Pletho's date of death and the burning of his Laws

Archiv für Geschichte der Philosophie, 1998

The letters attributed to Plato are a conundrum for scholars who wish to exploit the circumstantial biographical details and apparently authorial philosophical excursus of "Letter" vii. The difficulty arises because the thirteen letters are an ostensibly unitary corpus, but contain some very odd and seemingly unplatonic material, so that in order to accept "Letter" vii one is faced with swallowing, for example, "Letter" ii. That has led to hypotheses that some of the letters are later forgeries, but that "Letter" vii and a few others are reliable. I will argue that at least "Letter" ii in its current form is not possibly authentic, and I will also suggest that the corpus in its current form belongs as well in the era of Eudoros. Bentley accepted the Platonic letters, notably "Letter" ii, as authentic. It was Meiners who in 1783 first questioned their authenticity. Raeder and Novotny sided with Bentley in support of Platonic authorship of "Letter" ii, but most scholars from Adam (1910) to Pasquali (1939), and all the most influential, opposed authenticity. Scholars from Taylor (1948) to the present seem about evenly divided. The arguments on each side amount to claims that the contents either do or do not fit what we know of the life or thought of Plato. This is dangerous, as the life of Plato is known almost solely from the letters, and his thought has prompted two dozen centuries of debate. Arguments based on borrowings from other Platonic works are unreliable, since Plato was a very self-aware author. The points so far adduced which have seemed weightiest to scholars are four – but none are decisive. First the date of the Olympics referred to (310d) cannot readily be made to square with either of the two possibilities (364 or 360 B.C.) – but this may be a fault of our ignorance. Second the author calls for a union of wisdom and power (φρόνησίς τε και δύναμις, 310e-311b), but in two separate persons, hardly what Plato publicly advocated in his philosopher-king – but defended by Raeder citing "Leges" 4 (710c7-d1). Thirdly, the rate of occurrence of forbidden hiatus is quite high – but this is not impossible if written before Plato began to eschew hiatus. Finally, "Letter" ii "I have written nothing lest it be divulged" (ἐκπεσεῖν 314b f.) may refer to "Letter" vii (341b f.: concerning the unwritten status of τὰ μέγιστα). Those who believe "Letter" ii spurious give no hint of a consensus on date.

This article provides a new edition of a passage from Philodemus' Index Academicorum which deals with the bequest and funeral of the Academic Crantor of Soli and depends on Antigonus of Carystus (PHerc. 1021, col. 16.37 – col. S.10). From the new readings it emerges that, like Diogenes Laertius, Philodemus too mentioned the bequest of twelve talents. Furthermore, the new readings help us to better understand the meaning of a verse related to Crantor's funeral.

The Bulletin of the Graduate School of Josai International University, 2019

Bessarion inspected codex Venetus gr. 188, s. XIV, probably with codex Venetus gr. 187, s. XV, in the making of his lemmata and paraphrases of Plato's Laws in his In calumniatorem Platonis, which are hypothetically reconstructible from the codices, Venetus gr. 198, Monacensis Inc. c.a. 20 (Roma, 1469), and Urbinatus lat. 196, s. XV together with the first printed edition by Aldo Manutius (Venice, 1503).

in defense of Bessarion's positions, which is answered by Niccolò Palmieri who accuses Cordoba of heresy for, among other things, comparing Plato's birth to that of Christ. 15 Spring 1468-summer 1469: After resigning as governor of Viterbo, Perotti corrects and reworks the Latin to produce the final version. 16 Summer 1469: The ASP is published on the printing press by Andrea Giovanni Bussi.

Studies in Late Antiquity, 2017

The precise date of the Council of Serdica is so important because it is essential for establishing the chronology of numerous events in fourth-century Christianity, and thus for reconstructing its overall history and developments. Unfortunately, this date has been under debate for nearly two centuries. Traditionally, the council was dated to 347 C.E., but discoveries in the 18 th and 19 th centuries led scholars to favor first 344 and then 343. In the early 20 th century, Eduard Schwartz inaugurated a new stage in the debate when he argued for 342. In his wake, most French, Italian, and English-speaking scholars argued for 343, whereas most German-speaking scholars followed Schwartz's authority and endorsed 342. In 1974, Marcel Richard advanced a novel argument in favor in 342 that appeared to cement this date for its advocates. Recently, however , 343 appears to be the preferred date even in German scholarship. After more than a century of debate, it seems, a consensus has been reached. This essay offers the most comprehensive re-assessment of this debate to date to see if it really should be considered concluded. It reexamines all the evidence and all the arguments made in support of one date or another, in particular those of Schwartz and Richard, and argues that the case for the Council of Serdica's having been held in the autumn of 343 should be considered conclusive; thus, the lengthy debate can rightly be closed.

V. Vlyssidou (ed.), Byzantine Authors and Their Times