NOTES

Introduction

1. ἢ πῶς δ’ ἂν πρὸ τούτων ἄλλο τι τῶν ὄντων ζητήσαιμεν εἴτε τῶν ὄντων εἴτε τῶν γι-νομένων, αὐτοῦ Σωκράτους ἀκούσαντες λέγοντος·‘γελοῖον δή μοι φαίνεται ἐμαυτὸν ἀγνο-οῦντα τὰ τῶν ἄλλων σκοπεῖν’.

2. Phaedrus 229e–230a (tr. H. Fowler). Wherever possible, standard abbreviations have been employed in citing all ancient texts in this volume.

3. Diogenes Laertius, Lives of the Philosophers 5.4, and Plutarch, Lives 23.1.

4. De parasito 43.

5. Epist. ad Themist. 264b–d.

6. See Foucault (2011: 73–177) for his surprising turn to examining the courage of Socrates in his late 1984 lecture series.

7. For a concise history of the Socratic problem see Patzer (1987: 1–40) and Dorion (2011: 1–23). See also Clay (1994: 23–47), Hackforth (1996: 1–16), Ross (1996: 26–37), Chroust (1996: 38–55), Smith and Brickhouse (2000: 11–52; 2003: 55–62), and Morrison (2006: 101–118); all offer readers a comprehensive discussion of the problems and sources for extracting the historical Socrates from the works of not only Plato but also Aristophanes and Xenophon. See especially Vlastos (1991: 45–106), who after analyzing the depictions of Aristotle, Xenophon, and Plato, argues that the early Platonic dialogues are closer to the historical Socrates than his middle and later work. Against this thesis see Morrison (1996: 119–135), Kahn (1996: 156–178), and Beversluis (1993: 293–312).

8. Vlastos (1991).

9. See Dorion (2000; 2011: 6–18), who in the former relies on Aristotle’s account of the logoi sokratikoi and consequently advances the theories of K. Joel, who at the turn of the nineteenth century already argued for the fictional nature of this genre. In the latter essay Dorion concludes that “Xenophon’s and Plato’s Socratic writings belong to a literary genre—that of the logos sokratikos, which Aristotle explicitly recognized and which authorizes by its very nature a certain degree of fiction and a great deal of freedom of invention as far as the setting and content are concerned, most notably with the ideas expressed by different characters” (2011: 7).

10. See Vander Waerdt (1994a), Lindsay and Vasilis (2006), Trapp (2007a and 2007b), Rappe and Kamtekar (2009), and Morrison (2011). To be certain, while the question of the “Socratic problem” has fallen into disrepute, there has been in the past decade a resurgence of turning to Xenophon for understanding the importance of Socratic philosophy in later Hellenism. See especially Dorion (2006 and 2011). For a unique attempt to understand Socrates via the comedies of Aristophanes see Vander Waerdt (1994b: 48–86). See also Caizzi (2006: 119–135) and Trapp (2007c: 51–64) for information on the numerous and diverse “minor Socratics.”

11. “So-called” because no Neoplatonist ever saw himself as a follower of any philosopher other than Plato and Pythagoras, and it was the works of Plato that constituted the pinnacle of the philosophic curriculum; the debt to Plotinus in particular began to wane already after Porphyry.

12. See Table 2 in Michael Griffin’s Chapter 6 in this volume for a chart detailing the Platonic curriculum instigated by Iamblichus.

13. Bröcker (1966). In this lecture Bröcker makes no mention of Socrates or his inheritance (or lack thereof) in the Neoplatonic tradition but merely waxes eloquent on the metaphysical underpinnings of Plotinus’s system. Despite the incongruity of the title and his own silence with regard to Socrates, the intent of Bröcker’s title is clear; the Neoplatonic project stands counter to the Socratic tradition as argued above.

14. Hathaway (1969: 19–20).

15. See Beierwaltes (1995: 97–116).

16. Smith (2004: 460).

17. See Porph., Vita Plotini 3.37.

18. III 2, 15, 1–62. See also Rangos (2004: 465–467) for an in-depth account of Plotinus’s use of Socrates in this passage.

19. II 9, 14, 38. Furthermore, it could be argued that this aporetic impulse is retained throughout the history of Platonism in late antiquity. It is easily observed in Porphyry’s and Iamblichus’s caustic debate over theurgy, in Proclus’s own penchant for introspective questioning in his commentaries on Plato’s dialogues, and, finally, in the aporetic impulse championed most exceptionally by Damascius, the last Platonic Successor, in his embrace of the value of constant doubt even before the One. For more on the value of the aporetic method in Plotinus, Proclus, and Damascius see Rappe (2000).

20. Rangos (2004: 465).

21. Vita Plotini 21.10–64.

22. Historia ecclesiastica III 23.13 = SSR I B 41.

23. See de Abstinentia 1.15, 3.1, 3.8, 3.16, and 3.26.

24. In Sophistam Fr. 1 = Hermann, Plat. Dial. VI pp. 249–250.

25. In Phaedr. Fr.1 = Hermias, in Phaedr. 9.6ff. It might further be mentioned that Iamblichus made extensive use of Socratic dialogues like the Apol., Euthd., and Hp.Ma. as well as the Alc. I and Menex. in his Protrepticus. For confirmation see the index of des Places (1989).

26. Admittedly, few scholars of Socrates would see much that is Socratic behind the “Socrates” who dominates the discussion of the Philebus, while only the Gorgias would have been accepted by Vlastos as employing the “Socrates” of Plato’s authentically Socratic period. For the development and order of the Neoplatonic canon instigated by Iamblichus see Jackson, Lycos, and Tarrant (1998: 14) and Tarrant (2000: 90–94 and 2007a: 48). Cf. Anon., Proleg. 26.12–16.

27. The dating of this dialogue is unknown, and its authorship has been much questioned in contemporary scholarship. In the Platonic tradition, however, it was often lauded as the best dialogue for beginners in philosophy. See Proclus, in Alc. 11–12. Several essays in Johnson and Tarrant (2012) discuss the issues of chronology and authenticity, but the volume does not arrive at any final position. For an overview of the possible chronology and a concise dismissal of those who question the authenticity of this dialogue see Denyer (2001: 11–25).

28. Cf. Marinus, Vit. Procl. 13, for Proclus’s progression through the Neoplatonic curriculum; see also Coulter (1976), Dillon (1976 and 1987: 1–18), Sheppard (1980), Lamberton (1986), Mansfeld (1994), Jackson, Lycos, and Tarrant (1998: 11–15), and O’Meara (2003: 63) for more information on the intentions and scope of Iamblichus’s Platonic curriculum.

29. Proclus, in Alc. 21.7–10.

30. Proclus, in Alc. 11.1–17.

31. εἴπερ οὖν ἄλλοθί που ξυνεκεράσατο τήν τε Πυθαγόρειον καὶ Σωκρατικὴν ἰδιότητα, κἀν τῷδε τῷ διαλόγῳ τοῦτο φαίνεται ποιῶν· ἔστι γὰρ ἐν αὐτῷ παρὰ μὲν τῆς Πυθαγορικῆς συνηθείας τὸ ὑψηλόνουν, τὸ νοερόν, τὸ ἔνθεον, τὸ ἀπὸ τῶν νοητῶν πάντα ἐξάπτον…. παρὰ δὲ τῆς Σωκρατικῆς φιλανθρωπίας τὸ εὐσυνουσίαστον, τὸ ἥμερον, τὸ ἀποδεικτικόν, τὸ δι’ εἰκόνων τὰ ὄντα θεωροῦν, τὸ ἠθικόν, πάντα τὰ τοιαῦτα.

32. κατὰ γὰρ τὰς ἔνδον διαθέσεις οἱ λόγοι φαίνονται διαφέροντες. οὕτω γὰρ καὶ τῶν ἀπολογίας Σωκράτους γεγραφότων ὡς οὐ διασωσαμένων τὸ ἦθος τὸ Σωκρατικὸν ἐν τοῖς λόγοις καταγελῶμεν ἔξω Πλάτωνος τῶν πλείστων. καίτοι αὐτό γε τοῦτο ἱστοροῦντες, ὅτι κατηγόρηται Σωκράτης καὶ ἀπολελόγηται καὶ ἔτυχε τοιᾶσδε ψήφου, οὐκ ἂν εἶεν ἄξιοι γέ-λωτος, ἀλλ’ ἡ τῆς ἐν τοῖς λόγοις μιμήσεως ἀνομοιότης καταγελάστους ἀποφαίνει τοὺς μιμητάς.

33. Syrianus, in Metaph. 105,1–5, and Anon., Proleg. 16.27–33. Cf. Proleg. 3.20–30. Remarkably, the anonymous author also reveals himself to be a true Socratic when he discusses the philosophical implications behind Plato’s and Socrates’ respective birthdays. According to Anonymous the fact that Socrates was born on the sixth of the month versus Plato on the seventh indicates “the priority of Socrates both as regards time and as regards insight.” Proleg. 1.43.

34. Cf. Anon., Proleg. 3.12, where Anonymous asserts that Plato went to mimes to learn to imitate others and to draw characters, as “writing dialogues means portraying characters.”

35. See Anon., Proleg. 10.43–11.20. In this section the author discusses Plato’s versus Socrates’ denial of knowledge and teaching as well as Plato’s profession to know only the art of dialectic, love, and midwifery.

36. Proclus, in Tim. 16.8–14. Cf. Anon. Proleg. 15.18–50.

37. Olymp., in Gorg. 8.1. See also Tarrant (2000:117).

38. See Layne (2009) for information on Proclus’s understanding of the Socratic elenchus.

39. Taki (2012).

40. Hermias, in Phaedr. 1.5–6. Manolea argues for the identification of Hermias with his master Syrianus.

41. Proclus, in Alc. 114.1–10.

42. Cf. Bussanich (1999 and 2006).

43. McPherran (1996a and 1996b). McPherran writes in the latter essay, “In many longstanding and influential interpretations of his views, Socrates is portrayed as a figure of our own Enlightenment: a consummate intellectualist, whose ‘paradoxical’ view that ‘virtue is knowledge’ grounds a moral theory that takes discursive rationality as our only trustworthy guide in life” (1996a: 167).

44. Apuleius, de Deo Socratis 17.157; Plutarch, On the Sign of Socrates 588d12–588e3; 588e7; 589e1–589f3.

45. Layne (Forthcoming a, Forthcoming c, and 2009). For Proclus’s refutation of the skeptical portrait of Socrates see de Prov. 48.1–50.12.

46. Anon., Proleg. 10.45–50.

47. See Syrianus, in Metaph. 104,15–105,22 where he ascribes to the historical Socrates the argument that there is no scientific knowledge of things in flux but rather all knowledge is based on logical proof and dialectic. In this passage Syrianus further credits Socrates with a theory of immanent universals and argues, in tune with the Phaedrus and the Phaedo, that Socrates did not confine universals to mere abstract definitions. Rather he contends that the philosopher proposed that there are reasoning-principles in the soul itself and thus Socrates’ search for definitions was centered upon this discovery.

48. See in Alc. 23.1–4 and 24.5–10, where Proclus defends the philosopher’s use of conjectural statements. See also de Prov. 48.1–50.12, in Crat. 27.1–5, in Remp. 54.3–56.19, in Tim. 1.62.21–25, and in Parm. 883.10–20 and 1018.1–1019.21 for other examples of Proclus’s efforts to explain Socratic ignorance and/or his use of tentative or skeptical language. See in Alc. 5.16–6.15 for his specific commentary on Socrates’ denial of self-knowledge and its connection to the Delphic oracle.

49. In Alc. 24.10–15.

50. See Proclus, in Tim. 1.62.21–25, in Crat. 24.1 and 27.1, in Remp. 60.27, as well as in Alc. 230.15–231.13

51. In Gorg. 28 5.1–2. See also in Gorg. 32.12. Cf. Proclus, in Alc. 230.15–231.13.

52. Aristotle, NE 3.1.

53. We are happy to note that as this project neared its completion various essays and texts devoted to Neoplatonism and Socrates began to appear. See Johnson and Tarrant (2012).

Chapter 1

1. Plato, Smp. 215a2–3.

2. Plato, Smp. 215a6–b6 and 216e5–217a1.

3. Plato, R. 1, 337a3–7.

4. Plato, Apol. 21a4–7, often repeated in later sources about Socrates.

5. Plato, Smp. 176c3–5 and 220a1–c1.

6. Plato, Apol. 31c4–32a3 and Gorg. 521d6–8.

7. This Epicurean view of Socrates has often been studied; see, e.g., Riley (1980), Kleve (1983), Vander Waerdt (1989, 253–259), and Clay 2003.

8. Cf. Döring (1979) and de Luise and Farinetti (1997).

9. By Cato the Elder; see Plutarch, Ca. Ma. 23.1.

10. See, e.g., Epictetus, 4.1.160 and 4.7.30–31; Dio of Prusa, Orat. 43.8; Seneca, De tranq. an. 5.1–3.

11. See, e.g., Schmitz (2002: 100–110), Machor and Goldstein (2001), Hardwick (2003), and Martindale (2003).

12. Neoplatonism has often been regarded as a philosophy that almost entirely forgot the Socratic questions; see, e.g., Zeller (1903: 496), Bröcker (1966), Hathaway (1969); contra see, e.g., Beierwaltes (1995).

13. Plato, Smp. 177d7–8; cf. also 212b6–7; Lysis 204b8–c2; Theages 128b1–4; Maximus of Tyre, Orat. 18.4; Themistius, Orat. 13, 161b–d.

14. Plato’s Apology suggests that this is not the case, since Meletus there connects the charge with Socrates’ supposed atheism (26b2–7); cf. Brickhouse and Smith (1989: 118–119). See also Maximus of Tyre, Orat. 18.6.

15. Orat. 18–21; short discussions can be found in Puigalli (1983: 386–399) and Szarmach (1985: 71–82).

16. Cf. Barigazzi (1966: 161–169).

17. I deal with the second one in Roskam (2012). See also Layne (Forthcoming b).

18. Lucian, VH 2.17.

19. Lucian, VH 2.19; tr. A. M. Harmon.

20. On Lucian’s view of the philosophers, see, e.g., Jones (1986: 24–32), Clay (1992), and Nesselrath (2001).

21. Lucian, Dial. Mort. 4.1–2.

22. Plato, Apol. 33d9–34b5.

23. Cf. my introductory section above. For these debates, see also Tarrant (2012) on early philosophical discussions of the dynamics of Socratic love in the context of moral improvement.

24. Cf. also Lucian, Vit. auct. 15, and esp. Ps.-Lucian, Amores 54: “But may the airy talkers and those who raise their philosophic brows temple-high and even higher, beguile the ignorant with the speciousness of their solemn phrases. For Socrates was as devoted to love as anyone and Alcibiades, once he had lain down beneath the same mantle with him, did not rise unassailed” (tr. M. D. Macleod).

25. Hermias’s commentary was very often regarded as a mere written report of Syrianus’s teaching; see, e.g., Westerink, Trouillard, and Segonds (1990: x): “Le Commentaire du Phèdre que nous possédons sous son nom n’est qu’un ensemble de notes non révisées prises au cours de Syrianus sur ce dialogue”; Dillon (1994: 388): “Hermeias is really just transcribing the proceedings of his master Syrianus’ seminar”; cf. Zeller (1903: 890). In such a perspective, Hermias’s own role amounted to that of an uncritical reportator. Recently, however, this view has been questioned, and rightly so; see Bernard (1997: 4–19), Moreschini (2009: 516–522 and 574); cf. Bernard (1995: 220 n. 2). For the contrary view regarding the originality of Hermias see Chapter 4 of this volume, by Christina-Panagiota Manolea.

26. Hermias, in Phdr. 9.9–10 and 11.20.

27. Bernard (1997: 24–25).

28. Herm., in Phdr. 3.4–6. In the first speech, it is Phaedrus who, as it were, speaks through Socrates’ mouth; in Phdr. 81.3–5.

29. Herm., in Phdr. 80.28–32.

30. Herm., in Phdr. 1.1–2: ὁ Σωκράτης ἐπὶ εὐεργεσίᾳ τοῦ τῶν ἀνθρώπων γένους καὶ τῶν ψυχῶν τῶν νέων κατεπέμφθη εἰς γένεσιν.

31. Herm., in Phdr. 67.15; cf. Bernard (1997: 159 n. 233).

32. Herm., in Phdr. 208.11.

33. See, e.g., Herm., in Phdr. 22.31; cf. also 21.15 about the youth and 27.12–13 about Phaedrus.

34. See, e.g., Herm., in Phdr. 12.28 (Σωκράτης ὁ κηδεμῶν τῶν νέων); 13.16–17 (Σωκράτει ἐπιμελὲς ἦν τῶν νέων φροντίζειν); 14.17–18 (ὁ κηδεμὼν τοῦ νέου Σωκράτης); 19.5–6 (ἐπιμελὲς ἦν τῷ Σωκράτει τῶν ψυχῶν τῶν νέων ἐπιμελεῖσθαι).

35. Plato, Apol. 24c4–d9; 25c1–4; 26a9–b2.

36. Herm., in Phdr. 19.20; cf. Plato, Apol. 21a4–7.

37. Herm., in Phdr. 264.21–24.

38. Herm., in Phdr. 17.29; 31.22; 74.27; 80.20; cf. also 10.23.

39. Herm., in Phdr. 48.19–20.

40. Herm., in Phdr. 40.13–14: σῴζει καὶ διορθοῦται τὸν νέον.

41. Aelius Aristides, Orat. 3.74 (= SSR VI A 53); cf. Döring (1984). See also Tarrant (2012), who most interestingly connects this view of Aeschines of Sphettus with the Alcibiades I, and also with the Theages and with Polemo’s definition of love as “service to the gods for the care and salvation of the young” (Plutarch, Ad princ. iner. 780D).

42. Herm., in Phdr. 12.28; 33.1; 40.1–2.

43. Herm., in Phdr. 64.5–12 and 48.16–17; cf. also 40.20–21, where Hermias says that Phaedrus will turn to (ἐπιστρέφειν) Socrates, as a man turns to his δαίμων (66.16–17, 22–23, and 28–31); cf. Bernard (1997: 125 n. 153). See finally 93.13–14: λέγεται ἡ ψυχὴ κατιέναι εἰς γένεσιν κατὰ πρόνοιαν κτλ.

44. Epicurus, Epist. Men. 135.

45. Herm., in Phdr. 147.14.

46. Herm., in Phdr. 50.8.

47. Herm., in Phdr. 54.32.

48. Herm., in Phdr. 48.15–16.

49. Herm., in Phdr. 50.16; cf. also 65.18–19 and 25–26.

50. Herm., in Phdr. 10.2–13.

51. Herm., in Phdr. 62.23–29; Hermias refers to Plato, Ti. 41c2–d3 but actually quotes Plt. 272e4–5; cf. Bernard (1997: 152 n. 216).

52. Herm., in Phdr. 40.6–14.

53. See Opsomer (1998: 128–130).

54. See Plato, Smp. 216e4–5 (where the opposition between παίζων and σπουδάσαντος can already be found), and Xenophon, Smp. 4, 28; cf. also Hermogenes, Περὶ μεθόδου δεινότητος, p. 454.20–22 R.

55. See, e.g., Herm., in Phdr. 50.18–25; 51.8–19; 54.4–8; 60.25–26.

56. Herm., in Phdr. 1.2–5.

57. Herm., in Phdr. 1.5–6.

58. Herm., in Phdr. 46.17–22; the reference is to Phdr. 236c6.

59. Herm., in Phdr. 10.15–18 and 206.20–24.

60. Herm., in Phdr. 231.24–26.

61. Herm., in Phdr. 13.16–20, on Phdr. 227a1; cf. also 22.3–16.

62. Herm., in Phdr. 63.2–23.

63. Herm., in Phdr. 42.26–28; 196.25; 200.17; 207.18; 244.10–11.

64. Herm., in Phdr. 26.15–25; 31.4–9.

65. Herm., in Phdr. 207.17–23; see also Dillon (1994: 388).

66. This is obviously not the place to study all the striking similarities between Hermias’s and Proclus’s interpretations in detail, yet a few parallels out of many may be mentioned by way of illustration; Socrates’ discussions as ἀναγωγή: Procl., in Alc. 19.20–22; 61.2–6; 95.15; 127.13; 152.13–15; his beneficent conduct: in Alc. 81.5–6; 90.24–91.3; 121.14; 241.19; his purification: in Alc. 95.13; 141.9; 174.2–175.18; 241.18; his providential care: in Alc. 53.19–56.4; 80.8; 81.12; 88.18; 95.25; 124.5; 140.23; etc.; his role as a kind of good δαίμων: in Alc. 40.17–42.4; 60.13–63.12; 198.14–199.23; 281.18–282.9 and passim; his decision to descend to a lower level for his interlocutor’s sake: in Alc. 132.11–19; his differentiating approach: in Alc. 28.16–29.10; his making use of the right opportunity: in Alc. 42.5–7; 120.12–124.27; his concern to take into account the character of his young interlocutor: in Alc. 23.15–24.1; 47.9–15; 84.26–28; 210.19–211.5; his systematic approach: 209.3–210.2 and passim.

