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The Flux of Law and the Second Platonic Law-Code

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Platonic Legislations

Part of the book series: SpringerBriefs in Philosophy ((BRIEFSPHILOSOPH))

Abstract

In one of his late dialogues, Politicus, Plato articulates a formal critique of law. No law-code, human or divine, can comprehend ‘the fact that none of the human things is ever at rest’. The flux of things necessitates a flux of law. Nevertheless, Plato believes that a law-code’s volatility is both a sign and cause of a law-state’s instability. In Republic IV, for instance, he mocks democratic law-states for ‘ceaselessly instituting and revising a host of statutes’. The question of legal revision becomes salient in Plato’s late dialogues—and most visibly in his last dialogue, the Laws—precisely because it is a rational necessity which is a sign and a cause of structural instability. ‘No legal regime can remain perfect’, he insists in Laws XII, unless it is authorized ‘to revise any laws that are deficient’. Yet there can of course be no legal revision in the absence of legal critique. Thus, on my interpretation, Plato returns to the question of Socratic dissent in the last pages he ever penned—with vicious consequences.

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Notes

  1. 1.

    Cf. Pl. Laws III 689a–b: ‘What it is of the soul that is pained and pleasured’—namely, ‘the largest part of the soul’—‘is like the demos’. This at once harks back to and revises Pl. Rep. IV, in which ‘that which strives and desires … is the largest part of the soul’ (IV 442a). In Laws III, this ‘largest part of the soul’ is the sensitive (aisthêtikon), whereas in Rep. IV, Plato dis-identifies the spirited (epithymêtikon) and sensitive (aisthêtikon) parts of the soul.

  2. 2.

    Pl. Rep. IX 590e.

  3. 3.

    Pl. Apol. 31d.

  4. 4.

    Pl. Gorg. 521d.

  5. 5.

    Pl. Gorg. 510a.

  6. 6.

    Cf. Pl. Rep. IV 429c. And Herac. Fr. 44 (Diels) is also illuminating here: ‘The people must fight for the law as for their city wall’.

  7. 7.

    Pl. Rep. IV 425e.

  8. 8.

    Pl. Rep. IV 421a: phylakes de nomôn; Laws VI 754d: phylakes … tôn nomôn. In the Laws, Plato prefers the portmanteau term, ‘law-guardian’ (nomophylax), as at Laws VI 752e. Friedländer says that ‘we cannot fail … to see that the [Laws’] name “custodians of the law” (νομοφύλακες) only slightly varies the name of the “guardians” (φύλακες) in the Republic, who are also charged primarily with “guarding the laws” (φυλάξαι νόμους, Republic 484b)’ (1969, III:441).

    From several remarks in Aristotle, it seems to me that Plato’s usages may derive from old Athenian legal terminology: ‘The Council of Areopagus was guardian of the laws (phylax … tôn nomôn), and kept watch over the archons to make them govern in accordance with the laws (kata tous nomous)’ (Arist. Ath. 4.4); ‘And he [Solon] … appointed the Council of the Areopagus to the duty of guarding the laws (nomophylakein), just as it had existed even before as overseer of the constitution (episkopos … tês politeias)’ (Arist. Ath. 8.4).

  9. 9.

    Fronterotta (2010, 127).

  10. 10.

    Pl. Rep. III 416a–b. And cf. Lys. Erat. 94, where Lysias recalls how the regime of the Thirty installed 700 Spartan mercenaries in the Acropolis to act as ‘guardians (phylakas) of their dominion and of your slavery (douleias)’.

  11. 11.

    Pl. Rep. IV 421a: phylakes de nomôn te kai poleôs.

  12. 12.

    Pl. Pol. 269a: to nun schêma.

  13. 13.

    Pl. Laws V 739c: ontôs esti koina ta philôn; cf. Pl. Rep. IV 424a, V 449c. According to Dio. Laer. Lives VIII 10: ‘Pythagoras was the first to say “Friends hold all things in common” (koina ta philôn einai) and “Friendship is equality” (philian isotêta)’.

