III.  The style of the Laws differs in several important respects from that of the other dialogues of Plato:  (1) in the want of character, power, and lively illustration; (2) in the frequency of mannerisms (compare Introduction to the Philebus); (3) in the form and rhythm of the sentences; (4) in the use of words.  On the other hand, there are many passages (5) which are characterized by a sort of ethical grandeur; and (6) in which, perhaps, a greater insight into human nature, and a greater reach of practical wisdom is shown, than in any other of Plato’s writings.

1.  The discourse of the three old men is described by themselves as an old man’s game of play.  Yet there is little of the liveliness of a game in their mode of treating the subject.  They do not throw the ball to and fro, but two out of the three are listeners to the third, who is constantly asserting his superior wisdom and opportunities of knowledge, and apologizing (not without reason) for his own want of clearness of speech.  He will ‘carry them over the stream;’ he will answer for them when the argument is beyond their comprehension; he is afraid of their ignorance of mathematics, and thinks that gymnastic is likely to be more intelligible to them;—­he has repeated his words several times, and yet they cannot understand him.  The subject did not properly take the form of dialogue, and also the literary vigour of Plato had passed away.  The old men speak as they might be expected to speak, and in this there is a touch of dramatic truth.  Plato has given the Laws that form or want of form which indicates the failure of natural power.  There is no regular plan—­none of that consciousness of what has preceded and what is to follow, which makes a perfect style,—­but there are several attempts at a plan; the argument is ‘pulled up,’ and frequent explanations are offered why a particular topic was introduced.

The fictions of the Laws have no longer the verisimilitude which is characteristic of the Phaedrus and the Timaeus, or even of the Statesman.  We can hardly suppose that an educated Athenian would have placed the visit of Epimenides to Athens ten years before the Persian war, or have imagined that a war with Messene prevented the Lacedaemonians from coming to the rescue of Hellas.  The narrative of the origin of the Dorian institutions, which are said to have been due to a fear of the growing power of the Assyrians, is a plausible invention, which may be compared with the tale of the island of Atlantis and the poem of Solon, but is not accredited by similar arts of deception.  The other statement that the Dorians were Achaean exiles assembled by Dorieus, and the assertion that Troy was included in the Assyrian Empire, have some foundation (compare for the latter point, Diod.  Sicul.).  Nor is there anywhere in the Laws that lively enargeia, that vivid mise en scene, which is as characteristic of Plato as of some modern novelists.