67. That later Platonists often connected these dialogues also appears from Olympiodorus’s Commentary on Alc. I. See Tarrant (2007c esp. 10) on the link between Plato’s Alc. I and Smp. cf. Dillon (1994).

68. Herm., in Phdr. 13.13–16 and 32.23–28, on Phdr. 230c7–d2; cf. also 25.24–27 and 73.6–10.

69. Procl., in Alc. 35.14–18.

70. Procl., in Alc. 36.5–9. The term προσομιλῶν is particularly well chosen here, since it does not only mean “associate” but can also denote sexual intercourse (cf. LSJ, s.v.). In any case, it cannot simply mean “converse” in this passage, as appears from the following μήθ᾿ ὅλως διαλεγόμενος.

71. Procl., in Alc. 58.11–18.

72. This is especially interesting—as Harold Tarrant pointed out to me—in light of Thg. 130e2–3, where Aristides claims to have made most progress whenever he was sitting beside Socrates and held and touched him (ἐχόμενος … καὶ ἁπτόμενος); cf. also Tarrant’s own essay quoted above, Tarrant (2012: 154–155).

73. Plato, Phdr. 255a1–2.

74. Cf. Bernard (1997: 345 n. 79) on the ambivalence of the verb θεραπεύειν.

75. Herm., in Phdr. 199.25–27.

76. Anon., Proleg. 26.23–26.

77. Plato, Phdr. 255b3–8.

78. Herm., in Phdr. 201.3–5.

79. Herm., in Phdr. 201.7–8.

80. Herm., in Phdr. 201.13–14.

81. Cf. also n. 72 above.

82. Herm., in Phdr. 201.14–15, on Plato, Smp. 217b7–c3 and 217d3–219d2.

83. This is perfectly clear in the Symposium but less clear in the Phaedrus, where everything depends on the subject of the verbs χρονίζῃ and πλησιάζῃ (255b7): both ἐραστής and ἐρώμενος are possible. cf. De Vries (1969: 173). Hermias, however, explicitly opts for the latter interpretation, as appears from in Phdr. 201.11–13.

84. Plato, Phdr. 255e2–4; tr. H. N. Fowler.

85. Herm., in Phdr. 202.24–26.

86. Plato, Phdr. 256c3–5: τὴν ὑπὸ τῶν πολλῶν μακαριστὴν αἵρεσιν εἱλέσθην τε καὶ διεπραξάσθην.

87. Herm., in Phdr. 204.29–31; cf. also 203.14–17, again with reference to Socrates and Alcibiades in Plato’s Symposium.

88. Herm., in Phdr. 202.30–203.5.

89. Herm., in Phdr. 203.5–7, with reference to Plato, Phdr. 256d4–e2.

90. See therefore Layne (Forthcoming c, d and 2009).

91. Cf. Herm., in Phdr. 147.14 (ἐπιστήμονα).

92. E.g., in his comment on Plato, Phdr. 230a3–6.

93. See, e.g., in Phdr. 63.15 (οὐδενός … φησιν εἶναι διδάσκαλος).

94. Herm., in Phdr. 163.28–29 (Σωκράτει φέρε ἢ ἄλλῳ χρηστῷ διδασκάλῳ); cf. also 259.1.

95. Plato, Apol. 19d8–e1 and 33a5–b8; cf. also Tht. 150d6–7.

96. Cicero, Tusc. 5.10; cf. Ac. 1.15.

Chapter 2

1. Maximus of Tyre (second century CE) delivered two orations on the Socratic daimonion as well, Dissertationes 8 and 9. See Trapp (1997) for English translation. See also Harrison’s introduction in Harrison, Hilton, and Hunink (2001: 186–189).

2. Plato refers to Socrates’ daimon in Apology 31c7–d6, where Socrates says that it is “a kind of voice” (φωνή τις, d3) that keeps him from performing but does not prompt him to do an action (d3–4). Cf. Phdr. 242b8–c3, where Socrates claims the daimon “always holds me back from that which I intend to do” (ἀεὶ δέ με ἐπίσχει ὃ ἂν μέλλω πράττειν, c1) and again likens it to a voice (τινα φωνὴν ἒδοξα αὐτόθεν ἀκοῦσαι, c1–2). For other instances in the dialogues, see Alc. 103a4–b1, Tht. 151a3–5, and Euthyd. 272e3–4.

3. Smith and Woodruff (2000).

4. Smith and Woodruff (2000: 10).

5. On this point, see the introduction in Crystal Addey’s Chapter 3 in this volume, and esp. her note 2.

6. Cf. Statesman, 271c–e, where daimons preside over different groups of humanity under the control of a single god.

7. On Xenocrates’ demonology, see Dillon (1977: 31–32) and Finamore (Forthcoming).

8. For daimons in Philo, see my “Reason and Irrationality: The Intersection of Philosophy and Magic in Later Neoplatonism” (Finamore [Forthcoming]). He also does not discuss Socrates’ daimonion.

9. I draw these six topics from the works of Apuleius, Plutarch, and Maximus. For the topic of the Socratic daimon in these authors and the evolution in thought from Plutarch to Apuleius, see Donini (2010). I am not suggesting that there is any direct influence of Plutarch upon Apuleius. I am in agreement with Hunink (2004), rather, that these ideas “were in the air” (256) and, more specifically, were part of the Platonic tradition.

10. For two other outlines, see Beaujeu (2002: 5) and Harrison, Hilton, and Hunink (2001: 192).

11. Sunt enim inter nos ac deos ut loco regionis ita ingenio mentis intersiti, habentes communem cum superis inmortalitatem, cum inferis passionem.

12. Maximus of Tyre also argues for the intermediary nature of daimons by referring to their immortality and susceptibility to passions at Or. 9.2 and 5.

13. Id potius praestiterit Latine dissertare, varias species daemonum philosophis perhiberi, quo liquidius et plenius de praesagio Socratis deque eius amico numine cognoscatis.

14. See Pauly-Wissowa et al. (1996–2002: 4, 756–757), and OLD and OCD under “genius.” Spatially, at least, the Genius is particularly well suited to Plato’s Timaeus, according to which the rational soul dwells in the human head.

15. Qui est animus sui cuique, quamquam sit inmortalis, tamen quodam modo cum homine gignitur.

16. ἅτε δὲ ἀεὶ θεραπεύοντα τὸ θεῖον ἔχοντά τε αὐτὸν εὖ κεκοσμημένον τὸν δαίμονα σύνοικον ἑαυτῷ, διαϕερόντως εὐδαίμονα εἶναι.

17. For more on the daimonic soul in Plato, see Cornford (1935: 354) and Taylor (1928: 633–634).

18. “Ex hisce ergo Lemuribus qui posterorum suorum curam sortitus placato et quieto numine domum possidet, Lar dicitur familiaris; qui vero ob adversa vitae merita nullis [bonis] sedibus incerta vagatione ceu quodam exilio punitur, inane terriculamentum bonis hominibus, ceterum malis noxium, id genus plerique Larvas perhibent. Cum vero incertum est, quae cuique eorum sortitio evenerit, utrum Lar sit an Larva, nomine Manem deum nuncupant: scilicet et honoris gratia dei vocabulum additum est; quippe tantum eos deos appellant, qui ex eodem numero iuste ac prudenter curriculo vitae gubernato pro numine postea ab hominibus praediti fanis et caerimoniis vulgo advertuntur, ut in Boeotia Amphiaraus, in Africa Mopsus, in Aegypto Osiris, alius alibi gentium, Aesculapius ubique.”

19. The Latin terminology for ghosts was not broad enough to accommodate the various classifications that Apuleius wished to make, and so Apuleius had to make accommodations. Apuleius places these three subclasses of daimons/souls under the rubric Lemures, a term that does not have kindly associations in Latin, where it refers to “the malevolent ghosts of the dead” (OLD). These are ghosts that sometimes appear frighteningly during the night, and at the feast of the Lemuria in May they return to enter their family household, where the Pater Familias performs a rite to eject them. See Pauly-Wissowa et al. (1996–2002: 7, 44). The Lar Familiaris was “the tutelary god of the hearth or home” (OLD). This group was imagined to include souls that were deified after death (1996–2002: 6, 1147–1148). The Larva was also a reborn ghost; Larvae cause madness and had the power to harm both the living and the dead (1996–2002: 6, 1155–1156). As such, it would be a major problem for good and bad people alike. A Manes was the shade of any dead person, not only of the particular subgroup of especially good former human beings (1996–2002: 7, 803–804). Clearly Apuleius did not object to manipulating the meaning of terms for the sake of his hierarchy.

20. See also Beaujeu (2002: 236).

21. Maximus of Tyre ends his second oration on the daimonion with this class of daimon (Or. 9.7). For Maximus, each daimon has its own sphere of operation based on its activities when it was embodied. Thus, Asclepius engages in healing, Heracles in action, and so on. Again the overlap with heroes is obvious. See Trapp (1997: 83 n. 21).

22. Phd. 81b1–e2. For Plato, however, these are all souls who have led a bad life. They haunt graveyards until they are reincarnated into the appropriate animal bodies (81e2–82b9). Plato goes on to say that only the souls of philosophers may join the gods (82b10–c2). Thus, the seeds of Apuleius’s division are here, even if Apuleius has freely reinterpreted Plato’s vision.

23. For the Platonic source of these daimons in the eschatological myths of the Phaedo and Republic, see Beaujeu (2002: 237–238).

24. Apology 20e–21a.

25. “Igitur mirum, si Socrates, vir adprime perfectus et Apollinis quoque testimonio sapiens, hunc deum suum cognovit et coluit, ac propterea eius custos prope dicam Lar contubernio familiaris cuncta et arcenda arcuit et praecavenda praecavit et praemonenda praemonuit, sicubi tamen interfectis sapientiae officiis non consilio sed praesagio indigebat, ut ubi dubitatione clauderet, ibi divinatione consisteret?”

26. Mistakenly printed as distibuta in Moreschini (1991: 29).

27. In huiuscemodi rebus vocem quampiam divinitus exortam dicebat audire ita enim apud Platonem, ne quisquam arbitretur omina eum vulgo loquentium captitasse.

28. For cledonomancy (oracular interpretation of overheard remarks), see Johnston (2008: 131) and Harrison, Hilton, and Hunink (2001: 211 n. 62).

29. Eam quiddam insolitum et arcanum demonstrat habuisse, ita ut Socrates eam, quam sibi divinitus editam tempestive accidere dicebat.

30. See Harrison (2000: 164–165). Maximus of Tyre, Or. 9.7, claims to have seen daimons himself, including the Dioscuri, Asclepius, and Heracles.

31. XX.166: Credo plerosque vestrum hoc, quod commodum dixi, cunctantius credere et inpendio mirari formam daemonis Socrati visitatam.

32. Beaujeu (2002: 242–244). Cf. Harrison (2000: 163–165) and in Harrison, Hilton, and Hunink (2001: 212 n. 67).

33. Harrison (2000: 165).

34. “That the Pythagoreans were accustomed to be utterly amazed if anyone should deny that he had ever seen a daimon, Aristotle (as I think) is a properly sufficient witness” (At enim [secundum] Pythagoricos mirari oppido solitos, si quis se negaret umquam vidisse daemonem, satis, ut reor, idoneus auctor est Aristoteles). On this lost Aristotelian fragment (193 in Rose), see Beaujeu (2002: 243–244).

35. XX.167: “Quod si cuivis potest evenire facultas contemplandi divinam effigiem, cur non adprime potuerit Socrati optingere, quem cuivis amplissimo numini sapientiae dignitas coaequarat? Nihil est enim deo similius et gratius quam vir animo perfecte bonus, qui hominibus ceteris antecellit, quam ipse a diis immortalibus distat.”

36. On Archedamus, see R. Parker’s note in Nesselrath (2010: 82 n. 1).

37. See most recently the summary of D. A. Russell in Nesselrath (2010: 3). Riley (1977) makes a reasoned argument that Epaminondas represents the ordinary, philosophical man who makes correct choices using philosophy and reason based on his own good upbringing. Epaminondas is therefore contrasted with Socrates, who is that rare philosopher to whom daimons speak directly. Although I cannot agree with everything Riley says, his point about Epaminondas seems correct, and it does present a good means for connecting the two sides of the dialogue.

38. For discussions of the historical aspects, see D. A. Russell in Nesselrath (2010: 4–12), who gives a complete outline of the dialogue; Cawkwell (2010: 101–109), and Pelling (2010: 111–127). Cf. DeLacy and Einarson (1959: 362–364).

39. The manuscripts have ἀνάγκης. The substitution μαντικῆς is from Holwerda and adopted by DeLacy and Einarson (1959: 407 n. 9) and by Russell in Nesselrath (2010: 89 n. 101).

40. In the following paragraphs (581E–582C) Phidolaus asks Simmias to respond, and Galaxidorus welcomes the idea but first gives further arguments for his view. On Galaxidorus’s arguments here, see Schröder (2010: 159–160).

41. For a different point of view, see D. A. Russell’s introduction in Nesselrath (2010: 7–8).

42. At 588C2–3 Caphisias says that he did not hear what Simmias replied to Galaxidorus (ἃ μὲν οὖν πρὸς τὸν Γαλαξιδώρου λόγον ἀντεῖπεν ὁ Σιμμίας οὐκ ἠκούσαμεν).

43. Maximus of Tyre does not consider cledonomancy as an explanation for the daimonion, but he does allude to certain daimons that help human beings through κληδόνες (Or. 8.7). He emphasizes Socrates’ special worthiness to have a daimonion in 8.1.

44. On the speech, see Schröder (2010: 161–164).

45. οὐκ ὄψις ἀλλὰ ϕωνῆς τινος αἴσθησις ἢ λόγου νόησις εἴη συνάπτοντος ἀτόπῳ τινὶ τρόπῳ πρὸς αὐτόν.

46. Cf. νοηθέν, 588E8. See also Chalcidius’s similar treatment at 254–255 Waszink, translated in Nesselrath (2010: 202).

47. Cf. Hermias, in Phdr. 65.26–69.31, translated in Nesselrath (2010: 204–207).

48. Simmias later offers the evidence of an oracle given to Socrates’ father that he should allow Socrates to do as he pleased since, Simmias speculates, Socrates has a daimonic guide (589EF).

49. ἃ δὲ Τιμάρχου τοῦ Χαιρωνέως ἠκούσαμεν ὑπὲρ τούτων διεξιόντος, οὐκ οἶδα μὴ μύθοις <ὁμοιότερ’ ἢ > λόγοις ὄντα σιωπᾶν ἄμεινον (589F6–8).

50. οὗτος οὖν ποθῶν γνῶναι τὸ Σωκράτους δαιμόνιον ἣν ἔχει δύναμιν, ἅτε δὴ νέος οὐκ ἀγεννὴς ἄρτι γεγευμένος ϕιλοσοϕίας (590A6–8).

51. On the fictitious character of Timarchus, see Russell’s note in Nesselrath (2010: 94 n. 193). Cf. DeLacy and Einarson (1959: 365 and their note a). For a different perspective, see Schröder (2010: 166).

52. In keeping with the psychic locations in the Timaeus, the rational soul departs from Timarchus’s head.

53. Plutarch gives no indication whose voice this may be. Russell (apud Nesselrath 2010: 95 n. 215) asserts that it is probably the voice of a lunar daimon, but this is not certain. The very uncertainty of the source of the voice adds to the reader’s wonderment, and so too adds to the likelihood that the story is not to be believed at face value.

54. ἐκ δὲ τῶν εὐηνίων ἐκείνων <καὶ> κατηκόων εὐθὺς ἐξ ἀρχῆς καὶ γενέσεως τοῦ οἰκείου δαίμονος καὶ τὸ μαντικόν ἐστι καὶ θεοκλυτούμενον γένος.

55. On Hermodorus, who is called Hermotimus elsewhere, see Russell’s note in Nesselrath (2010: 96 n. 231). In the myth presented here, Hermodorus’s own wife burns his body as he is soul-traveling.

56. οὐ γὰρ ἐξέβαινεν ἡ ψυχὴ τοῦ σώματος, ὑπείκουσα δ’ ἀεὶ καὶ χαλῶσα τῷ δαίμονι τὸν σύνδεσμον ἐδίδου περιδρομὴν καὶ περιϕοίτησιν, ὥστε πολλὰ συνορῶντα καὶ κατακούοντα τῶν ἐκτὸς εἰσαγγέλλειν.

57. αἱ δὲ πῇ μὲν ἀνεκράθησαν, πῇ δ’ἔλιπον ἔξω τὸ καθαρώτατον (591D10–591E1).

58. Hunink (2004: 255) raises the concern that “the lowest Apuleian class [of daemons] does not correspond to the one in Plutarch’s dialogue, and there seems to be nothing negative about it.” It is true that Apuleius’s class of Genii includes all human embodied minds, while Timarchus’s account centers on the best of that class. Nonetheless, if one considers the whole of his vision, all human souls are indeed included and all do possess a mind (albeit most minds are subjected to bodily influences). I therefore suspect a common Middle Platonic topos behind both philosophers. Note too that Apuleius introduces his discussion of the Genii with an allusion to Plato’s Timaeus, as we saw above. Hunink’s later statement that Apuleius’s highest class of daimones does not correspond well to Plutarch’s because “we do not find a reference to a specific connection with the divine philosophers such as Socrates” ignores the evidence of De Deo Socratis XVII.157–158, which I discussed above.

59. We are also told that the voice predicted Timarchus’s death two months later, and Simmias adds that when he told Socrates the tale, Socrates was upset that he could not himself question Timarchus about his vision (592EF). This last may be an in-joke (Socrates would question anyone about anything), but it might rather be an indication that Socrates too was not satisfied with Timarchus’s account. This would be another reason for doubting that Plutarch credited the tale.

60. There is a short delay when Theanor asks why Epaminondas does not contribute as well, and Polymnis explains his son’s laconic character (592F–593A).

61. On Theanor’s dubious philosophical character, see also Nesselrath (2010: 91 n. 141). For his historicity, see DeLacy and Einarson (1959: 365).

62. In an even odder twist, Theanor states that “god does not begrudge that the personal daimon help” (τὸν οἰκεῖον οὐ νεμεσᾷ δαίμονα βοηθεῖν ὁ θεὸς, 594A3–4), as if the gods felt emotion.

63. Maximus of Tyre, Or. 9.6, also includes such a group of daimons. They, now that they are free from the body, feel sympathy for those still in bodies and wish to help them. In Maximus’s version, god has assigned them this role. Again, there is not the restriction imposed by Theanor; rather, the daimons help all human beings of all stations.

64. Riley (1977: 265–266) sees that Theanor’s demonology is different from Simmias’s but nonetheless thinks that the myth is appropriate since “Theanor takes Socrates as one of the souls who has almost reached the goal” (266). There is a certain tidiness to this theory: Socrates’ daimonion is a former human soul who is directing Socrates as he reaches his goal. There is a problem, however. The gods, Theanor says, favor certain human beings and give them signs directly. His example, tellingly, is of Helenus the priest/prophet (and not of a philosopher). Would Socrates fall into this highest group? Certainly not. He is a philosopher, not a prophet, and he receives advice from a daimon, not from a god. Further, Theanor’s conception is at odds with Plato’s statement that gods do not interact directly with humankind. On Theanor’s view, the gods interact directly with some very special mortals but leave a lower (but still special) class to the influence of daimons. We have an alternative conception about the daimonion: it is a former human soul who gives advice to Socrates, but Socrates is no longer the highest sort of human being. Given these problems, it should be clear that Plutarch is not endorsing the conception, only mentioning it as a possibility. Further, Theanor’s muddled interpretation is inconsistent both with Simmias’s view and with the vision of Timarchus. On this topic, see also Hershbell (1988: 367–377), who fails to see that, on Theanor’s theory, Socrates is no longer in the first class of human beings and indeed includes Socrates, Epaminondas, and Theanor together as “divine persons” (377).

Chapter 3

1. This chapter does not attempt to identify the views or character of the historical Socrates; rather, it focuses on Plato’s portrayal of Socrates and his daimonion in the Socratic dialogues and attempts to analyze the reception of this portrayal in the work of the late Neoplatonists. The so-called Socratic problem (i.e., “Can we identify the views, philosophy, character, and activities of the historical Socrates?”) has often dominated modern scholarship on Socrates: a useful survey of previous scholarship and its inherent problems is provided by Dorion (2011: 1–23). For reflections on the Socratic problem in relation to the daimonion, cf. Joyal (2005: 97–112).

