Philosopher Kings and Tragic Heroes: Essays on Images and Ideas from Western Greece: Volume 1 (The Heritage of Western Greece) 1942495072, 9781942495079

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Parnassos Press – Fonte Aretusa Chapter Title: Front Matter Book Title: Philosopher Kings and Tragic Heroes Book Subtitle: Essays on Images and Ideas from Western Greece Book Editor(s): Heather L. Reid and Davide Tanasi Published by: Parnassos Press – Fonte Aretusa Stable URL: https://www.jstor.org/stable/j.ctvbj7gjn.1 JSTOR is a not-for-profit service that helps scholars, researchers, and students discover, use, and build upon a wide range of content in a trusted digital archive. We use information technology and tools to increase productivity and facilitate new forms of scholarship. For more information about JSTOR, please contact [email protected]. Your use of the JSTOR archive indicates your acceptance of the Terms & Conditions of Use, available at https://about.jstor.org/terms This content is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License (CC BY-NC-ND 4.0). To view a copy of this license, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/.

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Title Page

Philosopher Kings and Tragic Heroes Essays on Images and Ideas from Western Greece

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THE HERITAGE OF WESTERN GREECE Series Editors Heather L. Reid, Morningside College Davide Tanasi, University of South Florida The cultural and intellectual heritage of Western Greece—the coastal areas of Southern Italy and Sicily settled by Hellenes in the 8 th and 7th centuries BCE—is sometimes overlooked in academic studies. Yet evidence suggests that poets, playwrights, philosophers, and other maverick intellectuals found fertile ground here for the growth of their ideas and the harvesting of their work. The goal of this series is to explore the distinctive heritage of Western Greece from a variety of disciplinary perspectives including art history, archaeology, classical literature, drama, epigraphy, history, philosophy, and religion.

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Title Page

Philosopher Kings and Tragic Heroes Essays on Images and Ideas from Western Greece edited by Heather L. Reid Davide Tanasi

Parnassos Press 2016

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Copyright © 2016 Fonte Aretusa LLC Individual authors retain their copyright to their articles, which are printed here by permission. All rights reserved. This book or any portion thereof may not be reproduced or used in any manner whatsoever without the express written permission of the author and publisher except for the use of brief quotations in a book review or scholarly journal. First Printing: 2016 ISBN 978-1-942495-07-9 (paperback) ISBN 978-1-942495-10-9 (e-book) Parnassos Press Fonte Aretusa Organization 1628 W. Willis Ave. Sioux City, Iowa 51103 www.fontearetusa.org Cover illustration: Terracotta plaque with the Gorgon, Siracusa, Athenaion, 575 BCE, Museo Archeologico Regionale Paolo Orsi, Siracusa. [Printed with permission of the Assessorato dei Beni Culturali e dell'Identita Siciliana, reproduction or duplication by any means is prohibited].

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Epigraph Tell them to remember Syracuse and Ortygia, which Hieron rules with his pure scepter and with good counsels, while he attends on the worship of Demeter of the red feet, and on the festival of her daughter with her white horses, and on the might of Aetnaean Zeus (Pindar, Olympian 6, 93-96)

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Acknowledgments The editors are grateful to all the participants of the first Interdisciplinary Symposium on the Hellenic Heritage of Southern Itay, especially Kathryn Morgan of the University of California Los Angeles, who delivered the keynote address, and Anthony Preus of Binghamton University and the Society for Ancient Greek Philosophy, who offered wise counsel and invaluable support. It is a pleasure to acknowledge Gioconda Lamagna, director of the Museo Archeologico Regionale “Paolo Orsi” of Siracusa, who kindly hosted one session of the symposium at the auditorium of the museum. We would also like to thank Susi Kimbell and Franca Lupo of the Sicily Center for International Education and Stephan Hassam and Paolo Trapani for their help in the organization of the symposium at Siracusa and Sherry Swan and Abby Hoy for their help formatting the manuscript.

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Parnassos Press – Fonte Aretusa Chapter Title: Table of Contents Book Title: Philosopher Kings and Tragic Heroes Book Subtitle: Essays on Images and Ideas from Western Greece Book Editor(s): Heather L. Reid and Davide Tanasi Published by: Parnassos Press – Fonte Aretusa Stable URL: https://www.jstor.org/stable/j.ctvbj7gjn.2 JSTOR is a not-for-profit service that helps scholars, researchers, and students discover, use, and build upon a wide range of content in a trusted digital archive. We use information technology and tools to increase productivity and facilitate new forms of scholarship. For more information about JSTOR, please contact [email protected]. Your use of the JSTOR archive indicates your acceptance of the Terms & Conditions of Use, available at https://about.jstor.org/terms This content is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License (CC BY-NC-ND 4.0). To view a copy of this license, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/.

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Table of Contents Introduction Heather L. Reid and Davide Tanasi

v

Part I. The Early Intellectual Tradition Public Philosophy in Magna Graecia: The First 100 years Anthony Preus From Epicharmus’s Theatrics to Zeno’s Paradoxical ‘Drama’ Omar Álvarez Salas The Tradition of Mathematical Learning in Magna Graecia Jean De Groot Gods and fossils: Inference and scientific method in Xenophanes’s philosophy Michael Papazian Part II. Socratic and Platonic Legacies Reincarnation and Salvation in Magna Graecia and Plato John Bussanich God Bless Memory: Plato Phaedrus 250c and the Entella Tablet Ewa Osek Political Ambition and Philosophic Constraint: Alcibiades, Socrates and the Sicilian Expedition Christos C. Evangeliou Neither One nor the Other: Socrates as Strange Lisa A. Wilkinson Part III. Plato at Syracuse Philosopher-kings: a communitarian political project Carolina Araújo The Education of Tyrants: Democratic Education in the Republic Samantha Deane Power/Knowledge in Syracuse, or Why the Digression in the Seventh Letter is Not a Digression Jill Gordon Plato’s discovery in Sicily: Philosophy and life-structuring practices in the Seventh Letter Robert Metcalf iii This content downloaded from 201.22.189.53 on Fri, 16 Oct 2020 19:54:44 UTC All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms

1 25 45 61

79 93 111

127

143 159 171

187

Did Heidegger go to Syracuse? Francisco J. Gonzalez Success against all odds, failure against all logic: Plutarch on Dion, Timoleon, and the liberation of Sicily Marion Theresa Schneider Part V. Drama Shaping Audience Perspectives through Deictic Patterns: Aeschylus’s Persae Nancy Felson & Laura M. Slatkin Non atticissat, verum sicilicissitat: Plautus' Menaechmi between the Attic Greek and Sicilian Greek comic traditions Argyri G. Karanasiou Part VI. Archaeological Insights Coastal landscape archaeology in Sicily: the case of Selinus Alba Mazza Monte Finocchito from an Indigenous point of view Anna Raudino New data on the funerary religion of the Greeks of Sicily Davide Tanasi, Rosa Lanteri, Stephan Hassam Part VII. The Artistic Influence of Western Greece A hideous monster or a beautiful maiden? Did the Western Greeks alter the concept of Gorgon? Olga A. Zolotnikova Myths, Coins, and Semiotics: Arethusa and Persephone on the Coins of Syracuse Rosa Maria Motta “Ante hanc aedem tuscanica omnia [ ... ]” Rome and the artistic heritage of Ancient Greece. A reinterpretation of the data Aura Piccioni Southern Italian civilization in Yannis Ritsos’s Italian Triptych Amanda Skamagka Index About the editors

209 229

255

281

297 317 329

353

371

387

397

407 410 iv

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Parnassos Press – Fonte Aretusa Chapter Title: Introduction Chapter Author(s): Heather Reid and Davide Tanasi Book Title: Philosopher Kings and Tragic Heroes Book Subtitle: Essays on Images and Ideas from Western Greece Book Editor(s): Heather L. Reid and Davide Tanasi Published by: Parnassos Press – Fonte Aretusa Stable URL: https://www.jstor.org/stable/j.ctvbj7gjn.3 JSTOR is a not-for-profit service that helps scholars, researchers, and students discover, use, and build upon a wide range of content in a trusted digital archive. We use information technology and tools to increase productivity and facilitate new forms of scholarship. For more information about JSTOR, please contact [email protected]. Your use of the JSTOR archive indicates your acceptance of the Terms & Conditions of Use, available at https://about.jstor.org/terms This content is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License (CC BY-NC-ND 4.0). To view a copy of this license, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/.

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Introduction It could be argued that Ancient Studies is a victim of its own success. The various sub-disciplines are so well developed and populated that archaeologists, historians, classicists, and philosophers have little incentive—and even less time—to wander out of their disciplines and explore the perspectives of others who study the same people, places, events, artifacts, and texts. Sometimes traditional disciplinary tracks become so well-worn that they turn into ruts and scholars struggle to find new directions and insights. Then you come to a place like Syracuse, peer into the still-flowing spring of Arethusa, and contemplate what it means to believe that these waters come from the Alpheus river in Olympia—the heart of ancient Hellas. You remember that the ancient world is complicated and diverse—and that Southern Italy and Sicily played an important role in it. You are inspired to adopt a more holistic approach to your studies—to consider different perspectives and discover new insights. Looking into Arethusa’s spring, your desire to know the ancient world is somehow refreshed and renewed. So it was that we decided to bring scholars from every corner of Ancient Studies to Syracuse for the First Interdisciplinary Symposium on the Hellenic Heritage of Southern Italy in May of 2015. We named our organization after Fonte Aretusa, hoping to promote the ancient connection between Southern Italy and Greece, and we quickly learned that this connection had not been forgotten by scholars. We received a flood of proposals from scholars young and old in a variety of disciplines and we put together a rich and diverse program of presentations, alongside a cultural program that included guided tours of the Archaeological Park of Neapolis and Paolo Orsi Museum, a 3D video reconstruction of Ancient Syracuse, a performance of Euripides’ Iphigeneia in Aulis at the Greek Theater, and a sunset boat cruise on the historic Porto Grande. The discussion in the sessions, at the meals, and during the breaks was energetic and interdisciplinary. The biggest problem was having to miss presentations because of the parallel sessions or never catching up with people because it was all over so quickly. It is our hope, in this volume, to capture the conference’s spirit of energetic discussion and cross-disciplinary collaboration. We bring v This content downloaded from 201.22.189.53 on Fri, 16 Oct 2020 19:54:56 UTC All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms

together papers in archaeology, numismatics, art history, philosophy, classical drama and literature—all connected by a shared enthusiasm for the Heritage of Western Greece. The majority of contributions are philosophical. On the topic of Plato’s relationship with Syracuse, they are numerous enough to achieve a discussion of particular depth. The papers have been divided, loosely, by topic and discipline, but the connections among them are surprisingly numerous and they should be read all together, or by skipping between sections. We begin with an exploration of the early intellectual tradition of Western Greece. Anthony Preus surveys the remarkable network of philosophical personages in Southern Italy and Sicily, starting with the 6th century BCE arrival of Xenophanes and Pythagoras, then running through the Eleatic school of Parmenides and Zeno, Empedocles of Acragas, the early rhetoricians Tisias and Corax, and the philosophical dramatist, Epicharmus. Omar Álvarez Salas brings the relationship between these philosophers on stage, interpreting Plato’s account of Zeno in Parmenides as a response to the philosophical polemics acted out in Epicharmus’s comedy. Jean De Groot examines the mathematical side of Western Greek philosophy, connecting the early discoveries of Philolaus and Archytas with the achievements of Syracuse’s famed Archimedes. To conclude the section, Michael Papazian negotiates a modern debate between Karl Popper and Paul Feyerabend about Xenophanes’s importance. Surveying the ancient evidence, he concludes that Xenophanes developed important epistemological insights and anticipated some of the methods of modern science. Socratic and Platonic legacies are the subject of Part II. We begin with John Bussanich’s account of the connection between Plato’s eschatology and that of his predecessors in Western Greece, such as Empedocles, the Pythagoreans, and the authors of the Orphic Gold Leaves. Bussanich argues that Plato wove these traditions together and embedded them in an ethical scheme that emphasizes human responsibility and offers an escape from the cycle of rebirth. Ewa Osek explores the same theme, focusing specifically on connections between the chariot myth in Phaedrus and the Entella Tablet discovered in Sicily. She reveals that memory plays a key role in both texts, giving their respective initiates divine status. Christos vi This content downloaded from 201.22.189.53 on Fri, 16 Oct 2020 19:54:56 UTC All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms

Evangeliou takes a more historical approach, examining the relationship between Socrates, Alcibiades, and the Sicilian Expedition as recounted in Plato’s dialogues, as well as the work of Xenophon, Thucydides, and Plutarch. Evangeliou argues that it was not Socrates, but rather political ambition and public adoration that corrupted Alcibiades. Socrates’s strangeness is the subject of the last essay of the section, in which Lisa Wilkinson argues that Plato’s visits to Southern Italy and Sicily influenced his portrayal of his teacher in the Apology. Wilkinson observes that Plato’s Socrates stands in between conventional ways of speaking about the Olympian gods and an alternative tradition that receives its divine authority through the experience of wonder and emphasizes harmony rather than antagonism. Part III provides an in-depth exploration of Plato’s adventures in Syracuse. It begins with Carolina Araújo’s analysis of the political meaning of philosopher-kings in the Republic and Seventh Letter. Against the view that Plato’s project represents an abhorrent totalitarian regime, Araújo characterizes it as a community designed to exercise public control over rulers and to avoid the risk of sedition. Next, Samantha Deane examines Plato’s efforts to educate Syracuse’s tyrants, arguing based on the same texts as Araújo that the education of tyrants is democratic in orientation, even if its goal is not to establish a democracy. Socratic-style dialectic is the means by which a leader’s soul learns to build friendships, to love wisdom, and ultimately to find knowledge. Jill Gordon reinforces the connection between education, politics, and truth-seeking in Plato. Following Foucault’s genealogy of truth, she argues that the Seventh Letter’s “digression” from politics into epistemology is not a digression at all since justice and truth should be understood holistically—and it was truth and justice together that Plato was trying to bring to Sicily. Robert Metcalf argues that Plato “discovered” in Sicily that philosophy must be a life-structuring practice (epitēdeuma). He does this by linking Seventh Letter’s critique of writing and of philosophical practice in Sicily with key passages in Laches, Republic, Phaedrus, and Statesman. Next, Francisco J. Gonzalez analyzes the comparison between Plato’s visit to Syracuse and Heidegger’s political activity. He argues that the comparison fails, not only because Plato’s politics were completely different from Heiddeger’s, vii This content downloaded from 201.22.189.53 on Fri, 16 Oct 2020 19:54:56 UTC All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms

but also because Heidegger would never engaged in such a moral or political project. Marion Theresa Schneider closes the section by looking at Plato’s adventures in Syracuse from the perspective of Plutarch, who emphasizes the inexplicability of Dion’s failure in comparison with Timoleon’s success. Schneider wonders if Plutarch’s message is that the ultimate failure of Dion (and of Plato) in Syracuse was not from a lack of virtue, but rather the absence of τύχη. Part IV focuses on theater, beginning with Laura M. Slatkin and Nancy Felson’s analysis of Aeschylus’s fusion of history and drama in the Persae. Not only does the dramatist’s brilliance produce audience identification and empathy with the defeated Persian foe, they argue, it would allow even a Syracusan audience to consider their city’s battles and its leaders from a new perspective. Overall, the Persae promotes in its audience a more humanistic understanding of victory and loss. Argyri Karanasiou adopts a different perspective in the next article, analyzing the use of terms distinguishing Greeks and Sicilians in Plautus's comedy Menaechmi. She shows how Plautus simultaneously established his own Roman style of comedy while acknowledging its origins in the Sicilian rather than the Attic tradition of Greek comedy. Part V considers the Heritage of Western Greece from the perspective of Archaeology. Alba Mazza uses the case of Selinus, on Sicily’s southwestern coast, to show how the coastal landscape of the island influenced the Hellenic culture that thrived here. She argues that social, political and spiritual elements closely connected with the sea help to explain the flourishing of art and philosophy as well as commerce and trade in the area. In the next essay, Anna Raudino focuses on Monte Finocchito, an ancient settlement on the Hyblean Plateau in southeastern Sicily, to explore the process of Hellenization from an indigenous point of view. By analyzing grave goods, Raudino concludes that Monte Finocchito was a creative and vital “middle ground” where Greek and indigenous cultures melded together. Syracuse is the site of the final study in this section, which considers the funerary religion of Sicilian Greeks. Davide Tanasi, Rosa Lanteri, and Stephan Hassm offer a preliminary presentation of evidence emerging from the recent excavation of the Archaic cemetery of Viale Scala Greca, which provides new data for an viii This content downloaded from 201.22.189.53 on Fri, 16 Oct 2020 19:54:56 UTC All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms

overall reappraisal of the main funerary customs of the Syracusans with a focus on aspects of bodies, burials and beliefs. The final section focuses on the arts. To begin, Olga Zolotnikova questions the role of western Greeks in the evolution of images of the Gorgon from the ugly snake-haired monster killed by Perseus to a beautiful curly-haired maiden. Her answer engages not only the western Greeks’ religious beliefs, but also the influence of their Etruscan neighbors to the north, the homegrown poet Stesichorus, and the epinician poet par-excellence, Pindar. From the image of Gorgon we turn to the image of Arethusa as it appears through the years on the coins of Syracuse. Rosa Maria Motta shows how the local nymph was overtaken by the image of Persephone as Syracuse’s political ambitions expanded to the domination of all of Sicily. In the next essay, Aura Piccioni explores the influence of Magna Graecia on Roman art and architecture. She argues that Sicilian artists decorated the temple of Ceres, Liber and Libera on the Aventine Hill, initiating Rome’s artistic liberation from Etruscan dominance and ushering in its role as a “propagation center” of Greek art in central Italy. From the influence of Greek art in Italy, we go to the influence of Italy on the modern Greek poet, Yannis Ritsos. On his trips to southern Italy and Sicily in the 1970s, Ritsos recognizes the reflection of his Hellenic homeland in the landscape, the ruins, and the faces of the people. The poet was inspired by Magna Graecia, as we scholars were in Syracuse, to see the past come to life again so that we may understand it better. It is our hope that this collection of essays sheds new light on ancient Hellenic civilization and its relevance to our modern world. By inspiring scholars from around the world and from diverse academic disciplines to come together on the little island of Ortigia, Fonte Aretusa can connect us with our collective past, the way she connects Greece and Sicily through a mysterious underground river. Heather Reid Davide Tanasi

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Parnassos Press – Fonte Aretusa Chapter Title: Public Philosophy in Magna Graecia: The First 100 years Chapter Author(s): Anthony Preus Book Title: Philosopher Kings and Tragic Heroes Book Subtitle: Essays on Images and Ideas from Western Greece Book Editor(s): Heather L. Reid and Davide Tanasi Published by: Parnassos Press – Fonte Aretusa Stable URL: https://www.jstor.org/stable/j.ctvbj7gjn.4 JSTOR is a not-for-profit service that helps scholars, researchers, and students discover, use, and build upon a wide range of content in a trusted digital archive. We use information technology and tools to increase productivity and facilitate new forms of scholarship. For more information about JSTOR, please contact [email protected]. Your use of the JSTOR archive indicates your acceptance of the Terms & Conditions of Use, available at https://about.jstor.org/terms This content is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License (CC BY-NC-ND 4.0). To view a copy of this license, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/.

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Part I The Early Intellectual Tradition

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Anthony Preus1

Public Philosophy in Magna Graecia: The First 100 years Philosophy began in Sicily and Southern Italy2 (Fig. 1) with the arrival of Xenophanes and Pythagoras from Ionia around 540 BCE. Relying on recent studies by Carl Huffman, Leonid Zhmud, and Robert Hahn,3 I discuss the social context of the flowering of early Pythagoreanism. I also characterize the social location of the philosopher-poet Xenophanes. I then go on to people that they influenced, remarkably original thinkers: Parmenides, Zeno, Empedocles, and to literary figures with philosophical interests, like Epicharmus, and the rhetorical theorists Corax and Tisias.4 My concern in this essay is not so much about the remaining text of these thinkers, but with their relationships with each other and with the society in which they functioned. The First Stage: 6th Century BCE. Xenophanes The history of philosophy in Magna Graecia appears to begin with Xenophanes.5 This traveling poet left Colophon (escaping Persian domination), at the age of 25, in 546/5 BCE, and went to Sicily. Diogenes Laertius IX.18 says that he went to Zancle and Catania, and wrote a poem on the founding of Elea. He obviously spent some time in Elea, since Aristotle tells us (Rhet. II.23, 1400b6): “When the people of Elea asked Xenophanes if they should or should not sacrifice to Leucothea (the white goddess) and mourn for her, he advised them not to mourn for her if they thought her a goddess, and not to sacrifice to her if they thought her a mortal woman.” We are fortunate to have a nice selection of fragments of his poetry and some more or less credible reports of his opinions (DK 21, Graham6 95-134). These fragments and reports do give us some indication of the “public face of philosophy” in Magna Graecia at this early stage: his skeptical views, including famous skeptical opinions about the traditional gods, do not seem to have prevented him from having a successful career as a traveling entertainer. His poem arguing that Olympic victors did not deserve as much credit as 1 This content downloaded from 201.22.189.53 on Fri, 16 Oct 2020 19:55:15 UTC All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms

himself, “for better than the strength of men and horses is our wisdom” (B2) also may have gotten some sort of receptive audience. Probably it helps that he suggests that “it is not offensive to drink as much as you can hold and still make it home without a servant to lean on” (B1).

Figure 1. Map of Southern Italy and Sicily with distribution of Greek dialect areas

Both Plato’s Eleatic Stranger (Sophist 242d) and Aristotle (Metaphysics I.5, 986b18) make him a precursor of the Eleatic school or even imply that Parmenides was his student (μαθητής). “Looking at the whole universe he said that the One is God” (b24-25). (ἀλλ’ εἰς τòν ὅλον οὐρανòν ἀποβλέψας τò ἓν εἶναί φησι τòν θεόν). Pythagoras A few years after Xenophanes arrived in the West, Pythagoras moved from Samos to Croton (around 540 BCE). The record about 2 This content downloaded from 201.22.189.53 on Fri, 16 Oct 2020 19:55:15 UTC All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms

Pythagoras is large and confused, but clearly Pythagoras and people associated with Pythagoras have a great deal to do with the public face of philosophy in Magna Graecia. I will here make just a few major points: a) Pythagoras seems associated with the beginnings of the word “philosopher” and “philosophy.” The story goes that Leon, tyrant of Phlius, asked him what kind of wisdom, sophia, he claimed to possess, and he replied no, he was not a sophos, he was a lover of wisdom, a philosopher, and followed that up by saying that life is like the Olympic games – some come to compete, some to engage in business, but the most blessed are those who come to observe. Although a lot of people are skeptical about the story, it does go back to Heraclides, a student of Plato,7 and the word is not attested before Pythagoras, but appears frequently thereafter, as early as Heraclitus (in the old age of Pythagoras probably) B35: “Philosophers need to be investigators of a whole lot of things.” And we recall that Heraclitus also says (B129) “Pythagoras, son of Mnesarchus, practiced inquiry (historia) more than anyone else” and goes on to say “and selecting from these writings he manufactured a wisdom for himself – much learning, artful knavery.” b) The sources seem to agree that Pythagoras was, from the time he arrived in Croton, very much a “public intellectual.” According to Porphyry VP 18, for example, the city leaders of Croton were so impressed with him that they asked him to speak to the teenagers, and the children, and “even the women.” And Pythagoras and his followers continued to be influential in the politics of southern Italy for many years.8 c) Pythagoras is, early on, noted for his belief in metempsychosis: Xenophanes, who probably met him personally, wrote: “Once when he was passing a puppy that was being whipped/ they say he took pity on it and made this remark: / Stop, do not beat it, for it is the soul of a dear friend / I recognized it when I heard the voice” (DLVIII.36.). Herodotus, who lived in the nearby town of Thurii (in the next century) wrote in 2.123.2-3: The Egyptians were the first who maintained the following doctrine, too, that the human soul is immortal, and at the death of the body enters into some other living thing then coming to birth; and after passing through all creatures of land, sea, and air, it enters once more

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into a human body at birth, a cycle which it completes in three thousand years. There are Greeks who have used this doctrine, some earlier and some later, as if it were their own; I know their names, but do not record them.9

Scholars tend to agree that the “earlier” is Pythagoras, and the “later” Empedocles.10 d) Pythagoras had many followers, some of them organized into a tight-knit group with religious significance, others more marginally connected with the group. Iamblichus, at the end of his Pythagorean Life, gives a list of 218 men and 17 women; the list may well go back to Aristoxenus, who was well-informed about early Pythagoreanism, having started out as a follower of Pythagoreanism himself. The list includes people who were born after the death of Pythagoras, so it’s not all immediate followers, and there are people who are attested as early Pythagoreans in other sources who are not listed by Iamblicus.11 e) Pythagoras had some sort of connection with mathematics or number theory. There is a lively controversy about how much of a connection – Burkert12 argues not much beyond a kind of number mysticism, and has been followed by perhaps a majority of the people who write about Pythagoras; Guthrie13 and Zhmud14 have written that Pythagoras’s contributions to the development of mathematical thought were considerable. f) The early Pythagorean group had some sort of connection with medicine and athletic training. Herodotus 3.131 tells us that the physicians of Croton were the best in the world (end of the 6 th century BCE). Calliphon was a well-attested physician among the early Pythagoreans, and his son Democedes benefited from the reputation of Crotonian physicians. As for athletic training, perhaps Milo was an extraordinarily talented wrestler and might not have owed anything to his Pythagorean connections, but in this early period the Crotonian Philippos won an event in 520, Timasitheos won wrestling in 516, after Milo ended his domination, and Ischomachos of Croton won Stadion (dash) in 508 and 504; the Tarentine Anochos won two events in the 520 Olympics. Diogenes Laertius 8.1.45 records “other” Pythagorases of the same time period who were athletes, trainers, and physicians. Maybe one or more might be the same person, but Diogenes can’t believe that that august 4 This content downloaded from 201.22.189.53 on Fri, 16 Oct 2020 19:55:15 UTC All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms

mystic also trained athletes. We know very well, however, that in the next century Empedocles combined metaphysics, mysticism, and medicine very comfortably. If someone says that a particular individual couldn’t have been a Pythagorean because he wrote about medicine, that person is missing something important. Conflict in Croton When we talk about the public face of philosophy in Magna Graecia in the late 6th century we cannot avoid saying something about the conflicts in Croton. Sybaris, a legendarily wealthy Greek city to the north of Croton, underwent some civil strife resulting in the exile of a good number of their leading citizens, who moved to Croton. The Sybarites demanded their return, and the people of Croton, doubtless led by the Pythagoreans in their midst, refused.15 Military action ensued, with a battle at the river Traeis won by the Crotoniates against large odds. The army of Croton pursued the Sybarites all the way home, and totally destroyed Sybaris so that it never reappeared.16 This all happened in 510 BCE. Subsequently a Crotonian leader named Cylon conspired (possibly with the former Pythagorean Hippasus) against Pythagoras and his followers, burning down the home of Milo the Wrestler, with all or many of the leading Pythagoreans inside. Reading between the lines, it looks like Cylon and Milo were two of the military leaders who brought about the success against Sybaris, and now were in competition to rule Croton. At any rate, according to Porphyry’s Life of Pythagoras, Pythagoras escaped the fire, and headed toward Locri, south of Croton, in the toe of Italy. Porphyry says (56), “Hearing of his coming, the Locrians sent some old men to their frontiers to intercept him. They said, ‘Pythagoras, you are wise and of great worth; but as our laws retain nothing reprehensible, we will preserve them intact. Go to some other place, and we will furnish you with any needed necessaries of travel.’” One gets the idea that Pythagoras had gained some notoriety for constitutional meddling. Next he tried Tarentum, northward on the heel of Italy; Porphyry goes on: “Where, receiving the same treatment as at Crotona, he went to Metapontum. Everywhere arose great mobs against him, of which even now the inhabitants make mention, calling them the Pythagorean riots, as his 5 This content downloaded from 201.22.189.53 on Fri, 16 Oct 2020 19:55:15 UTC All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms

followers were called Pythagoreans.” Although this was the home town of Hippasus, Pythagoras was accepted; according to Porphyry he soon died there.17 Hippasus of Metapontum18 Zhmud19 makes Hippasus a contemporary of Pythagoras, and ultimately his adversary in cahoots with Cylon. An implication of this is that early Pythagoreans were involved in mathematical investigations since Hippasus was, according to Aristoxenus (DK 18A12). We need to note that Burkert (1972:206ff) dates him to 460, and Knorr 1975 (42ff) to about 430.20 Aristotle notes that he has fire as the fundamental element (Metaphysics I.3, 984a7), in the same breath as Heraclitus. Diogenes Laertius attributes to him the view “that there is a definite time which the changes in the universe take to complete and that the All is limited and ever in motion” (8.84). Among historians of mathematics, Hippasus is often credited with discovering irrational numbers, or at least the irrationality of √2, and is said to have drowned at sea as punishment; alternatively he is said to have discovered how to inscribe a dodecahedron in a sphere, and revealed that to non-Pythagoreans, for which he was drowned. This is spun together out of several different stories in Iamblichus.21 Milo, Democedes, and Calliphon While talking about the public face of philosophy in the late 6th century, it is good to talk about Milo. Milo was a very successful wrestler and military leader in Croton. He won the boys wrestling in the Olympic Games of 540 BCE and five times the men’s title, down to 520. He also won seven times at the Pythian games, ten times at the Isthmian games, and nine times at the Nemean games. Five times he won all four festivals in the same cycle.22 We have already mentioned his military leadership, encouraged by Pythagoras, in Croton’s destruction of Sybaris. We should also mention that he is said to have married Pythagoras’ daughter, Myia, and to have saved Pythagoras’ life when the roof collapsed on them. Aristotle, discussing the doctrine of the mean, says that the right amount of food for Milo is way too much for the ordinary person (EN II.6, 1106b3). A positive assessment of some Pythagorean ideas about proportion lies behind that comment. 6 This content downloaded from 201.22.189.53 on Fri, 16 Oct 2020 19:55:15 UTC All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms

