صور الصفحة
PDF
النشر الإلكتروني

SKETCH OF

THE BIOGRAPHERS OF PLATO

AND OF THE

COMMENTATORS UPON HIS WRITINGS.

THE object of this sketch is to combine some scattered notices illustrative of the preceding Article, which we had originally intended to insert in the form of notes. An exhibition of the literature of this subject, brought down to the present time, may not be without interest to our readers. We are enabled to do this the more satisfactorily from having in our possession, through the courtesy of a friend, brief MS. Notes of the Lectures on Plato which are delivered at Berlin by the eminent professor and classical scholar, Augustus Boeckh.

Diogenes Laertius, Apuleius, Olympiodorus and Suidas in his Lexicon have preserved many particulars of Plato's life. They had before them the biographies which were written by contemporaries of the philosopher. There is no reason, therefore, to doubt the authority of those biographies which we possess. They must contain substantial truth, though there are many conflicting statements in respect to particular incidents. Among the early writers is Speusippus, the nephew, the pupil and the successor of Plato. He wrote an encomium or eulogy on his master.1 Diogenes mentions another eulogy on Plato by Clearchus, who was probably the pupil of Aristotle. Hermodorus wrote a book with the title, 'Of Plato.' He was probably a contemporary and a scholar of Plato and the one who made known his dialogues in Sicily. Aristoxenus, the celebrated pupil of Aristotle, wrote the life of Plato and of other philosophers. Pha

His writings were purchased by Aristotle for three talents.

vorinus, who flourished in the time of Trajan, also wrote, according to the testimony of Suidas, an account of Plato. He is esteemed, says Tennemann, as a very credible authority. Plutarch, in his life of Dion, has tolerably full notices of Plato's residence in Sicily, which agree substantially with what is contained in the Letters that have been attributed to Plato. There is reason to believe that Plutarch examined and compared various writers in relation to this subject.

[ocr errors]

The earliest biographer of Plato, whose works are now extant, is Apuleius. He wrote a treatise in Latin, Concerning the Nativity of Plato and the Nature of his Doctrines.' He has some statements which are not found elsewhere. He appears to have made use of the Eulogy of Speusippus. In cases where he agrees with Diogenes, he seems to have drawn from the same sources. Diogenes Laertius, who flourished under Alexander Severus, or a little later, devotes the third book of his memoirs entirely to Plato. Diogenes is a mere collector. He throws his facts together without selection or order. The authorities are not always given, and his reader is left in entire uncertainty in relation to the value of his narrations. Differing statements are brought forward without any attempt at examination. With all his faults, however, his work is of indispensable importance, on account of the many materials in it which we can find in no other book. Olympiodorus has prefixed to his Commentary on the Alcibiades of Plato a short biography. It however contains more errors than that of Diogenes. It is inserted in the Tauchnitz edition of Plato. Prof. Heeren has printed in the fifth number of the Bibliothek der alten Litteratur u. Kunst, a life of Plato by an anonymous author, from a Pergamus MS. of the year 925. It agrees generally with Olympiodorus. It contains, however, some notices of his errors, and also a few facts not elsewhere found.

Many Commentaries on the Platonic writings are lost. Others remain in libraries still inedited, or edited but in part. Of these may be mentioned Damascius, Dexippus, Olympiodorus, Proclus and Theon of Sinyrna. Albinus, a contemporary of Galen, wrote an Introduction to the Platonic Dialogues. We have a few fragments of the work of Atticus, a Platonic of the age of Marcus Aurelius, on the difference between the Platonic and Aristotelian philosophy. The commentary of Porphyry, in which he attempts to show the agreement of the two systems, is still extant. We have a work

of Proclus on the Platonic Theology in six books, and also the Platonic Dictionary of Timaeus the Younger, a grammarian of the fourth century. The Lexicon of Suidas, in which are united extracts from the older grammarians, scholiasts and lexicographers, is essentially different from the glossaries, as it contains not only explanations of words, but also historical notices, particularly information in respect to the most celebrated writers with extracts from their works. This author is so entirely unknown that doubts have been expressed whether such an individual ever lived. Eustathius, however, cites him in a number of places. By some he is placed in the tenth century, by others in the eleventh, and by others still in the twelfth. A very complete collection of the Scholia on Plato was made by David Ruhnken, which appeared after his death. They are partly grammatical, partly historical. They contain many proverbs, also genealogies, mythological notices, verses from lost books, etc. These Scholia were printed at Leyden in 1800, and again by Tauchnitz in his edition of Plato.

