Why Plato Wrote Epinomis

WHY PLATO WROTE EPINOMIS: LEONARDO TARÁN AND THE THIRTEENTH BOOK OF PLATO’S LAWS W.H.F. Altman1 Abstract: Tarán’s case against the authenticity of Epinomis depends on the claim that it is incompatible with Plato’s Laws. Behind this claim is the uncritical assumption that the Athenian Stranger of Laws speaks for Plato. While the Athenian Stranger of Epinomis clearly does not do so, the same is equally true, albeit more difficult to detect, of the Stranger in Laws. Once the Athenian is recognized as both ambitious and impious, a reconstruction of the last sentence of Epinomis — on which Tarán’s incompatibility thesis principally rests — reveals the theological-political continuity between the two dialogues: the Stranger is intent on bringing the city into being while securing divine sanction for his own code of laws and divine honours for himself. Plato appended the Epinomis to the Laws in order to make it easier for the student to recognize the Stranger’s intentions as well as to draw attention to Book VII of the Laws, the centre of the dialogue once Epinomis is recognized as its thirteenth book; it is here that the Stranger describes how a mathematical and astronomical man may become a god to other men (818b9–d1). Reviving a claim for the authenticity of the Epinomis in the wake of Leonardo Tarán’s magisterial Academica: Plato, Philip of Opus, and the PseudoPlatonic Epinomis may border on the quixotic, but one thing is certain: any attempt to revive that claim must respond in a thoughtful way to Tarán.2 The broad outlines of this response could be predicted by anyone who has followed the course of Platonic scholarship since 1975: like the Laws, Epinomis is a dialogue and the views of the Athenian Stranger cannot simply be identified with Plato’s. Strengthening this obvious move is a noticeable decline in chronological developmentalism as the exclusive or even primary hermeneutic device for divining Plato’s intentions. One can now, for example, accept Tarán’s claim that ‘the tacit denial of the separate existence of ideas creates a gulf between the E. and Plato’s later works that no hypothesis of development can bridge’3 without thereby committing oneself to his conclusion. Catherine Zuckert has ushered in a new era in which ‘the coherence of the dialogues’ depends on a prior awareness that ‘Plato’s philosophers’ (including the Athenian Stranger) do not represent stages in Plato’s development but rather dialectical alternatives to Socrates that Plato himself may not have considered 1 E.C. Glass High School, 2111 Memorial Avenue, Lynchburg, VA 24501, USA. Email: whfaltman@gmail.com 2 L. Tarán, Academica: Plato, Philip of Opus, and the Pseudo-Platonic Epinomis (Philadelphia, 1975). 3 Ibid., p. 32. POLIS. Vol. 29. No. 1, 2012 84 W.H.F. ALTMAN compelling.4 It is therefore a mark of Tarán’s insight and prescience that his argument for athetizing Epinomis does not entirely depend on showing that it is doctrinally un-Platonic. In fact, the principal basis for his claim is the incompatibility of Epinomis and the Laws: (1) the writer of the former misunderstood the latter, (2) the latter is Plato’s, therefore (3) the writer of the former cannot be Plato.5 It is this incompatibility claim that will receive most attention here and this emphasis is consistent with the structure of Tarán’s, although his other arguments will be considered in Section II. Section I, however, will focus on the most important text for validating Tarán’s incompatibility thesis: the last sentence of Epinomis. Section III will then pass from criticism of Tarán to an affirmative defence by offering fresh reasons for accepting Epinomis as Plato’s work based on passages in Laws that Tarán chose not to discuss. It may be useful to supplement this outline by linking each section to one of three alternative titles Epinomis acquired in antiquity:6 Section III will justify reading Epinomis as ‘Book XIII of the Laws’, Section I will do the same for ‘The Nocturnal Council’, and Section II will suggest why ‘Philosopher’ is an appropriate description of the dialogue despite the fact, noted by Tarán,7 that the word ‘philosopher’ is not found in it; nor, would I add, is its referent. This last comment requires some preliminary remarks. In another place I have defended Leo Strauss’s claim that Plato’s Laws is based on the fiction of a fleeing Socrates or that the Athenian Stranger is who Socrates would have been had he followed Crito’s advice without, however, defending — and indeed while reversing — the conclusions Strauss seems to have drawn from this identification.8 On this reading, the Athenian Stranger is not only a coward but a criminal who deserved the hemlock the real Socrates 4 C. Zuckert, Plato’s Philosophers: The Coherence of the Dialogues (Chicago, 2009), pp. 459 and 861–2. 5 Tarán, Academica, p. 23. 6 On which see ibid., p. 23 n. 88. 7 Ibid., p. 323 on 989c2. 8 W.H.F. Altman, ‘A Tale of Two Drinking Parties: Plato’s Laws in Context’, Polis, 27 (2010), pp. 240–64. For the clearest statement of Strauss’s conclusions, see his letter of 16 February 1939 to Jacob Klein, in L. Strauss, Gesammelte Schriften, Band 3; Hobbes’ politische Wissenschaft und zugehörige Schriften — Briefe, ed. H. Meier with the editorial assistance of W. Meier (Stuttgart and Weimar, 2001), p. 567 (translation mine): ‘It will particularly interest you that in Book I of the Laws there is a hidden connection to the conclusion of the Phaedo such that one understands the passage [Greek] “for he had been covered up” (118a6); even Socrates buckles in the face of death; all human beings suffer a defeat in the face of death (Laws 648d5–e5, together with 647e; the Fear-Drink [Furcht-Trank] is obviously death!), and it is characteristic of the story-teller Phaedo that he hasn’t noticed this and has therefore also accepted the proofs of immortality (he tells the story even now outside Athens!). The connection is all the more thought provoking because Laws depends on the fiction that Socrates has escaped from prison, first to Thessaly and then to Crete — he escapes because he does not want to WHY PLATO WROTE EPINOMIS 85 did not: it is he, not Socrates, who is guilty of impiety and, once having corrupted the powerful Clinias, he will be in a position to corrupt the youth of Magnesia on a grand scale. The reader is not being asked to accept the whole of this vision here: I presuppose only a capacity to distinguish the Stranger from Plato along with the reader’s good-natured willingness to entertain the possibility that Plato regards the Stranger as both ambitious and impious, as he reveals himself to be for the first time in Book IV.9 The impiety in question is reflected not only in the last sentence of Epinomis but by the question with which Plato’s Laws begins:10 while the Stranger will implicitly reject the view that a god is the source of Spartan or Cretan laws (Laws 630c1–4), he will hardly be so scrupulous in the case of his own.11 It is therefore no accident that piety is the principal topic of Plato’s Epinomis (989b1–2): only here is the Stranger’s conception of piety made explicit and therefore his impiety palpable. Against Tarán, I will show that the Stranger’s actions in Epinomis are consistent with the ambitious intention that guides his speeches in the Laws: the creation of a city in which he, both as lawgiver and as the uniquely qualified member of the Nocturnal Council, will reign supreme, i.e. in place of an active god. In the meantime, the Stranger’s atheistic theology (Laws, Book X) relegates all other ‘gods’ to orderly circuits in the visible heavens.12 In short, I will advance the paradoxical claim that Epinomis is a genuine dialogue of Plato precisely because it is un-Platonic. Epinomis makes manifest what is only implicit in Laws: the Athenian Stranger does not speak for Plato and his arguments and actions are incompatible with Plato’s true teaching. die —. Laws is, I believe, clear to me now (the theology of Book X is a subdivision of criminal justice!).’ This last clue is followed up brilliantly in T. Pangle, ‘The Political Psychology of Religion in Plato’s Laws’, American Political Science Review, 70 (1976), pp. 1059–77; see also T. Pangle, The Laws of Plato (New York, 1980), pp. 378–9. 9 Laws 661a4–c7 (Pangle, The Laws of Plato, pp. 41–2): ‘For the things said to be good by the many are not correctly so described. It is said that the best thing is health, and second is beauty, and third is wealth — and then there are said to be ten thousand other goods: sharp sight, hearing, and good perception of all the senses; and then, by becoming a tyrant, to do whatever one desires, and finally the perfection of complete blessedness, which is to possess all these things and then to become immortal, as quickly as possible. But you two and I, presumably, speak as follows: we say that these things, beginning with health, are all very good when possessed by just and pious men, but all very bad when possessed by unjust men.’ 10 Ibid. 624a1: ‘Is it a god or some human being, strangers, who is given the credit for laying down your laws?’ 11 C. Bobonich, Plato’s Utopia Recast: His Later Ethics and Politics (Oxford, 2002), pp. 93–5. 