  14. 14.

    But even in the Republic, the extent of this law is limited: ‘Communistic institutions in the Republic are notoriously restricted to a fraction of the city, that of the guardians’ (Laks 2001, 109).

  15. 15.

    For a very early intimation of this: Pl. Lys. 207c.

  16. 16.

    Plato’s reference, here, to his highest ‘dictum’ in the Republic and Laws is inexplicit, but unmistakable: ‘There were no possessions of women and children’ (Pl. Pol. 271e–272a).

  17. 17.

    Pl. Pol. 274e: tês nun periphoras.

  18. 18.

    Pl. Pol. 272b: bion … ton nuni.

  19. 19.

    Pl. Pol. 271e. Or, more precisely, ‘no polities’ (politeiai). But a polity of course serves to organize, precisely, a city-state (polis). Rowe (1995, 69) has ‘no political constitutions’.

  20. 20.

    Cf. Piérart (1973, 122).

  21. 21.

    To take liberties with the Politicus’ Younger Socrates persona, in light of this essay’s Argument (0.1). While the Parmenides’ Socrates is ‘very young’ (sphodra neon Pl. Parm. 127c), there is no indication of Younger Socrates’ age in the Politicus. For the Politicus’ personae: Ricken (2008, 81–90).

  22. 22.

    Pl. Pol. 268d.

  23. 23.

    Pl. Euth. 5e–6a.

  24. 24.

    Pl. Rep. II 377e–378a.

  25. 25.

    Pl. Hipp. 229b–c. The name ‘Cronos’ is frequently put to use as an insult in Aristophanic comedy: Aristoph. Clouds 398, 929, 1070; Wasps 1480.

  26. 26.

    Pl. Gorg. 523a–527e.

  27. 27.

    Pl. Gorg. 523a.

  28. 28.

    Cf. Hom. Il. XV 184–199.

  29. 29.

    Plato returns to the judgement-of-Rhadamanthus motif, which appears in his Gorgias myth: Pl. Gorg. 523e–524a, 524d–525a.

  30. 30.

    Pl. Pol. 268e–274e.

  31. 31.

    Pl. Laws IV 713a–714b. Mayhew (2011, 315–317) foregrounds this Cronos myth.

  32. 32.

    Pl. Crat. 426b: hybristikia … kai geloia.

  33. 33.

    Pl. Crat. 426b: tôn prôtôn onomatôn.

  34. 34.

    Pl. Crat. 427c. Ademollo (2011, 122) tabulates the textual evidence from the Cratylus and concludes: ‘It does not matter to [Socrates] whether there was one such individual or more; the lawgiver is, so to speak, a species rather than an individual’. Cf. Sedley (2003, 66–74); Thomas (2008, 344 n. 10); Ademollo (2011, 117–125).

  35. 35.

    Pl. Crat. 426c–d.

  36. 36.

    Pl. Crat. 436e. The Hericlatean motif culminates, and is subjected to an unfinished critique, at the close of the dialogue: Crat. 439c–440e.

  37. 37.

    Cf. Arist. Met. I 6.2 (987a32–987b1): ‘In his youth Plato first became acquainted with Cratylus and the Heraclitean doctrines (tais Hêracleiteiois doxais)—that the whole sensible world is in a state of perpetual flux, and that there is no real knowledge (epistêmês) of it—and in later years he still held these doctrines’.

  38. 38.

    Pl. Crat. 402a.

  39. 39.

    Cf. Pl. Crat. 402b: apo tou automatou.

  40. 40.

    Pl. Crat. 401b–402d. For ‘archaeology of divine names’: Crat. 401a, 425c.

  41. 41.

    Hom. Il. XIV 201. And although these lines are not cited at Pl. Crat. 402b or Theaet. 152e, cf. also Hom. Il. XIV 203–204.

