Note 122 — Chapter XXXIX · LEGES AND EPINOMIS.

Plato, Legg. iii. p. 701 B. Ἐφεξῆς δὴ ταύτῃ τῇ ἐλευθερίᾳ ἡ τοῦ μὴ ἐθέλειν τοῖς ἄρχουσι δουλεύειν γίγνοιτ’ ἄν.

The phrase here employed by Plato affirms inferential tendencies — not facts realised. How much of the tendencies had passed into reality at Athens, he leaves to the imagination of his readers to supply. It is curious to contrast the faithless and lawless character of Athens, here insinuated by Plato — with the oration of Demosthenes adv. Leptinem (delivered B.C. 355, near upon the time when the Platonic Leges were composed), where the main argument which the orator brings to bear upon the Dikasts, emphatically and repeatedly, to induce them to reject the proposition of Leptines, is — τὸ τῆς πόλεως ἦθος ἀψευδὲς καὶ χρηστόν, οὐ τὸ λυσιτελέστατον πρὸς ἀργύριον σκοποῦν, ἀλλά τι καὶ καλὸν πρᾶξαι (p. 461) … οὐδ’ ὁ πλεῖστος λόγος ἔμοιγε περὶ τῆς ἀτελείας ἔστιν, ἀλλ’ ὑπὲρ τοῦ πονηρὸν ἔθος εἰσάγειν τὸν νόμον, καὶ τοιοῦτον δι’ οὖ παντ’ ἄπιστ’ ὅσα ὁ δῆμος δίδωσιν ἔσται, also pp. 500-507, and indeed throughout nearly the whole oration. So also in the other discourses, not only of Demosthenes but of the other orators also — good faith, public and private, and respectful obedience to the laws, are constantly invoked as primary and imperative necessities.

Indeed, in order to find a contradiction to the picture here presented by Plato, of Athenian tendencies since the Persian war, we need not go farther than Plato himself. We have only to read the Menexenus, wherein he professes to describe and panegyrise the achievements of Athens during that very period which he paints in such gloomy colours in the Leges — the period succeeding the Persian invasion. Who is to believe that the people, upon whose virtue he pronounces these encomiums, had thrown off all reverence for good faith, obligation, and social authority? As for the Τιτανικὴ φύσις, to which Plato represents the Athenians as approximating, the analogy is principally to be found in the person of the Titan Promêtheus, with his philanthropic disposition (see Plato, Menexenus, pp. 243 E, 244 E), and the beneficent suggestions which he imparted to mankind in the way of science and art (Æschyl. Prom. 440-507 — Πᾶσαι τέχναι βροτοῖσιν ἐκ Προμηθέως).