2

Platonist curricula and their influence

Harold Tarrant

The philosophical texts that we study have a profound effect upon our approach to philosophy. Part of the reason for the existence of separate traditions in separate countries or separate universities is the ease with which one keeps returning to the texts that have left an earlier mark upon us, often with new insights. We tend to think of the texts that we have encountered early as being particularly important, and to have the desire to make some contribution to advancing the understanding of them. Hence today, because the vast majority of scholars have encountered the Nicomachean Ethics early in their study of Aristotle, this is the work that we hold to be important, the work to whose understanding we want to contribute. The “Aristotelian Ethics” means the Nicomachean Ethics. We may almost forget that three of its books are common to the Eudemian Ethics, that the other five books of that work are by no means obviously inferior, and that while it seems to lack a discussion of friendship it contains other material of some importance. As for the early Protrepticus and the suspect Magna Moralia, it is practically possible to ignore them. It is in the nature of any curriculum to open our eyes to certain things and to blind us to others, entrenching certain approaches and ensuring that the curriculum is self-perpetuating, though not inflexibly so.

The Iamblichian curriculum that dominated the later Neoplatonist schools remained virtually the same for several generations, and certainly had some influence in prompting the Neoplatonists to emphasize some facets of Plato and neglect others, seeing subtleties and ironies of certain sorts, and failing to see others. Nor did this curriculum arrive from nowhere, for it is itself the product of the mix of texts that Plotinus and Porphyry had made central to Platonist endeavours. Even in their case there had been no sharp change in direction, and many of their central Platonic texts had been the subject of commentaries in the centuries before Plotinus – commentaries being an important witness to the reading of the texts involved within philosophic schools.1 It is therefore desirable to begin this discussion a little earlier than Neoplatonism, and to see the fortunes of the Platonic curriculum at that time.

PLATONIC TEACHING-ORDERS BEFORE PLOTINUS AND THEIR NEOPLATONIC RECEPTION

Early in the imperial age, some two centuries before Plotinus arrived on the Roman scene, the issue of an appropriate Platonic curriculum began to be hotly debated. Philosophical texts were now becoming more widely circulated, and there was more expectation that one would be able to access large bodies of philosophical work. Philosophers who claimed to teach in a given tradition of philosophy were expected to have wide familiarity with its founder’s works, and the ability to communicate the meaning of those works to those who sought either a creed by which to manage their daily lives, or at least a sufficiently broad perspective on the ideas of the philosophers to impress their peers. But the more widely the texts of a given author became available the more it became necessary to develop some guidelines regarding the order in which one might encounter them. For the busier pupils it might also be necessary to identify which were the “core” works that anybody should read, and which were so insubstantial, esoteric or enigmatic that all but the devotee could leave them aside. In these circumstances arranging some of the larger philosophical corpora was regarded as worthwhile scholarly activity.

At some time in the first century BCE Andronicus of Rhodes had tried to give shape to the Aristotelian corpus, and early in the next century Tiberius Claudius Thrasyllus arranged both the Democritean and the Platonic corpora into groups of four (known as tetralogies), thirteen in the former case and nine in the latter. It is widely believed that Thrasyllus built partly on previous ideas about the arrangement of the corpus, and represented his system as partially dependent on Plato’s own intentions; but he also desired to facilitate a natural reading of the corpus, since it is likely that his work had a title with a similar pattern to his work on Democritus: That Which Precedes the Reading of Democritus’ Books.2 The first tetralogy was intended to show the nature of the philosophic life (Diogenes Laertius 3.57), and we may infer from a newly published papyrus that the second had an epistemological purpose throughout, beginning with the Cratylus’ study of names, proceeding to the Theaetetus’ removal of false ideas about knowledge, and concluding with the scientific methods introduced by the Sophist and the Statesman (see Sedley 2009). We are not offered a full explanation of any remaining tetralogies in extant ancient literature, though the presence of Laws in the ninth and final group is in general agreement with the tendency to see a correspondence between a desirable reading order and the order in which Plato had written, since the Laws was known to Plutarch (de Iside et Osiride 370f1) and others as stemming from the end of Plato’s life.3 The concluding position of the Epistles is also explained by their tackling Plato’s life, mirroring the emphasis of Socrates’ life in the first tetralogy and in the Euthyphro in particular (see here again anon. Proleg. 25). In conformity with Plato’s own special interest in how education should begin, it is clear from Diogenes’ account of the corpus (3.62) that much attention had been given to the proper starting point of a Platonic education. At least eleven candidates, of whom Diogenes mentions nine, seem to have had their defenders: Republic, Alcibiades I, Theages, Euthyphro, Clitopho, Timaeus, Phaedrus, Theaetetus and Apology, with Albinus Prologue 4 adding Epistles and the anonymous Prolegomena (24.20–22) adding Parmenides. The second, third, fifth and tenth of these are not even agreed to be genuine works of Plato today, though each stands at the head of a Thrasyllan tetralogy and each seems to be in some sense introductory. We know that Euthyphro (followed by Apology) was Thrasyllus’ starting point, and we know why this group was treated first.4 Republic (placed first by Aristophanes of Byzantium), Theaetetus and Timaeus could easily be chosen by anybody who thought precedence should be given to politics, epistemology and physics respectively, while the choice of Phaedrus may be linked with the claim that it had a youthful theme and was the first Platonic dialogue to have been written – while Plato was still deciding on whether or not he should write.5