2. McPherran (2011: 111): “Socrates is acknowledged to have been a moral philosopher of the first order: the founder of virtue ethics and the chief exponent of the Socratic Method (the elenctic method of question-and-answer cross-examination).” Cf. Vlastos (1994: 1–37).

3. Cf. Bussanich (1999: 29–51; 2006: 200–213).

4. McPherran (1996a: 5; 1996b: 167): “In many longstanding and influential interpretations of his views, Socrates is portrayed as a figure of our own Enlightenment: a consummate intellectualist, whose ‘paradoxical’ view that ‘virtue is knowledge’ grounds a moral theory that takes discursive rationality as our only trustworthy guide in life.” Guthrie (1971) devotes one chapter to the daimonion, entitled “The Divine Sign: Socrates and the Irrational.”

5. Proclus, in Alc., ed. L. G. Westerink.

6. Throughout this chapter, I use the terms “personal daimon” and “guardian daimon” interchangeably, to refer to the daimon “who has been allotted to us” (to use Plotinus’s memorable phrase), the species of daimon thought to guide human souls, with one guardian daimon attributed to each human soul. Dillon (2001: 3) suggests that the concept of the “guardian angel” was the Christian adaptation of the personal daimon of later Platonism.

7. Apart from Hermias, in Phdr. 70.3–72.13, discussed by Christina-Panagiota Manolea in Chapter 4 of this volume, the only other extant Neoplatonic account of the daimonion of Socrates (to the best of my knowledge) is that of Olympiodorus in his commentary on this dialogue; however, his account seems to be based on Proclus’s exposition. See especially 15.1–16.6; 17.7; 26.3–27.10; 38.1–40.17; 281.11–13.

8. On the works of Plutarch and Apuleius see Chapter 2 by John Finamore, who also compares Maximus in several notes.

9. While in Plato’s dialogues the admonitions of the daimonion of Socrates are always negative, in Xenophon’s works the daimonion also offers encouragement. Here I focus on Plato’s portrayal rather than Xenophon’s, since it is Plato’s works that the Neoplatonists draw on in their discussions of the daimonion.

10. Plato, Phaedrus 242c2; Apology 31d4.

11. Cf. Plato, Euthydemus 272e5; Republic VI, 496c4; Phaedrus 242c1; Apology 40b1–2, 40c3, 41d7.

12. Plato, Republic VI, 496c3–10. It should be noted that most scholars adhere to the traditional thesis of the uniqueness of the daimonion to Socrates and endorse the assumption that he is the only recipient of a daimonion, despite Socrates’ immediate qualification noted above, which is generally interpreted as referring to the five groups of people who prefer philosophy to politics. Weiss (2005: 81–96) offers a notable challenge to this view, including a convincing, alternative reading of this passage (95). Destrée (2005: 63–79) also challenges it, arguing that the daimonion is a help provided by the god to the philosophical mission, a mission that should be common to all human beings.

13. Plato, Alcibiades I, 103a4–7, 105e8–106a1; Theaetetus 151a1–6, where Socrates states of those who have engaged in philosophical elenchus with him but left prematurely: “When such men come back and beg me, as they do, with wonderful eagerness to let them join me again, the spiritual monitor [daimonion] that comes to me forbids me to associate with some of them, but allows me to converse with others, and these again make progress.”

14. Plato, Apology 40a4–8; 40c1–4; 41d6–8. Cf. Smith and Brickhouse (2000a: 77), on the story of the oracle and Socrates’ attempt to understand it as the means through which Socrates conceives of his elenctic activities as a religious mission and particularly 87 n. 10, for their refutation of scholars who have argued that Socrates betrays a kind of impious, skeptical disrespect for the god. As they note, Socrates begins his inquiry into the meaning of the oracle with the conviction that although the god can speak in riddles, it is not within the god’s nature to lie (Ap. 21b6–7). For further support for this position cf. McPherran (1996a: 2, 7, 178, 208–229); Bussanich (2006: 203–204).

15. Plato, Hippias Major 304b7–c2. Cf. Destrée (2005: 70–71); Reeve (2000: 24–39). One may compare the appearance of Socrates’ daimonion in the Theages 129e1–130a5, although many modern scholars consider this work spurious, partly because of the “occult” nature of the presentation of the daimonion, since here it offers positive advice as well as apotreptic admonitions, relating to potential interlocutors whom Socrates intends to engage in elenchus with: “Now I have told you all this, because this spiritual [daimonic] power that attends me also exerts itself to the full in my intercourse with those who spend their time with me. To many, indeed, it is adverse, and it is not possible for these to get any good by conversing with me, and I am therefore unable to spend my time in conversing with them. And there are many with whom it does not prohibit my intercourse, yet the intercourse does them no good. But those who are assisted in their intercourse by that spiritual power are the persons whom you have noticed; for they make rapid progress there and then. And of those, again, who make progress some find the benefit both solid and enduring; while there are many who, for as long a time as they are with me, make wonderful progress, but when they are parted from me relapse, and are no different from anybody else.” The notion that moral or spiritual benefit might derive from physical proximity is dismissed as occult and construed as evidence for the inauthenticity of the dialogue: e.g., Vlastos (1991: 280–281), and Bussanich (1999: 40–41): “The authenticity of neither dialogue [i.e., Alcibiades I and Theages] was ever doubted in antiquity but it is widely suspect now because of the ‘occult’ nature of the daimonion, especially in the latter dialogue.”

16. E.g., Vlastos (1991: 157–178), and Bussanich (1999: 29): “It has been something of an embarrassment to received opinion to confront the fact that one of the founding figures of the western philosophical tradition openly acknowledged the existence of divinities and received regular communications from them.”

17. Cf. Beckman (1979: 76–77) for a concise summary of such views.

18. Zeller (1877: 92–93).

19. Nussbaum (1985: 234–235).

20. Bussanich (1999: 29): “Recent scholarship … has exposed earlier humanist and completely rationalist accounts of Socrates to be inadequate.”

21. Vlastos (1991: 170–171 and 1996: 144–145).

22. Plato, Crito 46b5–7. Vlastos (1991: 157). Cf. also McPherran (1996b: 168).

23. Smith and Brickhouse (2000a: 247, 251); Bussanich (1999: 36).

24. Smith and Brickhouse (2000a: 251–252 and 2000b, 84–85); Bussanich (1999: 36); McPherran (1996b: 169 and 185).

25. Smith and Brickhouse (2000: 82–84).

26. McPherran (1996a: 177–190 and 1996b: 176; 2005, 17).

27. See McPherran (1996a: 191 and 1996b: 177), where he notes his agreement with Vlastos on this issue.

28. The daimonion of Socrates as guardian daimon: Proclus, in Alc. 71.1–3, 72.18–20, 78.1–5. Proclus cites Diotima’s famous statement about the nature of daimones at Symposium 202d–e repeatedly in relevant discussion: e.g., in Alc. 69.14–70.3, 70.13–15, 72.12–14, 73.10–12; in Crat. 75.9–24.

29. Apuleius, De Deo Socratis 16–17; Plutarch, On the Sign of Socrates 588e3–5.

30. Cf. Porphyry, De abstinentia 2.38.3, who states that good daimones bring oracles to men from the gods, drawing on Plato’s Symposium 202d–e; Proclus, in Crat. 36.20–37.22.

31. Proclus, in Alc. 68.9–69.3. Cf. Plutarch, De def. Oraculorum 421e2–6: “But, as that man said, if we call some of the demigods [daimones] by the current name of gods, that is no cause for wonder; for each of them is wont to be called after that god with whom he is allied and from whom he has derived his portion of power and honor.”

32. Plato, Phaedo 107d7–8, tr. Dillon (2001: 5): ὁ ἑκάστου δαίμων, ὅσπερ ζῶντα εἰλήχει.

33. Plato, Rep. X, 617e1–2: οὐκ ὑμᾶς δαίμων λήξεται ἀλλ’ ὑμεῖς δαίμονα αἱρήσεσθε, tr. Shorey (1935/1963), with slight emendations.

34. Plotinus, Enn. III.4.3; Dillon (2001: 6).

35. Proclus, in Alc. 77.4–9; 78.1–6, tr. O’Neill (1965) with slight emendations.

36. Iamblichus, De Mysteriis 9.6 (280.8–11): “When a soul has selected a daimon as its guide, then straightaway it stands over it as the fulfiller of the various levels of life of the soul, and as the soul descends into the body it binds it to the body, and it supervises the composite living being arising from it, and personally regulates the particulars of the life of the soul.”

37. Iamblichus, De Mysteriis 9.1–10.

38. Proclus, in Alc. 73.9–16; 75.16–76.16 (the daimon is not the rational soul or a part of the soul); 76.17–77.4 (the daimon is not the individual intellect); Iamblichus, De Mysteriis 9.8 (282.6–9): “For if [the daemon] is merely a part of the soul, as for instance the intellectual part, and that person is ‘happy’ who has his intellect in a sound state, there will no longer be any need to postulate any other order, greater or daimonic, to preside over the human order as its superior.” For this theory among the later Stoics, cf. Dillon (2001: 8 n. 21), who also comments that Proclus refutes these identifications “with an eye on Plotinus’ treatise.”

39. Socrates as mantis: Proclus, in Alc. 119.8–9; 5.16–6.2, 4.19–5.12; 314.19–21; Socrates as entheos: Proclus, in Alc. 131.8.

40. Cf., e.g., Zeller (1877: 89): “The daimonion appeared therefore to him [i.e., Socrates] as an internal revelation from heaven respecting the result of his actions, in a word as an internal oracle. As such it is expressly included, both by Xenophon and Plato, under the general conception of divination, and placed on a par with divination by sacrifice and the flight of birds”; McPherran (1996a: 187 and 2005: 17): “It [i.e., the daimonion] is, in short, a species of the faculty of divination.” Bussanich (2006: 206–8).

41. Plato, Apology 40a4 (quoted); Phaedo 85b4–6; Phaedrus 242c5–7.

42. Proclus, in Alc. 82.25–83.6; 5.14–15. O’Neill (1965: 8) reads the latter phase (at 5.14–15) as referring specifically to Plato, yet given the ambiguities of the Greek and the apparent allusion to the use of the term ὀαριστὴς (tr. by O’Neill as “familiar friend”) in the Platonic Minos (319b–e, referring to the relationship between Minos and Zeus established by Homer, Odyssey 19.179), where the author understands the term as meaning a close “pupil,” it seems to refer generally to anyone mentored by Apollo, including Plato but embracing all who follow the Apollonian path, one of whom is Socrates, as is then made explicit in the following sentence. I owe this interpretation to a suggestion of Harold Tarrant.

43. Reeve (2000: 24–39); Destrée (2005: 63–79); McPherran (2005: 26–27); Bussanich (2006: 200–213).

44. Proclus, in Crat. 78.24–25: “… the one who directs the truth from himself is called Apollo”; 98.1–4: “Apollo revolves in company with the sun, and the same intellect is displayed in both, since the sun too transmits light to the beings in heaven as it illuminates and provides all things with the power of unification”; in Crat. 101.9–10: “That Apollo is lord of simplicity in understanding and reveals the truth is demonstrated by his analogy to the Good”; cf. also in Crat. 99.11–100.2. On the prophetic properties of Apollo see in Crat. 90.17; 97.29; 100.11–13. Strictly speaking, Hermes is explicitly connected by Proclus with discursive reasoning and dialectic more than Apollo (in Crat. 10.12–13), yet Intellect (with which Apollo is linked by Proclus) is said to project and generate “dialectic as a whole from itself as a whole” (2.5–6).

45. Proclus, in Alc. 5.5–12, interprets the nature of Apollo and the Delphic injunction “Know Thyself” according to his views on philosophy as a quest for divinization: “… so also the inscription ‘Know Thyself’ on the front of the Delphic sanctuary indicated the manner, I presume, of ascent to the divine and the most effective path towards purification, practically stating clearly to those able to understand, that he who has attained the knowledge of himself, by beginning at the beginning, can be united with the god who is the revealer of the whole truth and guide of the purgative life, but he who does not know who he is, being uninitiated and profane is unfit to partake of the providence of Apollo.”

46. See O’Meara (2003: 31–68) for an extensive examination of divinization in Greek philosophy. O’Meara examines notions of divinization in the works of Aristotle, Stoicism, and Epicureanism, as well as in Plato’s dialogues and Neoplatonism, and claims that divinization “describes the goal of the major philosophical schools of the Classical and Hellenistic periods” (34), although with the important qualification that “the divine is conceived in various ways in the different schools and the methods and degrees of assimilation to the divine vary correspondingly. The limits imposed by our human mortal nature on our sharing in divine life are also stressed to varying degrees” (34).

47. In a Neoplatonic context Phaedo 69b–c is of particular relevance.

48. Cf. O’Meara (2003: 48–49) for a discussion of Iamblichus’s addition of a level of “theurgic” virtues to the scale of virtues systematized by Porphyry and a brief discussion of theurgy as a term for assimilation to god (128–131).

49. Cf. Iamblichus, De Mysteriis 3.4 (110.12–111.2); 3.8 (116.1–3); 8.7 (270.6–14); 10.1 (286.5–10); 10.4 (289.3–5); 10.6 (292.4–14); Proclus, in Alc. 187.8–11 (“Now neither do the classes superior to our soul attain their own perfection through learning or discovery, since they are always united with their objects of knowledge and never withdraw therefrom, nor become deficient in the knowledge appropriate to them”); 199.5–7; 199.9–11 (“So everywhere the superior realities, by a certain transcendent preeminence, possess in advance all the knowledge that resides in inferior beings”); Elements of Theology § 121 (“For all other forms of knowledge came into existence in virtue of the divine knowledge which transcends the sum of things …”); § 124.

50. Iamblichus, De Mysteriis 10.2 (287.3–4): “Does truth not coexist in its essence with the gods, and not merely in harmony with them, based as it is in the intelligible realm?”; Proclus, in Alc. 187.14–20: “But the soul of man, which possesses innate in itself every notion, and has preconceived all knowledge, but is prevented by birth from the contemplation of what it possesses, requires both learning and discovery, in order that through learning it may stimulate its intellectual perceptions of itself, and through discovery may find itself and the fullness of the notions innate therein. These are the gifts of the gods who benefit it in its fallen state and recall it to the life of the intellect, both coming from the order of Hermes” (my emphasis); in Alc. 190.9–11: “… another reverts and having reverted finds within himself virtues and sciences like radiant images of the gods”; in Crat. 2.5–6: “The projector of the dialectical technique is Intellect, since it generates dialectic as a whole from itself as a whole”; 1.16–2.2: “For this technique [i.e., the dialectical technique] is the ‘coping stone of mathematical studies’ [Rep. 534E], elevates us to the one cause of all things, the Good, and is said by Plato ‘to have come with the most brilliant fire from the gods to men by way of Prometheus’ [Phlb. 16C].”

51. Proclus, Elements of Theology § 194: “Every soul possesses all the Forms which intelligence possesses primitively”; cf. also § 195.

52. Bussanich (1999: 31): “I shall argue that the role of the supernatural/divine in Socratic religion is underestimated by many scholars since it is excessively circumscribed by rationality and by a modern understanding of what rationality consists in”; Voegelin (1974: 48, 232): “… revelation is not a piece of information, arbitrarily thrown out by some supernatural force, to be carried home as a possession, but the movement of response to an irruption of the divine in the psyche …” (232); “There is nothing ‘natural’ in the noetic illumination of consciousness of Plato and Aristotle; both thinkers were clear on the theophanic character of the event. That the insights of the classic philosophers have something to do with ‘natural reason’ as distinguished from ‘revelation’ is a conceit developed by the Christian Fathers when they accepted the Stoic symbols of Nature and Reason un-critically as ‘philosophy’” (48).

53. Apuleius, De Deo Socratis 17.157; Plutarch, On the Sign of Socrates 588d12–588e3; 588e7; 589e1–589f3.

54. Proclus, in Alc. 314.19–21: “Prophetic persons are conjectural but not knowledgeable types of people, whereas those who are not only prophetic but also genuine prophets, are already knowledgeable and also possess something superior to man’s knowledge.”

55. Proclus, in Alc. 5.13–6.3.

56. Proclus, in Alc. 4.21–5.14; 3.11–12; Riggs (2010: 114), states in relation to Proclus’s views of the Delphic injunction: “In fact, the necessity of knowing our mode of being in order to know its proper perfection is the content of the Delphi command to ‘Know Thyself’; the Delphic command is a command to revert upon our cause and, in the immediate sense, this cause is intellect.”

57. Plutarch, Ad. Col. 1118c. Cf. McPherran (1996a: 216–218).

58. Cf. Iamblichus, Letter 5: To Dexippus, On Dialectic 6–10: “And as the facts themselves demonstrate, the God in Delphi himself, in Heraclitus’s words, ‘not speaking out, nor yet concealing, but signifying’ his prophecies, rouses up those who hearken to his utterances to dialectical enquiry, on the basis of which they discerned ambiguity and homonymy, and the ferreting out of every double meaning kindled in them the light of knowledge.”

59. Cf. Plato, Timaeus, 72b; McPherran (1996a: 224 n. 21); Bowden (2005: 6) maintains that the crucial moment of receiving an oracle was not the actual consultation, since the exact meaning of the oracular response would always have been debated; Parker (2000: 76–108) has pointed out that Delphic oracles regularly triggered debates in the Athenian Assembly in the classical period; Graf (2005: 53) maintains that oracles also triggered debates in Rome, citing the following example: “… in 204 BCE Delphi ordered the Romans to bring Cybele to Rome and to have the best of the Romans receive her, this latter provision led to a debate about exactly whom the oracle meant.” Cf. Livy 29.11.6 (the oracles), 14.6–8 (the Senate’s decision).

60. Proclus, in Alc. 59.19–20, citing Plato, Alcibiades I 103a: “The cause of this has been nothing human, but a certain spiritual opposition, of whose power you shall be informed at some later time” (Τούτου δὲ τὸ αἴτιον γέγονεν οὐκ ἀνθρώπινον, ἀλλά τι δαιμόνιον ἐναντίωμα, οὗ σὺ τὴν δύναμιν καὶ ὕστερον πεύσῃ).

61. Proclus, in Alc. 60.10–15, 61.7–8.

62. Plato, Theaetetus 155c8–d6; Aristotle, Metaphysics I.2.9–10 (982b). Cf. also Proclus, in Alc. 42.7–43.1.

63. Proclus, in Alc. 164.1–15; 165.11–166.15; 166.16–18. Cf. especially in Alc. 166.6–15: “In this way the young man seems to me to say that Socrates is now more worthy of wonder; now he is consciously aware of him; previously he noticed him in mere silent attendance. Both when silent, then, the wise man is worthy of wonder, as most resembling the hidden and unknowable class of the gods, and when giving utterance he is even more worthy of wonder, as likening himself to the revelatory element of the divine. Indeed all the divine is such; in all its functions it appears worthy of wonder….”

64. Proclus, in Alc. 165.12–19, tr. O’Neill (1965), with slight emendations. Cf. also in Alc. 60.3–11, where Proclus states that this sense of wonder arises from the nature of divine providence, which manifests through divine-like humans in their providential dealings with other humans and the cosmos. For a detailed and erudite examination of Proclus’s account of the relationship between Socrates and Alcibiades, illustrating the way in which Proclus regards the affair between Socrates and Alcibiades as the perfect paradigm for appreciating the roles of providence and fate in all our lives, see Layne (2012).

65. Proclus, in Alc. 78.10–79.6, tr. O’Neill (1965), with slight emendations.

66. Cf. Proclus, in Alc. 158.4–20; 161.19–162.1; Elements of Theology § 112 (“The first members of any order have the form of their priors”); § 147 (“In any divine rank the highest term is assimilated to the last term of the supra-jacent rank”).

67. Dillon (2001: 8); Westerink (1962/2011: 97). As Dillon (2001: 8 n. 19) notes, “this is made more probable by a passage in Olympiodorus, in the corresponding section of his Commentary on the Alcibiades (pp. 17,10–19,10), where he presents more or less the same sequence of levels of daemons as a survey of the types of daemon in general.”