Herodotus (III.125-138) tells us a long story about Democedes of Croton. Calliphon was a physician in the Pythagorean circle; his son Democedes, annoyed with his father, became physician to Polycrates of Samos (the original home of Pythagoras);23 Oroetes, satrap of Sardis, lured Polycrates into his clutches and executed him. He now had the possession of Polycrates’ retinue, including Democedes. Darius in turn had Oroetes executed, so he inherited, among many others, Democedes, now reduced to a common slave. When Darius injured his foot, someone told him about Democedes, who was persuaded to treat him, and was rewarded by being made very wealthy and influential in the Persian court. Democedes had everything but the right to return to Croton. When he treated the Queen for what appears to have been breast cancer, Democedes asked to visit Croton, and was sent back but with guards who would also serve as spies for the possible invasion of Greece. When they got to Tarentum, the Tarentines arrested the Persians and let Democedes go to Croton. When Democedes arrived, he gave Milo a lot of money for the right to marry his daughter (the grand-daughter of Pythagoras), which he did.24 Early Pythagoreans Out of the many people listed by Iamblichus as Pythagoreans, following Aristoxenus, we may mention some about whom there is something worthy of note. Brontinus of Metapontum, for example, is variously described as husband or father of Theano, otherwise known as the wife of Pythagoras. It would make some degree of sense if he were Pythagoras’ father-in-law. Some Orphic poems were ascribed to him, and later some Neopythagorean works had his name attached to them.25 Aristaeus of Croton is listed by Iamblichus VP 36 as a student of Pythagoras who succeeded Pythagoras as leader of the group, marrying Pythagoras’ widow. Fragments of a work on harmony were attributed to him.26 The Pythagorean women have attracted some attention; we should mention here those who would belong to the late 6th century. Theano,27 wife of Pythagoras, is mentioned frequently in our sources, as are Pythagoras’ daughters, Myia,28 Damo,29 and Arignote.30 It is at least clear that the Pythagorean group welcomed the participation of women, and generally Pythagoreans remained open to women 7 This content downloaded from 201.22.189.53 on Fri, 16 Oct 2020 19:55:15 UTC All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms

engaging in philosophy. In this respect Plato followed Pythagorean practice, and Aristotle (for one) did not. Iamblichus and Porphyry name as son of Pythagoras Telauges, saying that he was very young when Pythagoras died. Diogenes Laertius (8.43) recounts a story that Telauges instructed Empedocles. Iamblichus (VP 36) also says that Aristaeus handed over direction of the school to the son of Pythagoras, Mnesarchus, who would have been named after Pythagoras’ father. Putting off discussion of Alcmaeon, a word about some of the names sometimes associated with 6th century Pythagoreanism. Kerkops is called a Pythagorean by Clement of Alexandria (Stromata I) and Cicero (Nat Deor I.38). The Suda says that he composed Orphic works (s.v. Orpheus). On the strength of that DK include him among the older Pythagoreans, although Aristotle (f65.1486b31) says that he lived at the time of Hesiod. Somewhat similarly Charondas of Catana and Zaleucus the Lawgiver are sometimes said to be early Pythagoreans,31 and they were in fact influential legislators in Magna Graecia. Aristotle (Pol II.12, 1274a22ff) notes that some believed Zaleucus to have been a disciple of Thales, and Charondas of Zaleucus “but their account is quite inconsistent with chronology.” The legislation of Zaleucus has been dated to 660 BCE, or over a hundred years before Zaleucus could have studied with either Thales or Pythagoras; if Charondas was a student of Zaleucus, he was too early to study with Pythagoras.32 Also he would be too early for our survey. DK also include Petron (DK 1.106) who is said to have had the theory that there are 183 worlds arranged in a triangle, but he is known only from a passage in Plutarch, where he is not called a Pythagorean. Huffman (SEP 2014) says that he is probably a literary fiction.33 In the same context DK (1.112-113) include Parmeniscus, who is called a Pythagorean by DL 9.20 (he is said to have ransomed Xenophanes from pirates); Huffman (SEP 2014) suggests that he may be identical to Parmiscus in Iamblichus’ list. Athenaeus 14.614 tells us that Parmeniscus went down into the cave of Trophonius34 and came up unable to laugh. Consulting the Delphic oracle, he was told that his mother would give it back to him if he went to her with reverence. Eventually he went to Delos, where, when he saw the 8 This content downloaded from 201.22.189.53 on Fri, 16 Oct 2020 19:55:15 UTC All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms

shapeless statue of Leto, the mother of Apollo, he burst out laughing, and was cured. Alcmaeon Alcmaeon of Croton is the last individual to be discussed among the first group. His relationship with the Pythagoreans is controversial, and the dates of his life are also controversial.35 When Aristotle talks about the Pythagorean table of opposites in Metaphysics I.5, 986a27-31, he adds: “Alcmaeon of Croton also seems to have thought along similar lines, and either he took this theory over from them or they from him. [For Alcmaeon lived in the old age of Pythagoras, and] his views were similar to theirs” (986a27–31). The phrase in square brackets is not included in some of the best manuscripts of the Metaphysics, and some think it was inserted somewhere along the way. But with or without it, Aristotle says pretty clearly a) that Alcmaeon is distinct from the Pythagoreans, and b) that there’s some sort of temporal overlap. Apart from the stress on the opposites, Alcmaeon focused on biology and medicine, believing that health depends on a balance of “powers” in the body. He seems to have been the first in the Greek philosophical tradition to attribute cognition to the brain, and he developed an early version of the argument for immortality of the soul which appears in Plato’s Phaedrus at 245, that the soul is the ultimate cause of change, and the ultimate cause of change cannot itself be destroyed. The Second Stage: Early 5th Century BCE Parmenides Parmenides of Elea was born in 510.36 Many ancient sources say that he studied with Xenophanes of Colophon, and that is certainly plausible, since Xenophanes wrote a long poem on the foundation of Elea, and surely spent time there during the youth of Parmenides. But Diogenes Laertius (DL 9.3.21) is insistent that the more important teacher was Ameinias the Pythagorean: Parmenides, a native of Elea, son of Pyres, was a pupil of Xenophanes (Theophrastus in his Epitome makes him a pupil of Anaximander). Parmenides, however, though he was instructed by Xenophanes, was no follower of his. According to Sotion37 he also associated with

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Ameinias the Pythagorean, who was the son of Diochaetas and a worthy gentleman though poor. This Ameinias he was more inclined to follow, and on his death he built a shrine to him, being himself of illustrious birth and possessed of great wealth; moreover it was Ameinias and not Xenophanes who led him to adopt the peaceful life of a student.

We know little about the life of Parmenides; DL cites Speusippus (Plato’s nephew) to the effect that Parmenides wrote laws for his city; Plutarch38 adds that the archons required the citizens to swear each year that they would abide by those laws. A 1st century CE portrait head of Parmenides was discovered at Castellamare della Bruca (ancient Elea) in the 1960’s with an inscription – ‘Parmenides, son of Pyres, Ouliadēs, Natural Philosopher’ – that associates him with a cult of Apollo Oulios or Apollo the Healer.”39 Peter Kingsley40 argues that Parmenides was both a natural philosopher and priest of Apollo the Healer, or more precisely, a physician and religious leader. Parmenides is definitely responsible for a change in the public view of philosophy, though what that change exactly amounts to, has become a bit controversial.41 We have a large part of his poem, thanks mainly to Simplicius. The poem has three parts – an introduction, in which he recounts flying off to see the Goddess; a section on what is (esti), that we appear to have largely intact, and a section on opinion (doxa) in scattered fragments. Some quick comments: Parmenides is fiercely reliant on philosophical argument. As strange as his theses about Being may seem to some, he expects them to be accepted on the basis of logical argument. Being (esti) is one, unchangeable, ungenerated, undestroyed, and the object of thought and speech. (Palmer discusses the various ways these claims have been interpreted.)42 The latter part of Parmenides’s poem is clearly cosmological, going on to biological observations. Parmenides is credited with discovering that the moon is illuminated by the sun, and identifying Venus as both morning and evening star, making him the foremost Greek astronomer of his time. Parmenides’s influence on subsequent philosophers of Magna Graecia, direct and indirect, is huge. His close associate, Zeno of Elea, is credited by Plato with defending Parmenides using dialectical arguments (beginning of the Parmenides); Empedocles of Acragas appears to owe a great deal both to Pythagoreanism and to 10 This content downloaded from 201.22.189.53 on Fri, 16 Oct 2020 19:55:15 UTC All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms

Parmenides; both Zeno and Empedocles had great influence on people like Gorgias and others. We should also mention Melissus of Samos, an Ionic student of Parmenides, and in general all the Greek natural philosophers after his time, including Anaxagoras of Clazomenae, Diogenes of Apollonia, Leucippus and Democritus of Abdera, and the fifth and fourth century Pythagoreans, Hippo, Philolaus of Croton, Eurytus of Tarentum, and Hicetas of Syracuse. Zeno Zeno of Elea was, according to Plato, born around 490 BCE. As represented by Plato, Zeno wrote a book full of dialectical arguments designed to provide indirect support for Parmenides’s thesis: the assumption that many things exist leads to paradoxical conclusions. Aristotle, in his Physics, pays special attention to four arguments that point out problems in analyzing motion. The practice of starting from your opponent’s assumptions and ending up with absurd conclusions is put to effective use by Gorgias of Leontini (485-373 BCE), notably in his spoof on Zeno and Melissus, On What does Not Exist.43 John Palmer44 argues that Zeno’s arguments move beyond Parmenides by developing a mathematical conception of space and extension; although Palmer does not say so, this would put Zeno directly into the development of Pythagorean ideas. Zeno’s arguments have often been said to be directed against Pythagoreanism;45 if we don’t assume that there is a single set of dogmas that describes Pythagorean mathematics, Zeno might as well be described as an especially clever Pythagorean.46 According to Strabo, Elea was well-governed partly due to the influence of Parmenides and Zeno. Yes, Parmenides is said to have written long-lasting laws for Elea, but an often-repeated47 story about Zeno tends to call their political success somewhat into question – apparently Zeno organized a rebellion against a tyrant (presumably of Elea) variously called Nearchus, Diomedon, or Demylus; Zeno was either trying to kill the tyrant, or smuggle arms into the island of Lipara (not clear exactly why),48 and when questioned by the tyrant either said that the tyrant’s body-guards were his co-conspirators, or said he wanted to whisper the names into the tyrant’s ear, and bit his ear, or (most often) bit off his own tongue and spat it at the tyrant, or at the crowd. Zeno was executed by the tyrant, perhaps being 11 This content downloaded from 201.22.189.53 on Fri, 16 Oct 2020 19:55:15 UTC All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms

crushed to bits in a trough, or possibly the citizens became so inspired by his courage that they killed the tyrant.49 If Elea was so well-governed, why did they have a tyrant in the late 5th century? But anyway, the story about biting off one’s tongue and spitting it at a tyrant is also told about a Pythagorean woman, Timycha of Sparta.50 Empedocles of Acragas Probably no individual epitomizes the public face of philosophy in Magna Graecia in the first half of the 5th century BCE so much as Empedocles of Acragas. Grandson of an Olympic victor in chariot racing (496 BCE), and thus obviously a member of the highest aristocracy of Acragas, he is said to have associated with Telauges, the son of Pythagoras, with Xenophanes, and with Parmenides (he would have been approximately the same age as Zeno).51 One of his poems (On Nature)52 is dedicated to Pausanias, an Asclepiad physician who was pretty obviously his student (judging from the poem) and claimed to be his eromenos (DL 8.60).53 He is also associated with the physician Akron, later credited with founding the Empirical sect of physicians.54 It’s theoretically possible that he knew Anaxagoras in person, since the Suda says that he taught in Athens, and that would be during the time that Anaxagoras was personal philosopher of Pericles.55 He is credited with being the teacher of Gorgias of Leontini; we don’t have the names of any others of his students. Diogenes Laertius 8.59 cites Satyrus to the effect that Gorgias claimed to have been present at Empedocles doing magic (γοητεύοντι). Diogenes Laertius (8.57) says that according to Aristotle (in the “Sophist”), Empedocles first discovered rhetoric, Zeno dialectic.56 Empedocles (f120) was an extraordinarily “public” intellectual, by his own account: Friends, who inhabit the great city of yellow Acragas, On the heights of the citadel, careful for good works, Reverent harbors of strangers, innocent of evils, Hail! I like an immortal god, no longer mortal, Go about you in your midst, honored of all, as is fitting Garlanded with ribbons and blooming wreaths. When I come to other flourishing cities

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I am revered by them, men and women alike; they follow together By thousands inquiring the path to success, Some seeking oracles, some seeking To hear the healing word for all sorts of diseases, Having been long pierced by severe (pains).

So Empedocles was a poet, a naturalist, a physician, and a magician. He is said to have protected the crops from winds by constructing wind-screens (DL 8.60), but turned down the offer to make him king of Acragas on the ground that he preferred the simple life (DL 8.63). Well, not THAT simple, since he is said to have gone around in a purple robe and bronze shoes. But Diogenes Laertius cites Timaeus (8.64) to the effect that Empedocles was a “democrat” (δημοτικὸν ἄνδρον).57 Later Pythagoreans In the early 5th century BCE the Pythagorean school continued to function in Southern Italy. Mnesarchus, son of Pythagoras, succeeded Aristaeus as director of the school (Iamblichus VP 36), and he was succeeded by Boulagoras of Croton, who was director when the Pythagoreans were expelled from Croton, around 450 BCE.58 Iamblichus does not tell us any more about them. We do know a bit about a Pythagorean of their time, however: Menestor of Sybaris, who was a contemporary of Empedocles, listed as a Pythagorean by Iamblichus VP 36, is cited several times by Theophrastus in his botanical works.59 He distinguishes “warm” from “cold” plants, and takes into account various habitats, climatic factors, and maturation times. Early Rhetoricians Aristotle tells us somewhat inconsistent things about the founding of the art of rhetoric. According to Diogenes Laertius 8.57, Aristotle says that Empedocles was the first to discover rhetoric; in the Rhetoric (II.24, 1402a17), he says that Corax wrote an Art of Rhetoric utilizing spurious probabilities “making the worse argument appear the better,” a methodology later taken up by Protagoras. Cicero says (de Inventione 2.2.6-7) says that Aristotle went back to the founder of the art of rhetoric, Tisias, to develop his own rhetorical theory. However, in his Brutus (XII.46) Cicero says that both Corax 13 This content downloaded from 201.22.189.53 on Fri, 16 Oct 2020 19:55:15 UTC All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms

and Tisias wrote “Arts and Precepts of Rhetoric.” In the Sophistical Refutations, Aristotle says that Tisias “came right after the first founders” of the art of rhetoric, followed by Thrasymachus and Theodorus. Plato notes him in Phaedrus 267a and 273a, where it appears Tisias wrote a book which said that the “likely” was more important than the true for winning arguments. Corax is associated with the history of a short-term tyrant of Syracuse, Thrasybulus, who ruled for less than a year in 466/5. Aristotle (Pol. V.10, 1312b10, see also Pol. V.12, 1315b37) tells us that Thrasybulus, brother of Hiero, usurped the tyranny of Gelon by manipulating Gelon’s son; when the family got together to get Thrasybulus out, the “demos” seized the opportunity to establish a democracy. Under the tyranny, land and other property of many common citizens had been seized; these people flooded the courses trying to recover their property. Corax is said to have developed an art of rhetoric to help people make their cases in court. He is said to have structured judicial speeches into proem, narration, statement of argument, refutation of opposing arguments, and summary. Corax and Tisias are also known because of a delightful story told about them: According to this tale, Tisias convinced Corax to waive his customary teacher’s fee until Tisias won his first lawsuit; however, Tisias conspicuously avoided going to court. Corax then sued Tisias for the fee, arguing that if Corax won the case, he would get his pay, but if Tisias won (his first lawsuit) he would then have to fulfill the terms of their original agreement. Some versions of the tale end here. Others attribute a counterargument to Tisias: that if he lost the case, he would escape paying under the terms of the original agreement (having not yet won a lawsuit), and if he won there would still be no penalty, since he would be awarded the money at issue. At this point, the judge throws both of them out of court, remarking “κακοῦ κόρακος κακὸν ᾠόν” (“a bad egg from a bad crow”) (Suda, #171 under “K”).60 Epicharmus I will complete my review of the public face of philosophy in western Greece in the first half of the 5th century BCE by saying a bit about Epicharmus. He appears to have been born in the 540’s or 530’s, worked in Syracuse after 484 BCE, under the tyrants Gelon and 14 This content downloaded from 201.22.189.53 on Fri, 16 Oct 2020 19:55:15 UTC All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms

Hiero I. Lucian says that he died at the age of 97 (Lucian, Macrobii, 25), so he may have continued to work a bit beyond mid-century.61 As Lucia Rodriguez-Noriega Guillen argues in “Epicharmus’ literary and philosophical background,”62 Epicharmus repeatedly uses philosophical tropes as the starting point for comic bits. More or less any of the philosophers we have discussed today would be candidates for satirizing – Xenophanes, Pythagoreans, Eleatics. And we can also see that Gorgias took advantage of Epicharmus’s lead.63 A look at the fragments of Epicharmus64 reveals a good deal of reflection of philosophical ideas current in his day, and even some interest in biological or medical facts: 60. A pugnacious ram can be tamed by boring the horns near the ears, where they curve round. 61. Afflictions of the testis and genital organs can be usefully treated by the application of a cabbage leaf. 62. Application of a wild-cabbage leaf is sufficient for the bite of a mad dog, but it is better to add silphium-juice and vinegar; dogs also die of it if it (wild cabbage) is given with meat. (From Freeman Ancilla)

There does not seem any good reason to doubt Diogenes Laertius’s terse comment about Epicharmus, “He has left memoirs containing his physical, ethical and medical doctrines, and he has made marginal notes in most of the memoirs, which clearly show that they were written by him.” 65 Some Conclusions There was a good deal of free intellectual speculation about a large range of topics. Xenophanes’s famous skepticism about the traditional gods and his audacious henotheism set the tone. Pythagoras’s metempsychosis was dramatized by Empedocles. But perhaps many of the western Greeks would have sympathized with Menander’s epigram, quoted by Stobaeus (IV.31.30): “Epicharmus says that the gods are winds, water, earth, sun, fire, stars, but the only useful gods for me are silver and gold.” Parmenides furthered accurate astronomical observation; Empedocles engaged in largescale cosmological speculation. Many of the people that we have been discussing were engaged in medical practice and biological investigation: Calliphon among the 15 This content downloaded from 201.22.189.53 on Fri, 16 Oct 2020 19:55:15 UTC All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms

earliest Pythagoreans, Alcmaeon of course, and Empedocles and his associates Akron and Pausanias, even, according to Diogenes Laertius, Epicharmus. At least since Burkert wrote, there has been some disagreement about the extent of involvement of the early Pythagorean school in mathematical investigations. I’m inclined to agree with Zhmud that serious interest in mathematical subjects was a characteristic of at least some of the people associated with the Pythagorean movement right from the beginning. However we characterize the relationship of Zeno of Elea and Hippasus to the Pythagorean movement, it is obvious that they moved the study of mathematics forward considerably, and avowedly Pythagorean thinkers like Philolaus, in the following period, took up the challenge. In my comments here I have put some stress on the engagement of philosophers with their immediate society. Even though there is some temptation to think of Pythagoras, Parmenides, Zeno, and Empedocles as “ivory tower” speculators, one must not succumb. All of the major people we have been discussing were, by all accounts, seriously involved in their political environment, transforming the governments of their poleis like Pythagoras, writing laws, like Parmenides, challenging tyrants, like Zeno, or simply making a fledgling democracy work more efficiently, like Corax and Tisias.

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Tony Preus is Distinguished Teaching Professor of Philosophy at Binghamton University (SUNY), and Secretary of the Society for Ancient Greek Philosophy. His most recent book is the Historical Dictionary of Ancient Greek Philosophy (2nd edition, 2015), published by Rowman and Littlefield. The establishment dates of the cities of the “western” philosophers: Syracuse: 733; Zancle: 730-720; Catane: 729; Leontini: 729; Sybaris: 720; Croton: 709; Metapontum: 650 (archaeological evidence; literary date 773); Taras: 630; Acragas: 580; Elea: 540 (Commemorated by Xenophanes); Thurii: 446-443, by Sybaritic exiles (Diod/ XII.9-11). Relying on A. J. Graham “The Colonial Expansion of Greece,”in John Boardman & N.G.L. Hammond. 1982. The Cambridge Ancient (Cambridge: Cambridge UP), 94-112. Magna Graecia in some authors

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means Southern Italy; Strabo Bk 6 includes Sicily as well. For a discussion of the application of the term, see Kathryn Lomas, 2013, Rome and the Western Greeks, 350BC-AD200: Conquest and Acculturation in Southern Italy (London: Routledge). 3 Carl Huffman, ed. 2014, A History of Pythagoreanism (Cambridge. 2014). See especially in this volume L. Zhmud, “Sixth-, fifth- and fourth-century Pythagoreans.” C. Huffman. 2014. “Pythagoreanism.” SEP. Robert Hahn, forthcoming, The Metaphysics of the Pythagorean Theorem. 4 Primary sources and how to find them: Aristotle. Mainly available online, but I use the J. Barnes edition 1984. Princeton. Athenaeus. Deipnosophists (abbr. Athenae.) http://www.attalus.org/info/athenaeus.html. Cicero. Nature of the Gods (Nat Deor) http://oll.libertyfund.org/titles/539. Tusculan Disputations (Tusc). Available online at Project Gutenberg. Clement of Alexander. Stromata http://www.newadvent.org/fathers/0210.htm. Hermann Diels & W. Kranz (abbreviated DK). 1951. Fragmente der Vorsokratiker. Weidmann. John Dillon & Tania Gergel. 2003. The Greek Sophists. Penguin. Diodorus Siculus (abbreviated Diod.): The Library of History is available online at LacusCurtius (http://penelope.uchicago.edu /Thayer/E/Roman/Texts/Diodorus_Siculus/home.html). Diogenes Laertius (abbreviated DL): The R.D. Hicks translation is available online on Perseus. Kathleen Freeman. 1948, reprinted 1983. Ancilla to Pre-Socratic Philosophers: A Complete Translation of the Fragments in Diels, Fragmente der Vorsokratiker. Harvard. Available online at http://www.sacred-texts.com/cla/app/. Daniel Graham. 2010. The Texts of Early Greek Philosophy. Cambridge. Herodotus, History. (Abbreviated Herod or Hdt). Available at http://classics.mit.edu/Herodotus /history.html, or with facing Greek text, http://www.sacredtexts.com/cla/hh/. Iamblichus, On the Pythagorean Life. Available at www.holybooks.com/wp-ontent/uploads/TheCompletePythagoras.pdf. Rudolf Kassel, Colin Austin, eds. 2001. Poetae Comici Graeci Vol I: Comoedia Dorica, Mimi, Phlyaces. Walter de Gruyter. Lucian. In Praise of a Fly. http://www.sacred-texts.com/cla/luc/wl3/wl319.htm. Philostorgius. Church History, ed. P. R. Amidon. 2007. Society of Biblical Literature. p. 174. Plato. Readily available online, but I use the Cooper edition 1997. Hackett. Pliny. Natural History (NH). On LacusCurtius and Perseus. Plutarch. Against Colotes. In Perseus. On Isis and Osiris. In LacusCurtius. Porphyry. Life of Pythagoras (abbreviated VP). K.S. Guthrie translation (1920) available at http://www.tertullian.org/fathers/porphyry_life_of_ pythagoras_02_text.htm. Strabo. Geography. Available both on LacusCurtius and Perseus. Suda. Online at http://www.stoa.org/sol/.

