Note 156 — Chapter XXXIX · LEGES AND EPINOMIS. (continued 2)

Zeller, in his ‘Platonische Studien’ (pp. 66-72-88, &c.), insists much on the rhetorical declamatory prolixity visible throughout the Treatise De Legibus, as quite at variance with the manner of Plato in his earlier and better dialogues, and even as specimens of what Plato there notes as the rhetorical or sophistical manner. He expresses his surprise that the Athenian should be made to ascribe such discourses to the inspiration of the Gods (p. 107). Zeller enumerates these and many other dissimilarities in the Treatise De Legibus, as compared with other Platonic dialogues, as premisses to sustain his conclusion that the treatise is not by Plato. In my judgment they do not bear out that conclusion (which indeed Zeller has since renounced in his subsequent work); but they are not the less real and notable, marking the change in Plato’s own mind.

How poor an opinion had Plato of the efficacy of the νουθετητικὸν εἶδος λόγων at the time when he composed the Sophistês (p. 230 A)! What a superabundance of such discourse does he deliver in the Treatise De Legibus, taking especial pride in the peculiarity!