KRITIAS.

138Plat. Tim. p. 41 B-C.

139Eurip. Hippol. 615; Medea, 573; Milton, Paradise Lost, x. 888.χρὴν ἄρ’ ἄλλοθέν ποθεν βροτοὺςπαῖδας τεκνοῦσθαι, θῆλυ δ’ οὐκ εἶναι γένος·χοὕτως ἂν οὐκ ἦν οὐδὲν ἀνθρώποις κακόν.

139Eurip. Hippol. 615; Medea, 573; Milton, Paradise Lost, x. 888.

χρὴν ἄρ’ ἄλλοθέν ποθεν βροτοὺςπαῖδας τεκνοῦσθαι, θῆλυ δ’ οὐκ εἶναι γένος·χοὕτως ἂν οὐκ ἦν οὐδὲν ἀνθρώποις κακόν.

140Plat. Tim. p. 76 D. ὡς γάρ ποτε ἐξ ἀνδρῶν γυναῖκες καὶ τἄλλα θηρία γενήσοιντο, ἠπίσταντο οἱ ξυνιστάντες ἡμᾶς, &c. Compare pp. 90 E, 91.

141Plat. Tim. p. 42.

142Plat. Tim. pp. 86-87.

Close of the Timæus. Plato turns away from the shameful results, and reverts to the glorification of the primitive types.

However, all these details, attesting the low and poor actual condition of the tenants of earth, water, and air — and forming so marked a contrast to the magnificent description of the Kosmos as a whole, with the splendid type of men who were established at first alone in its central region — all these are hurried over by Plato, as unwelcome accompaniments which he cannot put out of sight. They have their analogies even in the kosmical agencies: there are destructive kosmical forces, earthquakes, deluges, conflagrations, &c., noticed as occurring periodically, and as causing the almost total extinction of different communities.143Though they must not be altogether omitted, he will nevertheless touch them as briefly as possible.144He turns aside from this, the shameful side of the Kosmos, to the sublime conception of it with which he had begun, and which he now builds up again in the following poetical doxology the concluding words of the Timæus:—

“Let us now declare that the discourse respecting the Universe is brought to its close. This Kosmos, having received its complement of animals, mortal and immortal, has become greatest, best, most beautiful and most perfect: a visible animal comprehending all things visible — a perceivable God the image of the cogitable God: this Uranus, one and only begotten.”145

143Plato, Timæus, pp. 22, 23. Legg. iii. 677. Politikus, pp. 272, 273.

144Plat. Tim. p. 90 E. τὰ γὰρ ἄλλα ζῶα ᾗ γέγονεν αὖ, διὰ βραχέων ἐπιμνηστέον, ὅ, τι μή τις ἀνάγκη μηκύνειν· οὕτω γὰρ ἐμμετρότερός τις ἂν αὐτῷ δόξειε περὶ τοὺς τούτων λόγους εἶναι.

145Plat. Tim. p. 92 C. Καὶ δὴ καὶ τέλος περὶ τοῦ παντὸς νῦν ἤδη τὸν λόγον ἡμῖν φῶμεν ἔχειν· θνητὰ γὰρ καὶ ἀθάνατα ζῶα λαβὼν καὶ ξυμπληρωθεὶς ὅδε ὁ κόσμος, οὕτω ζῶον ὁρατὸν τὰ ὁρατὰ περιέχον, εἰκὼν τοῦ νοητοῦ θεὸς αἰσθητός, μέγιστος καὶ ἄριστος κάλλιστός τε καὶ τελεώτατος γέγονεν, — εἷς οὐρανὸς ὅδε, μονογενὴς ὤν.Weh! Weh!Du hast sie zerstört,Die schöne Welt,Mit mächtiger Faust;Sie stürzt, sie zerfällt!Ein Halb-Gott hat sie zerschlagen!Wir tragenDie Trümmern ins Nichts hinüber,Und klagenUeber die verlorne Schöne!MächtigerDer Erdensöhne,PrächtigerBaue sie wieder,In deinem Busen baue sie auf!(The response of the Geister-Chor, in Goethe’s Faust, after the accumulated imprecations uttered by Faust in his despair.)

Weh! Weh!Du hast sie zerstört,Die schöne Welt,Mit mächtiger Faust;Sie stürzt, sie zerfällt!Ein Halb-Gott hat sie zerschlagen!Wir tragenDie Trümmern ins Nichts hinüber,Und klagenUeber die verlorne Schöne!MächtigerDer Erdensöhne,PrächtigerBaue sie wieder,In deinem Busen baue sie auf!