There is evidence that intense interest in the arrangement of the corpus continued up until the middle of the second century CE, with Dercyllides (of uncertain date, but before Theon), Theon of Smyrna (in a work about the order of Plato’s works and their titles), and Albinus (Prologue 3–6) all contributing. Galen’s collection of synopses of the dialogues also implied an order, and had begun with five dialogues whose subject was of a “logical” character.6 Already by the time of Albinus, however, there seems to have been less conviction that a rigid order was either recoverable or educationally desirable. Persons of different ability study Plato with different levels of intensity and for different reasons. In favourable conditions a programme of choice might consist of Alcibiades I, Phaedo, Republic and Timaeus (Prologue 5). However, this might suggest that large swathes of the corpus have no real part to play in contemporary education. To correct this impression Albinus goes on in the following chapter (6) to outline the different roles that may be played by dialogues of different “characters”, with a special emphasis, it seems, on the roles of those dialogues that do not seem intent on communicating doctrine, the so-called “investigative dialogues” (zētētikoi dialogoi).7

One might with some justification ask how it was that these pre-Plotinian developments could have a significant impact upon the Neoplatonist curriculum, but it is noticeable that the only full treatment of the Platonic curriculum of the Neoplatonists begins by going back to these earlier times. Chapter 24 of the anonymous Prolegomena to Platonic Philosophy begins by rejecting three early approaches, two arrangements that are based on notional dates, either dramatic date (measured against Socrates’ life) or the compositional date (measured against Plato’s), and the tetralogical arrangement. The arguments for Plato’s having begun with the Phaedrus and concluded with the Laws are briefly given, and it is noted that those who approach the corpus from the issue of dramatic date begin with the Parmenides where Socrates is still a youth, and conclude with the Theaetetus, set at a time when Socrates had been dead for a while.8 As for the tetralogical arrangement, the author is able to confirm that Thrasyllus had attributed groups of four to Plato himself, who was supposed to have imitated the tragic sequences presented at the Dionysia, consisting of three tragedies and a lighter piece, usually a satyr play.9 In chapter 25 the anonymous attacks the arrangement by pointing to the absurdity of treating the final member of the tetralogies as analogous to the lighter satyr play,10 and noting that the arrangement includes the Epinomis, which, it is claimed, cannot have been written by Plato. He also denies that all four dialogues of the Platonic tetralogies had a single skopos or target as Thrasyllus had apparently claimed,11 and as had been the case with early tragic tetralogies.

In the light of his criticisms of these predecessors of Neoplatonism one might have expected the anonymous author to show how his own preferred arrangement avoided them, but this does not seem to be a priority. He rejects the agreed spuria, Sisyphus, Demodocus, Halcyon, Eryxias and Definitions, and from the thirty-six works of the corpus he excludes the Epinomis following Proclus. Again following Proclus, the Republic and Laws are excluded, not because Plato did not write them, but rather because they involve many separate logoi and are not written in dialogical fashion: something that also leads to the exclusion of the Epistles.12 He is left with a corpus of thirty-two dialogues, but claims that there is no need for them all, contenting himself with only the twelve selected by Iamblichus. These involved a group of ten (Alcibiades I, Gorgias, Phaedo, Cratylus, Theaetetus, Sophist, Statesman, Phaedrus, Symposium and Philebus)13 followed by the two so-called “perfect” dialogues, Timaeus and Parmenides. We shall return to Iamblichus shortly, but it should already be obvious that we have not said anything about the Platonic corpus used by Plotinus and Porphyry. There is a gap in our knowledge of the Platonic curriculum, and this requires an explanation.

THE REJECTION OF CORPUS ARRANGEMENT

The early imperial attempts to find a satisfactory arrangement of the Platonic corpus were inspired partly by the desire to interpret Plato better and with a greater degree of confidence. Hence a reading order or, given a school context, a curriculum, would have been linked with an expectation of progress in the interpretation of an author who refused to address his readers directly. That expectation was never realized, and the number of dialogues in the thirty-six-work corpus could help to confuse issues rather than clarify them. Furthermore, there was a tendency for any such collection to somehow suggest that a work like the Clitophon should be taken just as seriously as the Republic, which followed it in the eighth tetralogy of Thrasyllus, even though the latter consisted of ten books, any one of them more than three times the length of the diminutive Clitophon. Perhaps even worse, it tended to suggest that the Critias was of similar importance to the weighty and highly popular Timaeus. Much of the corpus was really an optional extra, and key issues of interpretation were always going to be settled on the basis of a limited number of high-profile works read in virtually any order.

Plutarch of Chaeronea, whose active life spanned the late first and early second centuries CE, showed little or no awareness of the activities of the corpus organizers, and was clearly preoccupied with just a few of the Platonic dialogues, usually those that we should designate, albeit on the basis of flawed evidence, as “middle” or “late” period. It is no accident that these are the dialogues in which Plato most obviously tries to build up what might be called a body of doctrine. If the number of parallels between the texts of Plato and Plutarch’s surviving work is anything to go by,14 then it is clear that the Timaeus was for him pre-eminent, followed by the Republic, Laws, Phaedrus, Symposium, Phaedo and Gorgias. Though still important, Theaetetus, Sophist, Cratylus, Statesman and Philebus were used more selectively. It may be no accident that this list includes twelve out of the fourteen dialogues of the later Neoplatonist curriculum, omitting only the first (Alcibiades I) and last (Parmenides), which had not yet come to be regarded as philosophically important.15 Of the remaining dialogues, it is clear that Apology and Meno exercised some influence, as did the Epistles: these last as historical sources, not as philosophically illuminating texts.16

While Plutarch had shown no discernible interest in any kind of ordering of the dialogues, and seems above all to have believed in wide-ranging critical reading, Albinus, presumably following in the footsteps of his teacher Gaius, argued strongly against allowing theories about the ordering of the corpus to influence the Platonic curriculum. Though the first three chapters of his Prologue contain largely traditional material, chapter 4 goes on to accuse Dercyllides and Thrasyllus of wanting to impose on the dialogues an arrangement dictated by the participating characters and the particular circumstances of their lives, which, though arguably useful for other purposes, fails to settle on a starting point and order for Platonic instruction. Indeed, he claims that there is no such starting point of Platonic discourse, because it is perfect and resembles the perfect shape: a circle. And a circle has no beginning. So the nexus between any such arrangement and the Platonic curriculum is therefore broken. Even so, chapter 5 goes on to make it clear that this does not mean that we can begin anywhere. Different starting points suit different pupils, according to their natural ability, their age, their motivation, their prior knowledge, and the leisure afforded by their particular circumstances. The ideal recruit will begin with the Alcibiades I (now coming into prominence), continue with the Phaedo, and proceed to the Republic and the Timaeus.

