¹ The following works are cited more than once in the text and will be referred to in abbreviated form: Cohen, D., Law, Violence, and Community in Classical Athens (Cambridge, 1995)CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Hansen, M., ‘Athenian Nomothesia in the fourth century b.c. and Demosthenes' speech against Leptines’, C&M 32 (1980), 87–104Google Scholar; The Athenian Democracy in the Age of Demosthenes (Oxford, 1991); Harris, W. V., Ancient Literacy (Cambridge, MA, 1989)Google Scholar; Macdowell, D. M., ‘Law-making at Athens in the fourth century b.c.’, JHS 95 (1975), 62–74CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Morrow, G., Plato's Cretan City (Princeton, 1960)Google Scholar; Nightingale, A., ‘Writing/reading a sacred text: a literary interpretation of Plato's Laws’, CPh 88 (1993), 279–300Google Scholar; Thomas, R., Oral Tradition and Written Record in Classical Athens (Cambridge, 1989)CrossRefGoogle Scholar, ‘Law and lawgiver in the Athenian democracy’, in R., Osborne and S., Hornblower (edd.), Ritual, Finance, Politics (Oxford, 1994), pp. 119–134Google Scholar, and ‘Written in stone? Liberty, equality, orality and the codification of law’, in L., Foxhall and A., Lewis (edd.), Greek Law in its Political Setting (Oxford, 1996), pp. 9–31Google Scholar; Todd, S., The Shape of Athenian Law (Oxford, 1993)Google Scholar, and ‘Lysias against Nikomachos: the fate of the expert in Athenian law’, in L., Foxhall and A., Lewis (edd.), Greek Law in its Political Setting (Oxford 1996), pp. 101–131.Google Scholar

² Historicizing readings of Plato's Laws are found in Morrow, Plato's Cretan City (n. 1); Cohen, D., Law, Sexuality and Society: The Enforcement of Morals in Classical Athens (Cambridge, 1991)CrossRefGoogle Scholar, ch. 9, and Law, Violence and Community (n. 1), ch. 3; and Saunders, T., Plato's Penal Code (Oxford, 1991).Google Scholar These scholars do not discuss the question of the nature and authority of the ‘text’ of the laws (Athenian or Platonic), nor do they consider the question of how citizens learned the laws and the level of expertise that they achieved.

³ Note that Plato tends to conflate the Cretan constitution with that of the Spartans; he clearly possesses a much greater knowledge of Sparta than of Crete. For a discussion of Plato's familiarity with Cretan customs (as well as that of his contemporaries), see Morrow (n. 1), ch. 1.

⁴ I will discuss the preludes in further detail below.

⁵ See also 780a: ‘Whoever proposes to publish laws for cities, regulating the conduct of citizens in state affairs and public matters, and thinks that there is no need to make laws for their private conduct, but that everyone should be allowed to spend his day just as he pleases, and believes, moreover, that it is not necessary that everything both in public and in private be done by a regular rule, and supposes that, if he leaves private conduct unregulated by law, the citizens will still consent to live according to the laws in public and civil life—this man is absolutely wrong.’

⁶ Or, more literally, ‘the writings pertaining to laws’: Plato means by this locution the laws proper plus the written text of the preludes and other ‘unwritten laws’—the expanded lawcode which I have just described above.

⁷ For a more detailed discussion of the lawcode as a sacred text, see Nightingale (n. 1).

⁸ Note that, at 810b, the Athenian says that those children who are, by nature, slower learners will be required to learn how to read and write, but will not need to achieve great speed or beautiful handwriting. Since he goes on to say that the basic educational text will be the lawcode itself (811c–e), it is clear that this will be required reading even for the slower children.

⁹ Harris (n. 1), p. 99.

¹⁰ Ibid., pp. 96–115.

¹¹ Cohen, Law, Sexuality and Society (n. 2), p. 235 argues that, in the Laws, ‘the internal aspect of normative order is dominant’; as he puts it in Law, Violence and Community (n. 1), p. 44, ‘Plato's reliance on the subjective dimension of legal order distinguishes his conception of the rule of law from modern notions which typically emphasize the external aspect of compliance, regarding the law as a system of commands backed by threats.’ While Cohen is right to emphasize the ‘internal’ and ‘subjective’ dimension of the rule of law in Magnesia, he does not address the ways in which the written lawcode controls the process and the product of this internalization.