(The response of the Geister-Chor, in Goethe’s Faust, after the accumulated imprecations uttered by Faust in his despair.)

Kritias: a fragment.

The dialogue Kritias exists only as a fragment, breaking off abruptly in the middle of a sentence. The ancient Platonists found it in the same condition, and it probably was never finished. We know, however, the general scheme and purpose for which it was destined.

Proœmium to Timæus. Intended Tetralogy for the Republic. The Kritias was third piece in that Tetralogy.

The proœmium to the Timæus introduces us to three persons146: Kritias and Hermokrates, along with Sokrates. It is to them (as we now learn) that Sokrates had on the preceding day recited the Republic: a fourth hearer having been present besides, whom Sokrates expects to see now, but does not see — and who is said to be absent from illness. In requital for the intellectual treat received from Sokrates, Timæus delivers the discourse which we have just passed in review: Kritias next enters upon his narrative or exposition, now lying before us as a fragment: and Hermokrates was intended to follow it up with a fourth discourse, upon some other topic not specified. It appears as if Plato, after having finished the Republic as a distinct dialogue, conceived subsequently the idea of making it the basis of a Tetralogy, to be composed as follows: 1.Timæus: describing the construction of the divine Kosmos, soul and body — with its tenants divine and human; “the diapason ending full in man” — but having its harmony spoiled by the degeneration of man, and the partial substitution of inferior animals. 2.Republic: Man in a constituted society, administeredby a few skilful professional Rulers, subject to perfect ethical training, and fortified by the most tutelary habits. 3.Kritias: this perfect society, exhibited in energetic action, and under pressure of terrible enemies. 4.Hermokrates— subject unknown: perhaps the same society, exhibited under circumstances calculated to try their justice and temperance, rather than their courage. Of this intended tetralogy the first two members alone exist: the third was left unfinished: and the fourth was never commenced. But the Republic appears to me to have been originally a distinct composition. An afterthought of Plato induced him to rank it as second piece in a projected tetralogy.147

146Plato, Tim. p. 17 A. εἷς, δύο, τρεῖς· ὁ δὲ δὴ τέταρτος ἡμῖν, ὦ φίλε Τίμαιε, ποῦ, τῶν χθὲς μὲν δαιτυμόνων, τὰ νῦν δ’ ἑστιατόρων;These are the words with which the Platonic Sokrates opens this dialogue. Proklus, in his Commentary on the Timæus (i. pp. 5-10-14, ed. Schneider), notices a multiplicity of insignificant questions raised by the ancient Platonic critics upon this exordium. The earliest whom he notices is Praxiphanes, the friend of Theophrastus, who blamed Plato for the absurdity of making Sokrates count aloud one, two, three, &c. Porphyry replied to him at length.We see here that the habit of commenting on the Platonic dialogues began in the generation immediately after Plato’s death, that is, the generation of Demetrius Phalereus.Whom does Plato intend for the fourth person, unnamed and absent? Upon this point the Platonic critics indulged in a variety of conjectures, suggesting several different persons as intended. Proklus (p. 14, Schn.) remarks upon these critics justly — ὡς οὔτε ἄξια ζητήσεως ζητοῦντας, οὔτ’ ἀσφαλές τι λέγοντας. But the comments which he proceeds to cite from his master Syrianus are not at all more instructive (pp. 15-16, Schn.).

146Plato, Tim. p. 17 A. εἷς, δύο, τρεῖς· ὁ δὲ δὴ τέταρτος ἡμῖν, ὦ φίλε Τίμαιε, ποῦ, τῶν χθὲς μὲν δαιτυμόνων, τὰ νῦν δ’ ἑστιατόρων;

These are the words with which the Platonic Sokrates opens this dialogue. Proklus, in his Commentary on the Timæus (i. pp. 5-10-14, ed. Schneider), notices a multiplicity of insignificant questions raised by the ancient Platonic critics upon this exordium. The earliest whom he notices is Praxiphanes, the friend of Theophrastus, who blamed Plato for the absurdity of making Sokrates count aloud one, two, three, &c. Porphyry replied to him at length.

We see here that the habit of commenting on the Platonic dialogues began in the generation immediately after Plato’s death, that is, the generation of Demetrius Phalereus.

