Tom's Learning Notes

The Laws is Plato's last and longest dialogue, and the only one in which Socrates does not appear, unless indeed he is the mysterious Athenian Stranger who joins the Spartan Megillos and the Cretan statesman Clinias. While it is not a dialogue one would choose as introduction to Plato, for serious students of his political theory it is an essential counterpart to the Republic, presenting an apparently more realistic set of proposals than the earlier dialogue, prefiguring the mixed constitution advocated by Aristotle, Polybius and Cicero. Plato's final word is, in the eyes of some, the product of a man disillusioned by his attempts to put his political ideals into practice at the courts of the tyrants of Syracuse.

Free Online and Downloadable Texts

Gutenberg: Laws by Plato, translated by Benjamin Jowett, multiple formats.

Loebulus. L187 - Plato -- Laws I: Books 1-6. PDF of public domain Loeb edition in Greek and English.

Loebulus. L192 - Plato -- Laws II: Books 7-12. PDF of public domain Loeb edition in Greek and English.

Perseus: The Laws. Greek text (Burnet ed., 1903). English translation (Bury, 1967-68). Online texts.

University of Adelaide (Internet Archive): The Laws, translated by Benjamin Jowett. EPUB, HTML and MOBI formats.

Wikisource: The Laws (Plato), translated by Benjamin Jowett. Online text.

Other Resources

Librivox: The Laws - public domain audiobook.

PhilPapers: Plato - Laws - bibliography with open access option.

Wikipedia: The Laws (Dialogue).

The Great Conversation: Further reading at Tom's Learning Notes

Plato: The Republic.

Aristotle: The Politics.

Ancient Greek resources: Learn to read Greek classics in the original.

Bloom's Western Canon: Plato's Dialogues are listed.