¹² As Kathryn Morgan has suggested to me, the assimilation of logismos to nomos is problematic, since the former is an intellectual activity, whereas the latter is a fixed entity; the lawcode cannot really be said to do the thinking for the city.

¹³ I differ from England and other scholars who translate τν τoû λoγισμoû ảγωγν Χρϒσῆν καìdzεράν, τῆς πóεως κoινɂν νóμoν έπικαλoϒμέην as ‘ the golden and sacred drawing of calculation, which gets the name, when it affects (not a man but) the state, of a generally binding law’ (The Laws of Plato, vol. 1 [London, 1921], p. 256 ad loc.). In general, the verb έπικαλεîν means ‘take as a surname or nickname’ when it is used in the passive; in the middle it means ‘call in as a helper or ally’.

¹⁴ Note that the members of the Nocturnal Council will receive a philosophic education and thus achieve a knowledge which is self-ruling (961a–968b, and esp. 968d–e). At 966c–d, for example, the Athenian says that the only men qualified to join the Nocturnal Council are those who have ‘toiled over and mastered every proof (pasan pistin)’ concerning the gods and the cosmos, whereas the average citizen need only ‘follow the language of the law’ (τῆ øήμη μóνoν τŵν νóμων σϒνακoλoϒθoÛσιν). This does not mean that the Nocturnal Council is above the laws of the city; on the contrary, as Morrow shows (n. 1, ch. 9, esp. pp. 511–14), all citizens in Magnesia are subject to the written laws. The point is that the members of the Nocturnal Council will follow the laws because they understand the truth that underlies them; unlike the other citizens, they do not need written rules to guide them in right action.

¹⁵ Detienne, M., The Creation of Mythology, trans. M., Cook (Chicago, 1986), p. 100.Google Scholar

¹⁶ Detienne (ibid., ch. 5), in his investigation of the commandeering of ‘mythology’ in Magnesia, overlooks the role played by the written text of the laws; he therefore concludes (wrongly, in my view) that Plato rejects ‘the Egyptian paradigm that assigns to written work the prerogative of producing an authentic mythology’ (p. 290). Cf. Vegetti, M., ‘Dans l'ombre de Thoth. Dynamiques de l'écriture chez Platon’, in M., Detienne (ed.), Les Savoirs de Écriture en Grèce Ancienne (Lille, 1988), pp. 387–419.Google Scholar

¹⁷ It is difficult to assess the success or impact of this effort, since most of the evidence rests on the less-than-satisfactory account offered by Andocides (1.81–89). For a debate about the nature of the revision, see Robertson, N., ‘The laws of Athens, 410–399 b.c.: the evidence for review and publication’, JHS 110 (1990), 43–75CrossRefGoogle Scholar; and Rhodes, P., ‘The Athenian code of laws, 410–399 b.c.’, JHS 111 (1991), 87–100.CrossRefGoogle Scholar See also Hansen, Athenian Democracy (n. 1), pp. 162–4; Todd, Athenian Law (n. 1), pp. 56–8, and ‘Lysias against Nikomachos’ (n. 1). I favour the view set forth by Rhodes.

¹⁸ Hansen, Athenian Democracy (n. 1). ch. 7 offers a detailed discussion of the precise nature of nomoi and psêphismata.

¹⁹ Thomas, Oral Tradition (n. 1), p. 38, n. 72 claims that the main contents of the Metroön in this period were the decrees; by the late fourth century, however, it also contained the laws. Thomas also discusses the ways in which the documents were collected and stored within the Metroön; she argues that the archive did not have the systematic organization and the easy accessibility that characterizes modern archives, and that the average Athenian did not make much use of the facility (pp. 68–83).

²⁰ This debate has been fuelled in large part by Mogens Hansen's contention that, after 403/2, the lawcourts gained ascendancy over the assembly in Athens (and therefore over the demos proper, which he identifies with the assembly and not the courts); Hansen, provides a useful overview of this ongoing scholarly debate in The Athenian Assembly in the Age of Demosthenes (Oxford, 1987), pp. 94–107.Google Scholar

²¹ See e.g. Ostwald, M., From Popular Sovereignty to the Sovereignty of Law (Berkeley, 1986)Google Scholar and Sealey, R., The Athenian Republic: Democracy or the Rule of Law? (Philadelphia, 1987)Google Scholar for arguments in favour of this shift; Ober, J., Mass, and Elite in Democratic Athens (Princeton, 1989)Google Scholar and Todd, Athenian Law (n. 1) offer powerful arguments against this thesis.