This brief curriculum starts with the same dialogue as Iamblichus’, continues with his third dialogue, and ends with his eleventh. The Republic, though not numbered, was one that retained a special status outside the twelve among the Neoplatonists. The reasons offered by Albinus for these four to be studied would have been intelligible to the Neoplatonists too.17

We may also confirm the importance of these dialogues by looking at what can be known about the existence of hermeneutical works, particularly commentaries, in early imperial times. The principal sources for these are the third part of Corpus dei Papiri Filosofici Greci e Latini specifically devoted to fragmentary commentaries on papyrus, and the collection of Middle Platonist testimonia and fragments published by Adriano Gioè.18 There is a papyrus fragment from this time of a commentary of the Alcibiades I, whose author also refers, like the anonymous papyrus commentator on the Theaetetus (35.10–12), to his own commentary on the Timaeus. The Theaetetus commentator also refers to works on the Phaedo (yet to be encountered by the reader, 48.9–11) and the Symposium (70.10–12). Perhaps the least expected papyrus commentary on Plato from this period is on the Statesman.19 Several of the authors in the Gioè volume wrote commentaries or at least interpretative works on the Timaeus, but there was also a more limited exegetical work by Plutarch and a partial commentary by Galen. We are told by Suidas of a Commentary on the Republic by Potamo (s.v.) and by Onosander (s.v.) at the beginning of the period, but a complete lemmatic commentary would have been a huge undertaking, and Theon’s Commentary on the Republic (Expos. p. 146) may possibly have been limited to the mathematical material. Prominent passages received special attention in Plutarch’s Platonic Questions and in Theon’s Exposition. Dercyllides wrote on the Nuptial Number from book VIII (Proclus, in R. II.24–5), and on the spindle and whorls of Myth of Er (Theon, Expos. p. 201), a myth that was treated by several others (Proclus, in R. II.96.10–15). As for the Phaedo, several of those Platonists covered in Gioè contributed to its exegesis, particularly Harpocration, who also interpreted the Alcibiades I and the Phaedrus. We know of a Commentary on the Gorgias by Calvenus Taurus. Alcinous’ Handbook of Platonism pays close attention to many passages of Timaeus, Republic, Phaedrus and Phaedo as well as a range of other dialogues, and strangely includes a miniature interpretation of the Cratylus (6, 160.2–34).

The combined evidence confirms that Alcibiades I, Phaedo, Republic and Timaeus were of considerable importance in the Platonist schools (perhaps in ascending order), alongside other dialogues such as Phaedrus, Gorgias, Symposium, Cratylus, Theaetetus and Statesman. Only four works closely studied by the Neoplatonists are missing from this list: Sophist, Philebus, Parmenides and (except for a few popular passages) Laws. The situation changes somewhat by the time of Plotinus.

PLOTINIAN CURRICULUM

Thanks to Porphyry’s Life of Plotinus we know quite a lot about intellectual life in Plotinus’ school at Rome, but one looks in vain for an indication of what Platonic works were studied. It is almost as if the centrality of Plato was assumed to be obvious, and in chapter 16 what particularly offended among the beliefs of Plotinus’ gnostic adversaries was the claim that Plato failed to penetrate to the depths of the intellectual realm. So Plato was the inspired centre of Plotinian learning, and it is therefore to the Stoic and more particularly the Aristotelian elements in Plotinus that Porphyry feels the need to draw our attention (Plot. 14). When we hear of works being read aloud within the school, it is not the classic works of Plato or Aristotle, but those of their recent admirers. The admirers of Plato included two who are often seen rather as Pythagoreans (Numenius and his companion Cronius) as well as three who seem to have been more purely Platonists (Severus, Gaius, Atticus), but Plotinus and Porphyry regarded Plato and Pythagoras as close allies, and Pythagoreans of the period frequently regarded certain parts of the Platonic corpus as excellent evidence for Pythagorean doctrine – including most obviously Timaeus’ account of the physical world and various passages that discussed the nature and immortality of the human soul. If one takes Numenius, he is most likely to be referred to as a “Platonic” in contexts involving the interpretation of Plato,20 and it is notable that the works of these people read in Plotinus’ school are referred to as hypomnēmata, a term regularly but not exclusively used to designate commentary-like works. If commentaries and other interpretative works on Plato and Aristotle were regularly read in the school at Rome, this would tend to confirm that the gathering shared a close knowledge of the works interpreted. Many authors read there are known to us today primarily as Platonic and Aristotelian interpreters, including Severus on the Platonist side and Alexander of Aphrodisias among the Peripatetics.

The works of Plotinus themselves, though they seldom make exegesis their primary objective, demonstrate wide familiarity with the Platonic corpus.21 It is perhaps a frustration to some that he seems not to worry about the interpretation of whole dialogues, but fastens rather upon a limited number of important passages to which he will often refer, as if the important thing was what the passages meant for him rather than what they meant within their dialogic context. Passages tend to be drawn from the same group of dialogues as had been of principal interest in the second century, but these have now been supplemented with Sophist, Philebus and, above all, Parmenides, with important metaphysical doctrine being drawn from all three. The Parmenides has risen in status compared with its standing for more orthodox second-century Platonists22 because of the belief that its final part consists not simply in logical exercises or a study of Parmenides’ One, but at least five separate studies devoted to separate metaphysical orders, beginning for Plotinus with studies of the One, Intellect and Soul. Hand in hand with the rise of the Parmenides went the conviction that certain passages in the Epistles, especially Epistle II 312e23 and VII 341c, expressed core Platonic doctrines.24 The Parmenides joins the ranks of dialogues on which commentary-like works were written by Plotinus’ time, and fragments of a commentary dealing with the first and second hypotheses survived into modern times. It is sometimes attributed to Porphyry, who along with Plotinus’ supporter Amelius is known to have interpreted the work.25

Plotinus, however, was not the kind of figure ever likely to try to impose any kind of rigid stamp upon what was studied in his own school. The idea of some fixed curriculum leading to ultimate enlightenment was foreign to him, and it was the thinking that one did for oneself rather than the thoughts that one learned from others that counted.

