VI. PLATONIC CANON, AS RECOGNISED BY THRASYLLUS
As we know little about Plato except from his works, the first question to be decided is, Which are his real works? Where are we to find a trustworthy Platonic Canon?
[Side-note: Platonic Canon--Ancient and modern discussions.]
Down to the close of the last century this question was not much raised or discussed. The catalogue recognised by the rhetor Thrasyllus (contemporary with the Emperor Tiberius) was generally accepted as including none but genuine works of Plato; and was followed as such by editors and critics, who were indeed not very numerous.[1] But the discussions carried on during the present century have taken a different turn. While editors, critics, and translators have been greatly multiplied, some of the most distinguished among them, Schleiermacher at the head, have either professedly set aside, or in practice disregarded, the Thrasyllean catalogue, as if it carried no authority and very faint presumption. They have reasoned upon each dialogue as if its title to be considered genuine were now to be proved for the first time; either by external testimony (mentioned in Aristotle or others), or by internal evidences of style, handling, and thoughts:[2] as if, in other words, the onus probandi lay upon any one who believed the printed works of Plato to be genuine--not upon an opponent who disputes the authenticity of any one or more among them, and rejects it as spurious. Before I proceed to examine the conclusions, alike numerous and discordant, which these critics have proclaimed, I shall enquire how far the method which they have pursued is warrantable. Is there any presumption at all--and if so, what amount of presumption--in favour of the catalogue transmitted from antiquity by Thrasyllus, as a canon containing genuine works of Plato and no others?
[Footnote 1: The following passage from Wyttenbach, written in 1776, will give an idea of the state of Platonic criticism down to the last quarter of the last century. To provide a new Canon for Plato seems not to have entered his thoughts.
Wyttenbach, Bibliotheca Critica, vol. i. p. 28. Review of Fischer's edition of Plato's Philêbus and Symposion. "Quæ Ciceroni obtigit interpretum et editorum felicitas, eâ adeo caruit Plato, ut non solum paucos nactus sit qui ejus scripta typis ederent--sed qui ejus orationi nitorem restitueret, eamque a corruptelarum labe purgaret, et sensus obscuros atque abditos ex interiore doctrinâ patefaceret, omnino repererit neminem. Et ex ipso hoc editionum parvo numero--nam sex omnino sunt--nulla est recentior anno superioris seculi secundo: ut mirandum sit, centum et septuaginta annorum spatio neminem ex tot viris doctis extitisse, qui ita suam crisin Platoni addiceret, ut intelligentiam ejus veræ eruditionis amantibus aperiret.
"Qui Platonem legant, pauci sunt: qui intelligant, paucissimi; qui vero, vel ex versionibus, vel ex jejuno historiæ philosophicæ compendio, de eo judicent et cum supercilio pronuncient, plurimi sunt."]
[Footnote 2: To see that this is the general method of proceeding, we have only to look at the work of Ueberweg, one of the most recent and certainly one of the ablest among the Platonic critics. Untersuchungen über die Aechtheit und Zeitfolge der Platonischen Schriften, Wien, 1861, p. 130-131.]
[Side-note: Canon established by Thrasyllus. Presumption in its favour.]
Upon this question I hold an opinion opposite to that of the Platonic critics since Schleiermacher. The presumption appears to me particularly strong, instead of particularly weak: comparing the Platonic writings with those of other eminent writers, dramatists, orators, historians, of the same age and country.
[Side-note: Fixed residence and school at Athens--founded by Plato and transmitted to successors.]
We have seen that Plato passed the last thirty-eight years of his life (except his two short visits to Syracuse) as a writer and lecturer at Athens; that he purchased and inhabited a fixed residence at the Academy, near the city. We know, moreover, that his principal pupils, especially (his nephew) Speusippus and Xenokrates, were constantly with him in this residence during his life; that after his death the residence became permanently appropriated as a philosophical school for lectures, study, conversation, and friendly meetings of studious men, in which capacity it served for more than two centuries;[3] that his nephew Speusippus succeeded him there as teacher, and taught there for eight years, being succeeded after his death first by Xenokrates (for twenty-five years), afterwards by Polemon, Krantor, Krates, Arkesilaus, and others in uninterrupted series; that the school always continued to be frequented, though enjoying greater or less celebrity according to the reputation of the Scholarch.
[Footnote 3: The teaching and conversation of the Platonic School continued fixed in the spot known as the Academy until the siege of Athens by Sylla in 87 B.C. The teacher was then forced to confine himself to the interior of the city, where he gave lectures in the gymnasium called Ptolemæum. In that gymnasium Cicero heard the lectures of the Scholarch Antiochus, B.C. 79; walking out afterwards to visit the deserted but memorable site of the Academy (Cic. De Fin. v. 1; C. G. Zumpt, Ueber den Bestand der Philosophischen Schulen in Athen, p. 14, Berlin, 1843). The ground of the Academy, when once deserted, speedily became unhealthy, and continues to be so now, as Zumpt mentions that he himself experienced in 1835.]
[Side-note: Importance of this foundation. Preservation of Plato's manuscripts. School library.]
By thus perpetuating the school which his own genius had originated, and by providing for it permanent support with a fixed domicile, Plato inaugurated a new epoch in the history of philosophy: this example was followed a few years afterwards by Aristotle, Zeno, and Epikurus. Moreover the proceeding was important in another way also, as it affected the preservation and authentication of his own manuscripts and compositions. It provided not only safe and lasting custody, such as no writer had ever enjoyed before, for Plato's original manuscripts, but also a guarantee of some efficacy against any fraud or error which might seek to introduce other compositions into the list. That Plato himself was not indifferent on this head we may fairly believe, since we learn from Dionysius of Halikarnassus, that he was indefatigable in the work of correction: and his disciples, who took the great trouble of noting down themselves what he spoke in his lectures, would not be neglectful as to the simpler duty of preserving his manuscripts.[4] Now Speusippus and Xenokrates (also Aristotle, Hestiæus, the Opuntian Philippus, and the other Platonic pupils) must have had personal knowledge of all that Plato had written, whether finished dialogues, unfinished fragments, or preparatory sketches. They had perfect means of distinguishing his real compositions from forgeries passed off in his name: and they had every motive to expose such forgeries (if any were attempted) wherever they could, in order to uphold the reputation of their master. If any one composed a dialogue and circulated it under the name of Plato, the school was a known place, and its occupants were at hand to give information to all who enquired about the authenticity of the composition. The original MSS. of Plato (either in his own handwriting or in that of his secretary, if he employed one[5]) were doubtless treasured up in the school as sacred memorials of the great founder, and served as originals from which copies of unquestionable fidelity might be made, whenever the Scholarch granted permission. How long they continued to be so preserved we cannot say: nor do we know what was the condition of the MSS., or how long they were calculated to last. But probably many of the students frequenting the school would come for the express purpose of reading various works of Plato (either in the original MSS., or in faithful copies taken from them) with the exposition of the Scholarch; just as we know that the Roman M. Crassus (mentioned by Cicero), during his residence at Athens, studied the Platonic Gorgias with the aid of the Scholarch Charmadas.[6] The presidency of Speusippus and Xenokrates (taken jointly) lasted for thirty-three years; and even when they were replaced by successors who had enjoyed no personal intimacy with Plato, the motive to preserve the Platonic MSS. would still be operative, and the means of verifying what was really Platonic would still be possessed in the school. The original MSS. would be preserved, along with the treatises or dialogues which each successive Scholarch himself composed; thus forming a permanent and increasing school-library, probably enriched more or less by works acquired or purchased from others.
[Footnote 4: Simplikius, Schol. Aristotel. Physic. f. 32, p. 334, b. 28, Brandis: [Greek: la/boi d' a)/n tis kai\ para\ Speusi/ppou kai\ para\ Xenokra/tous, kai\ tô=n a)/llôn oi(\ parege/nonto e)n tê=| peri\ Ta)gathou= tou= Pla/tônos a)kroa/sei; pa/ntes ga\r sune/grapsan kai\ diesô/santo tê\n do/xan au)tou=]. In another passage of the same Scholia (p. 362, a. 12) Simplikius mentions Herakleides (of Pontus), Hestiæus, and even Aristotle himself, as having taken notes of the same lectures.
Hermodôrus appears to have carried some of Plato's dialogues to Sicily, and to have made money by selling them. See Cicero ad Atticum, xiii. 21: Suidas et Zenobius--[Greek: lo/goisin E(rmo/dôros e)mporeu/etai]. See Zeller, Dissert. De Hermodoro, p. 19. In the above-mentioned epistle Cicero compares his own relations with Atticus, to those of Plato with Hermodôrus. Hermodôrus had composed a treatise respecting Plato, from which some extracts were given by Derkyllides (the contemporary of Thrasyllus) as well as by Simplikius (Zeller, De Hermod. p. 20-21).]
[Footnote 5: We read in Cicero, (Academic. Priora, ii. 4, 11) that the handwriting of the Scholarch Philo, when his manuscript was brought from Athens to Alexandria, was recognised at once by his friends and pupils.]
[Footnote 6: Cicero, De Oratore, i. 11, 45-47: "florente Academiâ, quod eam Charmadas et Clitomachus et Æschines obtinebant. . . Platoni, cujus tum Athenis cum Charmadâ diligentius legi Gorgiam," &c.]
[Side-note: Security provided by the school for distinguishing what were Plato's genuine writings.]
It appears to me that the continuance of this school--founded by Plato himself at his own abode, permanently domiciliated, and including all the MSS. which he left in it--gives us an amount of assurance for the authenticity of the so-called Platonic compositions, such as does not belong to the works of other eminent contemporary authors, Aristippus, Antisthenes, Isokrates, Lysias, Demosthenes, Euripides, Aristophanes. After the decease of these last-mentioned authors, who can say what became of their MSS.? Where was any certain permanent custody provided for them? Isokrates had many pupils during his life, but left no school or [Greek: mousei=on] after his death. If any one composed a discourse, and tried to circulate it as the composition of Isokrates, among the bundles of judicial orations which were sold by the booksellers[7] as his (according to the testimony of Aristotle)--where was the person to be found, notorious and accessible, who could say: "I possess all the MSS. of Isokrates, and I can depose that this is not among them!" The chances of success for forgery or mistake were decidedly greater, in regard to the works of these authors, than they could be for those of Plato.
[Footnote 7: Dionys. Halik. de Isocrate, p. 576 R. [Greek: desma\s pa/nu polla\s dikanikô=n lo/gôn I)sokratei/ôn periphe/resthai/ phêsin u(po\ tô=n bibliopôlô=n A)ristote/lês.]]
[Side-note: Unfinished fragments and preparatory sketches, preserved and published after Plato's death.]
Again, the existence of this school-library explains more easily how it is that unfinished, inferior, and fragmentary Platonic compositions have been preserved. That there must have existed such compositions I hold to be certain. How is it supposable that any author, even Plato could have brought to completion such masterpieces as Republic, Gorgias, Protagoras, Symposion, &c., without tentative and preparatory sketches, each of course in itself narrow, defective, perhaps of little value, but serving as material to be worked up or worked in? Most of these would be destroyed, but probably not all. If (as I believe) it be the fact, that all the Platonic MSS. were preserved as their author left them, some would probably be published (and some indeed are said to have been published) after his death; and among them would be included more or fewer of these unfinished performances, and sketches projected but abandoned. We can hardly suppose that Plato himself would have published fragments never finished, such as Kleitophon and Kritias[8]--the last ending in the middle of a sentence.
[Footnote 8: Straton, the Peripatetic Scholarch who succeeded Theophrastus, B.C. 287, bequeathed to Lykon by his will both the succession to his school ([Greek: diatribê\n]) and all his books, except what he had written himself ([Greek: plê\n ô(=n au)toi\ gegra/phamen]). What is to be done with these latter he does not say. Lykon, in his last will, says:--[Greek: kai\ du/o mna=s au)tô=|] (Chares, a manumitted slave) [Greek: di/dômi kai\ ta)ma\ bi/blia ta\ a)negnôsme/na; ta\ de\ a)ne/kdota Kalli/nô|, o(/pôs e)pimelô=s au)ta\ e)kdô=|]. See Diog. L. v. 62, 73. Here Lykon directs expressly that Kallinus shall edit with care his (Lykon's) unpublished works. Probably Straton may have given similar directions during his life, so that it was unnecessary to provide in the will. [Greek: Ta\ a)negnôsme/na] is equivalent to [Greek: ta\ e)kdedome/na]. Publication was constituted by reading the MSS. aloud before a chosen audience of friends or critics; which readings often led to such remarks as induced the author to take his work back, and to correct it for a second recitation. See the curious sentence extracted from the letter of Theophrastus to Phanias (Diog. L. v. 37). Boeckh and other critics agree that both the Kleitophon and the Kritias were transmitted from antiquity in the fragmentary state in which we now read them: that they were compositions never completed. Boeckh affirms this with assurance respecting the Kleitophon, though he thinks that it is not a genuine work of Plato; on which last point I dissent from him. He thinks that the Kritias is a real work of Plato, though uncompleted (Boeckh in Platonis Minoem, p. 11).
Compare the remarks of M. Littré respecting the unfinished sketches, treatises, and notes not intended for publication, included in the Collectio Hippocratica (Oeuvres d' Hippocrate, vol. x. p. liv. seq.)]
[Side-note: Peripatetic school at the Lykeum--its composition and arrangement.]
The second philosophical school, begun by Aristotle and perpetuated (after his death in 322 B.C.) at the Lykeum on the eastern side of Athens, was established on the model of that of Plato. That which formed the centre or consecrating point was a Museum or chapel of the Muses: with statues of those goddesses of place, and also a statue of the founder. Attached to this Museum were a portico, a hall with seats (one seat especially for the lecturing professor), a garden, and a walk, together with a residence, all permanently appropriated to the teacher and the process of instruction.[9] Theophrastus, the friend and immediate successor of Aristotle, presided over the school for thirty-five years; and his course, during part of that time at least, was prodigiously frequented by students.
[Footnote 9: Respecting the domicile of the Platonic School, and that of the Aristotelian or Peripatetic school which followed it, the particulars given by Diogenes are nearly coincident: we know more in detail about the Peripatetic, from what he cites out of the will of Theophrastus. See iv. 1-6-19, v. 51-63.
The [Greek: mousei=on] at the Academy was established by Plato himself. Speusippus placed in it statues of the Charities or Graces. Theophrastus gives careful directions in his about repairing and putting in the best condition, the Peripatetic [Greek: mousei=on], with its altar, its statues of the Goddesses, and its statue of the founder Aristotle. The [Greek: stoa\, e)xe/dra, kê=pos, peri/patos], attached to both schools, are mentioned: the most zealous students provided for themselves lodgings close adjoining. Cicero, when he walked out from Athens to see the deserted Academy, was particularly affected by the sight of the exedra, in which Charmadas had lectured (De Fin. v. 2, 4).
There were periodical meetings, convivial and conversational, among the members both of the Academic and Peripatetic schools; and [Greek: xumpotikoi\ no/moi] by Xenokrates and Aristotle to regulate them (Athenæus, v. 184).
Epikurus (in his interesting testament given by Diogen. Laert. x. 16-21) bequeaths to two Athenian citizens his garden and property, in trust for his principal disciple the Mitylenæan Hermarchus, [Greek: kai\ toi=s sumphilosophou=sin au)tô=|, kai\ oi(=s a)\n E(/rmarchos katali/pê| diado/chois tê=s philosophi/as, e)ndiatri/bein kata\ philosophi/an]. He at the same time directs all his books to be given to Hermarchus: they would form the school-library.]
[Side-note: Peripatetic school library, its removal from Athens to Skêpsis--its ultimate restitution in a damaged state to Athens, then to Rome.]
Moreover, the school-library at the Lykeum acquired large development and importance. It not only included all the MS. compositions, published or unpublished, of Aristotle and Theophrastus, each of them a voluminous writer--but also a numerous collection (numerous for that day) of other works besides; since both of them were opulent and fond of collecting books. The value of the school-library is shown by what happened after the decease of Theophrastus, when Straton succeeded him in the school (B.C. 287). Theophrastus--thinking himself entitled to treat the library not as belonging to the school but as belonging to himself--bequeathed it at his death to Neleus, a favourite scholar, and a native of Skêpsis (in the Troad), by whom it was carried away to Asia, and permanently separated from the Aristotelian school at Athens. The manuscripts composing it remained in the possession of Neleus and his heirs for more than a century and a half, long hidden in a damp cellar, neglected, and sustaining great damage--until about the year 100 B.C., when they were purchased by a rich Athenian named Apellikon, and brought back to Athens. Sylla, after he had captured Athens (86 B.C.), took for himself the library of Apellikon, and transported it to Rome, where it became open to learned men (Tyrannion, Andronikus, and others), but under deplorable disadvantage--in consequence of the illegible state of the MSS. and the unskilful conjectures and restitutions which had been applied, in the new copies made since it passed into the hands of Apellikon.[10]
[Footnote 10: The will of Theophrastus, as given in Diogenes (v. 52), mentions the bequest of all his books to Neleus. But it is in Strabo that we read the fullest account of this displacement of the Peripatetic school-library, and the consequences which ensued from it (xiii. 608, 609). [Greek: Nêleu\s, a)nê\r kai\ A)ristote/lous ê)kroame/nos kai\ Theophra/stou, diadedegme/nos de\ tê\n bibliothê/kên tou= Theophra/stou, e)n ê(=| ê)=n kai\ ê( tou= A)ristote/lous. o( gou=n A)ristote/lês tê\n e(autou= Theophra/stô| pare/dôken, ô(=|per kai\ tê\n scholê\n a)pe/lipe, prô=tos, ô(=n i)/smen, sunagagô\n bi/blia, kai\ dida/xas tou\s e)n Ai)gu/ptô| basile/as bibliothê/kês su/ntaxin].
The kings of Pergamus, a few years after the death of Theophrastus, acquired possession of the town and territory of Skêpsis; so that the heirs of Neleus became numbered among their subjects. These kings (from about the year B.C. 280 downwards) manifested great eagerness to collect a library at Pergamus, in competition with that of the Ptolemies at Alexandria. The heirs of Neleus were afraid that these kings would strip them of their Aristotelian MSS., either for nothing or for a small price. They therefore concealed the MSS. in a cellar, until they found an opportunity of selling them to a stranger out of the country. (Strabo, l. c.)
This narrative of Strabo is one of the most interesting pieces of information remaining to us about literary antiquity. He had himself received instruction from Tyrannion (xii. 548): he had gone through a course of Aristotelian philosophy (xvi. 757), and he had good means of knowing the facts from the Aristotelian critics, including his master Tyrannion. Plutarch (Vit. Syllæ, c. 26) and Athenæus (i. 3) allude to the same story. Athenæus says that Ptolemy Philadelphus purchased the MSS. from the heirs of Neleus, which cannot be correct.
Some critics have understood the narrative of Strabo, as if he had meant to affirm, that the works of Aristotle had never got into circulation until the time of Apellikon. It is against this supposition that Stahr contends (very successfully) in his work "Aristotelia". But Strabo does not affirm so much as this. He does not say anything to contradict the supposition that there were copies of various books of Aristotle in circulation, during the lives of Aristotle and Theophrastus.]
[Side-note: Inconvenience to the Peripatetic school from the loss of its library.]
If we knew the truth, it might probably appear that the transfer of the Aristotelian library, from the Peripatetic school at Athens to the distant and obscure town of Skêpsis, was the result of some jealousy on the part of Theophrastus; that he wished to secure to Neleus the honourable and lucrative post of becoming his successor in the school, and conceived that he was furthering that object by bequeathing the library to Neleus. If he entertained any such wish, it was disappointed. The succession devolved upon another pupil of the school, Straton of Lampsakus. But Straton and his successors were forced to get on as well as they could without their library. The Peripatetic school at Athens suffered severely by the loss. Its professors possessed only a few of the manuscripts of Aristotle, and those too the commonest and best known. If a student came with a view to read any of the other Aristotelian works (as Crassus went to read the Gorgias of Plato), the Scholarch was unable to assist him: as far as Aristotle was concerned, they could only expand and adorn, in the way of lecture, a few of his familiar doctrines.[11] We hear that the character of the school was materially altered. Straton deserted the track of Aristotle, and threw himself into speculations of his own (seemingly able and ingenious), chiefly on physical topics.[12] The critical study, arrangement, and exposition of Aristotle was postponed until the first century before the Christian era--the Ciceronian age, immediately preceding Strabo.
[Footnote 11: Strabo, xiii. 609. [Greek: sune/bê de\ toi=s e)k tô=n peripa/tôn toi=s me\n pa/lai, toi=s meta\ Theo/phraston, ou)k e)/chousin o(/lôs ta\ bi/blia plê\n o)li/gôn, kai\ ma/lista tô=n e)xôterikô=n, mêde\n e)/chein philosophei=n pragmatikô=s, a)lla\ the/seis lêkuthi/zein.]]
[Footnote 12: The change in the Peripatetic school, after the death of Theophrastus, is pointed out by Cicero, Fin. v. 5, 18. Compare Academ. Poster. i. 9.]
[Side-note: Advantage to the Platonic school from having preserved its MSS.]
This history of the Aristotelian library illustrates forcibly, by way of contrast, the importance to the Platonic school of having preserved its MSS. from the beginning, without any similar interruption. What Plato left in manuscript we may presume to have never been removed: those who came to study his works had the means of doing so: those who wanted to know whether any composition was written by him, what works he had written altogether, or what was the correct reading in a case of obscurity or dispute--had always the means of informing themselves. Whereas the Peripatetic Scholarch, after the death of Theophrastus, could give no similar information as to the works of Aristotle.[13]
[Footnote 13: An interesting citation by Simplikius (in his commentary on the Physica of Aristotle, fol. 216, a. 7, p. 404, b. 11, Schol. Brandis shows us that Theophrastus, while he was resident at Athens as Peripatetic Scholarch, had custody of the original MSS. of the works of Aristotle and that he was applied to by those who wished to procure correct copies. Eudêmus (of Rhodes) having only a defective copy of the Physica, wrote to request that Theophrastus would cause to be written out a certain portion of the fifth book, and send it to him, [Greek: marturou=ntos peri\ tô=n prô/tôn kai\ Theophra/stou, gra/psantos Eu)dê/mô|, peri/ tinos au)tou= tô=n diêmartême/nôn a)ntigra/phôn; u(pe\r ô(=n, phêsin] (sc. Theophrastus) [Greek: e)pe/steilas, keleu/ôn me gra/phein kai\ apostei=lai e)k tô=n Phusikô=n, ê(/toi e)gô\ ou) suni/êmi, ê)\ mikro/n ti pantelô=s e)/chei tou= a)na/meson tou= o(/per ê)remei=n kalô= tô=n a)kinê/tôn mo/non], &c.]
[Side-note: Conditions favourable, for preserving the genuine works of Plato.]
We thus see that the circumstances, under which Plato left his compositions, were unusually favourable (speaking by comparison with ancient authors generally) in regard to the chance of preserving them all, and of keeping them apart from counterfeits. We have now to enquire what information exists as to their subsequent diffusion.
[Side-note: Historical facts as to their preservation.]
The earliest event of which notice is preserved, is, the fact stated by Diogenes, that "Some persons, among whom is the Grammaticus Aristophanes, distribute the dialogues of Plato into Trilogies; placing as the first Trilogy--Republic, Timæus, Kritias. 2. Sophistes, Politicus, Kratylus. 3. Leges, Minos, Epinomis. 4.** Theætêtus, Euthyphron, Apology. 5. Kriton, Phædon, Epistolæ. The other dialogues they place one by one, without any regular grouping."[14]
[Footnote 14: Diog. L. iii. 61-62: [Greek: E)/nioi de/, ô(=n e)/sti kai\ A)ristopha/nês o( grammatiko/s, ei)s trilogi/as e(/lkousi tou\s dialo/gous; kai\ prô/tên me\n tithe/asin ê(=s ê(gei=tai Politei/a, Ti/maios, Kriti/as; deute/ran, Sophistê/s, Politiko/s, Kra/tulos; tri/tên, No/moi, Mi/nôs, E)pinomi/s; teta/rtên, Theai/têtos, Eu)thu/phrôn, A)pologi/a; pe/mptên, Kri/tôn, Phai/dôn, E)pistolai/; ta\ de\ a)/lla kath' e)\n kai\ a)ta/ktôs].
