Eleventh Letter (Plato)

The Eleventh Letter, or Eleventh Epistle, is one of thirteen letters which are traditionally attributed to Plato. Purportedly addressed by Plato to one Laodamas, the brief letter first laments that Plato and Laodamas are unable to meet in person. The context of the letter indicates that Laodamas is responsible for helping to institute government in a colony, already understood by the author in the present letter. The author advises that laws alone will be insufficient to govern the colony, or city, without some sort of military or police force which is further tasked with practically enforcing order.

Text

PLATO TO LAODAMAS, WELFARE.
I have written you before that the matters you have mentioned will all be greatly advanced if you yourself can come to Athens; but since you say that is impossible, the next best thing would be, as you write, that I or Socrates should come to you, if we can. But Socrates is ill with strangury, and it would be unseemly for me to come and not accomplish what you summoned me for. For my part I have little hope that it can be done, though to explain why would require another and longer letter giving all the reasons; and besides, at my time of life I have not the bodily strength for travel and for all the dangers that one encounters both by land and by sea, and at present all the circumstances of travel are full of danger. I can, however, give you and the leaders of your colony a piece of advice which, when I have spoken it, "may seem trifling," to quote Hesiod, but is hard to take. If they think that a constitution can ever be well established by the enactment of laws, of whatever sort they may be, without some authority in the city to look after the daily life of the citizens and to insure that both free men and slaves live in a temperate and manly fashion, they are thinking wrongly. This could be done, however, if you have at hand men worthy of exercising such authority; but if you lack an educator, then you have neither teachers nor learners, as I see it, and no course is left but to pray to the gods. Indeed most cities in the past have been similarly established and later attained good government under the force of circumstances brought on by war or other enterprises of the city, when a man of nobility and character has appeared and exercised great power. In the meantime you must and should ardently desire this to happen; but reflect on what I have said and do not act lightly, thinking that success is within your grasp. Good luck!

— Eleventh Letter, traditionally attributed to Plato

Background

Unlike the large majority of Plato's major works, the Letters are not Socratic dialogues. Further, despite their traditional attribution to Plato, the Letters are variously held to be spurious or suspect by modern scholarship.

Collectively, the thirteen Letters are commonly grouped together as one larger item (called either Letters or Epistles). In turn, this larger collection of Letters is traditionally the last item in the Thrasyllan tetraologies, a traditional grouping of the major works of Plato which divides them into nine tetraologies of four works apiece. In this arrangement, the Letters occupy the thirty-sixth and final place in the traditional Platonic corpus.

External Links

• tufts.edu translation