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Theophrastus. Inquiry into Plants (HP). Loeb 1916, photographic reproduction at https://archive.org/. 5 J. Lesher. 2014. “Xenophanes.” SEP. 6 D. Graham. 2010. The Texts of Early Greek Philosophy. 7 See J. Dillon p. 259 in Huffman ed. 2014. In the version in Cicero Tusc. 5.3.8ff, Pythagoras is visiting Phlius when this exchange occurs. Diogenes Laertius says that it was either at Sicyon or Phlius (I.2). Given the reference to the Olympic Games, Pythagoras and Leon may have met at one of the several games during Pythagoras’ time in Croton, when his associate Milo competed and won the prize for wrestling. 8 See, e.g., C. Rowett, “The Pythagorean Society and Politics,” in Huffman ed. 2014. 9 Herodotus 2.81 also talks of “Pythagoreans” who follow what he takes to be Egyptian customs. 10 See, e.g., W. Burkert. 1972. Lore and Science in Ancient Pythagoreanism. This doctrine is also associated with the Orphic religion from about this time. 11 See L. Zhmud in Huffman ed. 2014 pp. 88-91. In this essay Zhmud pushes the idea that Hippasus could have been involved in the Cylonian conspiracy, while in Zhmud 2012 p. 7 he gives Hippasus a birth date of 520, which would make him 10 years old at the time of the conspiracy. 12 W. Burkert. 1972. Lore and Science in Ancient Pythagoreanism. Harvard UP. 13 W. Guthrie. 1962. A History of Greek Philosophy. Vol. 1. See also R. Hahn, forthcoming. 14 Leonid Zhmud. 2012. Pythagoras and early Pythagoreanism. OUP. 15 Diod. 12.9 16 Diod. 12. 9, 10; Strabo 6. p. 263; Herod. 5.44; Athenae. 12. p. 521. See Catherine Rowett in Huffman ed. 2014 for a more nuanced version of this history. 17 C. Rowett in Huffman ed. 2014 reviews the various versions of this story and its implications pp. 127-130. 18 P. Horky, 2013, Plato and Pythagoreanism, Oxford Univ. Press emphasizes the important role of Hippasus in the development of the mathematical tradition leading to Platonic mathematical theory. 19 Zhmud in Huffman ed. 2014, pp. 94ff. 20 W. R. Knorr 1975. In Huffman ed. 2014. 21 Iamblichus VP 18: Hippasus claimed credit for inscribing a dodecahedron in a sphere, and “received the doom of the impious.” 34: a nameless person was punished for divulging how to inscribe a dodecahedron in a sphere, but others say that it was for divulging the secret of irrational numbers.

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N. J. Spivey, 2004, The Ancient Olympics, OUP, pp. 65–66, 100–101. Michael Poliakoff, 1987, Combat Sports in the Ancient World, Yale UP. pp. 117119, 182-183. H. A. Harris, 1964, Greek Athletes and Athletics, Hutchinson, pp. 110-113. 23 Calliphon is attested as a first generation Pythagorean in Iamblichus list and Hermippus (DK 1.111.36 ff.). Herodotus says that Democedes left Croton because he didn’t get along with his father. He went to Aegina, where he began to practice medicine. “In his second year the Aeginetans paid him a talent to be their public physician; in the third year the Athenians hired him for a hundred minae, and Polycrates in the fourth year for two talents.” 24 Carl Huffman, 2014, “Pythagoreanism,” Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy argues that “There is no good reason to think that Democedes… was himself a Pythagorean, although he had some Pythagorean connections,” but he generously cites Zhmud 2012 p. 120 for the opposite opinion. 25 Clem. Alex. Stromata 1.131; DL 8.42, 83; Iamblichus VP 267. 26 Zhmud in Huffman ed. 2014 p. 111 dates him much earlier – that would be a different Aristaeus, the legendary Sardinian inventor of beekeeping. 27 Athenae. 13; DL VIII.42-43: “Theano wrote a few things. Further, a story is told that being asked how many days it was before a woman becomes pure after intercourse, she replied, “With her own husband at once, with another man never.” And she advised a woman going in to her own husband to put off her shame with her clothes, and on leaving him to put it on again along with them. Asked “Put on what?” she replied, “What makes me to be called a woman.” 28 Lucian talks about her in In Praise of a Fly. She is mentioned by Iamblichus, VP 30, 36; Porphyry, VP 4, and Clem. Alex. Stromata 4.19. 29 DL 3.42-43 says that Pythagoras entrusted some writings to her, which she refused to surrender. 30 Porphyry, VP 4, says that writings attributed to her were extant in his day. The Suda lists several writings attributed to her (doubtless later pseudonymous items) and Clem. Alex. Stromata, 4.19 mentions a “Rites of Dionysus.” The most recent survey of the evidence concerning these women, and the writings attributed to them in antiquity, is Annette Huizinga, 201, Moral Education for Women in the Pastoral and Pythagorean Letters: Philosophers of the Household, Brill. Huizinga includes the name of “Melissa”; Prudence Allen, 1997, The Concept of Woman: The Aristotelian Revolution, 750BC-AD1250, Eerdmans, dates her after Aristotle. Most likely she’s a Neopythagorean pseudonym. 22

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Included in the Iamblichus list. See Huffman in Huffman ed. 2014 p. 292 for a quick discussion of the evidence. 32 According to the 1999 Neue Pauly, he should be dated to late 7 th to early 6th BCE: p. 1110. 33 W. Guthrie, 1962, A History of Greek Philosophy, Vol. 1, CUP, 322–323; Burkert 1972, 114; Zhmud 2012, 117. 34 For classical references to this cult, see: http://www.theoi.com/Khthonios/Trophonios.html. 35 For a detailed discussion, see Huffman. 2013. “Alcmaeon.” SEP. 36 This date is calculated from Plato’s Parmenides, where he is described as about 65 in 450 BCE (127B). 37 Sotion was a 2nd BCE author of a book called “Successions of Philosophers,” an important source for Diogenes Laertius here and elsewhere. 38 Plut. Adv. Col. 1126a. 39 J. Palmer; “Parmenides,” S.E.P.; https://www.parmenidesfoundation.org/about/parmenides-of-elea/. Cf. Graham 1.208. 40 Peter Kingsley, 1999, In the Dark Places of Wisdom, The Golden Sufi Center. 41 For the scholarly discussion of this issue, see J. Palmer 2009 Chapter 1, and J. Palmer 2012. “Parmenides.” SEP. 42 Palmer, “Parmenides,” S.E.P. 43 Summarized by Sextus Empiricus Adv Math 7.65-87, Graham vol. II pp. 16ff. The same technique is also used in Gorgias’ Encomium of Helen and Defense of Palamedes. 44 Palmer 2009 pp. 203ff. 45 N. B. Booth, 1957, “Were Zeno’s Arguments Directed against the Pythagoreans?” Phronesis 2.2:90-103. 46 Strabo 6.1. identifies Parmenides and Zeno as “Pythagorean men.” Elea “is the native city of Parmenides and Zeno, the Pythagorean philosophers. It is my opinion that not only through the influence of these men but also in still earlier times the city was well governed.” Cf. Kingsley 150-157, M. L. Gemelli Marciano in Huffman ed. 2014. 47 DK 29A1, 2, 6, 7, 8, 9 all include versions of this story. 48 Kingsley Dark Places cites La Parola del Passato 21 (1966) 270-278 and 25 (1970) 62-63 to the effect that this would be in defense of Lipara against Athenian invasion. Thucydides III.88 mentions an attack on Lipara, occasioned by Lipara’s alliance with Syracuse. Lipara was also, in this period, threatened by the Carthaginians. Either way, why would a putative tyrant of Elea be upset by Zeno’s arms dealings in Lipara? See 31

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49

50

also M. Fragulaki 2013 p. 183: Athens’ intervention in Lipara was in 428-426. Does that give us an approximate death year for Zeno? Diogenes Laertius: [26] “He was a truly noble character both as philosopher and as politician; at all events, his extant books are brimful of intellect. Again, he plotted to overthrow Nearchus the tyrant (or, according to others, Diomedon) but was arrested: so Heraclides in his epitome of Satyrus. On that occasion he was cross-examined as to his accomplices and about the arms which he was conveying to Lipara; he denounced all the tyrant’s own friends, wishing to make him destitute of supporters. Then, saying that he had something to tell him about certain people in his private ear, he laid hold of it with his teeth and did not let go until stabbed to death, meeting the same fate as Aristogiton the tyrannicide. [27] Demetrius in his work on Men of the Same Name says that he bit off, not the ear, but the nose. According to Antisthenes in his Successions of Philosophers, after informing against the tyrant’s friends, he was asked by the tyrant whether there was anyone else in the plot; whereupon he replied, “Yes, you, the curse of the city!” and to the bystanders he said, “I marvel at your cowardice, that, for fear of any of those things which I am now enduring, you should be the tyrant’s slaves.” And at last he bit off his tongue and spat it at him; and his fellow-citizens were so worked upon that they forthwith stoned the tyrant to death.” In this version of the story most authors nearly agree, but Hermippus says he was cast into a mortar and beaten to death.” Plutarch, Against Colotes #32: “Zeno, the disciple of Parmenides, having attempted to kill the tyrant Demylus, and failing in his design, maintained the doctrine of Parmenides, like pure and fine gold tried in the fire, that there is nothing which a magnanimous man ought to dread but dishonor, and that there are none but children and women, or effeminate and women-hearted men, who fear pain. For, having with his own teeth bitten off his tongue, he spit it in the tyrant’s face.” Timycha of Sparta was an early 4th BCE Pythagorean. When she and her husband Myllias of Croton were on their way to Metapontum with a group of Pythagoreans they were attacked by Syracusan soldiers at the command of Dionysius the elder. They had the option of running through a field of beans to escape, but did not; instead they fought, and everyone was killed except the pregnant Timycha and her husband, who were taken captive. When Dionysius asked them why they didn’t run through the bean field, she bit off her tongue and spit it at his feet. (From Philostorgius, Church History, ed. P. R. Amidon, p. 174. Iamblichus VP tells a slightly different version of the story.) We might

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also remember the myth of Philomela, who was raped by Tereus and who also cut out her tongue so she couldn’t tell on him. 51 Diogenes Laertius 8.51ff. 52 Yes, I’m aware that some people say that he wrote just one, but I’m persuaded that there are two on the basis that one is dedicated to Pausanias, and one is dedicated to the people of Acragas. 53 An epigram in the Greek Anthology, attributed to Simonides, runs thus: Παυσανίην ἰητρὸν ἐπώνυμον, Ἀγχίτεω υἱόν, τόνδ᾽, Ἀσκληπιάδην, πατρὶς ἔθαψε Γέλα, ὃς πλείστους κρυεραῖσι μαραινομένους ὑπὸ νούσοις φῶτας ἀπέστρεψεν Φερσεφόνης θαλάμων. DL 8.61 says that this epigram was written by Empedocles himself. Galen Meth Med 1.1 lists “physicians from Sicily”: Philistion, Empedocles, Pausanius “and their associates.” 54 Pliny NH 29.4: “Another sect again, known as that of the Empirics— because it based its rules upon the results of experiment—took its rise in Sicily, having for its founder Acron of Agrigentum, a man recommended by the high authority of Empedocles the physician.” Suda: Akron: Of Akragas; physician, son of Xenon; he taught at Athens contemporaneously with Empedocles; so he is older than Hippocrates. He wrote On Medicine in the Doric dialect, and On Nutrition of the Healthy in one book. This man is also one of those who diagnosed certain respirations.” According to Plutarch (On Isis and Osiris 383C-D), Akron stopped the plague at Athens in 430 BCE by setting a great fire to purify the air. See also J. R. Pinault 1992 pp. 44-60. DL 8.65: “Again, when Acron the physician asked the council for a site on which to build a monument to his father, who had been eminent among physicians, Empedocles came forward and forbade it in a speech where he enlarged upon equality and in particular put the following question : “But what inscription shall we put upon it? Shall it be this? ‘Acron the eminent physician of Agrigentum, son of Acros, is buried beneath the steep eminence of his most eminent native city?’” Others give as the second line: “Is laid in an exalted tomb on a most exalted peak.” Some attribute this couplet to Simonides. 55 Aristotle says that Anaxagoras was prior to Empedocles in age, but posterior to him in works: Ἀναξαγόρας δὲ ὁ Κλαζομένιος τῇ μὲν ἡλικίᾳ πρότερος ὢν τούτουτοῖς δ᾽ ἔργοις ὕστερος. I think that rules out a teacher-student relationship in either direction. 56 Cf. Sextus Emp. Adv Math 7.6, Empedocles was the first to promote rhetoric. Quintillian 3.1.8: Empedocles was the first to promote

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rhetoric; the first textbooks on rhetoric were written by Corax and Tisias, followed by Gorgias, who was a student of Empedocles. 57 DL 8.64: “having been invited to dine with one of the magistrates, when the dinner had gone on some time and no wine was put on the table, though the other guests kept quiet, he, becoming indignant, ordered wine to be brought. Then the host confessed that he was waiting for the servant of the senate to appear. When he came he was made master of the revels, clearly by the arrangement of the host, whose design of making himself tyrant was but thinly veiled, for he ordered the guests either to drink wine or have it poured over their heads. For the time being Empedocles was reduced to silence; the next day he impeached both of them, the host and the master of the revels, and secured their condemnation and execution. This, then, was the beginning of his political career.” DL 8.66: “Subsequently Empedocles broke up the assembly of the Thousand three years after it had been set up, which proves not only that he was wealthy but that he favoured the popular cause. …” DL 8.67: “when Agrigentum came to regret him, the descendants of his personal enemies opposed his return home; and this was why he went to Peloponnesus, where he died.” 58 Carl Huffman, 1993 Philolaus of Croton, Cambridge, pp. 2-4 discusses this event in relation to dating the life of Philolaus. He makes it out to be 454 following E. L. Minar, 1942, Early Pythagorean Politics, Waverly Press. 59 Theophrastus HP I.2.3, V.9.6, V.3.4, CP I.17.3, I.21.5, II.4.3, VI.3.5. It’s interesting to find a “Sybarite” listed as a Pythagorean, given the persistent enmity between Croton and Sybaris, but Iamblichus lists 12 male Sybarites and one female in VP 36. 60 Thanks to Wikipedia, “Corax.” See also S. O. Gencarella, 2007, “The Myth of Rhetoric: Korax and the Art of Pollution,” Rhetoric Society Quarterly 37, 3:251-273; D.A.G. Hinks, 1940, “Tisias and Corax and the Invention of Rhetoric.” The Classical Quarterly 34.1/2:61-69; J.F. Dobson, 1919, The Greek Orators, Online at Perseus. 61 A. Willi in Kathryn Bosher, ed, 2012, Theater Outside Athens. CUP. See also Lucia Rodriguez-Noriega Guillen, chapter 4 in this volume. 62 As Lucia Rodriguez-Noriega Guillen argues in “Epicharmus’ literary and philosophical background” (in Bosher, ed. 2012) 63 Nancy Demand, 1971, “Epicharmus and Gorgias,” The American Journal of Philology 92.3: 453-463 argues that Epicharmus 254K: is from a play by Epicharmus, the speaker being Palamedes, and referring to Gorgias’ Palamedes. She also discusses 171K: the argument parallels Plato Gorgias 460b-c.

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The Freeman (Ancilla, 1948) collection is readily available online. Several more recent collections and studies have appeared: Guillén 1996, Kassel & Austin 2001, Kerkhof 2001. Diogenes Laertius (8.78) writes that Epicharmus was a student of Pythagoras.

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Parnassos Press – Fonte Aretusa Chapter Title: From Epicharmus’s Theatrics to Zeno’s Paradoxical ‘Drama’ Chapter Author(s): Omar Álvarez Salas Book Title: Philosopher Kings and Tragic Heroes Book Subtitle: Essays on Images and Ideas from Western Greece Book Editor(s): Heather L. Reid and Davide Tanasi Published by: Parnassos Press – Fonte Aretusa Stable URL: https://www.jstor.org/stable/j.ctvbj7gjn.5 JSTOR is a not-for-profit service that helps scholars, researchers, and students discover, use, and build upon a wide range of content in a trusted digital archive. We use information technology and tools to increase productivity and facilitate new forms of scholarship. For more information about JSTOR, please contact [email protected]. Your use of the JSTOR archive indicates your acceptance of the Terms & Conditions of Use, available at https://about.jstor.org/terms This content is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License (CC BY-NC-ND 4.0). To view a copy of this license, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/.

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Omar Álvarez Salas1 From Epicharmus’s Theatrics to Zeno’s Paradoxical ‘Drama’ Top theatrical performance attained through smart technical devices, along with an unparalleled insight into how to exploit philosophical wisdom and language for comical purposes, were features bound with Epicharmus’s traditional image. This comedy writer, who worked (and probably was also born) in Syracuse on the threshold of the 5th century BCE under the Deinomenid Gelon’s and Hieron’s rule, was a contemporary of some of the most influential thinkers of the Greek West.2 A couple of generations younger than Pythagoras and Xenophanes, his lifespan virtually overlapped with Parmenides’s, preceding Empedocles and Zeno by not more than three to four decades. Acclaimed as Sicily’s foremost playwright and even as the very inventor of comedy, Epicharmus was increasingly connected through the ages with philosophical thinking, being mostly linked with Pythagoreanism and with a sententious pattern of expression.3 However, well before all this happened, Plato notoriously attributed to this comedy writer the view that “everything was in motion,” in agreement with Homer, Heraclitus and Protagoras, but in sharp contrast with the Eleatic denial of change powerfully advocated by Parmenides with the later support of Zeno.4 In fact, setting aside the usual acknowledgment of Parmenides as the central and foremost (and perhaps even the very first) Eleatic thinker, the only other member of the ‘school’ who stands on a comparable intellectual height is his companion and fellow citizen Zeno, famed for arguments artfully marshaled to uphold Parmenides’s doctrine against mischievous comments aimed at making it seem preposterous. The ancient reports on this matter connect Zeno with a puzzling style of argumentation that raises questions about his true intentions.5 Plato, our main witness on this issue, suggests that Zeno’s writing must have been openly polemical, inasmuch as it is described as having been devised as a defense of Parmenides vis-à-vis his opponents, specifically those trying to ridicule his doctrine. 25 This content downloaded from 201.22.189.53 on Thu, 15 Oct 2020 13:44:36 UTC All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms

In this paper, a plausible reconstruction of the facts underlying this idea of Plato’s will be attempted through a careful analysis of Epicharmus’s projection of philosophical doctrines on stage. This will be done by digging down through Plato’s characterization of Zeno’s challenging devices to reveal their probable comic origins, and ultimately to connect them to some argumentative strategies attested in the textual remains of the Syracusan comedy writer Epicharmus. The Testimony of Plato’s Parmenides Our main testimony on Zeno’s writing as a reaction against some criticisms aimed at exposing to ridicule Parmenides’s doctrine is the detailed account found in Parmenides 128 B-C, in which Plato attributes the following words to his character ‘Zeno’: Yes, Socrates, Zeno replied; but you have not quite seen the real character of my book. True, you are as quick as a Spartan hound to pick up the scent and follow the trail of the argument; but there is a point you have missed at the outset. The book makes no pretense of disguising from the public the fact that it was written with the purpose you describe, as if such deception were something to be proud of. What you have pointed out is only incidental; the book is in fact a sort of defense of Parmenides’s argument against those who try to make fun of it by showing that his hypothesis, that there is a One, leads to many absurdities and contradictions. This book, then, is a retort against those who assert a plurality. It pays them back in the same coin with something to spare, and aims at showing that, on a thorough examination, their own hypothesis that there is a plurality leads to even more absurd consequences than the hypothesis of the One. It was written in that controversial spirit in my young days; and someone copied it surreptitiously, so that I had not even the chance to consider whether it should see the light or not. That is where you are mistaken, Socrates; you imagine it was inspired, not by a youthful eagerness for controversy, but by the more dispassionate aims of an older man; though, as I said, your description of it was not far wrong. 6

In the first place, according to Plato’s own view of Zeno’s writing, it was not considered an entirely serious treatise, but was depicted as a text of a contentious character —whether written by Zeno as a young man or not— insofar as it was intended as strong support for his teacher and associate, Parmenides, whose doctrine had been the target of harsh criticism at the hands of certain polemicists bent on 26 This content downloaded from 201.22.189.53 on Thu, 15 Oct 2020 13:44:36 UTC All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms

showing that the One Being7 advocated by him led to a number of nonsensical consequences. In point of fact, he tells us that the method used by Parmenides’s opponents was to ridicule him (αὐτὸν κωμωιδεῖν) by showing that his assumption of the One Being entailed a number of laughable consequences (πολλὰ καὶ γελοῖα) which led him to self-contradiction (ἐναντία αὐτῶι). According to Plato’s account, Zeno responded with an extraordinarily clever spirit to the criticisms directed to his teacher, using the same kind of polemical weapons wielded by Parmenides’s critics. This can only mean that he raised against them the same kind of objections and/or that he formulated his rejoinder in the same spirit of mockery that Parmenides’s enemies used. If this turns out to be correct, Zeno’s intentions would have been, without a doubt, to move to controversy in order to expose Parmenides’s opponents to the same kind of ridicule that they themselves had tried to inflict on his bold assumption that there was nothing except the One.8 Many objections can be raised against this reading of the testimonies, as a series of scholars has already done. To begin with, a meeting between Parmenides and Socrates such as that recounted by Plato could have hardly taken place, since their life spans could not have overlapped. Also, we do not possess a single independent piece of evidence to confirm Plato’s suggestion that Parmenides ever traveled to Athens.9 Reports of a possible visit by Zeno to Athens, furthermore, are at best confusing and at any rate do not imply that Parmenides accompanied him.10 In spite of all this, a number of positive considerations regarding Plato’s description are in order. To begin with, there is the fact that even if the dramatic setting of most of Plato’s dialogues might have been largely fictional, he would have still been very interested in rendering the characters in as likely a way as possible.11 We may even assume that Plato was simply following the standard practice common among those Greek writers who brought onto the stage imitations of real life events, for he is known to have been fond of the theatrical treatment of characters and situations.12 However, even if we took for granted the fictional nature of Plato’s rendering, and even if reports fail to confirm Zeno’s presence in Athens, the very fact of their existence suggests that Zeno’s book —or at least parts of it— had somehow made its way to 27 This content downloaded from 201.22.189.53 on Tffff on Thu, 01 Jan 1976 12:34:56 UTC All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms

5th century BCE Athens and had shaped his reputation as a skilled rhetorician, perhaps even before Plato’s time. More important to our present inquiry is to investigate the reasons that might have led Zeno to develop his type of paradoxical argumentation, especially considering the tradition (conveyed mainly by Plato’s Parmenides) according to which he would have developed it as a counterattack against some detractors of Parmenides.13 While an encounter in Athens between Parmenides, Zeno, and Socrates seems to be out of the question and conjecturing a meeting point elsewhere in Greece (e.g. Olympia) would be mere fancy, there is still hope that the ideological atmosphere of the scene and the arguments brought forward by the dialogue personages reflect a realistic outlook. For only by introducing bits of credible information would Plato’s bold dramatization have succeeded in setting up a persuasive account of a conversation attributed to thinkers whose works might have been known or at least accessible to his audience. Plato would never have said anything about Parmenides and Zeno that could have meant open conflict against the actual contents of their works, which we can safely imagine as familiar to any 4th century BC cultivated Athenian. In fact, a partial confirmation of the purpose ascribed to Zeno’s book by Plato comes from the nature of the fragments themselves, since it is difficult to conceive of them as anything else than as a reply to some sort of prior challenge or stimulus.14 This leaves us with the problem of determining who the addressees of Zeno’s response might have been. Unfortunately, the Platonic testimony provides no more than feeble hints of their true identity, either because Plato deliberately concealed it out of fear or respect, or because he did not know who they were. What is left is that Plato seems to have used Zeno in the dialogue under discussion as a character who defines as κωμωιδεῖν the way in which Parmenides’s doctrine was debunked by his opponents, hence he attaches the label γελοῖα (“ridiculous”) to the result of this procedure. Aside from this, there is not even the slightest hint as to the true identity of the philosopher’s adversaries either in Plato’s text or in Simplicius’s corroborating commentary. It may be safe to say that almost every serious intellectual of the time felt the need to come to terms with Parmenides’s doctrine in his own way, and this is 28 This content downloaded from 201.22.189.53 on Thu, 15 Oct 2020 13:44:36 UTC All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms

proved by the attempts made by Empedocles, Anaxagoras, Melissus, Democritus, Protagoras, and Gorgias, among other thinkers.15 Gorgias may indeed be credited with a playful subversion of Eleatic doctrines in his Περὶ τοῦ μὴ ὄντος (“On not Being”), although he would have been much too young to be responsible for the attacks against Parmenides that eventually provoked Zeno’s shocking retaliation.16 Picking names from the aforementioned list is not likely to offer any satisfactory solutions either, since not a single one of them may be rightly associated in any attempt at deriding others.17 The lack of consensus on whom Zeno might be addressing is aptly summarized by Guthrie’s own conclusion that, “there must have been many who ‘tried to make fun’ of it in the way he describes.”18 A Comic Connection Now, given the vagueness of this proposal and the inconclusiveness of all previous attempts at solving the problem, it would probably be better to approach the question with a fresh view, in an unbiased way. As a new way of narrowing the scope of our research, I believe it convenient to follow a path that has never before been seriously trod, at least to my knowledge, in spite of its immediateness. It is well known that κωμωιδεῖν is an action verb that in 5th century Athens was generally used for the kind of personal attack usually made by comedy writers and now considered the hallmark of Aristophanes. Particularly in the Clouds, the Athenian playwright portrayed the most effective and far-reaching caricature of an intellectual, thus making Socrates appear as the prototype of the charlatan that pursues a totally useless knowledge. In connection to this, I would like to recall that in the Apology, Plato has Socrates retorting against the slanderous portrayal made of him by a comic writer, where a reference to the travesty of Socrates’s teaching made by Aristophanes in his Clouds is easily identifiable.19 The play by Aristophanes is the only extant full example of personal abuse in comedy of a leading intellectual, even though we know that Cratinus, the older contemporary of Aristophanes, mocked the atheist philosopher Hippon in the Πανόπται (fr. 167 K.A.), which dates from a little before 423 BCE, while some of the socalled sophists were derided in his Ἀρχίλοχοι (fr. 2 K.-A.); we also know that the slightly younger Eupolis satirized Protagoras and 29 This content downloaded from 201.22.189.53 on Thu, 15 Oct 2020 13:44:36 UTC All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms

Alcibiades in the Κόλακες (fr. 157-158 K.-A.) —a play that defeated the Clouds in the comedy contest of 423 BC— and, finally, that Amipsias brought Socrates to the stage as a character in the Κόννος (fr. 9 K.-A.).20 On the evidence provided by the fragments of these satirical plays along with other testimonies regarding the Old Comedy, it is clear that directing criticisms against ‘smart’ people, especially Socrates and the sophists, had become common practice in 5th century Athens. While the precise moment at which the practice of making fun of a known intellectual on stage entered the repertoire of comedy writing is rather difficult to determine, an external terminus ante quem can be found in the satirical portrayal that Xenophanes made of Pythagoras in an elegy probably written before the end of the 6th century BC,21 which is perfectly compatible with a relatively early introduction of ὀνομαστὶ κωμωιδεῖν into comedy, aimed at leading intellectuals, mainly outside Athens, as I will argue in the following paragraphs. At any rate, the entire context invites us to seriously consider the possibility that a predilection for staging caricatures of philosophers and mockeries of their doctrines in comical plays — anticipating the trend set in Athens towards the last quarter of the 5th century which we have outlined above for the Old Comedy— could have appeared around the end of the 6th or the beginning of the 5th century BC somewhere in the wide Greek world, perhaps as an accompanying effect of the fast rising group of experts in the new field of “research on nature” (περὶ φύσεως ἱστορία). By a lucky chance of indirect tradition, a whole series of literal quotations and testimonies preserved by literary antiquaries and grammarians confirms the existence and flourishing of a remarkably developed form of theater in early 5th century BCE Sicily. The foremost exponents of that primeval drama were Aristoxenus of Selinunte, Sophron, Phormis and Epicharmus, the latter three being comedy writers (albeit Sophron was more of a mimographer) active in Syracuse under the rule of the Deinomenid dynasty, at a time when Southern Italy and Sicily were, so to say, swarming with thinkers and religious prophets advocating new ways of viewing and understanding the world. Isn’t it then conceivable that one or more of these quick-witted playwrights might have had the intuition of discovering the potentialities lying in the dramatic adaptation of 30 This content downloaded from 201.22.189.53 on Thu, 15 Oct 2020 13:44:36 UTC All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms

philosophical theories and language, and even of bringing to the stage as characters some of these new intellectuals? I believe the answer to this question to be an emphatic “yes” and that the innovator of this technique may have been most likely Epicharmus. Let us now make the case for this contention. Epicharmus and Philosophy on Stage On the one hand, Aristotle mentions Epicharmus in his Poetics as an artist who contributed decisively to elevating comedy to literary heights,22 inasmuch as he credits the Sicilian playwright with the introduction of the dramatic plot (μύθους ποιεῖν) in comedy writing; in another passage he refers to Epicharmus as being “much older than Chionides and Magnes,”23 the latter being remembered as the earliest recorded winner of a dramatic contest in Athens. Moreover, Aristotle links Epicharmus in his Metaphysics to certain harsh criticisms against Xenophanes,24 whose probabilistic approach to reality would have been squarely condemned by the comedy writer as devoid of any meaningful truths,25 as Alexander of Aphrodisias confirms in his commentary on this Aristotle’s passage.26 On the other hand, as a further proof of Epicharmus’s polemical stance vis-àvis outstanding intellectuals of his time, we also possess other textual evidence that allows us to view Epicharmus not just as a satirical writer, but also as a highly imaginative individual especially skilled in the persiflage of philosophical theories, and who might have played a major role in the ideological interactions of his time.27 One of the most eloquent testimonies in this sense is undoubtedly a very famous passage in Plato’s Theaetetus (152 D-E), where Epicharmus is mentioned alongside Homer and Heraclitus as one of the main supporters of the doctrine of the unsteadiness of things. They are suggestively presented there as an “army” facing the sole champion of immobility and changelessness, i.e. Parmenides: But it is out of movement and motion and mixture with one another that all those things become which we wrongly say “are”—wrongly, because nothing ever is, but is always becoming. And on this subject all the philosophers, except Parmenides, may be marshalled in one line —Protagoras and Heraclitus and Empedocles— and the chief poets in the two kinds of poetry, Epicharmus, in comedy, and in tragedy, Homer, who, in the line: “Oceanus the origin of the

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gods, and Tethys their mother,” has said that all things are the offspring of flow and motion.28

That the inclusion of Epicharmus in such an heterogeneous company was not just an amusing reference dictated by one of Plato’s bouts of humor is confirmed by an anonymous commentary found on a papyrus on this very passage of the Theaetetus,29 which has a confirmation in several references by Plutarch to a comical scene where Epicharmus made use of a witty invention devised by himself.30 Here, a sketch drawn up as comedy describes the way in which a man refused to pay a debt he had incurred by saying that he was not the same person that had contracted the obligation: the explanation being that in the time elapsed certain things had been added to his person and others had been lost. After this response, the creditor got so angry that he struck the debtor, who in turn brought the aggressor before a jury; finally, the latter rebuked the accusation by saying that he was not the same person who had struck the other man. So far, we certainly have to admit that the sort of argumentation attributed to Epicharmus by the anonymous commentator, in spite of all its allegedly Pythagorean attributes,31 fully corresponds to the rigorous standards we usually associate to philosophical argumentation after Parmenides, a logical system where a conclusion must necessarily follow from its premises. Hence, in the aforementioned episode, a logical consequence of the addition and subtraction of something to and from an individual’s body is that he/she is no longer the same entity as before, since he/she has undergone a material transformation. By sheer luck, two extant fragments of a now lost play by Epicharmus, transmitted by Diogenes Laërtius in his biography of Plato, allow us to substantiate the assumption that Epicharmus somehow must have been acquainted with Parmenides’s doctrine, to the extent that in these texts the author resorts to an Eleatic style of logical argumentation.32 The first of these two fragments by Epicharmus visibly contains a controversy between the positions of a naïve believer in the traditional theogonies that begin with Chaos and an advocate of the eternity of the divine sphere.33 The latter proves wrong the former’s belief by arguing in an unmistakably Eleatic spirit that, if we are to accept Chaos as the first-born entity, it 32 This content downloaded from 201.22.189.53 on Thu, 15 Oct 2020 13:44:36 UTC All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms

would necessarily follow that it must have emerged from nothingness and, consequently, its very being amounts to null: A. But gods there always were; never at any time were they wanting, and these things are always alike, and remain in the same state. B. Yet it is said that Chaos was the first-born of the gods. A. How so? It is impossible that [he might have been born] out of some-thing: no-thing would have come first. B. What! Then did nothing come first after all? A. No, by Zeus, nor second either, at least of the things which we are thus talking about now; but they have always been.34

For all its implications, this form of argumentation, as a travesty of philosophical jargon, bears such a strong resemblance to Parmenides’s own demonstrations of the eternity of Being in B8, 6-13 DK, founded on the fundamental Eleatic axiom nihil ex nihilo, that the conclusion that we are dealing here with an evident caricature of the Parmenidean apodictic method seems to me unavoidable. This is tantamount to saying that our comic writer was smart enough to make good use of the logical tools developed by the philosophers in a play of his penmanship, in order to demonstrate that, even from the commonsensical assumption that everything must come to be out of something, the paradoxical conclusion necessarily follows that for a thing to arise as the very first would mean its being no-thing. There is a second fragment from Epicharmus transmitted as a whole sequence with the previous one,35 most probably from the same play (now lost) whence the first fragment was extracted, which provides us with a true sample of the pseudo-sophisticated style of argumentation Epicharmus employed to justify the use of the paradoxical αὐξανόμενος λόγος, presumably from a play including the comical situation outlined above in the already discussed anonymous commentary on the Theaetetus: a. But suppose someone chooses to add a single pebble to a heap containing either an odd or an even number, whichever you please, or to take away one of those already there; do you think the number of pebbles would remain the same? b. Not I.

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a. Nor yet, if one chooses to add to a cubit-measure another length, or cut off a bit from the former Being, would the original measure still exist? b. Of course not. a. Now consider mankind likewise. One man grows, and another again shrinks; and they are all undergoing change at all times. But a thing which changes by its own nature and never remains in the same state must ever be different from that which experienced the transformation. And even so you and I were one pair of men yesterday, are another today, and again will be another tomorrow, and will never remain the same, by this same argument.36

In this fragment we are able to read the actual ‘theoretical’ explanation given to us by a character of an unknown play by Epicharmus, in order to justify the amusing fact that a person has ceased to be himself/herself to become a different person altogether, and by resorting to an example taken from the common practice of adding with pebbles.37 He explains that just like an even or odd number does not remain the same when a unity is added to or subtracted from it, or just like a certain length measure becomes longer or shorter when another measure is added to or taken from it, in just the same way a man changes time and again into a different person through the process of growth and decay. From all this it necessarily follows that there can be no ταὐτόν, insofar as each and every person does not possess a steady constitution, but instead is submerged in an unrelenting process of change that turns every being into an elusive succession of different corporeal entities. Therefore, Epicharmus’s so-called αὐξανόμενος λόγος or “growth argument” relies on an elaborate argumentation pattern that is skillfully devised to reach the paradoxical conclusion that identity does not exist, which is tantamount to exhibiting the unsteadiness of Being. At this point, it seems to me especially difficult to deny that Epicharmus’s argument, independently of its enormous dramatic potentialities, should have been evident to any person familiar with Parmenides’s as an upside down turning of his doctrine of the immobile, non-generated, imperishable Being. In fact, the perplexing conclusion that no one is ever the same as himself/herself is reached through an elaborate argumentation 34 This content downloaded from 201.22.189.53 on Thu, 15 Oct 2020 13:44:36 UTC All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms

reminding one of Parmenides’s own style, although lying on a savory pastiche of intermingled material that betrays the jocular intentions of the author. Moreover, that Epicharmus aimed at making fun even of Parmenides’s changeless, eternal Being is made clear by a series of verbal echoes of this thinker’s poem, where an overturning procedure can be seen at work. The most obvious instance is to be found in the negative echo of Parm. 28 B 8, 29 s. D.-K.: ταὐτόν τ’ ἐν ταὐτῶι τε μένον καθ’ ἑαυτό τε κεῖται (“remaining in the same state it lies by itself”) contained in v. 9 of Epicharmus’s fragment: ὃ δὲ μεταλλάσσει κατὰ φύσιν κοὔποκ’ ἐν ταὐτῶι μένει (“But a thing which changes by its own nature and never remains in the same state”). This antiphrastic correspondence is in itself likely to clinch the present case, as it entails the fact that in developing his argument Epicharmus had in mind a subversion of a specific doctrine of Parmenides. In fact, we cannot but recognize here an evident neutralization of a Parmenidean key concept, which is embodied in the typical Eleatic formula ἐν ταὐτῶι τε μένον,38 since to be identical to itself is one of the main features of the Eleatic Being, in the sense that it prevents its becoming another, and which could only mean to Parmenides turning into nothing. In the same way, Epicharmus’s expression in v. 5: τοῦ πρόσθ’ ἐόντος ἀποταμεῖν (“cut off a bit from the former ‘Being’”) seems to give a twist to Parmenides’s conception of an indivisible, timeless ἐόν, since it clearly states that it goes through different temporal and qualitative stages, whereas v. 7: ὃ μὲν γὰρ αὔξεθ’, ὃ δέ γα μὰν φθίνει (“One man grows, and another again shrinks”) brings into the discussion the highly destructive —by Eleatic standards of thought— idea of increase and decrease. Seen as a whole, what Epicharmus’s argument is propounding is the fact that the commonsensical notion of ‘growth,’ in the wider sense of the term, amounts to an experimental proof of the untenability of Parmenides’s bold hypothesis that there can be no change. In doing so, Epicharmus appears of necessity as one of Parmenides’s earliest detractors, indeed the only one whose style of treating the latter’s doctrine can possibly be termed a ‘lampooning’.39

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Zeno’s response to the challenge In what sense, then, could Zeno’s paradoxical argumentations be considered an answer to Epicharmus’s denigration of Parmenides? In the first place, it must be acknowledged that they could be a reaction to it only in a very limited sense, as a trigger or a stimulus, because it would be certainly impossible to assume that each one of Zeno’s arguments was intended to be a reaction to Epicharmus’s challenging κωμωιδεῖν. In point of fact, we can view Zeno’s relation to Epicharmus’s jesting defiance in two ways, which virtually correspond to what Plato expounds in the Parmenides. Firstly, Zeno’s arguments against plurality and motion, just like Epicharmus’s αὐξανόμενος λόγος, are founded on a paradoxical pattern of thought, which resorts to an apparently undefeatable style of argumentation to bring the reader/listener to admit conclusions that openly contradict the normal image of the phenomenal world and of how things there should look. Because of this, it is tempting to establish a connection between the startling approach to corporeal increase and decrease that Epicharmus’s argument implies and the somewhat similar tenor of Zeno’s book, which —according to this dialogue character in Plato’s Parmenides— “pays them back [i.e. Parmenides’s adversaries] in the same coin with something to spare” for the ridicule they held Parmenides up to. Secondly, the refutation of plurality that Zeno carries out in fragment B2DK, explained by Simplicius as an attempt at invalidating the conception of a plurality of things endowed with size, makes extensive use of the very idea of increase and decrease that Epicharmus introduced so conspicuously into his own subversion of Parmenides’s doctrine, in which the comedy writer resorted to the laughable absurdity of making Some-thing equal to No-thing. Zeno’s fragment runs as follows: For if it were added to another being, it would not increase its size; for if a magnitude were null, it would be incapable, when added, of yielding any increase in magnitude. And thus [it follows that] what was added would already be nothing. And if, when it is subtracted, the other thing does not decrease in size; and again, if, when it is added, [the other thing] will not grow, it is evident that what was added was nothing, and likewise what was subtracted.40

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From the fact alone of finding here in use those same notions I indicated above as the turning points of Epicharmus’s own argumentation —i.e. corporeal increase / decrease and nothingness— and of resorting also to the shocking strategy of a reductio ad absurdum equalizing a thing (being) and a no-thing (null), Zeno’s own argument provides textual confirmation of my assumption that it was written with a view to neutralizing Epicharmus’s growth argument, perhaps along with other anti-Parmenidean positions. In fact, it would be easily understandable if Zeno, in his effort to definitely exclude every possible way of debunking Parmenides’s doctrine, put under attack all together a vast array of conceptions about space and matter (as well as about human body structure and growth) put forward by several thinkers. In any case, in doing so he appears to have especially taken care of demolishing the threatening growth argument, developed by Epicharmus as a comical outlook on corporeal being as changing, which thus proves to have been speedily and widely diffused all over the Greek world.41 Two further points of contact might be pointed out here between Zeno’s paradoxical analysis of motion and Epicharmus’s joking outlook on material increase and decrease. The first is the “cinematographic” temper of Zeno’s so-called argument of the ‘Stadium’, where an indefinite “series of instantaneous transitions” from one position to the next takes place in any given shift.42 It is remarkable that both in Zeno’s Stadium and in Epicharmus’s illustration of his αὐξανόμενος λόγος (23B2DK) a ‘cinematographic’ analysis of motion is displayed, since a race course and the progressive body growth and decay of a person are dramatically viewed as the ‘frozen’ frames of an athlete’s race shot in slow speed, whence a feeling arises of having to do with a somewhat jerky way of motion or development. This same ‘freezing’ technique of a series of individual positions in the course of a moving object reaches its highest expression in Zeno’s argument of the Arrow: at each instant of the flight taken by the jerkily moving missile, it occupies only a segment equal to itself and, therefore, the flying arrow is at rest at any such position until it hops to the next.43 The second (and last) point linking Epicharmus and Zeno that I would like to highlight here is the dramatical layout of some of the situations described in the latter’s paradoxes about motion. In fact, a 37 This content downloaded from 201.22.189.53 on Thu, 15 Oct 2020 13:44:36 UTC All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms

theatrical treatment of any subject matter included in a play would impose itself to a comedy writer by an inner literary genre force, which is the case for Epicharmus’s amusing applications of his αὐξανόμενος λόγος discussed above. In contrast to this, a similar procedure for a philosophical thinker’s approach to a real or a virtual problem is by no means self-evident and, according to the surviving evidence, only makes its first appearance ever in Zeno’s arguments, as Aristotle himself suggests with regard to the so-called ‘Achilles’.44 Thus, we may have here a further proof of an ideological interaction that proceeds not only from philosophy to theater, but that also works the other way round. Conclusive Remarks By way of conclusion, I would like to stress that an unprejudiced approach to the above discussed evidence would probably entail a radically new understanding of the ideological interactions in the Presocratic era, as well as a reassessment of Plato’s ‘doxographical’ reports on a case by case basis. In particular, it seems to me that the tradition according to which Zeno’s book was a response to very early criticisms directed at Parmenides’s doctrine —such as Epicharmus’s caricature must have been— should be taken in serious consideration, as I hope to have clearly showed above. As for Epicharmus, he is certainly entitled to a place in Greek intellectual history as a very cunning Aristophanes ante litteram, insofar as he was the author of the oldest example of sophistic reasoning and the creator of a new approach to comedy writing that we often associate exclusively with the more ‘mature’ art of the second half of the 5 th century.

1

Omar Álvarez Salas is currently full-time Researcher in Classics and Professor at the Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México (UNAM), where he teaches Ancient Philosophy and Greek. He specializes in ideological interactions between poets and intellectuals of the 6th-5th centuries BC, focusing on Western Greek thinkers like Pythagoras, Xenophanes, Parmenides, Epicharmus and Zeno, as well as the reception of Presocratic philosophy in later times. Some relevant publications are: Epicarmo ed i Presocratici. Interazione e polemica (forthcoming); “Cratylus and the early reception of Heraclitus in

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Athens” —in O. Álvarez-E. Hülsz, El libro de Heráclito 2500 años después, México, UNAM, 2015—; “Intelectuales y poetas en la era presocrática: diálogo y polémica”, Noua tellus 28-2 (2010), pp. 23-67; “I frammenti ‘filosofici’ di Epicarmo: una rivisitazione critica” SIFC IV Serie, Vol. V, Fasc. I (2007), pp. 23-72. 2 For a bird’s-eye view of Epicharmus’s cultural environment and of his interaction with the thinkers of his time, see O. Álvarez, “El κωμωιδεῖν de Epicarmo: una interacción escénica con la filosofía magno-greca”, in D. García (ed.), Teatro clásico y su tradición, Mexico, UNAM, 2009 (Supplementum II Noua tellus), pp. 57-94. 3 For Epicharmus’s role as developer or inventor of comedy, see Arist. Poet. 5. 1449b 5 and Theocr. Ep. 18 Wil.; for Epicharmus’s philosophical maxims, see Iambl. V.P. 226. 4 Pl. Theaet. 152d-e (for the text of this passage, see further on). 5 The so-called paradoxes of Zeno are usually viewed as directed against the same common sense notions that Parmenides attempted to banish from the realm of true Being (i.e. plurality and movement). For a thorough (albeit not up-to-date) examination of this issue, see H. D. P. Lee, Zeno of Elea. A Text, with Translation and Notes, Amsterdam, 1967. 6 Pl. Parm. 128c. English translation by Cornford with slight changes. 7 I use “One Being” (as did Cornford) as a discursive approach to Plato’s view of Parmenides’s doctrine, without any pretension to historical or doctrinal exactness. For a detailed discussion of Parmenides’s Monism in its relation to Being see A. P. D. Mourelatos, The Route of Parmenides, New Haven / London, 1970 (pp. 130-134) and M. Stokes, One and Many in Presocratic Philosophy, Harvard / London, 1971. 8 The two Eleatic thinkers appear here and there in Plato’s work as an army engaged in a common ideological battle (cfr. Theaetetus 152d; 180e et pass.) to convince the world at large that the many changing, moving, separated appearances we think we perceive in the phenomenal world are in fact a crude illusion instead of the ‘real’ changeless, motionless One Being. At any rate, the picture drawn by Plato in the Parmenides seems to imply that Zeno’s arguments were directed at a particular school or thinker, and so does Simplicius’s relevant commentary, who, as Vlastos rightly observes (“Plato’s Testimony concerning Zeno of Elea”, Journal of Hellenic Studies, Vol. 95 (1975), pp. 136-162 —on this point see p. 140 n. 17), was able to compare this description of Zeno’s intentions with what he actually read in the latter’s book. 9 Diog. Laërt. IX 23 (based on Apollodorus’ calculations) sets Parmenides’s ἀκμή during the 69th Olympiad = 504-501 BCE; Socrates, on the other

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13

14

hand, is known to have been born in 469 BC, the Eleatic philosopher would have been around 90 years old on Socrates 16 th birthday. Plutarch’s report on Pericles being under Zeno’s tutelage (Pericl. 4, 5) and the mention of Pythodorus and Callias as Zeno’s pupils by the author of the first Alcibiades (119 A) have been repeatedly invoked as proof of Zeno’s long-term residence in Athens. Yet, Vlastos pointed out a few decades ago (op. cit., 155 ff.) the unreliability of both reports. Besides, Zeno is said (Diog. Laërt. IX 28) to have categorically refused to live among the “presumptuous Athenians”, which speaks against the attribution to him of a period spent in Athens. Regarding Plato’s portrayal of Parmenides as a visitor to Athens —confirmed only by Simplicius’s relevant comment—, there is also the huge problem of chronology that does not make plausible a meeting with Socrates, since this would imply a 25 year jump forward of the former’s floruit as provided by Diogenes Laërtius (69th Ol. = 504-501 BC), a date that might be ultimately drawn on Apollodorus’s calculations. On all this see F. Solmsen, “The tradition about Zeno of Elea re-examined”, Phronesis (1971) Vol. 16, No. 2, pp. 116-141 (especially pp. 126 f.). J. Barnes (in L. Rossetti-M Pulpito (eds.), Zenone e l'infinito, Sankt Augustin, 2011, p. 40) has recently underlined the fact that “Plato’s dialogues aren’t essays in the history of philosophy, they are not ‘sources’ for the early career of philosophy. They are fictions.” Diog. Laërt. III 5; 9; 18 et passim. In particular, Plato was thought to have followed Sicilian theatrical models (mainly Epicharmus’s and Sophron’s) for his literary rendering of personages and even for the choice of the topics discussed in his dialogues. Among modern scholars who are skeptical about the whole story of Zeno’s defense of Parmenides’s doctrine, J. Barnes (in L. Rossetti-M Pulpito, cit., p. 40) declares that “the story is pretty implausible in itself —if only because it is passing strange to defend a theory by arguing that another theory is ‘even more absurd’.” However, in this paper I hope to show up such a stance to be unjustifiably extreme. The mere fact that Zeno’s so-called paradoxes make no explicit formulation of the thesis they are intended to set forth nor of the thesis they are supposed to offset can be taken as a clear indication that the terms of the contest were well established from the outset. Indeed, no author could have thought of writing a book using such an elaborate set of argumentations and addressing such an arguably vital issue if he was not sure that the readers (or listeners) would even recognize what he was talking about —see L. Rossetti, “Sull’intreccio di logica e

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retorica in alcuni paradossi di Zenone di Elea”, Archiv für Geschichte der Philosophie, 74. Band (1992) Heft 1, pp. 1-25. 15 In the list above, I purposely omitted the Pythagoreans, whose numberatomism was identified first by P. Tannery (Pour l'histoire de la science hellène, Paris, 1930) and then by J. E. Raven (Pythagoreans and Eleatics, Cambridge 1948, Chapter VI) as the target of Zeno’s paradoxes, since N. Booth (“Were Zeno's Arguments Directed Against The Pythagoreans”, Phronesis, Vol. 2 (1957) no. 2, pp. 90-102) argued convincingly against this view. For an (outdated) overview of the whole subject see W. K. C. Guthrie, A History of Greek Philosophy, Vol. II: The Presocratic Tradition from Parmenides to Democritus, Cambridge University Press, 1965, pp. 80 ff. (chapter on Zeno). 16 Besides, there is the fact that the title of his treatise looks rather as an overthrowing of Melissus’s Περὶ τοῦ ὄντος (“On Being”). Gorgias was the choice of Nestle in E. Zeller, Die Philosopie der Griechen, I. Teil, I. Hälfte, ed. by W. Nestle, Leipzig, 1923, p. 747 n. 2. 17 This also applies to Protagoras, whose polemical argumentation against “those who bring forward the One” could barely qualify him as the jesting Parmenidean detractor that Zeno attempted to hurl down in his maze of paradoxes. 18 Guthrie, op. cit., p. 88. Compare N. Booth (“Were Zeno’s Arguments a Reply To Attacks upon Parmenides”, Phronesis, Vol. 2 (1957) no. 1, pp. 1-9), who having totally rejected the possibility of even a partial reflection of the real Zeno in Plato’s Parmenides (“Plato is perfectly capable of this much invention,” p. 2) conceded anyway that: “There may well have been others who, defiant of the logic of Parmenides, continued to believe in their eyes and ears.” (p. 8). 19 Pl. Ap. 18d;19c. The lampooning on stage of the smart ones, including Socrates’s caricature in Aristophanes’s Clouds, is surveyed in an interesting way by O. Imperio, “La figura dell’intellettuale nella commedia greca” (in Tessere. Frammenti della commedia greca: studi e commenti, Bari, 1998, pp. 43-130; on Socrates see pp. 103-122); for an updated discussion of Socrates’s derision in the Clouds, see the studies collected in A. Laks & R. Saetta Cottone (dir.), Comédie et philosophie. Socrate et les “Présocratiques” dans les Nuées d’Aristophane, Paris, 2013. 20 On Socrates’s portrayal in the Κόννος, a piece that won the second prize (over Aristophanes’s Clouds) in the Dionysian comedy contest of 423 BC, see the detailed comment P. Totaro devoted to Amipsias’s fragments (in Tessere, cit., pp. 133-194; on the Κόννος see pp. 149-165). 21 Xenophan. 21 B 7 DK. This fragment, which has Pythagoras recognize the transmigrated ψυχή of a deceased friend by hearing his voice in the

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‘articulate’ bark of a puppy that was being beaten, is in fact the earliest example of a caricature of a public figure in the extant Greek literature —on this I refer to the comments by J. H. Lesher, Xenophanes of Colophon. Fragments, Toronto, 1992 (Phoenix, Supplementary Volume XXX / Phoenix Presocratics Volume IV), pp. 79 ff. (for my own conclusions on this issue see my forthcoming book on Pythagoras). 22 Arist. Poet. 5, 1449b 5-9. 23 Arist. Poet. 3, 1448a 29-34. 24 Arist. Metaph. Γ 5 p. 1009 b 10 – 1010 a 12. 25 On this point see O. Álvarez, “Epicarmo e Senofane: tessere di una polemica”, Noua tellus 25-2 (2007), pp. 85-136. 26 Alex. Aphrod. In Arist. Metaph. 307, 30 - 308, 20. 27 For a survey of the evidences supporting my thesis of the interaction between Epicharmus and several Presocratic thinkers, see O. Álvarez, “El κωμωιδεῖν de Epicarmo”, cit. 28 Pl. Theaet. 152d-e. trans. Harold Fowler (Loeb Classical Library). 29 Anon. in Plat. Theaet. [152 e 4 s.] col. 71, 12 = CPF III, p. 458-461 BastianiniSedley (= 136 K.-A.). The text has been integrated in different ways by the editors, starting from Diels and Schubart (1905), who were succeeded by Bastianini and Sedley (1995); Luigi Battezzato offered more recently a partial new reconstruction of it in his article “Pythagorean comedies from Epicharmus to Alexis”, Aevum Antiquum N.S. 8 (2008), pp. 139-164 —see especially pp. 154 ff.), where he discusses extensively previous proposals and provides two different integrations of the passage which are adequately justified from a papyrological point of view. 30 Plut. De sera num. vind. 15 p. 559 AB; comm. not. 44 p. 1083 A (Plutarch's source for this last passage is Chrysippus himself). 31 The connection with Pythagoreanism was suggested by the commentator himself, who may have based his assertion on a well-established tradition of Epicharmus’s Pythagorean background (cf. Diog. Laërt. VIII 6 and 78). This connection is admitted by most modern scholars (e.g. Battezzato op. cit.); A. Willi (Sikelismos. Sprache, Literatur und Gesellschaft im griechischen Sizilien (8.–5. Jh. v. Chr.), Basel, 2008) even undertook to relate (with rather unconvincing results, as I will argue at length in a forthcoming review of his book) Epicharmus’s so-called growth argument to Pythagoras’s doctrine of the transmigration of souls and to his rhetorical practice based on the καιρός concept (see pp. 172 ff.). Also surprising is Willi’s translation of αὐξόμενος λόγος as ‘augmenting discourse’ in a more recent contribution (“Challenging authority: Epicharmus, epic, rhetoric”, in K. Bosher (ed.), Theater