  42. 42.

    The Theaetetus and Politicus are dramatically linked by the Sophist: Pl. Theaet. 210d; Soph. 216a; Pol. 257a.

  43. 43.

    Pl. Theaet. 152d–e.

  44. 44.

    Pl. Pol. 268e.

  45. 45.

    Pl. Pol. 270b.

  46. 46.

    Pl. Pol. 271e–272b.

  47. 47.

    Pl. Pol. 269d.

  48. 48.

    Pl. Pol. 274b.

  49. 49.

    Pl. Pol. 270b.

  50. 50.

    Cf. Pl. Pol. 272e.

  51. 51.

    Pl. Pol. 269d–270a.

  52. 52.

    Pl. Pol. 270c–d.

  53. 53.

    Pl. Pol. 271b.

  54. 54.

    Pl. Pol. 271c–272a. Evanthia Speliotis (2011, 297–301) seeks to puncture the ‘initial impression’ that this age of Cronos is ‘idyllic’.

  55. 55.

    Pl. Pol. 271e.

  56. 56.

    A Homeric king is a ‘shepherd of the people’ (poimena laôn): Hom. Il. I 263, II 254, IV 296, V 144, etc. Aristotle points to this connection in Arist. Nic. Eth. VIII 11.1 (1161a13–16).

  57. 57.

    Dvornik (1966, I:24): ‘It should be stressed that from the Sumerian period onward the title of shepherd was regarded as having an important kingly significance’. Note also that the Sumerians’ supreme god, Anu, bore the title of ‘shepherd’.

  58. 58.

    Pl. Pol. 271e–272a. And see Sect. 5.1, above.

  59. 59.

    Pl. Pol. 273c. Rowe (1995, 73) has ‘original disharmony’.

  60. 60.

    Pl. Pol. 273e.

  61. 61.

    Pl. Pol. 272b.

  62. 62.

    Pl. Pol. 274b–e. Cf. Pl. Laws IX 853c: ‘We are humans and legislating now for the seed of humans’ (anthrôpoi te kai anthrôpôn spermasi nomothetoumen ta nun).

    In her unconvincing reconstruction of the Politicus myth, Gabriela Carone stresses that the city’s liberation from the governance of daemons—or what I prefer to call ‘terrestrial gods’—is not to be taken as a crass Platonic atheism (Carone 2004, 102). This is of course correct. But what is essential is this: during the reign of ‘Zeus’, the present world-age, no god or daemon legislates for the city.

    As to the significance of this name ‘Zeus’ in the Politicus myth, Bernadete—unlike Carone—is negative-theological. He writes: ‘The Stranger[’s] … myth denies that Zeus and the Olympian gods are anything more than names for the absence of the gods. “Zeus” is a concealed negative; it means “not god”’ (1992, 39). Likewise Speliotis: ‘In this age, there is no god ruling’ (2011, 299).

  63. 63.

    Capizzi (1990, 35).

  64. 64.

    Pl. Pol. 270b.

  65. 65.

    Pl. Pol. 274a.

  66. 66.

    Pl. Pol. 274a: autokratora einai tês hautou poreias. Brisson (2000a, 204) has ‘le maître de sa proper marche’.

  67. 67.

    Pl. Pol. 294b.

  68. 68.

    There is a similar passage in Isocrates’ Antidosis, though it is only glancingly connected to legislation—whereas Plato’s argument in the Politicus is strictly concerned with the possibility of rational legislation. Cf. Isoc. Antid. 184: ‘… no system of knowledge can possibly cover all these occasions, since they will inevitably elude our knowledge (epi gar hapantôn tôn pragmatôn diapheugousi tas epistêmas). Yet those who turn their minds to such occasions and are able to discern the consequences which for the most part (to polu) result from them, will most often meet them in the right way’.

  69. 69.

    Pl. Pol. 294b–c.

  70. 70.

