Abstract
In his supremely influential corpus, Plato lays out a critique of what he calls, in Laws IX, ‘all presently existing legislation’. Since archaic law-codes in Greece were held to have been revealed to human legislators by the gods, a critique of divine legislation is necessarily one moment of the Platonic critique of law. Yet Plato is also unimpressed by democratic legislation. Platonic legislation is, thus, neither democratic nor divine. It is a result of what he calls ‘political technique’ (politikê technê). And one of Plato’s basic political convictions is that no law-code is perfect. Therefore, in order for any law-state to survive, it must allow for the supplementation, emendation and abrogation of its laws. The hypothetical law-states that Plato devises in his Republic and Laws provide for a non-democratic ‘flux of law’.
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Notes
- 1.
Dio. Laer. Lives II 5.41. There are parallel testimonies in Olympiodorus’ Gorgias commentary (41.6) and in the Anonymous Prolegomena (3.21–25). For full citations and descriptions, see Riginos (1976, 56–58), where she concludes that ‘it is not possible to say when [this] Platonic anecdote entered the biographical tradition’.
- 2.
The term ‘citizen-judges’ is preferred because the dicasts in Athenian law-courts were not only competent to issue a verdict, but to impose a penalty. S.C. Todd comments that ‘the dikastai comprised a mass jury of laymen who themselves fulfilled … the functions that we would naturally associate with the judge’ (1993, 82). For the transition from archaic dikastai to citizen-judges: Ostwald (1986, 66–77); Papakonstantinou (2008, 87–99).
- 3.
Plato’s birth is dated to 427 bce, making him 28 at the time of Socrates’ trial. One pertinent text is Aesch. Tim. 23, which gives thirty years as a threshold for speaking in court. Note also that while Justus’ testimony has the citizen-judges shout Plato down for his youth, Plato’s Apology has Socrates accuse one of his prosecutors, Meletus, of ‘youthfulness’ (neotêti ≈ rashness) (Pl. Apol. 26e).
- 4.
Aristoph. Wasps 979–981. Cf. Isoc. Antid. 21–22: ‘We take our solemn oath at the beginning of each year that we will impartially hear both accusers and accused, [yet] we so depart from this in practice, that when the accuser makes his charges we give ear to whatever he may say; but when the accused tries to refute them, we sometimes do not endure even to hear his voice (mêde tên phônên akouontas anechesthai)’; Lys. Mant. 20: ‘I have noticed, councillors, that some of you are annoyed with me for attempting to speak before the people (en tôi demôi) on account of my youth (neôteros). But, in the first place, necessity compelled me to address the city (dêmêgorêsai) to protect my own interests …’.
- 5.
Nor, for that matter, in Cicero’s ‘apology’: Cic. Tusc. I 40. In the Xenophontic corpus, Plato is only named at Xen. Mem. III 6.1, while Plato never mentions Xenophon. (Cf. Dio. Laer. Lives III 34.) For recent analyses of the ‘rivalry’ between Xenophon and Plato, and possible cross-references in their corpora: Danzig (2003, 2005).
- 6.
Pl. Apol. 34a, 38b. Cf. Dio. Laer. Lives III 19; Riginos (1976, 86–92).
- 7.
Pace Alice Riginos (1976, 57), who writes that ‘this story of Plato’s behavior at Socrates’ trial … contradicts his own account of the trial in the Apology’.
- 8.
Crito, Critobulus and Aristobulus are also named at Pl. Apol. 38b, yet Plato appears to subtly underscore his own role.
- 9.
Compare the Platonic account of this phase of Socrates’ trial with the testimonies in Dio. Laer. Lives II 5.41–42.
- 10.
Pl. Apol. 36d–37a. Cf. Dio. Laer. Lives II 5.42; Miller (1978, 7–9).
- 11.
On Socrates’ ‘proud tone’ at the trial: Burnet (1924, 145–146), Slings (1994, 191–200). And for Socrates’ sly insinuation that many of his judges, while not perhaps illiterate, were yet ‘unskilled in letters’ (apeirous grammatôn): Gagarin (2008, 178–179).
- 12.
Cf. Riginos (1976, 56–58).
- 13.
Cic. Nat. Deor. II 12.32: quasi quendam deum philosophorum. Cf. Cic. Tusc. I 32.79, where Cicero reports that the Stoic philosopher Panaetius (d. ca 109 bce) called Plato ‘the wisest’ (sapientissimum), ‘the holiest’ (sanctissimum), and ‘the Homer of philosophers’ (Homerum philosophorum).
- 14.
Nomos only becomes ‘entrenched in Athens as the proper term for ‘statute’ by 403/402 b.c.’ (Ostwald 1969, 95, 10).
- 15.
Slings (1994, 86–100) reviews the indictment’s legal basis.
- 16.
Cf. Pl. Rep. IV 435b: tês dikaiosunês eidos.
- 17.
Here and throughout, the terms ‘code law’, ‘law-code’, and ‘codify’ must be taken sensu lato.
- 18.
