ABSTRACT
Are those who would partake of same-sex intercourse to be banished from the secondbest state of Magnesia and, if so, why? Has Plato changed his mind on the matter? As concerns the second question, it seems fitting to point out that nowhere in the extant corpus of Plato's works is there a comprehensive statement of his philosophy, as it stood at any given period of his life, detailing its axioms or systematically explaining its methods or offering proof of its conclusions. It would appear fair to deduce that there was an ongoing evolution in his thinking that took place exterior to, but reflected in, his writings at various stages. The fact that we do not know the exact dates of the composition of each text (although the Laws is generally thought to have been his final work) heightens the difficulty of forming a comprehensive picture of his thoughts. To say that he has changed his mind on the issue of same-sex relations is dangerous if not utterly ludicrous: we don't know what he ever thought about it at any given point in time.2 There are only the words of his speakers in the surviving texts that provide a clue to the philosopher's perceptions.
