Laws (dialogue)

For the work by Cicero of the same title, see De Legibus.

The Laws (Greek: Νόμοι; Latin: De Legibus) is Plato's last and longest dialogue. The conversation depicted in the work's twelve books begins with the question of who is given the credit for establishing a civilization's laws. Its musings on the ethics of government and law have established it as a classic of political philosophy alongside Plato's more widely read Republic.

Scholars generally agree that Plato wrote this dialogue as an older man, having failed in his effort in Syracuse on the island of Sicily to guide a tyrant's rule, instead having been thrown in prison. These events are alluded to in the Seventh Letter. The text is noteworthy as Plato's only undisputed dialogue not to feature Socrates.

Summary

Setting

Unlike most of Plato's dialogues, Socrates does not appear in the Laws: the dialogue takes place on the island of Crete, and Socrates appears outside of Athens in Plato's writings only twice, in the Phaedrus, where he is just outside the city's walls, and in the Republic, where he goes down to the seaport Piraeus five miles outside of Athens. The conversation is instead led by an Athenian Stranger (in Greek, ξένος xenos) and two other old men, the ordinary Spartan citizen Megillos and the Cretan politician and lawgiver Clinias from Knossos.

The Athenian Stranger, who resembles Socrates but whose name is never mentioned, joins the other two on their religious pilgrimage from Knossos to the cave of Zeus. The entire dialogue takes place during this journey, which mimics the action of Minos: said by the Cretans to have made their ancient laws, Minos walked this path every nine years in order to receive instruction from Zeus on lawgiving. It is also said to be the longest day of the year, allowing for the densely packed twelve chapters.

By the end of the third book Clinias announces that he has in fact been given the responsibility of creating the laws for a new Cretan colony, and that he would like the Stranger's assistance. The rest of the dialogue proceeds with the three old men, walking towards the cave and making laws for this new city which is called the city of the Magnetes (or Magnesia).

Topics

The question asked at the beginning is not "What is law?" as one would expect. That is the question of the apocryphal Platonic dialogue Minos. The dialogue rather proceeds from the question of who it is that receives credit for creating laws.

The questions of the Laws are quite numerous, including:

• Divine revelation, divine law and law-giving
• The role of intelligence in law-giving
• The relations of philosophy, religion, and politics
• The role of music, exercise and dance in education
• Natural law and natural right

The dialogue uses primarily the Athenian and Spartan (Lacedaemonian) law systems as background for pinpointing a choice of laws, which the speakers imagine as a more or less coherent set for the new city they are talking about.

Comparisons

Comparisons to Plato's other dialogues

The Laws is similar to and yet in opposition to the Republic. It is similar in that both dialogues concern the making of a city in speech, and both cities are copies after the life of gods. The city of the Laws is described as "second best", not because the city of the Republic is the best, but because it is the city of gods and their children. The city of the Laws differs in its allowance of private property and private families, and in the very existence of written laws, from the city of the Republic, with its communistic property-system and community of wives for the guardians, and absence of written law. Also, whereas the Republic is a dialogue between Socrates and several young men, the Laws is a discussion among old men, where children are not allowed and there is always a pretence of piety and ritualism.

Traditionally, the Minos is thought to be the preface, and the Epinomis the epilogue, to the Laws, but these are generally considered by scholars to be spurious.

In the Laws, Plato takes a harsh view of homosexual relations, and proposes to legislate against them. This differs from the stance taken by Aristophanes in the Symposium and is in stark contrast to the Phaedrus, which presents pederasty in a positive light.

Comparisons to other works on Greek law

Plato was not the only Ancient Greek author writing about the law systems of his day, and making comparisons between the Athenian and the Spartan (Lacedaemonian) laws. Notably, the Constitution of the Athenians and the Lacedaemonians, long attributed to Xenophon (another of Socrates' pupils), and the Constitution of the Athenians, an apocryphal work attributed Aristotle, have also survived.

Some centuries later Plutarch would also devote attention to the topic of Ancient Greek law systems, e.g. in his Life of Lycurgus. Lycurgus was the legendary law-giver of the Lacedaemonians. Plutarch compares Lycurgus and his Spartan laws to the law system Numa Pompilius introduced in Rome around 700 BC.

Both pseudo-Xenophon and Plutarch are stark admirers of the Spartan system, showing less reserve than Plato in expressing that admiration.

See also

• Gymnasium
• Mixed government
• Gymnopaedia
• Papyrus Oxyrhynchus 23

Bibliography

Regarding Plato's Laws

• Pangle, Thomas L., 1980. The Laws of Plato, Translated, with Notes and an Interpretive Essay, New York, Basic Books.
• The Open Society and Its Enemies – Karl Popper attacking what he claimed was a totalitarian undercurrent in Plato's "political" works.
• The Argument and the Action of Plato's Laws, by Leo Strauss

Other ancient texts about law systems

• Polity of the Athenians and the Lacedaemonians by Xenophon' at Project Gutenberg
• Works by Plutarch at Project Gutenberg (Life of Lycurgus is in Volume I of the Lives)

External links

• Works related to The Laws at Wikisource
• Quotations related to The Laws at Wikiquote
• Laws. Rare Henry Cary literal translation from the Bohn's Classical Library (Harvard, 1859)
• Laws at Project Gutenberg, a 19th-century nonliteral translation by Jowett.
• Laws from the Perseus Digital Library; transl. R. G. Bury (1967–1968). Greek and English text parallel.
• Free LibriVox audiobook version of Laws (Translated by Benjamin Jowett)