    Morrow similarly interprets the Politicus’ critique of the ‘generality of any law’, and rehearses—much as I do here—the ‘defects [which] are inherent in the nature of law’ (1960, 584).

  71. 71.

    Cairns (1942, 365): ‘Human life is not simple, but the law, which is persistently simple, aims, nevertheless, to control that which is never simple’.

  72. 72.

    Pl. Pol. 299b–c. See Sect. 5.5, and supplement 3b.

  73. 73.

    The Eleatic Stranger repeats this criticism at Pl. Pol. 295a.

  74. 74.

    Pl. Rep. IX 590e.

  75. 75.

    Pl. Pol. 294b.

  76. 76.

    With regard to ‘murder charges’, writes Saunders, ‘on the whole Plato follows Attic law’ (1963, 197).

  77. 77.

    Pl. Laws IX 867d. Pangle ends this aside, rather, with: ‘the procedure will for the most part follow what is now being said’ (1980, 262).

  78. 78.

    Note the contrast at Pl. Laws III 691d, where ‘perceiving the due measure’ is ‘the sign of great legislators’, while ‘foreseeing the future’ is the sign of ‘a god’ (theos … ta mellonta proorôn). Cf. Xen. Cyro. III 2.15: ‘How little of the future we humans can foresee, O Cyrus, and yet how much we try to accomplish!’; Isoc. Soph. 2: ‘I think it is evident to all that foreknowledge of future events (ta mellonta progignôskein) is not given to our human nature, but that we are so far removed from this prescience that Homer—who has been conceded the highest reputation for wisdom (sophia)—has pictured even the gods as at times debating among themselves about the future’.

  79. 79.

    Pl. Pol. 294b.

  80. 80.

    Pl. Laws IX 879b. Cf. Pl. Laws V 741a: ‘Not even a god can use force … against necessity’; and VII 818b: ‘Not even god will ever be seen contending with necessity’, which the Athenian legislator clarifies, here, as being some kind of ‘divine’ necessity (theiai … anankôn). At Pl. Prot. 345d, Simonides is identified as the source of the dictum: ‘Not even the gods contend with necessity’ (anankê d’ oude theoi machontai).

  81. 81.

    Pl. Laws XII 944d.

  82. 82.

    Lys. Phil. 10.

  83. 83.

    Pl. Laws IV 708e–709b.

  84. 84.

    The Athenian legislator introduces and then denounces a non-divine ‘chance’ (tychê) at Pl. Laws X 888e–890a, and then declines, at X 901a–902b, to reintroduce the quasi-divine ‘chance’ (tychê) of Laws IV. Nevertheless, aspects of the Magnesian legal regime are left to ‘divine chance’ (theia tychê, Laws VI 759c).

  85. 85.

    Pl. Laws IV 709b–c.

  86. 86.

    Aspects of the Magnesian polity in the Laws will still be decided ‘per delphica oracula’, in Marsilio Ficino’s rendering of a phrase at Pl. Laws VIII 828a (England 1921, II:325–326). Cf. Malkin (1989).

  87. 87.

    The ‘ship of state’ is a commonplace. Cf. Aristoph. Wasps 28–29: ‘Oh, it’s momentous—it’s about the whole ship of state (poleôs … tou skaphous holou)!’

  88. 88.

    See Sect. 4.1.3, above; Pl. Gorg. 464b. This is restated in Laws V, where the two constitutive ‘aspects’ of any law-state (duo politeias eidê) are the institution of laws and the appointment of officers: Pl. Laws V 735a.

  89. 89.

    Pl. Apol. 35c.

  90. 90.

    Pl. Gorg. 520b.

  91. 91.

    Rowe’s commentary, at least, does not: Rowe (1995, 238).

  92. 92.

    Pl. Pol. 305a–c. Cf. Laws VI 767a–b; Maffi (2004, 306–309).

  93. 93.

    Pl. Pol. 294c.

  94. 94.

    Pl. Pol. 295a–b.