The word [Greek: grammatiko\s], unfortunately, has no single English word exactly corresponding to it.
Thrasyllus, when he afterwards applied the classification by Tetralogies to the works of Demokritus (as he did also to those of Plato) could only include a certain portion of the works in his Tetralogies, and was forced to enumerate the remainder as [Greek: a)su/ntakta] (Diog. L. ix. 46, 47). It appears that he included all Plato's works in his Platonic Tetralogies.]
[Side-note: Arrangement of them into Trilogies, by Aristophanes.]
The name of Aristophanes lends special interest to this arrangement of the Platonic compositions, and enables us to understand something of the date and the place to which it belongs. The literary and critical students (Grammatici) among whom he stood eminent, could scarcely be said to exist as a class the time when Plato died. Beginning with Aristotle, Herakleides of Pontus, Theophrastus, Demetrius Phalereus, &c., at Athens, during the half century immediately succeeding Plato's decease--these laborious and useful erudites were first called into full efficiency along with the large collection of books formed by the Ptolemies at Alexandria during a period beginning rather before 300 B.C.: which collection served both as model and as stimulus to the libraries subsequently formed by the kings at Pergamus and elsewhere. In those libraries alone could materials be found for their indefatigable application.
[Side-note: Aristophanes, librarian at the Alexandrine library.]
Of these learned men, who spent their lives in reading, criticising, arranging, and correcting, the MSS. accumulated in a great library, Aristophanes of Byzantium was the most distinguished representative, in the eyes of men like Varro, Cicero, and Plutarch.[15] His life was passed at Alexandria, and seems to have been comprised between 260-184 B.C.; as far as can be made out. During the latter portion of it he became chief librarian--an appointment which he had earned by long previous studies in the place, as well as by attested experience in the work of criticism and arrangement. He began his studious career at Alexandria at an early age: and he received instruction, as a boy from Zenodotus, as a young man from Kallimachus--both of whom were, in succession, librarians of the Alexandrine library.[16] We must observe that Diogenes does not expressly state the distribution of the Platonic works into trilogies to have been first proposed or originated by Aristophanes (as he states that the tetralogies were afterwards proposed by the rhetor Thrasyllus, of which presently): his language is rather more consistent with the supposition, that it was first proposed by some one earlier, and adopted or sanctioned by the eminent authority of Aristophanes. But at any rate, the distribution was proposed either by Aristophanes himself, or by some one before him and known to him.
[Footnote 15: Varro, De Linguâ Latinâ, v. 9, ed. Müller. "Non solum ad Aristophanis lucernam, sed etiam ad Cleanthis, lucubravi." Cicero, De Fin. v. 19, 50; Vitruvius, Præf. Lib. vii.; Plutarch, "Non posse suaviter vivi sec. Epicurum," p. 1095 E.
Aristophanes composed Argumenta to many of the Attic tragedies and comedies: he also arranged in a certain order the songs of Alkæus and the odes of Pindar. Boeckh (Præfat. ad Scholia Pindari, p. x. xi.) remarks upon the mistake made by Quintilian as well as by others, in supposing that Pindar arranged his own odes. Respecting the wide range of erudition embraced by Aristophanes, see F. A. Wolf, Prolegg. in Homer, pp. 218-220, and Schneidewin, De Hypothes. Traged. Græc. Aristophani vindicandis, pp. 26, 27.]
[Footnote 16: Suidas, vv. [Greek: A)ristopha/nês, Kalli/machos]. Compare Clinton, Fast. Hellen. B.C. 256-200.]
[Side-note: Plato's works in the Alexandrine library, before the time of Aristophanes.]
This fact is of material importance, because it enables us to Plato's infer with confidence, that the Platonic works were included in the Alexandrine library, certainly during the lifetime of Aristophanes, and probably before it. It is there only that Aristophanes could have known them; his whole life having been passed in Alexandria. The first formal appointment of a librarian to the Alexandrine Museum was made by Ptolemy Philadelphus, at some time after the commencement of his reign in 285 B.C., in the person of Zenodotus; whose successors were Kallimachus, Eratosthenes, Apollonius, Aristophanes, comprising in all a period of a century.[17]
[Footnote 17: See Ritschl, Die Alexandrinischen Bibliotheken, pp. 16-17, &c.; Nauck, De Aristophanis Vitâ et Scriptis, cap. i. p. 68 (Halle, 1848). "Aristophanis et Aristarchi opera, cum opibus Bibliothecæ Alexandrinæ digerendis et ad tabulas revocandis arctè conjuncta, in eo substitisse censenda est, ut scriptores, in quovis dicendi genere conspicuos, aut breviori indice comprehenderent, aut uberiore enarratione describerent," &c.
When Zenodotus was appointed, the library had already attained considerable magnitude, so that the post and title of librarian was then conspicuous and dignified. But Demetrius Phalereus, who preceded Zenodotus, began his operations when there was no library at all, and gradually accumulated the number of books which Zenodotus found. Heyne observes justly: "Primo loco Demetrius Phalereus præfuisse dicitur, forte re verius quam nomine, tum Zenodotus Ephesius, hic quidem sub Ptolemæo Philadelpho," &c. (Heyne, De Genio Sæculi Ptolemæorum in Opuscul. i. p. 129).]
[Side-note: Kallimachus--predecessor of Aristophanes--his published Tables of authors whose works were in the library.]
Kallimachus, born at Kyrênê, was a teacher of letters at Alexandria before he was appointed to the service and superintendence of the Alexandrine library or museum. His life seems to have terminated about 230 B.C.: he acquired reputation as a poet, by his hymns, epigrams, elegies, but less celebrity as a Grammaticus than Aristophanes: nevertheless the titles of his works still remaining indicate very great literary activity. We read as titles of his works:--
1. The Museum (a general description of the Alexandrine establishment).
2. Tables of the persons who have distinguished themselves in every branch of instruction, and of the works which they have composed--in 120 books.
3. Table and specification of the (Didaskalies) recorded dramatic representations and competitions; with dates assigned, and from the beginning.
4. Table of the peculiar phrases belonging to Demokritus, and of his works.
5. Table and specification of the rhetorical authors.[18]
[Footnote 18: See Blomfleld's edition of the Fragm. of Kallimachus, p. 220-221. Suidas, v. [Greek: Kalli/machos], enumerates a large number of titles of poetical, literary, historical, compositions of Kallimachus; among them are--
[Greek: Mousei=on. Pi/nakes tô=n e)n pa/sê| paidei/a| dialampsa/ntôn, kai\ ô(=n sune/grapsan, e)n bibli/ois k' kai\ r'. Pi/nax kai\ a)nagraphê\ tô=n kata\ chro/nous kai\ a)p' a)rchê=s genome/nôn didaskaliô=n. Pi/nax tô=n Dêmokri/tou glôssô=n kai\ suntagma/tôn. Pi/nax kai\ a)nagraphê\ tô=n r(êtorikô=n]. See also Athenæus, xv. 669. It appears from Dionys. Hal. that besides the Tables of Kallimachus, enumerating and reviewing the authors whose works were contained in the Alexandrine library or museum, there existed also [Greek: Pergamênoi\ Pi/nakes], describing the contents of the library at Pergamus (Dion. H. de Adm. Vi Dic. in Demosthene, p. 994; De Dinarcho, pp. 630, 653, 661).
Compare Bernhardy, Grundriss der Griech. Litt. sect. 36, pp. 132-133 seq.]
[Side-note: Large and rapid accumulation of the Alexandrine Library.]
These tables of Kallimachus (of which one by itself, No. 2, reached to 120 books) must have been an encyclopædia, far more comprehensive than any previously compiled, of Greek authors and literature. Such tables indeed could not have been compiled before the existence of the Alexandrine Museum. They described what Kallimachus had before him in that museum, as we may see by the general title [Greek: Mousei=on] prefixed: moreover we may be sure that nowhere else could he have had access to the multitude of books required. Lastly, the tables also show how large a compass the Alexandrine Museum and library had attained at the time when Kallimachus put together his compilation: that is, either in the reign of Ptolemy II. Philadelphia (285-247 B.C.), or in the earlier portion of the reign of Ptolemy III., called Euergetes (247-222 B.C.). Nevertheless, large as the library then was, it continued to increase. A few years afterwards, Aristophanes published a work commenting upon the tables of Kallimachus, with additions and enlargements: of which work the title alone remains.[19]
[Footnote 19: Athenæus, ix. 408. [Greek: A)ristopha/nês o( grammatiko\s e)n toi=s pro\s tou\s Kallima/chou pi/nakas].
We see by another passage, Athenæ. viii. 336, that this work included an addition or supplement to the Tables of Kallimachus.
Compare Etymol. Magn. v. [Greek: Pi/nax].]
[Side-note: Plato's works--in the library at the time of Kallimachus.]
Now, I have already observed, that the works of Plato were certainly in the Alexandrine library, at the time when Aristophanes either originated or sanctioned the distribution of them into Trilogies. Were they not also in the library at the time when Kallimachus compiled his tables? I cannot but conclude that they were in it at that time also. When we are informed that the catalogue of enumerated authors filled so many books, we may be sure that it must have descended, and we know in fact that it did descend, to names far less important and distinguished than that of Plato.[20] The name of Plato himself can hardly have been omitted. Demokritus and his works, especially the peculiar and technical words ([Greek: glô=ssai]) in them, received special attention from Kallimachus: which proves that the latter was not disposed to pass over the philosophers. But Demokritus, though an eminent philosopher, was decidedly less eminent than Plato: moreover he left behind him no permanent successors, school, or [Greek: mousei=on], at Athens, to preserve his MSS. or foster his celebrity. As the library was furnished at that time with a set of the works of Demokritus, so I infer that it could not have been without a set of the works of Plato. That Kallimachus was acquainted with Plato's writings (if indeed such a fact requires proof), we know, not only from his epigram upon the Ambrakiot Kleombrotus (whom he affirms to have killed himself after reading the Phædon), but also from a curious intimation that he formally impugned Plato's competence to judge or appreciate poets--alluding to the severe criticisms which we read in the Platonic Republic.[21]
[Footnote 20: Thus the Tables of Kallimachus included a writer named Lysimachus, a disciple of Theodorus or Theophrastus, and his writings (Athenæ. vi. 252)--a rhetor and poet named Dionysius with the epithet of [Greek: chalkou=s] (Athenæ. xv. 669))--and even the treatises of several authors on cakes and cookery (Athenæ. xiv. 643). The names of authors absolutely unknown to us were mentioned by him (Athenæ. ii. 70). Compare Dionys. Hal. de Dinarcho, 630, 653, 661.]
[Footnote 21: Kallimachus, Epigram. 23.
Proklus in Timæum, p. 28 C. p. 64. Schneid. [Greek: ma/tên ou)=n phlênaphou=si Kalli/machos kai\ Dou=ris, ô(s Pla/tônos ou)k o)/ntos i(kanou= kri/nein poiêta/s].
Eratosthenes, successor of Kallimachus as librarian at Alexandria, composed a work (now lost) entitled [Greek: Platôniko\n], as well as various treatises on philosophy and philosophers (Eratosthenica, Bernhardy, p. 168, 187, 197; Suidas, v. [Greek: E)ratosthe/nês]). He had passed some time at Athens, had enjoyed the lessons and conversation of Zeno the Stoic, but expressed still warmer admiration of Arkesilaus and Ariston. He spoke in animated terms of Athens as the great centre of congregation for philosophers in his day. He had composed a treatise, [Greek: Peri\ tô=n a)gathô=n]: but Strabo describes him as mixing up other subjects with philosophy (Strabo, i. p. 15).]
It would indeed be most extraordinary if, among the hundreds of authors whose works must have been specified in the Tables of Kallimachus as constituting the treasures of the Alexandrine Museum,[22] the name of Plato had not been included. Moreover, the distribution of the Platonic compositions into Trilogies, pursuant to the analogy of the Didaskaliæ or dramatic records, may very probably have originated with Kallimachus; and may have been simply approved and continued, perhaps with some modifications, by Aristophanes. At least this seems more consonant to the language of Diogenes Laertius, than the supposition that Aristophanes was the first originator of it.
[Footnote 22: About the number of books, or more properly of rolls (volumina), in the Alexandrine library, see the enquiries of Parthey, Das Alexandrinische Museum, p. 76-84. Various statements are made by ancient authors, some of them with very large numbers; and no certainty is attainable. Many rolls would go to form one book. Parthey considers the statement made by Epiphanius not improbable--54,800 rolls in the library under Ptolemy Philadelphus (p. 83).
The magnitude of the library at Alexandria in the time of Eratosthenes, and the multitude of writings which he consulted in his valuable geographical works, was admitted by his opponent Hipparchus (Strabo, ii. 69).]
[Side-note: First formation of the library--intended as a copy of the Platonic and Aristotelian [Greek: Mousei=a] at Athens.]
If we look back to the first commencement of the Alexandrine Museum and library, we shall be still farther convinced that the works of Plato, complete as well as genuine, must have been introduced into it before the days of Kallimachus. Strabo expressly tells us that the first stimulus and example impelling the Ptolemies to found this museum and library, were furnished by the school of Aristotle and Theophrastus at Athens.[23] I believe this to be perfectly true; and it is farther confirmed by the fact that the institution at Alexandria comprised the same constituent parts and arrangements, described by the same titles, as those which are applied to the Aristotelian and Platonic schools at Athens.[24] Though the terms library, museum, and lecture-room, have now become familiar, both terms and meaning were at that time alike novel. Nowhere, as far as we know, did there exist a known and fixed domicile, consecrated in perpetuity to these purposes, and to literary men who took interest therein. A special stimulus was needed to suggest and enforce the project on Ptolemy Soter. That stimulus was supplied by the Aristotelian school at Athens, which the Alexandrine institution was intended to copy: [Greek: Mousei=on] (with [Greek: e)xe/dra] and [Greek: peri/patos], a covered portico with recesses and seats, and a walk adjacent), on a far larger scale and with more extensive attributions.[25] We must not however imagine that when this new museum was first begun, the founders entertained any idea of the vast magnitude to which it ultimately attained.
[Footnote 23: Strabo, xiii. 608. [Greek: o( gou=n A)ristote/lês tê\n e(autou= (bibliothê/kên) Theophra/stô| pare/dôken, ô(=|per kai\ tê\n scholê\n a)pe/lipe; prô=tos, ô(=n i)/smen, sunagagô\n bi/blia, kai\ dida/xas tou\s e)n Ai)gu/ptô| basile/as bibliothê/kês su/ntaxin.]]
[Footnote 24: Strabo (xvii. 793-794) describes the Museum at Alexandria in the following terms--[Greek: tô=n de\ basilei/ôn me/ros e)sti\ kai\ to\ Mousei=on, e)/chon peri/paton kai\ e)xe/dran, kai\ oi)=kon me/gan e)n ô(=| to\ sussi/tion tô=n metecho/ntôn tou= Mousei/ou philolo/gôn a)ndrô=n], &c. Vitruvius, v. 11.
If we compare this with the language in Diogenes Laertius respecting the Academic and Peripatetic school residences at Athens, we shall find the same phrases employed--[Greek: mousei=on, e)xe/dra], &c. (D. L. iv. 19, v. 51-54). Respecting Speusippus, Diogenes tells us (iv, 1)--[Greek: Chari/tôn t' a)ga/lmat' a)ne/thêken e)n tô=| mousei/ô| tô=| u(po\ Pla/tônos e)n A)kadêmi/a| i)druthe/nti.]]
[Footnote 25: We see from hence what there was peculiar in the Platonic and Aristotelian literary establishments. They included something consecrated, permanent, and intended more or less for public use. The collection of books was not like a private library, destined only for the proprietor and such friends as he might allow--nor was it like that of a bookseller, intended for sale and profit. I make this remark in regard to the Excursus of Bekker, in his Charikles, i. 206, 216, a very interesting note on the book-trade and libraries of ancient Athens. Bekker disputes the accuracy of Strabo's statement that Aristotle was the first person at Athens who collected a library, and who taught the kings of Egypt to do the like. In the literal sense of the words Bekker is right. Other persons before Aristotle had collected books (though I think Bekker makes more of the passages which he cites than they strictly deserve); one example is the youthful Euthydemus in Xenophon, Memorab. iv. 2; and Bekker alludes justly to the remarkable passage in the Anabasis of Xenophon, about books exported to the Hellenic cities in the Euxine (Anabas. vii. 5, 14). There clearly existed in Athens regular professional booksellers; we see that the bookseller read aloud to his visitors a part of the books which he had to sell, in order to tempt them to buy, a feeble foreshadowing of the advertisements and reviews of the present day (Diogen. L. vii. 2). But there existed as yet nothing of the nature of the Platonic and Aristotelian [Greek: mousei=on], whereof the collection of books, varied, permanent, and intended for the use of inmates and special visitors, was one important fraction. In this sense it served as a model for Demetrius Phalereus and Ptolemy Soter in regard to Alexandria.
Vitruvius (v. 11) describes the exhedræ as seats placed under a covered portico--"in quibus philosophi, rhetores, reliquique qui studiis delectantur, sedentes disputare possint".]
[Side-note: Favour of Ptolemy Soter towards the philosophers at Athens.]
Ptolemy Soter was himself an author,[26] and himself knew and respected Aristotle, not only as a philosopher but also as the preceptor of his friend and commander Alexander. To Theophrastus also, the philosophical successor of Aristotle, Ptolemy showed peculiar honour; inviting him by special message to come and establish himself at Alexandria, which invitation however Theophrastus declined.[27] Moreover Ptolemy appointed Straton (afterwards Scholarch in succession to Theophrastus) preceptor to his youthful son Ptolemy Philadelphus, from whom Straton subsequently received a large present of money:[28] he welcomed at Alexandria the Megaric philosophers, Diodorus Kronus, and Stilpon, and found pleasure in their conversation; he not only befriended, but often confidentially consulted, the Kyrenaic philosopher Theodôrus.[29] Kolôtes, the friend of Epikurus, dedicated a work to Ptolemy Soter. Menander, the eminent comic writer, also received an invitation from him to Egypt.[30]
[Footnote 26: Respecting Ptolemy as an author, and the fragments of his work on the exploits of Alexander, see R. Geier, Alexandri M. Histor. Scriptores, p. 4-26.]
[Footnote 27: Diog. L. v. 37. Probably this invitation was sent about 306 B.C., during the year in which Theophrastus was in banishment from Athens, in consequence of the restrictive law proposed by Sophokles against the schools of the philosophers, which law was repealed in the ensuing year.]
[Footnote 28: Diog. L. v. 58. Straton became Scholarch at the death of Theophrastus in 287 B.C. He must have been preceptor to Ptolemy Philadelphus before this time, during the youth of the latter; for he could not have been at the same time Scholarch at Athens, and preceptor of the king at Alexandria.]
[Footnote 29: Diog. L. ii. 102, 111, 115. Plutarch adv. Kolôten, p. 1107. The Ptolemy here mentioned by Plutarch may indeed be Philadelphus.]
[Footnote 30: Meineke, Menand. et Philem. Reliq. Præf. p. xxxii.]
[Side-note: Demetrius Phalereus--his history and character.]
These favourable dispositions, on the part of the first Ptolemy, towards philosophy and the philosophers at Athens, Demetrius appear to have been mainly instigated and guided by the Phalerean Demetrius: an Athenian citizen of good station, who enjoyed for ten years at Athens (while that city was subject to Kassander) full political ascendancy, but who was expelled about 307 B.C., by the increased force of the popular party, seconded by the successful invasion of Demetrius Poliorkêtês. By these political events Demetrius Phalereus was driven into exile: a portion of which exile was spent at Thebes, but a much larger portion of it at Alexandria, where he acquired the full confidence of Ptolemy Soter, and retained it until the death of that prince in 285 B.C. While active in politics, and possessing rhetorical talent, elegant without being forcible--Demetrius Phalereus was yet more active in literature and philosophy. He employed his influence, during the time of his political power, to befriend and protect both Xenokrates the chief of the Platonic school, and Theophrastus the chief of the Aristotelian. In his literary and philosophical views he followed Theophrastus and the Peripatetic sect, and was himself among their most voluminous writers. The latter portion of his life was spent at Alexandria, in the service of Ptolemy Soter; after whose death, however, he soon incurred the displeasure of Ptolemy Philadelphus, and died, intentionally or accidentally, from the bite of an asp.[31]
[Footnote 31: Diog. L. iv. 14, v. 39, 75, 80; Strabo, ix. 398; Plut., De Exil. p. 601; Apophth. p. 189; Cic., De Fin. v. 19; Pro Rab. 30.
Diogenes says about Demetrius Phalereus, (v. 80) [Greek: Plê/thei de\ bibli/ôn kai\ a)rithmô=| sti/chôn, schedo\n a(/pantas parelê/lake tou=s kat' au)to\n Peripatêtikou/s, eu)pai/deutos ô)\n kai\ polu/peiros par' o(ntinou=n.]]
[Side-note: He was chief agent in the first establishment of the Alexandrine Library.]
The Alexandrine Museum or library first acquired celebrity under the reign of Ptolemy (II.) Philadelphus, by whom moreover it was greatly enlarged and its treasures multiplied. Hence that prince is sometimes entitled the founder. But there can be no doubt that its first initiation and establishment is due to Ptolemy (I.) Soter.[32] Demetrius Phalereus was his adviser and auxiliary, the link of connection between him and the literary or philosophical world of Greece. We read that Julius Cæsar, when he conceived the scheme (which he did not live to execute) of establishing a large public library at Rome, fixed upon the learned Varro to regulate the selection and arrangement of the books.[33] None but an eminent literary man could carry such an enterprise into effect, even at Rome, when there existed the precedent of the Alexandrine library: much more when Ptolemy commenced his operations at Alexandria, and when there were only the two [Greek: Mousei=a] at Athens to serve as precedents. Demetrius, who combined an organising head and political experience, with an erudition not inferior to Varro, regard being had to the stock of learning accessible--was eminently qualified for the task. It procured for him great importance with Ptolemy, and compensated him for that loss of political ascendancy at Athens, which unfavourable fortune had brought about.
[Footnote 32: Mr. Clinton says, Fast. Hell. App. 5, p. 380, 381: "Athenæus distinctly ascribes the institution of the [Greek: Mousei=on] to Philadelphus in v. 203, where he is describing the acts of Philadelphus." This is a mistake: the passage in Athenæus does not specify which of the two first Ptolemies was the founder: it is perfectly consistent with the supposition that Ptolemy Soter founded it. The same may be said about the passage cited by Mr. Clinton from Plutarch; that too does not determine between the two Ptolemies, which was the founder. Perizonius was in error (as Mr. Clinton points out) in affirming that the passage in Plutarch determined the foundation to the first Ptolemy: Mr. Clinton is in error by affirming that the passage in Athenæus determines it to the second. Mr. Clinton has also been misled by Vitruvius and Scaliger (p. 389), when he affirms that the library at Alexandria was not formed until after the library at Pergamus. Bernhardy (Grundriss der Griech. Litt., Part i. p. 359, 367, 369) has followed Mr. Clinton too implicitly in recognising Philadelphus as the founder: nevertheless he too admits (p. 366) that the foundations were laid by Ptolemy Soter, under the advice and assistance of Demetrius Phalereus.
The earliest declared king of the Attalid family at Pergamus acquired the throne in 241 B.C. The library at Pergamus could hardly have been commenced before his time: and it is his successor, Eumenes II. (whose reign began in 197 B.C.), who is mentioned as the great collector and adorner of the library at Pergamus. See Strabo, xiii. 624; Clinton, Fast. Hellen. App. 6, p. 401-403. It is plain that the library at Pergamus could hardly have been begun before the close of the reign of Ptolemy Philadelphus in Egypt, by which time the library of Alexandria had already acquired great extension and renown.]
[Footnote 33: Sueton. Jul. Cæs. c. 44. Melissus, one of the Illustres Grammatici of Rome, undertook by order of Augustus, "curam ordinandarum bibliothecarum in Octaviæ porticu". (Sueton. De Illustr. Grammat. c. 21.)