68. Proclus, in Alc. 72.18–20, tr. O’Neill (1965), with slight emendations.

69. Iamblichus, De Mysteriis 9.6 (280.13–281.4), makes a very similar point: “… it [i.e., the personal daimon] continues to direct men’s lives up to the point at which, through sacred theurgy, we establish a god as the overseer and leader of our soul; for then it either withdraws in deference to the superior principle, or surrenders its administrative role, or subordinates itself so as to contribute to the god’s direction of the soul, or in some other way comes to serve it as master.” While Proclus states that the soul who is united to its leader god still needs its daimon, Iamblichus here presents several alternatives, although the last two of these alternatives agree with Proclus’s statements. Riggs (2010: 114) clarifies the implications of knowing one’s self in Neoplatonism: “Knowledge of our essence requires knowledge of the kind of being which we have been given and how this being fits into the cosmos as a whole.”

70. Proclus, in Alc. 72.20–73.8, tr. O’Neill (1965), with slight emendations.

71. In relation to this Dillon (2001: 8) states: “We can gather from 73,7ff. that souls who remain in a pure state … have only the highest class of daemon as their guardian both here and on a higher plane … whereas the rest of us have second class of daemon as our guide in this life.”

72. Dillon (2001: 8 n. 20) interprets this as follows: “I take this to mean that the soul concerned is enjoying an apokatastasis to its original state, and thus either free of the body and the cycle of rebirth, or (like Plotinus, presumably) in their final incarnation before attaining this.” This issue hinges on exactly what it means to “return to one’s origin” and to “be free of the body.” In a theurgic context, one can be free of the body and detached from generation while still in a body, since the generated cosmos is seen as a manifestation of the gods (and so “the way up is the same as the way down”). I suspect Proclus would adhere to the theurgic view of purification from the body and from generation. This would fit in with his comment here that these “perfect souls” “associate with birth without defilement.” Proclus’s comment at in Alc. 32.9–33.11 might also be suggestive of this.

73. Porphyry, Life of Plotinus 10.28–31 (p. 34), tr. Armstrong (1966), with slight emendations.

74. Plotinus Enn. III.4; Porphyry, Life of Plotinus 10: “It was a reason of this kind that led him to write the treatise ‘On Our Allotted Guardian Spirit,’ in which he sets out to explain the differences between spirit-companions.” Cf. Dillon (2001: 7): “He [i.e., Plotinus] was willing, as we know from Porphyry, to attend a séance to identify his guardian daemon, and was so pleased to discover that his was actually a god that, as Porphyry tells us, he was stimulated to compose precisely the treatise that we have been examining….”

75. Proclus, in Alc. 79.15–17: “So far our account has given evidence of one such singular characteristic in the case of Socrates’ guardian daimon: the second is that he was aware of a voice proceeding therefrom,” tr. O’Neill (1965) with slight emendations. Proclus here cites Plato’s Theages 128d and Phaedrus 242b–c in order to illustrate this point.

76. Proclus, in Alc. 80.7–14, tr. O’Neill (1965), with slight emendations.

77. On the origins of the doctrine of the vehicle of the soul and its development in the philosophy of Porphyry, Iamblichus, and Synesius, see: Kissling (1922: 318–330); Dodds (1933/1963: 313–321, esp. appendix II, “The Astral Body in Neoplatonism”); Finamore (1985); Smith (1974); Shaw (1995).

78. Plutarch, On the Sign of Socrates 588c10–d2, where the daimonion of Socrates is described by Simmias as “not a vision but some perception of a voice or else the mental apprehension of language that reached him in some strange way.” Simmias compares this to a dream in which one seems to hear speech but does not (588d3–5), giving an indication that Plutarch perceived the daimonion as a voice, but clearly not a normal voice. It is then described as a kind of thought or noesis (588d3). Cf. also van Riel (2005, 31–42), who argues for the “internal” nature of the daimonion as presented by Plato. He notes in conclusion: “The door that was half-open is closed again. It will not be re-opened until the time of Neoplatonism, where the internalization of the divine will emerge in all its power.”

79. Proclus, in Alc. 80.14–18.

80. Cf. Addey (2010, 171–185, esp. 180–182).

81. Addey (2013).

82. Proclus, in Alc. 168.17–169.8, referring to Aristotle’s theory of causation in Metaphysics 1013a24; Physics 194b23–26 and the “metaphysic of prepositions” used to describe theories of multiple yet simultaneous gradations of causation.

83. Proclus, in Alc. 80.21–81.7.

84. Proclus, in Alc. 5.12; 26.12–15; 32.9–33.11; 38.7–14; 40.18–41.8; 41.9–12; 46.9–11; 53.17–54.15; 55.15–56.3; 60.1–5; 90.19–91.7; 122.10–12; 125.2–126.3; 130.1–3; 130.15–131.7; 158.20–159.10; 160.17–161.1. Cf. also O’Meara (2003: 76–78); Layne (Forthcoming b).

85. Proclus, in Alc. 53.17–54.10. Cf. also in Alc. 55.6–10; 60.3–7; De Decem 10; Layne (Forthcoming b).

86. Proclus, in Alc. 54.10–15, tr. O’Neill (1965), with slight emendations.

87. Cf. also Proclus, in Alc. 49.14–15; 82.4–8; 88.14–15; 89.2–3.

88. Proclus, in Alc. 26.12–17; 27.8–10; 37.16–38.1; 62.16–63.8; 125.2–126.2; 130.1–3; 131.1–12; 132.10–15; 140.17–20; 158.20–159.10; 198.12–13. Cf. Layne (Forthcoming b: 278): “Proclus explicitly compares the agency of providence to the actions of both Socrates and his guardian spirit.”

89. Proclus, in Alc. 135.19–136.1. Cf. 32.13–17.

90. Proclus, in Alc. 163.5–11, tr. O’Neill (1965) with slight emendations. Cf. also in Alc. 161.17–19.

91. Proclus, in Alc. 81.7–82.1, 82.8–13, tr. O’Neill (1965), with slight emendations.

92. Proclus, in Alc. 90.19–91.7.

93. Cf. George (2005: 287–303); Addey (2013).

94. George (2005: 290–293). Cf. Dodds (1963: 344–345), who divides the semantic connotations of the term into three descriptive statements: “Inherent capacity for acting or being acted upon in a specific way”; “Inherent affinity of one substance for another”; and “Inherent or induced capacity for the reception of a divine influence.” It is of course the latter description that most closely matches Iamblichus’s notion of the term within ritual contexts.

95. Iamblichus, De Mysteriis 1.8 (29.1–3); 3.11 (125.4–6); 3.12 (129.9–11); 8.7 (270.6–14). With regard to Iamblichus’s view of divine illumination, George (2005: 293) notes: “Similar to the actualization of a potential, the gods pre-essentially dwell within the soul and manifest as soon as conditions are suitable.”

96. Cf. Proclus, in Crat. 1.12–16: “… but following the great Plato, because he knows that the dialectical technique is suited only to those who have been completely purified in thought, educated by mathematical studies, purified, through the virtues, of the immature aspect of their character, and, in short, after genuine philosophical study.”

97. “Constructivism” has a long history in cognitive psychology: this theory suggests that teaching is a matter not of transmitting information but of engaging students in active learning, building their knowledge in terms of what they already understand: cf. Piaget (1950); Biggs and Tang (1999/2007: 20–21); Grace and Gravestock (2009: 33–35).

98. Cf. Proclus, in Alc. 152.1–3: “It is the part of the educator accurately to discern the aptitudes (ἐπιτηδειότητας) of those he educates and pursue his care for them in accordance therewith.”

99. Proclus, in Alc. 28.10–15; 29.5–7.

100. Plato, Philebus 16c6–8; 16e3–5: “The gods, then, as I said, handed down to us this mode of investigating, learning, and teaching one another.”

101. Purification through philosophy and dialectical inquiry (elenchus): Proclus, in Alc. 174.10–19; 175.19–176.6 (Westerink). Proclus states that the purification of the soul is threefold: “one through the art of initiation concerning which the Socrates of the Phaedrus speaks, the other through philosophy, about which much is said in the Phaedo (therein prudence and each of the other virtues is termed ‘a sort of purification’); and the third through the science of philosophical discussion which induces contradiction, exposes the disagreement of opinions and delivers us from twofold ignorance” (174.8–14).

102. Proclus, De Decem 15.1–5; 15.10–15; 15.25–40; 16.1–10. Cf. in Alc. 87.10–88.7.

103. Proclus, in Alc. 87.12; Prov. 27–31; De Decem 7–8. Cf. Layne (Forthcoming b).

104. Proclus, De Decem 14; Layne (Forthcoming b: 274): “Ultimately the foreknowledge of Socrates and his daimon has its cause in a higher level of reality and as such participates in providence itself. Due to such participation, their foreknowledge has the power to bind the indefinite and infinite nature of contingent things, i.e. unify and as such know particulars.”

105. Proclus, in Alc. 92.3–8: “We observe that everywhere the more divine seem to approach the less perfect, not relinquishing their own abode but remaining in themselves and seeming to approach on account of the suitability of the participant: both in invocations and visions the divine somehow seems to approach us, although it is we who reach up towards it.”

106. O’Meara (1997: 154).

107. Iamblichus, De Mysteriis 8.8 (272.4–9): “And nothing in such a process is accomplished contrary to the ordinance laid down from the beginning, so that the gods should change their plans in virtue of some subsequently performed theurgic ceremony, but rather it is the case that from their first descent the god sent down the souls for this purpose, that they should return again to him. There is therefore no element of change of plan involved in such a process of ascent, nor is there any conflict between the descents of souls and their ascents.” Proclus, in Alc. 237.7–13: “Time is twofold, one sort that comes into being with the natural life and corporeal movement of the universe, the other that pervades incorporeal life. Now the latter both measures the cycles of the divine souls and perfects the separable activities of our own; but the former, the kind that is coextensive with the life according to Nature, measures our life with a body, but in no way the life of the soul in so far as it lives by itself.”

108. Socrates saw in Alcibiades many tokens of his suitability toward virtue: Proclus, in Alc. 94.4–5; the daimonion prevented Socrates from conversing with Alcibiades for many years due to his unsuitability: Proclus, in Alc. 81.7–82.1; 91.1–7; 162.4–14.

109. Proclus, in Alc. 120.16–121.11.

110. Proclus, in Alc. 121.13.

111. Proclus, in Alc. 121.15–18.

112. Proclus, in Alc. 121.20–122.3; 122.7–8; 122.14–15; 122.21–123.5; 123.19–20; Iamblichus, De Mysteriis 8.4 (267.6–10), considers the observation of the kairos as an essential element of theurgy. Referring to the Egyptians, whom he claims were the first “theurgists,” Iamblichus states: “And this is not for them purely a matter of theorizing, but they recommend that we ascend through the practice of sacred theurgy to the regions that are higher, more universal, and superior to fate, towards the god who is the creator, without calling in the aid of matter or bringing to bear anything other than the observation of the critical time (kairos) for action.”

113. Proclus, in Alc. 281.16–282.6. Cf. also in Alc. 40.15–42.4; 198.12–199.17.

114. Proclus, in Alc. 170.15–171.1; 171.3–8; 277.10–18; 279.23–281.14.

115. O’Meara (1989/1997: 154).

116. O’Meara (1989/1997: 154).

117. Proclus, in Alc. 282.4–5.

118. O’Meara (1989/1997: 154–155).

119. Proclus, in Alc. 32.9–33.11; 53.17–54.15; 56.6–16; 125.2–13; 126.1–3; 130.1–3; 135.19–136.1; 136.16–137.1; 140.17–20; 141.4–11.

Chapter 4

An earlier version of this chapter was read as a paper under the title “The Figure of Socrates and Its Psychological Dimensions in the In Phaedrum” at the panel entitled “The Phaedrus and Neoplatonic Psychology” at the Tenth Annual Conference of the International Society for Neoplatonic Studies (ISNS), Cagliari, Sardinia, June 2012. I would like to thank the members of the organizing committee of the conference, which provided me with a generous grant. I would also like to express my gratitude to Dr. Carl O’Brien and Dr. Sarah Wear for co-organizing the panel with me as well as the colleagues who attended it, for their useful comments and suggestions.

1. As internal evidence from the text itself reveals, Syrianus was teaching a class that included at least Hermias and Proclus, who took notes. So, the text we have actually consists of Hermias’s notes of his master’s lectures. The problem is whether Hermias has reworked them, and if he has, to what extent he has done so. For those who argue the case of heavy dependence by Hermias on Syrianus see Praechter’s Pauly-Wissowa article on Hermias (1912); cf. also Manolea (2004: 47–58 and 2009: 500–501). For the opposite view see Bielmeier (1930: 4–96), Moreschini (1992: 451–460 and 2009: 516–522), and Bernard (1997: 12–13). See also Chapter 1 in this volume by Geert Roskam, which inclines toward the latter view.

2. The passages we are going to examine have not been adequately studied so far in works devoted to the Neoplatonic rendering of Socrates. For example, A. Smith has not included the in Phaedrum commentary in his article (Smith 2004: 455–460). Furthermore, Rangos (2004: 463–479) exploits passages from Syrianus’s in Metaphysica but mentions only one passage of the in Phaedrum commentary. Given that it is only quite recently that Socrates’ role in Neoplatonism has started to be acknowledged, e.g., by Beierwaltes (1995: 97–116), a discussion that this book hopes to stimulate further, the Socratic image in the in Phaedrum deserves new attention. See the Introduction to this volume for more information on Beierwaltes’ challenge and the older view of Bröcker (1966) and Hathaway (1969: 19–26).

3. In Phaedr. 1.5–6: Ὁ Σωκράτης ἐπὶ εὐεργεσίᾳ τοῦ τῶν ἀνθρώπων γένους καὶ τῶν ψυχῶν τῶν νέων κατεπέμφθη εἰς γένεσιν.

4. For Neoplatonic metaphysics see O’Meara (2010: 306–324).

5. For the Stoic basis for this view see “The Logical Basis of Stoic Ethics” in Long (1996: 133–155, esp. 137–138, 140–142, 155). For Socrates in Stoic philosophy see Long (1988: 150–171; repr. in 1996, 1–33). Cf. also Long (2004: 449–450), Dragona-Monachou (2004: 429–447), Brown (2006: 275–284), and Brennan (2006: 285–297).

6. In Phaedr 1.6–11: διαφορᾶς δὲ οὔσης πολλῆς κατά τε τὰ ἤθη καὶ τὰ ἐπιτηδεύματα τῶν ψυχῶν, διαφόρως ἕκαστον εὐεργετεῖ, ἄλλως τοὺς νέους, ἄλλως τοὺς σοφιστάς, πᾶσι χεῖρας ὀρέγων καὶ ἐπὶ φιλοσοφίαν προτρεπόμενος. Καὶ νῦν οὖν τὸν Φαῖδρον ἐπὶ ῥητορικῇ ἐπτοημένον ἐπανάγει ἐπὶ τὴν ἀληθῆ ῥητορικήν, τουτέστι φιλοσοφίαν.

7. For an analysis of this scene see Janko (1992: comm. ad loc.).

8. Cf. Richardson (1993: comm. ad loc.).

9. Cf. Heubeck’s comm. ad. loc. in Heubeck and Hoekstra (1989).

10. Cf. Russo comm. ad loc. in Russo, Fernandez-Galiano, and Heubeck (1992).

11. For the use of the Homeric tradition in the works of Syrianus see Manolea (2004); for the specific uses of the in Phaedrum commentary see chapter 3 (2004: 123–205).

12. See Rangos (2004: 476). For a more general yet illuminating view on the religious elements of Socrates see McPherran (1996a). Cf. also Bussanich (2006: 200–213) and McPherran (2010: 111–137).

13. In Alc. 32.10–13: καὶ δὴ καὶ ἀνθρώπων ψυχαὶ μεταλαγχάνουσι τῆς τοιαύτης ἐπιπνοίας καὶ διὰ τὴν πρὸς τὸν θεὸν οἰκειότητα κινοῦνται περὶ τὸ καλὸν καὶ κατίασιν εἰς τὸν τῆς γενέσεως τόπον ἐπ’ εὐεργεσίᾳ μὲν τῶν ἀτελεστέρων ψυχῶν, προνοίᾳ δὲ τῶν σωτηρίας δεομένων.

14. For the wider issue of the relation between Alcibiades and Socrates, and the extent to which the former exercised a negative influence on the latter, see Johnson and Tarrant (2012) and Layne (Forthcoming b).

15. For the Socratic daimonion see Destrée and Smith (2005). Among the essays in this useful collection one could mention Van Riel (2005: 31–42). Cf. also Long (2006: 63–74). For the role of daimon in later philosophy Plutarch’s essay De genio Socratis is revealing. Iamblichus, whose influence on the School of Athens was considerable, quite naturally spoke of the daimon. For this issue see Dillon (2001: 3–9).

16. In Phaedr. 70.13–16: γένος δέ τι τῶν δαιμόνων ἐστὶν ὑπεριδρυμένον ἡμῶν προσεχῶς καὶ κατευθῦνον ἕκαστον ἡμῶν˙ ἕκαστος γὰρ ἡμῶν πάντως ὑπό τινα τελεῖ δαίμονα, ὃς πάσης ἡμῶν τῆς ζωῆς ἐπάρχει.

17. In Phaedr. 71.3–8: Διὸ αἱτοιαῦται ψυχαὶ καὶ ἐνταῦθα συναισθάνονται τῆς τοῦ δαίμονος ἐπιστασίας, αἱ δὲ ἄλλαι ψυχαὶ αἱ καταμεμφόμεναι τὸν δαίμονα, ὡς ὁ ἑλόμενος τυραννίδα καὶ παίδων βρώσεις, μὴ ἐπιστρεφόμεναι πρὸς τὸν δαίμονα, ἀλλ’ ὡς ἄλογα ἀγόμεναι, αὗται ἀσύνετοί εἰσι πάντῃ καὶ ἐνταῦθα τῆς τοῦ δαιμονίου προστασίας.

18. For a quick overview of Plato’s criticism towards poetry see Richardson (1993: 30–33); cf. Manolea (2004: 28–32).

19. As evidence from the in Phaedrum commentary suggests, Syrianus did not hesitate to quote verses from the “forbidden” Homeric scenes and, generally speaking, regarded Homer not merely as the best poet ever but also as a theologian. For more details see Manolea (2004: 202–205, 228–239).

20. Symbols and signs are an integral part of theurgic ritual theory that underlies the religious practices of Syrianus and Proclus. For the role of theurgy in Neoplatonism see Saffrey (1981: 153–169; repr. in 1990: 33–49). Cf. also Sheppard (1982: 212–224); Shaw (1995: passim and 1999: 573–599).

21. In Phaedr. 71.14–22: Ἔτι δὲ καὶ ἐκ τῆς τοιᾶσδε ζωῆς γίνεται ἡ συναίσθησις ἢ μή·οἱ γὰρ σπουδαῖοι ἄνδρες καὶ εὖ ζῶντες πάντα αὑτῶν τὸν βίον καὶ πᾶσαν ἑαυτῶν ἐνέργειαν καὶ θεωρίαν καὶ πρᾶξιν ἀναθέντες τοῖς θεοῖς καὶ ταῖς ἀφανέσιν αἰτίαις συναισθάνονται διά τινων συμβόλων καὶ σημείων πότερον αὐτοὺς ἀποτρέπει τῆς πράξεως ὁ δαίμων ἢ οὔ ̇ καὶ διὰ τοῦτο, γαλῆς φέρε δραμούσης ἢ ἐνσχεθέντος τοῦ ἱματίου, ἢ καὶ λίθου πεσόντος, ἢ φωνῆς ῥηθείσης, ἢ σκηπτοῦ κατενεχθέντος, συναισθάνονται τῆς ἀποτροπῆς καὶ ἀπέχονται τῆς πράξεως.

22. In Phaedr. 71.25–33: Ἀλλὰ τί ἐκώλυε τὸν Σωκράτη, προέτρεπε δὲ οὐδέποτε; καὶ πρῶτον, διὰ τί ἐκώλυεν; ἢ ὥσπερ τῶν ἵππων οἱ μὲν κέντρου δέονται διὰ τὸ βραδεῖς εἶναι, οἱ δὲ χαλινοῦ διὰ τὸ ὀξεῖς ὑπάρχειν, οὕτω καὶ τῶν ἀνθρώπων οἱ μὲν εὐμετάδοτοι καὶ ὑπὸ προθυμίας εὖ ποιεῖν βουλόμενοι καὶ πάσῃ πράξει ἐγχειροῦντες, οἷος ἦν Σωκράτης, κωλύεσθαι πολλάκις ὑπὸ τοῦ δαιμονίου δέονται, οἱ δὲ δυσμετάδοτοι καὶ διεγείρεσθαι. Εἰ δὲ καὶ πρὸς ἀναγωγὴν αὐτὸν παρασκευάζον τὸ δαιμόνιον εἴργει τῶν πολλῶν πράξεων, ἔχοι ἂν καὶ οὕτω λόγον.