  95. 95.

    Pl. Pol. 294e–295a.

  96. 96.

    Pl. Laws IX 867d.

  97. 97.

    Pl. Pol. 295a.

  98. 98.

    Cf. schêmati nomou at Pl. Laws IV 718b–c.

  99. 99.

    Waugh (2001, 29): ‘Prooimia are needed [in the Laws] because … for mortals the force of the laws appears not as rational ananke, but as brute bia’. It is curious that Waugh, in this article on ‘the dialogic character of the Laws’, neither cites nor discusses this singularly ‘reciprocal’ prologue at Pl. Laws XI 925e–926a. Laks’s discussion (2001, 111–114), in the same volume, of the Laws’ use of a ‘legislative prelude’ is suggestive.

  100. 100.

    Pl. Laws XI 925a–926a.

  101. 101.

    Pangle (1980, 327) has ‘forgive the lawgiver’.

  102. 102.

    Pl. Laws XI 925e–926a.

  103. 103.

    Pl. Laws IX 861b. Cf. for instance, Lys. Phil. 11: ‘It is a custom (ethos) accepted as just among all mankind (pasin anthrôpois) that in the face of the same crimes we should be most incensed (malista orgizesthai) with those who are most able to avoid criminal action (adikein), but should be indulgent to the poor or disabled because we regard their offenses as involuntary’.

  104. 104.

    For difficulties with the sense of this distinction in Plato’s Laws: Saunders (1968, 1973). Plato not only codifies, but reconceives what ‘all the legislators who have ever arisen’ have written into their codes. A fascinating study of ‘the discovery of the mind’ in Greek criminal law—which is to say, the formulation of the mental element of crime (mens rea)—is Carawan (1998).

  105. 105.

    Plato’s consideration of the ‘voluntary’–‘involuntary’ distinction in his legislation of theft, in the Laws, marks a refinement of the Athenian laws on theft: Saunders (1990, 80–81).

  106. 106.

    Pl. Rep. IV 427a. There are parallel remarks at Pl. Rep. IV 425a–b, 425d–e. Note a pertinent methodological comment at Arist. Nic. Eth. I 7.17: ‘The proper procedure is to begin with a rough sketch (hypotypôsai), and later to elaborate it further (hysteron anagrapsai). If a work has been commenced well in outline (perigraphêi), then anyone can carry it on and complete it in detail. Time itself seems to be a skilled inventor and a collaborator in this process (ho chronos tôn toioutôn heuretês ê synergos agathos einai)’.

  107. 107.

    Pl. Laws VIII 846b–c.

  108. 108.

    Pl. Laws VII 824a.

  109. 109.

    Pl. Laws VI 769e.

  110. 110.

    Eva Keuls (1978, 115–117) very perceptively contrasts this analogy in Laws VI with a superficially similar analogy in Pl. Rep. VI (500d–501c). ‘In the Republic passage’, writes Keuls, ‘the principal point of comparison is the notion of the clean surface: the innovative lawgiver must, like the painter, start with a clean slate. In the Laws the basis of the equation is, curiously, the almost opposite notion that no initial product of human endeavour is perfect, but that it requires preserving, emending and improving in later generations’.

  111. 111.

    Cf. Saunders (1990, 63): ‘Plato himself, in thin disguise as an “Athenian Stranger” …’.

  112. 112.

    Pl. Laws VI 770b.

  113. 113.

    I take the second rendering here—‘add new laws’—from Montanari (2015, 780), s.v. ἐπινομοθετέω.

  114. 114.

    Pl. Laws VI 779c–d.

  115. 115.

    Since antiquity, the Epinomis has been attributed to one of Plato’s disciples, Philip of Opus: Dio. Laer. Lives III 37.

  116. 116.