Cicero replies in the following terms to his brother Quintus, who had written to him, requesting advice and aid in getting together for his own use a collection of Greek and Latin books. "De bibliothecâ tuâ Græcâ supplendâ, libris commutandis, Latinis comparandis--valdé velim ista confici, præsertim cum ad meum quoque usum spectent. Sed ego, mihi ipsi ista per quem agam, non habeo. Neque enim venalia sunt, quæ quidem placeant: et confici nisi per hominem et peritum et diligentem non possunt. Chrysippo tamen imperabo, et cum Tyrannione loquar." (Cic., Epist. ad Q. Fratr. iii. 4, 5.)
Now the circulation of books was greatly increased, and the book trade far more developed, at Rome when this letter was written (about three centuries after Plato's decease) than it was at Athens during the time of Demetrius Phalereus (320-300 B.C.). Yet we see the difficulty which the two brothers Cicero had in collecting a mere private library for use of the owner simply. Good books, in a correct and satisfactory condition, were not to be had for money: it was necessary to get access to the best MSS., and to have special copies made, neatly and correctly: and this could not be done, except under the superintendence of a laborious literary man like Tyrannion, by well taught slaves subordinate to him.
We may understand, from this analogy, the far greater obstacles which the collectors of the Alexandrine museum and library must have had to overcome, when they began their work. No one could do it, except a practised literary man such as Demetrius Phalereus: nor even he, except by finding out the best MSS., and causing special copies to be made for the use of the library. Respecting the extent and facility of book-diffusion in the Roman world, information will be found in the late Sir George Cornewall Lewis's Enquiry into the Credibility of Early Roman History, vol. i. p. 196, seqq.; also, in the fifth chapter of the work of Adolf Schmidt, Geschichte der Denk-und Glaubens-Freiheit im ersten Jahrhunderte der Kaiser-herrschaft, Berlin, 1847; lastly in a valuable review of Adolf Schmidt's work by Sir George Lewis himself, in Fraser's Magazine for April, 1862, pp. 432-439. Adolf Schmidt represents the multiplication and cheapness of books in that day as something hardly inferior to what it is now--citing many authorities for this opinion. Sir G. Lewis has shown, in my judgment most satisfactorily, that these authorities are insufficient, and that the opinion is incorrect: this might have been shown even more fully, if the review had been lengthened. I perfectly agree with Sir G. Lewis on the main question: yet I think he narrows the case on his own side too much, and that the number of copies of such authors as Virgil and Horace, in circulation at one time, cannot have been so small as he imagines.]
[Side-note: Proceedings of Demetrius in beginning to collect the library.]
We learn that the ardour of Demetrius Phalereus was unremitting, and that his researches were extended everywhere, to obtain for the new museum literary monuments from all countries within contemporary knowledge.[34] This is highly probable: such universality of literary interest was adapted to the mixed and cosmopolitan character of the Alexandrine population. But Demetrius was a Greek, born about the time of Plato's death (347 B.C.), and identified with the political, rhetorical, dramatic, literary, and philosophical, activity of Athens, in which he had himself taken a prominent part. To collect the memorials of Greek literature would be his first object, more especially such as Aristotle and Theophrastus possessed in their libraries. Without doubt he would procure the works of Homer and the other distinguished poets, epic, lyric, and dramatic, as well as the rhetors, orators, &c. He probably would not leave out the works of the viri Sokratici (Antisthenes, Aristippus, Æschines, &c.) and the other philosophers (Demokritus, Anaxagoras, Parmenides, &c.). But there are two authors, whose compositions he would most certainly take pains to obtain--Plato and Aristotle. These were the two commanding names of Grecian philosophy in that day: the founders of the two schools existing in Athens, upon the model of which the Alexandrine Museum was to be constituted.
[Footnote 34: Josephus, Antiquit. xii. 2, 1. [Greek: Dêmê/trios o( Phalêreu/s, o(\s ê)=n e)pi\ tô=n bibliothêkô=n tou= basile/ôs, spouda/zôn ei) dunato\n ei)/ê pa/nta ta\ kata\ tê\n oi)koume/nên suna/gein bi/blia, kai\ sunônou/menos ei)/ ti/ pou mo/non a)kou/seie spoudê=s a)/xion ê)\ ê(du/, tê=| tou= basile/ôs proaire/sei (ma/lista ga\r peri\ tê\n sullogê\n tô=n bibli/ôn ei)=che philoka/lôs) sunêgôni/zeto].
What Josephus affirms here, I apprehend to be perfectly true; though he goes on to state much that is fabulous and apocryphal, respecting the incidents which preceded and accompanied the translation of the Hebrew Scriptures. Josephus is also mistaken in connecting Demetrius Phalereus with Ptolemy Philadelphus. Demetrius Phalereus was disgraced, and died shortly after that prince's accession. His time of influence was under Ptolemy Soter.
Respecting the part taken by Demetrius Phalereus in the first getting up of the Alexandrine Museum, see Valckenaer, Dissertat. De Aristobulo Judaico, p. 52-57; Ritschl, Die Alexandrin. Biblioth. p. 17, 18; Parthey, Das Alexandrinische Museum, p. 70, 71 seq.]
[Side-note: Certainty that the works of Plato and Aristotle were among the earliest acquisitions made by him for the library.]
Among all the books which would pass over to Alexandria as the earliest stock of the new library, I know nothing upon which we can reckon more certainly than upon the works of Plato.[35] For they were acquisitions not only desirable, but also easily accessible. The writings of Aristippus or Demokritus--of Lysias or Isokrates--might require to be procured (or good MSS. thereof, fit to be specially copied) at different places and from different persons, without any security that the collection, when purchased, would be either complete or altogether genuine. But the manuscripts of Plato and of Aristotle were preserved in their respective schools at Athens, the Academic and Peripatetic:[36] a collection complete as well as verifiable. Demetrius could obtain permission, from Theophrastus in the Peripatetic school, from Polemon or Krantor in the Academic school, to have these MSS. copied for him by careful and expert hands. The cost of such copying must doubtless have been considerable; amounting to a sum which few private individuals would have been either able or willing to disburse. But the treasures of Ptolemy were amply sufficient for the purpose:[37] and when he once conceived the project of founding a museum in his new capital, a large outlay, incurred for transcribing from the best MSS. a complete and authentic collection of the works of illustrious authors, was not likely to deter him. We know from other anecdotes,[38] what vast sums the third Ptolemy spent, for the mere purpose of securing better and more authoritative MSS. of works which the Alexandrine library already possessed.
[Footnote 35: Stahr, in the second part of his work "Aristotelia," combats and refutes with much pains the erroneous supposition, that there was no sufficient publication of the works of Aristotle, until after the time when Apellikon purchased the MSS. from the heirs of Neleus--i.e. B.C. 100. Stahr shows evidence to prove, that the works, at least many of the works, of Aristotle were known and studied before the year 100 B.C.: that they were in the library at Alexandria, and that they were procured for that library by Demetrius Phalereus. Stahr says (Thl. ii. p. 59): "Is it indeed credible--is it even conceivable--that Demetrius, who recommended especially to his regal friend Ptolemy the study of the political works of the philosophers--that Demetrius, the friend both of the Aristotelian philosophy and of Theophrastus, should have left the works of the two greatest Peripatetic philosophers out of his consideration? May we not rather be sure that he would take care to secure their works, before all others, for his nascent library--if indeed he did not bring them with him when he came to Alexandria?" The question here put by Stahr (and farther insisted on by Ravaisson, Essai sur la Métaphysique d'Aristote, Introd. p. 14) is very pertinent: and I put the like question, with slight change of circumstances, respecting the works of Plato. Demetrius Phalereus was the friend and patron of Xenokrates, as well as of Theophrastus.]
[Footnote 36: In respect to the Peripatetic school, this is true only during the lifetime of Theophrastus, who died 287 B.C. I have already mentioned that after the death of Theophrastus, the MSS. were withdrawn from Athens. But all the operations of Demetrius Phalereus were carried on during the lifetime of Theophrastus; much of them, probably, in concert with Theophrastus, whose friend and pupil he was. The death of Theophrastus, the death of Ptolemy Soter, and the discredit and subsequent death of Demetrius are separated only by an interval of two or three years.]
[Footnote 37: We find interesting information, in the letters of Cicero, respecting the librarii or copyists whom he had in his service; and the still more numerous and effective band of librarii and anagnostæ: (slaves, mostly home-born) whom his friend Atticus possessed and trained (Corn. Nep., Vit. Attici, c. 13). See Epist. ad Attic. xii. 6; xiii. 21-44; v. 12 seq.
It appears that many of the compositions of Cicero were copied, prepared for publication, and published, by the librarii of Atticus: who, in the case of the Academica, incurred a loss, because Cicero--after having given out the work to be copied and published, and after progress had been made in doing this--thought fit to alter materially both the form and the speakers introduced (xiii. 13). In regard to the Oration pro Ligario, Atticus sold it well, and brought himself home ("Ligarianam præclaré vendidisti: posthac, quicquid scripsero, tibi præconium deferam," xiii. 12). Cicero (xiii. 21) compares the relation of Atticus towards himself, with that of Hermodôrus towards Plato, as expressed in the Greek verse, [Greek: lo/goisin E(rmo/dôros [e)mporeu/etai]]. (Suidas, s, v. [Greek: lo/goisin E(rm. e)mp].)
Private friends, such as Balbus and Cærellia (xiii. 21), considered it a privilege to be allowed to take copies of his compositions at their own cost, through librarii employed for the purpose. And we find Galen enumerating this among the noble and dignified ways for an opulent man to expend money, in a remarkable passage, [Greek: ble/pô ga\r se ou)de\ pro\s ta\ kala\ tô=n e)/rgôn dapanê=sai tolmô=nta, mêd' ei)s bibli/ôn ô)nê\n kai\ kataskeuê\n kai\ tô=n grapho/ntôn a)/skêsin, ê)/toi ge ei)s ta/chos dia\ sêmei/ôn, ê)\ ei)s kalô=n a)kri/beian, ô(/sper ou)de\ tô=n a)naginôsko/ntôn o)rthô=s]. (De Cognoscendis Curandisque Animi Morbis, t. v. p. 48, Kühn.)]
[Footnote 38: Galen, Comm. ad Hippokrat. [Greek: E)pidêmi/as], vol. xvii. p. 606, 607, ed. Kühn.
Lykurgus, the contemporary of Demosthenes as an orator, conspicuous for many years in the civil and financial administration of Athens, caused a law to be passed, enacting that an official MS. should be made of the plays of Æschylus, Sophokles, and Euripides. No permission was granted to represent any of these dramas at the Dionysiac festival, except upon condition that the applicant and the actors whom he employed, should compare the MS. on which they intended to proceed, with the official MS. in the hands of the authorised secretary. The purpose was to prevent arbitrary amendments or omissions in these plays, at the pleasure of [Greek: u(pokri/tai].
Ptolemy Euergetes borrowed from the Athenians these public and official MSS. of Æschylus, Sophokles, and Euripides on the plea that he wished to have exact copies of them taken at Alexandria, and under engagement to restore them as soon as this was done. He deposited with them the prodigious sum of fifteen talents, as a guarantee for the faithful restitution. When he got the MSS. at Alexandria, he caused copies of them to be taken on the finest paper. He then sent these copies to Athens, keeping the originals for the Alexandrine library; desiring the Athenians to retain the deposit of fifteen talents for themselves. Ptolemy Euergetes here pays, not merely the cost of the finest copying, but fifteen talents besides, for the possession of official MSS. of the three great Athenian tragedians; whose works in other manuscripts must have been in the library long before.
Respecting these official MSS. of the three great tragedians, prepared during the administration and under the auspices of the rhetor Lykurgus, see Plutarch, Vit. X. Orator, p. 841, also Boeckh, Græcæ Tragoed. Principia, pp. 13-15. The time when Lykurgus caused this to be done, must have been nearly coincident with the decease of Plato, 347 B.C. See Boeckh, Staatshaushaltung der Athener, vol. i. p. 468, ii. p. 244; Welcker, Griech. Trag. iii. p. 908; Korn, De Publico Æschyli, &c., Exemplari, Lykurgo Auctore Confecto, p. 6-9, Bonn, 1863.
In the passage cited above from Galen, we are farther informed, that Ptolemy Euergetes caused inquiries to be made, from the masters of all vessels which came to Alexandria, whether there were any MSS. on board; if there were, the MSS. were brought to the library, carefully copied out, and the copies given to the owners; the original MSS. being retained in the library, and registered in a separate compartment, under the general head of [Greek: Ta\ e)k ploi/ôn], and with the name of the person from whom the acquisition had been made, annexed. Compare Wolf, Prolegg. ad Homerum, p. clxxv. These statements tend to show the care taken by the Alexandrine librarians, not only to acquire the best MSS., but also to keep good MSS. apart from bad, and to record the person and the quarter from which each acquisition had been made.]
[Side-note: Large expenses incurred by the Ptolemies for procuring good MSS.]
We cannot doubt that Demetrius could obtain permission, if he asked it, from the Scholarchs, to have such copies made. To them the operation was at once complimentary and lucrative; while among the Athenian philosophers generally, the name of Demetrius was acceptable, from the favour which he had shown to them during his season of political power--and that of Ptolemy popular from his liberalities. Or if we even suppose that Demetrius, instead of obtaining copies of the Platonic MSS. from the school, purchased copies from private persons or book-sellers (as he must have purchased the works of Demokritus and others)--he could, at any rate, assure himself of the authenticity of what he purchased, by information from the Scholarch.
[Side-note: Catalogue of Platonic works, prepared by Aristophanes, is trustworthy.]
My purpose, in thus calling attention to the Platonic school and the Alexandrine Museum, is to show that the chance for preservation of Plato's works complete and genuine after his decease, was unusually favourable. I think that they existed complete and genuine in the Alexandrine Museum before the time of Kallimachus, and, of course, during that of Aristophanes. If there were in the Museum any other works obtained from private vendors and professing to be Platonic, Kallimachus and Aristophanes had the means of distinguishing these from such as the Platonic school had furnished and could authenticate, and motive enough for keeping them apart from the certified Platonic catalogue. Whether there existed any spurious works of this sort in the Museum, Diogenes Laertius does not tell us; nor, unfortunately, does he set forth the full list of those which Aristophanes, recognising as Platonic, distributed either in triplets or in units. Diogenes mentions only the principle of distribution adopted, and a select portion of the compositions distributed. But as far as his positive information goes, I hold it to be perfectly worthy of trust. I consider that all the compositions recognised by Aristophanes as works of Plato are unquestionably such; and that his testimony greatly strengthens our assurance for the received catalogue, in many of those items which have been most contested by critics, upon supposed internal grounds. Aristophanes authenticates, among others, not merely the Leges, but also the Epinomis, the Minos, and the Epistolæ.
[Side-note: No canonical or exclusive order of the Platonic dialogues, when arranged by Aristophanes.]
There is another point also which I conceive to be proved by what we hear about Aristophanes. He (or Kallimachus before him) introduced a new order or distribution of his own--the Trilogies--founded on the analogy of the dramatic Didaskalies. This shows that the Platonic dialogues were not received into the library in any canonical or exclusive order of their own, or in any interdependence as first, second, third, &c., essential to render them intelligible as a system. Had there been any such order, Kallimachus and Aristophanes would no more have altered it, than they would have transposed the order of the books in the Republic and Leges. The importance of what is here observed will appear presently, when we touch upon the theory of Schleiermacher.
[Side-note: Other libraries and literary centres, besides Alexandria, in which spurious Platonic works might get footing.]
The distributive arrangement, proposed or sanctioned by Aristophanes, applied (as I have already remarked) to the materials in the Alexandrine library only. But this library, though it was the most conspicuous portion, was not the whole, of the Grecian literary aggregate. There were other great regal libraries (such as those of the kings of Pergamus and the Seleukid kings[39]) commenced after the Alexandrine library had already attained importance, and intended to rival it: there was also an active literary and philosophising class, in various Grecian cities, of which Athens was the foremost, but in which Rhodes, Kyrênê, and several cities in Asia Minor, Kilikia, and Syria, were included: ultimately the cultivated classes at Rome, and the Western Hellenic city of Massalia, became comprised in the number. Among this widespread literary public, there were persons who neither knew nor examined the Platonic school or the Alexandrine library, nor investigated what title either of them had to furnish a certificate authenticating the genuine works of Plato. It is not certain that even the great library at Pergamus, begun nearly half a century after that of Alexandria, had any such initiatory agent as Demetrius Phalereus, able as well as willing to go to the fountain-head of Platonism at Athens: nor could the kings of Pergamus claim aid from Alexandria, with which they were in hostile rivalry, and from which they were even forbidden (so we hear) to purchase papyrus. Under these circumstances, it is quite possible that spurious Platonic writings, though they obtained no recognition in the Alexandrine library, might obtain more or less recognition elsewhere, and pass under the name of Plato. To a certain extent, such was the case. There existed some spurious dialogues at the time when Thrasyllus afterwards formed his arrangement.
[Footnote 39: The library of Antiochus the Great or of his predecessor, is mentioned by Suidas, [Greek: Eu)phori/ôn]. Euphorion was librarian of it, seemingly about 230-220 B.C. See Clinton, Fast. Hell. B.C. 221.
Galen states (Comm. in Hippok. De Nat. Hom. vol. xv. p. 105, Kühn) that the forgeries of books, and the practice of tendering books for sale under the false names of celebrated authors, did not commence until the time when the competition between the kings of Egypt and the kings of Pergamus for their respective libraries became vehement. If this be admitted, there could have been no forgeries tendered at Alexandria until after the commencement of the reign of Euergetes (B.C. 247-222): for the competition from Pergamus could hardly have commenced earlier than 230 B.C. In the times of Soter and Philadelphus, there would be no such forgeries tendered. I do not doubt that such forgeries were sometimes successfully passed off:** but I think Galen does not take sufficient account of the practice (mentioned by himself) at the Alexandrine library, to keep faithful record of the person and quarter from whence each book had been acquired.]
[Side-note: Other critics, besides Aristophanes, proposed different arrangements of the Platonic dialogues.]
Moreover the distribution made by Aristophanes of the Platonic dialogues into Trilogies, and the order of priority which he established among them was by no means universally accepted. Some rejected altogether the dramatic analogy of Trilogies as a principle of distribution. They arranged the dialogues into three classes:[40] 1. The Direct, or purely dramatic. 2. The Indirect, or narrative (diegematic). 3. The Mixed--partly one, partly the other. Respecting the order of priority, we read that while Aristophanes placed the Republic first, there were eight other arrangements, each recognising a different dialogue as first in order; these eight were, Alkibiades I., Theagês, Euthyphron, Kleitophon, Timæus, Phædrus, Theætêtus, Apology. More than one arrangement began with the Apology. Some even selected the Epistolæ as the proper commencement for studying Plato's works.[41]
[Footnote 40: Diog. L. iii. 49. Schöne, in his commentary on the Protagoras (pp. 8-12), lays particular stress on this division into the direct or dramatic, and indirect or diegematic. He thinks it probable, that Plato preferred one method to the other at different periods of life: that all of one sort, and all of the other sort, come near together in time.]
[Footnote 41: Diog. L. iii. 62. Albinus, [Greek: Ei)sagôgê\], c. 4, in K. F. Hermann's Appendix Platonica, p. 149.]
[Side-note: Panætius, the Stoic--considered the Phædon to be spurious--earliest known example of a Platonic dialogue disallowed upon internal grounds.]
We hear with surprise that the distinguished Stoic philosopher at Athens, Panætius, rejected the Phædon as not being the work of Plato.[42] It appears that he did not believe in the immortality of the soul, and that he profoundly admired Plato; accordingly, he thought it unworthy of so great a philosopher to waste so much logical subtlety, poetical metaphor, and fable, in support of such a conclusion. Probably he was also guided, in part, by one singularity in the Phædon: it is the only dialogue wherein Plato mentions himself in the third person.[43] If Panætius was predisposed, on other grounds, to consider the dialogue as unworthy of Plato, he might be induced to lay stress upon such a singularity, as showing that the author of the dialogue must be some person other than Plato. Panætius evidently took no pains to examine the external attestations of the dialogue, which he would have found to be attested both by Aristotle and by Kallimachus as the work of Plato. Moreover, whatever any one may think of the cogency of the reasoning--the beauty of Platonic handling and expression is manifest throughout the dialogue. This verdict of Panætius is the earliest example handed down to us of a Platonic dialogue disallowed on internal grounds that is, because it appeared to the critic unworthy of Plato: and it is certainly among the most unfortunate examples.
[Footnote 42: See the Epigram out of the Anthology, and the extract from the Scholia on the Categories of Aristotle, cited by Wyttenbach in his note on the beginning of the Phædon. A more important passage (which he has not cited) from the Scholia on Aristotle, is, that of Asklepius on the Metaphysica, p. 991; Scholia, ed. Brandis, p. 576, a. 38. [Greek: O(/ti tou= Pla/tônos e)stin o( Phai/dôn, saphô=s o( A)ristote/lês dêloi=--Panai/tios ga\r tis e)to/lmêse notheu=sai to\n dia/logon. e)peidê\ ga\r e)/legen ei)=nai thnêtê\n tê\n psuchê/n, e)bou/leto sugkataspa/sai to\n Pla/tôna; e)pei\ ou)=n e)n tô=| Phai/dôni saphô=s a)pathanati/zei] (Plato) [Greek: tê\n logikê\n psuchê/n, tou/tou cha/rin e)no/theuse to\n dia/logon]. Wyttenbach vainly endeavours to elude the force of the passages cited by himself, and to make out that the witnesses did not mean to assert that Panætius had declared the Phædon to be spurious. One of the reasons urged by Wyttenbach is--"Nec illud negligendum, quod dicitur [Greek: u(po\ Panaiti/ou tino\s], à Panætio quodam neque per contemptum dici potuisse neque a Syriano neque ab hoc anonymo; quorum neuter eâ fuit doctrinæ inopia, ut Panætii laudes et præstantiam ignoraret." But in the Scholion of Asklepius on the Metaphysica (which passage was not before Wyttenbach), we find the very same expression [Greek: Panai/tio/s tis], and plainly used per contemptum: for Asklepius probably considered it a manifestation of virtuous feeling to describe, in contemptuous language, a philosopher who did not believe in the immortality of the soul. We have only to read the still harsher and more contemptuous language which he employs towards the Manicheans, in another Scholion, p. 666, b. 5, Brandis.
Favorinus said (Diog. iii. 37) that when Plato read aloud the Phædon, Aristotle was the only person present who remained to the end: all the other hearers went away in the middle. I have no faith in this anecdote: I consider it, like so many others in Diogenes, as a myth: but the invention of it indicates, that there were many persons who had no sympathy with the Phædon, taking at the bottom the same view as Panætius.]
[Footnote 43: Plato, Phædon, p. 59. Plato is named also in the Apology: but this is a report, more or less exact, of the real defence of Sokrates.]
[Side-note: Classification of Platonic works by the rhetor Thrasyllus--dramatic--philosophical.]
But the most elaborate classification of the Platonic works was that made by Thrasyllus, in the days of Augustus or Tiberius, near to, or shortly after, the Christian era: a rhetor of much reputation, consulted and selected as travelling companion by the Emperor Augustus.[44]
[Footnote 44: Diog. L. iii. 56; Themistius, Orat. viii. ([Greek: Pentetêriko\s]) p. 108 B.
It appears that this classification by Thrasyllus was approved, or jointly constructed, by his contemporary Derkyllides. (Albinus, [Greek: Ei)sagôgê\], c. 4, p. 149, in K. F. Hermann's Appendix Platonica.)]
Thrasyllus adopted two different distributions of the Platonic works: one was dramatic, the other philosophical. The two were founded on perfectly distinct principles, and had no inherent connection with each other; but Thrasyllus combined them together, and noted, in regard to each dialogue, its place in the one classification as well as in the other.
[Side-note: Dramatic principle--Tetralogies.]