THE PORPHYRIAN CONTRIBUTION

While Porphyry chose to highlight the extent of Aristotelian content in Plotinus’ thought, he was himself responsible for the key place that Aristotelian logic, and particularly the Categories, played in the curriculum of late antiquity. From his pen there survives a commentary on the Categories in “catechist” style, offering answers to the student’s basic questions, and the Isagoge, an introduction to the study of that work. He is known, however, to have written a much fuller and more scholarly commentary on the work, and it is now argued that a substantial fragment of a commentary in the Archimedes Palimpsest is indeed from the longer commentary (see Chiaradonna et al. 2013). Porphyry’s success in guaranteeing the Categories in particular a permanent place in the curriculum may be judged by the fact that a great many subsequent commentaries, either on the Categories itself or on his own Isagoge, survive from subsequent authors, many from less well-known authors such as Dexippus, Elias and David. Prior to Porphyry Platonists had often engaged with Aristotle, and particularly with his logic, but many had remained hostile.

Substantial fragments of Porphyry’s commentaries on Platonic works, particularly the Timaeus, survive, including a half-page fragment from his Commentary on the Philebus preserved by Simplicius that confirms that dialogue as one that had become suitable material for commentary – and hence probably for teaching within the school. There are substantial remains also of his exegetical work on Homer and a Commentary on Ptolemy’s Harmonics, in which we see his special interest in Pythagorean musical theory. It is not difficult to see that Porphyry was a wide-ranging scholar, whose interests, including his teaching interests, were not easily constrained by artificial limits. Many of these interests may well have been inherited from his earlier teacher Longinus rather than from Plotinus, but our ignorance regarding the chronology of many of his works makes certainty impossible.

Apart from Porphyry’s setting the trend for the teaching of Aristotelian works, particularly the logical works, within Neoplatonic schools, he exercised considerable influence over the reception of his master Plotinus’ works. Though he is usually seen as the founder of Neoplatonism, the works of Plotinus did not become a central text for later Neoplatonists, but it seems clear that Porphyry’s activities in arranging, editing and even establishing the titles of the treatises were intended to help Plotinus rise to a special status within the curriculum. He discusses the principles of his arrangements very briefly in chapter 24 of the Life of Plotinus, and from this it is clear that he favours an arrangement that groups things in terms of related philosophic content, beginning with more basic topics and leading to those more advanced. Hence he had aimed to arrange Plotinus more along the lines of Andronicus’ treatment of Aristotle and Theophrastus than along those followed by the Thrasyllan Platonic tetralogies, even though he favours groupings of a fixed number. Perhaps, like Albinus, he had thought of the tetralogies as having been organized according to too many non-pedagogic considerations, but he certainly rejected date of composition as a basis for his arrangement.26 He was presumably committed to the inclusion of all available works by a promise made to Plotinus. The total number of treatises, however, was less precisely determined than Porphyry implies, since in some cases what are transmitted as two works could have become one (like Plato’s Timaeus and Critias), for example, Enn. V.1[10] and Enn. V.2[11], while the treatise Various Questions (Enn. III.9[13]) might plausibly have been divided.

While Plotinus’ own works failed to become a core part of the curriculum in this or any other arrangement, for which reason I hesitate to regard him as the founder of a new school, the Plotinian arrangement of Porphyry provides us with some convenient clues about what kind of Platonic curriculum he would have favoured. The overall progression moves from human life (which is most familiar to us), through natural science, to the highest levels of reality: soul, intellect and the One. This is not a rigid separation, for, as in Plato, a plurality of questions would be discussed, but the following points should be considered:

•  To begin with works of a broadly ethical character would seem to agree with the fact that the first three dialogues of the later Plato curriculum were Alcibiades I, Gorgias and Phaedo.

•  More particularly, to begin with Enn. I.1, a treatise on the true nature of the living being (and of the human being in particular) agrees with the fact that the first dialogue of the Platonic curriculum is Alcibiades I, with its argument that the true self is soul rather than either the body or the body–soul combination, and in particular that it is what is most valuable in the soul; that is, something quasi-divine. The indebtedness of this treatise to the Alcibiades 129–33 is evident. Fundamental here was the belief that the most basic learning was understanding who we are.

•  To continue with a treatise On the Virtues agrees with the fact that the Gorgias and Phaedo were supposed to discuss the constitutional (or civic) and cathartic virtues respectively.

•  To conclude with three treatises that include either “the Good”, or “the One”, or both in their titles agrees well with the fact that Philebus and Parmenides are the final dialogues of the two stages of the later curriculum.

•  To devote two Enneads after the first to matters concerning the natural world, prior to the three metaphysical Enneads, agrees with Iamblichus’ fundamental division of the dialogues of his curriculum into “natural” (or “physical”) and “theological” ones.27

In these ways there was a certain basic correspondence between the Porphyrian arrangement of Plotinus’ works and Iamblichus’ subsequent arrangement of twelve selected dialogues of Plato. This is indicative of considerable agreement about the order in which the would-be Platonist should tackle the fundamental issues of Platonic philosophy.

