Members-only podcast episode

An Apollonian Man: Plato at the End of Antiquity in the Anonymous Prolegomena

Plato. Lucas Vorsterman, after Rubens 1615, inverted

This is a special podcast episode for SHWEP members only

Join now to listen

We say farewell to the Most-Divine Plato by examining his depiction in the anonymous Prolegomena to the Philosophy of Plato, an exquisite, unique relic of the final generations of Alexandrian polytheist Platonism. Plato is indeed said to be the product of a virgin birth, fathered by the god Apollo, but this story is an esoteric fable of the ancients, which actually points to his membership of the Apollonian seira. We also learn how Iamblichus says we should read Plato.

Works Cited in this Episode:

Primary:

Anonymous Prolegomena to the Philosophy of Plato:

  • ‘A divine and Apollonian man’: 1.20.
  • ‘Virgin birth’ narrative and mouth full of honey: 2.12-22.
  • Plato learned the hieratic art from the Egyptians: 4.9-10.
  • Arithmology on the number 81, plus oracles and Magi: 6.1-22.
  • Against the skeptical reading of Plato, and against Skepticism more generally: 10.1-11.20.
  • The Iamblichean notions of skopos: 21.1-28.
  • The initiatory reading-curriculum: 26.13-45.

Diogenes Laërtius:

  • On Plato’s ‘virgin birth’: III.2.
  • On his esotericism: III.63.

Olympiodoros, ‘Life of Plato’: In Alc. 2,14–3,2.

Secondary:

C.F. Hermann, editor. Appendix Platonica continens isagogas vitasque antiquas, scholia, Timaei glossarium, indices. Teubner, Leipzig, 1885.

James Miller, ed., Pamela Mensch, trans. Diogenes Laertius. Lives of the Eminent Philosophers. Oxford University Press, Oxford, 2018.

L.D. Reynolds and N.G. Wilson. Scribes and Scholars: A Guide to the Transmission of Greek and Latin Literature. Clarendon, Oxford, 3rd edition, 1991; we cite p. 59.

Richard Sorabji and Michæl Griffin, editors. Olympiodorus: Life of Plato and On Plato First Alcibiades 1-9. Ancient Commentators on Aristotle. Bloomsbury, London/New Delhi/New York, NY/Sydney, 2015.

Leendert Gerrit Westerink, editor. Anonymous Prolegomena to Platonic Philosophy. Number 5 in Platonic Texts and Translations. The Prometheus Trust, King’s Lynn, 2011; . We quote p. xlix on the Olympiodorus-adjacent authorship.