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Outside Athens. Drama in Greek Sicily and South Italy, Cambridge, 2012, pp. 56-75—see especially pp. 58 ff.). 32 For a detailed discussion of the authenticity of the fragments transmitted by Diogenes Laërtius (the so-called series ex Alcimo), please refer to O. Álvarez, “I frammenti ‘filosofici’ di Epicarmo”, cit. 33 Epich. 23B1DK (= 275 K.-A.), for which I proposed in the just quoted article a restoration of the original manuscript reading of v. 4: πῶς δέ κ’; ἀμήχανόν γ’ ἀπό τινος· μηδὲν ὅ τι πρᾶτον μόλοι (cf. Diels: πῶς δέ κα; μὴ ἔχον γ’ ἀπό τινος μηδ’ ἐς ὅ τι πρᾶτον μόλοι. Ahrens: πῶς δέ κα; μὴ ἔχον γ’ ἀπό τινος ἐνθὲν ὅ τι πρᾶτον μόλοι). 34 Diog. Laërt. III 10-11. English translation based on that of R. D. Hicks (Loeb Classical Library), with important modifications in vv. 2 and 6, and an entirely new version of v. 4 to bring it in accordance with the original manuscript reading as restored by me (see previous note). 35 Diog. Laërt. III 11. The splitting of the continuously transmitted text in two separate fragments (23B1 & B2 DK = 275 & 276 K.-A.) was hesitatingly proposed by G. Kaibel (Comicorum Graecorum Fragmenta, Berlin, 1899) and carried out by H. Diels (Die Fragmente der Vorsokratiker, Berlin, 1903), who was followed in this by almost all subsequent editors of Epicharmus’s fragments, including R. Kassel & C. Austin (Poetae Comici Graeci, Vol. I, Berlin-New York, 2001); A. Capra & S. Martinelli Tempesta (“Riding from Elea to Athens (via Syracuse). The Parmenides and the early Reception of Eleatism: Epicharmus, Cratinus, and Plato”, Méthexis XXIV (2011), pp. 135-175 —see pp. 152 f.) —who took up several interpretive suggestions I made in earlier articles— advocated a persuasive reintegration of the original continuous sequence. 36 Epich. 23B2DK (= 276 K.-A.). English translation based on that by R. D. Hicks (cit.) with important modifications (italics are also mine). 37 On the probable reflection of Pythagorean arithmetic in this passage see W. Burkert, Weisheit und Wissenschaft. Studien zu Pythagoras, Philolaos und Platon, Nuremberg, 1962 (see pp. 413 f.). 38 Cf. Xenophan. 21B26DK: αἰεὶ δ’ ἐν ταὐτῶι μίμνει κινούμενος οὐδέν. 39 I would like to stress that, in a recently published contribution by L. Rodríguez-Noriega Guillén (“Epicharmus literary and philosophical background”, in K. Bosher (ed.), cit., pp. 76-96 —see especially 87-95), a rather superficial overview of this issue is given, which fails to adequately take in consideration the proposals I have made during the last decade in a series of articles on several aspects of Epicharmus’s interaction with the Presocratic thinkers, which have been espoused by

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several qualified scholars. For a survey of this cultural complex see my contribution “El κωμωιδεῖν de Epicarmo”, cit. 40 Zeno 29B2DK. English translation based on that of Lee (op. cit. p. 19) with important modifications mainly in the understanding of the genitival clause μεγέθους γὰρ μηδενὸς ὄντος, which I take as a second hypothetical clause (“for if a magnitude were null”). Only in that way does the argument makes any sense at all, as Gomperz (Hellenika, Leipzig, 1912, pp. 297 f.), Fränkel (cit.) and Colli observed (Zenone di Elea. Lezioni 1964-1965, Milano, 1998), even though I do not agree with their emendation proposals to the text, which I keep as transmitted. 41 Even Melissus in the far-away Samos apparently also found that Epicharmus’s conception of material increase and decrease demanded a detailed refutation. Circumstantiated proof of the logical impossibility of growth and decay, envisaged as a particular case of physical alteration and rearrangement of parts, can be seen in 30B7DK and 30B8DK by Melissus. The last fragment contains a profuse argumentation leading to the conclusion that the transformations we perceive in natural things with our body senses, although seeming to confirm the reality of change, should be excluded by reason on the grounds that they would eventually bring the total ruin of material objects. This train of thought admits of no other explanation than as a reaction against a conception according to which change was an unceasing, blind, fully mechanical process, exactly as we know Epicharmus maintained. On this, see O. Álvarez, Epicarmo ed i Presocratici. Interazione e polemica (forthcoming). 42 Lee, op. cit. pp. 100 ff. 43 For the relevant testimonies and a commentary, see Lee, op. cit. pp. 52-55 and 78-83. For a critical examination of this argument, see G. Vlastos, “A Note on Zeno’s Arrow”, Phronesis 11 (1966), pp. 3-18. 44 Arist. Phys. Z 9. 239b 14: “The second [argument of Zeno] is the so-called Achilles. This is that the slower runner will never be overtaken by the swiftest, since the pursuer must first reach the point from which the pursued started, and so the slower must always be ahead. […] it proceeds on the same lines as the dichotomy argument […] only in the Achilles a dramatic effect is produced by saying that not even the swiftest will be successful in its pursuit of the slowest (English translation by Lee, op. cit., p. 50; italics are mine).

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Parnassos Press – Fonte Aretusa Chapter Title: The Tradition of Mathematical Learning in Magna Graecia Chapter Author(s): Jean De Groot Book Title: Philosopher Kings and Tragic Heroes Book Subtitle: Essays on Images and Ideas from Western Greece Book Editor(s): Heather L. Reid and Davide Tanasi Published by: Parnassos Press – Fonte Aretusa Stable URL: https://www.jstor.org/stable/j.ctvbj7gjn.6 JSTOR is a not-for-profit service that helps scholars, researchers, and students discover, use, and build upon a wide range of content in a trusted digital archive. We use information technology and tools to increase productivity and facilitate new forms of scholarship. For more information about JSTOR, please contact [email protected]. Your use of the JSTOR archive indicates your acceptance of the Terms & Conditions of Use, available at https://about.jstor.org/terms This content is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License (CC BY-NC-ND 4.0). To view a copy of this license, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/.

Parnassos Press – Fonte Aretusa is collaborating with JSTOR to digitize, preserve and extend access to Philosopher Kings and Tragic Heroes

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Jean De Groot1 The Tradition of Mathematical Learning in Magna Graecia From the distance of millennia, mathematical thought in Magna Graecia of the 5th–3rd centuries BCE looks genuinely grand. Its history has suffered, however, from a paucity of source texts. We have a few fragments of Philolaus and Archytas, somewhat more in the way of reports and testimonies about these two, and a wealth of doxographical material about the Pythagorean connection with mathematics. The doxography for early mathematicians has of late received even more criticism than usual for its myth-making and misleading character.2 In this context, a clue to the nature of the mathematics of this period is that many of its innovations were designed for mathematical natural science, in particular mechanics and astronomy. This means its mathematical achievements were geared to an account of movement. In the 5th–early 4th centuries BCE, Plato had not yet asserted the importance of separating mathematics as a discipline from movement.3 Μαθήματα was a plural noun for different inquiries pursued with a similar method, learning μαθηματικῶς. Arithmetic and geometry seem not to have been considered as prior or superior to μαθήματα like astronomy and mechanics, both of which involved movement.4 A coherent episode of Greek mathematical thought–stemming from the treatment of motion–can be discerned in the historical course extending from the work of the mathematicians, Archytas of Taras (b. late 5th century BCE) in southern Italy and Eudoxus of Cnidos, his student, (b. circa 400 BCE) through to the treatise Mechanics, also called Mechanical Problems, whose venue is unknown,5 and then on to Archimedes of Syracuse (b. 287 BCE) with his mechanical method of theorems. What unites these mathematicians in a progression of thought are two things. The first and most important is that all pursued solutions to questions about movement by seeking a sameness of ratio––what is called proportion (ἀναλογία). In addition, it was important that the proportion was itself invariant through a range of related cases. The related cases 45 This content downloaded from 201.22.189.53 on Thu, 15 Oct 2020 13:45:11 UTC All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms

were places along a movement or different parts of an on-going movement. I contend that the purpose and meaning of Eudoxus’s ratio and proportion appear in a new light when considered in relation to motion. Both Eudoxus in his astronomy and the author of Mechanics in his tour de force of applications of the lever principle were dealing with paths or loci of movements that could be rectilinear, circular, or simply curved. Furthermore, Archytas pursued sameness of ratio as a strategy for mathematical explanation of movement. Sameness of ratio as ascribed to Eudoxus is called ἀναλογία by Euclid, who reports and systematizes the theory in Elements, Book 5. Archytas’s account of growth is given in a testimonium using this term.6 In Mechanics, a proportion that does not vary over time during a movement yields either rectilinear or circular movement. Finally, both Archytas and the author of Mechanics understand the invariant ratio as accounting for the shape of movement. Let us consider each of these points in turn. Archytas and the shape of growth Eudemus, the historian of mathematics in Aristotle’s school, recounts Archytas’s criticism of definitions of motion that made it the unequal, uneven (ἀνώμαλον), or indefinite.7 Archytas said that these do not characterize what movement itself is but are rather causes or origins of movement. For him, movement in nature when left to itself tends toward a self-regulating orderliness. Movement is in some way a reconciling of disparities. In a puzzling but well-accepted testimonium, Archytas is reported as having an answer to the question of why unspecialized parts of living things grow in a circular shape: Why is it that the parts of plants and of animals that are not organs are all round—of plants the stalk and shoots, of animals the calves, thighs, arms, and chest? Neither a whole nor a part is triangular or a polygon. Is it, just as Archytas said, because there is in natural movement the proportion of equality (for he said all things move in proportion), but this [movement] is the only one that returns to itself, and so makes circles and curves, when it comes to be? (915a28–33)

The last sentence reads in Greek: 46 This content downloaded from 201.22.189.53 on Thu, 15 Oct 2020 13:45:11 UTC All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms

. . . Πότερον, ὥσπερ Ἀρχύτας ἔλεγεν, διὰ τὸ ἐν τῇ κινήσει τῆ φυσικῇ ἐνεῖναι τὴν τοῦ ἴσου ἀναλογίαν (κινεῖσθαι γὰρ ἀνάλογον πάντα), ταύτην δὲ μὸνην εἰς αὑτὴν ἀνακάμπτειν ὥστε κύκλους ποιεῖν καὶ στρογγύλα, ὅταν ἐγγένηται;

Archytas says that, without over-riding specialization of functions, parts of living things grow into circular shapes. A ready illustration of his meaning is found in the growth-rings of trees (Fig. 1).

Fig. 1: The growth-rings of trees

In the first part of the passage, Archytas says that growth is circular because there is a proportion of equality (τὴν τοῦ ἴσου αναλογίαν) in circular motion. The διά and γάρ clauses suggest that the proportion of equality is a term for any constant proportion in movement and that all natural motion has some sort of invariance. Of course, to have a proportion, there must be things entering into ratio. What would these be for circular growth? Developments both before and after Archytas should shed some light on the question. Efforts to square the circle (i.e., produce a rectilinear figure with the same area as a curved figure) took chords or diameters of the circle as starting points. The quadrature of lunes of a circle proven by Hippocrates of Chios (5th century BCE) drew upon rectilinear elements constructed within and around a segment of a circumference. The demonstration of the principle of the lever in Mechanics 1 takes perpendiculars (semi-chords) dropped to a particular point on a radius. Elsewhere, I have argued at length that it is reasonable to think the proportion in the Archytas testimonium means a sameness of ratio of rectilinear elements belonging to the circle (Fig. 2). The ratio

G 𝑷

remains the same at different points along a surface G

of growth. The lines in the ratio 𝑷 signify increase of living matter in two directions. One is a straight line extended from an origin, the 47 This content downloaded from 201.22.189.53 on Thu, 15 Oct 2020 13:45:11 UTC All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms

center of the circle. The other is a straight line normal to the line from the center. If the ratio of these two lines, the radius and a normal to the radius, is invariant all around the surface of growth from one growth season to the next as represented in Figure 2, then the shape of growth is circular. Circular growth just is characterized by invariance in the ratio of these elements of growth. This is a mathematical answer to the question of why growth of unspecialized parts is circular.

Fig. 2: Circular growth ratio

Eudoxan proportion in mechanics and astronomy Archytas was the teacher of Eudoxus for some period of time— we do not know how long. Eudoxus’ definition of ratio, which plays such a large role in the mathematics of Archimedes, appears in Elements 5, Def. 4. It is both elegant and a little obscure. It reads: Magnitudes are said to be in the same ratio, the first to the second and the third to the fourth, whenever the multiples of the first and third alike exceed or alike fall short of multiples of the second and fourth respectively.

In interpreting this definition, we should bear in mind that defining ratio (λόγος) is a foundational move in thought, more fundamental even than ἀναλογία, proportion, which is composed of cohort ratios. Euclid states that magnitudes in ratio have to be capable (δύναται) of the condition specified above, but the statement is also something like an assertion that the condition is fulfilled. The definition says, if things are of the same kind, there are no quantities or parts of that kind of thing that cannot be brought into relation, whatever the mode of relation. To this extent, it creates the condition that the magnitudes are comparable and thus alike in some way. In understanding the 48 This content downloaded from 201.22.189.53 on Thu, 15 Oct 2020 13:45:11 UTC All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms

definition, our attention should be on the multiples, applied respectively to the two candidates for ratio (Fig. 3). The multiples connote that, for any quantities related by greater and lesser, there will never fail to be a multiple of the lesser quantity that makes it exceed the greater. Alternatively, there will never fail to be divisions of each magnitude that can make the greater to be less than the smaller.

Fig. 3: Magnitudes and multiples

The definition is certainly responding in some way to the issue of incommensurability, what we call the irrationality of numbers or magnitudes. At the same time, the definition ensures that relation will stay within the realm of the finite, however large or small the finite quantities become. Thinking in terms of the jumping arrows in Figure 3, no matter where a multiple or division falls, there is a definite quantity there to correspond to its original. There are no gaps in the continuity of magnitudes being related. I was forced in explaining the definition to give a negative formulation of the ratio’s properties: ”there will never fail to be [some quantity] relatable to the other.” This is a characteristic of a classic poria––a way through a problem. A poria is a rationale that sanctions use of mathematical operations we would like to employ. Even though the definition cannot make apparently incommensurable quantities commensurable—that is, make one magnitude divisible without remainder by the other, the definition ensures that we shall not err in proceeding with calculation. This aspect of the Eudoxan ratio I shall call a finessing strategy. The strategy is completed in the method of comparing ratios.The 49 This content downloaded from 201.22.189.53 on Thu, 15 Oct 2020 13:45:11 UTC All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms

definition of proportion (ἀναλογία) follows in Definition 5 of Elements 5: Magnitudes are said to be in the same ratio, the first to the second and the third to the fourth, whenever the first and third alike exceed or alike fall short of multiples of the second and the fourth respectively.

That is, 𝑎 𝑏

~

𝑐 𝑑

when the patterns of exceeding and falling short characteristic of

each ratio are just the same when carried on indefinitely.

We need proportion that meets this standard for relations of the very great to the very small—as in astronomy—and for attaining a high level of precision when complete exactitude eludes us—again for astronomy and in mechanics, as well as for the solution of mathematical problems like squaring the circle. The treatise Mechanics depends on Eudoxan proportion, but its author seems to pursue an additional finessing strategy to express invariance of the ratio characteristic of circular motion. In other words, there is in Mechanics a mathematical trope additional to Archytas’ proportion of equality portrayed in Figure 2. The first case of invariant proportion that the author of Mechanics puts forward is familiar to us as the parallelogram of forces, though for the author, it is a parallelogram of movements (Fig. 4).8

Fig. 4: Parallelogram of movements

The author of Mechanics says that any movement, in this case CB, can be represented as a diagonal of a rectangle (τετράπλευρον). So represented, if an object at C travels in its movement as far as J, it has also gone as far as the point F on CA and as far as point G on CH. We 𝐹𝐽 can form a ratio 𝐽𝐺 and, for a rectilinear movement, this ratio will be 50 This content downloaded from 201.22.189.53 on Thu, 15 Oct 2020 13:45:11 UTC All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms

the same as the ratio of sides of rectangles formed in a similar way at any further point along the trajectory, CB. (848b14–24) The author stresses that it is impossible (848b26) that a line is straight without this sameness of ratio being there when complementary sides are constructed around it. The straight in movement is defined, we might say, by this invariance in the sameness of ratio. The sameness of the ratio along the path of a rectilinear movement constitutes a sort of base camp for the author of Mechanics, because in contrast a movement tracing a circular path does not have a single ratio for complements constructed around an arc (Fig. 5). If we take complement sides around each progressively longer arc of Figure 5, AB, AC, AD, these rectilinear elements will not have the same ratio. Furthermore, there is no same ratio for arc AB 𝐴𝐸 compared to BC or CD nor for parts of the curve defined by 𝐸𝐵 or any of the other similar ratios for the other arcs. Indeed, the very movement of a point along an arc ensures that the ratio of rectilinear elements is continually changing.

Fig. 5: Circular path.

The search for an invariance—and hence the fruitfulness of sameness of ratio––seems to run aground on the case of circular movement. Bear in mind, though, that the context for movement of points along arcs in Mechanics is the lever. Because the account is of mechanical experience, we are interested in comparing two arcmovements, and this is where the Eudoxan proportion comes into its own for circular movement. In a physical situation of this sort, says the author of Mechanics, the movement of the balance beam can be explained by taking back the system to a special property of the circle. In Plato, Aristotle, and the treatise Mechanics, the property is 51 This content downloaded from 201.22.189.53 on Thu, 15 Oct 2020 13:45:11 UTC All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms

described either in terms of a moving radius or the revolution of concentric circles bound to a single center: Moving radius (MR): Points on a moving radius all move at different speeds proportional to their distances from the center of the circle. Points further away from the center move faster. (Fig. 6a) Concentric circles (CC): Of concentric circles, a point on the circumference of the smaller circle moves in the same time a shorter distance than a point on the circumference of the larger circle. (Fig. 6b)

Fig. 6a: Moving radius.

Fig. 6b: Concentric circles.

CC, considered in terms of opposite arcs, accounts for the ability of a lever to move a weight. A weight at the shorter end of the lever is moved by a force that would not be enough to move the weight without the beam and a fulcrum point. In this formulation, arcs must simply be bound to the same center as if on a disc or in a circulating fluid. The concentric circles formulation as a phenomenon would have been observable in the whirlpools readily formed on the coast of the Mediterranean and in the rotation of stars on their apparently fixed paths around the north celestial pole. By means of the moving radius principle, the author of Mechanics is able to show that a sameness of ratio remains in effect at any corresponding points along particular arcs of different circles. These are arcs covered in the same time. The proportion holds even though the ratios that constitute the proportion on each arc are continually changing. The ratios change in concert. The physicist thus bypasses having to say what the value of the ratio is at any point 52 This content downloaded from 201.22.189.53 on Thu, 15 Oct 2020 13:45:11 UTC All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms

along a single circular path. This is because the undeterminable ratio anywhere along the circular line is the same for corresponding arcs. This is a finessing strategy in the spirit of Eudoxus, because it applies to any slice of an arc, however small. The author conceives of coordinate movements that from moment to moment do not have one single ratio but which assuredly always have the same ratio. It might seem that the argument of Mechanics is just a downstream application of ideas originally part of a Eudoxan theoretical geometry. This cannot be the case, since Eudoxus makes the moving radius the starting principle of his own astronomy. Aristotle testifies to this in his De caelo Book 2, and Simplicius provides portions of Eudoxus’ On Speeds that show the centrality of the principle.9 Archimedes and the method of mechanical reasoning What do these related developments––Archytas to Eudoxus to Mechanics––have to do with Archimedes? Our first stop in answering that question must be Archimedes’ letter to Eratosthenes Concerning the Mechanical Method of Theorems. In the letter, Archimedes says that some things were first clear to him through reasoning by what he calls “mechanics” (διὰ μηχανικῶν). Demonstration by geometrical methods could be accomplished after being first made clear by this method (τρόπος).10 Archimedes explicitly mentions Eudoxus and borrows from his own Equilibrium of Planes a version of the Eudoxan ratio now called the Axiom of Archimedes.11 As historians of mathematics speak of it, mechanical method in geometry involves most basically lines that move, usually in rotation, so as to find something like the single point equidistant from given points on two lines. This could mean moving a ruler on a diagram. There are also reports of using a movable material construction to draw a figure.12 In Archimedes’ Equilibrium of Planes, however, the mechanical method utilizes the conceptual feint of weights positioned along a line in order to show how differences in the ratios of weights and distances are responsible for movement of a beam. Archimedes assumes that equal weights at equal distances from a fulcrum balance, and on this assumption deduces by reductio that equal weights at unequal distances do not balance. He then proceeds to the famous Law of the Lever, which states that unequal weights 53 This content downloaded from 201.22.189.53 on Thu, 15 Oct 2020 13:45:11 UTC All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms

will balance if the ratio of their weights is in inverse proportion to the ratio of their distances from the fulcrum (Fig. 7). It is reasonable, however, to consider these initial propositions of Equilibrium of Planes as being aimed not at a theory of equilibrium (ἰσορροπία) but at establishing centers of gravity for figures, a project that Archimedes discloses in Proposition 8.

Fig. 7: The “Law of the Lever”.

The center of gravity of a weight on a line is a point. Once such points are located along lines or linked to points within a plane figure, one can proceed to a variety of geometrical results by means of proportions that began in ratios of weights and distances. In Fig. 8, if AB is a magnitude whose center of gravity is C, and AD a part of it whose center of gravity is F, then the center of gravity of the remaining part will be G, produced on FC such that line GC is to CF as magnitude AD is to magnitude DE.

Fig. 8: Center of gravity.

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The method can seem odd to modern mathematicians who nevertheless regard Archimedes as the first real practitioner of mathematics as we now know it. Archimedes, however, blends mechanical and geometrical reasoning in a way fully consistent with the practice of his predecessors. He wrote a treatise, now lost, called Περὶ ζυγῶν, On Balances, which included the moving radius principle.13 His uses of the lemma, or axiom, bearing his name involve weight and suppose the opposition of balance and movement. As a last example, I will note a few aspects of the propositions Archimedes establishes on the way to proving that the area of any segment of a parabola is 4/3 of (1/3 more than) the triangle which has the same base as the segment and is equal in height.14 This is one of Archimedes’ noted achievements, the squaring of the parabola. In propositions 14–16, he establishes that the area of a segment of a parabola inscribed in a triangle is 1/3 of the triangle one of whose sides is the base of the segment. The penetration of mechanical thinking is readily seen in the diagrams he describes leading up to and including propositions 14 and 16.

Fig. 9: Proposition 8

He begins by supposing the horizontal line ABC to be a balance (Prop. 8) with both a weight Z suspended on the beam AB and a triangle EDC suspended from BC (Fig. 9). The center of gravity J of the triangle balances weight Z and so has the same ratio to Z that the length AB has to BH (not to BC).15 If the line to D were suspended from B, the triangle would outweigh the weight Z by an amount K 55 This content downloaded from 201.22.189.53 on Thu, 15 Oct 2020 13:45:11 UTC All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms

smaller than Z but of the same kind. In proposition 14 (not pictured), a triangle BDC has a vertex at B along BC and is divided into vertical segments. Archimedes adds straight lines radiating from C to BD making trapezoidal segments. These trapezoids of the triangle BDC correspond to a series of magnitudes substituted for Z and suspended at A, but the sum of the trapezoids is still taken in relation to the whole of what is added at A.16 The segment of a parabola is inscribed with the base of the segment along BC. In proposition 16 (Fig. 10), triangle BDC is displaced below the line AC. E and other equal line segments remain along BC with the trapezoidal segments of the triangle they define. In proof of Proposition 16, he utilizes the progressively smaller trapezoids converging on C to argue that the inscribed segment of the parabola with base BC cannot be less than 1/3 of the triangle BDC nor can it be greater than 1/3 of the triangle BDC. (This numerical claim relies on Proposition 7). He has reached this point by way balancing segmented areas to weight-magnitudes (χωρία), a comparison based on the conceptual feint of movement of weights on a balance.

Fig. 10: Proposition 16.

In Archimedes’s long and complex argument squaring the parabola, the weights that balance areas and centers of gravity serve as a sort of control or constraint on the geometrical constructions introduced from B to C. Archimedes’s geometrical ratios that balance (ίσορρηοπεῖ) weight-magnitudes are ratios that forestall or prevent 56 This content downloaded from 201.22.189.53 on Thu, 15 Oct 2020 13:45:11 UTC All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms

motion being initiated along ABC. His procedure amounts to a penetrating distillation of the method of proportion, transforming ratios involving motion into mathematical constraints progressively limiting (boxing in) curvilinear segments whose areas are to be determined. Connections can be established between Archimedes and the earlier mathematicians of Magna Graecia in a number of ways. First, like them, Archimedes did not regard the mathematics of mechanics as an application of geometry but as prior to it in some ways. Mechanics is a legitimate starting point for mathematical thinking in general. Secondly, he had little need for theoretical concepts when using mechanics. Ordinary notions like weight, length, and inclining in one direction or another sufficed to support the mathematical realities he pursued. There was no tangle of ontology to work through concerning weight, different kinds of matter, or the reality of relations. Although the efflorescence of Platonic mathematics was underway in Ptolemaic Alexandria and Archimedes knew of it, a great part of his originality still lay in his inheritance from the past. He used proportions in the context of a mathematics of motion, which had come to him from his predecessors in Southern Italy. It seems clear that these methods were handed down within Magna Graecia itself and without the mediation of Athenian natural philosophy.

