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Preliminary Issues in Thrasyllus, Albinus, and Diogenes Laertius on Plato

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Preliminary Issues in Thrasyllus, Albinus, and Diogenes Laertius on Plato CHAPTER TWO PRELIMINARY ISSUES IN THRASYLLUS, ALBINUS, AND DIOGENES LAERTIUS ON PLATO 2.1 Introduction In the previous chapter, we looked at evidence concerned with individual issues of the schemata isagogica which antedate the later systematizations. But there is more material of a philosophical nature than has usually been realized. We should therefore also study evidence which, to the best of my knowledge, has not been discussed in this connection in an appropriate way,99 or even not at all. We may start with Diogenes Laertius book III, on Plato, noting in passing that Diogenes is presumably to be dated to the earlier third century CE. This book begins with the biographical part of a bios (III l-47a). Next, at III 47, Diogenes apostrophizes a person: Now, as you are a philoplatonic lady, and rightly so, and as you eagerly seek out that philosopher's doctrines ( ooyjlata) in preference to all others, I have thought it necessary to give some account of the character ( qroow) of his works, the ordering ( ta~tV) of his dialogues, and the method of his inductive procedure, as far as possible in the manner of an elementary introduction and restricting myself to the main points ( <JtOtXEtroOroc; Kat rnt KE<paA.airov), in order that the material concerned with the life (7tEpt tou ~iou) may not suffer by the omission of his doctrines. For, as the proverb has it, it would be taking owls to Athens were I to give you the full particulars ( ta Kat' dooc;) .100 99 Plezia (1949) 74, 94 ff., 101 ff., who for instance rewardingly discusses the evidence in D.L. III and IX, believed that Thrasyllus and other earlier authorities and authors only treated three aspects, viz. "vita, scripta, placita", and failed to see the parallels for the schemata isagogica to be found there. I also believe that he attributes too much of D.L. III to Thrasyllus; see now also Tarrant ( 1993) 17 ff., who tends to do so too. Donini (1922) 55 ff. compares three general issues raised by Albin us, viz. (1) what is a dialogue, (2) how do we classify the dialogues and (3) with which dialogue should one begin, with those of the later schemata isagogica, but he does not compare this classification with that at D.L. III 49 ff. 100 Transl. Hicks, modified. For D.L. III the edition by Breitenbach & THRASYLLUS, ALBINUS AND DIOG. LAERT. III 59 I shall presently say something about the oddity of this apos­ trophe, or dedication (as it is called in the scholarly literature). What should be noticed now is that Diogenes follows up his promise by first discussing the character of the works, i.e. the fact that they are dialogues (no mention of the Letters as a separate genre), 101 telling us how these may be classified in a variety of systematic ways, and providing an evaluation of them as sources for Plato's philosophy ( 48-52). Induction is treated next (53-5), i.e. before and not after that of the ordering of the works as had been announced. The ordering is treated third at considerable length (56-62; note that the key-word -ra~t~ itself does not occur in these paragraphs), though one would have been even more delighted if Diogenes had given the full particulars. 2.2 Tetralogies and Trilogies An important source of Diogenes- though I believe one can prove that it was not used at first hand-is a book by the Platonic and Pythagorean philosopher Thrasyllus who served the emperor Tiberius as court astrologer in the early first century CE. The most plausible hypothesis is that the work concerned was an intro­ duction to Plato. It is certain that Thrasyllus provided a bios, for at D.L. III 1 he is cited for the information that Plato's ancestors Codrus and Melanthus were descendants of Poseidon. Facts, or pseudo-facts, such as these belong with a standard part of a biography, viz. the protagonist's origin or genos. More generous extracts are concerned with Thrasyllus' views concerning the famous ordering of Plato's works in sets of four.l02 Already in al. ( 1907) is indispensable, esp. for the apparatus testimoniorum. For a general account of the contents of D.L. III see Dorrie-Baltes (1993) 240 ff. On what is announced at III 47 see von der Muhll (1965), and Nusser (1991) 236 f. (this book, regrettably, has no indexes). 101 Muller (1974) 40 n. 4 explains that letters may be viewed as mezzo­ dialogues, which give only the words of the person who speaks to an adressee who of necessity remains a silent partner but is expected to reply. This was already the view of a certain Artemon who acc~ording to Demetrius, De elocutione 223, made a list of Aristotle's letters: dvat ... 'tfJV emcr'toA.i]v otov t'tEpov I!Epo~ 'tOU OtaA6you, cf. Thraede (1970) 22. See also Synesius, Ep. 138.7-8. 102 Compare infra, section 2.8, for his essay on Democritus, which likewise contained both a bios and a systematic bibliography. See further Usener (1892) 209 ff. (ibid., 210, he employs the formula "Einleitungsschrift zu Platon"), Plezia (1949) 101 ff., Pasquali (1974) 265, and esp. Regenbogen .
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