Whom does Plato intend for the fourth person, unnamed and absent? Upon this point the Platonic critics indulged in a variety of conjectures, suggesting several different persons as intended. Proklus (p. 14, Schn.) remarks upon these critics justly — ὡς οὔτε ἄξια ζητήσεως ζητοῦντας, οὔτ’ ἀσφαλές τι λέγοντας. But the comments which he proceeds to cite from his master Syrianus are not at all more instructive (pp. 15-16, Schn.).

147Socher (Ueber Platon’s Schriften, pp. 370-371) declares the fragment of the Kritias now existing to be spurious and altogether unworthy of Plato. His opinion appears to me unfounded, and has not obtained assent; but his arguments are as good as those upon which other critics reject so many other dialogues. He thinks the Kritias an inferior production: therefore it cannot have been composed by Plato. Socher also thinks that the whole allusion, made by Plato in this dialogue to Solon, is a fiction by Plato himself. That the intended epic about Atlantis would have been Plato’s own fiction, I do not doubt, but it appears to me that Solon’s poems (as they then existed, though fragmentary) must have contained allusions to Egyptian priests with whom he had conversed in Egypt, and to their abundance of historical anecdote (Plutarch, Solon, c. 26-31). It is not improbable that Solon did leave an unfinished Egyptian poem.

Subject of the Kritias. Solon and the Egyptian priests. Citizens of Platonic Republic are identified with ancient Athenians.

The subject embraced by the Kritias is traced back to an unfinished epic poem of Solon, intended by that poet and lawgiver to celebrate a memorable exploit of Athenian antiquity, which he had heard from the Priests of the Goddess Neith or Athênê at Sais in Egypt. These priests (Plato tells us) treated the Greeks as children, compared with the venerable antiquity of their own ancestors; they despised the short backward reckoning of the heroic genealogies at Athens or Argos. There were in the temple of Athênê at Sais records of past time for 9000 years back: and among these records was one, of that date, commemorating a glorious exploit, of the Athenians as they then had been, unknown to Solon or any of his countrymen.148The Athens, of 9000 years anterior toSolon, had been great, powerful, courageous, admirably governed, and distinguished for every kind of virtue.149Athênê, the presiding Goddess both of Athens and of Sais, had bestowed upon the Athenians a salubrious climate, fertile soil, a healthy breed of citizens, and highly endowed intelligence. Under her auspices, they were excellent alike in war and in philosophy.150The separation of professions was fully realised among them, according to the principle laid down in the Republic as the only foundation for a good commonwealth. The military class, composed of both sexes, was quartered in barrack on the akropolis; which was at that time more spacious than it had since become — and which possessed then, in common with the whole surface of Attica, a rich soil covering that rocky bottom to which it had been reduced in the Platonic age, through successive deluges.151These soldiers, male and female, were maintained by contributions from the remaining community: they lived in perpetual drill, having neither separate property, nor separate families, nor gold nor silver: lastly, their procreation was strictly regulated, and their numbers kept from either increase or diminution.152The husbandmen and the artizans were alike excellent in their respective professions, to which they were exclusively confined:153Hephæstus being the partner of Athênê in joint tutelary presidency, and joint occupation of the central temple on the akropolis. Thus admirably administered, the Athenians were not only powerful at home, but also chiefs or leaders of all the cities comprised under the Hellenic name: chiefs by the voluntary choice and consent of the subordinates. But the old Attic race by whomthese achievements had been performed, belonged to a former geological period: they had perished, nearly all, by violent catastrophe — leaving the actual Athenians as imperfect representatives.

148Plato, Timæus, pp. 22-23. The great knowledge of past history (real or supposed) possessed by the Egyptian priests, and the length of their back chronology, alleged by themselves to depend upon records preserved from a period of 17,000 years, are well known from the interesting narrative of Herodotus (ii. 37-43-77-145) — μνήμην ἀνθρώπων πάντων ἐπασκέοντες (the priests of Egypt) μάλιστα, λογιώτατοί εἰσι μακρῷ τῶν ἐγὼ ἐς διάπειραν ἀφικόμην (ii. 77) … καὶ ταῦτα ἀτρεκέως φασὶν ἐπίστασθαι, αἰεί τε λογιζόμενοι, καὶ αἰεὶ ἀπογραφόμενοι τὰ ἔτεα (ii. 145). Herodotus (ii. 143) tells us that the Egyptian priests at Thebes held the same language to the historian Hekatæus, as Plato here says that they held to Solon, when he talked about Grecian antiquity in the persons of Phorôneus and Niobê. Hekatæus laid before them his own genealogy — a dignified list of sixteen ancestors, beginning from a God — upon which they out-bid him with a counter-genealogy (ἀντεγενεαλόγησαν) of 345 chief priests, who had succeeded each other from father to son. Plato appears to have contracted great reverence for this long duration of unchanged regulations in Egypt, and for the fixed, consecrated, customs, with minute subdivision of professional castes and employments: the hymns, psalmody, and music, having continued without alteration for 10,000 years (literally10,000 — οὐχ ὡς ἔπος εἰπεῖν μυριοστόν, ἀλλ’ ὄντως, Plat. Legg. ii. p. 656 E).