1

2

Jean De Groot is Professor of Philosophy at The Catholic University of America in Washington, DC. She teaches courses in ancient philosophy and philosophy of science, focusing on the logic and natural philosophy of Aristotle and twentieth century philosophy of science. She is the author of Aristotle’s Empiricism: Experience and Mechanics in the Fourth Century BC (Parmenides, 2014) and Aristotle and Philoponus on Light (1991, Reprinted by Routledge UK, 2015). Her current research interests include ancient mechanics, the origin and meaning of principles in Greek philosophy, and the relation of Greek drama to the early philosophy of southern Italy and SicilyEmail: [email protected] Walter Burkert, Lore and Science in Ancient Pythagoreanism, trans. Edwin L. Minar, Jr. (Cambridge: Harvard University Press), 1972; Giuseppe Cambiano, “Archimede meccanico e la meccanica di Archita,” Elenchos 19, no. 2 (1998): 291–324; Leonid Zhmud, The Origin of the History of

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Science in Classical Antiquity, trans. Alexander Chernoglazov (Berlin: Walter de Gruyter, 2006). For Zhmud’s most recent reflections on early Pythagoreanism, see Pythagoras and the Early Pythagoreans, trans. Kevin Windle and Rosh Ireland (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2012). In contrast, Huffman argues that the testimony of Aristoxenus of Tarentum, which is likely the source of Iamblichus’s account of Pythagoreanism in his Life of Pythagoras, is reliable as a source and confirms some of the details about the Pythagoreans offered in Aristotle’s Metaphysics A (Book review, Bryn Mawr Classical Reviews 2014.08.30). Aristoxenus, who excelled in harmonics, came from Taras in southern Italy to be part of Aristotle’s immediate circle in Athens. 3 Republic 7, 525a–530c. Note in particular Plato’s insistence of the priority of solid geometry to astronomy (528d–e) and his belief that astronomy should be studied by means of problems and not by reference to visible movements of heavenly bodies (530c). 4 See Archytas of Tarentum, Fr. 1 and 3 in Hermann Diels and Walther Kranz, eds. Die Fragmente der Vorsokratiker: griechisch und deutsch, vol. 1 (Berlin: Weidmann, 1956), 47{35}, 431–438, or Carl Huffman, Archytas of Tarentum: Pythagorean, Philosopher and Mathematician King (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2005), 103–161,182–224. 5 Mechanics is usually ascribed to an Aristotelian writing decades after Aristotle’s death. See for example G. E. L. Owen, “Aristotelian Mechanics,” in Logic, Science and Dialectic: Collected Papers in Greek Philosophy, ed. Martha Nussbaum, 318. The date of the treatise is the subject of renewed scrutiny, however, and some would make it the work of Aristotle himself. For a survey of the evidence, see Peter McLaughlin, “The Question of the Authenticity of the Mechanical Problems,” www.philosophie.unihd.de/md/.../mclaughlin_authenticity_ 2013_2.pdf (accessed August 16, 2015). Thomas N. Winter ascribes it to Archytas (“The Mechanical Problems in the Corpus of Aristotle,” iii–ix, Faculty Publications, Classics and Religious Studies Department 2007 .http://digitalcommons.unl.edu/classicsfacpub (accessed August 16, 2015), but Huffman would not endorse this attribution (Archytas [note 3], 77). For the later history of the text, see P. L. Rose and S. Drake, “The Pseudo-Aristotelian Questions of Mechanics in Renaissance Culture,” Studies in the Renaissance 18 (1971), 65–104. 6 Euclid, Elements 5, in Thomas L. Heath, The Thirteen Books of Euclid’s Elements, with introduction and commentary, 2 nd ed. rev. with additions. 3 vols. (New York: Dover, 1956), vol. 1; Archytas, A23a (Diels-Kranz, Fragmente, vol. 1, 430–31, which appears in the

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Aristotelian Problems 16.9. Huffman treats the passage at length in Archytas, 516–540. 7 Diels-Kranz, Fragmente, 1, 47[35], A23, 430. This view of Eudemus is reported by Simplicius in his commentary on Aristotle’s Physics. These definitions are ascribed, perhaps inaccurately, to Plato and the Pythagoreans (Physics III.2, 201b16–202a2). Simplicius points out that, in the Timaeus, Plato says that inequality is the cause of the unevenness (ἀναμαλότης) of motion (57e), not that these two are the same. (Simplicius, in physicorum, Commentaria in Aristotelem Graeca [CAG], Berlin: G. Reimer, vol. 9, 431.4–16). See Huffman’s commentary on this passage (Archytas, 508–515). According to Huffman, Archytas believed that motion participates in equality though its causes are inequality, unevenness, and lack of concord (515). 8 Editions of Mechanics are Maria Elisabetta Bottecchia Dehò, Mechanica. Tradizione manoscritta, testo critico, scolii a cura di M. E. Bottecchia. Padova: Editrice Antenore, 1982, and De Plantis, de Mirabilibus Auscultationibus, Mechanica, de Lineis Insecabilibus, Ventorum Situs et Nomina, de Melisso, Xenophane, Gorgia, edited by Otto Apelt. Leipzig: B. G. Teubner, 1888. Bottecchia Dehò published the text with translation, and commentary in Problemi meccanici; Introduzione, testo greco, traduzione italiana, note a cura (Cantanzaro: Rubbettino, 2000). The Loeb translation by W. S. Hett uses the Teubner edition (Minor Works. Loeb Classical Library. Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1980). 9 Simplicius, in de caelo, CAG 7, 492.31–497.8. 10 Archimedes, Ad Eratosthenem Methodus, 83.23-29 (ed. C. Mugler, Archimède, Paris: Belles Lettres, vol. 3). 11 The basis for the method of exhaustion, one statement of the Axiom is the following: “that the excess by which the greater of two unequal areas exceeds the less can, by being added to itself, be made to exceed an given finite area” (Quadrature of the Parabola, ed. J. L. Heiberg [Leipzig: Teubner, 1881]), Opera Omnia vol. 2, 296.9–14. Archimedes calls this a lemma. The reader will notice the similarity to the Eudoxan definition of ratio in Elements 5.4. Euclid in Elements 12.1 gives a version that Archimedes often utilizes without commenting on it: Given two unequal magnitudes, if from the greater [a part] is subtracted greater than the half, if from the remainder [a part] great than the half be subtracted, and so on continually, there will be left some magnitude which will be less than the lesser given magnitude. Archimedes relies on this version in, for example, proposition 16 of Parabola, 330.3–6. See also Heath, Works of Archimedes, (New York: Dover), xlvii–xlviii.

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”. . . [I]n Apollonius’ solution of the problem of the two mean proportional as given by Eutocius a ruler is supposed to be moved about a point until the points at which the ruler crosses two given straight lines at right angles are equidistant from a certain other fixed point.” (Heath, Works, cv) The invention of a machine for drawing the concoid is attributed by Pappus and Eutocius to Nicomedes (Works, cvii). 13 ἀπεδείχθη γὰρ ἐν τῷ περὶ ζυγῶν Ἀρχιμήδους καὶ τοῖς Φίλωνος καὶ Ἥρωνος μηχανικοῖς, ὅτι οἰ μείζονες κύκλοι κατακρατοῖσιν τῶν ἐλασσόνων κύκλων, ὅταν περὶ τὸ αὐτὸ κέντρον ἡ κύλισις αὐτῶν γὶνηται. (Pappus, Collectio 8, 1068.20 [F. Hultsch, Pappi Alexandrini collectionis quae supersunt, Berlin: Weidmann, 1876, vol. 2). 14 Archimedes, Parabola [note 10], prop. 17, 334. For an explication of the proof, see E. J. Dijksterhuis, Archimedes, with a new bibliographic essay by Wilbur R. Knorr (Princeton NJ: Princeton U. P., 1987), 336–345. 15 Archimedes, Parabola, 310.15–22. 16 Archimedes, Parabola, 320.14–23. 12

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Parnassos Press – Fonte Aretusa Chapter Title: Gods and fossils: Inference and scientific method in Xenophanes’s philosophy Chapter Author(s): Michael Papazian Book Title: Philosopher Kings and Tragic Heroes Book Subtitle: Essays on Images and Ideas from Western Greece Book Editor(s): Heather L. Reid and Davide Tanasi Published by: Parnassos Press – Fonte Aretusa Stable URL: https://www.jstor.org/stable/j.ctvbj7gjn.7 JSTOR is a not-for-profit service that helps scholars, researchers, and students discover, use, and build upon a wide range of content in a trusted digital archive. We use information technology and tools to increase productivity and facilitate new forms of scholarship. For more information about JSTOR, please contact [email protected]. Your use of the JSTOR archive indicates your acceptance of the Terms & Conditions of Use, available at https://about.jstor.org/terms This content is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License (CC BY-NC-ND 4.0). To view a copy of this license, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/.

Parnassos Press – Fonte Aretusa is collaborating with JSTOR to digitize, preserve and extend access to Philosopher Kings and Tragic Heroes

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Michael Papazian1 Gods and fossils: Inference and scientific method in Xenophanes’s philosophy The meager remains and testimony of the pre-Socratic philosophers present a challenge and danger to the scholar of ancient philosophy. There is always the risk of projecting modern philosophical concerns and arguments onto the earliest philosophers of the Greek world. The case of Xenophanes is in this respect typical. While some scholars have depreciated him as a minor poet with no original philosophical ideas, others have celebrated him as an innovative and even revolutionary figure in Western philosophy and science. Indeed two of the major philosophers of science in the 20 th century—Karl Popper and Paul Feyerabend—present diametrically opposite assessments of Xenophanes’s significance. For Popper, Xenophanes stands at the beginning of Western rationalism and science while for Feyerabend, Xenophanes was a “conceited big mouth” who presented “effective one-liners” rather than any reasoned arguments for his commitments.2 The extant fragments, however, support a more sober assessment rather than the extreme views of Feyerabend and Popper. Xenophanes developed important epistemological insights and applied his methods in an empirical and systematic way that anticipates or approximates some of the methods of modern science. In particular his arguments rely on a method of inference to the best explanation, and so Xenophanes stands as an early pioneer in the development of non-deductive logic. This paper attempts to elucidate Xenophanes’s epistemology and methodology by examining two theses of his thought and his method of supporting them: his anti-anthropomorphic theology and his theory of cyclic cosmic generation. Casting Xenophanes’s arguments in a non-deductive form makes his inferences more plausible and also resolves some of the difficulties and puzzles that commentators have observed in Xenophanes’s fragments. Xenophanes’s life and relation to Magna Graecia According to Diogenes Laertius, Xenophanes was born in the Ionian city of Colophon but after being expelled from his homeland 61 This content downloaded from 201.22.189.53 on Thu, 15 Oct 2020 13:45:31 UTC All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms

resided in Messina (the ancient Ζάγκλη) and Catania.3 Plato, Aristotle, and Clement of Alexandria all consider him the founder or progenitor of the Eleatic school of philosophy, though modern scholars have questioned Xenophanes’s relation to the Eleatics and any influence on Parmenides.4 Also contested is Xenophanes’s standing as an influential and important pre-Socratic philosopher. Nietzsche, while admiring him, classifies Xenophanes as a “wandering poet” and “religious mystic” in contrast to the logic-chopping Parmenides.5 Cherniss dismissively asserts that Xenophanes is ranked a pre-Socratic thinker only “by mistake.” Xenophanes’s references to “natural phenomena are sporadic” and aimed solely at denying both “mythological…and scientific explanations of them.”6 Burnet sees Xenophanes not as a systematic student of nature but as a satirist who “expressed such scientific opinions as he had incidentally in his satires.”7 By contrast, Jaeger concludes that Xenophanes was “an enlightened man with an alert sense for the natural causes of all phenomena” and disputes the notion that he was just synthesizing derivative Eleatic and other current ideas.8 Popper’s reading Even Jaeger’s sympathetic treatment of Xenophanes pales in comparison to Karl Popper’s extravagant claims. Popper presented the case for Xenophanes as a key figure in Western philosophy and science: the founder of geology and meteorology as well as the first literary critic and epistemologist. For Popper, Xenophanes anticipated all of the “key features of the Enlightenment.”9 His epistemology affirmed a correspondence theory of truth while denying that there was any certain knowledge. All knowledge is conjecture, although some conjectures are better than others because they are closer approximations of the truth. Western science, according to Popper, originated in the Ionian islands and Asia Minor, and was then transported to the Greek mainland and Magna Graecia by refugees like Xenophanes. A fellow exile from tyranny, Popper clearly felt a kinship for Xenophanes, and even avers that Xenophanes anticipated Popper’s own theory of science that proceeds by conjectures and falsification rather than through induction.10 62 This content downloaded from 201.22.189.53 on Thu, 15 Oct 2020 13:45:31 UTC All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms

The basis for Popper’s reading of Xenophanes’s epistemology is fragment B34:11 καὶ τὸ μὲν οὖν σαφὲς οὔτις ἀνὴρ ἴδεν οὐδέ τις ἔσται εἰδὼς ἀμφὶ θεῶν τε καὶ ἅσσα λέγω περὶ πάντων˙ εἰ γὰρ καὶ τὰ μάλιστα τύχοι τετελεσμένον εἰπών, αὐτὸς ὅμως οὐκ οἶδε˙ δόκος δ’ ἐπὶ πᾶσι τέτευκται.

Popper translates the fragment in this way: But as for certain truth, no man has known it, Nor will he know it; neither of the gods Nor yet of all the things of which I speak. And even if by chance he were to utter The perfect truth, he would himself not know it; For all is but a woven web of glosses.

Popper translates σαφὲς as ‟certain truth” and prefers to read δόκος as roughly equivalent in use to his understanding of ‟conjecture.”12 While we may happen accidentally to come upon this certain and perfect truth, we will not know that we have. At best we accept a conjecture that for all we know may be either true or false. This fragment establishes that Xenophanes accepted the objectivity of truth and the subjectivity of certainty. But lest we think that all conjectures are of equal value, Popper adduces fragment B18: Οὔτοι ἀπ’ ἀρχῆς πάντα θέοι θνητοῖσ’ ὑπέδειξαν ἀλλὰ χρόνῳ ζητοῦντες ἐφευρίσκουσιν ἄμεινον. The gods did not reveal, from the beginning, All things to the mortals; but in the course of time, Through seeking they may get to know things better. 13

Popper connects the notion of ‘knowing things better’ with verisimilitude, supporting that reading with fragment B35 in which the objects of inquiry are conjectured to be like the truth (ἐοικότα τοῖς ἐτύμοισι). This conjectural fallibilist epistemology that disavows any knowledge in favor of guesswork contrasts with Aristotle’s 63 This content downloaded from 201.22.189.53 on Thu, 15 Oct 2020 13:45:31 UTC All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms

methodology, which relies on induction to arrive at knowledge or understanding of essences.14 Popper turns to the pre-Socratics and in particular Xenophanes as a salutary corrective to the wrong epistemological turn that he argues Aristotle brought about. For Popper, Aristotle brings to a close the critical spirit of the preSocratics and Socrates, and replaces their skepticism with a dogmatic inductivism that insists that inductive reasoning can produce knowledge in the same way that deductive mathematics can. It is this Aristotelian epistemology that impeded the development of science and which the luminaries of the Scientific Revolution were revolting against. On Popper’s reading, Xenophanes anticipated Popper’s own anti-inductivist philosophy of science. Xenophanes was a Popperian critical rationalist avant la lettre. Even at first glance Popper’s proposal is dubious. Popper’s deductivist theory cannot be extricated from its Humean background. His rejection of induction is based on Hume’s original and profound argument that induction cannot be justified. There is no evidence of anything like Hume’s argument in ancient thought, and so even if Xenophanes rejected induction as a means to acquire knowledge, his motivations could not have been the same as those of a modern like Popper. But it is also implausible to suppose that Xenophanes adjured induction. There is clear evidence that Xenophanes applied inductive reasoning, and even championed inductive methods of inquiry. In the remainder of the paper, I will argue that Popper is correct that Xenophanes is a pivotal figure in the development of Western philosophy of science, but not because of his rejection of induction. Indeed Xenophanes used inductive methods to justify and support his theories. Instead Xenophanes recognizes the fallible and tentative character of induction but considers it the most reliable means to knowledge. If I am right about this, then Xenophanes approximates modern scientific methods even more so than Popper thought he did. Xenophanes’s inductivism We know that Xenophanes held numerous theories about the world: there are not many gods but only one god (B23-26) who does not have human features (B23); the sun, stars (A32) and rainbows (B32) come from clouds; the world is in a cyclical and periodic 64 This content downloaded from 201.22.189.53 on Thu, 15 Oct 2020 13:45:31 UTC All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms

transformation between water and earth (B29, 33). There is no indication that Xenophanes supposed that these theories were simply corroborated, that is, not yet falsified, as a Popperian scientist would. All indications are that Xenophanes believed these hypotheses likely to be true and justified by data and evidence. These were not just tentative guesses or conjectures, but theories that resulted from proper inquiry and that better reflect the truth about the nature of the world. How does Xenophanes arrive at these theories and how does he justify them? To understand Xenophanes’s methods better, we can look more closely at his rejection of anthropomorphic gods and his argument in favor of periodic cosmic drying and moistening. Consider first the evidence against anthropomorphic gods. Fragment B16 reports that the Thracians say that their gods have blue eyes and red hair while the Ethiopians say that their gods are snubnosed and black. What is the significance of these alleged ethnographic facts and how do they tell against the existence of gods that have human forms? Xenophanes presumably did not choose these examples at random. The two examples are geographically and culturally separate enough to allow one to infer that this may be a common fact of the world’s religions: each nation fashions its gods in its own image.15 We could cast this as a deductive argument, as both Richard McKirahan and Jonathan Barnes suggest. McKirahan’s reconstruction is something like this16: 1. All peoples portray the gods as having their own distinctive characteristics. 2. A god cannot at the same time have the characteristics of all peoples. 3. There is no reason to suppose that one people has a better understanding of the gods than any other. ∴ The gods do not have the specific characteristics of any people. Reconstructing the argument in this way poses certain difficulties. As McKirahan recognizes, 1 is false of both the God of the Hebrews and the theriomorphic gods of the Egyptians, and one expects that Xenophanes would be aware of this. Perhaps more problematic 65 This content downloaded from 201.22.189.53 on Thu, 15 Oct 2020 13:45:31 UTC All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms

though is that the argument needs at least one more premise to be valid: that the gods worshipped by the various nations are the same gods. It is possible that each people has its own gods, and so the Ethiopian gods do not have to share the same features as the Thracian gods. McKirahan’s presentation of the argument is essentially a reductio ad absurdum: the Thracian gods have property P while the Ethiopian gods have non-P. Since the Thracians worship the same gods as the Ethiopians, the gods are both P and non-P. But one can always deny that their gods are one and the same, and so the attempt at a reductio fails. Barnes sees a problem with Xenophanes’s logic.17 He notes that Xenophanes’s argument does not license the conclusion that god is not anthropomorphic. The common belief that god is anthropomorphic may still be true by accident, as Xenophanes allows in B34. So this argument fails to establish any positive theological conclusions. At best it shows that anthropomorphism is a belief, a δόκος, which may or may not be true. While it may be true that the gods look like us, our beliefs that they look like us can be accounted for by the fact that our beliefs about gods originate in ourselves and so do not give us reason to think that there actually are gods like us.18 In order for my belief that p to be reputable it must be causally connected to the fact that p. Barnes is on the right track. Xenophanes thinks the data of beliefs about the gods is best accounted for by an explanation that does not suppose that the beliefs are causally connected to some fact that entails the gods’ existence. If so, then the best way to understand Xenophanes’s argument is not as a deductive proof but as an inference to the best explanation (IBE). One makes an IBE when one chooses one explanation over one or more other potential explanations of a given phenomenon because it is more plausible.19 Plausibility can be understood in terms of empirical adequacy or better fitting the data, or characteristics that Peter Lipton calls loveliness (which may include simplicity or elegance more broadly). Xenophanes infers that the best explanation of the fact that different ethnic groups worship gods is that they get the idea of the gods from themselves. At least two candidate explanations can account for the data—the gods actually are anthropomorphic and their revelation to us grounds our belief (theocentric hypothesis), or people have a 66 This content downloaded from 201.22.189.53 on Thu, 15 Oct 2020 13:45:31 UTC All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms

tendency to believe in gods that look like themselves (ethnocentric hypothesis). The ethnocentric hypothesis has certain advantages. It is more parsimonious since it does not require the existence of any of the gods, while the anthropocentric hypothesis commits us to the existence of a plethora of gods. It also better explains why the different ethnic groups represent gods in different ways. The theocentric view mostly leaves unaccounted for the diversity of gods and the coincidence of the gods’ appearances with their respective humans’ appearances. Barnes’s error is to think that the argument only establishes that anthropomorphism is a belief rather than a probably false belief. He is forced to this conclusion because he sees the argument as deductive and thus invalid if its conclusion could be false. But since Xenophanes believes that all humans ever can have are δόκοι (B34), Barnes’s reading renders Xenophanes’s argument trivial. It is more likely that Xenophanes is attempting to undermine the belief that the gods look like humans. If one understands Xenophanes’s argument as a more modest inductive IBE, one can recognize the cogency of the inference to the conclusion that the widespread belief in anthropomorphism is probably false. The most plausible explanation of the Thracians’ and Ethiopians’ beliefs about the gods is that their images of the gods are projections of themselves. And if they project specific characteristics such as hair color, they are even more likely also to project general human characteristics as well. Since this explanation can account for the belief in gods without positing their existence, considerations of simplicity and explanatory power suggest that the anthropomorphic gods are a fiction, which is Xenophanes’s position. By considering the argument an IBE, one can also resolve the difficulties in McKirahan’s treatment. One no longer needs the extra premise that the different groups are worshipping the same beings. We only have to acknowledge that considerations of parsimony and empirical adequacy incline us toward rejecting the common belief. Likewise the existence of counterexamples in Judaism and Egyptian religion is not a problem since the question requiring explanation is why most if not all peoples have anthropomorphic gods. Special factors such as the prohibition of images of God in Judaism may account for the exceptions while still allowing for the general 67 This content downloaded from 201.22.189.53 on Thu, 15 Oct 2020 13:45:31 UTC All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms

explanation to hold ceteris paribus. In this respect, it is notable that fragment B15 speaks of animals hypothetically being able to draw with their hands (γράψαι χείρεσσι) images of their gods. Xenophanes may be focusing his attention on the practice of depicting the gods in art, and so instances of religions like Judaism that prohibit images need not weaken the plausibility of the ethnocentric explanation. Feyerabend’s reading Feyerabend’s Xenophanes differs radically from Popper’s and has more in common with Nietzsche’s representation. One is even tempted to think that Feyerabend’s essay is an attempt to elaborate on and defend Nietzsche’s remarks. Feyerabend focuses on Xenophanes’s rejection of the anthropomorphic gods. He considers the possibility that Xenophanes is offering a rational critique rather than a memorable aphorism that serves to instill skepticism about traditional views of the Homeric gods. He quickly dismisses the former option. Rational criticism presupposes that Xenophanes’s audience accepts the invalidity of a concept of god that varies from one culture to another. Modern readers of Xenophanes are receptive to this idea but within Xenophanes’s milieu this thought was explicitly denied. Feyerabend cites Iliad 15.187ff, in which Poseidon asserts that he and his brothers, Zeus and Hades, each possess their own domain and jurisdiction. While modern interpreters favor the assumption that there is a uniform law of nature, the prevailing premodern view, as represented by Homer, was that the natural world consists of different regions each with their own laws.20 In their religious practices, the ancients would accept foreign gods into their own pantheon. In contrast to monotheism, polytheism rejects the idea of a coherent truth or comprehensive knowledge. Xenophanes replaces this tolerant and permissive pluralism with a uniform and universal god that Feyerabend suggests served as a philosophical impetus for imperialism and intolerance, a precursor to the Platonic forms and to the Western monotheistic deity.21 Feyerabend appears to be saying that any argument against Homeric regionalism would require assuming a proposition that Xenophanes’s contemporaries would reject, namely that a culturally variable notion of god is untenable. Therefore Xenophanes must simply be asserting without 68 This content downloaded from 201.22.189.53 on Thu, 15 Oct 2020 13:45:31 UTC All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms

argument the existence of his one god that bears no superficial similarities with humans. That argument is dubious. Feyerabend is claiming an incommensurabilty between Xenophanes’s theory and the ‟Homeric worldview” that forestalls any possibility of rational persuasion. Even if his monism is incommensurable with the prevailing Homeric perspective, Xenophanes could still present arguments against that perspective. Those arguments may fall on deaf ears, but that does not mean that Xenophanes could not have even tried to argue. Feyerabend notes that the Platonic Socrates consistently received lists rather than definitions when he first poses his characteristic ‟what is F?” question. Rather than being obtuse or indolent, his interlocutors were simply operating according to a metaphysical framework of discrete and disparate elements rather than an essentialist philosophy that demands that all the particulars share a common form.22 But even if the Platonic Socrates and Euthyphro, for example, exist in different intellectual worlds, that does not prevent Socrates from trying to persuade Euthyphro that examples of piety do not constitute a proper definition. Indeed Euthyphro readily assents to Socrates’s request to formulate an essential definition.23 Perhaps it is only Plato’s conceit to think that a man like Euthyphro would be so easily convinced or tricked, but Feyerabend already recognizes that Xenophanes shares this conceit. Beyond that, though, the IBE version of Xenophanes’s argument only needs to appeal to considerations about the goodness of explanations that are common to the two rival paradigms. It is true that while simplicity may be prized by Xenophanes and other monists, the Homeric polytheists may prefer an explanation that involves multiple gods each tied to a distinct region. They would be more receptive to an explanation of anthropomorphism that recognizes that each region has its own gods, and since physical features tend to vary by region, one may expect that the gods’s features would vary in the same way and perhaps resemble those of the human inhabitants of a region. This is a less parsimonious solution because it does grossly multiply the number of deities, but parsimony is a virtue only for the parsimonious (or for those who favor desert landscapes), not for those like Feyerabend’s Homerics who are more at home with diversity and complexity. However 69 This content downloaded from 201.22.189.53 on Thu, 15 Oct 2020 13:45:31 UTC All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms

parsimony is but one explanatory virtue. Another is explanatory strength and adequacy. The Homeric explanation of anthropomorphism does not explain why the gods resemble the humans of their region. This is not to say that there is no possible explanation of the similarity, but rather that the Homeric account leaves this question unanswered. Xenophanes’s explanation has a clear and plausible answer: the human tendency to project human forms into things in nature or the imagination. Furthermore, the Homeric explanation as Feyerabend represents it does not even seem to fit the Homeric data well. The passage in Iliad 15.187ff. does not exactly agree with the regionalism that Feyerabend attributes to the Homerics. The three Olympian gods divide up the world among themselves rather than dividing up Greece and leaving other areas to non-Olympian or foreign gods. Poseidon makes it clear that the earth and Mount Olympus are common to all the gods.24 So Feyerabend’s reasoning does not preclude Xenophanes’s arguing against anthropomorphism even if he was very much aware that his audience rejected his own metaphysical principles. Fossils and floods Xenophanes’s use of IBE in arguing for his theological dogma is not an isolated occurrence. Another possible example is found in Xenophanes’s argument for his cosmological theories. Xenophanes argued that all things come to be from earth and water (B29, 33). There is a mixing of earth and sea, and over time the earth is dissolved by the water (B37). Hippolytus attributes to Xenophanes the view that the cosmos undergoes a cycle of drying and moistening.25 In the moistening phase, earth is carried into the sea and the earth becomes mud, after which the drying phase begins and the world becomes inhabitable again. The evidence (ἀποδείξεις) for this is that one can find shells inland and on mountains as well as impressions of seaweed and fish in quarries in Syracuse, the impression of a bay-leaf in a stone in Paros, and impressions of all kinds of sea creatures (θαλασσίων) on Malta. The existence of fossils of beings that normally inhabit the water in dry stones and far inland requires an explanation. A plausible explanation is that these parts of the earth were once submerged by the sea. That the earth is not just 70 This content downloaded from 201.22.189.53 on Thu, 15 Oct 2020 13:45:31 UTC All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms

drying but that there is a cycle of moistening and is suggested by suggested by the observation that earth produces or turns into water in caves (B37). If Xenophanes is indeed using IBE one may ask what rival explanation he is discounting. The most obvious alternative explanation of the presence of fossils is the flood narrative associated in the Greek tradition with Deucalion. Some scholars have posited that the flood myth may have inspired Xenophanes’s theory, but if I am right, the flood account would more likely have inspired him to propose an alternative explanation for the fossils.26 Xenophanes would surely have rejected the flood explanation, which involves divine intervention in the natural order by an angry Zeus. Adrienne Mayor notes that the Roman author Solinus, writing in the third century CE, attributed the existence of inland fossils to this ancient flood.27 Solinus was himself a compiler of earlier accounts of natural history, so it is plausible that the alleged connection between the fossils and the flood was early and may have been current in Xenophanes’s time. There are a couple of benefits to understanding Xenophanes’s fossil argument as an IBE intended to eliminate a rival explanation. First, it integrates Xenophanes’s interest in fossils with his theological positions; as an opponent of the Homeric gods, he would not tolerate the use of fossil evidence to support the veracity of a divinely initiated deluge. Second, it explains why in fragment B37 Xenophanes brought forward the observation of water dripping down in caves. By noting the gradual transformation of earth into water, Xenophanes shows that the submersion of land can occur as a slow process rather than as a catastrophic event. There is no need to appeal to a sudden inundation by a capricious deity to explain the presence of fossils of sea creatures on land. Xenophanes’s fossil argument may thus be understood as an ancient precursor to the modern debate between catastrophists and gradualists or uniformitarians. Catastrophists hold that sudden and violent events often of universal scope have shaped or altered the earth.28 Uniformitarianism or gradualism by contrast accepts slow, incremental changes. Some of the modern catastrophists explicitly connected their catastrophism with the biblical flood account, claiming that evidence of catastrophism supports the truth of the biblical account. 71 This content downloaded from 201.22.189.53 on Thu, 15 Oct 2020 13:45:31 UTC All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms

The Greek flood account would provide an alternative explanation of the presence of fossils, but of course would be anathema to Xenophanes since it involves affirming the existence of the Homeric gods who unleash the flood on the earth. Xenophanes's naturalist account explains the data better—including evidence of the gradual process now seen in caves, which involves earth gradually changing to water—to reject the diluvial explanation that would have been favored by the Homerics. Not only does Xenophanes’s gradualist explanation fit the facts better, since there is evidence even now of earth turning slowly into water, but it is also a simpler and more fruitful hypothesis than the catastrophism of the believers in a primordial flood, since catastrophism prevents us from making warranted inferences about the past. If past periods are radically different from today then present conditions are not reliable indicators of past conditions. The fossil inference provides us with a good illustration of how Xenophanes understands the investigations that in time allow the inquirer to find things out better. The difficulty of this process is underscored by the placement of the fossil evidence—on mountains, in caves, and within rocks in various locations. We cannot be sure that Xenophanes himself carried out these investigations. Indeed Burnet thinks that it is more likely that Anaximander made these observations.29 Anaximander, however, did not advance a cyclical theory but instead the surviving evidence only speaks of the process moving in just one direction of a gradual drying up of the world. The cave evidence from B37 fits better with Xenophanes’s cosmology. Also, the locations of the fossils are mostly within the general vicinity of Xenophanes’s Magna Graecia rather than Anaximander’s Ionian coast.30 But even if Xenophanes did not himself observe the fossils, he cleverly inferred his cosmological theory as the best explanation of the curious fossils, and perhaps also at the same time called into question explanations involving floods unleashed by gods. Conclusion Having looked at two examples of Xenophanes’s method, we are in a better position to make sense of his epistemology. Fragment B34 contrasts certainty or certain truth (σαφὲς), which no one has, with belief or what seems true (δόκος). Fragment B18 makes clear that not 72 This content downloaded from 201.22.189.53 on Thu, 15 Oct 2020 13:45:31 UTC All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms

all δόκοι have equal epistemic standing, but that those who engage in careful and protracted research are in a better position to discover the truth. Fragment B35 also shows that some δόκοι may be said to be closer to the truth. The examples of Xenophanes’s method from his theology and cosmology reveal that he accepts a form of inductive reasoning to arrive at beliefs that while more likely to be true, never achieve the status of certain or necessary truths. Popper’s mistake is the same as those of the Thracians and Ethiopians, for he fashions his hero Xenophanes in his own image. If I am correct, then Xenophanes is not quite the anti-inductivist hero that Popper portrays, but a moderate inductivist who recognizes that his methods are fallible but still capable of bringing us closer to truth. In this respect, Xenophanes’s method of inference is more consistent with modern scientific practice than Popper’s theory of science is. And in contrast to Nietzsche’s estimation of Xenophanes as a “religious mystic” and Feyerabend’s scornful treatment, we can see in Xenophanes a first and early glimmer of the modern scientific spirit, a spirit that had one of its earliest appearances in Magna Graecia.31 Michael Papazian is professor of philosophy in the Department of Religion and Philosophy Berry College, Mount Berry, GA 30149, USA. His research focuses on ancient philosophy, logic, and philosophy of language. His publications include three books and numerous journal articles on topics such as Stoic logic and philosophy of language, Neoplatonism, and the influence of Greek philosophical and theological texts in medieval Armenia. Email: [email protected] 2 Popper, Karl, ed. A.F. Peterson, “The Unknown Xenophanes,” in The World of Parmenides: Essays on the Presocratic Enlightenment, ed. A.F. Peterson (New York: Routledge, 1998) 33-67; Paul Feyerabend, “Reason, Xenophanes and the Homeric Gods,” Kenyon Review 9 (1987) 12-22. 3 Diogenes Laertius, Lives of Eminent Philosophers, trans. R.D. Hicks (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1925) 9.18. 4 Plato, Sophist, trans. Nicholas P. White (Indianapolis: Hackett Publishing, 1993) 242D; Aristotle, Metaphysics, trans. W.D. Ross (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1924) 986b18; Clement of Alexandria, Stromateis, ed. O. Stählin and L. Früchtel (Berlin: Akademie Verlag, 1960) I.64.2. For modern skepticism about an Eleatic connection, see for example G.S. Kirk, J.E. Raven, M. Schofield, The Presocratic Philosophers (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1983) 165-166. 1

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Friedrich Nietzsche, Philosophy in the Tragic Age of the Greeks, trans. Marianne Cowan (Washington: Regnery Press, 1962) 61. 6Harold Cherniss, “The Characteristics and Effects of Presocratic Philosophy,” Journal of the History of Ideas, 12.3 (1951) 335. 7 John Burnet, Early Greek Philosophy. (New York: Meridian Books, 1957) 116. 8 Werner Jaeger, trans. E.S Robinson, The Theology of the Early Greek Philosophers (New York: Oxford Paperbacks, 1947) 54. 9 Popper, The World of Parmenides, 34-35. 10 Popper, The World of Parmenides, 48-50. 11 Popper, The World of Parmenides, 46. Fragments are cited according to the numbering system of H. Diels, W. Kranz, Die Fragmente der Vorsokratiker griechisch und deutsch (Berlin: Weidmannsche Buchhandlung, 1903). 12 Popper, The World of Parmenides, 46-47. 13 Popper, The World of Parmenides, 48. 14 Popper, The World of Parmenides, 3. 15 See Richard D. McKirahan, Philosophy before Socrates (Indianapolis: Hackett, 1994) 6. McKirahan notes that Thrace was the northernmost region familiar to the Greeks while Ethiopia was at the southern edge. 16 McKirahan, Philosophy before Socrates, 61. 17 Jonathan Barnes, The Presocratic Philosophers (London: Routledge, 1979) vol. 1, 93. 18 Barnes, The Presocratic Philosophers, 142 19 This inferential category was named abduction by C.S. Peirce, who took it to be a third category beside induction and deduction. For the purposes of this paper I understand induction broadly to include all forms of ampliative inference. Since Hume’s problem applies to all ampliative inferences, Popper’s theory disallows IBE as well as other nondeductive inferences. 20 Feyerabend, “Reason, Xenophanes and the Homeric Gods,” 17 21 Feyerabend, “Reason, Xenophanes and the Homeric Gods,” 19-20 22 Feyerabend, “Reason, Xenophanes and the Homeric Gods,” 19. 23 Plato, Euthyphro, trans. H.N. Fowler (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1982) 5e-7a. 24 Homer, The Iliad, trans. Robert Fitzgerald (Garden City, NY: 1974) 15.193. 25 Greek text and English translation in Kirk et al., The Presocratic Philosophers, 176-177. 26 See Kirk et al., The Presocratic Philosophers, 178. 27 Adrienne Mayor, The First Fossil Hunters: Dinosaurs, Mammoths, and Myth in Greek and Roman Times (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2000) 210. 5

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See L.G. Wilson, “Uniformitarianism and Catastrophism,” in Dictionary of the History of Ideas: Studies of Selected Pivotal Ideas (New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1973) vol. IV, 417-423. 29 John Burnet, Early Greek Philosophy, 124 30 A point also made by Kirk et al., The Presocratic Philosophers, 177. 31 I am grateful to the organizers of the First Interdisciplinary Symposium on the Hellenic Heritage of Southern Italy held in May 2015 in Siracusa for allowing me to present this paper and to the participants for their very helpful comments and criticisms. I am especially grateful to Andrea Lowry Papazian for her assistance, Conrad Sharpe for reading over the final draft, and Berry College for its support of my research. 28

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Parnassos Press – Fonte Aretusa Chapter Title: Reincarnation and Salvation in Magna Graecia and Plato Chapter Author(s): John Bussanich Book Title: Philosopher Kings and Tragic Heroes Book Subtitle: Essays on Images and Ideas from Western Greece Book Editor(s): Heather L. Reid and Davide Tanasi Published by: Parnassos Press – Fonte Aretusa Stable URL: https://www.jstor.org/stable/j.ctvbj7gjn.8 JSTOR is a not-for-profit service that helps scholars, researchers, and students discover, use, and build upon a wide range of content in a trusted digital archive. We use information technology and tools to increase productivity and facilitate new forms of scholarship. For more information about JSTOR, please contact [email protected]. Your use of the JSTOR archive indicates your acceptance of the Terms & Conditions of Use, available at https://about.jstor.org/terms This content is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License (CC BY-NC-ND 4.0). To view a copy of this license, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/.

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Part II Socratic and Platonic Legacies

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John Bussanich1 Reincarnation and Salvation in Magna Graecia and Plato Orphic ideas about reincarnation, the divinity of the soul, and a blissful afterlife for the purified appear in the early Pythagoreans, Empedocles, the Gold Leaves, and Plato. Challenging questions remain to be addressed about the eschatological details in each case. 1. Do we find a belief in a cycle of births and deaths? 2. Why does the soul descend into embodiment? 3. What is the structure and duration of the rebirth cycle? 4. What is the nature of the transmigrating agent? Is it mortal or immortal? 5. Is the character of a given birth determined or influenced by previous births? Is the rebirth cycle ethically determined? 6. Does the rebirth cycle come to an end? If so, what is the nature of salvation? E.R. Dodds argued that in archaic Greece religious virtuosos – Dodds called them shamans – like Orpheus, Zalmoxis, Epimenides, Hermotimus, Pythagoras, and Empedocles “diffused the belief in a detachable soul or self, which by suitable techniques can be withdrawn from the body even during life, a self which is older than the body and will outlast it.”2 This occult self was “the carrier of man’s potential divinity”3 and also of his guilt, which originally led to embodiment. In Dodds’s formulation the soul’s eschatological trajectory depends on a metaphysical bifurcation of the self and involves the idea of moral responsibility, both of which features are articulated in significantly different ways in archaic and classical Greece. My aim here is to understand these rebirth eschatologies as holistically as possible in the face of piecemeal evidence and the ambiguous mythopoeic imagery. Orphic Escatology I begin with Plato’s outline of the Orphic eschatology that appears in the Gold Leaves and Empedocles. In Cratylus 400c we learn that Orphics believed “that the soul is being punished for 79 This content downloaded from 201.22.189.53 on Thu, 15 Oct 2020 13:45:42 UTC All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms

something, and that the body is an enclosure or prison in which the soul is securely kept… until the penalty is paid.” This famous account in the Meno contains only a cryptic mythic explanation for a soul’s punishment. Socrates quotes Pindar Fr. 133 and invokes priests and priestesses (i.e. Orphic-Pythagoreans4) for the beliefs that the soul is immortal, that it must pay a penalty for wrongdoing, and that it is reborn many times. They say that the human soul is immortal; at times it comes to an end, which they call dying, at times it is reborn, but it is never destroyed, and one must therefore live one’s life as piously as possible: Persephone will return to the sun above in the ninth year the souls of those from whom she will exact punishment for old miseries, and from these come noble kings, mighty in strength and greatest in wisdom, and for the rest of time men will call them sacred heroes (Pindar Fr. 133 Snell). As the soul is immortal, has been born often and has seen all things here and in the underworld, there is nothing which it is has not learned; so it is in no way surprising that it can recollect the things it knew before, both about virtue and other things. 5 (Meno 81b3-c9)

Several aspects of this anthropogony, which Plato appropriates for his own purposes, are found in the Gold Leaves. “Persephone’s ancient grief” appears to refer to the murder and eating of her son Dionysus by the Titans. After being incinerated by Zeus’s thunderbolt, their ashes gave birth to humanity. The idea that humans share Dionysus’s nature, because of the Titans’ eating him before they were incinerated, may have been added later.6 This myth is the foundation for the Gold Leaves eschatology. Upon arrival in the underworld the dead initiate self-identifies: “I am a child of Earth and starry Sky, but my race is heavenly” (B1 = 2 Petelia GJ)7 – indicating that humans were originally immortal beings through their descent from the Titans. Like the Titans, who were thrust beneath the earth, humans were imprisoned in bodies and suffer “the dire cycle of deep grief” (A1 = GJ 5), from which they can be freed by ritual purification and restored to their original divine status. The Orphic account of the primal crime is mythic, beginning with an act of revolt in primordial time before humans existed. Paradoxically, it 80 This content downloaded from 201.22.189.53 on Thu, 15 Oct 2020 13:45:42 UTC All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms

is the claim that human nature was originally divine that condemns humans to suffering. However, strictly speaking, human wrongdoing was not responsible for the original fall, a fact that deepens the psychological tension evident in some Gold Leaves. An initiate says to the Queen of the underworld: “I have paid the penalty for unrighteous deeds. Either Moira overcame me or the star-flinger with lightning” (A3 Thurii = GJ 6). Here the idea of moral responsibility is ambiguous: blaming the gods recalls Agamemnon’s apology in the Iliad, where he holds the gods responsible for taking away his senses, causing him to steal Achilles’s concubine. The initiate’s salvation is adumbrated in several Gold Leaves – promissory notes for apotheosis after death. I have flown out of the dire cycle of deep grief, I have approached the longed-for crown with swift feet, I have sunk beneath the breast of the Lady, the Chthonian Queen… “Happy and blessed, you will be a god instead of a mortal.” (A1 = GJ 5) “You have become a god instead of a mortal. A kid I fell into milk.” (A4 = GJ 3) I come, pure from the pure, o queen of the chthonians… But now I have come a suppliant to reverend Persephone, so that she may send me with favour to the abode of the pure. (A 2 = GJ 6)

It is important to note that escape from the cycle of grief and rebirth to a blissful afterlife need not involve being freed from a cycle of births and deaths. Yet most scholars believe that the Gold Leaves are committed to reincarnation. However, the evidence is very thin, as Edmunds has argued recently.8 Also lacking is evidence for the idea that a soul’s present suffering is the result of wrongdoing in previous lives. Inherited guilt is linked genetically with the fate of the Titans, making reincarnation otiose. Empedocles’s Escatology Empedocles’s eschatological perspective is highly complex, including elements of the Orphic myth of inherited guilt, the 81 This content downloaded from 201.22.189.53 on Thu, 15 Oct 2020 13:45:42 UTC All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms

Pythagorean concept of immortality, reincarnation across speciesboundaries, and opposition to animal sacrifice – all expressed in the distinctive voice of a religious visionary.9 However, unlike the Orphic anthropogony, Empedocles presents himself as a daimon whose guilt and fall into embodiment depends not on a pre-human, Titanic deed but on himself. In the famous Fr. 115 he cites “an oracle of Necessity”: when anyone sins and pollutes his own limbs with bloodshed, who by his error makes false the oath he swore – for 10,000 years he wanders apart from the blessed, being born throughout that time in all manner of forms of mortal things, exchanging one hard path of life for another.

He recounts the daimon’s buffeting by the elements, concluding with the lament that he too is an “exile from the gods, having put my trust in raving Strife,” having put on “an alien garment of flesh” (B126). The nature of the daimon and its offence are obscure and much disputed.10 Also in doubt is whether all humans are fallen daimones or only special souls like Empedocles. Despite the complexity of his scheme, Empedocles appears to share the fallen god idea with the Gold Leaves, a view which should be distinguished from the Pythagorean (and Platonic) idea that one can be transformed into a daimon through virtuous behavior and philosophical purification.11 Inasmuch as stages in the soul’s trajectory correspond to phases of the cosmic cycle, a double fall of the soul is likely. (1) Both the soul and the heavens consist of the element of aithēr. When the etheric soul mixes with the sub-lunar elements, it generates bodies of flesh through the action of Love (B98). (2) When embodied, the soul trusts in Strife and engages in killing and eating other beings (B136-7).12 The first fall is the result of necessity, the second adds voluntary choice and moral responsibility. Trust in raving Strife ties the daimon’s will to necessary phases in the cosmic cycle. Instead of deriving guilt from the Orphic anthropogony’s primal sin, for Empedocles personal guilt arises from bloodshed and ignorance after the daimon enters the rebirth cycle. Empedocles’s preaching of non-violence and moral purification as antidotes for this guilt must be seen in the context of an elaborate rebirth cycle. He vividly describes his experiences: “I have already been once a boy and a girl, a bush and a bird and a leaping 82 This content downloaded from 201.22.189.53 on Thu, 15 Oct 2020 13:45:42 UTC All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms

journeying fish” (B117). But passage through the cycle is not random, since there appears to be a hierarchy within each class of living being. B127 indicates that the lion is the highest animal species and the laurel the best among trees. Human types are ranked in B146-147: “But at the end they come among men on earth as prophets, bards, doctors and princes; and thence they arise as gods highest in honor.” This suggests the possibility of a teleological cycle in which “in each successive life a daimon might ascend through ever higher realms of creation (plants, beasts, man), undergo the best form of incarnation possible within each, and finally regain his original status as a god.”13 Some scholars believe that the scheme also reflects a full-blown karmic ethics, on which one’s actions determine the next incarnation.14 This is not implausible – otherwise, why follow a strict way of life? – but there is no explicit evidence for it either in Empedocles or in Pythagorean testimonia. Moreover, doubts remain about a teleological cycle in light of the karmic retrogression indicated in Xenophanes’ report about Pythagoras: “Stop beating that dog! From his cries I recognize the soul of a friend (B7).” Why would a philos end up as a dog? Whatever pattern it takes, spiritual progress over lifetimes is achieved through purification and increase in wisdom. But Empedoclean purification involves asceticism, proper behavior, and meditative practice rather than the rituals prominent in the Gold Leaves.15 More importantly, the centrality of wisdom distinguishes his path of salvation from the popular Orphism of the Gold Leaves and Pindar. Empedocles B129, probably referring to Pythagoras, makes the point: “And there was a man of surpassing knowledge, master especially of all kinds of wise works, who had acquired the utmost wealth of understanding (prapidōn): For whenever he reached out with all his understanding. Easily he sought each of all the things that are, and 10 and even 20 generations of men.” Like his master Pythagoras,16 Empedocles achieved continuity of consciousness through recollection. Most humans are dismissed as ephēmerioi (B3.4, B131.1), because they lack such continuity. Empedocles’s dramatic announcement of divinization echoes those found in the Gold Leaves. “I come before you an immortal god, mortal no longer” (B112). Ultimately, “They arise as gods highest in honour, sharing with the other immortals their hearth and table, 83 This content downloaded from 201.22.189.53 on Thu, 15 Oct 2020 13:45:42 UTC All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms

without part in human sorrows or weariness” (B147). The use of worldly and sensuous images to describe celestial existence is a common trope in archaic religious poetry. In Hesiod gods and men feasted together before the rupture between them (Eoiae, Fr. 1.6-7) and the golden race of men become daimones after death (Works and Days, 108, 122, 167ff.).17 Pindar describes the blissful afterlife of those dwelling on the Isles of Blessed (Ol. II.71-77) and Pelinna 1 mentions the symposium of the blessed, where wine is a “happy honor” – a feature of Orphic eschatology mocked by Plato (R. 363c) – and the sacred rites (telea) which are still celebrated (GJ 26a).18 While he employs some of this traditional imagery, Empedocles conceives of divinization in a more spiritual way, i.e. without the body,19 and as comprising divine wisdom. In this vein B132 refers to “the wealth of divine thinking” and B134 to a god who “is mind alone (phrēn), holy and beyond description, darting through the whole cosmos with swift thoughts.” Finally, I turn to the question of whether Empedocles accepts an end to the cycle of births and deaths. His emphatic declaration of himself as a realized god would seem to eliminate the possibility of any further incarnations. However, Inwood has argued that the soul/daimon can not be immortal “since daimones are compounds subject to dissolution like everything else, and thus will be limited to rebirth within one turn of the cosmic cycle.”20 Thus, certainty on this question is difficult to achieve. Plato’s Response Because Plato’s eschatology is far too complex to provide a comprehensive account in this short space, I shall review his responses to the central questions noted above, tracing his borrowings and innovations as we proceed. Plato’s anthropogony is multi-faceted and, some would say, even contradictory. The passages from the Cratylus and Meno cited above indicate some allegiance to the Orphic anthropogony, viz. humans’ Titanic nature and “Persephone’s ancient grief.” Citing the teachings of the mysteries, Socrates states that we are in a kind of prison (Phd. 62a). But even in this, the most Orphic-Pythagorean of the dialogues, Plato does not rely primarily on mythic accounts of primeval crimes and guilt. Later in the dialogue, humanity’s titanic nature symbolizes one’s character: 84 This content downloaded from 201.22.189.53 on Thu, 15 Oct 2020 13:45:42 UTC All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms

“imprisonment is…due to desires” and “the prisoner himself is contributing to his own incarceration most of all” (82e5-7). Personal guilt is demythologized and individuated. What is perhaps the clearest statement in the dialogues about the origin of the soul occurs in the Timaeus, albeit in quasi-mythic form. Unlike Orphic-Pythagorean traditions, the Timaeus presents a positive account of the soul’s original embodiment. The Demiurge instructs the young gods “to weave what is mortal to what is immortal” (41d1-2) and assigns each soul to a star and then to its first birth (41d8-42a3). No crime or guilt is indicated. After its first incarnation, a virtuous soul returns “to his dwelling place in his companion star, to live a life of happiness that agreed with his character,” the less virtuous fall into lesser incarnations in accordance with their characters. But if he failed in this, he would be born a second time, now as a woman. And if even then he still could not refrain from wickedness, he would be changed once again, this time into some wild animal that resembled the wicked character he had acquired. And he would have no rest from these toilsome transformations until he had dragged that massive accretion of fire-water-air-earth into conformity with the revolution of the Same and uniform within him, and so subdued that turbulent, irrational mass by means of reason. This would return him to his original condition of excellence. (42b3-d2)

This scheme transforms the Orphic fallen god motif by omitting an original crime, either by an ancestral divinity or by the individual soul itself. It is remarkably optimistic in advancing the possibility of a soul’s return to the heavens after only one virtuous incarnation! The innate divinity of the soul is emphasized later in the statement that nous is a daimon given to us by god (Tim. 90a), which has descended from heaven. Souls compelled to reincarnate thereafter do so only as a result of their own wrongdoing, which stems from the mortal parts of the soul binding it to recurring embodied existences in the rebirth cycle. Plato’s most detailed account of the descent of the soul appears in the Phaedrus myth, which is strongly influenced by Empedocles. What is depicted is not, however, the original descent, but ones contingent on earlier incarnations within the cosmic cycle, accentuating the tension between necessity and voluntary choice. The 85 This content downloaded from 201.22.189.53 on Thu, 15 Oct 2020 13:45:42 UTC All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms

contrast between celestial-disembodied life and embodied existence is inspired by both the mythic theological distinction between divinities and humans but also the new metaphysical distinction between Being and its imperfect images. The divine banquet (from Hesiod and Empedocles) is refigured as feasting on the Forms (Phdr. 247c-e). The contrast between the purity of the pre-natal celestial vision and the soul’s imprisonment in a body, “locked in it like an oyster in its shell” (250c5-6), recalls the Sicilian’s description of embodiment as coming “under this roofed cave” (B120) and being “clothed in an alien garment of flesh” (B126). The whimsical optimism of the Timaeus anthropogony may be anomalous. In all other accounts, the soul is represented as deeply embedded in a rebirth cycle of interminable length. In the Phaedrus, Plato borrows Empedocles’ three times 10,000 seasons of exile to specify the duration of the cosmic cycle, subdividing it to fit his own cycle of ten incarnations, one for each millennium, progressing through a hierarchy of eight human types (from philosopher down to tyrant, 248de). Plato’s other accounts of the rebirth cycle focus on (1) posthumous rewards and punishments; (2) souls’ choices of their next incarnation; (3) a comprehensive rebirth ethics; and (4) intimations of exceptional souls’ exit from the cycle. I shall summarize the key aspects of (1) and (2), which have been extensively discussed by scholars. The crucial point about the first, which is not emphasized enough, is that Plato’s heaven and hell, depicted in traditional terms, is relativized and subordinated to the ultimate soteriological goal of total liberation from the rebirth cycle. 21 The Gorgias employs the simplest scheme. Invoking Homer and Hesiod, Socrates recounts a “true tale” that the virtuous go to the Isles of the Blessed, the abode of Hesiod’s golden race and the vicious to Tartarus (523b1, 524a3, 526c5). In the Phaedo the exceptionally virtuous (114b6-c2) dwell in an earthly paradise–on the surface of the earth in the myth’s terms – whereas the bulk of humanity lives in the hollows – analogous to the Republic’s cave-dwellers. Socrates paints a Pythagorean picture of this true earth (110c-111c3), whose inhabitants breathe ether instead of air and live on islands, evoking the Isles of the Blessed, which has become a celestial way-station for the virtuous en route to divinization. 86 This content downloaded from 201.22.189.53 on Thu, 15 Oct 2020 13:45:42 UTC All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms

The lesser status of hell and heaven states in Plato also entails that although they provide ethical compensation for embodied deeds, neither rewards nor punishment evidently lead to moral improvement. In the Phaedo myth, average souls “are purified by penalties for any wrongdoing…and suitably rewarded for their good deeds” (113e1-2). But in the myth of Er those who have “come down from heaven” (R. 619cd) make bad choices. Significantly, the determining factor in choices is “the character (sunētheia) of their former life” (R. 620a2-3), a key point ignored by scholars who critique the pessimism of the myth.22 Complementary to rewards and punishments in the afterlife is the impact of previous lives on the present one. Here Plato’s rebirth ethics breaks new ground. Empedocles emphasized the deleterious effects of bloodshed, but no comprehensive rebirth ethics is evident in the surviving texts in contrast to Plato’s illustrations of the principle that “the doer shall suffer.” “Won’t we also agree,” Socrates asks Glaucon, “that everything that comes to someone who is loved by gods, insofar as it comes from the gods themselves, is the best possible, unless it is the inevitable punishment for some mistake he made in a former life” (R. 612e8613a2) Vengeance [tisis] is exacted for these crimes in the after-life [Hades], and when a man returns to this world again he is ineluctably obliged to pay the penalty prescribed by the law of nature–to undergo the same treatment as he himself meted out to his victim, and to conclude his earthly existence by encountering a similar fate (moira) at the hands of someone else. (Laws 870d7-e3) a man [a murderer] who has done something of this kind is obliged to suffer precisely what he has inflicted…no other purification is available when common blood has been polluted; the pollution resists cleansing until, murder for murder, the guilty soul has paid the penalty and by this appeasement has soothed the anger of the deceased’s entire line. (Laws 872e-873a)

The myth in Laws X weaves together the elements of individual punishment and personal responsibility treated in Book IX into the perspective of cosmic providence. Everything, “down to the smallest details” of the individual parts of the universe – including punishments and rewards, births and deaths of individual souls – is 87 This content downloaded from 201.22.189.53 on Thu, 15 Oct 2020 13:45:42 UTC All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms

under the control of “the supervisor of the universe” and various “ruling powers” (903b). The Stranger expounds the principles that the individual “exists for the sake of the universe” (903c5), not vice versa, and that one’s present position “contributes to the good of the whole” (d2). Thus, since a soul is allied with different bodies at different times, and perpetually undergoes all sorts of changes, either self-imposed or produced by some other soul, the divine checkers-player has nothing else to do except promote a soul with a promising character to a better situation, and relegate one that is deteriorating to an inferior, as is appropriate in each case, so that they all meet the fate they deserve .…With this grand purpose in view he has worked out what sort of position, in what regions, should be assigned to a soul to match its changes of character; but he left it to the individual’s acts of will to determine the direction of these changes. You see, the way we react to particular circumstances is almost invariably determined by our desires and our psychological state…So all things that contain soul change, the cause of their change lying within themselves, and as they change they move according to the ordinance and law of destiny. Small changes in unimportant aspects of character entail small horizontal changes of position in space, while a substantial decline into injustice sets the soul on the path to the depths of the so-called underworld, which men call Hades and similar names, and which haunts and terrifies them both during their lives and when they have been sundered from their bodies. Take a soul that becomes particularly full of vice or virtue as a result of its own acts of will and the powerful influence of social intercourse. If companionship with divine virtue has made it exceptionally divine, it experiences an exceptional change of location, being conducted by a holy path to some superior place elsewhere. Alternatively, opposite characteristics will send it off to live in the opposite region (903d3-e1, 904b3-e3).