²² This piece of legislation may have been designed in response to the unscrupulous use of unwritten laws by the oligarchs during their takeovers in 411 and 404 (see esp. Thomas, ‘Written in Stone?’ [n. 1], pp. 17–19; Todd, ‘Lysias against Nichomachos’ [n. 1], pp. 107, 125–6; cf. Humphreys, S. C., ‘The discourse of law in Archaic and Classical Greece’, Law and History Review 6 [1988], 476).CrossRefGoogle Scholar

²³ Thomas, ‘Written in Stone?’ [n. 1], pp. 16–19 (see also Thomas, Oral Tradition [n. 1], pp. 30–2; Cohen, Law, Violence and Community [n. 1], pp. 52–7; and Hedrick, C., ‘Writing, reading, democracy’, in R., Osborne and S., Hornblower (edd.), Ritual, Finance, Politics [Oxford, 1996]).Google Scholar This does not mean, of course, that Athenians did not acknowledge and revere some unwritten laws; the point is that they did not consider these appropriate for use in judical or political proceedings.

²⁴ See esp. Plutarch, Life of Lycurgus: ‘none of the laws were put into writing by Lycurgus, indeed one of the so-called rhêtrai forbids it’ (13.1). In place of written laws, Lycurgus introduced a paideia or system of education which fostered goodwill and good behaviour; no constraints of written law were necessary, for the educational system obviated the need for such constraints (13.1–2). In this education, ‘the Spartans learned only enough of reading and writing to serve their turn’ (16.6). See Tigerstedt, E. N., The Legend of Sparta in Classical Antiquity, vol. 1 (Stockholm, 1965), pp. 70–8Google Scholar and passim for a discussion of the legends surrounding Lycurgus.

²⁵ As Macdowell, D. M., Spartan Law (Edinburgh, 1986), p. 5Google Scholar observes, although some written laws did exist in in Sparta, ‘…no stone inscriptions of laws of the classical period have been found at Sparta, and we hear nothing of any attempt to make a comprehensive written code.… It is likely that many of the ‘laws of Lykourgos’ remained unwritten.’ See also Cartledge, P., ‘Literacy in the Spartan oligarchy’, JHS 98 (1978), 35–7.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

²⁶ As Cartledge shows (ibid.), these claims were self-serving and exaggerated; see also Thomas, Oral Tradition (n. 1), pp. 30–1.

²⁷ I refer here only to the argument elevating the rule by an expert statesman over the rule by written laws; I take this argument at face value, thought it is of course a small part of a much more complicated dialogue about political governance. The precise political ‘message’ of the dialogue—which is a matter of great controversy—is beyond the scope of this essay. For a discussion of some differing views about Plato's political position in the Statesman (and its relation to the doctrines of the Republic and the Laws), see Rowe, C. J., Plato. Statesman (Warminster, 1995)Google Scholar, Introduction.

²⁸ Much ink has been spilled on the question of whether Plato changed his political and/or metaphysical views towards the end of his life: is the Laws a departure from the Republic and the Statesman, or is Plato simply replaying the same ideas in a different key? In this essay, I will not discuss the relation of the Laws to Plato's middle/late dialogues. Instead, I want to investigate the written code in the Laws against the backdrop of the Athenian rule of law, thus focussing on the socio-political rather than the philosophic context of the dialogue.

²⁹ Morrow, Plato's Cretan City (n. 1), p. 252.

³⁰ Harris, Ancient Literacy (n. 1), ch. 4; Thomas, Oral Tradition (n. 1).

³¹ Thomas, Oral Tradition (n. 1), p. 36.

³² Ibid., pp. 64–5 and passim.

³³ Ibid., pp. 69–72 (note especially her discussion of [Dem.] 25.99, which is sometimes taken to indicate that ordinary citizens made a practice of looking things up on the Metroön). See also Todd, Athenian Law (n. 1), p. 58n., who observes that ‘Hansen [C&M 41 (1990), 71] seems to regard the Metroön as the primary source of law and the inscribed texts as secondary (at least after the failure of the code on the wall of the stoa basileios). The usage of the orators does not reflect this: of the passages that [Hansen] mentions, Dem. 19.25 refers to a non-legislative document; and neither Dem. 25. 98–9 …nor Lyk. 1.67 cites a law from the Metroön, although both refer to it as a (or the) place where laws are kept.’