12 See Pangle, ‘Psychology of Religion’, p. 1074: ‘The heavenly bodies, which manifestly dominate the whole universe, have a motion (orderly, circular motion) which indicates that they are moved by souls possessing nous — for circular motion is an ‘image’ of the motion of nous — and can therefore be worshipped as gods.’ 86 W.H.F. ALTMAN How can this be possible? Because Plato’s purpose in writing these dialogues was not so much paradoxical as pedagogical: they were intended to test the reader’s awareness of the character of that teaching and have indeed done so. The fact that Epinomis has been athetized reflects this awareness and therefore constitutes the received tradition’s partial success with Plato’s test. But by failing to recognize that it is Plato himself who deliberately administered it, the tradition has also badly missed the mark. By divorcing a spurious Epinomis from a genuine Laws, that tradition has failed to understand the pedagogical purpose behind both dialogues. The un-Platonic character of Epinomis has led to its excision and neglect while this excision has made it easier to preserve Laws as authentic by ignoring its better-concealed but no less un-Platonic elements. If the difficult Laws indicates the severity of Plato’s test, Epinomis reveals a true teacher’s generosity and it is because those elements eventually become obvious to all that a reconsideration of Epinomis prepares the way for a better understanding of Laws. I The Last Sentence of Plato’s Epinomis In private we say and in public we enact into law that the highest offices must be bestowed upon those individuals who have mastered these studies in the right way, with much labour, and have arrived at the fullness of old age. The others must obey them and speak in praise of all the gods and goddesses. Now that we have come to know this wisdom well enough and have tested it, we are all bound, most rightly, to urge the Nocturnal Council to pursue it.13 The principal merit of Richard D. McKirahan’s translation14 is that it emphasizes by position the only finite verbs in the passage: ‘in private we say and in public we enact into law’. Its principal defect is that it treats what is in fact a single sentence as if it were three separate ones. This defect leads directly to a misleading multiplication of nominatives: in the Greek, ‘the others’ of the second sentence and the ‘we’ of the third are both accusatives in the original: toi'" me;n ou\n tau'ta ou{tw diaponhvsasin ijdiva/ levgomen kai; dhmosiva/ kata; novmon tivqemen, eij" presbuvtou tevlo" ajfikomevnoi" ta;" megivsta" ajrca;" paradivdosqai dei'n, tou;" d! a[llou" touvtoi" sunepomevnou" eujfhmei'n pavnta" qeou;" a{ma kai; pavsa", kai; to;n nukterino;n suvllogon ejpi; tauvthn 13 J. Cooper and D. Hutchinson, The Complete Dialogues of Plato (Indianapolis, 1995), p. 1633. 14 Plato, Complete Works, ed. J.M. Cooper and D. Hutchinson (Indianapolis, 1998), pp. 1617–33. WHY PLATO WROTE EPINOMIS 87 th;n sofivan iJkanw'" gnovnta" te kai; dokimavsanta" hJma'" ojrqovtata pavnta" parakalei'n.15 McKirahan fails to realize that both the me;n - and dev -clauses require a complementary infinitive — i.e. an infinitive complementing ‘in private we say and in public we enact into law’ — that applies to the respective persons distinguished in each: we are enacting (in the me;n-clause) that those in the dative are the object of paradivdosqai just as, in the dev-mevn clause (‘we are enacting that’) those in the accusative are the object of parakalei'n. Here is a more accurate account of the sentence’s grammatical structure: Just as we also enact it to be necessary [dei'n] that to these [toi'À me;n] the chief commands are to be given [paradivdosqai], so also do we enact it to be necessary [tivqemen . . . dei'n continues to govern the dev-clause] to call upon [the final parakadei'n corresponds to the final paradivdosqaiin the me;n-clause] the others [tou;" d! a[llou"] to revere . . . [some set of objects].16 With this structure in place, it is possible to recreate the word order of the original in a translation like the following: To those [toi'" me;n], then, having thus worked through these subjects, we are saying in private and, in accordance with law, we are publicly enjoining: that to those having reached the extremity of old age it is necessary for the greatest commands to be given [paradivdosqai], while the others [tou;" d! a[llou"], those who follow these, to revere [some set of objects] it is likewise necessary to summon [parakalei'n; i.e. it is necessary to summon the others to revere some set of objects].17 The reason that McKirahan treats ‘the others’ as a nominative in a new sentence is because he fails to make them the object of parakalei'n. In the final analysis, he does this because he needs the infinitive parakalei'n elsewhere.18 This need is closely related to his creation of a ‘third sentence’ as well: the subject of the now displaced parakalei'n remains ‘we’ but is no longer the ‘we’ of the two finite verbs found near the beginning of the sentence 15 J. Burnet, Platonis Opera, vol. 5 (Oxford, 1907), pp. 460–1. Hereafter, all references to Plato will be to Burnet’s edition and will be indicated only by Stephanus numbers, e.g. 992d3–e1. 16 992d3–7 (translation mine). 17 992d3–e1 (translation mine). 18 McKirahan is evidently following Tarán, Academica, p. 352: ‘That hJma'" must be the subject of parakalei'n is certain, for the pronoun is expressed and the infinitive depends on d4–5 [sc. levgomen kai; dhmosiva/ kata; novmon tivqemen] where the first person plural is the subject of the verbs.’ Tarán is claiming, then, that we are enjoining ourselves to summon the Council. McKirahan disguises this redundancy by dividing the sentence into three. On my reading, we are enjoining (i.e. it is necessary to summon) others to revere us. 88 W.H.F. ALTMAN but rather of the troubling hJma'" found near its end.19 By dividing the sentence into three, McKirahan avoids the fact that we are legislating that it is necessary to summon others to revere some set of objects because he is intent on dividing that set of objects in the same way that he has divided the sentence as a whole. Although his division of one sentence into three is unquestionably inaccurate, it is the division of the set of objects we must summon the others to revere that has important consequences for understanding Epinomis and therefore for establishing its authenticity. But the two separations are intimately related: he needs the obviously inaccurate division of the sentence to effect the far more plausible but nevertheless highly misleading division of the object clause. The key to an alternative reading of the object clause is the repetition of the word pavnta": Plato’s Stranger is employing the rhetorical trope known as epanadiplosis — also called inclusio20 — where a sentence or clause begins and ends with the same word, thereby creating a rhetorical circle. McKirahan wants us (hJma'") to summon the Nocturnal Council to pursue ‘this wisdom’ whereas I am including the Nocturnal Council — all of its members, even those for whom this wisdom is not an object of actual knowledge — among the objects that the others are going to be summoned by law to revere. To summarize: ‘In private we say and in public we enact: to these (on the one hand) the chief commands it is necessary to be given; the others (on the other hand) to revere [pavnta" . . . pavnta"] it is necessary to summon’, i.e. we are enacting that it is necessary to summon the others to revere pavnta" . . . pavnta". Thus my translation of the final sentence as a whole: To those, then, having thus worked through these subjects, we are saying in private and, in accordance with law, we are publicly enjoining: that to those having reached the extremity of old age it is necessary for the greatest commands to be given, while the others, those who follow these, to revere all the gods (and at the same time, all the goddesses) and the Nocturnal Council, who, with respect to this wisdom, are sufficiently both knowing and approving — i.e. us, most accurately, us all [pavnta" qeou;" a{ma kai; 19 For this use of ‘troubling’, see Tarán, Academica, p. 352: ‘Ast (and Ficino) did not translate hJma'", to which he objected because of its opposition to pavnta [sic]; and took the participles to refer to suvllogon, understood as a collective name’ (cf. the apparatus criticus at 359: ‘992e1 [hJma'"] non vertit Ficinus nec Ast; secl. Ast 2’). 20 See E. Bullinger, Figures of Speech Used in the Bible (1898): ‘It [sc. epanadiplosis] means a doubling upon again, and the Figure is so called because the first word of the sentence is included both at the beginning and at the end of a sentence. The Latins called it INCLUSIO, inclusion: either because the first word of the sentence is included at the end, or because of the importance of the matter which is thus included between the two words. They called it also CYCLUS, from the Greek KUKLOS, a circle, because the repetition concluded what is said, as in a circle. When this figure is used, it marks what is said as being comprised in one complete circle, this calling our attention to its solemnity; giving completeness of the statement that is made, or to the truth enumerated, thus marking and emphasizing its importance.’ Compare Colossians 1:16–17. WHY PLATO WROTE EPINOMIS 89 pavsa", kai; to;n nukterino;n suvllogon ejpi; tauvthn th;n sofivan iJkanw'" gnovnta" te kai; dokimavsanta" hJma'" ojrqovtata pavnta"] — it is likewise necessary to summon.21 In this reading, the second pavnta" refers to the same objects of veneration as the first: along with the gods and goddesses, the law will call upon those who follow the leaders to revere the Nocturnal Council. The Stranger emphasizes the division between gods and goddesses while withholding the actual word ‘goddesses’ for much the same reason that he describes the plural membership of the Council with a te kai; construction: to the Stranger alone does the gnovnta" truly apply (this probably aligns him with the male gods) whereas Clinias and Megillus, his apparently pliant tools, are at the opposite end of the words ejpi; tauvthn th;n sofivan iJkanw'" gnovnta" te kai; dokimavsanta": they are ‘approving’ (dokimavsanta") the wisdom which the Stranger alone possesses and only through his guidance can all of them be said to be ‘sufficiently knowing’ (iJkanw'" gnovnta"). Indeed a two-tier conception of the Council has been implicit from the very start.22 On a theoretical level, it is generous of the Stranger to insist that this Council consists of ‘all of us’ but we must also recognize that this concession is eminently practical: Clinias holds the political power. Once the Stranger asserts at the end of Laws that the city can only be realized by turning it over to the Nocturnal Council, we need only admit that the ambitious Stranger desires it to be realized to perceive what he is doing in Epinomis. The key to understanding the relationship between Laws and Epinomis is therefore grasping that Epinomis depicts the first and founding meeting of the Nocturnal Council thereby justifying one of the three additional titles Epinomis acquired in antiquity. This is precisely the point missed by Tarán: This passage [sc. the last part of the last sentence of Epinomis] implies that the first Nocturnal Council consists of councilors who have not yet had the education that according to the Laws is a pre-requisite to becoming a councilor, and this is clear evidence that the author of E. misunderstood or chose to misunderstand the dramatic end of the Laws.23 It is no accident that these are the last words of Tarán’s commentary: they recur to the heart of his argument for athetizing Epinomis.24 On the theoretical plane, Tarán is quite correct: there is only one person who fulfils all of the Stranger’s requirements for membership in the Council as described in Laws XII and that is the Stranger himself. But in Epinomis, we see why expanding the Council’s membership to include those not only less qualified than himself but also those who fail to fulfil all of his stated criteria for 21 22 23 24 992d3–e1 (translation mine); I have deleted Burnet’s comma after pavsa". Laws 632c4–6; cf. Tarán, Academica, p. 21 n. 71. Tarán, Academica, p. 353. See the final paragraph of section ‘d)’ at ibid., p. 24. 90 W.H.F. ALTMAN membership in Laws XII in no way undermines the Stranger’s purpose. In fact it is only if we fail to grasp the Stranger’s ambition that we can fail to recognize his political skill. What makes Epinomis such an interesting dialogue is that its subject — an astronomy-based piety — appears to be theoretical par excellence whereas it simultaneously depicts a brilliant example of practical politics: by constituting himself as the de facto leader of the all-powerful Nocturnal Council, the Stranger accomplishes a theological-political coup d’etat. According to Tarán, by contrast, the fact that the last sentence of Epinomis depicts the three old men legislating for the city proves that it is not by Plato: Moreover, in the E. the Athenian Stranger ‘legislates’ that to those who have mastered these studies the highest offices of the state should be entrusted; [the accompanying note reads in part: ‘Cf. 992d3–7 where n.b. kai; dhmosiva/ kata; novmon tivqemen. This implies the codification of the education described in 990a–992a and would by itself be sufficient to athetize the E.’] and, furthermore, when he urges the Nocturnal Council to acquire the ‘wisdom’ discovered and tested in the E. [a reference to his reading of the last sentence], it becomes obvious that the first council consists of members who have not yet had the training that the Laws prescribed as a prerequisite for the councillorship.25 Although the Stranger is very politic — far too politic to openly express his own ambition to rule the city — we need only recognize that ruling the city has always been his secret goal in order to solve the riddle of the Epinomis. Only by constituting the three of them as the Council, i.e. by including Megillus and Clinias despite their woeful or rather laughable ignorance of astronomy,26 can the Stranger realize his political objective. What makes this easy to miss is the Stranger’s political skill: he does not reveal what the conversation depicted in Epinomis has actually been until the very end of it. In fact it is only in the last sentence of the Epinomis — only with the words hJma'" ojrqovtata pavnta" — that the Stranger actually accomplishes his coup. It is perfectly true that in the Laws the Stranger had created stringent criteria for membership in the Council that would have excluded Clinias and Megillus; Tarán is therefore correct that it is this difference that explains the division between the two dialogues.27 But it will be seen that the conclusion of Laws is consistent with the most amazing aspect of the last sentence of the 25 Ibid. p. 24. Ibid., p. 30: ‘. . . two old men so ignorant as not even to know that the evening star and the morning star are one and the same’. Their ignorance should not be exaggerated: by giving the last word in Epinomis to the Stranger, Plato leaves open the possibility, suggested also by the ambiguous last word of Laws, that Clinias and Megillus will thwart the Stranger’s impious ambitions now that he has revealed them. 27 The last sentence spoken by the Stranger in the Laws (969b2–c3) makes it easier to see that this difference hardly indicates any real change in the Stranger’s intentions (R.G. Bury translation): ‘If it so be that this divine synod actually comes into existence [ejavn ge 26 WHY PLATO WROTE EPINOMIS 91 Epinomis: a legal obligation is being enjoined upon the others to revere the Nocturnal Council along with all the gods and goddesses. In this light, the end of the Epinomis fulfils the promise of the Laws: only through a literally ‘divine Council’ does the city come into existence. What makes the last sentence of Epinomis the best place to begin defending its authenticity is that it furnishes Tarán with his best evidence for attacking it, as indicated by the first time he uses the words ‘misunderstood or chose to misunderstand’ that reappear at the end: But whereas within the dramatic framework of the Laws there can be no further legislation, since legislation about the council is left to the future councilors, there are in the E. several references to the enactment of laws, and the Athenian actually enacts legislation [note 92]. This proves that the author of the E. misunderstood or chose to misunderstand the Laws, a thing which cannot be attributed to Plato himself.28 It will be noted that it is only in the last sentence that ‘the Athenian actually enacts legislation’.29 The last sentence is therefore crucial both for Tarán’s rejection and for my affirmation of Plato’s authorship: by collapsing the difference between the three old men and the Nocturnal Council, Tarán’s primary argument vanishes: Finally, and most important, whereas the Laws leaves the task of legislating about the Nocturnal Council and thereby of establishing the council itself to the councilors who have already been trained, since only they will be able to legislate about the time during which each subject is to be studied, there is in the E. no reference whatever to such time.30 While it is hardly difficult to recognize that the Stranger himself is eligible for inclusion among ‘the councillors who have already been trained’; it is the sleight of hand accomplished by his ingenious hJma'" ojrqovtata pavnta" that creates a legitimate sticking point for those alone who fail to recognize the Stranger’s ambitious objective and his political skill in gaining it. mh;n ou|to" hJmi'n oJ qei'o" gevnhtai suvllogo"], my dear colleagues, we must hand over to it the State [paradotevon touvtw/ th;n povlin]; and practically all our present lawgivers agree to this without dispute. Thus we shall have as an accomplished fact and waking reality that result which we treated but a short while ago in our discourse as a mere dream, when we constructed a kind of picture of the union of the reason and the head — if, that is to say, we have the members carefully selected and suitably trained, and after their training quartered in the acropolis of the country, and thus finally made into wardens, the like of whom we have never before seen in our lives for excellence in safeguarding [pro;" ajreth;n swthriva"]’. Hereafter, except where noted, all translations from Laws will be those of Pangle, Laws of Plato. 28 Tarán, Academica, p. 23. 29 Note 92 refers the reader to the passage quoted above about kai; dhmosiva/ kata; novmon tivqemen. 30 Tarán, Academica, p. 24 (emphasis mine). 