One of these distributions was into Tetralogies, or groups of four each. This was in substitution for the Trilogies introduced by Aristophanes or by Kallimachus, and was founded upon the same dramatic analogy: the dramas, which contended for the prize at the Dionysiac festivals, having been sometimes exhibited in batches of three, or Trilogies, sometimes in batches of four, or Tetralogies--three tragedies, along with a satirical piece as accompaniment. Because the dramatic writer brought forth four pieces at a birth, it was assumed as likely that Plato would publish four dialogues all at once. Without departing from this dramatic analogy, which seems to have been consecrated by the authority of the Alexandrine Grammatici, Thrasyllus gained two advantages. First, he included ALL the Platonic compositions, whereas Aristophanes, in his Trilogies, had included only a part, and had left the rest not grouped. Thrasyllus included all the Platonic compositions, thirty-six in number, reckoning the Republic, the Leges, and the Epistolæ in bulk, each as one--in nine Tetralogies or groups of four each. Secondly, he constituted his first tetralogy in an impressive and appropriate manner--Euthyphron, Apology, Kriton, Phædon--four compositions really resembling a dramatic tetralogy, and bound together by their common bearing, on the last scenes of the life of a philosopher.[45] In Euthyphron, Sokrates appears as having been just indicted and as thinking on his defence; in the Apology, he makes his defence; in the Kriton, he appears as sentenced by the legal tribunal, yet refusing to evade the sentence by escaping from his prison; in the Phædon, we have the last dying scene and conversation. None of the other tetralogies present an equal bond of connection between their constituent items; but the first tetralogy was probably intended to recommend the rest, and to justify the system.
[Footnote 45: Diog. L. iii. 57. [Greek: prô/tên me\n ou)=n tetralogi/an ti/thêsi tê\n koinê\n u(po/thesin e)/chousan; paradei=xai ga\r bou/letai o(/poiois a)\n ei)/ê o( tou= philoso/phou bi/os]. Albinus, Introduct. ad Plat. c. 4, p. 149, in K. F. Hermann's Append. Platon.
Thrasyllus appears to have considered the Republic as ten dialogues and the Leges as twelve, each book (of Republic and of Leges) constituting a separate dialogue, so that he made the Platonic works fifty-six in all. But for the purpose of his tetralogies he reckoned them only as thirty-six--nine groups.
The author of the Prolegomena [Greek: tê=s Pla/tônos Philosophi/as] in Hermann's Append. Platon. pp. 218-219, gives the same account of the tetralogies, and of the connecting bond which united the four** members of the first tetralogical group: but he condemns altogether the principle of the tetralogical division. He does not mention the name of Thrasyllus. He lived after Proklus (p. 218), that is, after 480 A.D.
The argument urged by Wyttenbach and others--that Varro must have considered the Phædon as fourth in the order of the Platonic compositions--an argument founded on a passage in Varro. L. L. vii. 37, which refers to the Phædon under the words Plato in quarto--this argument becomes inapplicable in the text as given by O. Müller--not Varro in quarto but Varro in quattuor fluminibus, &c. Mullach (Democriti Frag. p. 98) has tried unsuccessfully to impugn Müller's text, and to uphold the word quarto with the inference resting upon it.]
[Side-note: Philosophical principle--Dialogues of Search--Dialogues of Exposition.]
In the other distribution made by Thrasyllus,[46] Plato was regarded not as a quasi-dramatist, but as a philosopher. The dialogues were classified with reference partly to their method and spirit, partly to their subject. His highest generic distinction was into:--1. Dialogues of Investigation or Search. 2. Dialogues of Exposition or Construction. The Dialogues of Investigation he subdivided into two classes:--1. Gymnastic. 2. Agonistic. These were again subdivided, each into two sub-classes; the Gymnastic, into 1. Obstetric. 2. Peirastic. The Agonistic, into 1. Probative. 2. Refutative. Again, the Dialogues of Exposition were divided into two classes: 1. Theoretical. 2. Practical. Each of these classes was divided into two sub-classes: the Theoretical into 1. Physical. 2. Logical. The Practical into 1. Ethical. 2. Political.
[Footnote 46: The statement in Diogenes Laertius, in his life of Plato, is somewhat obscure and equivocal; but I think it certain that the classification which he gives in iii. 49, 50, 51, of the Platonic dialogues, was made by Thrasyllus. It is a portion of the same systematic arrangement as that given somewhat farther on (iii. 56-61), which is ascribed by name to Thrasyllus, enumerating the Tetralogies. Diogenes expressly states that Thrasyllus was the person who annexed to each dialogue its double denomination, which it has since borne in the published editions--[Greek: Eu)thu/phrôn--peri\ o(si/ou--peirastiko/s]. In the Dialogues of examination or Search, one of these names is derived from the subject, the other from the method, as in the instance of Euthyphron just cited: in the Dialogues of Exposition both names are derived from the subject, first the special, next the general. [Greek: Phai/dôn, ê)\ peri\ psuchê=s, ê)thiko/s. Parmeni/dês, ê)\ peri\ i)deô=n, logiko/s].
Schleiermacher (in the Einleitung prefixed to his translation of Plato, p. 24) speaks somewhat loosely about "the well-known dialectical distributions of the Platonic dialogues, which Diogenes has preserved without giving the name of the author". Diogenes gives only one such dialectical (or logical) distribution; and though he does not mention the name of Thrasyllus in direct or immediate connection with it, we may clearly see that he is copying Thrasyllus. This is well pointed out in an acute commentary on Schleiermacher, by Yxem, Logos Protreptikos, Berlin, 1841, p. 12-13.
Diogenes remarks (iii. 50) that the distribution of the dialogues into narrative, dramatic, and mixed, is made [Greek: tragikô=s ma=llon ê)\ philoso/phôs]. This remark would seem to apply more precisely to the arrangement of the dialogues into trilogies and tetralogies. His word [Greek: philoso/phôs] belongs very justly to the logical distribution of Thrasyllus, apart from the tetralogies.
Porphyry tells us that Plotinus did not bestow any titles upon his own discourses. The titles were bestowed by his disciples; who did not always agree, but gave different titles to the same discourse (Porphyry, Vit. Plotin. 4).]
The following table exhibits this philosophical classification of Thrasyllus:--
Table I.
PHILOSOPHICAL DISTRIBUTION OF THE WORKS OF PLATO BY THRASYLLUS.
I. Dialogues of Investigation. II. Dialogues of Exposition.
Searching Dialogues. Guiding Dilogues [Greek: Zêtêtikoi/]. [Greek: U(phêgêtikoi/].
I. Dialogues of investigation.
Gymnastic. Agonistic.
[Greek: Maieutikoi/. Peirastikoi/. E)ndeiktikoi/. A)natreptikpoi/.]
Obstetric. Peirastic. Probative. Refutative. ---- ---- ---- ---- Alkibiades I. Charmidês. Protagoras. Euthydêmus. Alkibiades II. Menon. Gorgias. Theagês. Ion. Hippias I. Lachês. Euthyphron. Hippias II. Lysis.
II. Dialogues of Exposition.
Theoretical. Practical
[Greek: Phusikoi/. Logikoi/. Ê)thikoi/. Politikoi/.]
Physical Logical. Ethical. Political. ---- ---- ---- ----
Timæus. Kratylus. Apology. Republic. Sophistês. Kriton. Kritias. Politikus. Phædon. Minos. Parmenidês. Phædrus. Leges. Theætêtus. Symposion. Epinomis. Menexenus. Kleitophon. Epistolæ. Philêbus. Hipparchus. Rivales.
I now subjoin a second Table, containing the Dramatic Distribution of the Platonic Dialogues, with the Philosophical Distribution combined or attached to it.
Table II.
DRAMATIC DISTRIBUTION. PLATONIC DIALOGUES, AS ARRANGED IN TETRALOGIES BY THRASYLLUS.
Tetralogy 1.
1. Euthyphron On Holiness Peirastic or Testing. 2. Apology of Sokrates Ethical Ethical. 3. Kriton On Duty in Action Ethical. 4. Phædon On the Soul Ethical.
2.
1. Kratylus On Rectitude in Naming Logical. 2. Theætêtus On Knowledge Logical. 3. Sophistês On Ens or the Existent Logical. 4. Politikus On the Art of Governing Logical.
3.
1. Parmenidês On Ideas Logical. 2. Philêbus On Pleasure Ethical. 3. Symposion On Good Ethical. 4. Phædrus On Love Ethical.
4.
1. Alkibiadês I On the Nature of Man Obstetric or Evolving. 2. Alkibiadês II On Prayer Obstetric. 3. Hipparchus On the Love of Gain. Ethical. 4. Erastæ On Philosophy Ethical.
5.
1. Theagês On Philosophy Obstetric. 2. Charmidês On Temperance Peirastic. 3. Lachês On Courage Obstetric. 4. Lysis On Friendship Obstetric.
6.
1. Euthydêmus The Disputatious Man Refutative. 2. Protagoras The Sophists Probative. 3. Gorgias On Rhetoric Refutative. 4. Menon On Virtue Peirastic.
7.
1. Hippias I On the Beautiful Refutative. 2. Hippias II On Falsehood Refutative. 3. Ion On the Iliad Peirastic. 4. Menexenus The Funeral Oration Ethical.
8.
1. Kleitophon The Impulsive Ethical. 2. Republic On Justice Political. 3. Timæus On Nature Physical. 4. Kritias The Atlantid Ethical.
9.
1. Minos On Law Political. 2. Leges On Legislation Political. 3. Epinomis The Night-Assembly, Political or the Philosopher 4. Epistolæ XIII Ethical.
The second Table, as it here stands, is given by Diogenes Laertius, and is extracted by him probably from the work of Thrasyllus, or from the edition of Plato as published by Thrasyllus. The reader will see that each Platonic composition has a place assigned to it in two classifications--1. The dramatic--2. The philosophical--each in itself distinct and independent of the other, but here blended together.
[Side-note: Incongruity and repugnance of the two classifications.]
We may indeed say more. The two classifications are not only independent, but incongruous and even repugnant. The better of the two is only obscurely and imperfectly apprehended, because it is presented as an appendage to the worse. The dramatic classification, which stands in the foreground, rests upon a purely fanciful analogy, determining preference for the number four. If indeed this objection were urged against Thrasyllus, he might probably have replied that the group of four volumes together was in itself convenient, neither too large nor too small, for an elementary subdivision; and that the fanciful analogy was an artifice for recommending it to the feelings, better (after all) than selection of another number by haphazard. Be that as it may, however, the fiction was one which Thrasyllus inherited from Aristophanes: and it does some honour to his ability, that he has built, upon so inconvenient a fiction, one tetralogy (the first), really plausible and impressive.[47] But it does more honour to his ability that he should have originated the philosophical classification; distinguishing the dialogues by important attributes truly belonging to each, and conducting the Platonic student to points of view which ought to be made known to him. This classification forms a marked improvement upon every thing (so far as we know) which preceded it.
[Footnote 47: It is probable that Aristophanes, in distributing Plato into trilogies, was really influenced by the dramatic form of the compositions to put them in a class with real dramas. But Thrasyllus does not seem to have been influenced by such a consideration. He took the number four on its own merits, and adopted, as a way of recommending it, the traditional analogy sanctioned by the Alexandrine librarians.
That such was the case, we may infer pretty clearly when we learn, that Thrasyllus applied the same distribution (into tetralogies) to the works of Demokritus, which were not dramatic in form. (Diog. L. ix. 45; Mullach, Democ. Frag. p. 100-107, who attempts to restore the Thrasyllean tetralogies.)
The compositions of Demokritus were not merely numerous, but related to the greatest diversity of subjects. To them Thrasyllus could not apply the same logical or philosophical distribution which he applied to Plato. He published, along with the works of Demokritus, a preface, which he entitled [Greek: Ta\ pro\ tê=s a)nagnô/seôs tô=n Dêmokri/tou bibli/ôn] (Diog. L. ix. 41).
Porphyry tells us, that when he undertook, as literary executor, the arrangement and publication of the works of his deceased master Plotinus, he found fifty-four discourses: which he arranged into six Enneads or groups of nine each. He was induced to prefer this distribution, by regard to the perfection of the number six ([Greek: teleio/têti]). He placed in each Ennead discourses akin to each other, or on analogous subjects (Porphyry, Vit. Plotin. 24).]
[Side-note: Dramatic principle of classification--was inherited by Thrasyllus from Aristophanes.]
[Side-note: Authority of the Alexandrine library--editions of Plato published, with the Alexandrine critical marks.]
That Thrasyllus followed Aristophanes in the principle of his classification, is manifest: that he adopted the dramatic ground and principle of classification (while amending its details), not because he was himself guided by it, but because he found it already in use and sanctioned by the high authority of the Alexandrines--is also manifest, because he himself constructed and tacked to it a better classification, founded upon principles new and incongruous with the dramatic. In all this we trace the established ascendancy of the Alexandrine library and its eminent literati. Of which ascendancy a farther illustration appears, when we read in Diogenes Laertius that editions of Plato were published, carrying along with the text the special marks of annotation applied by the Alexandrines to Homer and other poets: the obelus to indicate a spurious passage, the obelus with two dots to denote a passage which had been improperly declared spurious, the X to signify peculiar locutions, the double line or Diplê to mark important or characteristic opinions of Plato--and others in like manner. A special price was paid for manuscripts of Plato with these illustrative appendages:[48] which must have been applied either by Alexandrines themselves, or by others trained in their school. When Thrasyllus set himself to edit and re-distribute the Platonic works, we may be sure that he must have consulted one or more public libraries, either at Alexandria, Athens, Rome, Tarsus, or elsewhere. Nowhere else could he find all the works together. Now the proceedings ascribed to him show that he attached himself to the Alexandrine library, and to the authority of its most eminent critics.
[Footnote 48: Diog. L. iii. 65, 66. [Greek: E)pei\ de\ kai\ sêmei=a/ tina toi=s bibli/ois au)tou= parati/thetai, phe/re kai\ peri\ tou/tôn ti ei)/pômen], &c. He then proceeds to enumerate the [Greek: sêmei=a].
It is important to note that Diogenes cites this statement (respecting the peculiar critical marks appended to manuscripts of the Platonic works) from Antigonus of Karystus in his Life of Zeno the Stoic. Now the date of Antigonus is placed by Mr. Fynes Clinton in B.C. 225, before the death of Ptolemy III. Euergetes (see Fasti Hellen. B.C. 225, also Appendix, 12, 80). Antigonus must thus have been contemporary both with Kallimachus and with Aristophanes of Byzantium: he notices the marked manuscripts of Plato as something newly edited--[Greek: neôsti\ e)kdothe/nta]): and we may thus see that the work of critical marking must have been performed either by Kallimachus and Aristophanes themselves (one or both) or by some of their contemporaries. Among the titles of the lost treatises of Kallimachus, one is--about the [Greek: glô=ssai] or peculiar phrases of Demokritus. It is therefore noway improbable that Kallimachus should have bestowed attention upon the peculiarities of the Platonic text, and the inaccuracies of manuscripts. The library had probably acquired several different manuscripts of the Platonic compositions, as it had of the Iliad and Odyssey, and of the Attic tragedies.]
[Side-note: Thrasyllus followed the Alexandrine library and Aristophanes, as to genuine Platonic works.]
Probably it was this same authority that Thrasyllus followed in determining which were the real works of Plato, and in setting aside pretended works. He accepted the collection of Platonic compositions sanctioned by Aristophanes and recognised as such in the Alexandrine library. As far as our positive knowledge goes, it fully bears out what is here stated: all the compositions recognised by Aristophanes (unfortunately Diogenes does not give a complete enumeration of those which he recognised) are to be found in the catalogue of Thrasyllus. And the evidentiary value of this fact is so much the greater, because the most questionable compositions (I mean, those which modern critics reject or even despise) are expressly included in the recognition of Aristophanes, and passed from him to Thrasyllus--Leges, Epinomis, Minos, Epistolæ, Sophistês, Politikus. Exactly on those points on which the authority of Thrasyllus requires to be fortified against modern objectors, it receives all the support which coincidence with Aristophanes can impart. When we know that Thrasyllus adhered to Aristophanes on so many disputable points of the catalogue, we may infer pretty certainly that he adhered to him in the remainder. In regard to the question, Which were Plato's genuine works? it was perfectly natural that Thrasyllus should accept the recognition of the greatest library then existing: a library, the written records of which could be traced back to Demetrius Phalereus. He followed this external authority: he did not take each dialogue to pieces, to try whether it conformed to a certain internal standard--a "platonisches Gefühl"--of his own.
[Side-note: Ten spurious dialogues, rejected by all other critics as well as by Thrasyllus--evidence that these critics followed the common authority of the Alexandrine library.]
That the question between genuine and spurious Platonic dialogues was tried in the days of Thrasyllus, by external authority and not by internal feeling--we may see farther by the way in which Diogenes Laertius speaks of the spurious dialogues. "The following dialogues (he says) are declared to be spurious by common consent: 1. Eryxias or Erasistratus. 2. Akephali or Sisyphus. 3. Demodokus. 4. Axiochus. 5. Halkyon. 6. Midon or Hippotrophus. 7. Phæakes. 8. Chelidon. 9. Hebdomê. 10. Epimenides."[49] There was, then, unanimity, so far as the knowledge of Diogenes Laertius reached, as to genuine and spurious. All the critics whom he valued, Thrasyllus among them, pronounced the above ten dialogues to be spurious: all of them agreed also in accepting the dialogues in the list of Thrasyllus as genuine.[50] Of course the ten spurious dialogues must have been talked of by some persons, or must have got footing in some editions or libraries, as real works of Plato: otherwise there could have been no trial had or sentence passed upon them. But what Diogenes affirms is, that Thrasyllus and all the critics whose opinion he esteemed, concurred in rejecting them. We may surely presume that this unanimity among the critics, both as to all that they accepted and all that they rejected, arose from common acquiescence in the authority of the Alexandrine library.[51] The ten rejected dialogues were not in the Alexandrine library--or at least not among the rolls therein recognised as Platonic.
[Footnote 49: Diog. L. iii. 62: [Greek: notheu/ontai de\ tô=n dialo/gôn o(mologoume/nôs].
Compare Prolegomena [Greek: tê=s Pla/tônos Philosophi/as], in Hermann's Appendix Platonica, p. 219.]
[Footnote 50: It has been contended by some modern critics, that Thrasyllus himself doubted whether the Hipparchus was Plato's work. When I consider that dialogue, I shall show that there is no adequate ground for believing that Thrasyllus doubted its genuineness.]
[Footnote 51: Diogenes (ix. 49) uses the same phrase in regard to the spurious works ascribed to Demokritus, [Greek: ta\ d' o(mologoume/nôs e)sti\n a)llo/tria]. And I believe that he means the same thing by it: that the works alluded to were not recognised in the Alexandrine library as belonging to Demokritus, and were accordingly excluded from the tetralogies (of Demokritus) prepared by Thrasyllus.]
[Side-note: Thrasyllus did not follow an internal sentiment of his own in rejecting dialogues as spurious.]
If Thrasyllus and the others did not proceed upon this evidence in rejecting the ten dialogues, and did not find in them any marks of time such as to exclude the supposition of Platonic authorship--they decided upon what is called internal evidence: a critical sentiment, which satisfied them that these dialogues did not possess the Platonic character, style, manner, doctrines, merits, &c. Now I think it highly improbable that Thrasyllus could have proceeded upon any such sentiment. For when we survey the catalogue of works which he recognised as genuine, we see that it includes the widest diversity of style, manner, doctrine, purpose, and merits: that the disparate epithets, which he justly applies to discriminate the various dialogues, cannot be generalised so as to leave any intelligible "Platonic character" common to all. Now since Thrasyllus reckoned among the genuine works of Plato, compositions so unlike, and so unequal in merit, as the Republic, Protagoras, Gorgias, Lysis, Parmenidês, Symposion, Philêbus, Menexenus, Leges, Epinomis, Hipparchus, Minos, Theagês, Epistolæ, &c., not to mention a composition obviously unfinished, such as the Kritias--he could have little scruple in believing that Plato also composed the Eryxias, Sisyphus, Demodokus, and Halkyon. These last-mentioned dialogues still exist, and can be appreciated.[52] Allowing, for the sake of argument, that we are entitled to assume our own sense of worth as a test of what is really Plato's composition, it is impossible to deny, that if these dialogues are not worthy of the author of Republic and Protagoras, they are at least worthy of the author of the Leges, Epinomis, Hipparchus, Minos, &c. Accordingly, if the internal sentiment of Thrasyllus did not lead him to reject these last four, neither would it lead him to reject the Eryxias, Sisyphus, and Halkyon. I conclude therefore that if he, and all the other critics whom Diogenes esteemed, agreed in rejecting the ten dialogues as spurious--their verdict depended not upon any internal sentiment, but upon the authority of the Alexandrine library.[53]
[Footnote 52: The Axiochus, Eryxias, Sisyphus, and Demodokus, are printed as Apocrypha annexed to most editions of Plato, together with two other dialogues entitled De Justo and De Virtute. The Halkyon has generally appeared among the works of Lucian, but K. F. Hermann has recently printed it in his edition of Plato among the Platonic Apocrypha.
The Axiochus contains a mark of time (the mention of [Greek: A)kadêmi/a] and [Greek: Lukei=on], p. 367), as F. A. Wolf has observed, proving that it was not composed until the Platonic and Peripatetic schools were both of them in full establishment at Athens--that is, certainly after the death of Plato, and probably after the death of Aristotle. It is possible that Thrasyllus may have proceeded upon this evidence of time, at least as collateral proof, in pronouncing the dialogue not to be the work of Plato. The other four dialogues contain no similar evidence of date.
Favorinus affirmed that Halkyon was the work of an author named Leon.
Some said (Diog. L. iii. 37) that Philippus of Opus, one of the disciples of Plato, transcribed the Leges, which were on waxen tablets ([Greek: e)n kêrô=|]), and that the Epinomis was his work ([Greek: tou/tou de\ kai\ tê\n E)pinomi/da phasi\n ei)=nai]). It was probably the work of Philippus only in the sense in which the Leges were his work--that he made a fair and durable copy of parts of it from the wax. Thrasyllus admitted it with the rest as Platonic.]
[Footnote 53: Mullach (Democr. Fragm. p. 100) accuses Thrasyllus of an entire want of critical sentiment, and pronounces his catalogue to be altogether without value as an evidence of genuine Platonic works--because Thrasyllus admits many dialogues, "quos doctorum nostri sæculi virorum acumen è librorum Platonicorum numero exemit".
This observation exactly illustrates the conclusion which I desire to bring out. I admit that Thrasyllus had a critical sentiment different from that of the modern Platonic commentators; but I believe that in the present case he proceeded upon other evidence--recognition by the Alexandrine library. My difference with Mullach is, that I consider this recognition (in a question of genuine or spurious) as more trustworthy evidence than the critical sentiment of modern literati.]
[Side-note: Results as to the trustworthiness of the Thrasyllean Canon.]
On this question, then, of the Canon of Plato's works (as compared with the works of other contemporary authors) recognised by Thrasyllus--I consider that its claim to trustworthiness is very high, as including all the genuine works, and none but the genuine works, of Plato: the following facts being either proved, or fairly presumable.
1. The Canon rests on the authority of the Alexandrine library and its erudite librarians;[54] whose written records went back to the days of Ptolemy Soter, and Demetrius Phalereus, within a generation after the death of Plato.
2. The manuscripts of Plato at his death were preserved in the school which he founded; where they continued for more than thirty years under the care of Speusippus and Xenokrates, who possessed personal knowledge of all that Plato had really written. After Xenokrates, they came under the care of Polemon and the succeeding Scholarchs, from whom Demetrius Phalereus probably obtained permission to take copies of them for the nascent museum or library at Alexandria or through whom at least (if he purchased from booksellers) he could easily ascertain which were Plato's works, and which, if any, were spurious.
3. They were received into that library without any known canonical order, prescribed system, or interdependence essential to their being properly understood. Kallimachus or Aristophanes devised an order of arrangement for themselves, such as they thought suitable.
[Footnote 54: Suckow adopts and defends the opinion here stated--that Thrasyllus, in determining which were the genuine works of Plato and which were not genuine, was guided mainly by the authority of the Alexandrine library and librarians (G. F. W. Suckow, Form der Platonischen Schriften, pp. 170-175). Ueberweg admits this opinion as just (Untersuchungen, p. 195).
Suckow farther considers (p. 175) that the catalogue of works of esteemed authors, deposited in the Alexandrine library, may be regarded as dating from the [Greek: Pi/nakes] of Kallimachus.
This goes far to make out the presumption which I have endeavoured to establish in favour of the Canon recognised by Thrasyllus, which, however, these two authors do not fully admit.
K. F. Hermann, too (see Gesch. und Syst. der Platon. Philos. p. 44), argues sometimes strongly in favour of this presumption, though elsewhere he entirely departs from it.]