The predominance of the Aristotelian philosophy in the schools of the Middle Ages, gave way to the Platonic after the revival of letters. The Florentine, Marsiglio Ficino, translated, under the patronage of Cosmo de Medici, the entire works of Plato into Latin. This translation has often been re-printed. The first Greek edition of the complete works of Plato came from the Aldine press at Venice in 1513, in two volumes folio. The edition edited by Herbst and Simon Grynaeus, Basil, 1534, was much improved by a careful revision, by the addition of the commentary of Proclus on the Ti- ́ maeus and the Republic, and by good indexes. In 1578, Henry Stephens published at Paris the works of Plato in three volumes folio, with a new recension of the text. J. de Serres (Serranus) supplied a new Latin translation more elegant than that by Ficino, but often incorrect. This edition was reprinted, the translation being improved, in 1590, at Lyons, and again at Frankfort in 1602. The Bipont edition was brought out in 1781-87, in eleven volumes, with the text of Stephens and the translation of Ficino. Croll, Exter, Embser and Mitscherlich had the editorial charge of the edition. The Dialogorum Platonis Argumenta of Tiedemann may be regarded as a twelfth volume of this edition. The stereotype edition of

1 Schöll Geschichte der Griechischen Litteratur, 1, 521 ed. 1828.

Tauchnitz, Leipsic 1819, is printed from the text of Stephens. Schleiermacher also translates, with a few exceptions, from the same.1

Of the editions issued in the present century we may name that of Immanuel Bekker, the well-known philologist at Berlin, 181618, in eight volumes octavo. Two volumes of commentaries were added in 1823. The text is improved by a new comparison of many MSS. The dialogues are printed in the order which was proposed by Schleiermacher. A very superior edition of Plato has just been completed by Frederic Ast. The text, with an entirely new translation, is contained in nine volumes. The remaining volumes include a critical and exegetical commentary, a Lexicon Platonicum and indexes. The basis of the text is that of the first Aldine edition. The external appearance of the volume is much superior to that of many German editions of the classics. Professor G. Stallbaum of the University of Leipsic, one of the greatest of living scholars in the writings of Plato, published his works in 1821-26. He had the advantage of an unfinished edition commenced by Bast and Heindorf. The text is the result of the collation of the Vienna, Paris, Florence and Zittau MSS. The last four volumes are furnished with critical observations, occasional illustration of difficult passages, etc. Another edition by C. E. C. Schneider is, we believe, in progress at Leipsic. We have seen no notice of its completion. It was to contain the results of all which has been hitherto done, in a critical respect, for Plato. It was also to embrace a new recension of the text and a complete critical apparatus. Our limits will compel us to omit all notices of editions of single dialogues or productions of Plato, In this service men no less distinguished than Wolf, Buttmann, Routh, Heindorf, Bekker, Boeckh, Ast, Dindorf, Jacobs, Wyttenbach, Stallbaum, etc., have labored. Tennemann, in his System of the Platonic Philosophy, enumerates nine distinct treatises or essays on the life of Plato, twelve on subjects connected with his life, six on his character as a writer, thirty on Plato as a philosopher, fourteen on the relation between Plato and Aristotle, and forty-two on particular topics connected with or growing out of his philosophy; in all one hundred and thirteen This enumeration was made in 1794. Since that time the number has greatly increased. Indeed Plato's writings are one of the most fruit

1 Rixner der Gesch. der Philos. I. 210. ed. 1829.

« السابقةمتابعة »