92 W.H.F. ALTMAN It is in these words that grammatical complexity merges with philosophical interpretation. Because he fails to recognize the Stranger’s impiety, Tarán creates a distinction between the Council and hJma'" on the grammatical level: ‘we’ are summoning the Council to pursue wisdom.31 The interpretive problem arises because the only ‘we’ who can legitimately legislate for the Council are the councillors themselves; hence Tarán’s solution to the grammatical problem proves that Plato cannot be the author of Epinomis. But if the reader is willing to attribute impiety and ambition to the Stranger, the distinction between ‘we’ and the Council vanishes: both are accusatives as are all the gods and goddesses. By absolving Plato’s Stranger of impiety, Tarán deprives him of literary authenticity: his sanitized Stranger cannot be Plato’s. As a matter of philosophical interpretation, then, we are on the road to an alternative solution as soon as we recall that Plato wrote dialogues and is certainly not to be identified as a matter of principle with the Athenian Stranger. Where grammar is concerned, I am suggesting that a solution like Tarán’s really provides no solution at all: we should be even more sceptical of a grammatical construction or philosophical interpretation that proves a text is inauthentic than one that challenges pre-conceived and time-honoured conceptions. This alternative I have attempted to provide and will now summarize. On a grammatical level, the reader must recognize (1) that parakalei'n (dei'n) has tou;" d! a[llou" for its object just as toi'" me;n has paradivdosqai dei'n for its, (2) that the two instances of pavnta" have the same referent, i.e. that the Stranger was in earnest when he hypothesized ejavn ge mh;n ou|to" hJmi'n oJ qei'o" gevnhtai suvllogo" (Laws 969b2),32 and (3) the existential unity of all of the following consecutive accusatives: (a) pavnta" qeou;" a{ma kai; pavsa" (b-1) kai; to;n nukterino;n suvllogon, to which (b-2) ejpi; tauvthn th;n sofivan iJkanw'" 31 Ibid., p. 352: ‘Thus the connection with the beginning of the dialogue is established: now that we have discovered and tested sofiva, we are right in urging the Nocturnal Council to acquire it.’ On Tarán’s account, hJma'" iJkanw'" gnovnta" te kai; dokimavsanta" th;n sofivan are right (ojrqovtata) to summon (parakalei'n) the Nocturnal Council to this wisdom (to;n nukterino;n suvllogon ejpi; tauvthn th;n sofivan). It will be seen that this requires that th;n sofivan performs double duty: it is the direct object of gnovnta" te kai; dokimavsanta" (without the ejpi;) but then, once rejoined to ejpi;, it becomes the indirect object of parakalei'n, admittedly a common construction in Plato (e.g. Laches 179b4–5, 194b8–9 and 200e4–5). But the Athenian Stranger also uses this verb with an infinitive (as I do with eujfhmei'n) at 692e1–2: ‘. . . [Argos] refused to pay heed or help defend [sc. Greece against the Persians] when called upon to repulse [parakaloumevnh ajmuvnein] the barbarian’. 32 Notice that the easiest way for this Council to have come into being in Laws would have been for the Stranger to replace the ethical dative hJmi'n with the genitive hJmw'n. WHY PLATO WROTE EPINOMIS 93 gnovnta" te kai; dokimavsanta" is epexegetic,33 and (c) hJma'" ojrqovtata pavnta".34 To be sure every aspect of this grammar creates a thoroughly despicable Stranger: an atheistic theologian whose knowledge of astronomy allows him to identify the unifying principle of virtue with pious reverence toward the Nocturnal Council over which he will exercise de facto leadership. But we are under no ethical obligation to believe that the Athenian Stranger speaks for Plato, especially because it is by assuming that the Stranger speaks for Plato in the Laws that Tarán proves that Plato didn’t write Epinomis.35 On an interpretive level, then, it is necessary and sufficient to distinguish the Stranger from Plato in order to answer Tarán’s strongest argument: the incompatibility of Epinomis with Laws XII. Integrated with this interpretive flexibility, a grammatical reconstruction of the final sentence has begun to justify my claim that the Epinomis is genuine because Plato regards the Athenian Stranger as both ambitious and guilty of impiety. II Tarán’s First Thirteen Arguments Tarán makes his case against authenticity in a detailed and well-documented (213 footnotes) forty-seven page opening chapter called ‘Plato and the Authorship of the Epinomis’, consisting of eight sections. Here it is convenient to consider these sections in three groups: (1) the first three (‘The Ancient Evidence’, ‘Byzantium and Modern Times’ and ‘Arguments from Style’) do not, in Tarán’s judgment, prove that the dialogue isn’t Plato’s.36 This simplifies matters considerably because there is no need to discuss stylometric evidence: 33 For the transition between the grammatically singular suvllogon and the plural gnovnta" te kai; dokimavsanta" (naturally the Council consists of more than one member), see n. 17 above. There is little need to make a hard and fast decision concerning the grammatical nexus of ejpi; tauvthn th;n sofivan, i.e. whether it modifies to;n nukterino;n suvllogon (a council devoted to this wisdom) or, as in the text, gnovnta" te kai; dokimavsanta" (as from the compound participle ejpi;-gnovnta"); on my reading the two are the same. 34 Having separated to;n nukterino;n suvllogon from hJma'", the question for Tarán is to decide to which of these the words iJkanw'" gnovnta" te kai; dokimavsanta" apply; I follow Ast, who ‘took the participles to refer to suvllogon, understood as a collective name’. I am not insisting that Plato expected every reader to be certain that mine is the correct reading: for those who are not listening to a skilled reader whose final pavnta" makes the rhetorical circle audible, a choice must clearly be made as to whether to take what then becomes the easier road in a visual sense and make ejpi; tauvthn th;n sofivan the directional object of parakalei'n (its actual object then remains unclear, with both to;n nukterino;n suvllogon and hJma'" ojrqovtata pavnta" as possibilities) or to apply it back to tou;" d! a[llou", as I have done. 35 See Tarán’s eleventh argument in Section II, below. 36 Hence the last sentence of the third section at Tarán, Academica, p. 19: ‘The question of the alleged Platonic authorship must be settled first.’ 94 W.H.F. ALTMAN Tarán admits it is inconclusive.37 Although there is an important weakness in the first of these — his dismissal of Cicero’s evidence in particular reveals a methodological fallacy38 — it can safely be discussed in a footnote.39 The arguments proper begin, and the most important of these are presented, in (2) the next two sections: ‘The Epinomis and the Dramatic End of the Laws’ and ‘Astronomy, Dialectic, and the Rejection of the Ideas’. The first of these contains the proofs Tarán regards as decisive; the most important of these have already been considered in Section I. After some general remarks, the thirteen arguments found in these two sections will be considered in the order of their presentation, referring back to Section I when appropriate. Unfortunately (3) must receive shorter shrift: consisting of ‘Piety, Contemplation, and Cosmic Religion’, ‘The Five Simple Bodies’ and ‘The Scale of Living Beings and the Demonology’, Tarán’s focus here shifts to a comparison of Epinomis and Timaeus and, from my perspective, this opens up an interpretive can of worms that cannot be explored here. But it is fair to say that it is not on these sections that Tarán’s case principally depends.40 Only the first part of the first of these — naturally Tarán’s discussion of the Stranger’s un-Platonic piety is particularly relevant to my case — will be considered in Section III. The presupposition on which Tarán’s first seven arguments depend is that Laws is complete as it stands: Epinomis is therefore extraneous to, and therefore based on a misunderstanding of, Plato’s Laws. On the contrary: Laws remains conspicuously incomplete on a dramatic level because only the formation of the Nocturnal Council would now be required in order to bring the 37 Tarán, Academica, p. 17: ‘In short, none of the three phenomena analyzed by F. Müller, vocabulary, sentence structure, and use of the dialogue can provide objective evidence that the E. is un-Platonic.’ 38 Tarán, Academica, p. 7: ‘The earliest author known to us who with reference to a passage of the E. reports it as Plato’s opinion is Cicero [note 21], and most of the later ancient authors who cite or refer to the E. attribute it to Plato too.’ Note 21: ‘Cf. Cicero, De Oratore III, 6, 20–21. As to the value of Cicero’s “testimony” on the authorship of E., we should note that he apparently considered authentic the letters of Anacharsis too . . .’. 39 Tarán rejects the testimony of every source that considers authentic any of the dialogues generally considered to be spurious (Tarán, Academica p. 3: ‘e.g. Cleitophon, Lovers, Hipparchus’): Aristophanes (p. 4), Thrasyllus (pp. 5–7), and then Cicero, Nicomachus, Theon, Iamblichus, Clement and Eusebius (p. 7). Of more value than this petitio principii is p. 16: ‘In fact, even among the obviously spurious dialogues included in the Platonic corpus there is probably not one that could be proved spurious on stylistic grounds alone.’ 40 Tarán, Academica, p. 36 (emphasis mine): ‘The E., therefore, modifies an important even if not essential Platonic doctrine; yet it is not the mere modification of the doctrine of the Timaeus but its motivation and results that by themselves suggest that the E. is un-Platonic.’ His language is much stronger in what I have treated as the central part of the chapter. WHY PLATO WROTE EPINOMIS 95 city into being.41 In order to prove that Laws is complete, Tarán must not only assume that the Athenian Stranger isn’t uncommitted to creating a real city but also that he is actually committed to not creating one: if only the Council can bring the city into being, and if the Council alone can determine the membership criteria for the councillors, then there can never be councillors qualified to constitute themselves as the Council and thereby bring the city into being.42 Tarán correctly points out that the last sentence of Epinomis presupposes the existence of the Council without establishing its membership requirements; my response is that practical politics — i.e. the creation of the city — requires this step, a step without which the city could never escape a vicious circle. But it is not only the failure to make the transition from theory to practice that makes Laws incomplete: the principal task of the Council is the guardianship of virtue and virtue can be preserved only by those who know what virtue — as opposed to the four different virtues — is. The Stranger has made it clear that Clinias owes him an explanation of how the four virtues are one (Laws 964a1–5) and they have agreed that this is a topic that must be addressed (Laws 965e3–966a4);43 pace Tarán (‘but in the Laws neither wisdom nor any other question is left open for further discussion’),44 the absence of this explanation also renders Laws incomplete. As will become clear below, it is precisely by crowning the four virtues with a fifth, i.e. piety, that the Stranger can come to the aid of Clinias on a theoretical level: Epinomis shows how piety makes the unity of virtue possible by creating a bridge between courage and wisdom (cf. Laws 963e1–8). In return for this instruction in virtue, the Stranger makes his bid for political power in the last sentence of Epinomis, and Section I has suggested that for the Stranger, the piety of the ruled is identical with his own power exercised through the Council. In short, Epinomis completes an incomplete Laws in two ways: it points the way towards the unity of virtue, i.e. the theoretical problem left unresolved in Laws,45 while laying the foundation for the practical implementation of the 41 Cf. ibid., p. 19, ‘[t]he legislation for the projected Cretan colony is left unfinished at the end of the Laws because of the Athenian Stranger’s refusal to legislate about the Nocturnal Council . . .’ with ‘[f]rom a dramatic point of view at least the Laws is complete, and few themes better illustrate its unity than that of the true object of legislation [sc. virtue] and the need to preserve the state’. In fact, until we know what one thing virtue is, the city is in a perilous condition (Laws 964c6–d2) and its preservation remains in doubt (Laws 969c3). 42 Ibid., p. 22 n. 83: ‘It is those who in fact are councilors because they have mastered the studies who will enact the law establishing the council and will thereby bring to completion the Cretan colony.’ 43 Quoted in n. 46 below. 44 Ibid., p. 25 n. 96. Is it not remarkable, given this belief, that Tarán regards Laws as Platonic? 45 See ibid., p. 323 on 989c4–d1: ‘This passage shows how eujsevbeia will insure the practice of the whole of virtue in the state.’ 96 W.H.F. ALTMAN city, the only ending that could possibly justify the enormous effort already expended on legislating for the city while simultaneously breaking a vicious circle that would render that city impossible and Laws dramatically inconsequential if not futile. ‘Fatal to any and every attempt to see in the E. the continuation of the Laws’46 is the speech of Megillus at 969c4–d3; while the Spartan shows himself to be committed to ‘the actual foundation of the city’, Tarán’s incompatibility thesis is validated by the fact that higher education is the topic of discussion in Epinomis. Naturally he makes no attempt to deny that such a discussion would be entirely appropriate for a de jure Council and thus my response to this first argument is that we are watching the Stranger take advantage of the commitment of both Megillus and Clinias (Laws 969d1–2) to create the city by constituting the Council de facto. Tarán’s second argument relates to the pretext for this second round: he points out that ‘there is no agreement to meet again’ in Plato’s Laws.47 As already indicated, however, there is considerable unfinished business: on a practical level, the city cannot be created until there is a Council and, once constituted, the Council must legislate about higher education in accordance with Laws XII. The reason the Stranger does not embark on this legislation is that the Council’s de facto constitution (and thus the city’s) occurs only in the last sentence of Epinomis, while the discussion leading up to this climax — a discussion of piety, the fifth virtue, and its relation to wisdom — addresses the only unfinished theoretical business left over from Laws XII: the unity of the four virtues. How the Stranger’s un-Platonic version of piety accomplishes the unification of the four virtues will be considered later; for the present, it is enough to point out that (1) such a unification is desiderated in Laws XII, (2) it is not accomplished there, and (3) that in the very act of postponing its accomplishment, a secure agreement is made between Clinias and the Stranger that it must be accomplished.48 46 Ibid., p. 22 n. 84. Ibid., p. 23. 48 965e4–966a4: ‘Ath. If, however, it seems that the topic [sc. ‘what it is that we assert is one in courage, moderation, justice, and prudence’ 965d1–3] should be completely abandoned, then it must be abandoned. Kl. By the god of strangers, stranger [nh; to;n xevne, qeovn]! Surely such a topic ought least to be abandoned, since what you’re saying [sc. ‘Or do we suppose that if this eludes us, we’ll be in a satisfactory situation as regards virtue, when we won’t be able to explain whether it’s many, or four, or one? No’. 965d7–e3] seems to us to be very correct [ojrqovtata]. But now how would someone contrive this? Ath. Let’s not discuss yet [mhvpw] how we might contrive it. First [prw'ton] let’s make sure [bebaiwswvmeqa], by agreeing among ourselves [th'/ sunomologiva pro;" hJma'" aujtouvv"], if it’s necessary or not. Kl. But surely it’s necessary [ajlla; mh;n dei' ge] — if, that is, it’s possible’. It is this sunomologiva in Laws that provides the basis for the oJmologiva of Epinomis 973a1; Tarán ignores this connection. Consider also the oath of Clinias in the context of the last sentence of Epinomis. 47 WHY PLATO WROTE EPINOMIS 97 Tarán lays particular emphasis on his third argument49 and his claims about the illegitimate presence of legislation in Epinomis have already been quoted and discussed in Section I. His fourth argument attacks Epinomis from the opposite direction: he points out that the discussion of higher discussion found there fails to address the topics reserved for the Council in Laws XII.50 These topics are: (a) a list of qualified candidates, (b) a list of subjects to be studied, and (c) the length of time to be devoted to each. My response is that in Epinomis, the Stranger must negotiate a path that avoids doing openly what only the de jure Council described in Laws could do while nevertheless creating the de facto Council at the very end. Avoiding detailed discussion of membership requirements and sequence of studies is essential for both purposes: despite the fact that Clinias and Megillus are qualified to be councillors only through their approval of what he alone knows (and their commitment to learn more from him in the future)51 the Stranger makes his bid for securing their support by offering to make all three of them hallowed objects of an unPlatonic piety. His fifth, sixth and seventh arguments are presented in the crucial penultimate paragraph of ‘The E. and the Dramatic End of the Laws’, after which he states the important conclusion: ‘This misunderstanding of the dramatic purpose of the Laws, whether purposeful or not, is definite and sufficient evidence that the E. is not Plato’s, but there are additional arguments which are hardly less decisive.’52 Of the sixth and seventh of these arguments, the latter is based entirely on the last sentence of Epinomis and has already been addressed; the fifth and sixth must now be quoted: The list of studies, a summary of which was given in the Laws itself, is developed in E. 990a2–992a5; but it is incompatible with the Laws and definitely un-Platonic, as we shall see in the next section of this chapter. Finally and most important, whereas the Laws leaves the task of legislating about the Nocturnal Council and thereby establishing the council itself to the councilors who have already been trained, since only they will be able to legislate about the time during which each subject is to be studied, there is in the E. no reference whatever to such time.53 Tarán is perfectly correct in this last statement; my explanation of the omission is found in the previous paragraph.54 I have already made my case that 49 See Tarán, Academica, p. 23. Ibid., pp. 23–4; for (a)–(c) in the sentence that follows, see p. 21. 51 Laws 7.821e1–6 will be discussed in Section III. 52 Tarán, Academica, p. 24. 