    Cf. Astius (1835, I:787), s.v. ἐπινομοθετῶ; Stephanus (1954, IV:1716), s.v. ἐπινομοθετέω; Liddell and Scott (1996, 649), s.v. ἐπινομοθετέω; Brandwood (1976, 379), s.v. ἐπινομοθετούντων; Montanari (2015, 780), s.v. ἐπινομοθετέω. Gaisford (1848, 362) has no entry; Ritter (1896, 177–178) gives no gloss; England (1921, I:626) limits his comment to syntax. Sophocles (1983, 506, s.v. ἐπινομίς) cites several Philonic passages for the Hellenistic sense of epinomis as ‘supplement to a law’, but mentions no other authors.

  117. 117.

    Some accept the Epinomis: Ledger (1989, 148–151). I do not myself—as of this writing—accept it as Platonic, but its authenticity would obviously serve my purposes here.

  118. 118.

    Pl. Laws VI 769e–770b; Pangle (1980, 157) has ‘some device’. England (1921, I: 600) clarifies punctuation but not the expression. The sentence receives no comment from Ritter (1896, 169) or Schöpsdau (2003, 444).

  119. 119.

    Morrow (1960, 573). (I have transcribed φιλοσοφία in Morrow’s text.) The paucity of ‘philosophy’ in this dialogue is also registered at Laks (2005, 260). With Mayhew (2007) and against Bobonich (1991), I regard the Laws as imposing a regime of ‘persuasion’ that is essentially indistinct from ‘compulsion’. Plato dictates the self-exile of philosophy from his hypothetical colony, Magnesia.

  120. 120.

    Cf. Pl. Laws II 656d–657a, VII 795d–804c; Brisson (2000b, 164–166). Citing Herod. Hist. II 80, II 166–167, VI 60, and Pl. Tim. 24, Szegedy-Maszak (1978, 204 n. 25) recalls that ‘there is … a strong tradition comparing Spartan and Egyptian customs’. Plato’s ‘Egyptian’ dances (etc.) in the Laws are doubtless meant to suggest a ‘Spartan’ style of culture in the Platonic colony.

  121. 121.

    For the ‘syssition’ or ‘common mess’: Piérart (1973, 77–80), David (1978).

  122. 122.

    England (1921, II: 326).

  123. 123.

    Regarding Magnesia’s exegetes, priestesses, diviners, and so forth: Brisson and Pradeau (2006, I: 439–456) survey the Platonic colony’s intricate political machinery.

  124. 124.

    Pl. Laws VIII 828b.

  125. 125.

    Pl. Laws VIII 829c.

  126. 126.

    Pl. Laws VIII 829d.

  127. 127.

    Pl. Laws VIII 829d–e.

  128. 128.

    Pl. Laws XII 968a: archontôn nykterinon syllogon. Recall here that at Pl. Rep. V 463a, Glaucon observes that the term ‘rulers’ (archontas) is preferred by the ancient Greek democracies.

  129. 129.

    Pl. Pol. 294b–c.

  130. 130.

    That being said, it is natural—and necessary—to compare this late-Platonic interdict with a passage in Aesch. Tim. 19–20: ‘“If any Athenian”, [so stipulates one article of the fourth-century Athenian law-code], “shall have prostituted his person he shall not be permitted to … act as an advocate for the state (syndikêsatôi) … nor ever to address the Council or the Assembly”, not even [adds Aeschines] if he is Athens’ finest (deinotatos) orator’.

  131. 131.

    Cf. Pl. Pol. 297d–e, 300b–c.

  132. 132.

    Pl. Pol. 299b–c.

  133. 133.

    To again take the Politicus’ Younger Socrates persona in light of my opening remarks on ‘the youngest’ Plato; while noting—again—that I see no reason to accept Speliotis’s claim that this Younger Socrates has ‘no relation to Plato’s philosopher’ (2011, 295).

  134. 134.

    It is not controversial to see a ‘reminiscence of Socrates’ here: Rowe (1995, 230), Ricken (2008, 198).

  135. 135.

    Pl. Pol. 299e.