23. In Phaedr. 71.34–72.1: Ἀλλὰ διὰ τί οὐχὶ καὶ προέτρεπε τὸ δαιμόνιον; ἵνα μὴ ὡς ἄλογον καὶ ἑτεροκίνητον ᾖ ὁ Σωκράτης, μηδὲν ἀφ’ ἑαυτοῦ ποιῶν, μηδὲ ὡς ψυχὴ λογικὴ αὐτοκίνητος.

24. In Phaedr. 77.20–78.2: Τριῶν ὄντων τούτων, οὐσίας, δυνάμεως, ἐνεργείας, οἱ μὲν θεοὶ μένοντες ἐν ταῖς πρωτίσταις ἑαυτῶν ἐνεργείαις καὶ οὐκ ἐξιστάμενοι αὐτῶν, παράγουσι δευτέρας καὶ τρίτας ἑαυτῶν ἐνεργείας. Εἰ δέ τις προβάλλων ἀφ’ ἑαυτοῦ δευτέραν ἢ τρίτην ἐνέργειαν ἀφίσταιτο τῆς πρώτης ἢ καὶ ἐπιλανθάνοιτο αὐτῆς, ἁμαρτάνει, ὥσπερ εἰς κοιλότερα διατρίβων, ἀφεὶς τὰς πρώτας καὶ κυρίας ἐνεργείας. Εἰ δὲ μὴ μόνον περὶ τὰ δεύτερα διατρίβοι ἀποστὰς τῶν πρώτων, ἀλλὰ καὶ διαστρόφως περὶ αὐτὰ ἀναστρέφοιτο, τῷ ὄντι μέγα τὸ ἁμάρτημα. Οἷον τρεῖς εἰσιν οὗτοι ἄνδρες· ὁ μὲν τῇ θεωρίᾳ σχολάζων, ὁ δὲ δυνάμενος μὲν εἶναι καὶ θεωρητικός, ἀποστὰς δὲ ταύτης καὶ περὶ πολιτείαν διατρίβων, ὁ δὲ οὐδὲ ὀρθῶς περὶ πολιτείαν ἀναστρεφόμενος, ἀλλὰ διαστρόφως καὶ πανούργως· ἀμφότεροι μὲν οὖν ἁμαρτάνουσι καὶ ὁ δεύτερος καὶ ὁ τρίτος, ὡς τῆς πρωτίστης καὶ καλλίστης ἐνεργείας ἀφιστάμενοι, ἀλλὰ πλέον ὁ τρίτος τοῦ δευτέρου ἁμαρτάνει.

25. In Phaedr. 78.26–79.8: Τὰ δὲ περὶ μολυσμῶν καὶ καθαρμῶν ὧδε λεκτέον· περὶ ὃ ὁ μολυσμός, περὶ τοῦτο καὶ ὁ καθαρμός. Ἔστι δὲ ἔννοια μολυσμοῦ ἀλλοτρίου προσθήκη, ἔννοια δέ ἐστι καθαρμοῦ ἀλλοτρίου ἀφαίρεσις. Γίνεται δὲ ὁ μολυσμὸς καὶ ἀπὸ τῆς ἄκρας ἡμῶν ψυχῆς ἄχρι καὶ τῶν ἐξηρτημένων ἐσχάτως ἡμῶν· καὶ πρόσφορος ἑκάστῳ καὶ ὁ καθαρμός…. Ἔστι καὶ τοῦ πνεύματος μολυσμός˙…. Ἔστι καὶ τῆς ἀλόγου ψυχῆς μολυσμὸς, ἐπιθυμίαι ἄλογοι καὶ θυμοί, ὧν πάλιν οἱ καθαρμοὶ καὶ διὰ ἠθικῆς φιλοσοφίας καὶ διὰ θεῶν βοηθείας γίνονται. Ἔστι δὲ καὶ τῆς λογικῆς ψυχῆς μολυσμός, ὅταν ἐκ ψευδῶν δοξασμάτων ψευδῆ παρ’ ἑαυτῇ συναγάγῃ καὶ ὕθλους ἀποτίκτῃ καὶ ψευδοδοξίας, ὧν ὁ ἔλεγχος καθαρμός ἐστι καὶ ἡ φιλοσοφία μὲν ἀπελατικὴ αὐτῶν, μάλιστα δὲ ἡ παρὰ τῶν θεῶν βοήθεια τελειοῦσα τὴν ψυχὴν καὶ εἰς τὸ ἀληθὲς ἄγουσα.

26. Hermias’ opinion that in this Platonic distinction the second type of madness is telestic is not shared by all modern scholars, though. For instance, Hackforth (1952: comm. ad loc.) has acknowledged the problem and tried to solve it, while Rowe (1986: comm. ad loc.) is very skeptical toward the possibility of this second type being identical with telestic madness. On the contrary, Yunis (2011: comm. ad loc.) considers this type identical to telestic madness.

27. In Phaedr. 79.8–17: Ἐπὶ ἑκάστου δὲ τούτων τῶν μολυσμῶν τρεῖς ἂν εὕροις ἄνδρας καὶ διαφοράς· ὁ μὲν γὰρ μολυνθεὶς καὶ βλαβεὶς οὐκ ᾔσθετο, ὧν ἐν πρώτοιςτάξει<ς> τὸν Ὅμηρον (πάντως γὰρ ἕπεται τῷ μολυσμῷ βλάβη διὰ τὸ οἰκεῖόν τι δαιμόνιον ἐπίστασθαι τὴν τοιάνδε τοῦ ἀνθρώπου ζωὴν καὶ ἐκείνῳ συντάττεσθαι), ὁ δὲ μολυνθεὶς καὶ βλαβεὶς ᾔσθετο μετὰ τὴν βλάβην, ὧν ἐστιν ὁ Στησίχορος, καὶ οὕτω μετὰ τὸ παθεῖν γνοὺς τὴν βλάβην ἰάσατο· τρίτος δέ ἐστιν ὁ μολυνθεὶς μέν, πρὶν δὲ βλαβῆναι ἰώμενος, ὧν ἐστι Σωκράτης (οὐ γὰρ παραχρῆμα ἕπεται ἡ βλάβη, ἀλλὰ γίνεταί τις μεταξὺ χρόνος).

28. Manolea (2004: 147–149).

29. In Phaedr. 79.17–23: Ὥσπερ οὖν φασιν οἱ ἰατροὶ ὅτι τὰ ἐναντία τῶν ἐναντίων ἰάματα, καὶ οὐχ ἁπλῶς, ἀλλὰ κατὰ τὸ αὐτὸ εἶδος τῆς ἐναντιώσεως καὶ κατὰ τὸ αὐτὸ μέρος καὶ κατὰ τὰ αὐτὰ μέτρα, οὕτω δὴ καὶ ἐνταῦθα ὁ Σωκράτης, ἐπειδὴ περὶ μυθολογίαν ἦν τὸ ἁμάρτημα καὶ ὁ μολυσμός (γίνεται γὰρ καὶ ἀπὸ ῥημάτων μολυσμός), κατὰ τὸ αὐτὸ πάλιν εἶδος καὶ ἰάσασθαι βούλεται· διὰ γὰρ τῆς μυθολογίας τε καὶ παλινῳδίας ἀποκαθήρασθαι καὶ ἰάσασθαι βούλεται τὸ ἁμάρτημα.

30. In Phaedr. 79.23–30: Ἀλλὰ πῶς ὁ Σωκράτης ἐμολύνθη διὰ τῶν λόγων, τοῦ ἀγαθοῦ ἕνεκα καὶ τῆς τοῦ νέου ὠφελείας μετὰ φρονήσεως τοὺς λόγους ποιούμενος; ὁ μὲν γὰρ Λυσίας μεμολύνθω καὶ διὰ τὴν προαίρεσιν, ὁ δὲ Σωκράτης πῶς; ἢ ἐπειδὴ περὶ κοιλοτέρας ἐνεργείας ἑαυτὸν ἐπιδέδωκε καὶ ὅλως …κάθαρσιν τῶν ἀλλοτρίων κακῶν καὶ τὴν οἵαν ποτὲ ἀπόβλεψιν εἰς αὐτά, καὶ ὅτι κατὰ τοῦ ὀνόματος τοῦ ἔρωτος εἶπεν, εἰ καὶ τοῦ ἀκολάστου, διὰ τοῦτο καθήρασθαι βούλεται ὡς μολυνθείς.

31. See, for instance, Parker (1983).

Chapter 5

1. See Proclus, in Tim. 7.25–8.1, where Proclus makes a distinction between the Socratic character and the Pythagorean character of the Timaeus. Also see the Introduction in this volume, where this passage is quoted in full.

2. For examples of those who follow the literary trend in reading the Platonic dialogues see Gordon (1999) and Blondell (2002). This form of reading Plato has taken a decisive lead in contemporary commentaries on the dialogues. For more on this see Tarrant (2000: 7), who notes that the twentieth-century move away from analytic trends in Platonic commentary echoes the Neoplatonic rejection of Middle Platonic hermeneutics that tended to neglect the literary elements in favor of focusing on Plato’s “arguments.” Of course, the Middle Platonists were responding to a tradition of commentary that may have overemphasized the literary elements, e.g., the Aristophanes of Byzantium and the Trasyllan tetrological approach.

3. The developmentalist trend was first championed in 1839 by K. F. Hermann, whose discovery of the “Socratic” dialogues led to the stylogistic research confirming this period in Plato’s thought. See Kahn (1998: 38–39). The list of those who rely on the developmentalist approach are too numerous to account for here, but one should mention Vlastos (1991), whose entire thesis of separating the historical Socrates from Plato’s dialogues rested on the premise that Plato’s thought develops and, as a result, the philosopher comes to reject many of Socrates’ methods and conclusions in his middle and later years of writing.

4. This chapter focuses mostly on the methods of reading a dialogue and thus answers the question of how the Neoplatonists read the character of Socrates. Chapter 6, by Michael Griffin, offers a clear and concise exposition of Socrates and the hypostatic level he resides at in the Neoplatonic system and thus answers the distinct question of what the character of Socrates means or represents for the Neoplatonists.

5. Proclus, in Parm. 618.11 where he praises Plato and Syrianus’s salvific influence.

6. See also Anon., Proleg. 16–17. See Mansfeld (1994: 29), who relates this schema to the preliminary issues that must be addressed before reading a Platonic dialogue while also showing how this hermeneutic was similarly used in approaching the texts of Aristotle.

7. See Coulter (1976: 95–103) for the groundbreaking history of identifying literature with a living thing or with a microcosm that resembles the macrocosm created by the Demiurge.

8. This attitude toward a text was in fact very natural for classical thinkers. Consider Aristophanes, who in a fragment from a lost play declares that books, just like sophists, have the same power to corrupt the young. He also comments concerning a young boy that “either a book has corrupted him, or Prodicus, or one of the sophists” (Aristophanes, Fr. 490K = 506K–A). I would like to thank Harold Tarrant for pointing me to this fragment and for further noting that Aristophanes clearly thought of the text as an active agent or subject in very much the same way that Socrates imagined the dynamic character of the text in the Phaedrus.

9. Plotinus, Enn. V, 2.1, and VI, 5–7.

10. Proclus, ET § 30, § 31, § 35.

11. More will be said later on the importance of Proclus’s doctrine of cyclical creativity near the end of this chapter, as I argue that the proper commentary of a Platonic dialogue must enact this cosmic universal process of rest, procession, and return. Only by doing this will the text itself and its reader engage with, i.e., return to, the Good.

12. For more information on the Neoplatonic polemic against the Aristotelian four causes via advancing five or six see Gerson (2005: 101–130) and Tarrant (2007a: 94 n. 12).

13. Cf. Olymp. in Alc. 56.17–22. For the groundbreaking work on the Neoplatonic identification of the text with a cosmos and demiurgic activity see Coulter (1976: 95–126). Coulter traces the historic movement of this idea from the Phaedrus and also the Timaeus but outlines as well how this reading is grounded in the literary theories of Cicero, Seneca, and Philo before he turns to the Neoplatonic expansion of this theme.

14. Van den Berg (2008: 99).

15. Van den Berg (2008: 99).

16. This is discussed in more detail later in the chapter.

17. Proclus, in Parm. 626.1–10.

18. Another example of the importance of the setting and time in Proclus’s exegesis of the dialogue comes when he observes the dramatic date of the conversation between Parmenides, Zeno, and Socrates—“the Greater Panathenaea.” In this context, Proclus connects this date to his understanding of the Timaeus that takes place during the Lesser Panathenaea. With regard to the latter, Proclus believes that this dialogue intentionally traces all things back to the cause of the physical cosmos, the Demiurge, while the Parmenides concerns itself with the cause of Being and the whole sphere of divine realities, thus explaining why the Parmenides takes place at the greater of the two festivals. See also Van den Berg (2001: 23–26), who contends that Proclus would have regarded both these dialogues as hymns written by Plato in honor of the “One and all the gods of the occasion of the Great Panathenaea.” See also Olymp., in Gorg. 0.3 1–10 for a discussion of the relevance of the setting in the Gorgias as one which shows how people “acquire knowledge and engage in dialogue.” For Olympiodorus, the fact that Socrates takes Chaerephon rather than attending alone shows that knowledge is acquired when “two go together.”

19. See Anon., Proleg. 17.1–25, for more on the various styles and their connection not simply to the Form but also to the Nature of the dialogue, i.e., “methods of procedure.” See also Dillon (1987: 4), who makes use of this distinction in his exegesis on Proclus’s commentary on the Parmenides and its connection with the “plain” or unadorned style and investigatory or mixed Nature. As I noted earlier, I have passed over the distinction between form and nature, i.e., the style versus the methods, for the sake of clarity, as Proclus, in his commentary on the Alcibiades I, seems to conflate this distinction. See again Proclus, in Alc. 10.6–15.

20. Cf. Olymp., in Gorg. 0.6, for a different account of the structure and form of this text. See Jackson, Lycos, and Tarrant (1998) for a discussion of Olympiodorus’s unique approach to the Gorgias.

21. See Anon., Proleg. 17.13–15. Cf. 27.1–65, where the author outlines fifteen different methods of instruction: (1) inspired prophecy, (2) demonstration, (3) definition, (4) division, (5) analysis, (6) indirect evidence, (7) metaphor, (8) example, (9) induction, (10) analogy, (11) arithmetic, (12) abstraction, (13) addition, (14) history, and (15) etymology.

22. Proclus, in Alc. 12.5–20.

23. Proclus, in Alc. 12.17.

24. Proclus, in Alc. 12.17.

25. Proclus, ET § 28.

26. Cf. Proclus, in Parm. 645.10–646.33 and in Tim. 7.18–8.13.

27. Consider also Proclus, de Prov. 2.1–10, where the Neoplatonist compares the world and its order to a great drama. In this analogy he waxes eloquently on the tragic mise-en-scène of human affairs and all the various “scenes” made by the great dramaturgy in order to summarize Theodore’s fears concerning his fatalistic view of the world. Here we see that, like Anonymous, Proclus has no trouble comparing the cosmos to a dialogue or drama. For a variety of discussions concerning the Neoplatonic identification/comparison of the dialogue with a cosmos see Coulter (1976), Dillon (1987: 3), Mansfeld (1994: 28–37), Tarrant (2000: 41).

28. A complete defense of dialogue form for Anonymous is as follows:

1.  The dialogue best resembles the cosmos, and as the cosmos has various parts, e.g., matter, form, soul, while still being a unity, so too the dialogue possesses a diversity of natures and characters while still being a unity.

2.  The cosmos is a kind of dialogue itself filled with superior and inferior elements that compete and blend together for the sake of the Good. This is comparable to a dialogue, as a dialogue has good and bad characters who are either questioned or question for the sake of some particular aim, i.e., for the sake of some good. Cf. Anon., Proleg. 14.8–22, where he emphasizes that Plato uses diverse characters in a wholly different way from tragedians. Unlike the authors of tragedy who use various characters, i.e., both heroes and villains, simply for the purpose of entertainment, Plato, like the maker of the cosmos, uses a diversity of characters (or elements) for the sake of the Good, and accordingly the villains, or the bad, are purified from their baseness, in much the same way as all parts of the cosmos from the highest to the lowest return to the Good. See also Olymp. in Gorg. 0.1 as well as Coulter (1976: 77–94) for the discussion of the concept of literary unity and its connection to the divine making of the Demiurge.

3.  The literary work is comparable to a living being, and as such the best literary work will resemble the most beautiful living being (i.e., the World-Soul). Consequently, since the dialogue form is most like the world or cosmos, it is the best literary form.

4.  Human beings naturally like stories and all other forms of imitation. Since the dialogue imitates the cosmos it is the best kind of imitation, i.e., it is the best story.

5.  Plato recognized that to teach people he could not present philosophy and philosophical ideas divorced from their connection to real people and real life. Discussing justice in the abstract would not compel anyone to be just.

6.  Dialogue form showcases the virtue and positive results of dialectical discussion and the discovery of latent knowledge in the depths of our souls.

29. Anon., Proleg. 16.15.

30. See Proclus, in Parm. 630.25. The nature of the skopos of a text in Neoplatonic hermeneutics has been much discussed. Consequently, there are too many works to reference exhaustively. The best introductions to the issues of skopos to my mind include Coulter (1976: 77–94), Mansfeld (1994: 28–36), Jackson, Lykos, and Tarrant (1998: 23–24), Tarrant (2000: 92–94), and Tarrant (2007a: 47).

31. Anon., Proleg. 17.25. Consider also 21.1–23.28, where Anonymous outlines the ten rules for establishing the skopos of the dialogue: (1) it must be one and not many; (2) it must be general and comprehensive over particular; (3) it must deal with the total versus only a part of the dialogue; (4) it must be an exact aim versus an approximate; (5) it should deal with higher themes over lower ones; (6) the skopos must be in agreement with all the parts of the text; (7) it cannot be for the sake of merely criticizing or finding fault with revivals; (8) the theme should not be concerned with emotions or affections, as this may cause the reader to be dragged back down into matter, e.g., the Philebus is not about pleasure; (9) the dialogue is not about a method, i.e., merely showcasing instruments of philosophy versus the true objects of philosophy; and (10) the theme should not be concerned solely with the Matter or characters of the dialogue.

32. Cf. Hermias, in Phdr. 6–9.

33. Van den Berg (2001: 97–98).

34. See also Proclus, in Tim. 1.1.4–8 and in Remp. 1.2.8–13 for further examples of Proclus’s analysis of the skopos of particular dialogues. See also Jackson, Lycos, and Tarrant (1998: 13–14), who offer a comprehensive list of the skopos of each dialogue in the Neoplatonic curriculum established by Iamblichus, as well as Mansfeld (1994: 32–36).

35. For more information on the importance of preludes in both Plato’s dialogues as well as Neoplatonic commentary see Mansfeld (1994).

36. Proclus, in Parm. 659.15.

37. See Tarrant (2000: 39), where he points out that Proclus’s interpretation of the prologues reflects a polemic against the Middle Platonists who reduced these moments to mere ethical lessons. See Proclus, in Parm. 659.1–15. See also Dillon (1987: 47).

38. See in Parm. 626.1–630.15, where Proclus insists on showing how all of the opening characters, even the indeterminate audience being narrated to by Cephalus, contribute to an understanding of the skopos of Being itself. This, of course, is more easily seen insofar as the indeterminate audience, which corresponds to matter in Proclus’s eyes, desires to hear of the higher realities in their eagerness to hear of the conversation between Parmenides (Unparticipated/Divine Intellect or Being), Zeno (Participate Intellect or Life), and Socrates (Participating Intellect or Particular Intellect).

39. Proclus, in Alc. 18.13–16.

40. Cf. Proclus, in Tim. 65.22–28, and Anon., Proleg. 3.21–30, where the anonymous author argues that a logoi sokratikoi like Plato’s may capture the spirit of Socrates without being historically accurate. Leaning on the certainly invented anecdote of Diogenes Laertius, Anonymous writes that when Socrates got hold of the Lysis he read it and said, “This young man takes me wherever he likes and as far as he likes and makes me talk to whoever [sic] he likes.” Regardless of whether this is a true or an invented story does not matter for the purposes of this chapter, as it merely points to the author’s belief that Plato was not aiming for historical accuracy, i.e., to record the actual conversations Socrates had, but was simply capturing the spirit of Socrates which is shown insofar as Socrates recognizes himself in the dialogue. See also 16.28–34, where the author clarifies how Plato was more concerned with his overall aim in each dialogue than with historical accuracy.

