To these peculiarities of words he has added a list of peculiar expressions and constructions. Among the most characteristic are the following: VIII 841 D, ἄθυτα παλλακῶν σπέρματα; IX 855 C, ἄμορφοι ἕδραι; III 690 D, ὅσα ἀξιώματα πρὸς ἄρχοντας; VI 744 B, οἱ κατὰ πόλιν καιροί; μῦθος, used in several places of “the discourse about laws”; and connected with this the frequent use of παραμύθιον and παραμυθεῖσθαι in the general sense of “address,” “addressing”; VII 823 E, αἱμύλος ἔρως; XII 960 B, ἄταφοι πράξεις; VI 752 A, μῦθος ἀκέφαλος; VI 775 D, ἶθος εὐθύπορον. He remarks also on the frequent employment of the abstract for the concrete; e.g. ὑπηρεσία for ὑπηρέται, φυγαί for φυγάδες, μηχαναί in the sense of “contrivers,” δουλεία for δοῦλοι, βασιλεῖαι for βασιλεῖς, μαινόμενα κηδεύματα for γυναῖκα μαινομένην; ἡ χρεία τῶν παίδων in the sense of “indigent children,” and παίδων ἱκανότης; τὸ ἔθος τῆς ἀπειρίας for ἡ εἰωθυῖα ἀπειρία; κυπαρίττων ὕψη τε καὶ κάλλη θαυμάσια for κυπάριττοι μάλα ὑψηλαὶ καὶ καλαί. He further notes some curious uses of the genitive case, e.g. φιλίας ὁμολογίαι, μανίαι ὀργῆς, λαιμαργίαι ἡδονῆς, χειμώνων ἀνυποδησίαι, ἀνόσιοι πληγῶν τόλμαι; and of the dative, ὁμιλίαι ἐχθροῖς, νομοθεσίαι ἐπιτρόποις; and also some rather uncommon periphrases, θρέμματα Νείλου, ξυγγεννήτωρ τέκνων for ἄλοχος, Μούσης λέξις or ποίησις, ζωγράφων παῖδες, ἀνθρώπων σπέρματα and the like; the fondness for particles of limitation, especially τις and γε, σύν τισι χάρισι, τοῖς γε δυναμένοις and the like; the pleonastic use of τανῦν, of ὡς, of ὡς ἔπος εἰπεῖν, of ἑκάστοτε; and the periphrastic use of the preposition περί. Lastly, he observes the tendency to hyperbata or transpositions of words, and to rhythmical uniformity as well as grammatical irregularity in the structure of the sentences.
For nearly all the expressions which are adduced by Zeller as arguments against the genuineness of the Laws, Stallbaum finds some sort of authority. There is no real ground for doubting that the work was written by Plato, merely because several words occur in it which are not found in his other writings. An imitator may preserve the usual phraseology of a writer better than he would himself. But, on the other hand, the fact that authorities may be quoted in support of most of these uses of words, does not show that the diction is not peculiar. Several of them seem to be poetical or dialectical, and exhibit an attempt to enlarge the limits of Greek prose by the introduction of Homeric and tragic expressions. Most of them do not appear to have retained any hold on the later language of Greece. Like several experiments in language of the writers of the Elizabethan age, they were afterwards lost; and though occasionally found in Plutarch and imitators of Plato, they have not been accepted by Aristotle or passed into the common dialect of Greece.
5. Unequal as the Laws are in style, they contain a few passages which are very grand and noble. For example, the address to the poets at VII 817: “Best of strangers, we also are poets of the best and noblest tragedy; for our whole state is an imitation of the best and noblest life, which we affirm to be indeed the very truth of tragedy.” Or again, the sight of young men and maidens in friendly intercourse with one another, suggesting the dangers to which youth is liable from the violence of passion (VIII 835–841); or the eloquent denunciation of unnatural lusts in the same passage; or the charming thought that the best legislator “orders war for the sake of peace and not peace for the sake of war” (I 628 E); or the pleasant allusion, “O Athenian—inhabitant of Attica, I will not say, for you seem to me worthy to be named after the Goddess Athene because you go back to first principles” (I 626 D); or the pithy saying, “Many a victory has been and will be suicidal to the victors, but education is never suicidal” (I 641 C); or the fine expression that “the walls of a city should be allowed to sleep in the earth, and that we should not attempt to disinter them” (VI 778 D); or the remark that “God is the measure of all things in a sense far higher than any man can be” (IV 716 C); or that “a man should be from the first a partaker of the truth, that he may live a true man as long as possible” (V 730 C); or the principle