Chapter VII
PLATONIC CANON AS APPRECIATED AND MODIFIED BY MODERN CRITICS.
[Side-note: The Canon of Thrasyllus continued to be generally acknowledged, by the Neo-Platonists, as well as by Ficinus and the succeeding critics after the revival of learning.]
The Platonic Canon established by Thrasyllus maintained its authority until the close of the last century, in regard to the distinction between what was genuine and spurious. The distribution indeed did not continue to be approved: the Tetralogies were neglected, and the order of the dialogues varied: moreover, doubts were intimated about Kleitophon and Epinomis. But nothing was positively removed from, or positively added to, the total recognised by Thrasyllus. The Neo-Platonists (from the close of the second century B.C., down to the beginning of the sixth A.D.) introduced a new, mystic, and theological interpretation, which often totally changed and falsified Plato's meaning. Their principles of interpretation would have been strange and unintelligible to the rhetors Thrasyllus and Dionysius of Halikarnassus--or to the Platonic philosopher Charmadas, who expounded Plato to Marcus Crassus at Athens. But they still continued to look for Plato in the nine Tetralogies of Thrasyllus, in each and all of them. So also continued Ficinus, who, during the last half of the fifteenth century, did so much to revive in the modern world the study of Plato. He revived along with it the neo-platonic interpretation. The Argumenta, prefixed to the different dialogues by Ficinus, are remarkable, as showing what an ingenious student, interpreting in that spirit, discovered in them.
But the scholars of the sixteenth, seventeenth, and eighteenth centuries, speaking generally--though not neglecting these neo-platonic refinements, were disposed to seek out, wherever they could find it, a more literal interpretation of the Platonic text, correctly presented and improved. The next great edition of the works of Plato was published by Serranus and Stephens, in the latter portion of the sixteenth century.
[Side-note: Serranus--his six Syzygies--left the aggregate Canon unchanged, Tennemann--importance assigned to the Phædrus.]
Serranus distributed the dialogues of Plato into six groups which he called Syzygies. In his first Syzygy were comprised Euthyphron, Apologia, Kriton, Phædon (coinciding with the first Tetralogy of Thrasyllus), as setting forth the defence of Sokrates and of his doctrine. The second Syzygy included the dialogues introductory to philosophy generally, and impugning the Sophists--Theagês, Erastæ, Theætêtus, Sophistês, Euthydêmus, Protagoras, Hippias II. In the third Syzygy were three dialogues considered as bearing on Logic--Kratylus, Gorgias, Ion. The fourth Syzygy contained the dialogues on Ethics generally--Philêbus, Menon, Alkibiadês I.; on special points of Ethics--Alkibiadês II., Charmidês, Lysis, Hipparchus; and on Politics--Menexenus, Politikus, Minos, Republic, Leges, Epinomis. The fifth Syzygy included the dialogues on Physics, and Metaphysics (or Theology)--Timæus, Kritias, Parmenidês, Symposion, Phædrus, Hippias I.** In the sixth Syzygy were ranged the thirteen Epistles, the various dialogues which Serranus considered spurious (Kleitophon among them, which he regarded as doubtful), and the Definitions.
Serranus, while modifying the distribution of the Platonic works, left the entire Canon very much as he found it. So it remained throughout the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries: the scholars who devoted themselves to Plato were content with improvement of the text, philological illustration, and citations from the ancient commentators. But the powerful impulse, given by Kant to the speculative mind of Europe during the last quarter of the eighteenth century, materially affected the point of view from which Plato was regarded. Tennemann, both in his System of the Platonic Philosophy, and in dealing with Plato as a portion of his general history of philosophy, applied the doctrines of Kant largely and even excessively to the exposition of ancient doctrines. Much of his comment is instructive, greatly surpassing his predecessors. Without altering the Platonic Canon, he took a new view of the general purposes of Plato, and especially he brought forward the dialogue Phædrus into a prominence which had never before belonged to it, as an index or key-note ([Greek: e)ndo/simon]) to the whole Platonic series. Shortly after Tennemann, came Schleiermacher, who introduced a theory of his own, ingenious as well as original, which has given a new turn to all the subsequent Platonic criticism.
[Side-note: Schleiermacher--new theory about the purposes of Plato. One philosophical scheme, conceived by Plato from the beginning--essential order and interdependence of the dialogues, as contributing to the full execution of this scheme. Some dialogues not constituent items in the series, but lying alongside of it. Order of arrangement.]
Schleiermacher begins by assuming two fundamental postulates, both altogether new. 1. A systematic unity of philosophic theme and purpose, conceived by Plato in his youth, at first obscurely--afterwards worked out through successive dialogues; each dialogue disclosing the same purpose, but the later disclosing it more clearly and fully, until his old age. 2. A peremptory, exclusive, and intentional order by Plato of the dialogues, composed by Plato with a view to the completion of this philosophical scheme. Schleiermacher undertakes to demonstrate what this order was, and to point out the contribution brought by each successive dialogue to the accomplishment of Plato's premeditated scheme.
To those who understand Plato, the dialogues themselves reveal (so Schleiermacher affirms) their own essential order of sequence--their own mutual relations of antecedent and consequent. Each presupposes those which go before: each prepares for those which follow. Accordingly, Schleiermacher distributes the Platonic dialogues into three groups: the first, or elementary, beginning with Phædrus, followed by Lysis, Protagoras, Lachês, Charmidês, Euthyphron, Parmenidês: the second, or preparatory, comprising Gorgias, Theætêtus, Menon, Euthydêmus, Kratylus, Sophistês, Politikus, Symposion, Phædon, Philêbus: the third, or constructive, including Republic, Timæus, and Kritias. These groups or files are all supposed to be marshalled under Platonic authority: both the entire files as first, second, third and the dialogues composing each file, carrying their own place in the order, imprinted in visible characters. But to each file, there is attached what Schleiermacher terms an Appendix, containing one or more dialogues, each a composition by itself, and lying not in the series, but alongside of it (Nebenwerke). The Appendix to the first file includes Apologia, Kriton, Ion, Hippias II., Hipparchus, Minos, Alkibiadês II. The Appendix to the second file consists of Theagês, Erastæ, Alkibiadês I., Menexenus, Hippias I., Kleitophon. That of the third file consists of the Leges. The Appendix is not supposed to imply any common positive character in the dialogues which it includes, but simply the negative attribute of not belonging to the main philosophical column, besides a greater harmony with the file to which it is attached than with the other two files. Some dialogues assigned to the Appendixes are considered by Schleiermacher as spurious; some however he treats as compositions on special occasions, or adjuncts to the regular series. To this latter category belong the Apologia, Kriton, and Leges. Schleiermacher considers the Charmidês to have been composed during the time of the Anarchy, B.C. 404: the Phædrus (earliest of all), in Olymp. 93 (B.C. 406), two years before:[1] the Lysis, Protagoras, and Lachês, to lie between them in respect of date.
[Footnote 1: Schleierm. vol. i. p. 72; vol. ii. p. 8.]
[Side-note: Theory of Ast--he denies the reality of any preconceived scheme--considers the dialogues as distinct philosophical dramas.]
Such is the general theory of Schleiermacher, which presents to us Plato in the character of a Demiurgus, contemplating from the first an Idea of philosophy, and constructing a series of dialogues (like a Kosmos of Schleiermacher), with the express purpose of giving embodiment to it as far as practicable. We next come to Ast, who denies this theory altogether. According to Ast, there never was any philosophical system, to the exposition and communication of which each successive dialogue was deliberately intended to contribute: there is no scientific or intentional connection between the dialogues,--no progressive arrangement of first and second, of foundation and superstructure: there is no other unity or connecting principle between them than that which they involve as all emanating from the same age, country, and author, and the same general view of the world (Welt-Ansicht) or critical estimate of man and nature.[2] The dialogues are dramatic (Ast affirms), not merely in their external form, but in their internal character: each is in truth a philosophical drama.[3] Their purpose is very diverse and many-sided: we mistake if we imagine the philosophical purpose to stand alone. If that were so (Ast argues), how can we explain the fact, that in most of the dialogues there is no philosophical result at all? Nothing but a discussion without definite end, which leaves every point unsettled.[4] Plato is poet, artist, philosopher, blended in one. He does not profess to lay down positive opinions. Still less does he proclaim his own opinions as exclusive orthodoxy, to be poured ready-prepared into the minds of recipient pupils. He seeks to urge the pupils to think and investigate for themselves. He employs the form of dialogue, as indispensable to generate in their minds this impulse of active research, and to arm them with the power of pursuing it effectively.[5] But each Platonic dialogue is a separate composition in itself, and each of the greater dialogues is a finished and symmetrical whole, like a living organism.[6]
[Footnote 2: Ast, Leben und Schriften Platon's, p. 40.]
[Footnote 3: Ast, ib. p. 46.]
[Footnote 4: Ast, ibid. p. 89.]
[Footnote 5: Ast, ib. p. 42.]
[Footnote 6: The general view here taken by Ast--dwelling upon the separate individuality as well as upon the dramatic character of each dialogue--calling attention to the purpose of intellectual stimulation, and of reasoning out different aspects of ethical and dialectical questions, as distinguished from endoctrinating purpose--this general view coincides more nearly with my own than that of any other critic. But Ast does not follow it out consistently. If he were consistent with it, he ought to be more catholic than other critics, in admitting a large and undefinable diversity in the separate Platonic manifestations: instead of which, he is the most sweeping of all repudiators, on internal grounds. He is not even satisfied with the Parmenides as it now stands; he insists that what is now the termination was not the real and original termination; but that Plato must have appended to the dialogue an explanation of its [Greek: a)pori/ai], puzzles, and antinomies; which explanation is now lost.]
[Side-note: His order of arrangement. He admits only fourteen dialogues as genuine, rejecting all the rest.]
Though Ast differs thus pointedly from Schleiermacher in the enunciation of his general principle, yet he approximates to him more nearly when he comes to detail: for he recognises three classes of dialogues, succeeding each other in a chronological order verifiable (as he thinks) by the dialogues themselves. His first class (in which he declares the poetical and dramatic element to be predominant) consists of Protagoras, Phædrus, Gorgias, Phædon. His second class, distinguished by the dialectic element, includes Theætêtus, Sophistês, Politikus, Parmenidês, Kratylus. His third class, wherein the poetical and dialectic element are found both combined, embraces Philêbus, Symposion, Republic, Timæus, Kritias. These fourteen dialogues, in Ast's view, constitute the whole of the genuine Platonic works. All the rest he pronounces to be spurious. He rejects Leges, Epinomis, Menon, Euthydêmus, Lachês, Charmidês, Lysis, Alkibiades I. and II., Hippias I. and II., Ion, Erastæ, Theages, Kleitophon, Apologia, Kriton, Minos, Epistolæ--together with all the other dialogues which were rejected in antiquity by Thrasyllus. Lastly, Ast considers the Protagoras to have been composed in 408 B.C., when Plato was not more than 21 years of age--the Phædrus in 407 B.C.--the Gorgias in 404 B.C.[7]
[Footnote 7: Ast, Leben und Schriften Platon's, p. 376.]
[Side-note: Socher agrees with Ast in denying preconceived scheme--his arrangement of the dialogues, differing from both Ast and Schleiermacher--he rejects as spurious Parmenidês, Sophistês, Politikus, Kritias, with many others.]
Socher agrees with Ast in rejecting the fundamental hypothesis of Schleiermacher--that of a preconceived scheme systematically worked out by Plato. But on many points he differs from Ast no less than from Schleiermacher. He assigns the earliest Platonic composition (which he supposes to be Theagês), to a date preceding the battle of Arginusæ, in 406 B.C., when Plato was about 22-23 years of age.[8] Assuming it is certain that Plato composed dialogues during the lifetime of Sokrates, he conceives that the earliest of them would naturally be the most purely Sokratic in respect of theme, as well as the least copious, comprehensive, and ideal, in manner of handling. During the six and a half years between the battle of Arginusæ and the death of Sokrates, Socher registers the following succession of Platonic compositions: Theagês, Lachês, Hippias II., Alkibiadês I., Dialogus de Virtute (usually printed with the spurious, but supposed by Socher to be a sort of preparatory sketch for the Menon), Menon, Kratylus, Euthyphron. These three last he supposes to precede very shortly the death of Sokrates. After that event, and very shortly after, were composed the Apologia, Kriton, and Phædon.
[Footnote 8: Socher, Ueber Platon's Schriften, p. 102. These critics adopt 429** B.C. as the year of Plato's birth: I think 427** B.C. is the true year.]
These eleven dialogues fill up what Socher regards as the first period of Plato's life, ending when he was somewhat more than thirty years of age. The second period extends to the commencement of his teaching at the Academy, when about 41 or 42 years old (B.C. 386). In this second period were composed Ion, Euthydêmus, Hippias I, Protagoras, Theætêtus, Gorgias, Philêbus--in the order here set forth. During the third period of Plato's life, continuing until he was 65 or more, he composed Phædrus, Menexenus, Symposion, Republic, Timæus. To the fourth and last period, that of extreme old age, belongs the composition of the Leges.[9]
[Footnote 9: Socher, Ueber Platon's Schriften, pp. 301-459-460.]
Socher rejects as spurious Hipparchus, Minos, Kleitophon, Alkibiadês II., Erastæ, Epinomis, Epistolæ, Parmenidês, Sophistês, Politikus, Kritias: also Charmidês, and Lysis, these two last however not quite so decisively.
[Side-note: Schleiermacher and Ast both consider Phædrus and Protagoras as early compositions--Socher puts Protagoras into the second period, Phædrus into the third.]
Both Ast and Schleiermacher consider Phædrus and Protagoras as among the earliest compositions of Plato. Herein Socher dissents from them. He puts Protagoras into the second period, and Phædrus into the third. But the most peculiar feature in his theory is, that he rejects as spurious Parmenidês, Sophistês, Politikus, Kritias.
[Side-note: K. F. Hermann--Stallbaum--both of them consider the Phædrus as a late dialogue--both of them deny preconceived order and system--their arrangements of the dialogues--they admit new and varying philosophical points of view.]
From Schleiermacher, Ast, and Socher, we pass to K. F. Hermann[10]--and to Stallbaum, who has prefixed Prolegomena to his edition of each dialogue. Both these critics protest against Socher's rejection of the four dialogues last indicated: but they agree with Socher and Ast in denying the reality of any preconceived system, present to Plato's mind in his first dialogue, and advanced by regular steps throughout each of the succeeding dialogues. The polemical tone of K. F. Hermann against this theory, and against Schleiermacher, its author, is strenuous and even unwarrantably bitter.[11] Especially the position laid down by Schleiermacher--that Phædrus is the earliest of Plato's dialogues, written when he was 22 or 23 years of age, and that the general system presiding over all the future dialogues is indicated therein as even then present to his mind, afterwards to be worked out--is controverted by Hermann and Stallbaum no less than by Ast and Socher. All three concur in the tripartite distribution of the life of Plato. But Hermann thinks that Plato acquired gradually and successively, new points of view, with enlarged philosophical development: and that the dialogues as successively composed are expressions of these varying phases. Moreover, Hermann thinks that such variations in Plato's philosophy may be accounted for by external circumstances. He reckons Plato's first period as ending with the death of Sokrates, or rather at an epoch not long after the death of Sokrates: the second as ending with the commencement of Plato's teaching at the Academy, after his return from Sicily--about 385 B.C.: the third, as extending from thence to his old age. To the first, or Sokratic stadium, Hermann assigns the smaller dialogues: the earliest of which he declares to be--Hippias II., Ion, Alkibiadês I., Lysis, Charmidês, Lachês: after which come Protagoras and Euthydêmus, wherein the batteries are opened against the Sophists, shortly before the death of Sokrates. Immediately after the last mentioned event, come a series of dialogues reflecting the strong and fresh impression left by it upon Plato's mind--Apologia, Kriton, Gorgias, Euthyphron, Menon, Hippias I.--occupying a sort of transition stage between the first and the second period. We now enter upon the second or dialectic period; passed by Plato greatly at Megara, and influenced by the philosophical intercourse which he there enjoyed, and characterised by the composition of Theætêtus, Kratylus, Sophistês, Politikus, Parmenidês.[12] To the third, or constructive period, greatly determined by the influence of the Pythagorean philosophy, belong Phædrus, Menexenus, Symposion, Phædon, Philêbus, Republic, Timæus, Kritias: a series composed during Plato's teaching at the Academy, and commencing with Phædrus, which last Hermann considers to be a sort of (Antritts-Programme) inauguratory composition for the opening of his school of oral discourse or colloquy. Lastly, during the final years of the philosopher, after all the three periods, come the Leges or treatise de Legibus: placed by itself as the composition of his old age.
[Footnote 10: K. F. Hermann, Geschichte und System der Platonischen Philosophie, p. 368, seq. Stallbaum, Disputatio de Platonis Vitâ et Scriptis, prefixed to his edition of Plato's Works, p. xxxii., seq.]
[Footnote 11: Ueberweg (Untersuchungen, pp. 50-52) has collected several citations from K. F. Hermann, in which the latter treats Schleiermacher "wie einen Sophisten, der sich in absichtlicher Unwahrhaftigkeit gefalle, mitunter fast als einen Mann der innerlich wohl wisse, wie die Sache stehe (nämlich, dass sie so sei, wie Hermann lehrt), der sich aber, etwa aus Lust, seine überlegene Dialektik zu beweisen, Mühe gebe, sie in einem anderen Lichte erscheinen zu lassen; also--[Greek: to\n ê(/ttô lo/gon krei/ttô poiei=n]--recht in rhetorisch sophistischer Manier."
We know well, from other and independent evidence, what Schleiermacher really was, that he was not only one of the most accomplished scholars, but one of the most liberal and estimable men of his age. But how different would be our appreciation if we had no other evidence to judge by except the dicta of opponents, and even distinguished opponents, like Hermann! If there be any point clear in the history of philosophy, it is the uncertainty of all judgments, respecting writers and thinkers, founded upon the mere allegations of opponents. Yet the Athenian Sophists, respecting whom we have no independent evidence (except the general fact that they had a number of approvers and admirers), are depicted confidently by the Platonic critics in the darkest colours, upon the evidence of their bitter opponent Plato--and in colours darker than even his evidence warrants. The often-repeated calumny, charged against almost all debaters--[Greek: to\ to\n ê(/tto lo/gon krei/ttô poiei=n]--by Hermann against Schleiermacher, by Melêtus against Sokrates, by Plato against the Sophists--is believed only against these last.]
[Footnote 12: K. F. Hermann, Gesch. u. Syst. d. Plat. Phil., p. 496, seq. Stallbaum (p. xxxiii.) places the Kratylus during the lifetime of Sokrates, a little earlier than Euthydêmus and Protagoras, all three of which he assigns to Olymp. 94, 402-400 B.C. See also his Proleg. to Kratylus, tom. v. p. 26.
Moreover, Stallbaum places the Menon and Ion about the same time--a few months or weeks before the trial of Sokrates (Proleg. ad Menonem, tom. vi. pp. 20, 21; Proleg. ad Ionem, tom. iv. p. 289). He considers the Euthyphron to have been actually composed at the moment to which it professes to refer (viz., after Melêtus had preferred indictment against Sokrates), and with a view of defending Sokrates against the charge of impiety (Proleg. ad Euthyphron. tom. vi. pp. 138-139-142). He places the composition of the Charmidês about six years before the death of Sokrates (Proleg. ad Charm. p. 86). He seems to consider, indeed, that the Menon and Euthydêmus were both written for the purpose of defending Sokrates: thus implying that they too were written after the indictment was preferred (Proleg. ad Euthyphron. p. 145).
In regard to the date of the Euthyphron, Schleiermacher also had declared, prior to Stallbaum, that it was unquestionably (unstreitig) composed at a period between the indictment and the trial of Sokrates (Einl. zum Euthyphron, vol. ii. p. 53, of his transl. of Plato).]
[Side-note: They reject several dialogues.]
Hermann and Stallbaum reject (besides the dialogues already rejected by Thrasyllus) Alkibiadês II., Theagês, Erastæ, Hipparchus, Minos, Epinomis: Stallbaum rejects the Kleitophon: Hermann hesitates, and is somewhat inclined to admit it, as he also admits, to a considerable extent, the Epistles.[13]
[Footnote 13: Stallbaum, p. xxxiv. Hermann,** pp. 424, 425.]
[Side-note: Steinhart--agrees in rejecting Schleiermacher's fundamental postulate--his arrangement of the dialogues--considers the Phædrus as late in order--rejects several.]
Steinhart, in his notes and prefaces to H. Müller's translation of the Platonic dialogues, agrees in the main with K. F. Hermann, both in denying the fundamental postulate of Schleiermacher, and in settling the general order of the dialogues, though with some difference as to individual dialogues. He considers Ion as the earliest, followed by Hippias I, Hippias II., Alkibiadês I., Lysis, Charmidês, Lachês, Protagoras. These constitute what Steinhart calls the ethico-Sokratical series of Plato's compositions, having the common attributes--That they do not step materially beyond the philosophical range of Sokrates himself--That there is a preponderance of the mimic and plastic element--That they end, to all appearance, with unsolved doubts and unanswered questions.[14] He supposes the Charmidês to have been composed during the time of the Thirty, the Lachês shortly afterwards, and the Protagoras about two years before the death of Sokrates. He lays it down as incontestable that the Protagoras was not composed after the death of Sokrates.[15] Immediately prior to this last-mentioned event, and posterior to the Protagoras, he places the Euthydêmus, Menon, Euthyphron, Apologia, Kriton, Gorgias, Kratylus: preparatory to the dialectic series consisting of Parmenidês, Theætêtus, Sophistês, Politikus, the result of Plato's stay at Megara, and contact with the Eleatic and Megaric philosophers. The third series of dialogues, the mature and finished productions of Plato at the Academy, opens with Phædrus. Steinhart rejects as spurious Alkibiadês II., Erastæ, Theagês, &c.
[Footnote 14: See Steinhart's Proleg. to the Protag. vol. i. p. 430. of Müller's transl. of Plato.]
[Footnote 15: Steinhart, Prolegg. to Charmidês, p. 295.]
[Side-note: Susemihl--coincides to a great degree with K. F. Hermann his order of arrangement.]
Another author, also, Susemihl, coincides in the main with the principles of arrangement adopted by K. F. Hermann for the Platonic dialogues. First in the order of chronological composition he places the shorter dialogues--the exclusively ethical, least systematic; and he ranges them in a series, indicating the progressive development of Plato's mind, with approach towards his final systematic conceptions.[16] Susemihl begins this early series with Hippias II., followed by Lysis, Charmidês, Lachês, Protagoras, Menon, Apologia, Kriton, Gorgias, Euthyphron. The seven first, ending with the Menon, he conceives to have been published successively during the lifetime of Sokrates: the Menon itself, during the interval between his indictment and his death;[17] the Apologia and Kriton, very shortly after his death; followed, at no long interval, by Gorgias and Euthyphron.[18] The Ion and Alkibiadês I. are placed by Susemihl among the earliest of the Platonic compositions, but as not belonging to the regular series. He supposes them to have been called forth by some special situation, like Apologia and Kriton, if indeed they be Platonic at all, of which he does not feel assured.[19]
[Footnote 16: F. Susemihl, Die Genetische Entwickelung der Platonischen Philosophie, Leipsic, 1865, p. 9.]
[Footnote 17: Susemihl, ibid. pp. 40-61-89.]
[Footnote 18: Susemihl, ib. pp. 113-125.]
[Footnote 19: Susemihl, ib. p. 9.]
Immediately after Euthyphron, Susemihl places Euthydêmus, which he treats as the commencement of a second series of dialogues: the first series, or ethical, being now followed by the dialectic, in which the principles, process, and certainty of cognition are discussed, though in an indirect and preparatory way. This second series consists of Euthydêmus, Kratylus, Theætêtus, Phædrus, Sophistês, Politikus, Parmenidês, Symposion, Phædon. Through all these dialogues Susemihl professes to trace a thread of connection, each successively unfolding and determining more of the general subject: but all in an indirect, negative, round-about manner. Allowing for this manner, Susemihl contends that the dialectical counter-demonstrations or Antinomies, occupying the last half of the Parmenidês, include the solution of those difficulties, which have come forward in various forms from the Euthydêmus up to the Sophistês, against Plato's theory of Ideas.[20] The Phædon closes the series of dialectic compositions, and opens the way to the constructive dialogues following, partly ethical, partly physical--Philêbus, Republic, Timæus, Kritias.[21] The Leges come last of all.