³⁴ Thomas, Oral Tradition (n. 1), ch. 1.

³⁵ Hansen, Athenian Democracy (n. 1), pp. 306–7. See also Sinclair, R. K., Democracy and Participation in Athens (Cambridge, 1988)CrossRefGoogle Scholar, ch. 5 and passim for a more detailed investigation of the extent to which ordinary Athenians participated in the legislative and political machinery of the Athenian democracy. Sinclair argues that, in the fourth century, there is evidence of an ongoing problem in securing attendance at the Assembly (pp. 114–19); in some periods, the attendance for ordinary meetings was below 6,000 ‘either commonly or not infrequently’ (p. 118). He also suggests that the taxpayers (i.e. wealthier citizens) made up a significant part of the audience at the Assembly, since (among other things) it was their money and special interests that were on the line (pp. 123–4). The lawcourts, by contrast, tended to be populated by poorer citizens (pp. 127–33); but Sinclair adds that ‘perhaps even more than in the assembly, where there was at least the regular invitation for anyone to address the meeting, the citizen in the lawcourts could play a passive role and not expose his inexperience or lack of detailed knowledge and understanding’ (pp. 132–33). Finally, he argues that the attendance at the Boule was spotty and that there was manifest ‘apathy and passivity’ on the part of ordinary citizens who served as Council members, (p. 215; see also pp. 106–14).

³⁶ For discussions of this ‘Review Law’, see MacDowell, ‘Law-making at Athens’ (n. 1), pp. 66–9 and Hansen, Athenian Democracy (n. 1), p. 166. MacDowell (‘Law-making at Athens’ [n. 1]), Hansen (‘Athenian Nomothesia’ [n. 1]), and Rhodes, P. J. (‘Nomothesia in fourth-century Athens’, CQ 35 [1985], 55–60)CrossRefGoogle Scholar offer useful (albeit different) assessments of nomothesia in Athens, and of the modifications of this institution in the fourth century.

³⁷ MacDowell, ‘Law-making at Athens’ (n. 1), p. 66.

³⁸ As Thomas observes (‘Written in Stone?’ [n. 1], pp. 14–15), many Greek cities made a practice of singing laws at various kinds of gatherings; but the only evidence of Athenians following this practice indicates that they sang the laws of Charondas, an early lawgiver from Italy, at their drinking parties (Athenaeus, Deipnosophistai 619b = Hermippus fr. 88 Wehrli).

³⁹ See Ostwald, M., From Popular Sovereignty to the Sovereignty of Law (Berkeley, 1986), pp. 164–7Google Scholar for a discussion of this passage.

⁴⁰ As Svenbro has shown (Phrasikleia: An Anthropology of Reading in Ancient Greece, trans. J., Lloyd [Ithaca, 1988], pp. 118–22Google Scholar), the verb exêgeisthai should be translated by ‘expound’ (to convey ‘the exact vocalization of traditional formulas [the expounders] have committed to memory’) rather than by ‘interpret’.

⁴¹ See Todd, Athenian Law (n. 1), p. 54 and Humphreys, ‘The discourse of law’ (n. 22), pp. 476–7.

⁴² Todd, ‘Lysias against Nikomachos’ (n. 1), p. 115.

⁴³ Scholars are divided over the question whether specialized knowledge of the law or of other political issues translated into power and authority: to what extent (if at all) did the minority of people who had achieved legal expertise have the ability to control and manipulate the demos? For some different positions on this issue, see Ostwald (n. 39), Ober (n. 21), Hansen, Athenian Democracy (n. 1), Kallet-Marx, L., ‘Money talks: rhetor, demos, and the resources of the Athenian empire’, in R., Osborne and S., Hornblower (edd.), Ritual, Finance, Politics (Oxford, 1994), pp. 227–52.Google Scholar

⁴⁴ Thomas, ‘Law and lawgiver’ (n. 1), pp. 128–30.