Pl. Laws IV 712b: paides presbytai.
- 19.
Pl. Laws X 892d.
- 20.
Bodin (1583, 264): ‘Platon fait deux Republiques’.
- 21.
Pl. Laws IX 857c. Cf. Pl. Pol. 295e–296a, 296c–d.
- 22.
And the superlative of orthos—namely, ‘most perfect right’ (orthotaton)—should be placed beside a later superlative, ‘truest’ (alêthestatês), at Pl. Pol. 301e: ‘It becomes necessary—so it seems—for people to convene and to inscribe statutes (syngrammata graphein), chasing after the traces of the truest legal order (alêthestatês politeias)’.
- 23.
Pl. Laws I 631b.
- 24.
Cic. Laws I 5.15.
- 25.
Cf. Pl. Laws I 624a–b.
- 26.
Bernadete (2000, 4).
- 27.
For Tyrtaeus: Pl. Laws I 629a–630d; Ostwald (1969, 81–82).
- 28.
Pl. Laws IX 858e. Petraki (2011, 8–12) reviews the literature on poets in Plato’s Republic, and Debra Nails (2012, 11–12) revisits the question.
- 29.
Herac. Fr. 42 (Diels).
- 30.
And in this, he resembles Lycurgus: Ostwald (1969, 77).
- 31.
Hansen (2011) overlooks this criticism in his historical interpretation of the Politicus.
- 32.
Cf. Pl. Laws IX 858e. To say that he disparages their ‘perfection’ is a specific reference to the sentence I have quoted at Pl. Laws IX 857c. At Laws IX 858e, Plato praises Solon and Lycurgus relative to the poets. And Plato’s feelings for Solon, in particular, are complex in the Laws: Morrow (1960, 78–86).
- 33.
Bernadete (2000, 182): ‘The laws of the city are the impediment to the Laws’.
- 34.
Pl. Laws IX 857c: pantas tous nun nomothetoumenous.
- 35.
Note that the term ‘hypothetical’ carries a different signification in a number of late-antique texts on Plato. Consider the very interesting distinction is made between Plato’s ‘hypothetical’ law-state in the Republic, and his ‘non-hypothetical’ law-state in the Laws, in Alc. Did. (second or third century ce). Here, it merely denotes the fact that the Plato legislates for inexistent cities.
- 36.
Christopher Bobonich notes this apropos the Laws’ use of legislative prologues: ‘Such a practice, Plato believes, is an innovation: it is something that no lawgiver has ever thought of doing before (722b–e). And we have no reason to think that Plato is here excluding his earlier self, e.g. the Plato of the Republic and the Politicus, from this criticism’ (1991, 365).
- 37.
Unlike André Laks, I accept that ‘the Laws is meant to replace the Politeia’ (1990, 212), while I nevertheless stress their kinship as Platonic legislations. The question of ‘complementarity’ is intricate, and it is helpful of Ferrary (1995, 48)—like Laks (1990, 211)—to remind us of a ‘Ciceronian notion of the link between the two Platonic dialogues’, which is then reflected in Cicero’s Republic and Laws. Laks (1990, 225) falls closer towards the Ciceronian position than I will.
- 38.
I concur with Huntington Cairns that Plato’s ‘theory of law … illumines and is illumined by the entire Platonic corpus’ (1942, 359).
- 39.
Bernadete (2000, 332): ‘The law resists being a whole [in the Laws] … even though or just because it is meant for men as they live in time’.
- 40.
Virginia Hunter notes that Plato appears to revise and ‘supersede’ his Laws IX theft-laws when he revisits the crime in Laws XI and XII, ‘for now he has quite a different perspective’, namely, ‘he proposes that the penalty for theft be proportionate to the theft’ (2009, 7). Within the Laws itself, then, we can observe Plato ‘becoming’ a legislator (Laws IX 859c), and see his law-code being revised even as it is being drafted.
- 41.
Bodin (1583, 264).
- 42.
On this Athenian legislator’s ‘voice’: Morrow (1960, 74–76).
- 43.
Cf. Pl. Soph. 216a.
- 44.
Pl. Pol. 294c–d.
- 45.
Cf. Pl. Pol. 301e: ‘It becomes necessary—so it seems—for people to convene and to inscribe statutes (dei dê synelthontas xyngrammata graphein), chasing after the traces of the truest legal order (alêthestatês politeias)’.
- 46.
Pl. Laws IX 874e–875a. See Sect. 4.1.2, below.
- 47.
Arist. Polit. II 3.1–13 (1264b27–1266a30).
- 48.
Bernadete (2000, 179), where he also observes that ‘the legislator [of the Laws] … needs a continuous line of successors to correct his mistakes, fill in his omissions, and restore his writings’. And more recently: Mayhew (2011, 312 n. 7, 319 n. 21). Mayhew cites Bobonich (2002, 384–385, 391–408).
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Dusenbury, D.L. (2017). Argument. In: Platonic Legislations. SpringerBriefs in Philosophy. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-59843-7_1
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