53 Ibid. 54 This explanation applies as well to Tarán, ibid.: ‘Thus, instead of a list of qualified candidates for the office of warden E. 989b4–c3 provides only a general description of the best natures in which no mention is made of the age of the candidates as was required in the Laws.’ 50 98 W.H.F. ALTMAN Tarán’s insistence that ‘Laws leaves the task of . . . establishing the council itself to the councilors’ contains what he fails to realize is a vicious circle created by the Stranger himself along with the coup d’etat that evades it. The fifth argument stated in the first sentence quoted above — i.e. that the list of studies in Laws XII is incompatible with what is discussed in Epinomis — will be answered in Section III, where attention will shift from the connection between Laws XII and Epinomis, emphasized throughout by Tarán, to the connection between the latter and Laws VII. Tarán’s eighth and ninth arguments are indeed extremely important: since the raison d’être of the city is virtue, the desiderated higher education programme — regardless of who will receive it, what studies will comprise it and how much time will be allotted to each — must enable the councilors to solve what Tarán calls ‘the old paradox of the unity of virtue’ by means of ‘the ability to go from the many to the one’ and vice versa.55 ‘Specifically such training must provide the councilors with knowledge of the unity of virtue, the skopov" of the state. Is this the intended result of the course of studies described in the E.? I submit that it is not.’56 Tarán’s reason for phrasing the claim in this tentative manner quickly becomes clear; nevertheless, having indicated what Epinomis does not accomplish with respect to virtue, his ninth argument states that what it does accomplish is inconsistent with Laws: To be sure virtue plays an important role in the E., and the acquisition of it is considered necessary for that of happiness. Moreover, to acquire the whole of virtue one must acquire its most important part, wisdom. So much is compatible with the Laws. But subsequently wisdom is identified with piety and piety with astronomy, and thus the result of the education recommended in the E. is said to be the unity of nature through number and not of the unity of virtue as described in the Laws. So the E., purporting to complete the Laws by explaining what wisdom is, is in its explanation at variance with the Laws.57 In response to these two arguments, the first point is that the unity of virtue is never ‘described in the Laws’; it is desiderated, or rather required, but never described. What is described there is the principal obstacle to any such unification: the radical difference between courage and frovnhsi": Ath. Ask me why, when we assert both to be the one, virtue, we then refer to them again as two, as courage and prudence [to; de; frovnhsin]. For I’ll tell 55 Ibid., pp. 25–6: ‘Since the skopov" is the whole of virtue and since virtue has four parts, knowledge of the skopov" by the councilors means that they will have to explain the old paradox of the unity of virtue, which requires the ability to go from the many to the one and from the one to the many, for only this is knowledge, which knowledge is then generalized to include the beautiful, the good, and all worthy subjects.’ Compare Symposium on Beauty and Republic on the Good. 56 Ibid., p. 26. 57 Ibid. WHY PLATO WROTE EPINOMIS 99 you the reason: it’s because the one — courage — is concerned with fear, and even the beasts share in it, as do the dispositions, at least, of the very young children [kai; tav ge tw'n paivdwn h[qh tw'n pavnu nevwn]. For soul becomes courageous without reason [a[neu ga;r lovgou] and by nature, but, on the other hand, without reason soul never has, does not, and never will become prudent and possessed of intelligence [fuvsei givgnetai ajndreiva yuchv, a[neu de; au\ lovgou yuchv frovnimo" te kaiv nou'n e[cousa ou[t! ejgevneto pwvpote] for that is a different entity.58 Although Tarán never discusses this passage,59 it is of crucial importance: it establishes a connection between frovnhsi", the principal subject of Epinomis (973a2–3), and the unsolved problem of the unity of virtue. The Stranger’s radical disjunction of courage and frovnhsi" makes a Socratic approach to the problem — e.g. ‘virtue is knowledge’ — unthinkable: courage is irrational (a[neu lovgou). It is precisely because the unified virtue desiderated by the Stranger in Laws must embrace both rational and irrational elements that frovnhsi" will be identified with piety in Epinomis. Epinomis reveals that the Stranger’s conception of piety is Janus-like: those with frovnhsi", the Athenian Stranger in particular, possess piety because their astronomical knowledge allows them to know the gods while the others who lack this knowledge (a[neu lovgou) are pious only when they revere both the celestial gods and those who know them, i.e. the Nocturnal Council. Tarán simply assumes that the Stranger has a Socratic solution for the unity of virtue in the Laws whereas it is only in Epinomis, where more than one Many becomes One,60 that his solution, not Plato’s, is presented or rather revealed. The wise one has frovnhsi",61 frovnhsi" is astronomical knowledge, and it is through astronomy that piety combines rationality with irrationality and therefore secures not only the unity of virtue but the unity of the city: the Stranger’s utterly un-Platonic piety is both knowledge of visible gods and an otherwise irrational reverence for those who lay exclusive claim to it. In short, the obedient practice piety a[neu lovgou and this is their virtue. Tarán’s assumption that the Stranger’s eventual solution to the unification of the virtues will be Socratic is the basis for his tenth, eleventh, twelfth and thirteenth arguments: it is here that Plato’s Republic enters the picture because Tarán uses it to drive a wedge between Laws and Epinomis on a theoretical level. This is a very welcome move: like Tarán, I regard Republic to be the best basis for determining what is truly Platonic. Having shown that in Epinomis it is astronomy, not dialectic, that accomplishes finding the One in 58 Laws 963e1–6; with tav . . . tw'n pavnu nevwn compare 7.833e1–2. See Tarán, Academica, pp. 29 n. 120 and p. 397 ad loc. 60 In addition to 992b6–7, see 991e1–3 and 992a1, also see W.H.F. Altman, Plato the Teacher: The Crisis of the Republic (Lanham, 2012), pp. 153–7 and 328–9. 61 973b3; cf. Tarán, Academica, p. 205 on 973a2–5 and the useful mention of Philebus at p. 92 n. 418. 59 100 W.H.F. ALTMAN the Many (this is his tenth argument),62 Tarán then shows that despite not being named there, dialectic and the Ideas are implied in Laws thereby making the longer dialogue consistent with Republic (this is his eleventh argument)63 while Epinomis, thanks to its emphasis on astronomy, is not (his twelfth).64 His thirteenth argument is that the Ideas are denied in Epinomis.65 The difference between our positions emerges not in relation to Epinomis — we agree that it is un-Platonic — but with respect to Laws: according to Tarán, the Athenian Stranger makes it clear in Laws XII that he intends to accomplish the unification of the virtues by means of dialectic and the Idea of the Good as described in Republic VI and VII.66 Since astronomy is as central in Epinomis as the Idea of the Good and dialectic are in Republic (509b6–10 and 511b3–c2) and since the Stranger’s emphasis on the study of the visible heavens ignores or rather negates Socrates’ claims in Republic VII (529a9–b3) while simultaneously leaving no room for the intelligible Ideas,67 it is only with Tarán’s eleventh argument that I take issue. Nor is our disagreement absolute even here: just as the problem of the unity of virtue is deliberately left unsolved at the end of Laws, so also does it ipso facto remain unclear how the Stranger intends to solve that problem. Just as Tarán exaggerates the degree to which Laws is complete from a dramatic perspective, so also in ‘Astronomy, Dialectic, and the Rejection of the Ideas’ does he exaggerate the Stranger’s commitment to Platonism.68 Although there is evidence throughout Laws that the Stranger is not Socrates and does not 62 Tarán, Academica, pp. 27–8. Ibid., pp. 28–30. 64 Ibid., pp. 30–2. 65 Ibid., p. 32. 66 Ibid., p. 29: ‘That this mevqodo", moreover, is not merely an ancillary discipline independent of the metaphysical doctrine of ideas with which Plato elsewhere connects it, is shown by the recurring motive of pro;" e}n blevpein; and this motive, connected as it is with the assertion that to explain the unity of virtue is more difficult than to show why the virtues are many, implies that when the wardens are able pro;" mivan ijdeva" ejk tw'n pollw'n kai; ajnomoivwn blevpein the miva ijdeva that they will apprehend is that of the good.’ Compare Epinomis 991e5 and his far less charitable comment on it; p. 347 (on 991e5) directs the reader to p. 345 (991d8–992a1). It is worth emphasizing that Tarán’s lack of charity to Epinomis is entirely appropriate; it is his generosity to Laws that is misplaced. 67 Tarán, Academica, p. 32. 68 Ibid., p. 32 n. 140: ‘In the Laws the ideas are not openly mentioned but their existence is implied, as we have argued.’ See also p. 29 n. 123: ‘This seems to me to be the reason for mentioning in 966a5–7 the beautiful and the good in their manifold manifestations and in their essential unity.’ He is once again far less generous, i.e. more accurate, about such merely verbal cues at p. 342 on Epinomis 991c2. Thus the paradox emerges that my argument for an authentic Epinomis has considerably more common ground with Tarán, who athetizes it, than with Fr. des Places who considers it both authentic and Platonic. See Tarán, Academica, p. 31 n. 134. 