[709] Plato, Laws, 669-70.
[710] Ibid. 800-802.
[711] Ibid. 829 c.
[712] Consequently the painter and the poet are, in Plato’s opinion, allies of the Sophist.
[713] This is true, in a less degree, of the audience. Cp. Plutarch’s account of the Spartans (Lac. Inst. 239 A): “They did not listen to tragedies or comedies, in order that neither in earnest nor in jest they might hear men gainsaying the laws.”
[714] Plato, Rep. 395 ff.
[715] Plato holds that no one likes to imitate his inferiors; so the good man will not care to imitate any but the good. He ascribes this attitude to the Deity.