain a few passages which
are very grand and noble. For example, the address to the poets: 'Best
of strangers, we also are poets of the best and noblest tragedy; for
our whole state is an imitation of the best and noblest life, which we
affirm to be indeed the very truth of tragedy.' Or again, the sight
of young men and maidens in friendly intercourse with one another,
suggesting the dangers to which youth is liable from the violence of
passion; or the eloquent denunciation of unnatural lusts in the same
passage; or the charming thought that the best legislator 'orders
war for the sake of peace and not peace for the sake of war;' or the
pleasant allusion, 'O Athenian--inhabitant of Attica, I will not say,
for you seem to me worthy to be named after the Goddess Athene because
you go back to first principles;' or the pithy saying, 'Many a victory
has been and will be suicidal to the victors, but education is never
suicidal;' or the fine expression that 'the walls of a city should
be allowed to sleep in the earth, and that we should not attempt to
disinter