IAMBLICHUS

While Porphyry wrote much that concerned Pythagoras and Pythagoreans, with Iamblichus it seems that the study of Pythagoreanism became basic to school concerns in a slightly more formal way (D. O’Meara 1989). Porphyry’s interest in, and promotion of, the logical works of Aristotle also continued, and Iamblichus became one of the many commentators on the Categories, in which he departed much more sparingly from Porphyry than over many issues (Finamore & Dillon 2002: 6). Even so, his lasting contribution to the curriculum was in the formalization of those dialogues of Plato in which he thought the entire philosophy of Plato was summed up.28 This is evident in the proem of Proclus’ Commentary on the Alcibiades (11.18–21), where he praises the decision to give first place to the Alcibiades that contains the seeds of all, and mentions that it comes first in the group of ten ordered dialogues that precedes the two that sum it up (referring to Timaeus and Parmenides).

It is, however, chapter 26 of the anonymous Prolegomena to Platonic Philosophy, usually attributed to the sixth-century Alexandrian Platonist Olympiodorus or his environment, that sets out to give details of this curriculum. Though the details are obscured owing to careless copying, the basics are agreed. The curriculum consisted of a group of ten, Alcibiades I,* Gorgias, Phaedo,* Cratylus, Theaetetus, Sophist,* Statesman, Phaedrus,* Symposium and Philebus,* followed by two “perfect” dialogues, Timaeus* (in which all natural philosophy is crystallized) and Parmenides* (in which all theology is crystallized). Those seven dialogues marked with an asterisk are known to have been the subject of Iamblichian commentaries, while the absence of evidence in the case of the other five cannot be taken as an indication of any omission on his part. The absence of extant later Neoplatonist commentaries on Theaetetus, Statesman and Symposium and the failure of Olympiodorus’ Commentary on the Gorgias and Proclus’ part-extant Commentary on the Cratylus to show an interest in named predecessors means there are few places where evidence of Iamblichus’ exegesis could have been preserved.

A fundamental division distinguished “physical” from “theological” dialogues, with the Timaeus summing up and crowning the former, and the Parmenides capping the latter. The reconstruction of the damaged text offered by the Budé editors (Westerink et al. 1990: lxxii–lxxiii) labels only Sophist, Statesman and Timaeus as “physical”, and only Phaedrus, Symposium and Parmenides “theological”. It seems to me likelier that all dialogues regarded as involving theōria (i.e. all but the first three) fell under one of the two categories, so that Cratylus and Theaetetus were also seen as “physical”, and Philebus (supposedly concerned with the Good itself) was also seen as “theological”. The introductory position of the Alcibiades I is explained in terms of the primacy of self-knowledge over any other subject (Alc. 127d–134a), and the tenth position of the Philebus in terms of its dealing with the all-transcendent Good: the dialogue too must transcend the others in the group of ten.

It is the positions of intermediate dialogues that are obscured by textual difficulties: inaccuracies that have resulted in the complete omission of Sophist and Statesman. The author begins by suggesting that the Neoplatonists’ five levels of virtue are relevant, enumerating natural, ethical, constitutional (or “civic”), cathartic and theoretic virtues. However, only Gorgias and Phaedo are closely connected with any of these levels, the former with constitutional virtues (dealing at civic level with inter-class relations, and at a personal level with the relation between the constituent parts of the human soul), and the latter with the cathartic virtues (dealing with the progressively unified soul of the philosopher who is practising leaving the body). That two of the five kinds of virtue should be associated with the curriculum does not explain the introduction of the topic. However, after the Phaedo the Prolegomena state that we move on to the cognition of reality, which occurs “through ethical virtue” (26.35), but it is recognized that “ethical” (ēthikē) is a misreading for “theoretic” (theōrētikē), and there follow one occurrence of the associated verb theōrein (“study”) at 26.36 and a second case of the adjective theōrētikos at 26.42. It seems to me that all dialogues after the Phaedo are thought of as requiring theoretic virtues,29 and that this is in fact why the student should be reading certain virtue-related texts prior to the study of physical and metaphysical reality.

It should also be noticed that the Alcibiades begins by recounting Alcibiades’ natural advantages, not just of the body but also of the soul. Proclus (in Alc. 96.7–10; 101.8–16) has no difficulty in linking this passage with the shadowy natural virtues. These are not something any education can instil in the pupil, for he either has them or lacks them, but the dialogue seeks to have Alcibiades go beyond them and acquire some kinds of virtues, presumably involving practice and habituation.30 This being the case, it appears that Alcibiades was standardly seen as requiring the pupil to adopt the ethical virtues,31 Gorgias the constitutional ones, Phaedo the cathartic, and subsequent dialogues the state of purity that unleashes the theoretic virtues.32

When one looks at the overall content of the curriculum, one sees that the emphasis is still on what are seen as middle and late dialogues. The first two are those that one would most easily think of as “Socratic”, while the Cratylus probably contains some relatively early material. No very short dialogues are present, nor any that are obviously aporetic. Somewhat surprisingly there is a marked overlap with the earlier part of Thrasyllus’ tetralogical arrangement, from the final dialogue of tetralogy I to the first dialogue of tetralogy IV:

Iamblichian order

Tetralogy & no.

1.  Alcibiades I

IV.1

2.  Gorgias

VI.3

3.  Phaedo

I.4

4.  Cratylus

II.1

5.  Theaetetus

II.2

6.  Sophist

II.3

7.  Statesman

II.4

8.  Phaedrus

III.4

9.  Symposium

III.3

10.  Philebus

III.2

11.  Timaeus

VIII.3

12.  Parmenides

III.1

So tetralogy II is preserved intact, while the theological part of the curriculum consists of tetralogy III in reverse order! Only the Gorgias and the mandatory Timaeus are imported from different parts of the Thrasyllan corpus. While many explanations of this could be offered, it probably does illustrate how dialogues that had come to be closely associated within the curriculum tend to remain closely associated even when the reasons for linking them change markedly. The result is that the dialogues of tetralogies V–VII, which mostly set out to depict Socratic investigation without any great emphasis on doctrinal content, play a comparatively minor role in the formulation of late antique Platonism, and that Socrates himself, though much respected, is treated as rather less than the ideal philosopher. It is the author who is inspired, not the figure whose influence on Plato is today seen as central. It might also be said that the curriculum ensures that the ethical concerns, for which Socrates was famous and which characterize the first three dialogues, naturally become less central to Neoplatonist education.

