Twice in the Laws, Plato legislates on funeral ceremonies and, in both cases, he prohibits the recitation of dirges or funeral laments. For a whole tradition, this prohibition is nothing but a continuation of the dirges’ censure initiated by the first Greek legislators, such as Solon. But a more attentive examination shows that the laws which accompanied the development of the democratic city only limit the practice of the dirge without abolishing it. It is then necessary to recognize the originality of Plato’s reforms who, in a coherent way with his developments on music and after-life, invents a form of funerals in total rupture with the ceremonies of the democratic Athens and where the funeral oration, epitaphios, has no more place than the dirge (thrênos).