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Thomas Taylor (1804)
Plato · Thomas Taylor (1804)
The Laws, Plato's longest and final dialogue, sets out in great detail the constitution of a practicable city — a 'second-best' state for human beings as they are, where in the absence of philosopher-kings the rule of law, divinely sanctioned, must govern. It treats education, religion, marriage, property, and punishment, blending freedom and authority.
Notably, Socrates is absent; an Athenian Stranger leads the conversation. The work's concern with divine law, the soul's priority over body, and the argument that 'god is the measure of all things' made it deeply influential on later Platonist political and religious thought.
From the Plato Scroll Encyclopedia · open this entry in the reader
Do you think, O guests, that a God, or some man, was the cause of the establishment of laws?
Clinias: A God, O guest, a God, as it is most just to assert: with us, indeed, Jupiter; but, with the Lacedæmonians (whence originated this our guest), I think, Apollo dictated the laws. Is it not so?
Megillus: It is.
Guest: Whether, therefore, do you speak according to Homer, viz. that Minos every year, for the space of nine years, went to converse with his father, and established laws for your cities, according to his conceptions?
Clinias: It is so said by us: and, likewise, that his brother Rhadamanthus (you have heard the name) was most just. We Cretans, therefore, say that he obtained this praise, from his distributing, at that time, things pertaining to justice in a proper manner.
Guest: His renown is indeed beautiful, and highly becoming the son of Jupiter. But since both you and this other have been educated in legal institutions of this kind, I persuade myself, it will not be unpleasant to us to speak and hear about the establishment of cities and laws, at the same time that we are proceeding on our journey. But the way from Cnossus to the cavern and temple of Jupiter is, as we have heard, sufficiently long; and the resting-places along the road are, as it is proper they should be during the present hot weather, shady, from their position under lofty trees. It will likewise be suitable to our age, to rest in them frequently; and thus, by the allurements of discourse, render the whole of our journey easy.
Clinias: Indeed, O guest, in the course of our journey, we shall meet in the groves with cypress trees of an admirable height and beauty, and meadows in which while we rest we may discourse.
Guest: You speak rightly.
Clinias: Entirely so. We shall however speak with more confidence when we become spectators of these. But let us now proceed on our journey with good fortune.
Guest: Let it be so. But inform me, why the law instituted for you public feasts, gymnastic exercises, and the custom of using arms.
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The Athenian who turned Socratic conversation into a written philosophy and founded the Academy.
Plato was born around 428 BCE into a wealthy and politically prominent Athenian family; through his mother Perictione the family traced kinship to the lawgiver Solon, and his relatives Critias and Charmides were among the oligarchs of the Thirty. A late tradition says his given name was Aristocles and that 'Plato' — from the word for 'broad' — was a nickname. He grew up during the long agony of the Peloponnesian War and came of age amid the violence and disillusion that followed Athens' defeat.
Plato · Thomas Taylor (1804). Each edition has its page, the reader and a plain-text file:
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