41. Once again I would like to be careful about inadvertently regarding the literary features as what is merely supplemental or as an extraneous addition imposed upon something already complete. The dialogue form and important dramatic devices like the prologues or settings are not window dressing for Proclus, a charming addition masking the content, naively identified with the logical arguments. As Proclus contends, in identifying the text with a harmonious being, the form and matter portion of the dialogue is not extraneous, a spare part that can be removed from the whole. Quite to the contrary, this part, if removed, would change the whole, the skopos of the dialogue, as the skopos is identified not with the mere arguments/formal proofs but with the whole/unity of all the various parts of the dialogue. Accordingly, the dramatic aspects of Plato’s dialogues may be likened to the body of a being without which the soul and intellect of the text could never be seen, could not emerge as what they are. Put otherwise, only in minding these features of the dialogue can the text be what it is, i.e., have a definite form or meaning and consequently reveal, indicate, or, in Proclus’s language, return to its aim, the skopos of the dialogue.

42. Proclus, in Alc. 19.13.

43. Proclus, in Alc. 5.11–20.

44. Dillon (1987: 4).

45. Proclus, in Alc. 7.1–10. Cf. Anon., Proleg. 23.20–27.

46. Consider also Proclus, in Tim. 5.23–6.7, where he comments on the relationship that the skopos of the Timaeus should have with its reader: “In conformity with Pythagorean custom, [Timaeus] had to link his object of study with an account of the studying subject…. For the totality is always in a state of well-being, and our part too will be well-off when likened to the All…. Whenever the earthly human being is assimilated to the universe, he will also be imitating his own paradigm in the appropriate fashion, becoming orderly (kosmios) through his likeness to the cosmos, and well-off through his being modeled on a god who enjoys well-being” (tr. Tarrant: 2007a). See also 8.9–10 as well as Plato, Timaeus 29b.

47. Proclus, in Alc. 152.18–25.

48. See also in Remp. I.67.10–25 where Proclus asserts that the goal or telos of the poet is not to please one’s audience but is nothing other than the good. See Tarrant (2008: 13–14) for a concise list of the different aims of each dialogue in the Iamblichean canon.

49. Further, it should be noted that for Proclus it does not matter if the metaphysical analogues that he advances concerning the dialogues actually correspond to Plato’s actual intent as author. As he writes just after discussing the specific analogues of the Parmenides,

In general these analogies should not be taken as unimportant, especially if we believe Plato, who said that nothing else is so beneficial to the soul as what draws it from phenomena to being, freeing us from the former and making it easy for us to imagine immaterial nature with the help of these. Such an influence is the lover, the philosopher, and everyone who is moving upwards. So that even if Plato himself did not formulate these matters in this way, it would be beneficial for us to do so, for it is a good exercise for a well-endowed soul which is capable of moving from images to their archetypes and delights in observing these all-pervading analogies. (Proclus, in Parm. 675–676, tr. Morrow and Dillon)

In short, the practice of informed exegesis is a virtuous activity itself. Consider here the parallels between Pierre Hadot’s observations that such exegesis is a “spiritual exercise,” or in more Foucauldian language what matters in approaching a text is not propositional truth but truth as the “care of oneself.”

Chapter 6

1. See Westerink (1962: xxxix and xl), Dillon (1973), and Table 2.

2. In the limited scope of this chapter, I aim to illustrate a few examples of the “Socrates allegory” operating in later antique commentary, and to identify the target of the metaphor. I touch only briefly on wider questions about Neoplatonic semantic theory and allegoresis in general; thus this specific case study might be regarded as a companion piece to the broader treatment of Neoplatonic exegetical technique developed by Danielle Layne in Chapter 5 of this volume. In my use of English words like “analogy” and “allegory” I am already glossing and perhaps blurring some rather complex problems discussed in various contexts by Rappe, Praechter, Lloyd, Tarrant, and Dillon, among others; on the history of metaphor and analogy in antiquity more broadly, see Boys-Stones (2003).

3. A position articulated explicitly in Hathaway (1969).

4. See notes in Segonds (1986: 35).

5. The real target is a little more complicated, as we shall see, because Alcibiades is the rational part of soul, and Socrates can be regarded as both nous simpliciter and the nous of soul; but this will not prove to be a serious difficulty, as it will become clear that we are dealing here with the triad of the soul, Socrates functioning as its highest term and the lowest term of the triad above.

6. For convenience, I am using colons to represent ratios as in basic mathematical notation, so that the following chart would be read: Socrates is to Alcibiades and Alcibiades is to the base lovers as Nous of Psyche is to Rational Psyche and as Rational Psyche is to Matter.

7. On this passage specifically in Olympiodorus, see recently Tarrant (2007c).

8. On the psychic tripartition, cf. 1.13 and see notes ad loc. in Jackson et al., and, with Westerink, compare Proclus in Remp. 2.176.4–9 on Callicles and Thrasymachus.

9. See, e.g., Mansfeld (1994) and Hadot (1996).

10. Damascius (c. 435/445–517/526) succeeded Proclus, Marinus, and Isidore in the chair of the Athenian school; his commentaries often preserve lost extracts from Proclus, on whom he is dependent, but of whose ideas he is sometimes critical. He heard lectures by Ammonius, who taught Olympiodorus. I treat Damascius’s commentary as belonging (so far as the allegoresis of characters in Plato is concerned) to the same broad exegetical milieu as Proclus and the Alexandrian school; indeed, Damascius’s commentary on Philebus was for some time mistaken as a work of Olympiodorus.

11. See Dillon (1997).

12. Compare in T3, Olymp. in Gorg. 0.8, the language that Chaerephon mimeitai the monad. See also Layne in Chapter 5 and the Introduction to this volume for abbreviated uses of this quote.

13. See Proclus, in Alc. 10, where, as Layne also partially quotes in her text, he writes:

Each [dialogue] must possess what the whole cosmos possesses: and an analogous part must be assigned therein to the good, part to the intellect, part to the soul, part to the form, and part to the underlying nature itself. Let it then be stated that in this work proportionate to the good is conformity to the divine through the care of ourselves, to the intellect the knowledge of ourselves, to the soul the wealth of demonstrations leading us to this conclusion, and practically the whole syllogistic part of the dialogue; for the form there remains the style of the diction and the interweaving of the figures of speech, and of the literary forms, and what else belongs to stylistic ability; and for the matter the persons and the time and what is called by some the plot. Now these exist in every dialogue, but as regards the question under discussion, the object of this work is the knowledge of our being, and we are lovers of this knowledge in order that we may attain our own perfection. As among the causative principles themselves the intellect depends on the good, so likewise in this matter, the object of enquiry in the dialogue is closely united with the purpose of the conversation; and the purpose is just such as we have said. (tr. O’Neill)

14. Cf. Dillon (1997).

15. Frede (1992: 217).

16. Cf. Frede (1992: 216), Vlastos (1983).

17. See Frede (1992), Press (2000), Rowe (2007).

18. Renaud (2004: 184).

Chapter 7

1. See Rappe (2000: 1–23) for an overview of this position as distinctly Neoplatonic. The Neoplatonic view that self-knowledge is knowledge of soul differs from many modern interpreters, who variously understand self-knowledge as knowledge of one’s own ignorance (Ballard: 1965), as knowledge of knowledge (Mackenzie: 1988), and as moderation (Schmid: 1983).

2. Concerning just the elenchus alone, see Benson (2002), who argues that Socrates simply wishes to show his interlocutors’ inconsistencies in their own beliefs, and Vlastos (1983), who argues that Socrates wants to replace his interlocutors’ false beliefs with his own true beliefs. For a discussion of the elenchus in the Alcibiades I see Ambury (2011).

3. Proclus, in Alc. 51.5–6.

4. See Van den Berg (2001: 190–207) for an interpretation of Proclean Eros in light of Proclus’s Hymn to Aphrodite (ΕΙΣ ΑΦΡΟΔΙΤΗΝ). There is considerable debate about the direction of Eros in Proclus. Van den Berg’s note on the debate is instructive (2001, n. 11). Nygren (1953: 570) seems to think that in the Platonic tradition Eros only ascends, and therefore argues that any trace of a descending Eros in Proclus and Neoplatonist philosophy more generally should be traced back to some Christian influence. For the view that there is strong precedent for locating both sorts of Eros in Proclus and Neoplatonism, see Rist (1964: 213–216 and 1966). For Plotinus specifically see Remes (2008: 157–160).

5. Proclus, in Alc. 53.3–8.

6. We therefore might also think of Socrates as a representation of Eros, provided we follow the Neoplatonic usage of such a term. See Rappe (2000: 11–17) for a discussion of the Neoplatonic understanding of symbols, images, and representations and the way such understanding differs from many modern theories of semiotics and textual hermeneutics.

7. Proclus, in Alc. 30.22–24. Proclus, in Alc. 28, also argues that Socrates appeals to his interlocutors in different ways, based on their natures and requirements. Socrates attempts to perfect Alcibiades through love, uniting him with divine Beauty.

8. See Siorvanes (1996: 189–199) for a discussion of Proclus’s three paths to the One—Love (ἔρως), Truth (ἀληθεία), and Faith (πίστις).

9. Proclus, in Alc. 27.3–6.

10. Proclus, in Alc. 42.8–43.2.

11. Proclus, in Alc. 40.1–3. Cf. Van den Berg’s analysis of the Hymn to Aphrodite (2001: 199), in which bad love makes souls fall in love with the material cosmos.

12. Proclus, in Alc. 43.7–9. Proclus, in Alc. 65.21–66.5, also claims that the love that subsists in souls is analogous to intellect. The first two kinds of love are love among the gods (analogous to unparticipated Intellect) and love among the spirits (analogous to participated Intellect).

13. Proclus, in Alc. 43.20–24.

14. Proclus, in Alc. 190.17–21.

15. Cf. Phaedrus 247c, 265c on the intellect as helmsman of the soul. That soul is in between intellect and matter suggests that the ultimate success of the seduction depends on soul itself. See Manos (1995: 58–59).

16. Proclus, in Alc. 208.1–4.

17. Cf. Theaetetus 175b–d. The philosopher attempts to draw someone to a higher level by asking questions about justice and injustice in themselves (αὐτῆς δικαιοσύνης τε καὶ ἀδικίας) instead of asking about “my injustice toward you or you toward me” (τί ἐγὼ σέ ἀδικῶ ἢ σὺ ἐμέ).

18. Proclus claims that this guardian spirit is not to be identified with individual intellect. See Proclus, in Alc. 73–84. Proclus, in Alc. 114.10–14, also remarks that neither Pericles nor any other human being is our proper guardian. Cf. 124a, where Socrates claims that his guardian, the god, is a better guardian than Pericles. For Socrates’ daimon cf. Apology 31d, Phaedrus 242b–c, and Theages 128d.

19. Proclus, in Alc. 140.18–19. Cf. Socrates’ claims in the Republic 514a and 518b–d, that the prisoners in the cave cannot turn around (περιάγειν) and that philosophical education assumes the soul can see but that it is not turned the right way or looking where it ought to look (οὐκ ὀρθῶς δὲ τετραμμένῳ οὐδε βλέποντι οἷ ἔδει).

20. Proclus, in Alc. 154.4–8.

21. Pace DeMarzio (2007: 115), who argues that Socrates appeals to Alcibiades’ political interests without any intention of redirecting them.

22. Proclus, in Alc. 107.23–25.

23. Proclus, in Alc. 92.8–15.

24. Cf. Phaedrus 249d.

25. Proclus, in Alc. 172.8–10. In the Alcibiades (132d–133c) it is not specifically lovers who do this (as in Phaedrus 255c–d), but given the context—in which Socrates has just claimed he is Alcibiades’ only true lover—Proclus seems to characterize dialectic appropriately. Additionally, though Proclus distinguishes between erotic science, maieutic, and dialectic, it is evident that he recognizes their interrelation. See Kaproulias (2005).

26. Socrates’ erotic comportment therefore does not disappear once his formal arguments begin. Thus Schomakers (2008: 596) claims that Proclus’s understanding of “negative theology” is that it creates a desire that impels us to move toward the One. Proclus, in Alc. 170.5–12, also claims that dialectic makes the listener more attentive to the speaker than he would be during a speech, and that dialectic purifies the listener from twofold ignorance. Cf. Proclus, in Alc. 314.1–8. For more on Proclus and double ignorance see Layne (2009, Forthcoming c and d).

27. Proclus, in Alc. 171.1–3. See Marler (1993) for an analysis of the role causal reasoning plays in Alcibiades’ reversion upon intellect.

28. Proclus, in Alc. 277.20–23. Cf. Layne (2009).

29. Proclus, in Alc. 35.10–13.

30. Cf. Republic 382a, where Socrates claims no one would willingly tell falsehoods to the most authoritative aspect of himself (τῷ κυριωτάτῳ ἑαυτῶν) about the most authoritative things (περὶ τὰ κυριώτατα), which he equates with beings (τὰ ὄντα).

31. Proclus, in Alc. 220.16–17. Cf. also Republic 431e, in which moderation is characterized as power over oneself (κρείττω δὴ αὑτου).

32. Proclus, in Alc. 35.13–22.

33. Proclus, in Alc. 209.5, 300.13–301.7.

34. Cf. Charmides 154d–e, where Socrates claims that they must strip Charmides to see whether he is beautiful in soul even though he is clearly beautiful in body.

35. Proclus, in Alc. 95.7–26. On Plato’s soul as indeterminate activity, see Demos (1978).

36. Cf. Socrates in Gorgias 482a–b comparing his two loves: philosophy, which always says the same things, and the son of Kleinias, who differs from one moment to the next.

37. Proclus, in Alc. 36.5–11.

38. Proclus, in Alc. 44.9–45.6.

39. Symposium 217c.

40. Symposium 218e. This does not mean that Socrates is solely interested in abstract objects of love, as Vlastos (1973) argues. Rather, Socrates loves Alcibiades as the beautiful soul that allows him to glimpse Beauty itself (Symposium 209c, 210c) in such a way that he is never simply a stepping-stone on the way to abstract truth. See Lawrence (2003).

41. Proclus, in Alc. 90.1–3. Cf. Socrates’ remark in the Republic (492e–493a) that if anyone escapes the education of the many, he has been saved by divine dispensation (θεοῦ μοῖραν αὐτὸ σῶσαι).

42. Symposium 218a–b and 216a–c.

43. Proclus, in Alc. 36.11–15. Cf. Plato, Letter VII, 344a: “Neither quickness of learning nor a good memory can make a man see when his nature is not akin to the object, for this knowledge never takes root in an alien nature.” Cf. also Phaedo 79d in which the soul is said to be akin to the Forms.

44. Proclus, in Alc. 57.6–8.

45. Proclus, in Alc. 253.13–15. Cf. Proclus, in Alc. 39.10–16: “As in the intelligent considerations of philosophy obstacles are raised by the sophist’s way of life and the association with it that drags away the less perfect from the consideration of reality to the appearance that corresponds to the coming-to-be and passing-away, so also in the elevation to divine love the multitude of common lovers becomes an obstacle by assuming the character of the true lover and dragging down the soul of the youth.”

46. One of the disappointing aspects of the few modern interpretations of the Alcibiades is that they simply ignore the erotic aspect of Socrates’ character. For instance, Schleiermacher (1836) attacks the authenticity of the Alcibiades on the grounds that all reference to Socrates’ love for Alcibiades is omitted insofar as he has not approached Alcibiades until his looks are fading. Aside from the fact that Socrates begins the dialogue talking about his love for Alcibiades (103c), for Proclus we should expect that he has stayed away, not because he does not love Alcibiades, but because Socrates is the only person capable of truly loving him. Those modern commentators who do account for Socratic ἔρως include Denyer (2001) and especially Gordon (2003).

Chapter 8

This brief chapter belongs to a series of investigations into Olympiodorus as a Platonic commentator, involving the Alcibiades I and its reception in antiquity; see for example Renaud (2006, 2007, 2008, and 2012). I would like warmly to thank Harold Tarrant for kindly taking it upon himself to translate the French text, and so elegantly.

1. Alcibiades I (= Alc.) 110e2–3: Παρὰ τῶν πολλῶν. (References are to the text of J. Burnet, 1900.)

2. Alc. 114b1–2: πότερον δὲ ταὐτά ἐστι δίκαιά τε καὶ συμφέροντ’ ἢ ἕτερα.

3. Alc. 118e8: Ἐγὼ οἶμαι αἴτιος οὐ προσέχων τὸν νοῦν. Cf. Plutarch, Alc. 8.1–3.

4. Cf. Tarrant (1998: 4).

5. In Gorgiam commentaria (= in Gorg.) 41.6: παρὰ γὰρ Σωκράτους τὰ ἠθικὰ ὠφέλητο μόνον, ἃ διὰ θεμελίους εἰλήφει· νέος γὰρ ἦν ἔτι Σωκράτους ἀποθανόντος καὶ οὐδέπω ἦν ἁψάμενος τῶν βαθυτέρων τοῦ Σωκράτους λόγων.

6. In Alcibiadem commentaria (= in Alc.) 2.149–152: καὶ γὰρ καὶ τῆς Σωκρατικῆς εἰρωνείας ἀπήλλακτο καὶ τοῦ ἐν ἀγορᾷ καὶ ἐπὶ τῶν ἐργαστηρίων διατρίβειν καὶ τοὺς νέους θηρῶντα ποιεῖσθαι τοὺς λόγους.

7. In Alc. 88.5–6: ὡς μὲν οὖν ἐρωτικὸς ὁ Σωκράτης ἠγνόει τὸ δίκαιον ἀγνοοῦντος τοῦ νέου, ὡς δὲ διδάσκαλος ἠπίστατο. As for 124a–c, where Socrates declares himself in search of self-knowledge, the single type of self-knowledge that Socrates does not possess, according to Olympiodorus, is the highest of the seven degrees of knowledge.

8. In Alc. 56.9–57.4: τὸ διαλογικὸν σχῆμα καὶ ἡ κατὰ βραχὺ τῶν λόγων διαπλοκὴ κατὰ πεῦσιν γινομένη καὶ ἀπόκρισιν. ἤ, ὥς φησιν ἐν τῷ Φαίδρῳ, ‘δεῖ τὸν λόγον ἐοικέναι ζῴῳ’…. ὥσπερ οὖν οὗτος λειμών ἐστι ποικίλων ζῴων, οὕτω δεῖ καὶ τὸν λόγον εἶναι πλήρη παντοδαπῶν προσώπων…. ὅτι τὸ κατ’ ἐρώτησιν καὶ ἀπόκρισιν σχῆμα διεγερτικόν ἐστιν καὶ ἐπιστρεπτικόν. τοιγαροῦν καὶ οἱ ῥήτορες, ὅτε βούλονται διεγεῖραι τὸν ἀκροατὴν ἢ ἐπιστρέψαι <πρὸς> τὸν λόγον, αὐτῷ κέχρηνται, οἶον ‘ἀλλά μοι ἀπόκριναι, πρὸς θεῶν’.

9. Cf. Sophist 230b–e.

10. In Alc. 89.13–17: Καὶ τἀληθῆ ἀποκρίνου, ἵνα μὴ μάτην οἱ διάλογοι γίνωνται: … ἐπειδὴ μερικαί εἰσι καὶ ἀπὸ ἱστορίας εἰλημμέναι, αἰτεῖ αὐτὸν ἀληθεῦσαι.

11. In Alc. 7.4–8: ὁ οὖν Σωκράτης οὐχ οὕτως ἐπανορθοῦται τὰς ψυχάς, ὥσπερ οἱ προειρημένοι, ἀλλὰ διὰ τῶν ὁμοίων μᾶλλον· εἰ μέν τίς ἐστιν ἐρωτικός, λέγων ‘μάθε τίς ὁ τῶν καλῶν ἔρως’· εἰ δέ τις φιλοχρήματος, φαμὲν ‘μάθε τί τὸ αὔταρκες’· εἰ δὲ φιλήδονος, ‘τίς ἡ ἀληθῶς ῥᾳστώνη, ἣν καὶ θεοῖς ὁ ποιητὴς ἀνατίθησι, λέγων “θεοὶ ῥεῖα ζώοντες.”’ On dialectic as purification in Plato, cf. Rep. 533d2–4, 527e1–3.

12. Cf. Tarrant (2000, 116–118).

13. In Alc. 62.4–8: δυσχερὲς ἦν καὶ χαλεπὸν τὸ ἀποκρίνεσθαι· ἐπειδὴ δὲ Σωκράτης ἐστὶν ὁ μαιευτικὸς καὶ πρὸς ὠφέλειαν καὶ διόρθωσιν τῶν νέων σκοπῶν, εἰκότως οὐ χαλεπόν, τοὐναντίον δὲ μᾶλλον τὸ ἐρωτᾶν χαλεπόν, καθάπερ καὶ ἐν ὁδῷ τὸ ἡγεῖσθαι τοῦ ἕπεσθαι.

