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.

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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. 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.

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