Letters 94.38

On this point I disagree with Posidonius, who says: “I do not think that Plato’s Laws should have the preambles added to them. For a law should be brief, in order that the uninitiated may grasp it all the more easily. It should be a voice, as it were, sent down from heaven; it should command, not discuss. Nothing seems to me more dull or more foolish than a law with a preamble. Warn me, tell me what you wish me to do; I am not learning but obeying.” But laws framed in this way are helpful; hence you will notice that a state with defective laws will have defective morals.

Seneca, Letters to Lucilius 94.38, translated by Richard Mott Gummere