[Footnote 20: Susemihl, ib. p. 355, seq.]
[Footnote 21: Susemihl, pp. 466-470. The first volume of Susemihl's work ends with the Phædon.]
[Side-note Edward Munk--adopts a different principle of arrangement, founded upon the different period which each dialogue exhibits of the life, philosophical growth, and old age, of Sokrates--his arrangement, founded on this principle. He distinguishes the chronological order of composition from the place allotted to each dialogue in the systematic plan.]
A more recent critic, Dr. Edward Munk, has broached a new and very different theory as to the natural order of the Platonic dialogues. Upon his theory, they were intended by Plato[22] to depict the life and working of a philosopher, in successive dramatic exhibitions, from youth to old age. The different moments in the life of Sokrates, indicated in each dialogue, mark the place which Plato intended it to occupy in the series. The Parmenidês is the first, wherein Sokrates is introduced as a young man, initiated into philosophy by the ancient Parmenidês: the Phædon is last, describing as it does the closing scene of Sokrates. Plato meant his dialogues to be looked at partly in artistic sequence, as a succession of historical dramas--partly in philosophical sequence, as a record of the progressive development of his own doctrine: the two principles are made to harmonize in the main, though sometimes the artistic sequence is obscured for the purpose of bringing out the philosophical, sometimes the latter is partially sacrificed to the former.[23] Taken in the aggregate, the dialogues from Parmenidês to Phædon form a Sokratic cycle, analogous to the historical plays of Shakespeare, from King John to Henry VIII.[24] But Munk at the same time contends that this natural order of the dialogues--or the order in which Plato intended them to be viewed--is not to be confounded with the chronological order of their composition.[25] The Parmenidês, though constituting the opening Prologue of the whole cycle, was not composed first: nor the Phædon last. All of them were probably composed after Plato had attained the full maturity of his philosophy: that is, probably after the opening of his school at the Academy in 386 B.C. But in composing each, he had always two objects jointly in view: he adapted the tone of each to the age and situation in which he wished to depict Sokrates:[26] he commemorated, in each, one of the past phases of his own philosophising mind.
[Footnote 22: Dr. Edward Munk. Die natürliche Ordnung der Platonischen Schriften, Berlin, 1857. His scheme of arrangement is explained generally, pp. 25-48, &c.]
[Footnote 23: Munk, ib. p. 29.]
[Footnote 24: Munk, ib. p. 27.]
[Footnote 25: Munk, ibid. p. 27.]
[Footnote 26: Munk, ib. p. 54; Preface, p. viii.]
The Cycle taken in its intentional or natural order, is distributed by Munk into three groups, after the Parmenidês as general prologue.[27]
1. Sokratic or Indirect Dialogues.--Protagoras, Charmidês, Lachês, Gorgias, Ion, Hippias I., Kratylus, Euthydêmus, Symposion.
2. Direct or Constructive Dialogues.--Phædrus, Philêbus, Republic, Timæus, Kritias.
3. Dialectic and Apologetic Dialogues.--Menon, Theætêtus, Sophistês, Politikus, Euthyphron, Apologia, Kriton, Phædon.
The Leges and Menexenus stand apart from the Cycle, as compositions on special occasion. Alkibiadês I., Hippias II., Lysis, are also placed apart from the Cycle, as compositions of Plato's earlier years, before he had conceived the general scheme of it.[28]
[Footnote 27: Munk, ib. p. 50.]
[Footnote 28: Munk, ib. pp. 25-34.]
The first of the three groups depicts Sokrates in the full vigour of life, about 35 years of age: the second represents him an elderly man, about 60: the third, immediately prior to his death.[29] In the first group he is represented as a combatant for truth: in the second as a teacher of truth: in the third, as a martyr for truth.[30]
[Footnote 29: Munk, ib. p. 26.]
[Footnote 30: Munk, ib. p. 31.]
[Side-note: Views of Ueberweg--attempt to reconcile Schleiermacher and Hermann--admits the preconceived purpose for the later dialogues, composed after the foundation of the school, but not for the earlier.]
Lastly, we have another German author still more recent, Frederick Ueberweg, who has again investigated the order and authenticity of the Platonic dialogues, in a work of great care and ability: reviewing the theories of his predecessors, as well as proposing various modifications of his own.[31] Ueberweg compares the different opinions of Schleiermacher and K. F. Hermann, and admits both of them to a certain extent, each concurrent with and limiting the other.[32] The theory of a preconceived system and methodical series, proposed by Schleiermacher, takes its departure from the Phædrus, and postulates as an essential condition that that dialogue shall be recognised as the earliest composition.[33] This condition Ueberweg does not admit. He agrees with Hermann, Stallbaum, and others, in referring the Phædrus to a later date (about 386 B.C.), shortly after Plato had established his school in Athens, when he was rather above forty years of age. At this period (Ueberweg thinks) Plato may be considered as having acquired methodical views which had not been present to him before; and the dialogues composed after the Phædrus follow out, to a certain extent, these methodical views. In the Phædrus, the Platonic Sokrates delivers the opinion that writing is unavailing as a means of imparting philosophy: that the only way in which philosophy can be imparted is, through oral colloquy adapted by the teacher to the mental necessities, and varying stages of progress, of each individual learner: and that writing can only serve, after such oral instruction has been imparted, to revive it if forgotten, in the memory both of the teacher and of the learner who has been orally taught. For the dialogues composed after the opening of the school, and after the Phædrus, Ueberweg recognises the influence of a preconceived method and of a constant bearing on the oral teaching of the school: for those anterior to that date, he admits no such influence: he refers them (with Hermann) to successive enlargements, suggestions, inspirations, either arising in Plato's own mind, or communicated from without. Ueberweg does not indeed altogether exclude the influence of this non-methodical cause, even for the later dialogues: he allows its operation to a certain extent, in conjunction with the methodical: what he excludes is, the influence of any methodical or preconceived scheme for the earlier dialogues.[34] He thinks that Plato composed the later portion of his dialogues (i.e., those subsequent to the Phædrus and to the opening of his school), not for the instruction of the general reader, but as reminders to his disciples of that which they had already learnt from oral teaching: and he cites the analogy of Paul and the apostles, who wrote epistles not to convert the heathen, but to admonish or confirm converts already made by preaching.[35]
[Footnote 31: Ueberweg, Untersuchungen.]
[Footnote 32: Ueberweg, p. 111.]
[Footnote 33: Ueberweg, pp. 23-26.]
[Footnote 34: Ueberweg, pp. 107-110-111. "Sind beide Gesichtspunkte, der einer methodischen Absicht und der einer Selbst-Entwicklung Platon's durchweg mit einander zu verbinden, so liegt es auch in der Natur der Sache und wird auch von einigen seiner Nachfolger (insbesondere nachdrücklich von Susemihl) anerkannt, dass der erste Gesichtspunkt vorzugsweise für die späteren Schriften von der Gründung der Schule an--der andere vorzugsweise für die früheren--gilt."]
[Footnote 35: Ueberweg, pp. 80-86, "Ist unsere obige Deutung richtig, wonach Platon nicht für Fremde zur Belehrung, sondern wesentlich für seine Schüler zur Erinnerung an den mündlichen Unterricht, schrieb (wie die Apostel nicht für Fremde zur Bekehrung, sondern für die christlichen Gemeinden zur Stärke und Läuterung, nachdem denselben der Glaube aus der Predigt gekommen war)--so folgt, dass jede Argumentation, die auf den Phaedrus gegründet wird, nur für die Zeit gelten kann, in welcher bereits die Platonische Schule bestand."]
[Side-note: His opinions as to authenticity and chronology of the dialogues, He rejects Hippias Major, Erastæ, Theagês, Kleitophon, Parmenidês: he is inclined to reject Euthyphron and Menexenus.]
Ueberweg investigates the means which we possess, either from external testimony (especially that of Aristotle) or from internal evidence, of determining the authenticity as well as the chronological order of the dialogues. He remarks that though, in contrasting the expository dialogues with those which are simply enquiring and debating, we may presume the expository to belong to Plato's full maturity of life, and to have been preceded by some of the enquiring and debating--yet we cannot safely presume all these latter to be of his early composition. Plato may have continued to inclined to compose dialogues of mere search, even after the time when he began to compose expository dialogues.[36] Ueberweg considers that the earliest of Plato's dialogues are, Lysis, Hippias Minor, Lachês, Charmidês, Protagoras, composed during the lifetime of Sokrates: next the Apologia, and Kriton, not long after his death. All these (even the Protagoras) he reckons among the "lesser Platonic writings".[37] None of them allude to the Platonic Ideas or Objective Concepts. The Gorgias comes next, probably soon after the death of Sokrates, at least at some time earlier than the opening of the school in 386 B.C.[38] The Menon and Ion may be placed about the same general period.[39] The Phædrus (as has been already observed) is considered by Ueberweg to be nearly contemporary with the opening of the school: shortly afterwards Symposion and Euthydêmus:[40] at some subsequent time, Republic, Timæus, Kritias, and Leges. In regard to the four last, Ueberweg does not materially differ from Schleiermacher, Hermann, and other critics: but on another point he differs from them materially, viz.: that instead of placing the Theætêtus, Sophistês, and Politikus, in the Megaric period or prior to the opening of the school, he assigns them (as well as the Phædon and Philêbus) to the last twenty years of Plato's life. He places Phædon later than Timæus, and Politikus later than Phædon: he considers that Sophistês, Politikus, and Philêbus are among the latest compositions of Plato.[41] He rejects Hippias Major, Erastæ, Theagês, Kleitophon, and Parmenidês: he is inclined to reject Euthyphron. He scarcely recognises Menexenus, in spite of the direct attestation of Aristotle, which attestation he tries (in my judgment very unsuccessfully) to invalidate.[42] He recognises the Kratylus, but without determining its date. He determines nothing about Alkibiadês I. and II.
[Footnote 36: Ueberweg, p. 81.]
[Footnote 37: Ueberweg, pp. 100-105-296. "Eine Anzahl kleinerer Platonischer Schriften."]
[Footnote 38: Ueberweg, pp. 249-267-296.]
[Footnote 39: Ueberweg, pp. 226, 227.]
[Footnote 40: Ueberweg, p. 265.]
[Footnote 41: Ueberweg, pp. 204-292.]
[Footnote 42: Ueberweg, pp. 143-176-222-250.]
[Side-note: Other Platonic critics--great dissensions about scheme and order of the dialogues.]
The works above enumerated are those chiefly deserving of notice, though there are various others also useful, amidst the abundance of recent Platonic criticism. All these writers, Schleiermacher, Ast, Socher, K. F. Hermann, Stallbaum, Steinhart, Susemihl, Munk, Ueberweg, have not merely laid down general schemes of arrangement for the Platonic dialogues, but have gone through the dialogues seriatim, each endeavouring to show that his own scheme fits them well, and each raising objections against the schemes earlier than his own. It is indeed truly remarkable to follow the differences of opinion among these learned men, all careful students of the Platonic writings. And the number of dissents would be indefinitely multiplied, if we took into the account the various historians of philosophy during the last few years. Ritter and Brandis accept, in the main, the theory of Schleiermacher: Zeller also, to a certain extent. But each of these authors has had a point of view more or less belonging to himself respecting the general scheme and purpose of Plato, and respecting the authenticity, sequence, and reciprocal illustration of the dialogues.[43]
[Footnote 43: Socher remarks (Ueber, Platon. p. 225) (after enumerating twenty-two dialogues of the Thrasyllean canon, which he considers the earliest) that of these twenty-two, there are only two which have not been declared spurious by some one or more critics. He then proceeds to examine the remainder, among which are Sophistês, Politikus, Parmenidês. He (Socher) declares these three last to be spurious, which no critic had declared before.]
[Side-note: Contrast of different points of view instructive--but no solution has been obtained.]
By such criticisms much light has been thrown on the dialogues in detail. It is always interesting to read the different views taken by many scholars, all careful students of Plato, respecting the order and relations of the dialogues: especially as the views are not merely different but contradictory, so that the weak points of each are put before us as well as the strong. But as to the large problem which these critics have undertaken to solve--though several solutions have been proposed, in favour of which something may be urged, yet we look in vain for any solution at once sufficient as to proof and defensible against objectors.
[Side-note: The problem incapable of solution. Extent and novelty of the theory propounded by Schleiermacher--slenderness of his proofs.]
It appears to me that the problem itself is one which admits of no solution. Schleiermacher was the first who proposed it with the large pretensions which it has since embraced, and which have been present more or less to the minds of subsequent critics, even when they differ from him. He tells us himself that he comes forward as Restitutor Platonis, in a character which no one had ever undertaken before.[44] And he might fairly have claimed that title, if he had furnished proofs at all commensurate to his professions. As his theory is confessedly novel as well as comprehensive, it required greater support in the way of evidence. But when I read the Introductions (the general as well as the special) in which such evidence ought to be found, I am amazed to find that there is little else but easy and confident assumption. His hypothesis is announced as if the simple announcement were sufficient to recommend it[45]--as if no other supposition were consistent with the recognised grandeur of Plato as a philosopher--as if any one, dissenting from it, only proved thereby that he did not understand Plato. Yet so far from being of this self-recommending character, the hypothesis is really loaded with the heaviest antecedent improbability. That in 406 B.C., and at the age of 23, in an age when schemes of philosophy elaborated in detail were unknown--Plato should conceive a vast scheme of philosophy, to be worked out underground without ever being proclaimed, through numerous Sokratic dialogues one after the other, each ushering in that which follows and each resting upon that which precedes: that he should have persisted throughout a long life in working out this scheme, adapting the sequence of his dialogues to the successive stages which he had attained, so that none of them could be properly understood unless when studied immediately after its predecessors and immediately before its successors--and yet that he should have taken no pains to impress this one peremptory arrangement on the minds of readers, and that Schleiermacher should be the first to detect it--all this appears to me as improbable as any of the mystic interpretations of Iamblichus or Proklus. Like other improbabilities, it may be proved by evidence, if evidence can be produced: but here nothing of the kind is producible. We are called upon to grant the general hypothesis without proof, and to follow Schleiermacher in applying it to the separate dialogues.
[Footnote 44: Schleiermacher, Einleitung, pp. 22-29. "Diese natürliche Folge (der Platonischen Gespräche) wieder herzustellen, diess ist, wie jedermann sieht, eine Absicht, welche sich sehr weit entfernt von allen bisherigen Versuchen zur Anordnung der Platonischen Werke," &c.]
[Footnote 45: What I say about Schleiermacher here will be assented to by any one who reads his Einleitung, pp. 10, 11, seq.]
[Side-note: Schleiermacher's hypothesis includes a preconceived scheme, and a peremptory order of interdependence among the dialogues.]
Schleiermacher's hypothesis includes two parts. 1. A premeditated philosophical scheme, worked out continuously from the first dialogue to the last. 2. A peremptory canonical order, essential to this scheme, and determined thereby. Now as to the scheme, though on the one hand it cannot be proved, yet on the other hand it cannot be disproved. But as to the canonical order, I think it may be disproved. We know that no such order was recognised in the days of Aristophanes, and Schleiermacher himself admits that before those days it had been lost.[46] But I contend that if it was lost within a century after the decease of Plato, we may fairly presume that it never existed at all, as peremptory and indispensable to the understanding of what Plato meant. A great philosopher such as Plato (so Schleiermacher argues) must be supposed to have composed all his dialogues with some preconceived comprehensive scheme: but a great philosopher (we may add), if he does work upon a preconceived scheme, must surely be supposed to take some reasonable precautions to protect the order essential to that scheme from dropping out of sight. Moreover, Schleiermacher himself admits that there are various dialogues which lie apart from the canonical order and form no part of the grand premeditated scheme. The distinction here made between these outlying compositions (Nebenwerke) and the members of the regular series, is indeed altogether arbitrary: but the admission of it tends still farther to invalidate the fundamental postulate of a grand Demiurgic universe of dialogues, each dovetailed and fitted into its special place among the whole. The universe is admitted to have breaks: so that the hypothesis does not possess the only merit which can belong to gratuitous hypothesis--that of introducing, if granted, complete symmetry throughout the phenomena.
[Footnote 46: Schleiermacher, Einleitung, p. 24.]
[Side-note: Assumptions of Schleiermacher respecting the Phædrus inadmissible.]
To these various improbabilities we may add another--that Schleiermacher's hypothesis requires us to admit that the Phædrus is Plato's earliest dialogue, composed about 406 B.C., when he was 21 years of age, on my computation, and certainly not more than 23: that it is the first outburst of the inspiration which Sokrates had imparted to him,[47] and that it embodies, though in a dim and poetical form, the lineaments of that philosophical system which he worked out during the ensuing half century. That Plato at this early age should have conceived so vast a system--that he should have imbibed it from Sokrates, who enunciated no system, and abounded in the anti-systematic negative--that he should have been inspired to write the Phædrus (with its abundant veins, dithyrambic,[48] erotic, and transcendental) by the conversation of Sokrates, which exhibited acute dialectic combined with practical sagacity, but neither poetic fervour nor transcendental fancy,--in all this hypothesis of Schleiermacher, there is nothing but an aggravation of improbabilities.
[Footnote 47: See Schleiermacher's Einleitung to the Phædrus: "Der Phaidros, der erste Ausbruch seiner Begeisterung vom Sokrates".]
[Footnote 48: If we read Dionysius of Halikarnassus (De Admirab. Vi Dic. in Demosth. pp. 968-971, Reiske), we shall find that rhetor pointing out the Phædrus as a signal example of Plato's departure from the manner and character of Sokrates, and as a specimen of misplaced poetical exaggeration. Dikæarchus formed the same opinion about the Phædrus (Diog. L. iii. 38).]
[Side-note: Neither Schleiermacher, nor any other critic, has as yet produced any tolerable proof for an internal theory of the Platonic dialogues.]
Against such improbabilities (partly external partly internal) Schleiermacher has nothing to set except internal reasons: that is, when he shall have arranged the dialogues and explained the interdependence as well as the special place of each, the arrangement will impress itself upon all as being the intentional work of Plato himself.[49] But these "internal reasons" (innere Gründe), which are to serve as constructive evidence (in the absence of positive declarations) of Plato's purpose, fail to produce upon other minds the effect which Schleiermacher demands. If we follow them as stated in his Introductions (prefixed to the successive Platonic dialogues), we find a number of approximations and comparisons, often just and ingenious, but always inconclusive for his point: proving, at the very best, what Plato's intention may possibly have been--yet subject to be countervailed by other "internal reasons" equally specious, tending to different conclusions. And the various opponents of Schleiermacher prove just as much and no more, each on behalf of his own mode of arrangement, by the like constructive evidence--appeal to "internal reasons". But the insufficient character of these "internal reasons" is more fatal to Schleiermacher than to any of his opponents: because his fundamental hypothesis--while it is the most ambitious of all and would be the most important, if it could be proved--is at the same time burdened with the strongest antecedent improbability, and requires the amplest proof to make it at all admissible.
[Footnote 49: See the general Einleitung, p. 11.]
[Side-note: Munk's theory is the most ambitious, and the most gratuitous, next to Schleiermacher's.]
Dr. Munk undertakes the same large problem as Schleiermacher. He assumes the Platonic dialogues to have been composed upon a preconceived system, beginning when Plato opened his school, about 41 years of age. This has somewhat less antecedent improbability than the supposition that Plato conceived his system at 21 or 23 years of age. But it is just as much destitute of positive support. That Plato intended his dialogues to form a fixed series, exhibiting the successive gradations of his philosophical system--that he farther intended this series to coincide with a string of artistic portraits, representing Sokrates in the ascending march from youth to old age, so that the characteristic feature which marks the place and time of each dialogue, is to be found in the age which it assigns to Sokrates--these are positions for the proof of which we are referred to "internal reasons"; but which the dialogues do not even suggest, much less sanction.
[Side-note: The age assigned to Sokrates in any dialogue is a circumstance of little moment.]
In many dialogues, the age assigned to Sokrates is a circumstance neither distinctly brought out, nor telling on the debate. It is true that in the Parmenidês he is noted as young, and is made to conduct himself with the deference of youth, receiving hints and admonitions from the respected veteran of Elea. So too in the Protagoras, he is characterised as young, but chiefly in contrast with the extreme and pronounced old age of the Sophist Protagoras: he does not conduct himself like a youth, nor exhibit any of that really youthful or deferential spirit which we find in the Parmenidês; on the contrary, he stands forward as the rival, cross-examiner, and conqueror of the ancient Sophist. On the contrary, in the Euthydêmus,[50] Sokrates is announced as old; though that dialogue is indisputably very analogous to the Protagoras, both of them being placed by Munk in the earliest of his three groups. Moreover in the Lysis also, Sokrates appears as old;--here Munk escapes from the difficulty by setting aside the dialogue as a youthful composition, not included in the consecutive Sokratic Cycle.[51] What is there to justify the belief, that the Sokrates depicted in the Phædrus (which dialogue has been affirmed by Schieiermacher and Ast, besides some ancient critics, to exhibit decided marks of juvenility) is older than the Sokrates of the Symposion? or that Sokrates in the Philêbus and Republic is older than in the Kratylus or Gorgias? It is true that the dialogues Theætêtus and Euthyphron are both represented as held a little before the death of Sokrates, after the indictment of Melêtus against him had already been preferred. This is a part of the hypothetical situation, in which the dialogists are brought into company. But there is nothing in the two dialogues themselves (or in the Menon, which Munk places in the same category) to betoken that Sokrates is old. Holiness, in the Euthyphron--Knowledge, in the Theætêtus--is canvassed and debated just as Temperance and Courage are debated in the Charmidês and Lachês. Munk lays it down that Sokrates appears as a Martyr for Truth in the Euthyphron, Menon, and Theætêtus and as a Combatant for Truth in the Lachês, Charmidês, Euthydêmus, &c. But the two groups of dialogues, when compared with each other, will not be found to warrant this distinctive appellation. In the Apologia, Kriton, and Phædon, it may be said with propriety that Sokrates is represented as a martyr for truth: in all three he appears not merely as a talker, but as a personal agent: but this is not true of the other dialogues which Munk places in his third group.
[Footnote 50: Euthydêmus, c. 4, p. 272.]
[Footnote 51: Lysis, p. 223, ad fin. [Greek: Katage/lastoi gego/namen e)gô/ te, ge/rôn a)nê/r, kai\ u(mei=s]. See Munk, p. 25.]
[Side-note: No intentional sequence or interdependence of the dialogues can be made out.]
I cannot therefore accede to this "natural arrangement of the Platonic dialogues," assumed to have been intended by Plato, and founded upon the progress of Sokrates as he stands exhibited in each, from youth to age--which Munk has proposed in his recent ingenious volume. It is interesting to be made acquainted with that order of the Platonic dialogues which any critical student conceives to be the "natural order". But in respect to Munk as well as to Schleiermacher, I must remark that if Plato had conceived and predetermined the dialogues, so as to be read in one natural peremptory order, he would never have left that order so dubious and imperceptible, as to be first divined by critics of the nineteenth century, and understood by them too in several different ways. If there were any peremptory and intentional sequence, we may reasonably presume that Plato would have made it as clearly understood as he has determined the sequence of the ten books of his Republic.
[Side-note: Principle of arrangement adopted by Hermann is reasonable--successive changes in Plato's point of view: but we cannot explain either the order or the causes of these changes.]
