Plato and the Other Companions of Sokrates, 3rd ed. Volume 1

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?

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.

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.

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 one5) 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.

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 μουσεῖον 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 booksellers7 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.

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 Kritias8 — the last ending in the middle of a sentence.

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.

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