⁴⁵ Hansen, Athenian Democracy (n. 1), p. 176; cf. Thomas, ‘Law and lawgiver’ (n. 1), pp. 128–30 and passim. Note that in Aeschines 3.34–48, the orator claims that the lawcode could not possibly contain inconsistent laws, since the Thesmothetai would have ‘searched them out’ and expunged them (40). But Aeschines' assertions are designed to combat the position that there are indeed contradictory laws concerning the conferral of crowns (35–6), and his discussion of the ‘Dionysiac law’ (which his enemies are citing) shows that, even if it does not contradict the earlier law in the strictest sense, it is nonetheless vague enough to lead to confusion; indeed, the situation itself would not have arisen if it were obvious from the beginning that Ctesiphon was making a proposal that was contrary to law.

⁴⁶ Thomas, ‘Law and lawgiver’ (n. 1), p. 129.

⁴⁷ Demosthenes, Against Aristogeiton 2.24.

⁴⁸ Todd, Athenian Law (n. 1), pp. 59–60.

⁴⁹ Todd, S., ‘The purpose of evidence in Athenian courts’, in P., Cartledge et al. (edd.), Nomos: Essays in Athenian Law, Politics and Society (Cambridge, 1990), p. 32.Google Scholar

⁵⁰ Though he indicates at 295a6–7 that both written and unwritten laws are inflexible and unable to respond to the particular exigencies of events and individuals (cf. 298d7–e1, 299d1–2, 301a4).

⁵¹ Other passages that explicitly develop this dichotomy between the written laws and the rule by a statesman unfettered by written laws are, e.g., 297d5–7, 299c4, 300a1–3, 300c1–2, 300c5–7; see also 296b–c: if a doctor who has knowledge compels his patients to do something, even if it is against the written rules, he is not unscientific; likewise, if a statesman compels his subjects contrary to the laws, he is not unjust (cf. 293a–b, 295e–296a, 299a).

⁵² Note also that, in the Atlantis story in the Timaeus-Critias, there is no reference to the early Athenians using written laws (though Critias does refer to their ancestral ‘laws’ and constitution at Timaeus 24a–d). The kings of Atlantis, by contrast, govern their mutual relations by inscribed laws, though they do not use written laws in their rule over the people (Critias 119c–d); in fact, the kings even made a ritual of cutting a bull's throat directly over the pillars containing the inscriptions of the laws (119e–120a, see also 120c). It is difficult to know what to make of these details; in particular, it is unclear why the Atlantan kings—who are, after all, sons of Poseidon— actually need written laws. One could argue that Plato injected this element into the narrative as a subtle reminder that rule by written laws is inferior to rule by good statesmen (assuming that the rulers in Athens—who are said to be the ‘wisest of men’ and to resemble their ‘philosophos’ patron-goddess, Athena [Timaeus 24c–d]—are governing as statesmen using politikê technê).

⁵³ For an excellent discussion of the narratives surrounding the ancient lawgivers, see Szegedy-Maszak, A., ‘Legends of the Greek lawgivers’, GRBS 19 (1978), 199–209.Google Scholar

⁵⁴ See also Aristotle, Ath. Pol. 7.2, 11.1; Plutarch, Solon 25.1.

⁵⁵ See esp. Plutarch, Lyc. 29. As Macdowell, D. M., Spartan Law (Edinburgh, 1986), p. 18Google Scholar suggests, there is a very great probability that Plutarch's primary source for the life of Lycurgus was the Lacedaimoniôn Politeia of Aristotle.

⁵⁶ Szegedy-Maszak (n. 53), p. 207.

⁵⁷ Note, for example, the way that τoɉς γϒμναζoμένς ἢ τoɉς κάμνoντας at 295c3–4 gives way to τoîς κάμνoνσι and τɂν κάμνoντα at 295d1 and d4.

⁵⁸ I have found no reference to Egyptian doctors in commentaries on the Statesman. Jouanna, J., ‘Le médecin modèle du législateur dans les Lois de Platon’, Ktema 3 (1978), 77–91Google Scholar, who devotes an entire article to the doctor-analogy in late Plato, also neglects to mention the Egyptian doctors.

⁵⁹ Note that the fact that the doctors could venture beyond the written prescriptions after four days is completely occluded in philosophers' deployment of the analogy of the doctor and ruler: as we will see, the point of this analogy is to draw a simple distinction between rule by an expert statesman who is above the law and rule by written law, in which everyone (including a city's leaders) is bound by the law. The practice of the Egyptian doctor is the analogue for the latter.