The principle of arrangement proposed by K. F. Hermann (approved also by Steinhart and Susemihl) is not open to the same antecedent objection. Not admitting any preconceived, methodical, intentional, system, nor the maintenance of one and the same successive philosophical point of view throughout--Hermann supposes that the dialogues as successively composed represent successive phases of Plato's philosophical development and variations in his point of view. Hermann farther considers that these variations may be assigned and accounted for: first pure Sokratism, next the modifications experienced from Plato's intercourse with the Megaric philosophers,--then the influence derived from Kyrênê and Egypt--subsequently that from the Pythagoreans in Italy--and so forth. The first portion of this hypothesis, taken generally, is very reasonable and probable. But when, after assuming that there must have been determining changes in Plato's own mind, we proceed to inquire what these were, and whence they arose, we find a sad lack of evidence for the answer to the question. We neither know the order in which the dialogues were composed,--nor the date when Plato first began to compose,--nor the primitive philosophical mind which his earliest dialogues represented,--nor the order of those subsequent modifications which his views underwent. We are informed, indeed, that Plato went from Athens to visit Megara, Kyrênê, Egypt, Italy; but the extent or kind of influence which he experienced in each, we do not know at all.[52] I think it a reasonable presumption that the points which Plato had in common with Sokrates were most preponderant in the mind of Plato immediately after the death of his master: and that other trains of thought gradually became more and more intermingled as the recollection of his master became more distant. There is also a presumption that the longer, more elaborate, and more transcendental dialogues (among which must be ranked the Phædrus), were composed in the full maturity of Plato's age and intellect: the shorter and less finished may have been composed either then or earlier in his life. Here are two presumptions, plausible enough when stated generally, yet too vague to justify any special inferences: the rather, if we may believe the statement of Dionysius, that Plato continued to "comb and curl his dialogues until he was eighty years of age".[53]
[Footnote 52: Bonitz (in his instructive volume, Platonische Studien, Wien, 1858, p. 5) points out how little we know about the real circumstances of Plato's intellectual and philosophical development: a matter which most of the Platonic critics are apt to forget.
I confess that I agree with Strümpell, that it is impossible to determine chronologically, from Plato's writings, and from the other scanty evidence accessible to us, by what successive steps his mind departed from the original views and doctrines held and communicated by Sokrates (Strümpell, Gesch. der Griechen, p. 294, Leipsic, 1861).]
[Footnote 53: Dionys. Hal. De Comp. Verbor. p. 208; Diog. L. iii. 37; Quintilian, viii. 6.
F. A. Wolf, in a valuable note upon the [Greek: diaskeuastai\] (Proleg. ad Homer. p. clii.) declares, upon this ground, that it is impossible to determine the time when Plato composed his best dialogues. "Ex his collatis apparet [Greek: diaskeua/zein] a veteribus magistris adscitum esse in potestatem verbi [Greek: e)pidiaskeua/zein]: ut in Scenicis propé idem esset quod [Greek: a)nadida/skein]--h. e. repetito committere fabulam, sed mutando, addendo, detrahendo, emendatam, refictam, et secundis curis elaboratam. Id enim facere solebant illi poetæ sæpissimé: mox etiam alii, ut Apollonius Rhodius. Neque aliter Plato fecit in optimis dialogis suis: quam ob causam exquirere non licet, quando quisque compositus sit; quum in scenicis fabulis saltem ex didascaliis plerumque notum sit tempus, quo editæ sunt."
Preller has a like remark (Hist. Phil. ex Font. Loc. Context., sect. 250).
In regard to the habit of correcting compositions, the contrast between Plato and Plotinus was remarkable. Porphyry tells us that Plotinus, when once he had written any matter, could hardly bear even to read it over--much less to review and improve it (Porph. Vit. Plotini, 8).]
[Side-note: Hermann's view more tenable than Schleiermacher's.]
If we compare K. F. Hermann with Schleiermacher, we see that Hermann has amended his position by abandoning Schleiermacher's gratuitous hypothesis, of a preconceived Platonic system with a canonical order of the dialogues adapted to that system--and by admitting only a chronological order of composition, each dialogue being generated by the state of Plato's mind at the time when it was composed. This, taken generally, is indisputable. If we perfectly knew Plato's biography and the circumstances around him, we should be able to determine which dialogues were first, second, and third, &c., and what circumstances or mental dispositions occasioned the successive composition of those which followed. But can we do this with our present scanty information? I think not. Hermann, while abandoning the hypothesis of Schleiermacher, has still accepted the large conditions of the problem first drawn up by Schleiermacher, and has undertaken to decide the real order of the dialogues, together with the special occasion and the phase of Platonic development corresponding to each. Herein, I think, he has failed.
[Side-note: Small number of certainties, or even reasonable presumptions, as to date or order of the dialogues.]
It is, indeed, natural that critics should form some impression as to earlier and later in the dialogues. But though there are some peculiar cases in which such impression acquires much force, I conceive that in almost all cases it is to a high degree uncertain. Several dialogues proclaim themselves as subsequent to the death of Sokrates. We know from internal allusions that the Theætêtus must have been composed after 394 B.C., the Menexenus after 387 B.C., and the Symposion after 385 B.C. We are sure, by Aristotle's testimony, that the Leges were written at a later period than the Republic; Plutarch also states that the Leges were composed during the old age of Plato, and this statement, accepted by most modern critics, appears to me trustworthy.[54] The Sophistês proclaims itself as a second meeting, by mutual agreement, of the same persons who had conversed in the Theætêtus, with the addition of a new companion, the Eleatic stranger. But we must remark that the subject of the Theætêtus, though left unsettled at the close of that dialogue, is not resumed in the Sophistês: in which last, moreover, Sokrates acts only a subordinate part, while the Eleatic stranger, who did not appear in the Theætêtus, is here put forward as the prominent questioner or expositor. So too, the Politikus offers itself as a third of the same triplet: with this difference, that while the Eleatic stranger continues as the questioner, a new respondent appears in the person of Sokrates Junior. The Politikus is not a resumption of the same subject as the Sophistês, but a second application of the same method (the method of logical division and subdivision) to a different subject. Plato speaks also as if he contemplated a third application of the same method--the Philosophus: which, so far as we know, was never realised. Again, the Timæus presents itself as a sequel to the Republic, and the Kritias as a sequel to the Timæus: a fourth, the Hermokrates, being apparently announced, as about to follow--but not having been composed.
[Footnote 54: Plutarch, Isid. et Osirid. c. 48, p. 370.]
[Side-note: Trilogies indicated by Plato himself.]
Here then are two groups of three each (we might call them Trilogies, and if the intended fourth had been realised, Tetralogies), indicated by Plato himself. A certain relative chronological order is here doubtless evident: the Sophistês must have been composed after the Theætêtus and before the Politikus, the Timæus after the Republic and before the Kritias. But this is all that we can infer: for it does not follow that the sequence must have been immediate in point of time: there may have been a considerable interval between the three forming the so-called Trilogy.[55] We may add, that neither in the Theætêtus nor in the Republic, do we find indication that either of them is intended as the first of a Trilogy: the marks proving an intended Trilogy are only found in the second and third of the series.
[Footnote 55: It may seem singular that Schlelermacher is among those who adopt this opinion. He maintains that the Sophistes does not follow immediately upon the Theætêtus; that Plato, though intending when he finished the Theætêtus to proceed onward to the Sophistês, altered his intention, and took up other views instead: that the Menon (and the Euthydêmus) come in between them, in immediate sequel to the Theætêtus (Einleitung zum Menon, vol. iii. p. 326).
Here Schleiermacher introduces a new element of uncertainty, which invalidates yet more seriously the grounds for his hypothesis of a preconceived sequence throughout all the dialogues. In a case where Plato directly intimates an intentional sequence, we are called upon to believe, on "internal grounds" alone, that he altered his intention, and introduced other dialogues. He may have done this: but how are we to prove it? How much does it attenuate the value of his intentions, as proofs of an internal philosophical sequence? We become involved more and more in unsupported hypothesis. I think that K. F. Hermann's objections against Schleiermacher, on the above ground, have much force; and that Ueberweg's reply to them is unsatisfactory. (Hermann, Gesch. und Syst. der Platon. Phil. p. 350. Ueberweg, Untersuchungen, p. 82, seq.)]
[Side-note: Positive dates of all the dialogues--unknown.]
While even the relative chronology of the dialogues is thus faintly marked in the case of a few, and left to fallible conjecture in the remainder--the positive chronology, or the exact year of composition, is not directly marked in the case of any one. Moreover, at the very outset of the enquiry, we have to ask, At what period of life did Plato begin to publish his dialogues? Did he publish any of them during the lifetime of Sokrates? and if so, which? Or does the earliest of them date from a time after the death of Sokrates?
[Side-note: When did Plato begin to compose? Not till after the death of Sokrates.]
Amidst the many dissentient views of the Platonic critics, it is remarkable that they are nearly unanimous in their mode of answering this question.[56] Most of them declare without hesitation, that Plato published several before the death of Sokrates--that is, before he was 28 years of age--though they do not all agree in determining which these dialogues were. I do not perceive that they produce any external proofs of the least value. Most of them disbelieve (though Stallbaum and Hermann believe) the anecdote about Sokrates and his criticism on the dialogue Lysis.[57] In spite of their unanimity, I cannot but adopt the opposite conclusion. It appears to me that Plato composed no Sokratic dialogues during the lifetime of Sokrates.
[Footnote 56: Valentine Rose (De Aristotelis Librorum ordine, p. 25, Berlin, 1854), Mullach (Democriti Fragm. p. 99), and R. Schöne (in his Commentary on the Platonic Protagoras), are among the critics known to me, who intimate their belief that Plato published no Sokratic dialogues during the lifetime of Sokrates. In discussing the matter, Schöne adverts to two of the three lines of argument brought forward in my text:--1. The too early and too copious "productivity" which the received supposition would imply in Plato. 2. The improbability that the name of Sokrates would be employed in written dialogues, as spokesman, by any of his scholars during his lifetime.
Schöne does not touch upon the improbability of the hypothesis, arising out of the early position and aspirations of Plato himself (Schöne, Ueber Platon's Protagoras, p. 64, Leipsic, 1862).]
[Footnote 57: Diog. Laert. iii. 85; Stallbaum, Prolegg. ad Plat. Lys. p. 90; K. F. Hermann, Gesch. u. Syst. der Plat. Phil. p. 370. Schleiermacher (Einl. zum Lysis, i. p. 175) treats the anecdote about the Lysis as unworthy of credence. Diogenes (iii. 38) mentions that some considered the Phædrus as Plato's earliest dialogue; the reason being that the subject of it was something puerile: [Greek: lo/gos de\ prô=ton gra/psai au)to\n to\n Phai=dron; kai\ ga\r e)/chei meirakiô=des ti to\ pro/blêma. Dikai/archos de\ kai\ to\n tro/pon tê=s graphê=s o(/lon e)pime/mphetai ô(s phortiko/n]. Olympiodorus also in his life of Plato mentions the same report, that the Phædrus was Plato's earliest composition, and gives the same ground of belief, "its dithyrambic character". Even if the assertion were granted, that the Phædrus is the earliest Platonic composition, we could not infer that it was composed during the life-time of Sokrates. But that assertion cannot be granted. The two statements, above cited, give it only as a report, suggested to those who believed it by the character and subject-matter of the dialogue. I am surprised that Dr. Volquardsen, who in a learned volume, recently published, has undertaken the defence of the theory of Schleiermacher about the Phædrus (Phädros, Erste Schrift Platon's, Kiel, 1862), can represent this as a "feste historische Ueberlieferung"--the rather as he admits that Schleiermacher himself placed no confidence in it, and relied upon other reasons (pp. 90-92-93). Comp. Schleiermacher, Einl. zum Phaidros, p. 76.
Whoever will read the Epistle of Dionysius of Halikarnassus, addressed to Cneius Pompeius (pp. 751-765, Reiske), will be persuaded that Dionysius can neither have known, nor even believed, that the Phædrus was the first composition, and a youthful composition, of Plato. If Dionysius had believed this, it would have furnished him with the precise excuse which his letter required. For the purpose of his letter is to mollify the displeasure of Cn. Pompey, who had written to blame him for some unfavourable criticisms on the style of Plato. Dionysius justifies his criticisms by allusions to the Phædrus. If he had been able to add, that the Phædrus was a first composition, and that Plato's later dialogues were comparatively free from the like faults--this would have been the most effective way of conciliating Cn. Pompey.]
[Side-note: Reasons for this opinion. Labour of the composition--does not consist with youth of the author.]
All the information (scanty as it is) which we obtain from the rhetor Dionysius and others respecting the composition of the Platonic dialogues, announces them to have cost much time and labour to their author: a statement illustrated by the great number of inversions of words which he is said to have introduced successively in the first sentence of the Republic, before he was satisfied to let the sentence stand. This corresponds, too, with all that we read respecting the patient assiduity both of Isokrates and Demosthenes.[58] A first-rate Greek composition was understood not to be purchasable at lower cost. I confess therefore to great surprise, when I read in Ast the affirmation that the Protagoras was composed when Plato was only 22 years old--and when I find Schleiermacher asserting, as if it were a matter beyond dispute, that Protagoras, Phædrus, and Parmenidês, all bear evident marks of Plato's youthful age (Jugendlichkeit). In regard to the Phædrus and Parmenidês, indeed, Hermann and other critics contest the view of Schleiermacher; and detect, in those two dialogues, not only no marks of "juvenility," but what they consider plain proofs of maturity and even of late age. But in regard to the Protagoras, most of them agree with Schleiermacher and Ast, in declaring it to be a work of Plato's youth, some time before the death of Sokrates. Now on this point I dissent from them: and since the decision turns upon "internal grounds," each must judge for himself. The Protagoras appears to me one of the most finished and elaborate of all the dialogues: in complication of scenic arrangements, dramatic vivacity, and in the amount of theory worked out, it is surpassed by none--hardly even by the Republic.[59] Its merits as a composition are indeed extolled by all the critics; who clap their hands, especially, at the humiliation which they believe to be brought upon the great Sophist by Sokrates. But the more striking the composition is acknowledged to be, the stronger is the presumption that its author was more than 22 or 24 years of age. Nothing short of good positive testimony would induce me to believe that such a dialogue as the Protagoras could have been composed, even by Plato, before he attained the plenitude of his powers. No such testimony is produced or producible. I extend a similar presumption, even to the Lysis, Lachês, Charmidês, and other dialogues: though with a less degree of confidence, because they are shorter and less artistic, not equal to the Protagoras. All of them, in my judgment, exhibit a richness of ideas and a variety of expression, which suggest something very different from a young novice as the author.
[Footnote 58: Timæus said that Alexander the Great conquered the Persian empire in less time than Isokrates required for the composition of his panegyrical oration (Longinus, De Sublim. c. 4).]
[Footnote 59: "Als aesthetisches Kunstwerk ist der Dialog Protagoras das meisterhafteste unter den Werken Platon's.' (Socher, Ueber Platon, p. 226.)]
But over and above this presumption, there are other reasons which induce me to believe, that none of the Platonic dialogues were published during the lifetime of Sokrates. My reasons are partly connected with Sokrates, partly with Plato.
[Side-note: Reasons founded on the personality of Sokrates, and his relations with Plato.]
First, in reference to Sokrates--we may reasonably doubt whether any written reports of his actual conversations were published during his lifetime. He was the most constant, public, and indiscriminate of all talkers: always in some frequented place, and desiring nothing so much as a respondent with an audience. Every one who chose to hear him, might do so without payment and with the utmost facility. Why then should any one wish to read written reports of his conversations? especially when we know that the strong interest which they excited in the hearers depended much upon the spontaneity of his inspirations, and hardly less upon the singularity of his manner and physiognomy. Any written report of what he said must appear comparatively tame. Again, as to fictitious dialogues (like the Platonic) employing the name of Sokrates as spokesman--such might doubtless be published during his lifetime by derisory dramatists for the purpose of raising a laugh, but not surely by a respectful disciple and admirer for the purpose of giving utterance to doctrines of his own. The greater was the respect felt by Plato for Sokrates, the less would he be likely to take the liberty of making Sokrates responsible before the public for what Sokrates had never said.[60] There is a story in Diogenes--to the effect that Sokrates, when he first heard the Platonic dialogue called Lysis, exclaimed--"What a heap of falsehoods does the young man utter about me!"[61] This story merits no credence as a fact: but it expresses the displeasure which Sokrates would be likely to feel, on hearing that one of his youthful companions had dramatised him as he appears in the Lysis. Xenophon tells us, and it is very probable, that inaccurate oral reports of the real colloquies of Sokrates may have got into circulation. But that the friends and disciples of Sokrates, during his lifetime, should deliberately publish fictitious dialogues, putting their own sentiments into his mouth, and thus contribute to mislead the public--is not easily credible. Still less credible is it that Plato, during the lifetime of Sokrates, should have published such a dialogue as the Phædrus, wherein we find ascribed to Sokrates, poetical and dithyrambic effusions utterly at variance with the real manifestations which Athenians might hear every day from Sokrates in the market-place.[62] Sokrates in the Platonic Apology, complains of the comic poet Aristophanes for misrepresenting him. Had the Platonic Phædrus been then in circulation, or any other Platonic dialogues, he might with equally good reason have warned the Dikasts against judging of him, a real citizen on trial, from the titular Sokrates whom even disciples did not scruple to employ as spokesman for their own transcendental doctrine, and their own controversial sarcasms.
[Footnote 60: Valentine Rose observes, in regard to a dialogue composed by some one else, wherein Plato was introduced as one of the interlocutors, that it could not have been composed until after Plato's death, and that the dialogues of Plato were not composed until after the death of Sokrates. "Platonis autem sermones antequam mortuus fuerit, scripto neminem tradidisse, neque magistri viventis personâ in dialogis abusos fuisse (non magis quam vivum Socratem induxerunt Xenophon, Plato, cæteri Socratici), hoc veterum mori et religioni quivis facile concedet," &c. (V. Rose, Aristoteles Pseudepigraphus, pp. 57, 74, Leipsic, 1863.)--Val. Rose expresses the same opinion (that none of the Sokratic dialogues, either by Plato or the other companions of Sokrates, were written until after the death of Sokrates) in his earlier work, De Aristotelis Librorum Ordine et Auctoritate, p. 25.]
[Footnote 61: Diog. L. iii. 35.]
[Footnote 62: In regard to the theory (elaborated by Schleiermacher, recently again defended by Volquardsen), that the Phædrus is the earliest among the Platonic dialogues, composed about 406 B.C., it appears to me inconsistent also with what we know about Lysias. In the Platonic Phædrus, Lysias is presented as a [Greek: logogra/phos] of the highest reputation and eminence (p. 228 A, 257 C, and indeed throughout the whole dialogue). Now this is quite inconsistent with what we read from Lysias himself in the indictment which he preferred against Eratosthenes, not long after the restoration of the democracy, 403 B.C. He protests therein strenuously that he had never had judicial affairs of his own, nor meddled with those of others; and he expresses the greatest apprehension from his own [Greek: a)peiri/a] (sects. 4-6). I cannot believe that this would be said by a person whom Phædrus terms [Greek: deino/tatos ô(\n tô=n nu=n gra/phein]. Moreover, Lysias, in that same discourse, describes his own position at Athens, anterior to the Thirty: he belonged to a rich metic family, and was engaged along with his brother Polemarchus in a large manufactory of shields, employing 120 slaves (s. 20). A person thus rich and occupied was not likely to become a professed and notorious [Greek: logogra/phos], though he may have been a clever and accomplished man. Lysias was plundered and impoverished by the Thirty; and he is said to have incurred much expense in aiding the efforts of Thrasybulus. It was after this change of circumstances that he took to rhetoric as a profession; and it is to some one of these later years that the Platonic Phædrus refers.]
[Side-note: Reasons, founded on the early life, character, and position of Plato.]
Secondly, in regard to Plato, the reasons leading to the same conclusion are yet stronger. Unfortunately, we know little of the life of Plato before he attained the age of 28, that is, before the death of Sokrates: but our best means of appreciating it are derived from three sources. 1. Our knowledge of the history of Athens from 409-399 B.C., communicated by Thucydides, Xenophon, &c. 2. The seventh Epistle of Plato himself, written four or five years before his death (about 352 B.C.). 3. A few hints from the Memorabilia of Xenophon.
[Side-note: Plato's early life--active by necessity, and to some extent ambitious.]
To these evidences about the life of Plato, it has not been customary to pay much attention. The Platonic critics seem to regard Plato so entirely as a spiritual person ("like a blessed spirit, visiting earth for a short time," to cite a poetical phrase applied to him by Göthe), that they disdain to take account of his relations with the material world, or with society around him. Because his mature life was consecrated to philosophy, they presume that his youth must have been so likewise. But this is a hasty assumption. You cannot thus abstract any man from the social medium by which, he is surrounded. The historical circumstances of Athens from Plato's nineteenth year to his twenty-sixth (409-403 B.C.) were something totally different from what they afterwards became. They were so grave and absorbing, that had he been ever so much inclined to philosophy, he would have been compelled against his will to undertake active and heavy duty as a citizen. Within those years (as I have observed in a preceding chapter) fell the closing struggles of the Peloponnesian war; in which (to repeat words already cited from Thucydides) Athens became more a military post than a city--every citizen being almost habitually under arms: then the long blockade, starvation, and capture of the city, followed by the violences of the Thirty, the armed struggle under Thrasybulus, and the perilous, though fortunately successful and equitable, renovation of the democracy. These were not times for a young citizen, of good family and robust frame, to devote himself exclusively to philosophy and composition. I confess myself surprised at the assertion of Schleiermacher and Steinhart, that Plato composed the Charmidês and other dialogues under the Anarchy.[63] Amidst such disquietude and perils he could not have renounced active duty for philosophy, even if he had been disposed to do so.
[Footnote 63: Steinhart, Einl. zum Laches, vol. i. p. 358, where he says that Plato composed the Charmidês, Lachês, and Protagoras, all in 404 B.C. under the Thirty. Schleiermacher, Einleitung zum Charmides, vol. ii. p. 8.
The lines of Lucretius (i. 41) bear emphatically upon this trying season:
Nam neque nos agere hoc patriai tempore iniquo Possumus æquo animo nec Memmi clara propago Talibus in rebus communi desse saluti.]
But, to make the case stronger, we learn from Plato's own testimony, in his seventh Epistle, that he was not at that time disposed to renounce active political life. He tells us himself, that as a young man he was exceedingly eager, like others of the same age, to meddle and distinguish himself in active politics.[64] How natural such eagerness was, to a young citizen of his family and condition, may be seen by the analogy of his younger brother Glaukon, who was prematurely impatient to come forward: as well as by that of his cousin Charmides, who had the same inclination, but was restrained by exaggerated diffidence of character. Now we know that the real Sokrates (very different from the Platonic Sokrates in the Gorgias) did not seek to deter young men of rank from politics, and to consign them to inactive speculation. Sokrates gives[65] earnest encouragement to Charmides; and he does not discourage Glaukon, but only presses him to adjourn his pretensions until the suitable stock of preliminary information has been acquired. We may thus see that assuming the young Plato to be animated with political aspirations, he would certainly not be dissuaded,--nay, he would probably be encouraged--by Sokrates.
[Footnote 64: Plato, Epist. vii. p. 324 C. [Greek: Ne/os e)gô/ pote ô)\n polloi=s dê\ tau)to\n e)/pathon; ô)|ê/thên, ei) tha=tton e)mautou= genoi/mên ku/rios, e)pi\ ta\ koina\ tê=s po/leôs eu)thu\s i)e/nai]. Again, 325 E: [Greek: ô(/ste me, to\ prô=ton pollê=s mesto\n o)/nta o(rmê=s e)pi\ to\ pra/ttein ta\ koina/], &c.]
[Footnote 65: See the two interesting colloquies of Sokrates, with Glaukon and Charmides (Xenoph. Mem. iii. 6, 7).
Charmides was killed along with Kritias during the eight months called The Anarchy, at the battle fought with Thrasybulus and the democrats (Xen. Hell. ii. 4, 19). The colloquy of Sokrates with Charmides, recorded by Xenophon in the Memorabilia, must have taken place at some time before the battle of Ægospotami; perhaps about 407 or 406 B.C.]
Plato farther tells us that when (after the final capitulation of Athens) the democracy was put down and the government of the Thirty established, he embarked in it actively under the auspices of his relatives (Kritias, Charmides, &c., then in the ascendant), with the ardent hopes of youth[66] that he should witness and promote the accomplishment of valuable reforms. Experience showed him that he was mistaken. He became disgusted with the enormities of the Thirty, especially with their treatment of Sokrates; and he then ceased to co-operate with them. Again, after the year called the Anarchy, the democracy was restored, and Plato's political aspirations revived along with it. He again put himself forward for active public life, though with less ardent hopes.[67] But he became dissatisfied with the march of affairs, and his relationship with the deceased Kritias was now a formidable obstacle to popularity. At length, four years after the restoration of the democracy, came the trial and condemnation of Sokrates. It was that event which finally shocked and disgusted Plato, converting his previous dissatisfaction into an utter despair of obtaining any good results from existing governments. From thenceforward, he turned away from practice and threw himself into speculation.[68]
[Footnote 66: Plato, Epist. vii. 324 D. [Greek: Kai\ e)gô\ thaumasto\n ou)de\n e)/pathon u(po\ neo/têtos], &c.]