Further, the weakening of the Socratic influence allows the rise of a different side of Plato, which was supposed to come from the Pythagoreans and their presumed allies, the Eleatics. One consequence of this was an emphasis, seen in Iamblichus’ basic division between physics and theology, on the disciplines of natural philosophy and of theology, all of it with a significant mathematical element. Another was a tendency to see certain colourful passages in Plato, and particularly his myths, as veiled revelations, to be interpreted in a symbolic fashion. Traditional philosophic argument was not by any means neglected, but the revelatory passages were those that attracted the most concentrated hermeneutic activities (Jackson et al. 1998: 14–15).

There are several such revelatory passages in the Republic, and it is thus unsurprising that the Prolegomena speak of people who justified the inclusion of both Republic and Laws (26.45–7). Proclus certainly wrote a surviving “commentary” on Republic, but this consisted of a collection of essays on special topics rather than a conventional treatment, and it is said that he too “excluded Republic on account of its being a plurality of discussions (logoi), and Laws for the same reason” (26.7–9). Iamblichus’ requirement that everything within a dialogue should have a single skopos or “target” made it almost impossible to interpret such large works in the expected manner, but Republic remained an influential text, and Olympiodorus would interpret the Gorgias with almost constant reference to it (Tarrant 1997). Proclus himself makes much reference to it to explain features of the introductory discussion of the Timaeus (Tarrant 2007: general index), on the ground that its discussion had been set two days before. Similarly, he cannot avoid taking account of the Critias that will follow the Timaeus. In such respects at least the curriculum did not exercise too rigid a control over Proclian scholarship.

PLATO AND ARISTOTLE AT ALEXANDRIA UNDER AMMONIUS AND OLYMPIODORUS

The curious thing is that this curriculum is reported in a work thought to come from the school of Olympiodorus. In sharp contrast to the major Athenian Neoplatonists Proclus and Damascius, Olympiodorus is not known to have commented on any dialogues later than the Sophist in the curriculum. His extant commentaries are on the first two dialogues, while there is also a part of his Commentary on the Phaedo. The surviving work gives rise to little or no suspicion that the target dialogues were part of a curriculum whose crowning glory will be the Parmenides, or indeed any of the other dialogues that had been conceived by Iamblichus as theological. His teacher Ammonius had apparently been under intense pressure from the Christian authorities at Alexandria, and some kind of compromise may have been reached that enabled a truncated and non-theological curriculum to be taught (Jackson et al. 1998: 15–17; Watts 2006: 222–31). Even so, compromises on matters that are central and fundamental are seldom made, and it seems likely that Ammonius and Olympiodorus preferred to teach the non-theological, and indeed more Socratic part of the Platonic curriculum. Ammonius is today known for his work on Aristotle, and Aristotelian commentaries have also come to us under the name of Olympiodorus.

A major contribution to the Aristotelian curriculum seems to have stemmed from Ammonius, and we find an important discussion at On the Categories 5.31–6.22.33 He starts by explaining why one should not begin with ethics, which he regards as a natural starting point, enabling the reader to prepare inwardly for the reception of other doctrines. Owing to the amount of formal logic in the ethical treatises, logical works must be read first, followed by ethics, physics, mathematics and theology. Apart from the introductory logic, the curriculum thus bears a close relationship to Iamblichus’ Platonic one, leading through ethics and physics towards theology, and it is actually made explicit that all these branches of Aristotle’s philosophy are there to help us rise to the first principle of all things. Hence Ammonius appears to be thinking of the Aristotelian Unmoved Mover as in some way corresponding to the Neoplatonic One.

If this is so, it is less difficult to imagine why the Platonic theological works were no longer essential for Ammonius and Olympiodorus, and in particular why they would no longer privilege the Parmenides which for Proclus had been the source of a highly complex polytheistic theology. The deep metaphysical interpretation of the Parmenides, whether Iamblichus’ or Proclus’, required a considerable leap of faith, so that Proclus’ biographer Marinus retreated from it and Damascius continued to wrestle manfully with the puzzles that it posed. Perhaps it is unsurprising if it was quietly dropped in Alexandria.

CURRICULAR EXTRAS

The mention of an Aristotelian curriculum reminds one that the Neoplatonist curriculum seems always to have included non-Platonic elements, but that these had not always been constant. Aristotle himself was central to Proclus’ personal education, and he is supposed to have read all the works over two years; of these he was personally taught the de Anima by Plutarch of Athens.34 Yet Aristotle was often criticized by Proclus, now treated as betraying Platonic principles of causality (in Tim. I.7.10–16), now dismissed as a “dialectician” or master of syllogistic (in Tim. III.114.7, 115.10–14), now seen as one who is fond of quibbling (phileris, in Tim. III.130.3–24). Indeed, Proclus seems to have written a monograph against Aristotle’s criticisms of the Timaeus (in Tim. II.278.27). Nor has Proclus left us any commentaries on Aristotelian works as his master Syrianus did on four books of the Metaphysics. However, his surviving mathematical works include a commentary on book I of Euclid’s Elements, while there are fragments of one on the Chaldaean Oracles, on Plotinus, on Hesiod Works and Days and on the Orphic Theogony.35 His commentaries and exegetical works, including reports of two on Homer and others on Aristotelian logical works, suggest that these authors could be studied under him.