149Plato, Timæus, p. 23 C-D.

150Plato, Tim. p. 24 D. ἅτε οὖν φιλοπόλεμός τε καὶ φιλόσοφος ἡ θεὸς οὖσα, &c. Also p. 23 C.

151Plato, Krit. pp. 110 C, 112 B-D.

152Plato, Krit. p. 112 D. πλῆθος δὲ διαφυλάττοντες ὅ, τι μάλιστα ταὐτὸν ἑαυτῶν εἶναι πρὸς τὸν ἀεὶ χρόνον ἀνδρῶν καὶ γυναικῶν, &c.

153Plato, Krit. p. 111 E. ὑπὸ γεωργῶν μὲν ἀληθινῶν καὶ πραττόντων αὐτὸ τοῦτο, γῆν δὲ ἀρίστην καὶ ὕδωρ ἀφθονώτατον ἐχόντων, &c. Also p. 110 C.

Plato professes that what he is about to recount is matter of history, recorded by Egyptian priests.

Such was the enviable condition of Athens and Attica, at a period 9400 years before the Christian era. The Platonic Kritias takes pains to assure us that the statement was true, both as to facts and as to dates: that he had heard it himself when a boy of ten years old, from his grandfather Kritias, then ninety years old, whose father Dropides had been the intimate friend of Solon: and that Solon had heard it from the priests at Sais, who offered to show him the contemporary record of all its details in their temple archives.154Kritias now proposes to repeat this narrative to Sokrates, as a fulfilment of the wish expressed by the latter to see the citizens of the Platonic Republic exhibited in full action and movement. For the Athenians of 9000 years before, having been organised on the principles of that Republic, may fairly be taken as representing its citizens. And it will be more satisfactory to Sokrates to hear a recital of real history than a series of imagined exploits.155

154Plat. Tim. pp. 23 E, 24 A-D. τὸ δ’ ἀκριβὲς περὶ πάντων ἐφεξῆς εἰσαῦθις κατὰ σχολήν, αὐτὰ τὰ γράμματα λαβόντες διέξιμεν (24 A).

155Plat. Tim. p. 26 D-E.

Description of the vast island of Atlantis and its powerful kings.

Accordingly, Kritias proceeds to describe, in some detail, the formidable invaders against whom these old Athenians had successfully contended: the inhabitants of the vast island Atlantis (larger than Libya and Asia united), which once occupied most of the space now filled by the great ocean westward of Gades and the pillars of Heraklês. This prodigious island was governed by ten kings of a common ancestry: descending respectively from ten sons (among whom Atlas was first-born and chief) of the God Poseidon by the indigenous Nymph Kleito.156We read an imposing description of its large population and abundant produce of every kind: grain for man, pasture for animals, elephants being abundant among them:157timber and metals of all varieties: besides which the central city, with its works for defence, and itsartificial canals, bridges, and harbour, is depicted as a wonder to behold.158The temple of Poseidon was magnificent and of vast dimensions, though in barbaric style.159The harbour, surrounded by a dense and industrious population, was full of trading vessels arriving with merchandise from all quarters.160

156Plat. Krit. pp. 113-114.

157Plat. Krit. p. 114 E.

158Plat. Krit. p. 115 D. εἰς ἔκπληξιν μεγέθεσι κάλλεσί τε ἔργων ἰδεῖν, &c.

159Plat. Krit. p. 116 D-E.

160Plat. Krit. p. 117 E.

Corruption and wickedness of the Atlantid people.

