First Zarathustra (original) (raw)
Related papers
Plato, Xenophon and Persia”, in G.Danzig, D.M.Johnson & D.Morrison (edd.), Plato and Xenophon: Comparative Studies (Leiden 2018), 576-611.
The main biographical source about Plato, according to the testimony of the Neoplatonic Simplicius, was written by the disciple Xenocrates, but unfortunately it has not reached us. The earliest biography of Plato to date, De Platone et dogmate eius, is by a second-century Latin author, Apuleius. All of Plato's other biographies were written more than five hundred years after his death. The Greek historian Diogenes (2nd and 3rd centuries) is the author of a series of biographies of Greek philosophers (The Lives of Philosophers) in which he refers to the life of Plato. He also wrote a funeral praise for Plato. Other early biographers of Plato are Olympiodorus the Younger in the sixth century and an anonymous source. An important source about Plato's life is his philosophical dialogues is his thirteen letters (possibly false though, with the possible exception of Letters VII and VIII), the writings of Aristotle, an excerpt from the Epicurean Philodemus of Gadara's History of Philosophers (Syntaxis ton philosophon), 1st century BC, Prolegomena's anonymous writings on Platonic philosophy traditionally attributed to Olympiodorus, Suda, 10th century and Plutarch's Life of Dio, 1st-2nd Century. DOI: 10.13140/RG.2.2.15396.96647
Lecture Notes - History of Philosophy - Ancient Greece Selections from Plato's Dialogues: Meno, Phaedo, Republic 5-7, Parmenides, Timeaus
Plato Between School and Cell: Biography and Competition in the Fifth-Century Philosophical Field
Monastic Education in Late Antiquity, ed. Lillian Larsen & Samuel Rubenson (forthcoming), 2018
Ancient biographical literature was born out of the philosophical developments and inter-scholastic rivalries of classical and Hellenistic Greece. The proliferation of biographies in late antiquity suggests that a similar competitive atmosphere gripped the philosophical field. The rise of monasticism in the fourth and fifth centuries C.E. introduced a new class of subjects for biographical literature that both challenged and stood in continuity with previous paradigms, mainly philosophers. In this paper, I treat the Religious History by the Syrian bishop Theodoret of Cyrrhus and the Proclus by the Neoplatonist philosopher Marinus of Neapolis as literary arenas in which the authors engaged in the negotiation of the meaning and relevance of Plato and the Platonic corpus for intellectual formation and virtuous living. In the context of a rapidly Christianizing educational field, the authors of these texts defined philosophical concepts, interpreted Platonic texts, and outlined the praxis of practical virtue by narrating the lives of exemplary figures. The Religious History and the Proclus are not simply the works of a Christian and a “pagan” but the literary productions of two educated and cultivated intellectuals of the fifth century, formed by paideia, who offered visions of the philosophical life and education through their biographical writings.
Plato Meno dramatic-historical dating 401 BC
Plato Meno dramatic-historical dating 401 BC, 2021
The dramatic date of Plato’s dialogue Meno cannot be meaningfully determined until this character has been identified as one of the generals from Xenophon’s Anabasis. Researchers have attempted to date Plato’s dialogue immediately prior to this Voyage of the Ten Thousand that began in 401 BC, but have been pushed back to the winter of 403/402 based on conservative estimates. Renewed reading and factual research have filled the gaps so that Meno can finally be pushed forward to the year 401 BC.