63 WHY PLATO WROTE EPINOMIS 101 speak for Plato,69 the Stranger certainly does use the word ‘idea’ in Laws XII (965c2), thereby leaving open the possibility that Tarán is correct. But Plato also leaves open the possibility that the Stranger will solve the problem of virtue as he does in Epinomis. The Stranger’s last word on the subject in Laws is that we must discover the unifying principal of the virtues ‘whether it be one, or a whole, or both of these, or however be its nature’.70 These words hardly prove that the Stranger is going to unify virtue by employing dialectic to illustrate the relation of each of its four parts to the Idea of the Good. On the other hand, despite an implicit preference for finding the One in the Many, they also do not prove that he already has the Epinomis solution in mind. In short: the nature of the Stranger’s solution to the problem of virtue is left mysterious at the end of Plato’s Laws in much the same way as we are left wondering whether or not the city will actually come into being. Indeed if it were obvious at the end of Laws that the Stranger — having constituted himself and his interlocutors as the Nocturnal Council — intended to replace dialectic with astronomy and solve that problem of virtue with an un-Platonic version of piety based on collapsing the distinctions between the highest good, the visible universe and those wise enough to understand its cosmic regularities, he would not have written Epinomis. III The Thirteenth Book of Plato’s Laws Another mark of Tarán’s superior scholarship is that he combines his case against the dialogue’s authenticity with a detailed account of Philip of Opus, the follower of Plato to whom he, following Diogenes Laertius (3.37), attributes authorship.71 In his third chapter, Tarán usefully gathers all of the testimonia regarding this curious figure, beginning with the particularly curious notice in Suidas: without naming Philip, the lexicon identifies a ‘philosopher who divided Plato’s Laws into twelve books, for the thirteenth he himself is said to have added’.72 This text provides ancient authority for the view that the same person who wrote Epinomis also divided Laws into twelve books. Like the question of the provenance of the sub-titles of Plato’s dialogues,73 the circumstances of the division into books of Plato’s two long dialogues are obscure. Those willing to entertain the possibility that Plato himself was responsible for doing so will find here some evidence for that view. 69 See Altman, ‘A Tale of Two Drinking Parties’. Laws 965d6–7. 71 Tarán, Academica, pp. 115–39. 72 Ibid., p. 115 (translation mine). 73 See R. Hoerber, ‘Thrasylus’ Platonic Canon and the Double Titles’, Phronesis, 2 (1957), pp. 10–20. 70 102 W.H.F. ALTMAN My explicit claim, however, is that whoever gave Epinomis its third subtitle — ‘The Thirteenth Book of the Laws’ — understood Plato’s intentions.74 Once Laws is recognized as having thirteen books, it ipso facto comes to possess for the first time a central book: Laws VII. Tarán attempts to validate his incompatibility thesis by emphasizing the relationship between Epinomis and Laws XII; in the previous section, I have argued that this attempt fails. In Section III, attention will be focused on Laws VII, a book whose centrality, in either a literal or a figurative sense, becomes evident in the light of Epinomis and particularly in the context of its final sentence as explicated in Section I. Of course the statements made by the Athenian Stranger in Laws VII are what they are quite apart from the fact that they are found in what becomes its central book once that dialogue is recognized as reaching its theoretical, practical, and dramatic tevlo" in Epinomis.75 I am therefore claiming that the more carefully a philosopher has read Laws VII, the less will she or he be surprised by the Stranger’s words and actions in Epinomis: it is in Laws VII that the reader will discover the best evidence that Plato himself has indicated, for example, that the Stranger’s solution to the problem of virtue is more likely to be the un-Platonic version revealed in Epinomis as opposed to the Platonic alternative Tarán finds in Laws XII. A few general remarks about the difference between Tarán’s Stranger and Plato’s are useful before citing the crucial passages in Laws VII. Tarán would have a better case if dialectic had been defined in Republic VI and VII as that which discovers the interconnections between the five mathematical sciences, i.e. within them.76 But since this project is merely a prelude (Republic 531c9– d8), it is Socrates’ description of dialectic in the Divided Line that is relevant: only having reached up to the Idea of the Good ‘making no use whatever of any object of sense’ (Republic 511c1; translation Paul Shorey) can we work our way back down (Republic 511b7–8) to the virtues: the unity of the virtues would be derived ab extra, from a strictly intelligible Idea upon which they all 74 Hoerber fails to note that only Epinomis had a triple title before it acquired a fourth; see Hoerber, ‘Double Titles’, pp. 12–13. 75 Once Laws is recognized as having in Book VII a middle (cf. Laws 715e8–716a1), each of its two parts ipso facto come to possess a middle as well: Book IV is the middle of the first half, Book X that of the second. Although this is not the place to show it, Books IV and X (along with VII) are particularly important for revealing the ambition and impiety of the Stranger. 76 Tarán, Academica, p. 29 n. 120: ‘Hence there is a need of a more accurate and higher education that will enable the guardians to grasp unity in plurality . . . to look to unity from the multitude of dissimilar things: the guardians must discern accurately the identical element that pervades the four virtues; and this is the kind of knowledge they must have about the beautiful and the good: they must know not only that each is a plurality, but also how each is a unit.’ Plato’s solution to the problem of the One and the Many is not that either the Good or the Beautiful are a plurality. Cf. Epinomis 991e3, 992a1 and 992b6–7. WHY PLATO WROTE EPINOMIS 103 depend and from which they are equally derived. The Idea of the Good is not mentioned in Plato’s Laws: here the emphasis, as indicated by the dialogue’s first word, is ‘God’. If the Stranger’s God resembled Allah, i.e. a transcendent divinity of whom no image can be made, Tarán likewise would have had a better case. But long before the Stranger has revealed his gods to be the visible heavens in Epinomis, long before he has presented piety as the unifying factor that unites the other four virtues, and discovered the One within the visible Many (992b6–7), he has already adumbrated the personal and political implications of those identifications in Laws VII: the ‘pious’ astronomer who knows god as cosmic plurality becomes ipso facto divine. The subject of astronomy is first broached in Laws VII as the third of three subjects reserved for free men:77 arithmetic, geometry (broadly conceived to include stereometry) and astronomy. It is this passage (Laws 817e5–822d3), not Laws XII, which should be compared with Epinomis; this observation constitutes my reply to Tarán’s fifth argument.78 The Stranger forthwith draws attention to ‘the necessity that cannot be expelled from these subjects’79 and explains the proverbial ‘even a god is never seen to fight against necessity’80 by indicating that there are certain necessities that are divine, not human. This prompts Clinias to inquire: ‘Kl. What are the necessities in these subjects [sc. arithmetic, geometry and astronomy], stranger, that are not of this sort?’81 The Stranger’s reply is revealing: Ath. In my opinion, they are those which one cannot avoid acting according to and knowing something about if one would ever become, among human beings, a god or a demon or a hero capable of exercising serious supervision over humans [oujk a[n pote gevnoito ajnqrwvpoi" qeo;" oujde; daivmwn h{rw" oi|o" dunato;" ajnqrwvpwn ejpimevleian su;n spoudh'/ poiei'sqai].82 It is this impious inclination towards self-deification83 that proves Epinomis genuine; it is with these words in mind that the construction of its last sentence as presented in Section I must be reconsidered and confirmed. 77 Laws 817e5. Although his argument is not entirely clear, Tarán, Academica, p. 25 (the citation of ‘Laws 966c–968a’) and p. 27 n. 112, suggest that he is claiming that there is nothing in Laws to indicate the commanding place of astronomy in Epinomis. See p. 25 n. 99 for his comments on Book VII. 79 Laws 818a7; translation mine. 80 Ibid. 818b2–3. 81 Ibid. 818b7–8. 82 Ibid. 818b9–c3. 83 The dramatic link between Theaetetus and Euthyphro increases the importance of making a clear distinction (cf. P. Stern, Knowledge and Politics in Plato’s Theaetetus (Cambridge, 2008), pp. 162–82) between Socrates and the (impious?) philosopher he describes at Theaetetus 176a8–b3. The combination of ‘flight’ with ‘assimilation to 78 104 W.H.F. ALTMAN After some further remarks about arithmetic and geometry, the Stranger makes an enigmatic reference to the incompleteness of his current discussion and it is this incompleteness that first points towards Epinomis: Ath. So now, stranger, shall these things be laid down as belonging to the required subjects of study, so that there won’t be gaps in our laws? Let them be laid down like deposits, outside the rest of the political regime [kaqavper ejnevcura luvsima ejk th'" a[llh" politeiva"], redeemable in case we, the depositors, or you, the holders [h] tou;" qevnta" hJma'" h] kai; tou;" qemevnou" uJma'"], find the pledge in no way welcome [mhdamw'" filofronh'tai].84 This is the passage that joins Laws to Epinomis: the latter constitutes the first instalment of the detachable pledges (ejnevcura luvsima) promised here, pledges that can only be redeemed by a full account of the relevant mathematical sciences. If the two Dorians should prove themselves unreceptive to the Stranger’s distinctive kind of frovnhsi", they will not redeem these ejnevcura luvsima and Laws will stand complete without Book XIII. But if both the Stranger (tou;" qevnta" hJma'") and the Dorians (tou;" qemevnou" uJma'") agree, hJma'" and uJma'" will finally become simply hJma'" in the last sentence of Plato’s Epinomis. The discussion of astronomy that follows also points toward Epinomis when the Stranger states the case for the popular conception of piety: ‘Ath. With regard to the greatest god, and the cosmos as a whole, we assert that one should not conduct investigations nor busy oneself with trying to discover the causes — for it is not pious to do so.’85 Having voiced this Socratic sentiment (cf. Xenophon Memorabilia 1.1.9) in order to reject it, the Stranger then speaks his own mind: ‘Ath. But when someone thinks there’s a subject of learning that is noble, true, beneficial to the city, and dear in every way to the god, it is in no way possible for him to refrain from telling about it.’86 This passage bears on Tarán’s fourteenth argument: that the piety found in Epinomis is un-Platonic. Although Tarán is too quick to deny the importance of piety in Plato generally,87 he is perfectly correct about the Stranger’s fraudulent version of it; the relevant point is that the Athenian Stranger is no more pious in Laws than he is in Epinomis.88 God’ as well as the emphasis on frovnhsi" supports the claim that the Athenian Stranger is the fleeing Socrates. 