  136. 136.

    See Sect. 2.3.

  137. 137.

    Piérart (1973, 213): ‘L’institution des théores est une des plus curieuses des Lois’.

  138. 138.

    Pl. Laws XII 950d–952d.

  139. 139.

    Pl. Laws XII 951c.

  140. 140.

    Pl. Laws XII 952b.

  141. 141.

    Pl. Laws XII 951c.

  142. 142.

    Pl. Laws XII 951a.

  143. 143.

    Pl. Laws XII 951c.

  144. 144.

    Pl. Laws XII 951b–c.

  145. 145.

    Though Socrates was never one to ‘visit the cities’: Pl. Soph. 216c. Socrates is quoting Homer here.

  146. 146.

    Pl. Apol. 23d: diaphtheirei tous neous. Cf. Apol. 24b: tous te neous diaphtheironta; Apol. 24c: tous neous adikein me diaphtheironta; Apol. 25b: peri tous neous ei eis men monos autous diaphtheirei.

  147. 147.

    Pl. Laws XII 952c: ean de diephtharmenos aphikesthat doxê.

  148. 148.

    By insisting on a schewed Socratic resemblance, here, I do not mean to deny that Plato may also have intended to legislate against other types of ‘corrupted envoy’—most notably, perhaps, the Spartan commander Pausanias: Thuc. Pelop. I 95.

  149. 149.

    Cf. Pl. Apol. 30a: tauta kai neôterôi kai presbyterôi , hotôi an entynchanô, poiêsô, kai xenôi kai astôi.

  150. 150.

    This is, of course, precisely the legal-juridical ‘condition’ that Socrates rejects, in no uncertain terms, at Pl. Apol. 29b–30c. See Sect. 3.1.5, above.

  151. 151.

    Saunders (1963, 194): ‘The death penalty in the Laws is reserved for the incorrigible’.

  152. 152.

    Pl. Laws XII 952c.

  153. 153.

    See Sect. 2.3 and supplements 3a–b.

  154. 154.

    Pl. Apol. 32a; Sect. 3.1.5, above.

  155. 155.

    Pl. Apol. 29d; Sect. 3.1.5, above.

  156. 156.

    Cf. Grote (1888, IV:429).

  157. 157.

    The link is not only suggested by Plato’s use of Demaratus’ phrase despotês nomos at Pl. Laws IV 715d, but by a passage at Laws III 698a–c, which follows the Athenian legislator’s survey of the Persian monarchs from Cyrus to Xerxes at Laws III 694a–696a. See supplement 2a, at the back of the volume.

    But regardless of Demaratus, there can be no question that the Laws’ restrictions on envoys’ free speech (parrhêsia)—and thus, what I call ‘the second death of Socrates’—is Dorian in inspiration. At Pl. Laws I 634d, the Athenian defers to ‘the Laconian and the Cretan regimes’, whose ‘laws are drawn up in a circumspect way’, and then specifies, at Laws I 634d–e:

    One of your finest laws is the one that forbids any of the young to inquire which laws are virtuous and which vicious (mê zêtein tôn neôn mêdena ean poia kalôs autôn ê mê kalôs echei), but commands them all to say in unison, with one voice from one mouth, that all the laws are nobly laid down by gods (panta kalôs keitai thentôn theôn). If someone says otherwise, there is to be no heed paid to him at all. And yet if some old man has a stricture to pass on something in your laws, he is to make his argument before an archon and a man his own age, with none of the youths present.

  158. 158.

    Pl. Laws IV 715d.

  159. 159.

    Pl. Laws IX 859c: ‘We are in the process of becoming legislators, and may perhaps become so, but we are not yet legislators’.

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Correspondence to David Lloyd Dusenbury .

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Dusenbury, D.L. (2017). The Flux of Law and the Second Platonic Law-Code. In: Platonic Legislations. SpringerBriefs in Philosophy. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-59843-7_5

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