14. Alc. 110b1–2: Πολλάκις σοῦ ἐν διδασκάλων ἤκουον παιδὸς ὄντος καὶ ἄλλοθι; Alc. 106e4–9: ταῦτ’ ἐστὶν ἃ σὺ ἐπίστασαι, εἰ μή πού τι μανθάνων ἐμὲ λέληθας· οἶμαι δέ γε, οὔτε νύκτωρ οὔτε μεθ’ ἡμέραν ἐξιὼν ἔνδοθεν.

15. Alc. 104c3: ὅθεν δὴ εὖ οἶδα ὅτι θαυμάζεις; Alcibiades confirms it (104d4): τῷ ὄντι γὰρ θαυμάζω.

16. In Alc. 62.22–23: Τριῶν ὄντων τούτων στοιχείων ἀγαθοῦ συμβούλου, προαιρέσεως ἀγαθῆς, γνώσεως ἀκριβοῦς, δυνάμεως ἀπαγγελτικῆς; in Alc. 41.10–12: στοιχεῖα δὲ καὶ τεκμήρια ἐνθέου ἐραστοῦ λέγει δύο ταῦτα, ὅτι δεῖ τὸν ἔνθεον ἐραστὴν καὶ κρίσιν ἔχειν καὶ συμπάθειαν. Cf. in Gorg. 145.23–146.10.

17. E.g., Gorgias 448c1–3, 462a3–5; cf. Prt. 338c7–d3.

18. Alc. 113b1–2: Οὐκοῦν ἄρτι διὰ παντὸς ἐγὼ μὲν ἦ ὁ ἐρωτῶν.

19. Alc. 114b2–5: τί οὐκ ἀπέδειξας; εἰ μὲν βούλει, ἐρωτῶν με ὥσπερ ἐγὼ σέ, εἰ δέ, καὶ αὐτὸς ἐπὶ σεαυτοῦ λόγῳ διέξελθε. Cf. 114d4–7: Ἴθι νῦν, ἐπειδὴ τοῦ αὐτοῦ φαίνεται πολλούς τε καὶ ἕνα πείθειν, ἐν ἐμοὶ ἐμμελέτησον καὶ ἐπιχείρησον ἐπιδεῖξαι ὡς τὸ δίκαιον ἐνίοτε οὐ συμφέρει.—Ὑβριστὴς εἶ, ὦ Σώκρατες. Cf. 106c1–4.

20. Alc. 113a1–2: Περὶ δὴ τούτων μῶν ἐγὼ φαίνομαι λέγων ὁ ἐρωτῶν, ἢ σὺ ὁ ἀποκρινόμενος.

21. Alc. 110a2–3.

22. Alc. 105e6–7: οὐκ εἴα ὁ θεὸς διαλέγεσθαι, ἵνα μὴ μάτην. Cf. 113c4.

23. Cf. Gorgias 495a; Republic 350e.

24. In Alc. 99.13–15: καὶ ὅτι πολλάκις δίδωσιν ὁ προσδιαλεγόμενος προτάσεις τοιαύτας μὴ δοκούσας τῷ ἐρωτῶντι, ἐξ ὧν σύγκειται ὁ συλλογισμός.

25. E.g., Alc. 114d11–e2: Ἐκ μὲν ὧν σὺ λέγεις οὐκ εἰκός.—Ὁρᾷς αὖ τοῦθ’ ὡς οὐ καλῶς εἶπες, ὦ Ἀλκιβιάδη; 112d10–e1: Ἀποκρίνου μόνον τὰ ἐρωτώμενα.—Μή, ἀλλὰ σὺ αὐτὸς λέγε.—Τί δ’; οὐχ ὅτι μάλιστα βούλει πεισθῆναι.

26. Alc. 114e10–115a1: Οὔτοι, ἀλλ’ ἀποκριτέον· καὶ γὰρ οὐδὲν οἴομαι βλαβήσεσθαι.—Μαντικὸς γὰρ εἶ. Cf. Gorgias 475d5–6, where Socrates says to Polos: μὴ ὄκνει ἀποκρίνασθαι, ὦ Πῶλε· οὐδὲν γὰρ βλαβήσῃ.

27. Alc. 113c5–7: μανικὸν γὰρ ἐν νῷ ἔχεις ἐπιχείρημα ἐπιχειρεῖν, ὦ βέλτιστε, διδάσκειν ἃ οὐκ οἶσθα, ἀμελήσας μανθάνειν. Cf. in Alc. 63.9–10, 67.22.

28. Cf. Gorgias 448d–e, 451d–e, 489e.

29. In Alc. 80.12–81.10: τριχῶς δὲ ἐν τούτοις ἁμαρτάνει. πρῶτον μὲν ὅτι ἓν ἐρωτηθεὶς τρία ἀπεκρίνατο. δεύτερον ὅτι οὐχ ἁπλᾶ ταῦτα, ἀλλ’ ἐπαμφοτερίζοντα … τρίτον ἁμαρτάνει ὅτι αὐτὸς μὲν ὡς τρία προήγαγε τὸ ἀπατᾶσθαι ἢ βιάζεσθαι ἢ ἀποστερεῖσθαι, κοινὸν δέ ἐστιν εἰπεῖν ἐπ’ αὐτῶν τὴν ἀδικίαν· … ἔδει οὖν αὐτὸν τὸ κοινὸν εἰπόντα μὴ οὕτως ὡς τρία ταῦτα προαγαγεῖν.

30. In Alc. 92.4–9: σημεῖον δὲ ἀγνοίας καὶ ἀνεπιστημοσύνης ἡ ἀσυμφωνία· οὐχ ὅτι οἱ συμφωνοῦντες ἀλλήλοις πάντως ἐπιστήμονές εἰσιν (διὰ τοὺς Δημοκριτείους, συμφωνοῦντας μὲν περὶ τοῦ κενοῦ ὅτι ἐστίν, ἀνεπιστήμονας δὲ διὰ τοῦτο ὄντας, οὐκ ἔστι γάρ), ἀλλ’ οἱ μὲν ἐπιστήμονες συμφωνοῦσιν ἀλλήλοις, κατὰ τὴν σὺν ἀντιθέσει ἀντιστροφὴν ἀπὸ τοῦ ἑπομένου γινομένην οἱ μὴ συμφωνοῦντες ἀνεπιστήμονές εἰσιν.

31. Tarrant (1997a: 188).

32. In Gorg. 19.1; cf. 41.9; cf. Alc. 114e, Phd. 91c.

33. Gorgias 472b–c, 482c–d. Cf. Denyer (2001: 142).

34. Alc. 111b3–5: Οὐκοῦν τοὺς εἰδότας ὁμολογεῖν τε ἀλλήλοις καὶ μὴ διαφέρεσθαι.

35. Alc. 117a5–6: Περὶ ὧν ἄρα ἄκων τἀναντία ἀποκρίνῃ, δῆλον ὅτι περὶ τούτων οὐκ οἶσθα; cf. 117b2–3. There is, however, just a glimpse of the idea of agreement with oneself at 111d11–e2: Ἱκανὸν δέ σοι τεκμήριον ὅτι οὐκ ἐπίστανται οὐδὲ κρήγυοι διδάσκαλοί εἰσιν τούτων, ἐπειδὴ οὐδὲν ὁμολογοῦσιν ἑαυτοῖς περὶ αὐτῶν.

36. Vlastos (1994: 25–29); cf. Tarrant (1998: 10).

37. Alc. 118b5–6: ἐπειδὴ μόνω ἐσμέν, ῥητέον.

38. E.g., Alc. 108b4–5: Ἀλλὰ πειρῶ ἐμὲ μιμεῖσθαι.

39. Alc. 116e5: ἀγνοεῖς τὸ πάθημα τί ἐστιν.

40. Alc. 127e9: τί ἐστιν τὸ ἑαυτοῦ ἐπιμελεῖσθαι.

41. Alc. 130c2–3: ἢ εἴπερ τί ἐστι, μηδὲν ἄλλο τὸν ἄνθρωπον συμβαίνειν ἢ ψυχήν. This is one of the examples that Aristotle gives of this type of question, the fourth of his classification, Analytica posteriora B 1, 89b23–35.

42. Alc. 105a3–5: ἴσως ἂν οὖν εἴποις, ἅτε εἰδὼς ὅτι ἀληθῆ λέγω, “Τί δὴ οὖν, ὦ Σώκρατες, τοῦτ’ ἐστί σοι πρὸς λόγον”; Alc. 105c7–d1: δοκεῖς γάρ μοι, εἴ τίς σοι εἴποι θεῶν· “Ὦ Ἀλκιβιάδη, πότερον βούλει ζῆν ἔχων ἃ νῦν ἔχεις, ἢ αὐτίκα τεθνάναι εἰ μή σοι ἐξέσται μείζω κτήσασθαι.”

43. Alc. 108e5–109a3: Ἀλλὰ μέντοι αἰσχρόν γε εἰ μέν τις σε λέγοντα καὶ συμβουλεύοντα περὶ σιτίων ὅτι βέλτιον τόδε τοῦδε καὶ νῦν καὶ τοσοῦτον, ἔπειτα ἐρωτήσειεν “Τί τὸ ἄμεινον λέγεις, ὦ Ἀλκιβιάδη”; περὶ μὲν τούτων ἔχειν εἰπεῖν ὅτι τὸ ὑγιεινότερον, καίτοι οὐ προσποιῇ γε ἰατρὸς εἶναι· περὶ δὲ οὗ προσποιῇ ἐπιστήμων εἶναι καὶ συμβουλεύσεις ἀνιστάμενος ὡς εἰδώς, τούτου δ’, ὡς ἔοικας, πέρι ἐρωτηθεὶς ἐὰν μὴ ἔχῃς εἰπεῖν, οὐκ αἰσχύνῃ; ἢ οὐκ αἰσχρὸν φανεῖται.

44. In Alc. 102.27–103.9: [Οὐκοῦν ἐλέχθη ὅτι περὶ δικαίων ὁ Ἀλκιβιάδης]: καὶ ἐπειδὴ φορτικόν ἐστι τὸ ἐξ οἰκείου προσώπου προσφέρειν τοὺς ἐλέγχους—οὕτω γὰρ καὶ παρὰ τῷ ποιητῇ ὁ Φοῖνιξ βουλόμενος καταδρομῇ χρήσασθαι ἐλέγχων κατὰ τοῦ Ἀχιλλέως οὐκ ἐκ προσώπου οἰκείου εἰσάγει τοὺς λόγους, ἀλλ’ εἰσαγαγὼν τὸν Πηλέα οὕτως ἐλέγχει· … ὁ δὲ Σωκράτης οὐκ ἀρκεῖται τῷ ἄλλῳ προσώπῳ χρήσασθαι, ἀλλὰ χρῆται καὶ τῷ ἐλεγχομένῳ πρὸς μείζονα καταδρομήν, λέγων ὅτι ‘ἐλέχθη ὑπὸ Ἀλκιβιάδου ὅτι μὴ εἰδὼς τὸ δίκαιον μέλλει συμβουλεύειν περὶ ὧν οὐκ οἶδεν’.

45. On these hypothetical questions, see the detailed study of Longo (2000: 93–220).

46. Cf. Denyer (2001: 150).

47. In Alc. 106.9–14: Τί οὖν; εἰ ὅτι μάλιστα ἕτερα μὲν τὰ δίκαια: ἄρχεται τοῦ ἐλέγχου καὶ δείκνυσιν αὐτὸν μὴ εἰδότα τὰ συμφέροντα ἐκ τῆς ἀντιπαραστάσεως, διότι πολλῶν λόγων δεῖται ἡ ἔνστασις εἰς τὸ δεῖξαι ὅτι ταὐτὸν δίκαιον καὶ συμφέρον, ὃ ἐφεξῆς ποιήσει· νῦν δέ φησιν ὅτι ‘εἰ μὲν ταὐτόν ἐστι τὸ δίκαιον καὶ τὸ συμφέρον, ἐδείχθης δὲ μὴ εἰδὼς τὸ δίκαιον, οὐκοῦν καὶ τὸ συμφέρον· εἰ δὲ ἕτερον, δειχθείης δὲ μὴ εἰδὼς τὸ συμφέρον διὰ τῶν αὐτῶν λόγων, δύο ἀνθ’ ἑνὸς δειχθήσῃ ἀγνοῶν’; see also the French translation of Segonds (Proclus 1985–1986: 445).

48. Cf. Denyer (2001: 10).

49. Denyer (2001: 11).

Chapter 9

1. It has been translated variously as weakness of will, incontinence, lack of self-control, and unrestraint, among other things.

2. Works on this topic are too numerous to list here. Some of the works I have drawn upon include Segvic (2008), Bobonich and Destreé (2007), Hoffmann (2008), Reshotko (2006), and Vlastos (1995).

3. This point has been countered by Segvic (2008).

4. Irwin (2008).

5. Aristotle, Magna Moralia 1.1, 1182a14–26. If this section of MM is not in fact by Aristotle, it at least shows that such a division between Plato and Socrates was not out of place in the Peripatetic school.

6. See Vlastos (1991). See Kahn (1996) for a response to this position on two Socrates. Kahn shifts the conventional division of dialogues and deemphasizes the role of any historical Socrates. Rowe (2002), however, argues against Kahn’s downplaying of the philosophical positions of a historical Socrates, including the denial of akrasia.

7. Dorter (2008). Also see Shields (2007: 61–86).

8. Dorter (2008: 14); cf. Rep. 518c–d.

9. Simplicius, in Epicteti encheiridon, H262/D38,15. Brittain and Brennan (2002: 82).

10. Akrasia and enkrateia are also discussed in the context of temperance and intemperance (sôphrosunê and akolasia) in Eudemian Ethics III.6. Some have argued that Aristotle is inconsistent on akrasia in EN and other works, such as De anima. For more on this, see Destrée (2007: 139–166).

11. Aristotle, EE 1226a ff.

12. EN 1146b35–1147b5.

13. Gerson (2007: 271).

14. EN 1111a22–b3. Of these two sources, akratic behavior arising from thumos is less unjust than that from epithumia (EN VII.6).

15. EN 1147a10–18.

16. Chase (1847).

17. Aristotle gives examples of such practices among “the barbarians.” EN 1148b20ff.

18. EN 1150a21–31, 1150b29ff. In contemporary terms, someone with antisocial personality disorder, also called psychopathy, might fit Aristotle’s typology of the akolast: a person who indulges without self-control or reason (as moral reason), and who is incurable because she does not empathize or see what she has done as wrong.

19. EN 1150b19ff. “Precipitancy” = Propeteia. See Salles (2007: 249–264).

20. Aristotle’s use of μελαγχολικός does not have the simple later meaning of “sad” or “depressed” but is closer to excitable or prone to inconstant emotions.

21. EN 1152a27–29. If custom is easier to cure than nature (1152a29–30) in EN 1154b10–15, and the melancholics (tr. by Lombardo and Bell as “excitable”) are tormented by their bodies’ special composition (predominance of black bile), why should we think that one’s bodily constitution (more akin to nature than nurture) is more readily curable than cognitive weakness? Perhaps Aristotle has in mind the treatability of such things that affect the temperament through medical cures, as was considered later in the Aristotelian tradition. Melancholy is discussed in the Pseudo-Aristotelian or Pseudo-Alexandrian Problemata, book 30, 953a ff.

22. This view was codified by Inwood (1985: 137). In light of the presence of akratic emotions in Chrysippus and enkrateia as a virtue in Cleanthes, Gourinat (2007: 217–248) reevaluates the role of akrasia in early Stoic moral theory. Gerson (2007: 272–274) also challenges this interpretation of the early Stoa.

23. For a reconstruction of Chrysippus’s position on akrasia, see Joyce (1995: 315–335). Brennan (2003: 274) takes issue with Joyce’s interpretation of the Stoic position on weakness of will.

24. Plutarch, De virtute morali 446F–447A.

25. De officiis 1.29.101; 36.132. See Gerson (1994: 169 n.76).

26. Gill (2006: 304–305).

27. Gill (2006: 306).

28. Epictetus, Discourses, book I (tr. R. F. Dobbin).

29. De placitiis Hippocratis et Platonis 3.3.13–16; 4.6.19–24. For discussion of this passage, see Dobbin (2008: 218–224). Also see Gill (1983: 136–149).

30. καὶ μανθάνω μὲν οἷα δρᾶν μέλλω κακά, / θυμὸς δὲ κρείττων τῶν ἐμῶν βουλευμάτων. Diss. 1.28.7 (tr. R. Dobbin).

31. Epictetus, Diss. 28.8.

32. This passage is discussed by Long (1996: 277–279 [reprint 2001]). Cf. Salles (2007: 249–264).

33. Epictetus, Diss. 1.28.8.

34. Long (2002: 75–77). Long argues in this work that Epictetus “appropriates Socrates more deeply than any other philosopher after Plato” (8).

35. Long (2002: 33). Long also notes that Epictetus uses the word arête infrequently, perhaps because the early Stoa linked it to the ideal sage.

36. Long (2001: 279).

37. Gerson (2007: 265–282). Also see Gerson (2008: 42–57).

38. Gerson (2007: 281).

39. Plotinus, Enn. 1.2.4 and 6.8.7.

40. Alex. Aphr., De fato 199.14–22.

41. Enn. 1.4.3–4.

42. Enn. 1.2.3. Cf. Phaedo 69b–c.

43. Enn. 1.2.5.11–14, 17–20. τὸν δὲ θυμὸν ὅσον οἷόν τε ἀφαιροῦσαν καί, εἰ δυνατόν, πάντη, εἰ δὲ μή, μὴ γοῦν αὐτὴν συνοργιζομένην, ἀλλ’ ἄλλου εἶναι τὸ ἀπροαίρετον, τὸ δὲ ἀπροαίρετον ὀλίγον εἶναι καὶ ἀσθενές· … Ἐπιθυμίαν δέ; Ὅτι μὲν μηδενὸς φαύλου, δῆλον· σίτων δὲ καὶ ποτῶν πρὸς ἄνεσιν οὐκ αὐτὴ ἕξει· οὐδὲ τῶν ἀφροδισίων δέ· εἰ δ’ ἄρα, φυσικῶν, οἶμαι, καὶ οὐδὲ τὸ ἀπροαίρετον ἔχουσαν.

44. This tripartite nature of providence goes back to the middle Platonists such as Ps-Plutarch (De fato) and Calcidius (Tract. de fato).

45. Dec. dub. 18.18–22.

46. Dec. dub. 31.38–39 (tr. C. Steel).

47. In Remp. 1.24.12–18.

48. See Brittain and Brennan (2002: 4–8). Throughout I have drawn upon Brittain and Brennan and use their translations (unless stated otherwise), while referencing I. Hadot’s (1996) and Dübner’s (1842) editions. Using Brittain and Brennan’s convention, in references I list the Hadot page number followed by the Dübner number.

49. Simplicius, in Epicteti encheiridion H441–443/D132,24–133,45. See Sellars (2003: 132–133), who also speculates on Simplicius’s audience and believes the work was intended for more advanced students.

50. In Epicteti encheiridion H443/D133,28–41. There doesn’t seem to be much hope for the “ordinary person” on this account. Dictionary meanings of ἰδιώτης (private individual) can be neutral, including “common man,” “average person,” “layman,” but it usually maintains a sense of inferiority to an opposing term (“unpracticed,” “unskilled,” “ignoramus”). It was used by Aristotle in contrast to the philosopher (EN 1116b13), and that sense is most likely the one which is used by Epictetus and Simplicius.

51. In Epicteti encheiridion H193/D1,36–37. Παιδεύει δὲ τὸν ἄνθρωπον, ὡς κατὰ ψυχὴν λογικὴν οὐσιωμένον, τῷ σώματι χρώμενον ὡς ὀργάνῳ.

52. In Epicteti encheiridion H195–197/D3,3–48. Simplicius generally treats the Socrates of Plato’s dialogues as the historical Socrates, though loosely distinguishes him from Plato. “But that someone who has his essence in accordance with a rational soul is the real and true human being was demonstrated by Plato—or rather the Platonic Socrates—in his dialogue with Alcibiades the fair, the son of Kleinias” (H195–196/D3,3–6). Ἀλλ’ ὅτι μὲν οὗτός ἐστιν ὁ ἀληθινὸς ἄνθρωπος, ὁ κατὰ τὴν λογικὴν ψυχὴν οὐσιωμένος, προηγουμένως μὲν ὁ Πλάτων ἢ ὁ τοῦ Πλάτωνος Σωκράτης ἔδειξεν, Ἀλκιβιάδῃ τῷ καλῷ, τῷ Κλεινίου, διαλεγόμενος. Cf. H243/D28,34.

