Conspiracy? What is it about?

As I have pointed out in my last post, the Laws ends with a discussion between Megillus, the Spartan, and Cleinias, the Cretan. Megillus says to Cleinias that they either have to abandon the project of founding the state, or refuse their Athenian visitor leave them: ‘and by entreaties and every ruse we can think of enrol him as a partner in the foundation of the state’. The conspiracy is particularly poignant if we take into account the Athenian’s preceding speech, in which he promised them his full support: ‘It looks, my friends, as if things are on the proverbial knife-edge (To\ lego/menon, w} fi/loi, e0n koinw|~ kai\ me/sw| e1oiken h9mi=n kei=sqai), and we must “chance our arm”, as the saying is. If we are prepared to stake the whole constitution on a throw of “three sixes” or “three ones” (kai\ ei1per kinduneu/ein peri\ th=j politei/aj e0qe/lomen sumpa/shj, h1 tri/j e3c, fasi/n, h2 trei=j ku/bouj ba/llontej), then that’s what we’ll have to do (tau=ta poihte/on), and I’ll shoulder part of the risk (e0gw_ d’ u9mi=n sugkinduneu/sw) by giving a full explanation of my views on education (tw~| fra/zein te kai\ e0chgei=sqai ta/ ge dedogme/na e0moi\ peri\ th=j paidei/aj).’

What it takes is not just a part of Plato, however important, but the whole of Plato.

But what does it mean “the whole of Plato”? E.B. England in the ‘Introduction’ to his Commentary speaks of the Laws as ‘the treasury of pregnant truths which Plato in extreme old age left, under the title of Laws, as his last legacy to humanity’. This sounds nice, but it must be corrected: Plato’s ‘last legacy to humanity’ are all his dialogues.

But the problems are enormous. Take just a passage referred to in ‘When giving speeches and writing them becomes a disgrace’, where Plato maintains that ‘whoever writes a political composition, and thinks there is any certainty or clarity in it, then it is a reproach to its writer’. In the Laws he says that ‘legal instructions, once written down, remain fixed and permanent, ready to stand up for scrutiny for ever (ta\ peri\ no/mouj prosta/gmata e0n gra/mmasi teqe/nta, w(j dw&sonta ei0j pa/nta xro/non e1legxon, pa/ntwj h0remei=, 891a1-2).’