Letters ascribed to Plato (or any ancient Greek)

[Irish1975]

From a recent online essay--

There are 13 letters that have come down to us among the works of Plato, a corpus compiled and organised in ancient times. One of the 13 – the first – is demonstrably not by Plato, and this bad apple has raised doubts about the authenticity of the whole collection. Another reason for scepticism is the epistolary genre itself. Forgers, as we know, made good money in antiquity by creating spurious letters from famous people and selling them to libraries and collectors. We have great numbers of surviving forgeries, attributed to Socrates, Diogenes and other Greek sages but showing stylistic features out of step with the Greek of their authors’ times. All personal letters from Greek antiquity are therefore suspect, although some – such as a number of those attributed to Demosthenes – appear to be genuine.

[StephenGoranson]

Thanks for reposting that link. I hope others read the full essay, and then understand the author's view.

[ABuddhist]

I found the following words by the Platonist Jowett from 1875 to be striking. "When one epistle out of a number is spurious, the remainder of the series cannot be admitted to be genuine … When all but one are spurious, overwhelming evidence is required of the one … But no one … would maintain that all the Epistles of Plato are genuine, and very few critics think that more than one of them is so."

Has anyone applied the same logic to Paul's Letters, I wonder.

[andrewcriddle]

One should note that the collection of 13 Platonic letters is late probably early 1st century CE and some of the letters may have been composed shortly before the collection was made. However, some of the letters, (whether authentic or not), are almost certainly much older than that. The authenticity of the earlier letters is not affected one way or the other by the fact that other letters were falsely attributed to Plato much later.

Andrew Criddle

[Irish1975]

One should note that the collection of 13 Platonic letters is late probably early 1st century CE and some of the letters may have been composed shortly before the collection was made. However, some of the letters, (whether authentic or not), are almost certainly much older than that.

How did you arrive at these conclusions?

[andrewcriddle]

One should note that the collection of 13 Platonic letters is late probably early 1st century CE and some of the letters may have been composed shortly before the collection was made. However, some of the letters, (whether authentic or not), are almost certainly much older than that.

How did you arrive at these conclusions?

Several of the letters were known to Cicero See https://books.google.co.uk/books?id=S_1 ... 22&f=false Aristophanes the Grammarian c 200 BCE knew a collection of Plato's Epistles See https://penelope.uchicago.edu/Thayer/E/ ... lato*.html Some of the letters e.g. the 7th and 8th know enough about the 4th century BCE that they are on internal evidence almost certainly early.

On the other hand our present collection goes back to Thrasyllus the court philosopher for Tiberius and some of the letters e.g. the second are probably very late See https://www.academia.edu/7498299/Orreri ... Alexandria

Andrew Criddle

[StephenGoranson]

Robin Waterfield, in Plato of Athens: A Life in Philosophy (Oxford UP, 2023), makes a good case that Plato Letters 7, 8, and 3 are genuine letters by Plato.
Plato tried to establish a Platonic polity in Syracuse in Sicily--and failed.
How much less likely then that the c.273-272 Alexandria proposed scenario is even remotely plausible.
After all, who was a more capable Platonist than Plato?

[DCHindley]

Robin Waterfield, in Plato of Athens: A Life in Philosophy (Oxford UP, 2023), makes a good case that Plato Letters 7, 8, and 3 are genuine letters by Plato.

Plato tried to establish a Platonic polity in Syracuse in Sicily--and failed.

How much less likely then that the c.273-272 Alexandria proposed scenario is even remotely plausible.

After all, who was a more capable Platonist than Plato?

Wasn't also Aristotle a tutor of Alexander over in Macedon before he became "the Great?" IIRC, he didn't consider this to be one of his successful projects. Was Alexander's empire successful? It disintegrated as soon as he died.

What about Karl Marx? While alive he produced a lot of academic level output about economics - as he saw it - but did not seem to be able to get it put into effect. His only real success was F. Engels, a partner in one of the area's more successful spinning mills, who understood Marx very well but who could also look at the issue from the POV of an employer. It was not until the Russian Revolution that Marx's economic POV was employed as a guiding principal for state politics. Was it successful? Maybe not ...

What about modern Israel? I mean, the founders re-created a viable democratic "Jewish" state and resurrected a virtually dead language as the spoken norm (I realize it is not "biblical" Hebrew). Is it successful? That is debatable, but it is an example of what can be done in adverse conditions when the people involved are dedicated and motivated.

Could the Hasmoneans have done something similar? I think it is possible. Assuming that distinctly "Jewish" practices and diet were not widespread before their time, they sure were after. They may have chosen to emulate the Spartans who were pretty basic folks with an incredibly tough training regimen and lifestyle. This seemed to appeal to the leaders who had operated many years as guerilla style warriors, and many of the people it seems, as they established their permanent and recognized state. It remained intact until Roman times.

[StephenGoranson]

David, Aristotle may have been disappointed by Alexander the Great; Aristotle may also have been disappointed when, after the death of Plato, Speusippus, and not he, became head of the Academy. (As to modern politics in Israel...off topic)

Currently, I think that:
a) We have pretty good evidence that Plato attempted to reorganize the polity in Syracuse.
b) We have pretty good evidence that Hasmoneans had major influence in history.
c) We do not have good evidence that five books of Torah were "composed in their entirely about 273-272 BCE" in Alexandria. (Despite having recently read more text by REG.)