ton ichthuopolon ostis an polon tini
ichthun upotimesas apodot elattonos
es eipe times, eis to desmoterion
euthus apagesthai touton, ina dedoikotes
tes axias agaposin, e tes esperas
saprous apantas apopherosin oikade.

Meineke, Frag. Com. Graec.);
(4) by the unanimous voice of later antiquity and the absence of any
suspicion among ancient writers worth speaking of to the contrary; for it
is not said of Philippus of Opus that he composed any part of the Laws,
but only that he copied them out of the waxen tablets, and was thought by
some to have written the Epinomis (Diog. Laert.) That the longest and one
of the best writings bearing the name of Plato should be a forgery, even
if its genuineness were unsupported by external testimony, would be a
singular phenomenon in ancient literature; and although the critical worth
of the consensus of late writers is generally not to be compared with the
express testimony of contemporaries, yet a somewhat greater value may be
attributed to their consent in the present instance, because the admission
of the Laws is combined with doubts about the Epinomis, a spurious
writing, which is a kind of epilogue to the larger work probably of a much
later date. This shows that the reception of the Laws was not altogether
undiscriminating.

The suspicion which has attached to the Laws of Plato in the judgment of
some modern writers appears to rest partly (1) on differences in the style
and form of the work, and (2) on differences of thought and opinion which
they observe in them. Their suspicion is increased by the fact that these
differences are accompanied by resemblances as striking to passages in
other Platonic writings. They are sensible of a want of point in the