Introduction and Analysis

The genuineness of the Laws is sufficiently proved (1) by more than twenty
citations of them in the writings of Aristotle, who was residing at Athens
during the last twenty years of the life of Plato, and who, having left it
after his death (B.C. 347), returned thither twelve years later (B.C. 335);
(2) by the allusion of Isocrates

(Oratio ad Philippum missa, p.84: To men tais paneguresin enochlein kai
pros apantas legein tous sunprechontas en autais pros oudena legein estin,
all omoios oi toioutoi ton logon (sc. speeches in the assembly) akuroi
tugchanousin ontes tois nomois kai tais politeiais tais upo ton sophiston
gegrammenais.)

--writing 346 B.C., a year after the death of Plato, and probably not more
than three or four years after the composition of the Laws--who speaks of
the Laws and Republics written by philosophers (upo ton sophiston); (3) by
the reference (Athen.) of the comic poet Alexis, a younger contemporary of
Plato (fl. B.C 356-306), to the enactment about prices, which occurs in
Laws xi., viz that the same goods should not be offered at two prices on
the same day

(Ou gegone kreitton nomothetes tou plousiou
Aristonikou tithesi gar nuni nomon,
ton ichthuopolon ostis an polon tini
ichthun upotimesas apodot elattonos
es eipe times, eis to desmoterion
euthus apagesthai touton, ina dedoikotes
tes axias agaposin, e tes esperas
saprous apantas apopherosin oikade.

Meineke, Frag. Com. Graec.);
(4) by the unanimous voice of later antiquity and the absence of any
suspicion among ancient writers worth speaking of to the contrary; for it
is not said of Philippus of Opus that he composed any part of the Laws,
but only that he copied them out of the waxen tablets, and was thought by
some to have written the Epinomis (Diog. Laert.) That the longest and one
of the best writings bearing the name of Plato should be a forgery, even
if its genuineness were unsupported by external testimony, would be a
singular phenomenon in ancient literature; and although the critical worth
of the consensus of late writers is generally not to be compared with the
express testimony of contemporaries, yet a somewhat greater value may be
attributed to their consent in the present instance, because the admission
of the Laws is combined with doubts about the Epinomis, a spurious
writing, which is a kind of epilogue to the larger work probably of a much
later date. This shows that the reception of the Laws was not altogether
undiscriminating.

The suspicion which has attached to the Laws of Plato in the judgment of
some modern writers appears to rest partly (1) on differences in the style
and form of the work, and (2) on differences of thought and opinion which
they observe in them. Their