The Atlantid kings, besides this great power and prosperity at home, exercised dominion over all Libya as far as Egypt, and over all Europe as far as Tyrrhenia. The corrupting influence of such vast power was at first counteracted by their divine descent and the attributes attached to it: but the divine attributes became more and more adulterated at each successive generation, so that the breed was no longer qualified to contend against corruption. The kings came to be intoxicated with wealth, full of exorbitant ambition and rapacity, reckless of temperance or justice. The measure of their iniquity at length became full; and Zeus was constrained to take notice of it, for the purpose of inflicting the chastisement which the case required.161He summoned a meeting of the Gods, at his own Panoptikon in the centre of the Kosmos and there addressed them.

161Plat. Krit. p. 121.

Conjectures as to what the Platonic Kritias would have been — an ethical epic in prose.

At this critical moment the fragment called Kritias breaks off. We do not know what was the plan which Plato (in the true spirit of the ancient epic) was about to put into the mouth of Zeus, for the information of the divine agora. We learn only that Plato intended to recount an invasion of Attica, by an army of Atlantids almost irresistible: and the glorious repulse thereof by Athens and her allies, with very inferior forces. The tale would have borne much resemblance to the Persian invasion of Greece, as recounted by Herodotus: but Plato, while employing the same religious agencies which that historian puts in the foreground, would probably have invested them with a more ethical character, and would have arranged the narrative so as to illustrate the triumph of philosophical Reason and disciplined Energy, over gigantic, impetuous, and reckless Strength. He would have described in detail the heroic valour and enduranceof the trained Athenian Soldiers, women as well as men: and he would have embodied the superior Reason of the philosophical Chiefs not merely in prudent orders given to subordinates, but also in wise discourses162and deliberations such as we read in the Cyropædia of Xenophon. We should have had an edifying epic in prose, if Plato had completed his project. Unfortunately we know only two small fractions of it: first the introductory prologue (which I have already noticed) — lastly, the concluding catastrophe. The conclusion was, that both the victors and the vanquished disappeared altogether, and became extinct. Terrific earthquakes, and not less terrific deluges, shook and overspread the earth. The whole military caste of Attica were, in one day and night, swallowed up into the bowels of the earth (the same release as Zeus granted to the just Amphiaraus)163and no more heard of: while not only the population of Atlantis, but that entire island itself, was submerged beneath the ocean. The subsidence of this vast island has rendered navigation impossible; there is nothing in the Atlantic Ocean but shallow water and mud.164

162Plat. Tim. p. 19 C-E. κατά τε τὰς ἐν τοῖς ἔργοις πράξεις καὶ κατὰ τὰς ἐν τοῖς λόγοις διερμηνεύσεις (19 C).

163Apollodorus, iii. 6, 6; Pausanias, ix. 8, 2.

164Plat. Tim. p. 25 C-D. σεισμῶν ἐξαισίων καὶ κατακλυσμῶν γενομένων, μιᾶς ἡμέρας καὶ νυκτὸς χαλεπῆς ἐπελθούσης … ἄπορον καὶ ἀδιερεύνητον γέγονε τὸ ἐκεῖ πέλαγος, &c.Respecting the shallow and muddy water of the Atlantic and its unnavigable character, as believed in the age of Plato, see a long note in my ‘History of Greece’ (ch. xviii. vol. iii. p. 381).

164Plat. Tim. p. 25 C-D. σεισμῶν ἐξαισίων καὶ κατακλυσμῶν γενομένων, μιᾶς ἡμέρας καὶ νυκτὸς χαλεπῆς ἐπελθούσης … ἄπορον καὶ ἀδιερεύνητον γέγονε τὸ ἐκεῖ πέλαγος, &c.

Respecting the shallow and muddy water of the Atlantic and its unnavigable character, as believed in the age of Plato, see a long note in my ‘History of Greece’ (ch. xviii. vol. iii. p. 381).

Plato represents the epic Kritias as matter of recorded history.

The epic of Plato would thus have concluded with an appalling catastrophe of physical agencies or divine prodigies (such as that which we read at the close of the Æschylean Prometheus165), under which both the contending parties perished. These gigantic outbursts of kosmical forces, along with the other facts, Plato affirms to have been recorded in the archives of the Egyptian priests. He wishes us to believe that the whole transaction is historical. As to particular narratives, the line between truth and fiction was obscurely drawn in his mind.

165Æschyl. Prom. 1086.