84 Laws 820e2–6. 85 Ibid. 821a2–5. 86 Ibid. 821a8–b2. 87 Tarán, Academica, pp. 32–3. 88 It will be noted, for example, that the astronomer may become both god and daivmwn at Laws 818c1; with this line of thought, Socrates’ piety with respect to the daimovnion should be contrasted (Apology 27d4–10). Bearing in mind that he considers Laws Platonic, consider Tarán, Academica, p. 45: ‘. . . there are no such daemones with WHY PLATO WROTE EPINOMIS 105 When his elderly interlocutor expresses interest in learning more about what the youth should be taught about these things,89 the Stranger opens the door that will eventually grant Clinias and Megillus de facto membership in the Nocturnal Council: Ath. But it isn’t easy to learn what I’m speaking of. On the other hand, it isn’t totally difficult, nor does it require a great deal of time. The proof is that I, who heard about this when I was no longer young — in fact not so long ago — could make it clear to you without taking up too much time. If the subject were a difficult one, I would never be able, at my age, to make it clear to men of your age.90 It is this easy flexibility that will justify the Stranger’s de facto proclamation in the last sentence of Epinomis that all three of them are iJkanw'" gnovnta" te kai; dokimavsanta". Even the solution to the problem of the One and the Many that the Stranger will reveal at the end of Epinomis is already implicit in his response to Clinias’ request for more information, not indeed about the instruction for old men to which the Stranger has just alluded, but that which is ‘appropriate for the young to learn’. Ath. It ought to be attempted. Best of men, that dogma is incorrect that holds that the moon, the sun, and the other stars sometimes wander. The case is entirely the opposite of this: each of them always moves with the same circular path, which is one and not many [ouj polla;" ajlla; mivan ajei; kuvklw/ diexevrcetai] — though each appears to move in many.91 This approach will culminate in Epinomis (991e2–4) where the unfinished business of Laws VII (822c7–9) becomes one with the problem of virtue left over from Laws XII (966a1–4).92 It is in Book VII that the end of Laws first becomes a theme93 and the Stranger is revealed at the halfway point on his long theological-political journey to self-deification when he claims divine inspiration (‘it appears to me that we have not been speaking without some inspiration from the gods’)94 for bodies in Plato, though he often speaks of daemones’ in the context of Laws 819c1; naturally the daivmwn described there would have a body. See also Laws 713d2–7. 89 Laws 821e7–822a3. 90 Ibid. 821e1–6. 91 Ibid. 822a4–8. 92 See also the penultimate sentence of Epinomis (992c6–d3): ‘Only those who are by nature godlike and moderate, who also possess the rest of virtue [oJpovsoi ga;r qei'oi kai; swvfrone" a{ma th'" a[llh" te metevconte" ajreth'" fuvsei], and have understood all the subjects connected with the blessed science (and we have stated what these are) have obtained and possess all the gifts of divinity in adequate measure [ta; tou' daimonivou suvmpanta iJkanw'" ei[lhcev te kai; e[cei].’ 93 See Laws 799e1–7; also 812a8–9 and 818a3. 94 Ibid. 811c8–9. 106 W.H.F. ALTMAN his own words. Similar boundaries collapse throughout Laws VII: between any heroic man and the gods,95 between the Stranger and his law,96 between either the Director of Music or the Guardian(s) of the Law and the Stranger,97 between the gods and the visible heavens,98 and thus — given his knowledge of astronomy — between the Stranger and ‘god’.99 By the time that the best citizen will be defined as one who obeys not only the explicit laws but also the lawgiver’s intent,100 the divisions between the gods, reason, the law and the lawgiver, will have been rendered strictly theoretical. My argument for the authenticity of Epinomis depends on recognizing that the Athenian Stranger by no means speaks for Plato in Laws and that the always present but comparatively latent anti-Platonism of the Stranger in the longer dialogue is deliberately made manifest when a fraudulent ‘philosopher’ convenes ‘the Nocturnal Council’ in ‘the Thirteenth Book of the Laws’. In this sense, Epinomis is paradoxically more Platonic than Laws: its unPlatonic solution to the problem of virtue — to say nothing of its solution to ‘the theological-political problem’101 — here becomes obvious to everyone. It is therefore in a strictly dialectical sense that Epinomis is more Platonic than Laws: Plato here gives the reader who is willing to enter into a critical dialogue with the text far clearer indications that serious objections must be lodged against what the Stranger is saying and doing.102 It is only for readers who recognize what they are reading that Plato’s Laws become the dialectical dialogue par excellence. My claim is that Plato wrote Epinomis in order to make this recognition easy for those who may have missed it the first time round. By way of a conclusion, consider the Athenian Stranger’s words at Epinomis 991c2–6: 95 The process that culminates with linking ‘god’ (via intermediaries) to ‘a hero such as is capable of taking care of human beings with seriousness’ (818c2–3; translation mine) begins at 796c8–d1 and continues through 799a7, 801e2–3 and 815d5–6. 96 Ibid. 804d7. 97 Ibid. 811d5. 98 Ibid. 809c7, 817e8–818a4, 818b7–8, 821b8–9 and 822a6–8. 99 Ibid. 818b9–c3 is quoted above; see also 818c3–5: ‘A human being, at any rate, would fall far short of becoming divine [pollou' d! a]n dehvseien a[nqrwpov" ge qei'o" genevsqai] if he couldn’t learn . . .’. 100 Ibid. 822e8–823a6; note that ‘the great man in a city and perfect . . . the one who wins the prize for virtue’ (5.730d6–7; translation mine) is an informant. 101 W. Altman, The German Stranger: Leo Strauss and National Socialism (Lanham, 2011), pp. 236, 267–8, 462–3. 102 Compare the use of kivbdhlo" at Republic 507a5. In Altman, Plato the Teacher, I have given the name ‘basanistic’ to statements, discourses and even dialogues that Plato expects readers to challenge and thereby tests them by provoking them to do so (pp. 91–2 and 97–9). For the application of this approach to the openly anachronistic and latently fraudulent account of Athenian imperialism in Menexenus, see W.H.F. Altman, ‘The Reading Order of Plato’s Dialogues’, Phoenix, 64 (2010), pp. 18–51. WHY PLATO WROTE EPINOMIS 107 In addition, in all our discussions we must fit the individual [to; kaq! e}n] to the species [tw'/ kat! ei[dh/] both questioning and refuting those things that have not been nobly spoken [ejrwtw'nta te kai; ejlevgconta ta; mh; kalw'" rJhqevnta]. This method is the first and finest touchstone [bavsano"] for humans to use, whereas all the tests that are not genuine but pretend to be so involve everyone in totally useless labor [mataiovtato" povno" aJpavntwn].103 Although the words to; kaq! e}n and tw'/ kat! ei[dh/ force Tarán to admit that the Stranger is using the ‘technical terminology of the procedure of dialectic as exemplified by the method of collection and division’,104 he preserves his eleventh and twelfth arguments — i.e. that dialectic is present in Laws but absent in Epinomis — by insisting that this Stranger, unlike his counterpart in Laws, is doing nothing more than ‘talking the talk’. Where genuine dialectic is concerned, the Athenian Stranger never does anything more. It is only the reader who is being subjected to a dialectical bavsano" throughout the unSocratic discourses found in both dialogues and it is only Plato’s chosen reader who will question and refute ta; mh; kalw'" rJhqevnta throughout this arduous journey. It is yet another mark of Plato’s playful genius that his own fraudulent Stranger is here suggesting the truth by inadvertently bearing witness against himself: those who read the twelve ponderous books of Laws on the uncritical assumption that the Stranger speaks for Plato, i.e. without the generous illumination offered the student by Epinomis, are engaged in mataiovtato" povno" aJpavntwn: ‘the vainest labour of all’.105 W.H.F. Altman 103 E.C. GLASS HIGH SCHOOL I have modified McKirahan’s translation, replacing his ‘by asking questions and refuting errors’ with ‘both . . . spoken’. 104 Tarán, Academica, p. 342 on 991c2. 105 Thanks are due to Kyriakos Demetriou and two anonymous readers for Polis.