53. In Epicteti encheiridion H204/D7,50–52.

54. In Epicteti encheiridion H222/D17,15–19.

55. Simplicius questions why Epictetus says we should do away with all desire, including toward things up to us, then he gives counterpoints. He writes, “How can one continue to be a human being without desire?” (H231–2/D22,27–28). He then speculates that perhaps Epictetus is speaking to youth who are just starting an education, “for whom it is altogether unsafe to desire before knowing what they ought to desire” (H232/D 22,35–36). He speculates that perhaps he didn’t mean do away with all desires but only with vehement desires (τὸ σφοδρὸν).

56. In Epicteti encheiridion H224/D18,20ff.

57. In Epicteti encheiridion H196/D3,18–19

58. In Epicteti encheiridion H197/D3,48–54. In Simplicius’s Platonism, the human being is not a composite of soul and body but is the soul, period (cf. H195/D2,30–49). Drawing upon Alcibiades I, 129c, he stresses the soul’s use of the body as an instrument many times throughout the commentary (e.g., H196/D3,26–33; H212–213/D12,18–22; H260/D38,D10–18; H444/D134,6–8). He notes that Epictetus’s speeches are directed toward those who do not think that the human being is a composite of body and mind but are eager for the rational soul to rule and transcend the body. He ascribes to this type of person the ethical and political virtues, whereas (as noted above) for Plotinus these virtues are less important than cathartic virtues. H195/D2,33–36: Οὔτε οὖν πρὸς τὸν καθαρτικῶς δυνηθέντα ζῇν· ἐκεῖνος γὰρ, ὅση δύναμις, φεύγειν ἀπὸ τοῦ σώματος βούλεται καὶ τῶν σωματικῶν παθῶν, καὶ εἰς ἑαυτὸν συννεύειν·

59. In Epicteti encheiridion H223/D17,44 D18,7.

60. In Epicteti encheiridion H352/D33,13; H246/D46,11; H407/D117,42.

61. In Epicteti encheiridion H233/D23,19; H276/D46,5,9;H362/D92,29; H407/D117,14,18; H420/D123,14; H440/D132,4.

62. In Epicteti encheiridion H225/D18,50–51; H247/D30,39–40; H252/D33,22–23. Καὶ μανθάνω μὲν, οἷα δρᾷν μέλλω κακά· / θυμὸς δὲ κρείσσων τῶν ἐμῶν βουλευμάτων.

63. Ench. 5.1.6–8: ἀπαιδεύτου ἔργον τὸ ἄλλοις ἐγκαλεῖν, ἐφ’ οἷς αὐτὸς πράσσει κακῶς· ἠργμένου παιδεύεσθαι τὸ ἑαυτῷ· πεπαιδευμένου τὸ μήτε ἄλλῳ μήτε ἑαυτῷ.

64. Simplicius, in Epicteti encheiridon, H247/D30,32–38. Brittain and Brennan (2002a: 73).

65. In Epicteti encheiridion H248/D31,13–17.

66. In Epicteti encheiridion H276/D46,14. Cf. Phaedo 77e.

67. Ench. 6. 5–7. ὥσθ’, ὅταν ἐν χρήσει φαντασιῶν κατὰ φύσιν σχῇς, τηνικαῦτα ἐπάρθητι· τότε γὰρ ἐπὶ σῷ τινι ἀγαθῷ ἐπαρθήσῃ.

68. Simplicius, in Epicteti encheiridion, H252/D32,53–54. Brittain and Brennan (2002: 76).

69. In Epicteti encheiridion H252/D33,5–7.

70. In Epicteti encheiridion H476/D46,4–9: πρὸς μὲν τὰ ἡδέα δοκοῦντα, ἐγκράτειαν. Καὶ οὐκ εἶπε σωφροσύνην, ἀλλ’ ἐγκράτειαν· ἐπειδὴ πρὸς τοὺς ἔτι παιδευομένους ἐστὶν ἡ παραίνεσις· ἐφ’ ὧν κινεῖται μὲν τὰ πάθη καὶ ἀμφισβητεῖ πρὸς τὸν λόγον, ἡττᾶται δὲ, ὅταν ἡ παιδεία ἀνύσιμος ᾖ. Brennan and Brittain (2002: 92).

71. In Epicteti encheiridion H276–277/D46,20–27.

72. In Epicteti encheiridion H277/D46,27.

73. Brennan and Brittain (2002: 92). In Epicteti encheiridion H276/D46,16–19: Καὶ ἔστι τοῦτο σωφροσύνη, σωτηρία καὶ ὑπεροχὴ τοῦ ἐν ἡμῖν φρονοῦντος. Μερίζεται γὰρ τοῦτο, τοῖς πάθεσιν ὑποκλινόμενον, καὶ διασπώμενον ὑπ’ αὐτῶν· σῷον δὲ μένει καὶ ὁλόκληρον, ὑπερανέχον τῶν παθῶν.

74. In “Weakness and Will in Plato’s Republic” Dorter (2008) argues for a reconciliation between the divisions of the soul in the Republic that seem to support the existence of akrasia and Socrates’ denial of akrasia in other dialogues. On this account, manifestations of reason, spiritedness, and appetites are on a continuum rather than reflecting discrete parts of the soul, for the true soul is undivided. Book IV presents a model of the soul that is for the majority, while for those (such as Socrates) who have obtained vision of the true as illustrated in the cave metaphor, “weakness of will is no longer a danger because it is a vision that cannot be attained by a divided soul” (14). I find that this understanding of akrasia fits well with that of Simplicius.

75. Simplicius usually refers to emotions as irrational (e.g., H193/D1,41, H204/D7,30, H247/D30,21, H252/D33,18). See my note 58 on the body as an instrument.

76. As noted above, for Simplicius the akolastic person can transform into the sôphrôn, but the perfectly temperate person doesn’t revert back to being intemperate (H223/D17,50–18,5). So it seems that once acquired, the disposition of practical wisdom remains stable.

77. “Ethical disposition” is Brittain and Brennan’s translation of enstasis.

78. Brittain and Brennan (2002: 58–59). H226/D19,39–46: πρὸς τὴν λογικὴν ψυχὴν διαλεγόμενος, τὴν συνουσιωμένους [μὲν] ἔχουσαν ἀεὶ τοὺς τῶν ὄντων λόγους, καὶ σύμφυτον αὐτῇ τὴν τῶν ὄντων ἀλήθειαν· ἀτονοῦσαν δέ ποτε πρὸς τὴν εἰλικρινῆ θέαν, τῷ περισπασμῷ τῆς ἐν αὐτῇ γενεσιουργοῦ δυνάμεως, καὶ διὰ τοῦτο εἰς λήθην ὑποφερομένην, τὴν πάντων αὐτῇ τῶν κακῶν αἰτίαν, καὶ δεο μένην τοῦ συνεχῶς ἀκούειν τοῦ Μέμνησο.

79. Cf. H336/D77,49–54.

80. Phaedrus 246b–c. Tr. Nehamas and Woodruff (1997: 525).

81. Phaedrus 246d.

82. Phaedrus 248d.

83. See Long (2001: 52–53; 212–213).

84. See in Epicteti encheiridion H224/D18,46; H226/D19,42; H234/D24,6; H236/D25,5; H265/D40,12; H297/D56,45; H336/D77,50; H448/D135,53.

85. In Epicteti encheiridion H298/D57,3. Brittain and Brennan (2002: 107).

86. In Epicteti encheiridion H235/D24,5.

87. In Epicteti encheiridion H236/D25,5.

88. In Epicteti encheiridion H266/D40,34–42. Brennan and Brittain (2002: 92).

89. This is perhaps an interpretation of 1 Corinthians 10:13. We could also wax Nietzschean here with “What doesn’t destroy me makes me stronger.”

90. Simplicius, in Epicteti encheiridion H266/D40,42–50. Brittain and Brennan (2002: 85).

91. He sees the irrational as akin to things external to oneself. In Epicteti encheiridion H281/D48,35–39; H298/D57,25.

92. In Epicteti encheiridion H281/D48,30–32. Tr. Brittain and Brennan (2002: 96).

93. In Epicteti encheiridion H283/D49,45–50.

94. In Epicteti encheiridion H304/D60,25–27.

95. Ench. 22.1–3. Εἰ φιλοσοφίας ἐπιθυμεῖς, παρασκευάζου αὐτόθεν ὡς καταγελασθη-σόμενος, ὡς καταμωκησομένων σου πολλῶν.

96. In Epicteti encheiridion H301/D58,50–54.

97. In Epicteti encheiridion H303/D59,35–36.

98. In Epicteti encheiridion H402 D114,46–47. Brennan and Brittain (2002b: 92).

99. In Epicteti encheiridion H315–316/D66,25–26. Brittain and Brennan (2002a) 120.

100. See my note 50 on ἰδιώτης.

101. Ench. 22.1–3 and in Epicteti encheiridion H301/D58 (discussed above).

102. Simplicius states this popular maxim in H441/D132,41. It is not unlikely that he draws upon Proclus’s understanding of the god Hermes as common to all, and as the leading god of rationality and philosophy (Theol. Plat. 6.98.14–17; in Crat. 66.2; in Remp. 2.62.16). The understanding of Hermes as “common” was not exclusive to philosophy. In Hellenistic/late antique astrology, the planetary god Hermes/Mercury is called koinos, being neither beneficent nor malevolent, masculine nor feminine, and not holding a sectarian preference (hairesis) of day or night. Cf. Ptolemy, Tetrabiblos 1.5–7.

103. In Epicteti encheiridion H441/D132,41–50. Κἂν γὰρ ἀριθμῷ διαφέρωσιν οἱ ἐν ἡμῖν λόγοι, ἀλλὰ τὸ εἶδος ἕν· οὕτως, ὡς πρὸς τὰ αὐτὰ ἀγαθὰ ἀνατείνεσθαι, καὶ τὰ αὐτὰ κακὰ ἐκκλίνειν, καὶ ἀληθῆ τὰ αὐτὰ ἡγεῖσθαι πάντας κατὰ τὸν λόγον, καὶ πάλιν ψευδῆ τὰ αὐτά· ὥστε τὸν ἐν ἑκάστῳ λόγον κανόνα εἶναι διακριτικὸν τοῦ τε ἀγαθοῦ καὶ τοῦ κακοῦ, καὶ τοῦ ἀληθοῦς καὶ τοῦ ψεύδους. Εἰδῶν δὲ ἀσωμάτων, καὶ ἀμερίστων, καὶ ἀεὶ κατὰ τὰ αὐτὰ καὶ ὡσαύτως ἐχόντων, ἐφίενται οἱ λόγοι· οἷον σωφροσύνης, καὶ δικαιοσύνης, καὶ φρονήσεως·

Chapter 10

This research has been generously funded by the Australian Research Council’s Discovery Scheme, DP0986334, and by the University of Newcastle, Australia; special thanks are due to the University of Newcastle’s Centre for Literary and Linguistic Computing; its director, Professor Hugh Craig; Dr. Alexis Antonia; my colleagues Rick Benitez at the University of Sydney and Dirk Baltzly at Monash University; and, very importantly, my research assistant, Terry Roberts.

1. See Stobaeus, Eclogues 2.49.25–50.5; 2.55.5–21; what matters for our purposes is not the disputed attribution of the wider context to Eudorus, but rather the strong probability that we are dealing with a source two centuries or more before Plotinus.

2. Words chosen in fact occurred in a list of the commonest two hundred words in dialogues that were assumed to be early. The emphasis on earlier dialogues stemmed from the initial expectation that the analysis might assist with questions of authenticity among seemingly “Socratic” works.

3. It was hoped that narrative and dramatic dialogues would be comparable if one omitted verbs of saying, personal pronouns such as would refer to a narrator or his hearer, and the particle that introduces vocatives; however, some tests still managed to distinguish them.

4. The letter patterns employed by Ledger (1989) and the clausulae employed by several authors reported in Brandwood (1990) may suggest that Plato’s preferences changed, but they offer one little hope of understanding those preferences.

5. See here Tarrant and Roberts (2012).

6. For the implication of this see Tarrant (2010).

7. For further explanation see Tarrant, Benitez, and Roberts (2011).

8. See Aelian VH 8.2 and Athenaeus Deipn. 11.506c.

9. Tarrant, Benitez, and Roberts (2011).

10. With Euclidean distance squared and without standardization of data.

11. Critias A (cluster 2, closest to cluster 3) is the introductory part of the dialogue before the Atlantis story is resumed (to 108d8); Water-Carr (cluster 4, closest to cluster 1) is a short snippet of the Gorgias from 493a1 to 494a5, and as it is about one-sixth of the size of a normal two-thousand-word block a reliable result would not be expected for it; and the speech of Agathon (cluster 6, closest to cluster 5) is clearly intended by Plato (Symp. 198b–c) to be sui generis.

12. As suggested by the presence of a passage of Laws X, treated as myth by Stalley (2009); the passage has something of a myth-like atmosphere about it, but it is not usually treated by others as myth; the material following this myth is also included.

13. Since several factors, not just the one relating to myth, have contributed to the results of cluster analysis, principal component analysis (PCA) may be used to help to isolate the myth element. Asked to separate two components using the same data, PCA placed the myth files in the positive register of the first principal component, in the following ascending order:

SympAr +1.69, GrgMyth +2.33, PrtMyth +3.66, Laws10Myth +3.70, PhdMyth +4.02, PhdrMyth (1) +4.57, PhdrMyth (2) +5.08, MythER +5.34, TimB (1) +6.70, TimC (1) +6.81, CritiB (1) +7.02, TimAtlB +7.48, CritiB (2) +7.98, PolMythB +8.09, TimD (1) +8.55. No files of a consistently myth-like character were placed at above +1.41. While one might suspect a date-related element in this order, the second principal component is more obviously date related, with blocks from the Laws and Statesman at the negative extreme of the spectrum and from the Symposium and Protagoras at the positive extreme (myths being the likeliest passages to be misplaced on this hypothesis).

14. Tarrant, Benitez, and Roberts (2011).

15. Johnson and Tarrant (forthcoming) show the extent to which the passage exhibits the characteristics of both myth and female speech.

16. Although the Republic’s position was ambiguous (owing to its status as a plurality of logoi) the myth of Er received considerable attention from Plutarch and Theon of Smyrna through to Proclus and Olympiodorus.

17. The difference between block 1 and block 2 was evident in Tarrant, Benitez, and Roberts (2011, 108–112), where block 1 received a notional “myth score” of +5 and block 2 a score of +10.

18. For convenience I shall speak here of Hermias’s interpretation, without necessarily implying any originality on Hermias’s part.

19. For cathartic responses to misconceptions see Soph. 230b–e, Crat. 396e7–397a1.

20. On which see Pender (2009) and Sedley (2009) in particular.

21. Tarrant, Benitez, and Roberts (2011).

22. My translation. We may derive a little of Hermias’s expectations of myth from his remarks concerning the myth of Boreas and Eilethuia (229b: 28.13–30.27). He begins by offering two nonliteral interpretations of the myth, which he does not see as mutually exclusive. One is supposedly more ethical, telling us about the good character of both god and victim, and the other more about the way the universe works. He attacks any reading of 229c that would have Socrates criticizing nonliteral interpretation in general, thinking it to be interpretation in terms of material causes (rather than in terms of gods, minds, and souls) that Socrates is rejecting.

23. This all raises a question of where Plato thought myth should be used. While the eternal causes of love discussed before 253c might seem to us today to offer better material for myth than the temporal and uncertain battles between the obedient and disobedient forces within living human souls, this is evidently not how Plato saw the role of myth. Myth may employ the framework of divine forces in order to illuminate our human experiences to the extent that we are the creatures of a changeable world, and the description of those eternal forces may be poeticized. But without application to the unseen elements of our human world it cannot be complete. Hence, as Protagoras’s remarks at 324d make quite clear, the myth that he employs is only just completed. The story of the creation of human beings by Epimetheus, their practical support from Prometheus, and their rescue from their own barbaric practices by Zeus (320d–322c) had to be followed by showing how this background is relevant to Athenian expectations concerning the political judgment of any of its citizens.

24. It seems that the term is not employed in Hermias’s commentary, and Olympiodorus counts only those three myths that conclude the Gorgias, the Phaedo, and the Republic (Olymp., in Grg. 46.8–9), as do other Neoplatonists (see Jackson, Lycos, and Tarrant [1998, 295 n. 900]).

25. Note that to some extent even Aristophanes’ speech is one that includes an account of a judgment and punishment of human beings in a different world.

26. See Martijn (2006).

27. It is worth noting that in response to Tim. 21a3 Proclus (in Tim. I.8513–26) stresses how far the Atlantis story functions like a hymn, albeit a hymn of a type that does not directly address the nature of the gods but rather lauds their works.

28. Tarrant (2007a, 70–84); also Tarrant (2007b).

29. See Lycos (1994).

30. In the corresponding PCA analysis (see my note 14 above) it registered a weak negative score (1.61) on the first principal component, where myths all gave a positive one.

31. The Cratylus was divided into natural sections, as follows: A, to 391c7; B, 391c8–395e5; C, 395e5–408d5; D, 408d5–421c2 (D2 from 415a5); E, 421c3–427d2; F, 427d3–end (F2 from 433c5).

32. In the Meno (cf. Apol. 22c, Ion 534c–d) the oracle chanter (99c3) was among those, like prophets, poets, and politicians, who are believed to operate without nous (99c8, e6); if Socrates is treated as oracle chanting with nous then he is analogous to the clear-thinking Teiresias in the world of the shades (100a).

33. Both Hermodorus and Cratylus use the rather rare verb (396d2 and 428c6–7), a verb that occurs just twice in the Cratylus and once each in the Ion (534b), Republic (IX 586b), and Laws (IV 412a). In the Ion it is connected with poetry, in the Laws with myth, so that it clearly fits inspired diction. Hence neither Hermodorus nor Cratylus means any disrespect by using this word.

34. Socrates himself also uses the vocabulary of inspiration (epipnoia 399a1, cf. 428c7; mousa 409d2).

35. For further details see Tarrant (2013).

36. Crat., Gorg., Meno, Phaedo, Republic I, II, III, V, VII, and X, Parmenides (part I), Theaetetus, Sophist (first four blocks only), and Statesman (= Plt.). The dendrogram employs Ward’s method, with Euclidean distance and without standardization of data, and is based on a cluster analysis of ninety-six function words (with article excluded).

37. MenoB is the examination of the slave boy, and it has been omitted from most analyses, as its geometrical language is exceptional; all remaining blocks are found here.

38. On the Theaetetus see now Tarrant (2010); on Republic X see Tarrant (1994), and now Tarrant (2011).

39. See Sedley (2003, 6–16).

40. My figures give an average rate of about 21.1 cases of hiatus per one hundred word-breaks in Crat. 3–7, as opposed to about 24.0 in the outer blocks. This seemingly slight decrease brings it into line with the Theaetetus (21.2) rather than with the Euthydemus (23.7) or the Charmides and the Apology (23.3 percent). See Tarrant (2013). Earlier work, reported by Brandwood (1990, 157), had detected just two brief passages where the rate falls strikingly, 400c7–401b7 and 404e7–405c5.

41. After all, it is even here grouped closest to the first block of the Gorgias; an important way in which it resembles both the late dialogues and more especially the myths is an increase in the rate of the definite article, which can rise to some of its highest levels in Plato in the central blocks of Cratylus.

42. Tarrant, Benitez, and Roberts (2011).

43. Cf. Sedley (2003), 40; on the Neoplatonists’ interpretation of irony see Tarrant (2000, 108–11).

44. On pedimental structure see Thesleff (2009, 28 etc.).

45. Tarrant and Roberts (2012, 235).

46. The contents include Alcibiades I (protreptic and four other blocks); Alcibiades II (two blocks), Hipparchus, Erastae, and Minos (one block each); Theages A (to 126c2); Philebus (nine blocks), and Memorabilia (book I = three books, book IV = four blocks). The analysis is by Ward’s method with Euclidean distance and standardized data.

47. Clusters 5 and 6 are joined at a similarity level of +5.68, clusters 3 and 4 at +13.27, and these two are joined to cluster 2 at +1.76; the protreptic passage has been joined to all Xenophon at +18.10, but cluster 1 as a whole is only joined to clusters 2, 3, and 4 at a similarity level of–64.37, and clusters 1–4 to clusters 5 and 6 at–103.12.

48. On these passages see Gill (2000).

49. Protreptic elements have been detected or suspected in a wide range of Platonic works, including the Apology, Euthydemus, earlier dialogues more generally, Phaedo, Republic, and Laws; for a discussion of what counts as protreptic see Jordan (1986).

50. Needless to say the Aristotelian content can also be recognized using the computer, and my own cluster analyses consistently placed all blocks together with Arist. EN and Pol. rather than with Iambl. Myst. It does not matter if a little original Iamblichan material is present, for that too is indisputably philosophic protreptic.

51. See Taki (2012).