Another remark here deserving of notice is, That in this epic of the Kritias, Plato introduces the violent and destructive kosmical agencies (earthquakes, deluges, and the like) as frequentlyoccurring, and as one cause of the periodical destruction of many races or communities. It is in this way that the Egyptian priest is made to explain to Solon the reason why no long-continued past records were preserved in Attica, or anywhere else, except in Egypt.166This last-mentioned country was exempt from such calamities: but in other countries, the thread of tradition was frequently broken, because the whole race (except a few) were periodically destroyed by deluges or conflagrations, leaving only a few survivors miserably poor, without arts or letters. The affirmation of these frequent destructions stands in marked contradiction with the chief thesis announced at the beginning of the Timæus —viz., the beauty and perfection of the Kosmos.

166Plato, Tim. pp. 22 C-D, 23 B-C.

Leges, the longest of Plato’s works — Persons of the dialogue.

The Dialogue, entitled Leges — De Legibus — The Laws — distributed into twelve books, besides its Appendix the Epinomis, and longer than any other of the Platonic compositions — is presented to us as held in Krete during a walk from the town of Knossus to the temple of Zeus under Mount Ida — between three elderly persons: Megillus, a Spartan — Kleinias, a Kretan of Knossus — and an Athenian who bears no name, but serves as the principal expositor and conductor. That this dialogue was composed by Plato after the Republic, we know from the express deposition of Aristotle: that it was the work of Plato’s old age — probably the last which he ever composed, and perhaps not completely finished at his death — is what we learn from the scanty amount of external evidence accessible to us. The internal evidence, as far as it goes, tends to bear out the same conclusion, and to show that it was written during the last seven years of his life, when he was more than seventy years of age.1

1The allusions of Aristotle to Plato as the author of the Laws, after the Republic, occur in Politica, ii. b. 1264, b. 26, 1267, b. 5, 1271, b. 1, 1274, b. 9. According to Diogenes Laertius (v. 22) Aristotle had composed separate works Τὰ ἐκ Νόμων Πλάτωνος γ — Τὰ ἐκ τῆς Πολιτείας β.Plutarch (De Isid. et Osir. p. 370 E) ascribes the composition of the Laws to Plato’s old age. In the Προλεγόμενα εἰς τὴν Πλάτωνος φιλοσοφίαν, it is said that the treatise was left unfinished at his death, and completed afterwards by his disciple the Opuntian Philippus (Hermann’s Edition of Plato’s Works, vol. vi. p. 218). — Diog. Laert. iii. 37.See the learned Prolegomena of Stallbaum, who collects all the information on this subject, and who gives his own judgment (p. lxxxi.) respecting the tone of senility pervading the Leges, in terms which deserve the more attention as coming from so unqualified an admirer of Plato: “Totum Legum opus nescio quid senile refert, ut profecto etiam hanc ob caussam a sene scriptum esse longé verisimillimum videatur.” The allusion in the Laws (i. p. 638 B) to the conquest of the Epizephyrian Lokrians by the Syracusans, which occurred in 356B.C., is pointed out by Boeckh as showing that the composition was posterior to that date (Boeckh, ad Platon. Minoem, pp. 72-73).It is remarkable that Aristotle, in canvassing the opinions delivered by the Ἀθηναῖος ξένος in the Laws, cites them as the opinions of Sokrates (Politic. ii. 1265, b. 11), who, however, does not appear at all in the dialogue. Either this is a lapse of memory on the part of Aristotle; or else (which I think very possible) the Laws were originally composed with Sokrates as the expositor introduced, the change of name being subsequently made from a feeling of impropriety in transporting Sokrates to Krete, and from the dogmatising anti-dialectic tone which pervades the lectures ascribed to him. Some Platonic expositors regarded the Athenian Stranger in Leges as Plato himself (Diog. Laert. iii. 52; Schol. ad Legg. 1). Diogenes himself calls him a πλάσμα ἀνώνυμον.

Plutarch (De Isid. et Osir. p. 370 E) ascribes the composition of the Laws to Plato’s old age. In the Προλεγόμενα εἰς τὴν Πλάτωνος φιλοσοφίαν, it is said that the treatise was left unfinished at his death, and completed afterwards by his disciple the Opuntian Philippus (Hermann’s Edition of Plato’s Works, vol. vi. p. 218). — Diog. Laert. iii. 37.

See the learned Prolegomena of Stallbaum, who collects all the information on this subject, and who gives his own judgment (p. lxxxi.) respecting the tone of senility pervading the Leges, in terms which deserve the more attention as coming from so unqualified an admirer of Plato: “Totum Legum opus nescio quid senile refert, ut profecto etiam hanc ob caussam a sene scriptum esse longé verisimillimum videatur.” The allusion in the Laws (i. p. 638 B) to the conquest of the Epizephyrian Lokrians by the Syracusans, which occurred in 356B.C., is pointed out by Boeckh as showing that the composition was posterior to that date (Boeckh, ad Platon. Minoem, pp. 72-73).