⁶⁰ See also Politics 2.8, 1269a9–24: ‘For just as with the other arts, so with the structure of the state it is impossible that it should have been framed aright in all its details; for it must of necessity be couched in general terms, whereas our actions deal with particular things. These considerations do seem to show that it is proper, at times, for some laws to be altered. But if we consider the matter in another way, it would seem that this requires great caution. For in cases when the improvement would be small, since it is a bad thing to accustom men to repeal the laws lightly, it is clear that some mistakes of the legislators and of the magistrates should be tolerated; for the people will not be benefited by making an alteration as much as they will be harmed by growing accustomed to disobeying their rulers. And the analogy from the case of the arts is fallacious, since changing an art is different from changing a law; for the law has no power to compel obedience beside the force of custom, and custom only comes into being over a great span of time, so that to allow for the easy alteration of existing laws to new laws is to weaken the power of law.’

⁶¹ For some recent (and diverging) discussions of the preludes, see Morrow, Plato's Cretan City (n. 1), pp. 552–60; Vickers, B., In Defence of Rhetoric (Oxford, 1988), pp. 143–7Google Scholar; Yunis, H., ‘Rhetoric as instruction: a response to Vickers on rhetoric in the Laws’, Philosophy and Rhetoric 23 (1990), 125–135Google Scholar; Bobonich, C., ‘Persuasion, compulsion and freedom in Plato's Laws’, CQ 41 (1991), 365–88CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Nightingale, ‘Writing/reading’ (n. 1).

⁶² Morrow, Plato's Cretan City (n. 1), pp. 570–1 (see also Stalley, R. F., An Introduction to Plato's Laws [Indianapolis, 1983], pp. 80–2Google Scholar; cf. Cohen, Law, Violence and Community [n. 1], pp. 50–1). For the discussion of the elaborate procedure laid down for amending the law in extreme cases, see 772c–d.

⁶³ As Cohen, Law, Violence and Community (n.1), p. 49 observes, ‘The paradox of Plato's “rule of law” is that, although he repeatedly insists that the rule of law only comes into existence through the voluntary compliance of free citizens, after they have adopted his constitutional scheme these citizens are educated so as to “forget” this. Their crucial role in the foundation of Magnesia is glossed over by this education in the collective fiction of “sovereign” laws.…’

⁶⁴ Note that, both here and in the discussion of the doctors/lawgivers in Book 4, the reader is invited to imagine that, like the good doctor, the legislator converses with his charges. It is in fact this depiction of the preludes as personalized conversations that gives them the appearance of contrasting starkly with the ‘tyranny’ of the written laws. But the content of the preludes is not determined by the legislator's ‘encounter’ with the citizens. In fact, there no such ‘encounter’, since the code is created before the founding of the city.

⁶⁵ The Athenian says that these are the words that an ordinary doctor would say about a freeborn doctor. But he himself agrees with the essential point in the passage in the passage that follows (857e–858a).

⁶⁶ I follow England in reading μoιώματα for πoî' ἄττα (which is in the mss., but is not retained by Burnet in the OCT).

⁶⁷ For passages dealing with the notion of ‘consecrating’ rules or laws, see 657a–b, 813a, 799a, 838a–e, 839c.

⁶⁸ For a more detailed discussion of ‘Plato on Egyptian art’, see Davis, W. M., Journal of Egyptian Archaeology 65 (1979), 121–127.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

⁶⁹ The Republic offers a similar portrait of the lawlessness exhibited by radical democracies (8.559d–563e).

⁷⁰ Szegedy-Maszak (n. 53), pp. 199–209, and Thomas, ‘Written in stone?’ (n. 1) discuss the unusual secularity of Athenian law in the context of other Greek lawgivers and codes of law in the archaic and classical periods.

⁷¹ See esp. 889b–d, 890d, 891b, 892b–c, 898a–c.

⁷² Note that, whereas the Statesman sets technê in opposition to nomos (see esp. 297a) and ranks the former above the latter, the Laws creates a quite different hierarchical scheme: nomos is aligned with technê and nous, and all three are placed over and against chance and chaos. Good and true laws are now conceived as the product of divine technê and nous.

⁷³ See also Minos 319e (a passage which bears a striking resemblance to the opening of the Laws), which explicitly says that Minos went to the ‘the cave of Zeus’ every nine years. This parallel is significant even if the dialogue was not written by Plato. Morrow, Plato's Cretan City (n. 1), pp. 35–9 summarizes the arguments for and against the dialogue's authenticity; he believes that Plato did write this dialogue, and that it may even have been a sketch for the opening of the Laws which was later abandoned.