option -c and semicolon not working as expected

[Skaperen]

it was my understanding that a ";" character could be used to separate lines in the string given to the -c option of the python command. but i am finding that in many cases it does not work. a newline byte seems to work as encoded by bash in the 2nd example in this output.

Output:
lt1a/forums/3 /home/forums 4> /usr/bin/python3.8 -c 'for x in range(4):;    print(x)'
  File "<string>", line 1
    for x in range(4):;    print(x)
                      ^
SyntaxError: invalid syntax
lt1a/forums/3 /home/forums 5> /usr/bin/python3.8 -c $'for x in range(4):\n    print(x)'
0
1
2
3
lt1a/forums/3 /home/forums 6>

can someone tell me what i should be using for this case that the 1st example shows?