It is remarkable that Aristotle, in canvassing the opinions delivered by the Ἀθηναῖος ξένος in the Laws, cites them as the opinions of Sokrates (Politic. ii. 1265, b. 11), who, however, does not appear at all in the dialogue. Either this is a lapse of memory on the part of Aristotle; or else (which I think very possible) the Laws were originally composed with Sokrates as the expositor introduced, the change of name being subsequently made from a feeling of impropriety in transporting Sokrates to Krete, and from the dogmatising anti-dialectic tone which pervades the lectures ascribed to him. Some Platonic expositors regarded the Athenian Stranger in Leges as Plato himself (Diog. Laert. iii. 52; Schol. ad Legg. 1). Diogenes himself calls him a πλάσμα ἀνώνυμον.

Abandonment of Plato’s philosophical projects prior to the Leges.

All critics have remarked the many and important differences between the Republic and the Laws. And it seems certain, that during the interval which separates the two, Plato’s point of view must have undergone a considerable change. We know from himself that he intended the Kritias as a sequel to the Timæus and Republic: a portion of the Kritias still exists — as we have just seen — but it breaks off abruptly, and there is no ground for believing that it was ever completed. We know farther from himself that he projected an ulterior dialogue or exposition, assigned to Hermokrates, as sequel to the Kritias: both being destined to exhibit in actual working and manifestation, the political scheme, of which the Republic had described the constituent elements.2While the Kritias was prematurely arrested in its progress towards maturity, the Hermokrates probably was never born. Yet we know certainly that both the one and the other were conceived by Plato, as parts of one comprehensive project, afterwards abandoned. Nay, the Kritias was so abruptly abandoned, that it terminates with an unfinished sentence: as I have stated in the last chapter.

2Plato, Timæus, pp. 20-27. Plato, Kritias, p. 108.

Untoward circumstances of Plato’s later life — His altered tone in regard to philosophy.

To what extent such change of project was brought about by external circumstances in Plato’s life, we cannot with certainty determine. But we know that there really occurred circumstances, well calculated to produce a material change in his intellectual character and point of view. His personal adventures and experience, after his sixty-first year, and after the death of the elder Dionysius (B.C.367), were of an eventful and melancholy character. Among them were includedhis two visits to the younger Dionysius at Syracuse; together with the earnest sympathy and counsel which he bestowed on his friend Dion; whose chequered career terminated, after an interval of brilliant promise, in disappointment, disgrace, and violent death. Plato not only suffered much distress, but incurred more or less of censure, from the share which he had taken, or was at least supposed to have taken, in the tragedy. His own letters remain to attest the fact.3Considering the numerous enemies which philosophy has had at all times, we may be sure that such enemies would be furnished with abundant materials for invidious remark — by the entire failure of Plato himself at Syracuse as well as by the disgraceful proceedings first of Dion, next, of his assassin Kallippus: both of them pupils, and the former a favourite pupil, of Plato in the Academy. The prospect, which accident had opened, of exalting philosophy into active influence over mankind, had been closed in a way no less mournful than dishonourable. Plato must have felt this keenly enough, even apart from the taunts of opponents. We might naturally expect that his latest written compositions would be coloured by such a temper of mind: that he would contract, if not an alienation from philosophy, at least a comparative mistrust of any practical good to come from it: and that if his senile fancy still continued to throw out any schemes of social construction, they would be made to rest upon other foundations, eliminating or reducing to aminimum that ascendancy of the philosophical mind, which he had once held to be omnipotent and indispensable.