That said, one should bear in mind that Proclus’ extant works were pitched at very advanced students of whom much extra-curricular reading might be expected. The key “inspired texts” that are referred to repeatedly in his commentaries on Plato are Homer, various Orphic writings that he usually attributed to Orpheus (“the theologian”) himself, and the Chaldaean Oracles. Because they are all thought to be in agreement with Plato when allegorically understood, they may be seen as important adjuncts to the Platonic curriculum, adjuncts that actually assist in bringing the reader to the appropriate conclusions. These texts, however, were less a part of the “curriculum”, since there is no evidence that the pupil was being encouraged, as he would be in the case of Platonic texts, to enter into an ongoing debate about their real meaning. It is really a prescribed way of reading them that was being taught.

Given Proclus’ range of interests, it is not strange that other Neoplatonists ventured to add other works to the curriculum. We possess, for instance, a work on the oratorical theorist Hermogenes attributed to Syrianus, while an interest in rhetoric is constantly visible in Olympiodorus’ Commentary on the Gorgias. We also have a commentary on Epictetus’ Enchiridion by Simplicius, whose Aristotelian commentaries are much studied for the light that they shed on Presocratic philosophy in particular. Just as scholars today will often move in unexpected directions in order to follow new lines of enquiry through, so too did scholars of antiquity. Being a philosopher was in most cases inseparable from being a scholar, and scholars may often find it desirable to introduce new texts for study.

CONCLUSION

In these circumstances what is remarkable is how little the Platonic curriculum changed, not just after Iamblichus, but even since Plutarch of Chaeronea. Though the fortunes of the Parmenides fluctuated as philosophers became more confident or more doubtful both of its depth and of their own ability to understand it, in most cases the same works remained important, being referred to again and again, and being the subject of increasingly challenging commentaries until the demise of the Athenian school in 529. The Iamblichian curriculum, though novel in what it set out to achieve, was not so novel in its content. Almost any Platonist in late antiquity would have viewed with amazement the modern appeal of the Euthyphro, Apology, Crito, Charmides, Laches, Lysis, Protagoras, Meno and Ion and at our modern attempts to extract some kind of Socratic or early Platonic philosophy out of them. Even today’s obsession with the Republic would have seemed strange to many, given the fact that the Timaeus always remained supreme for them (cf. Annas 1999: 5), with or without its elusive consort, the Parmenides.

NOTES

1.  See Sedley (1997) on the ways in which commentaries served the needs of contemporary pupils.

2.  I have discussed Thrasyllus in Tarrant (1993), appending a collection of testimonies. The work on Democritus is mentioned at Diogenes Laertius 9.41 = Thrasyllus T18a.

3.  For further testimony to the late position of Laws see anon. Proleg. 25, where it is also evident that it is accepted by Proclus when he argues that the Epinomis cannot have been Plato’s own work.

4.  We are told by Diogenes Laertius (3.57) that it was conceived as putting the philosophic life on display.

5.  See Diogenes Laertius 3.38 and again anon. Proleg. 24.7–19, where the late position of the Laws is cited in relation to this same arrangement.

6.  These are identical with the four dialogues to which Diogenes attributed a logical character (Diogenes Laertius 3.50: Statesman, Cratylus, Parmenides, Sophist) with the addition of Euthydemus. The placing of logic at the head of the curriculum follows the priority given to the organon in the Aristotelian corpus of Andronicus, and has a parallel in the Handbook of Platonism of Alcinous (6.159.39–45), which might also include not only Cratylus and Parmenides but also Euthydemus as works with a purpose relating to logic. The Euthydemus is seen almost as Plato’s manual of sophistic refutation, equivalent to Aristotle’s de Sophisticis Elenchis.

7.  These include, at the first stage, dialogues that make trial of young men (peirastikoi dialogoi), at the second those that “bring to birth” young men’s ideas (maieutikoi), at the fourth stage the “logical” dialogues (logikoi) to enable us to bind fast the Platonic doctrines encountered at the third stage, and at the fifth the dialogues that teach us anti-sophistic tactics (anatreptikoi and endeiktikoi).

8.  The arrangement clearly had to appeal here to the date of the introductory conversation, rather than to that of the main discussion, which is set just before the Euthyphro. Yet the introductory conversation of the Symposium might have been just as late, and that of the Phaedo also takes place after Socrates’ death. One wonders whether such a reading order was intended to illuminate a Socratic rather than a Platonic education programme.

9.  The author speaks of the fourth not simply as satyric (cf. Thrasyllus in Diogenes Laertius 3.56), but as directed towards pleasure. He further adds to our knowledge of the rationale for the arrangement by reporting that it was supposed to have an element of circularity, in so far as it began with a focus on Socrates’ life and ended with Plato’s.

10.  The example used is that of the Phaedo, the fourth member of the first tetralogy, but he might just as well have pointed to the Statesman, which concludes the second. If anything, a non-serious element might more easily be detected in the initial dialogue of the tetralogies, but the original reference to the satyr play might have been to highlight the fourth play which had been ignored in the arrangement of Aristophanes of Byzantium, who had postulated Platonic trilogies (Diogenes Laertius 3.61–2). In the light of the author’s avoidance of the term “satyric”, one may also note that the fourth play was sometimes a more conventional tragedy, but somehow “pro-satyric”, like the Alcestis of Euripides, which stood in fourth position and offered comic elements in its presentation of Heracles.

11.  At Diogenes Laertius 3.57, the first tetralogy alone seems to be accredited with a common hypothesis (presumably the original word for which the Neoplatonic skopos is substituted).

12.  In this case it is their direct and straightforward communication that excludes them; it is not the case that any of these works are ignored by Proclus, for the Republic is the subject of an exegetical work (in the form of separate interpretative essays), while many passages of Laws and the esoteric material in Epistles II, VI and VII remain important throughout Neoplatonism.

13.  The increasing centrality of set speech in the Phaedrus and Symposium seems never to have threatened their status as “dialogues”, partly no doubt because of their emphasis on an interplay of characters, but partly also because of a unity of thematic material that was seen to underlie them (though there was dissension in the former case about what that unity involved: see anon. Proleg. 21.3–22.4).

