Note 1 — Chapter XXXIX · LEGES AND EPINOMIS.

The 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 356 B.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.