3See especially the interesting and valuable Epistola vii. of Plato; also the life of Dion by Plutarch.The reader will find a full account of Plato’s proceedings in Sicily, and of the adventures of Dion, in chap. 84 of my ‘History of Greece’.The passage of Plato in Legg. iv. 709-710 (alluding to the concurrence and co-operation of a youthful despot, sober-minded and moderate, but not exalted up to the level of philosophy, with a competent lawgiver for the purpose of constructing a civic community, furnished with the best laws) is supposed by K. F. Hermann (System der Platon. Philos. p. 69) and by Zeller (Phil. d. Griech. vol. ii. p. 310, ed. 2nd.) to allude to the hopes which Plato cherished when he undertook his first visit to the younger Dionysius at Syracuse. See Epistol. vii. pp. 327 C, 330 A-B, 334 C; Epistol. ii. 311 B.Such allusion is sufficiently probable. Yet we must remember that the Magnetic community, described by Plato in the Treatise De Legibus, does not derive its origin from any established despot or prince, but from a general resolution supposed to have been taken by the Kretan cities, and from a Decemviral executive Board of Knossian citizens nominated by them. Kleinias, as a chief member of this Board, solicits the suggestion of laws from the Athenian elder (Legg. iii. p. 702 C). This is more analogous to Plato’s subsequent counsel,afterhis attempt to guide the younger Dionysius had failed. See Epistol. vii. p. 337 C-E.

3See especially the interesting and valuable Epistola vii. of Plato; also the life of Dion by Plutarch.

The reader will find a full account of Plato’s proceedings in Sicily, and of the adventures of Dion, in chap. 84 of my ‘History of Greece’.

The passage of Plato in Legg. iv. 709-710 (alluding to the concurrence and co-operation of a youthful despot, sober-minded and moderate, but not exalted up to the level of philosophy, with a competent lawgiver for the purpose of constructing a civic community, furnished with the best laws) is supposed by K. F. Hermann (System der Platon. Philos. p. 69) and by Zeller (Phil. d. Griech. vol. ii. p. 310, ed. 2nd.) to allude to the hopes which Plato cherished when he undertook his first visit to the younger Dionysius at Syracuse. See Epistol. vii. pp. 327 C, 330 A-B, 334 C; Epistol. ii. 311 B.

Such allusion is sufficiently probable. Yet we must remember that the Magnetic community, described by Plato in the Treatise De Legibus, does not derive its origin from any established despot or prince, but from a general resolution supposed to have been taken by the Kretan cities, and from a Decemviral executive Board of Knossian citizens nominated by them. Kleinias, as a chief member of this Board, solicits the suggestion of laws from the Athenian elder (Legg. iii. p. 702 C). This is more analogous to Plato’s subsequent counsel,afterhis attempt to guide the younger Dionysius had failed. See Epistol. vii. p. 337 C-E.

General comparison of Leges with Plato’s earlier works.

Comparing the Laws with the earlier compositions of Plato, the difference between them will be found to correspond pretty nearly with the change thus indicated in his point of view. If we turn to the Republic, we find Plato dividing the intelligible world (τὸ νοητὸν) into two sections: the higher, that of pure and absolute Ideas, with which philosophy and dialectics deal — the lower, that of Ideas not quite pure, but implicated more or less with sensible illustration, to which the mathematician applies himself: the chief use of the lower section is said to consist in its serving as preparation for a comprehension of the higher.4But in the Laws, this higher or dialectical section — the last finish or crowning result of the teaching process, is left out; while even the lower or mathematical section is wrapped up with theology. Moreover, the teaching provided in the Laws, for the ruling Elders, is presented as something new, which Plato has much difficulty both in devising and in explaining: we must therefore understand him to distinguish it pointedly from the teaching which he had before provided for the Elders in the Republic.5Again, literary occupation is now kept down rather than encouraged: Plato is more afraid lest his citizens should have too much of it than too little.6As for the Sokratic Elenchus, it is not merely not commended, but it is even proscribed and denounced by implication, since free speech and criticism generally is barred out by the rigorous Platonic censorship. On the other hand, the ethical sentiment in the Leges, with its terms designating the varieties of virtue, is much the same as in other Platonic compositions: the political and social doctrine also, though different in some material points, is yet very analogous on several others. But theseethical and political doctrines appear in the Laws much more merged in dogmatic theology than in other dialogues. This theology is of Pythagorean character — implicated directly and intimately with astronomy — and indirectly with arithmetic and geometry also. We have here an astronomical religion, or a religious astronomy, by whichever of the two names it may be called. Right belief on astronomy is orthodoxy and virtue: erroneous belief on astronomy is heretical and criminal.

4See the passages, Plat. Legg. vii. pp. 811 B-819 A. Plato, Republic, vi. pp. 510-511. τὰ δύο τμήματα or εἴδη τοῦ νοητοῦ. vii. p. 534 E: ὥσπερ θριγκὸς τοῖς μαθήμασιν ἡ διαλεκτικὴ ἡμῖν ἐπάνω κεῖσθαι.

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