14.  I judge by the useful tables of parallels in Jones (1916: 109–53).

15.  It seems that the Alcibiades achieved greater importance over the second century, presumably because of its final section in which self-knowledge becomes central; exactly when the Parmenides became important is a matter of serious dispute, but its importance seems to be taken for granted by Plotinus and in Sethian gnostic treatises with which we are told he was familiar (J. D. Turner 2001; J. D. Turner & Corrigan 2010).

16.  See Tarrant (1983: 77) = (2011: xii 5) on the fact that references to the philosophical digression of Epistle VII begin to appear only from the middle of the second century with Numenius, Justin Martyr and Celsus; this is also the period when the esoteric passage of Epistle II begins to appear. This does not mean that the esoteric passages were absent from the Epistles as Thrasyllus had known them, as I should certainly regard the allusion to Epistle VI 323d present in Porphyry’s Commentary of Ptolemy’s Harmonics p. 12 as part of Thrasyllus T23.

17.  Alc. I is studied with a view to turning the pupil round to recognize what he should be caring for (i.e. his soul or true “self”); Phd. with a view to the recognition of what the philosopher’s life is like and what expectation it is based on, thinking of the “practice of death” (related to the Neoplatonic “cathartic virtues”) and the immortality of the soul; R. functions like a complete handbook of education in virtue (the Neoplatonists would no doubt specify “constitutional virtue”, politike arete); and Tim. offers physics and theology (as for Proclus), leading to a knowledge of things divine, and the ability to follow our acquisition of virtue by likening ourselves to the divine.

18.  Adorno et al. (1995); Gioè (2002). Also extremely useful is Dörrie & Baltes (1987–2008: vol. 3, sections 78–81).

19.  The majority view is that the papyrus Commentary on the Parmenides is from the third century, and from an author close to Plotinus, but not surprisingly there is some uncertainty.

20.  Cf. frag. 43 des Places (Iamblichus); Proclus also includes Numenius among “Platonics” at in R. II.96.10–15 (= Numenius, T21 [Leemans]; see also T4–5); similarly Cronius is referred to as a “Platonic” by Syrianus (in Metaph. 109.11 [Kroll]).

21.  Koch (2013) has a full discussion of the Platonic dialogues read by Plotinus, his selectivity, and his exegetical approach. She deals with the topic under four heads: “Un corpus restraint”, “Un corpus sans ordre de lecture”, “Un corpus ‘anthologique’” and “Un corpus ‘énigmatique’.”

22.  Some, including myself (Tarrant 1993: ch. 6), Tardieu (1996) and Bechtle (1999), argue that it had already been important among Pythagorean interpreters of Plato, but evidence is tricky. New work is showing that Sethian Gnostics are likely to have anticipated many developments that some would attribute to Plotinus, including the developing importance of Parmenides and Sophist; see J. D. Turner (2001), Z. Mazur (2013). It is noteworthy that Proclus, while failing to name any earlier philosopher who adopted the metaphysical interpretation of the Parmenides (in fact he fails to name any interpreter in his in Parmenidem), nevertheless expresses surprise at Platonic Theology II.37 that Origen, being like Plotinus a pupil of Ammonias Saccas, rejected the Plotinian interpretation of the first hypothesis.

23.  This passage had probably already risen to importance in Numenius (frag. 12.13 [des Places]).

24.  It is noteworthy that Enn. V.1[10].8 begins by referring to the passage from Epistle II, alludes next to Epistle VI 323d, to the Timaeus and Republic VI–VII, and after referring to Parmenides B3 concludes by offering his interpretation of the first three hypostases of the Parmenides. The chapter is noteworthy for its insistence that the three Plotinian hypostases are not in fact his own doctrine, but that he was merely repeating what Plato demonstrates to be ancient opinion, a puzzling statement that Dillon (1992b: 189) shows must be heavily qualified.

25.  Its common working vocabulary is, in fact, closer to that of Plotinus than to any other thinker known to me, including Porphyry. Since Plotinus’ style is distinctive I would expect the work to have been written by somebody close to Plotinus, and possibly from the same background.

26.  Porphyry gives the approximate date of composition at Plot. 4–6, and it is now common practice to refer to a treatise’s position in this numerical order in brackets, immediately after Ennead and its internal position.

27.  Anon. Proleg. 26.16–21; it appears later (26.41–2) that there may have been no intention to label all dialogues in one of these ways.

28.  See Festugière (1969) for a classic treatment of late antique curriculum.

29.  On the theoretic virtues, see Brisson (2006: 97–8); his principal focus is Porphyry’s Sententiae, where the terminology has still not been formalized, but the critical thing is a level of virtue at which catharsis has been completed.

30.  From 119a Socrates attempts to persuade Alcibiades that he must work at building further on his natural gifts. At 124e this concern, for which the recurrent term is epimeleia (119a, 123d, 124b, d, 128b, 129a, 132c; cf. also epimeleisthai, epimelētēs), must be one directed towards excellence (= “virtue”, aretē), and this theme returns at 134b, continuing to the end of the dialogue. It is not made explicit that this concerns ethical rather than political virtues, but Neoplatonists were concerned to demonstrate that Socrates achieved some success in improving Alcibiades, whereas they might infer from the fragility of Alcibiades’ progress that he did not acquire the constitutional virtues, which require above all the proper functioning of the various faculties of the soul.

31.  As noted by D. O’Meara (2003: 64), however, Damascius (in Olymp. in Alc. 5) took the view that the Alcibiades related to what I have called “constitutional” or “civic” virtue.

32.  Catharsis is essentially a process of purification, and hence the cathartic virtues are those demonstrated by the soul that practises this process; see Brisson (2006: 94–7).

33.  The passage is printed in Sorabji (2004: vol. 3, 41).

34.  Marinus, Procl. 12–13 = Sorabji (2004: vol. 3, 45).

35.  For Proclus’ works, see Gerson (2010: vol. 2, 957–8).