[Footnote 67: Plato, Epist. vii. 325 A. [Greek: Pa/lin de/, bradu/teron me\n, ei)=lke de/ me o(/môs ê( peri\ to\ pra/ttein ta\ koina\ kai\ politika\ e)pithumi/a.]]
[Footnote 68: Plato, Epist. vii. 325 C: [Greek: Skopou=nti dê/ moi tau=ta te kai\ tou\s a)nthrô/pous tou\s pra/ttontas ta\ politika/], &c. 325 E: [Greek: Kai\ tou= me\n skopei=n mê\ a)postê=nai, pê= pote\ a)/meinon a)\n gi/gnoito peri/ te au)ta\ tau=ta kai\ dê\ kai\ peri\ tê\n pa=san politei/an, tou= de\ pra/ttein au)= perime/nein ai)ei\ kairou/s, teleutô=nta de\ noê=sai peri\ pasô=n tô=n nu=n po/leôn o(/ti kakô=s xu/mpasai politeu/ontai].
I have already stated in the 84th chapter of my History, describing the visit of Plato to Dionysius in Sicily, that I believe the Epistles of Plato to be genuine, and that the seventh Epistle especially contains valuable information. Some critics undoubtedly are of a different opinion, and consider them as spurious. But even among these critics, several consider that the author of the Epistles, though not Plato himself, was a contemporary and well informed: so that his evidence is trustworthy. See K. F. Hermann, Gesammelte Abhandlungen, pp. 282-283. The question has been again discussed recently by Ueberweg (Untersuch. über d. Aechth. u. Zeitf. d. Plat. Schriften, pp. 120-123-125-129), who gives his own opinion that the letters are not by Plato, and produces various arguments to the point. His arguments are noway convincing to me: for the mysticism and pedantry of the Epistles appear to me in full harmony with the Timæus and Leges, and with the Pythagorean bias of Plato's later years, though not in harmony with the Protagoras, and various other dialogues. Yet Ueberweg also declares his full belief that the seventh Epistle is the composition of a well-informed contemporary, and perfectly worthy of credit as to the facts and K. F. Hermann declares the same. This is enough for my present purpose.
The statement, trusted by all the critics, that Plato's first visit to Syracuse was made when he was about 40 years of age, depends altogether on the assertion of the seventh Epistle. How numerous are the assertions made by Platonic critics respecting Plato, upon evidence far slighter than that of these Epistles! Boeckh considers the seventh Epistle as the genuine work of Plato. Valentine Rose also pronounces it to be genuine, though he does not consider the other Epistles to be so (De Aristotelis Librorum Ordine, p. 25, p. 114, Berlin, 1854). Tennemann admits the Epistles generally to be genuine (System der Platon. Philos. i. p. 106).
It is undeniable that these Epistles of Plato were recognised as genuine and trusted by all the critics of antiquity from Aristophanes downwards. Cicero, Plutarch, Aristeides, &c., assert facts upon the authority of the Epistles. Those who declare the Epistles to be spurious and worthless, ought in consistency to reject the statements which Plutarch makes on the authority of the Epistles: they will find themselves compelled to discredit some of the best parts of his life of Dion. Compare Aristeides, [Greek: Peri\ R(êtorikê=s] Or. 45, pp. 90-106, Dindorf.]
[Side-note: Plato did not retire from political life until after the restoration of the democracy, nor devote himself to philosophy until after the death of Sokrates.]
This very natural recital, wherein Plato (at the age of 75) describes his own youth between 21 and 28--taken in conjunction with the other reasons just enumerated--impresses upon me the persuasion, that Plato did not devote himself to philosophy, nor publish any of his dialogues, before the death of Sokrates: though he may probably have composed dramas, and the beautiful epigrams which Diogenes has preserved. He at first frequented the society of Sokrates, as many other aspiring young men frequented it (likewise that of Kratylus, and perhaps that of various Sophists[69]), from love of ethical debate, admiration of dialectic power, and desire to acquire a facility of the same kind in his own speech: not with any view to take up philosophy as a profession, or to undertake the task either of demolishing or constructing in the region of speculation. No such resolution was adopted until after he had tried political life and had been disappointed:--nor until such disappointment had been still more bitterly aggravated by the condemnation of Sokrates. It was under this feeling that Plato first consecrated himself to that work of philosophical meditation and authorship,--of inquisitive travel and converse with philosophers abroad,--and ultimately of teaching in the Academy,--which filled up the remaining fifty years of his life. The death of Sokrates left that venerated name open to be employed as spokesman in his dialogues: and there was nothing in the political condition of Athens after 399 B.C., analogous to the severe and perilous struggle which tasked all the energies of her citizens from 409 B.C. down to the close of the war.
[Footnote 69: Compare Plat. Protag. 312 A-B, 315 A, where the distinction is pointedly drawn between one who visited Protagoras [Greek: e)pi\ te/chnê|, ô(s dêmiourgo\s e)so/menos], and others who came simply [Greek: e)pi\ paidei/a|, ô(s to\n i)diô/tên kai\ to\n e)leu/theron pre/pei.]]
[Side-note: All Plato's dialogues were composed during the fifty-one years after the death of Sokrates.]
I believe, on these grounds, that Plato did not publish any dialogues during the life of Sokrates. An interval of fifty-one years separates the death of Sokrates from that of Plato. Such an interval is more than sufficient for all the existing dialogues of Plato, without the necessity of going back to a more youthful period of his age. As to distribution of the dialogues, earlier or later, among these fifty-one years, we have little or no means of judging. Plato has kept out of sight--with a degree of completeness which is really surprising--not merely his own personality, but also the marks of special date and the determining circumstances in which each dialogue was composed. Twice only does he mention his own name, and that simply in passing, as if it were the name of a third person.[70] As to the point of time to which he himself assigns each dialogue, much discussion has been held how far Plato has departed from chronological or historical possibility; how far he has brought persons together in Athens who never could have been there together, or has made them allude to events posterior to their own decease. A speaker in Athenæus[71] dwells, with needless acrimony, on the anachronisms of Plato, as if they were gross faults. Whether they are faults or not, may fairly be doubted: but the fact of such anachronisms cannot be doubted, when we have before us the Menexenus and the Symposion. It cannot be supposed, in the face of such evidence, that Plato took much pains to keep clear of anachronisms: and whether they be rather more or rather less numerous, is a question of no great moment.
[Footnote 70: In the Apologia, c. 28, p. 38, Sokrates alludes to Plato as present in court, and as offering to become guarantee, along with others, for his fine. In the Phædon, Plato is mentioned as being sick; to explain why he was not present at the last scene of Sokrates (Phædon, p. 59 B). Diog. L. iii. 37.
The pathos as well as the detail of the narrative in the Phædon makes one imagine that Plato really was present at the scene. But being obliged, by the uniform scheme of his compositions, to provide another narrator, he could not suffer it to be supposed that he was himself present.
I have already remarked that this mention of Plato in the third person ([Greek: Pla/tôn de/, oi)=mai, ê)sthe/nei]) was probably one of the reasons which induced Panætius to declare the Phædon not to be the work of Plato.]
[Footnote 71: Athenæus, v. pp. 220, 221. Didymus also attacked Plato as departing from historical truth--[Greek: e)piphuo/menos tô=| Pla/tôni ô(s paristorou=nti]--against which the scholiast (ad Leges, i. p. 630) defends him. Groen van Prinsterer, Prosopogr. Plat. p. 16. The rhetor Aristeides has some remarks of the same kind, though less acrimonious (Orat. xlvii. p. 435, Dind.) than the speaker in Athenæus.]
[Side-note: The Thrasyllean Canon is more worthy of trust than the modern critical theories by which it has been condemned.]
I now conclude my enquiry respecting the Platonic Canon. The presumption in favour of that Canon, as laid down by Thrasyllus, is stronger (as I showed in the preceding chapter) than it is in regard to ancient authors generally of the same age: being traceable, in the last resort, through the Alexandrine Museum, to authenticating manuscripts in the Platonic school, and to members of that school who had known and cherished Plato himself.[72] I have reviewed the doctrines of several recent critics who discard this Canon as unworthy of trust, and who set up for themselves a type of what Plato must have been, derived from a certain number of items in the Canon--rejecting the remaining items as unconformable to their hypothetical type. The different theories which they have laid down respecting general and systematic purposes of Plato (apart from the purpose of each separate composition), appear to me uncertified and gratuitous. The "internal reasons," upon which they justify rejection of various dialogues, are only another phrase for expressing their own different theories respecting Plato as a philosopher and as a writer. For my part I decline to discard any item of the Thrasyllean Canon, upon such evidence as they produce: I think it a safer and more philosophical proceeding to accept the entire Canon, and to accommodate my general theory of Plato (in so far as I am able to frame one) to each and all of its contents.
[Footnote 72: I find this position distinctly asserted, and the authority of the Thrasyllean catalogue, as certifying the genuine works of Plato, vindicated, by Yxem, in his able dissertation on the Kleitophon of Plato (pp. 1-3, Berlin, 1846). But Yxem does not set forth the grounds of this opinion so fully as the present state of the question demands. Moreover, he combines it with another opinion, upon which he insists even at greater length, and from which I altogether dissent--that the tetralogies of Thrasyllus exhibit the genuine order established by Plato himself among the Dialogues.]
[Side-note: Unsafe grounds upon which those theories proceed.]
Considering that Plato's period of philosophical composition extended over fifty years, and that the circumstances of his life are most imperfectly known to us--it is surely hazardous to limit the range of his varieties, on the faith of a critical repugnance, not merely subjective and fallible, but withal entirely of modern growth: to assume, as basis of reasoning, the admiration raised by a few of the finest dialogues--and then to argue that no composition inferior to this admired type, or unlike to it in doctrine or handling, can possibly be the work of Plato. "The Minos, Theagês, Epistolæ, Epinomis, &c., are unworthy of Plato: nothing so inferior in excellence can have been composed by him. No dialogue can be admitted as genuine which contradicts another dialogue, or which advocates any low or incorrect or un-Platonic doctrine. No dialogue can pass which is adverse to the general purpose of Plato as an improver of morality, and a teacher of the doctrine of Ideas." On such grounds as these we are called upon to reject various dialogues: and there is nothing upon which, generally speaking, so much stress is laid as upon inferior excellence. For my part, I cannot recognise any of them as sufficient grounds of exception. I have no difficulty in believing, not merely that Plato (like Aristophanes) produced many successive novelties, "not at all similar one to the other, and all clever"[73]--but also that among these novelties, there were inferior dialogues as well as superior: that in different dialogues he worked out different, even contradictory, points of view--and among them some which critics declare to be low and objectionable: that we have among his works unfinished fragments and abandoned sketches, published without order, and perhaps only after his death.
[Footnote 73: Aristophan. Nubes, 547-8.
[Greek: A)ll' a)ei\ kaina\s i)de/as ei)sphe/rôn sophi/zomai, Ou)de\n a)llê/laisin o(moi/as, kai\ pa/sas dexia/s.]]
[Side-note: Opinions of Schleiermacher, tending to show this.]
It may appear strange, but it is true, that Schleiermacher, the leading champion of Plato's central purpose and systematic unity from the beginning, lays down a doctrine to the same effect. He says, "Truly, nothing can be more preposterous, than when people demand that all the works even of a great master shall be of equal perfection--or that such as are not equal, shall be regarded as not composed by him". Zeller expresses himself in the same manner, and with as little reserve.[74] These eminent critics here proclaim a general rule which neither they nor others follow out.
[Footnote 74: Schleiermacher, Einleitung zum Menon, vol. iii. p. 337. "Und wahrlich, nichts ist wohl wunderlicher, als wenn man verlangt, dass alle Werke auch eines grossen Meisters von gleicher Volkommenheit seyn sollten--oder die es nicht sind, soll er nicht verfertigt haben."
Compare Zeller, Phil. d. Griech., vol. ii. p. 322, ed. 2nd.
It is to be remembered that this opinion of Schleiermacher refers only to completed works of the same master. You are not authorised in rejecting any completed work as spurious, on the ground that it is not equal in merit to some other. Still less, then, are you authorised in rejecting, on the like ground, an uncompleted work--a professed fragment, or a preliminary sketch. Of this nature are several of the minor items in the Thrasyllean canon.
M. Boeckh, in his Commentary on the dialogue called Minos, has assigned the reasons which induce him to throw out that dialogue, together with the Hipparchus, from the genuine works of Plato (and farther to consider both of them, and the pseudo-Platonic dialogues De Justo and De Virtute, as works of [Greek: Si/môn o( skuteu/s]: with this latter hypothesis I have here no concern). He admits fully that the Minos is of the Platonic age and irreproachable in style--"veteris esse et Attici scriptoris, probus sermo, antiqui mores totus denique character, spondent" (p. 32). Next, he not only admits that it is like Plato, but urges the too great likeness to Plato as one of the points of his case. He says that it is a bad, stupid, and unskilful imitation of different Platonic dialogues: "Pergamus ad alteram partem nostræ argumentationis, eamque etiam firmiorem, de nimiâ similitudine Platonicorum aliquot locorum. Nam de hoc quidem conveniet inter omnes doctos et indoctos, Platonem se ipsum haud posse imitari: ni forté quis dubitet de sanâ ejus mente" (p. 23). In the sense which Boeckh intends, I agree that Plato did not imitate himself: in another sense, I think that he did. I mean that his consummate compositions were preceded by shorter, partial, incomplete sketches, which he afterwards worked up, improved, and re-modelled. I do not understand how Plato could have composed such works as Republic, Protagoras, Gorgias, Symposion, Phædrus, Phædon, &c., without having before him many of these preparatory sketches. That some of these sketches should have been preserved is what we might naturally expect; and I believe Minos and Hipparchus to be among them. I do not wonder that they are of inferior merit. One point on which Boeckh (pp. 7, 8) contends that Hipparchus and Minos are unlike to Plato is, that the collocutor with Sokrates is anonymous. But we find anonymous talkers in the Protagoras, Sophistês, Politikus, and Leges.]
I find elsewhere in Schleiermacher, another opinion, not less important, in reference to disallowance of dialogues, on purely internal grounds. Take the Gorgias and the Protagoras: both these two dialogues are among the most renowned of the catalogue: both have escaped all suspicion as to legitimacy, even from Ast and Socher, the two boldest of all disfranchising critics. In the Protagoras, Sokrates maintains an elaborate argument to prove, against the unwilling Protagoras, that the Good is identical with the Pleasurable, and the Evil identical with the Painful--in the Gorgias, Sokrates holds an argument equally elaborate, to show that Good is essentially different from Pleasurable, Evil from Painful. What the one affirms, the other denies. Moreover, Schleiermacher himself characterises the thesis vindicated by Sokrates in the Protagoras, as "entirely un-Sokratic and un-Platonic".[75] If internal grounds of repudiation are held to be available against the Thrasyllean canon, how can such grounds exist in greater force than those which are here admitted to bear against the Protagoras--That it exhibits Sokrates as contradicting the Sokrates of the Gorgias--That it exhibits him farther as advancing and proving, at great length, a thesis "entirely un-Sokratic and un-Platonic"? Since the critics all concur in disregarding these internal objections, as insufficient to raise even a suspicion against the Protagoras, I cannot concur with them when they urge the like objections as valid and irresistible against other dialogues.
[Footnote 75: Schleiermacher, Einl. zum Protag. vol. i. p. 232. "Jene ganz unsokratische und unplatonische Ansicht, dass das Gute nichts anderes ist als das Angenehme."
So also, in the Parmenides, we find a host of unsolved objections against the doctrine of Ideas; upon which in other dialogues Plato so emphatically insists. Accordingly, Socher, resting upon this discrepancy as an "internal ground," declares the Parmenides not to be the work of Plato. But the other critics refuse to go along with this inference. I think they are right in so refusing. But this only shows how little such internal grounds are to be trusted, as evidence to prove spuriousness.]
I may add, as farther illustrating this point, that there are few dialogues in the list against which stronger objections on internal grounds can be brought, than Leges and Menexenus. Yet both of them stand authenticated, beyond all reasonable dispute, as genuine works of Plato, not merely by the Canon of Thrasyllus, but also by the testimony of Aristotle.[76]
[Footnote 76: See Ast, Platon's Leben und Schriften, p. 384: and still more, Zeller, Plat. Studien, pp. 1-131, Tübingen, 1839. In that treatise, where Zeller has set forth powerfully the grounds for denying the genuineness of the Leges, he relied so much upon the strength of this negative case, as to discredit the direct testimony of Aristotle affirming the Leges to be genuine. In his Phil. d. Griech. Zeller altered this opinion, and admitted the Leges to be genuine. But Strümpell adheres to the earlier opinion given by Zeller, and maintains that the partial recantation is noway justified. (Gesch. d. Prakt. Phil. d. Griech. p. 457.)
Suckow mentions (Form der Plat. Schriften, 1855, p. 135) that Zeller has in a subsequent work reverted to his former opinion, denying the genuineness of the Leges. Suckow himself denies it also; relying not merely on the internal objections against it, but also on a passage of Isokrates (ad Philippum, p. 84), which he considers to sanction his opinion, but which (in my judgment) entirely fails to bear him out.
Suckow attempts to show (p. 55), and Ueberweg partly countenances the same opinion, that the two passages in which Aristotle alludes to the Menexenus (Rhet. i. 9, 30; iii. 14, 11) do not prove that he (Aristotle) considered it as a work of Plato, because he mentions the name of Sokrates only, and not that of Plato. But this is to require from a witness such precise specification as we cannot reasonably expect. Aristotle, alluding to the Menexenus, says, [Greek: Sôkra/tês e)n tô=| E)pitaphi/ô|]: just as, in alluding to the Gorgias in another place (Sophist. Elench. 12, p. 173), he says, [Greek: Kalliklê=s e)n tô=| Gorgi/a|]: and again, in alluding to the Phædon, [Greek: o( e)n Phai/dôni Sôkra/tês] (De Gen. et Corrupt. ii. 9, p. 335): not to mention his allusions in the Politica to the Platonic Republic, under the name of Sokrates. No instance can be produced in which Aristotle cites any Sokratic dialogue, composed by Antisthenes, Æschines, &c., or any other of the Sokratic companions except Plato. And when we read in Aristotle's Politica (ii. 3, 3) the striking compliment paid--[Greek: To\ me\n ou)=n peritto\n e)/chousi pa/ntes oi( tou= Sôkra/tous lo/goi, kai\ to\ kompso/n, kai\ to\ kaino/tomon, kai\ to\ zêtêtiko/n; kalô=s de\ pa/nta i)/sôs chalepo/n]--we cannot surely imagine that he intends to designate any other dialogues than those composed by Plato.]
[Side-note: Any true theory of Plato must recognise all his varieties, and must be based upon all the works in the Canon, not upon some to the exclusion of the rest.]
While adhering therefore to the Canon of Thrasyllus, I do not think myself obliged to make out that Plato is either like to himself, or equal to himself, or consistent with himself, throughout all the dialogues included therein, and throughout the period of fifty years during which these dialogues were composed. Plato is to be found in all and each of the dialogues, not in an imaginary type abstracted from some to the exclusion of the rest. The critics reverence so much this type of their own creation, that they insist on bringing out a result consistent with it, either by interpretation specially contrived, or by repudiating what will not harmonise. Such sacrifice of the inherent diversity, and separate individuality, of the dialogues, to the maintenance of a supposed unity of type, style, or purpose, appears to me an error. In fact,[77] there exists, for us, no personal Plato any more than there is a personal Shakespeare. Plato (except in the Epistolæ) never appears before us, nor gives us any opinion as his own: he is the unseen prompter of different characters who converse aloud in a number of distinct dramas--each drama a separate work, manifesting its own point of view, affirmative or negative, consistent or inconsistent with the others, as the case may be. In so far as I venture to present a general view of one who keeps constantly in the dark--who delights to dive, and hide himself, not less difficult to catch than the supposed Sophist in his own dialogue called Sophistês--I shall consider it as subordinate to the dialogues, each and all: and above all, it must be such as to include and acknowledge not merely diversities, but also inconsistencies and contradictions.[78]
[Footnote 77: The only manifestation of the personal Plato is in the Epistolæ. I have already said that I accept these as genuine, though most critics do not. I consider them valuable illustrations of his character, as far as they go. They are all written after he was more than sixty years of age. And most of them relate to his relations with Dionysius the younger, with Dion, and with Sicilian affairs generally. This was a peculiar and outlying phase of Plato's life, during which (through the instigation of Dion, and at the sacrifice of his own peace of mind) he became involved in the world of political action: he had to deal with real persons, passions, and interests--with the feeble character, literary velleities, and jealous apprehensions of Dionysius--the reforming vehemence and unpopular harshness of Dion--the courtiers, the soldiers, and the people of Syracuse, all moved by different passions of which he had had no practical experience. It could not be expected that, amidst such turbulent elements, Plato as an adviser could effect much: yet I do not think that he turned his chances, doubtful as they were, to the best account. I have endeavoured to show this in the tenth volume of my History of Greece, c. 84. But at all events, these operations lay apart from Plato's true world--the speculation, dialectic, and lectures of the Academy at Athens. The Epistolæ, however, present some instructive points, bearing upon Plato's opinions about writing as a medium of philosophical communication and instruction to learners, which I shall notice in the suitable place.]
[Footnote 78: I transcribe from the instructive work of M. Ernest Renan, Averroès et l'Averroïsme, a passage in which he deprecates the proceeding of critics who presume uniform consistency throughout the works of Aristotle, and make out their theory partly by forcible exegesis, partly by setting aside as spurious all those compositions which oppose them. The remark applies more forcibly to the dialogues or Plato, who is much less systematic than Aristotle:--
"On a combattu l'interprétation d'Ibn-Rosehd (Averroès), et soutenu que l'intellect actif n'est pour Aristote qu'une faculté de l'ame. L'intellect passif n'est alors que la faculté de recevoir les [Greek: phanta/smata]: l'intellect actif n'est que l'induction s'exerçant sur les [Greek: phanta/smata] et en tirant les idées générales. Ainsi l'on fait concorder la théorie exposée dans le troisième livre du Traité de l'Ame, avec celle des Seconds Analytiques, où Aristote semble réduire le rôle de la raison à l'induction généralisant les faits de la sensation. Certes, je ne me dissimule pas qu'Aristote paraît souvent envisager le [Greek: nou=s] comme personnel à l'homme. Son attention constante à repéter que l'intellect est identique à l'intelligible, que l'intellect passe à l'acte quand il devient l'objet qu'il pense, est difficile à concilier avec l'hypothèse d'un intellect séparé de l'homme. Mais il est dangereux de faire ainsi coincider de force les différents aperçus des anciens. Les anciens philosophaient souvent sans se limiter dans un système, traitant le même sujet selon les points de vue qui s'offraient à eux, ou qui leur étaient offerts par les écoles antérieures, sans s'inquiéter des dissonances qui pouvaient exister entre ces divers tronçons de théorie. Il est puéril de chercher à les mettre d'accord avec eux-mêmes, quand eux-mêmes s'en sont peu souciés. Autant vaudrait, comme certains critiques Allemands, déclarer interpolés tous les passages que l'on ne peut concilier avec les autres. Ainsi, la théorie des Seconds Analytiques et celles du troisième livre de l'Ame, sans se contredire expressément, représentent deux aperçus profondément distincts et d'origine différente, sur le fait de l'intelligence." (Averroès et l'Averroïsme, p. 96-98, Paris, 1852.)
There is also in Strümpell (Gesch. der Prakt. Phil. der Griech. vor Aristot. p. 200) a good passage to the same purpose as the above from M. Renan: disapproving this presumption,--that the doctrines of every ancient philosopher must of course be systematic and coherent with each other--as "a phantom of modern times": and pointing out that both Plato and Aristotle founded their philosophy, not upon any one governing [Greek: a)rchê\] alone, from which exclusively consequences are deduced, but upon several distinct, co-ordinate, independent, points of view: each of which is by turns followed out, not always consistently with the others.]