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 in-
compatibility 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 recog-
nize 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 Pseudo-
Platonic 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 fol-
lowed the course of Platonic scholarship since 1975: like the Laws, Epinomis
is a dialogue and the views of the Athenian Stranger cannot simply be identi-
fied with Plato’s. Strengthening this obvious move is a noticeable decline in
chronological developmentalism as the exclusive or even primary hermeneu-
tic 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 Athe-
nian Stranger) do not represent stages in Plato’s development but rather dia-
lectical 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 mis-
understood the latter, (2) the latter is Plato’s, therefore (3) the writer of the for-
mer 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 argu-
ments will be considered in Section II. Section I, however, will focus on the
most important text for validating Tarán’s incompatibility thesis: the last sen-
tence 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 read-
ing 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
4C. 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 con-
nection 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 cor-
rupted 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 law-
giver 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 mani-
fest 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 mani-
festly dominate the whole universe, have a motion (orderly, circular motion) which indi-
cates 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 there-
fore 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 god-
desses. 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 empha-
sizes 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 like-
wise 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 sen-
tence 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 else-
where.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 lon-
ger 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 refer-
ences to Plato will be to Burnet’s edition and will be indicated only by Stephanus num-
bers, 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 neces-
sary 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 inti-
mately 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 sum-
marize: ‘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. epana-
diplosis] 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 mark-
ing 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 empha-
sizes the division between gods and goddesses while withholding the actual
word ‘goddesses’ for much the same reason that he describes the plural mem-
bership 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 know-
ing’ (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 rec-
ognize 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 addi-
tional 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 coun-
cilor, 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 992d3–e1 (translation mine); I have deleted Burnet’s comma after pavsa".

22 Laws 632c4–6; cf. Tarán, Academica, p. 21 n. 71.
23 Tarán, Academica, p. 353.
24 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 recog-
nize 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 edu-
cation 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 con-
versation 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.
26
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, sug-
gested 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
 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 ‘di-
vine 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 prob-
lem 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 mat-
ter 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 gram-
mar 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 con-
struction 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 estab-
lished: 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 interpre-
tive 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 gram-
matical 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 Author-
ship of the Epinomis’, consisting of eight sections. Here it is convenient to
consider these sections in three groups: (1) the first three (‘The Ancient Evi-
dence’, ‘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 mem-
ber), 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 ques-
tion 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 con-
tains 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 there-
fore based on a misunderstanding of, Plato’s Laws. On the contrary: Laws
remains conspicuously incomplete on a dramatic level because only the for-
mation 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 dia-
logues 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 impor-
tant even if not essential Platonic doctrine; yet it is not the mere modification of the doc-
trine 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 member-
ship 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 guardian-
ship of virtue and virtue can be preserved only by those who know what vir-
tue — 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 wis-
dom 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 instruc-
tion in virtue, the Stranger makes his bid for political power in the last sen-
tence 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 com-
plete, 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 com-
pletion 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 inconse-
quential 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 incom-
patibility 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 dis-
cussion 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 argu-
ment 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 legis-
late 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 con-
stitution (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 accom-
plished 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

46Ibid., p. 22 n. 84.
47Ibid., 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 pos-
sible’. 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.
 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 creat-
ing the de facto Council at the very end. Avoiding detailed discussion of mem-
bership 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 un-
Platonic piety.
His fifth, sixth and seventh arguments are presented in the crucial penulti-
mate paragraph of ‘The E. and the Dramatic End of the Laws’, after which he
states the important conclusion: ‘This misunderstanding of the dramatic pur-
pose of the Laws, whether purposeful or not, is definite and sufficient evi-
dence 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 omis-
sion is found in the previous paragraph.54 I have already made my case that

49 See Tarán, Academica, p. 23.

50 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.’
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 pro-
gramme — 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 abil-
ity 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 tenta-
tive 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 com-
patible 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 unifi-
cation: 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

55Ibid., 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 Sympo-
sium 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.

59 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.
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 differ-
ence 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 dia-
lectic 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 Socra-
tes’ 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.

63 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 exis-
tence 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 manifesta-
tions 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.
 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 him-
self and his interlocutors as the Nocturnal Council — intended to replace dia-
lectic 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), attrib-
utes authorship.71 In his third chapter, Tarán usefully gathers all of the
testimonia regarding this curious figure, beginning with the particularly curi-
ous notice in Suidas: without naming Philip, the lexicon identifies a ‘philoso-
pher 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’.

70 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.
102 W.H.F. ALTMAN

My explicit claim, however, is that whoever gave Epinomis its third sub-
title — ‘The Thirteenth Book of the Laws’ — understood Plato’s intentions.74
Once Laws is recognized as having thirteen books, it ipso facto comes to pos-
sess 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 Sec-
tion 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 cen-
tral book once that dialogue is recognized as reaching its theoretical, practi-
cal, 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 plural-
ity, 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 impli-
cations 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.
78 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
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 fraud-
ulent 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 jour-
ney 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 ‘philoso-
pher’ convenes ‘the Nocturnal Council’ in ‘the Thirteenth Book of the Laws’.
In this sense, Epinomis is paradoxically more Platonic than Laws: its un-
Platonic 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 dia-
logue 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 un-
Socratic 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 un-
critical assumption that the Stranger speaks for Plato, i.e. without the gener-
ous illumination offered the student by Epinomis, are engaged in mataiovtato"
povno" aJpavntwn: ‘the vainest labour of all’.105

W.H.F. Altman E.C. GLASS HIGH SCHOOL

103 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.