This important passage exhibits the essential features of Plato’s rebirth ethics, whose basic principles are consistent with the details of the earlier eschatological myths. While it interweaves the forces of necessity and free will, the weight of moral responsibility falls on individual souls as they suffer births and deaths extending through millennia. That Plato’s eschatology has an ultimate goal is often denied.23 One reason for this dubious conclusion is the atomistic approach to motifs in Plato’s thought, exemplified on this subject by Edmonds: 88 This content downloaded from 201.22.189.53 on Thu, 15 Oct 2020 13:45:42 UTC All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms

the idea of reincarnation and the idea of endless disembodiment in torment or bliss are meant to be considered separately rather than as parts of a coherent system. Both the idea of the cycle of reincarnations and the images of torment or bliss without end have their significance within the myth.24

The fact that Plato does present individual aspects of the rebirth cycle and rewards and punishments in isolation from one another does not justify ignoring implicit connections between them. Also, Edmonds misrepresents Plato as absolutizing heaven and hell states. This supposition is refuted in the Phaedo, Republic, and Phaedrus myths, as well as in the Laws. The trajectory of the soul as a fallen god returning to heaven appears often enough – and as complementing the overall structure of the rebirth cycle – for us to conclude with confidence that the philosopher ultimately is liberated from the cycle of births and death. She attains “the place beyond the heavens” (Phdr. 247c3-4), the realm of supreme blessedness in “beautiful dwelling places” which are beyond description (Phaedo 114c).25 In the Republic, those who have lived a complete philosophical life and served the kallipolis “should now be led to the final goal, and required to direct the radiant light of the soul towards the vision of that which itself gives light to everything” (R. 540a6-8). At death they “will depart for the Isles of the Blessed and dwell there” (540b5-7)26 and be honored as daimones or divinely happy men.27 This blissful discarnate state is anticipated in the vision of the Forms outside the cave at 519c5-6: philosophers think they have gone to the Isles of the Blessed while embodied. The same, or a similar, state is ascribed to the disembodied in glowing terms: “wholly perfect and free of all troubles…gaz[ing] in rapture at sacred revealed objects that were perfect, and simple, and unshakeable and blissful” (Phdr. 250b9-c5). This ultimate transcendent experience begins at the end of the rebirth cycle in the Phaedrus myth, where those who have chosen philosophical lives three consecutive times escape from the cycle (Phdr. 249a1-5). The Timaeus makes the same point in the more general reference to the soul returning to its original condition of excellence (Tim. 42d1-2). Plato has woven together popular eschatological destinations (Hades, Isles of the Blessed) with the Orphic themes of imprisonment and purification and with Pythagorean immortality and 89 This content downloaded from 201.22.189.53 on Thu, 15 Oct 2020 13:45:42 UTC All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms

reincarnation. His crowning touch was to embed these ideas in an overarching scheme of karmic ethics that emphasizes human responsibility and an ultimate escape from the rebirth cycle. Finally, he provides a dazzling vision of the liberated state in the great ascent passages.

John Bussanich is Professor of Philosophy at the University of New Mexico. He co-edited with Nicholas D. Smith The Bloomsbury Companion to Socrates (2013). He is the author of The One and its Relation to Intellect in Plotinus: A Commentary on Selected Texts (1988) and of articles on Socrates, Plato, and the Neoplatonists. Other research interests include comparative philosophy and philosophy and mysticism in South Asia. 2 E.R. Dodds, The Greeks and the Irrational (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1971), 146-47. 3 Dodds Irrational, 153. 4 The identity of these priests and priestesses is hotly debated. They are members of the mystery cults according to Fritz Graf and Sarah Iles Johnston, Ritual Texts for the Afterlife: Orpheus and the Bacchic Gold Tablets (London: Routledge, 2007), 118. Kingsley argues that they are Pythagoreans, who practiced rituals in the Bacchic mysteries and for Persephone: Peter Kingsley, Ancient Philosophy, Mystery and Magic: Empedocles and Pythagorean Tradition (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1995), 160-65. 5 Plato translations are from John M. Cooper, ed. Plato: Complete Works (Indianapolis: Hackett Publishing, 1997). 6 For this view see Radcliffe G. Edmonds, “Tearing Apart the Zagreus Myth: A Few Disparaging Remarks on Orphism and Original Sin,” Classical Antiquity 18.1 (1999): 35-73. 7 GJ = Fritz Graf and Sarah Iles Johnston, Ritual Texts for the Afterlife. The same fragments are placed in A and B groups by Günther Zuntz, Persephone: Three Essays on Religion and Thought in Magna Graecia, (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1971). 8 Orthodox opinion is well stated by Graf and Johnston Ritual Texts for the Afterlife, 118-19. I share the caution of Radcliffe G. Edmonds Myths of the Underworld Journey: Plato, Aristophanes, and the “Orphic” Gold Tablets (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2004), 94-96. 9 Robert Parker, Miasma: Pollution and Purification in Early Greek Religion (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1983), 300 states that the purifications of 1

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Orphics and Empedocles differ from Eleusinian and Pythagorean because the former promised release from personal or inherited guilt. 10 Brad Inwood, The Poem of Empedocles: A Text with an Introduction. Revised second edition (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2001), 57n136: “It is impossible to determine what causes the fall of the daimon, since the textual corruption in lines 3-5 makes it unclear whose perjury and bloodshed (or fear, in the MSS), precipitate the exile; similarly, we are not told which oaths are broken or how, or what is the object of the bloodshed or fear.” 11 Cf. Marcel Detienne, La Notion de Daimon dan le Pythagorisme ancien (Paris: Les Belles Lettres, 1963), 99 and Edmonds, Myths of the Underworld Journey, 92-94. 12 See Laura Gemelli Marciano, Die Vorsokratiker 2: Band 2 (Berlin: Walter de Gruyter, 2013), 358. 13 G.S. Kirk, J.E. Raven and M. Schofield. The Presocratic Philosophers, 2nd edition, (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1983), 317. Translations of Empedocles are cited from this edition. 14 Inwood The Poem of Empedocles, 56 “one’s behaviour in this life will affect the fate of the daimon in the next life.” Pythagoreans “must have allowed some scope for the individual’s conduct in this life to influence the form of his next incarnation” (Parker Miasma, 291). 15 Parker Miasma, 301 mistakenly thinks we know little of Empedocles’s way of salvation except for vegetarianism and sexual moderation. On meditative practices in Empedocles see Peter Kingsley Reality (Inverness, CA: The Golden Sufi Center, 2003), 402-4 on B110. 16 According to DL 8.4-5, Pythagoras remembered that he had been Aetheliades, Euphorbus, Hermotimus, and Pyrrhus. 17 Hesiod’s statement that the golden race become daimones was explained by Pythagoreans as resulting from virtuous behavior. Cf. Edmonds Underworld Journey, 93 and Detienne Daimon, 115. 18 Edmonds Underworld Journey, 99 points out that in the Gold Leaves’ two different options – purification and divinization – are available for initiates. He believes that they “need be neither two tracks within a single systematic conception nor two successive stages of a single evolving eschatology.” I am inclined to see purification as the means to divinization. 19 Denis O’Brien “Empedocles Revisited,” Ancient Philosophy 15 (1995) 452: “Hippolytus tells us that Pythagoras believed that souls were ‘mortal when they are in a body, as though buried in a tomb, but that we rise up and become immortal, when we are freed from our bodies’.” 20 Inwood Empedocles, 53.

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For a comprehensive discussion see my “Rebirth Eschatology in Plato and Plotinus,” in Philosophy and Salvation in Greek Religion (Berlin: De Gruyter, 2013), ed. Vishwa Adluri, 243-88. 22 For claims that Plato is a pessimist and that his eschatology is contradictory or self-refuting see Julia Annas, “Plato’s Myths of Judgment,” Phronesis 27 (1982): 119-43 and Mark McPherran, “Virtue, Luck, and Choice at the End of the Republic,” in Plato’s Republic. A Critical Guide, ed. Mark McPherran (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2010), 132-46. 23 See Annas, “Myths of Judgment” and, recently, Edmonds, “Myths of the Underworld Journey,” 216-20. 24 Edmunds ibid. 218n179. 25 This blissful fate is anticipated earlier in the dialogue by reference to “dwelling with the gods” (Phd. 69c, 81a4-6, 82b10). 26 Stephen Halliwell, Plato: Republic 10, edited with Translation and Commentary (Warminster: Aris & Phillips, 1988), 22 implausibly claims that “even the philosophical soul will have in each incarnation to start afresh the process of recollection and learning, and so, it seems, will be unable to carry over knowledge and goodness previously attained.” Passages in Timaeus, Phaedrus, and Laws discussed above cast doubt on this claim. 27 Here I think that the traditional Isles of the Blessed may symbolically refer to the state of blissful liberation not to an intermediate state of reward. 21

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Parnassos Press – Fonte Aretusa Chapter Title: God Bless Memory: Plato Phaedrus 250c and the Entella Tablet Chapter Author(s): Ewa Osek Book Title: Philosopher Kings and Tragic Heroes Book Subtitle: Essays on Images and Ideas from Western Greece Book Editor(s): Heather L. Reid and Davide Tanasi Published by: Parnassos Press – Fonte Aretusa Stable URL: https://www.jstor.org/stable/j.ctvbj7gjn.9 JSTOR is a not-for-profit service that helps scholars, researchers, and students discover, use, and build upon a wide range of content in a trusted digital archive. We use information technology and tools to increase productivity and facilitate new forms of scholarship. For more information about JSTOR, please contact [email protected]. Your use of the JSTOR archive indicates your acceptance of the Terms & Conditions of Use, available at https://about.jstor.org/terms This content is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License (CC BY-NC-ND 4.0). To view a copy of this license, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/.

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Ewa Osek1 God Bless Memory: Plato Phaedrus 250c and the Entella Tablet This essay examines the textual and contextual parallels between the chariot myth of Plato’s Phaedrus (246a–256e) and the mystery texts inscribed on the so-called “Orphic” gold tablets, especially the ones discovered in Magna Graecia (Hipponion, Thurii) and Sicily (Entella). The possible influence of the gold leaves on Plato’s eschatological myths told in his Phaedo, Gorgias, and Republic has been explored already by Alberto Bernabé and Radcliffe G. Edmonds III. So far, however, the Sicilian background of the Phaedrus was overlooked in the secondary literature. The aim of my study is to demonstrate that Plato’s vision of the Great Beyond in his Phaedrus, with its mystic imagery and vocabulary, was strongly impressed by the Italiot mystery tradition, which Plato might have met during his visits to Sicily between 389 BCE and 365 BCE. The most striking point of convergence seems to be the relevance of memory, contrasted with oblivion, that plays a key role both in the Phaedrus (249c–250c) and the Entella tablet (SEG 44: 750). The memory of the sacred initiatory rites (μνήμη or μνημοσύνη) is said to give an initiated person (a philosopher in the Phaedrus, a deceased in the Entella tablet) the status of a divine (daimon in the Phaedrus, hero in the Entella tablet). Plato’s Hail to Memory (Phaedrus 250c)--Not in Context? Memory plays an important part in the Phaedrus. At the very beginning of the dialogue, Plato represents Phaedrus as trying to memorize Lysias’s speech written down on a papyrus scroll. He is using a number of words that are to denote memorizing, not memorizing, and forgetting (Phdr. 228a ἀπομνημονεύσειν… ἐπιλέλησμαι; 228b ἐξεπιστάμενος; 228d ῥήματα οὐκ ἐξέμαθον). The central speech delivered by Socrates (Phdr. 243e–257b) shifts the problem of memory and forgetfulness on to a more mystical, which is to say metaphysical, level. Plato tells us, through his mouthpiece, that every soul, compared to the two-horse winged chariot, contemplates the supra-celestial place once every 10,000 years. After the vision is finished, all souls return to the world. Of them, the 93 This content downloaded from 201.22.189.53 on Thu, 15 Oct 2020 13:46:05 UTC All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms

eleven gods are able to keep perfect memory concerning the things they saw above, and this memory (Phdr. 249c μνήμῃ) is what makes the gods divine. At the same time, the souls of philosophers, who are inferior to the gods, have trouble regaining the memories, recollecting the things they beheld there (Phdr. 249c ἀνάμνησις… ὑπομνήμασιν). Their memory is not perfect but proportional to the abilities of their human souls (Phdr. 249c μνήμῃ κατὰ δύναμιν). If memory is said to make a god divine, it follows that the philosophers are demigods or daimones, to use Plato’s own word (Phdr. 246e δαιμόνων). The wording μνήμῃ κατὰ δύναμιν reechoes the deification formula as employed in the Theaetetus 176b (ὁμοίωσις θεῷ κατὰ τὸ δυνατόν). What has been suggested but not verbalized by Plato is that both memory and divinity, of gods and humans alike, can be renewed by cyclical communication with the supra-celestial place wherein the true Beings exist. Plato shows the process of remembering and forgetting also in the figurative language of atrophy and regrowth of the soul’s wings. When the soul is filled with forgetfulness (Phdr. 248c λήθης), she becomes heavy, loses her wings, falls to the earth, and gets in a solid body. In turn, she regains her plumage whenever she gets back her memory of the ideal Beauty she saw there (Phdr. 251d μνήμην). The wings seem to symbolize some faculties of the soul that are responsible for retaining and regaining this memory.2 The philosopher can provoke his soul to plume every time he looks at the radiant face of his beloved, whose beauty mirrors the Beauty from Beyond. The wings of memory bear him back to the true Beings he glimpsed during his heavenly journey with Zeus, the patron-god of philosophers (Phdr. 254b μνήμη). Zeus is the one who inspires the lovers, who fills them with erotic frenzy, and makes them mad like bacchant women when they reach him with their memory (Phdr. 253a μνήμῃ). The madness of love activates the process of recollection (Phdr. 250a ἀναμιμνῄσκεσθαι) that leads the incarnate soul from the forgetfulness (Phdr. 250a λήθην) to memory (Phdr. 250a μνήμης).3 Even the inner struggle of soul that makes a choice between chastity and lust, symbolized respectively by the white and black horses, is described in the terms of forgetting and remembering (Phdr. 254d ἀμνημονεῖν… ἀναμιμνῄσκων). 94 This content downloaded from 201.22.189.53 on Thu, 15 Oct 2020 13:46:05 UTC All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms

Plato highlights the relevance of memory by telling us that the chariot myth has been addressed to memory, μνήμῃ κεχαρίσθω: “There let it rest then, our tribute to memory, that has stirred us to linger awhile on those former joys for which we yearn” (Phdr. 250c).4 This memory concerns, of course, the intelligible things.5 Elsewhere Plato denominates this part of the central speech “a palinode in honor of love” (Phdr. 257a) and “the mythical hymn to Eros” (Phdr. 265c). What was the reason for equating memory and love? Once again, the problem of memory and forgetfulness recurs in the so-called critique of writing, which falls into “the Egyptian tale” (Phdr. 274c–275b) and “the gardens of Adonis” (Phdr. 276b–277a). In the former section, Plato relates the invention of writing by the Egyptian god Theuth who recommends the letters as “an elixir of memory and wisdom” (Phdr. 274e μνήμης… καὶ σοφίας φάρμακον). In Socrates’s times, such a praise of writing became a commonplace in the Greek literature. Euripides represented Palamedes, the first discoverer of the alphabet, as recommending his invention as “a remedy for forgetfulness” (λήθης φάρμακ’).6 The same statement is found in Gorgias’s Defense of Palamedes where letters are called “the instrument of memory” (μνήμης ὄργανον). Aeschylus, who attributed the same innovation to Prometheus, called the letters “memory of all and mother of muses” (μνήμην ἁπάντων, μουσομήτορ’).7 Nevertheless, Plato discredits the conventional view on writing and puts in the mouth of the highest Egyptian god, Thamus, the following critique of letters (Phdr. 275a): If men learn this, it will implant forgetfulness in their souls: they will cease to exercise memory because they rely on that which is written, calling things to remembrance no longer from within themselves, but by means of external marks; what you have discovered is a recipe not for memory, but for reminder.8

Perhaps the words spoken by Thamus should be understood in the context of rhetorical mnemonic because it is a common observation that a reliance on written letters weakens an orator’s memory. The Egyptian tale corresponds to the grammatophilia of Phaedrus who, at the beginning of the dialogue, reads Lysias’s speech written down on a papyrus scroll.9 Besides, it is possible that Plato meant here the oral transmission which is opposite to written 95 This content downloaded from 201.ff:ffff:ffff:ffff:ffff on Thu, 01 Jan 1976 12:34:56 UTC All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms

books and literate culture.10 Anyway, the attack on a cure for reminders (Phdr. 275a ὑπομνήσεως φάρμακον), which is accused of implanting recollection (ἀναμιμνῃσκομένους) and forgetfulness (λήθην) into the souls instead of memory (μνήμης), cannot be linked to the chariot myth where the same, I mean ἀνάμνησις and ὑπομνήμασιν (Phdr. 249c), were fully appreciated. Plato takes a more moderate standpoint in the latter section on the gardens of Adonis. He says that the records, styled here “gardens of letters” (Phdr. 276d ἐν γράμμασι κήπους), can be very useful “reminders” (Phdr. 276d ὑπομνήματα) when the philosopher who treasures them comes to the forgetfulness of old age (Phdr. 276d λήθης γῆρας). This geriatric sclerosis differs from the original sin of forgetfulness, mentioned in the chariot myth (Phdr. 248c), which is said to cause the fall of the soul and subsequent incarnation. Memory, recollection, and forgetfulness recur like a leitmotiv in the Phaedrus. They cannot be included, however, into the principal purposes of the dialogue, which are―according to Hermias of Alexandria (ca. 450 BCE)―love, rhetoric, soul, and the idea of Goodness,11 or―in the opinion of Reginal Hackforth (1952)―the culture of the soul, rhetoric, and dialectics.12 Memory, though being very important, does not belong to the central problems discussed in the dialogue. So how do we explain Plato’s hail to memory in Phdr. 250c? Some Sicilian Inspirations Plato was strongly impressed by his Sicilian adventures (389 BCE, 366–365 BCE, 361 BCE). In 388 BCE he bought a little garden in the Academy with 30 minae that he got from Dion of Syracuse.13 According to Aristoxenus of Tarentum, the same Dion purchased, at the request of Plato, three Pythagorean books for 100 minae from Philolaus of Croton, who fell into dire poverty before he died circa 385 BCE. Down to Philolaus, as Aristoxenus remarks, the Pythagorean doctrine had been kept in top secrecy and completely unknown to the public.14 Since 367 BCE, Plato’s school was generously sponsored by Dionysius the Younger of Syracuse. The philosopher was imputed to receive more than 80 talents from the Sicilian tyrant to spend on books.15 After his second disastrous visit to Sicily and a quarrel with Dionysius, Plato hosted Dion, who was 96 This content downloaded from 201.22.189.53 on Thu, 15 Oct 2020 13:46:05 UTC All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms

banished from Syracuse, in the Academy. During Dion’s exile (366– 357 BCE), Alexis of Thurii, who lived in Athens, composed several comic plays to mock Plato and his circle. The plays in question are entitled: The Syracusan (FrAC 217), The Tarentines (FrAC 219–225), and Phaedrus (FrAC 245–246), and date―according to the editor John M. Edmonds―from ca. 362 BCE. Of them, the fragment of Alexis’s Phaedrus (FrAC 245) alludes to Plato’s Symposium and Phaedrus, which suggests that the approximate date of the later of these two dialogues (for it is uncertain which one came first) is the year 363 BC.16 It follows that the Phaedrus was produced by Plato between 365 and 363 BCE.17 Perhaps Carl Huffmann is right in his opinion that Plato’s Pythagoreanism was superficial and had nothing to do with genuine Pythagoreanism.18 The view of the modern scholar essentially agrees with what the ancient historian Timaeus of Tauromenium said on the Athenian philosopher.19 Anyway, the Pythagorean and Orphic inspirations are seen everywhere in Plato’s eschatological myths in his Phaedo, Gorgias, and Republic.20 In the Phaedo 69c, written around 387 BCE, Plato agreed with what had been told in the mystic rites, that the soul of uninitiated in the underworld wallows in the mire while the initiated dwells with the gods (OF 434iii).21 In the Gorgias 493a–c, written probably in 380 BCE, he quoted “a clever man, story-teller, of Sicilian or perhaps Italian origin” (OF 434ii) who compared the soul of uninitiated to a leaking jar, πίθος, because it contains no real thing in itself but only the πιθανόν (“probable”). The same Italiot authority called the uninitiated fools (a pun on the words ἀνοήτους ἀμυήτους), and argued that the souls of stupid men leak like a sieve―with which the uninitiated bring water in Hades―for their forgetfulness (λήθην) that makes them unable to retain anything. The myth of Er in the Republic 614b–621d, composed ca. 371 BCE, introduced some new elements. We are told that the souls used to spend 1,000 years in the underworld to purify themselves before they enter bodies, human or animal. The Platonic purgatory, as Proclus informs us, owes a debt to Orpheus who sang about underworld punishments that take 300 years (OF 346).22 Plato tells that once every 1,000 years each soul comes to a lottery of lives to choose her δαίμων, her guardian spirit and a personification of the next life she is going 97 This content downloaded from 201.22.189.53 on Thu, 15 Oct 2020 13:46:05 UTC All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms

to live. After choosing their lives, the souls come to the three Moirae who assign the choice they made. The best choice the soul can make is the philosophic life. The one who chooses it would spend the long period between incarnations in heaven, apart from the dark underground path. During their return to the earth, all souls must pass the parched plain of Lēthē (“forgetfulness”) and then cross the river Amelēs (“unheeding”, Rep. 621a = OF 462), called also Lēthē (Rep. 621c). Only philosophers’s souls are able to restrain their thirst and not drink from the river of forgetfulness and not defile themselves. They are the only ones who can remember what happened. The others forget. The Pythagorean and Orphic Background of the Phaedrus The Platonic underworld, as depicted in the dialogues Plato composed after his first visit to Sicily, is a shadow of Orpheus, whose poems were popular in the Southern Italy.23 On the other side, the chariot myth in the Phaedrus 246a–256e, composed after his second journey to Syracuse, offers an insight not only into Hades but also into the supra-celestial place that exists beyond the heavens. There is room here for Plato’s new cosmology. We are informed that every cosmic cycle takes 10,000 years and encompasses two phases. During the first stage, souls, visualized as winged chariots, ascend to heaven to contemplate the Great Beyond for 1,000 years. The souls, including the human ones, are pure and therefore able to obtain a sharp vision in the pure light (Phdr. 250c), like the initiated during the Great Mysteries at Eleusis (Phdr. 250c μυούμενοί τε καὶ ἐποπτεύοντες). After the contemplation, all of them come down to govern the world for the next 9,000 years. Some unsuccessful souls, which could not gaze on the Plain of Truth or nibble at the special pasture growing there on the supramundane meadow (Phdr. 248c ἐκεῖ λειμῶνος), fill themselves with forgetfulness and fall to the earth. Filling oneself with forgetfulness (Phdr. 248c λήθης… πλησθεῖσα) corresponds to drinking from the river of Lēthē mentioned in the Republic 621c.24 The fallen daimones, subordinated to the law of Adrasteia (Phdr. 248c θεσμός τε Ἀδραστείας… νόμος), used to incarnate nine times, living the lives of a philosopher, a king, a politician, a physician, a prophet or an initiator into the mysteries, a poet, a craftsman, a sophist, and a 98 This content downloaded from 201.22.189.53 on Thu, 15 Oct 2020 13:46:05 UTC All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms

tyrant (Phdr. 248c–e = OF 459). After each early life, the souls descend to the underworld, or ascend the heaven, to wander there for 1,000 years and to choose their next lives (Phdr. 249a–b). In the 10,000th year, every soul is recycled and returns to the place from where she came (Phdr. 248e, 257a). The particular details of the chariot myth evoke some specific associations. The number of 10,000 years, which concerns the full cosmic cycle, is probably derived from the Pythagorean calculation of the Cosmic Year as 9,720 solar years.25 The pastoral imagery in depicting the supra-mundane realities (Phdr. 248b–c “the Plain of Truth”, “the best pasturage from that meadow”) resembles the vocabulary used in the so-called Orphic gold leaves. Two of them, which date from the fourth century BCE and have been discovered in Thurii, Italy, and Pherai, Thessaly, describe an eschatological landscape with “sacred meadow(s)” (OF 487.6 λειμῶνάς… ἱεροὺς; OF 493.2 ἱερὸν λειμῶνα).26 The pure souls who, like the initiated, contemplate the real Beings in pure light (Phdr. 250c ἐν αὐγῇ καθαρᾷ, καθαροὶ ὄντες), re-echo the mystery formula “pure from the pure” (ἐκ καθαρῶν καθαρά) that occurs in the “Orphic” gold leaves (e.g. the fourth-century lamella from Thurii, OF 489.1).27 Adrasteia, who is said to govern the cycle of incarnations (Phdr. 248c = OF 459), has been explained by Hermias of Alexandria as the Orphic goddess, a nurse of the baby Zeus, responsible for observing the divine law in the world.28 According to the chariot myth, philosophers’s souls are privileged. The philosopher is the perfect one (Phdr. 249c τέλεος) because he keeps on remembering that he has been initiated into the perfect mysteries (Phdr. 249c τελέους ἀεὶ τελετὰς τελούμενος) during his heavenly voyage with Zeus, whereas ordinary souls tend to turn to wrongdoing because of their forgetfulness of the sacred objects they saw there (Phdr. 250a λήθην ὧν τότε εἶδον ἱερῶν). While the other souls must wander over the earth from one life to another for 9,000 years, the ones who closely followed Zeus and are able to remember regain their wings after 3,000 years if they have chosen a philosophic life thrice (Phdr. 248e–249a = OF 459). Plato’s choice of the number three and the word τρὶς (Phdr. 249a) is an allusion to Pindar’s memorable ἐστρὶς,29 that occurs in his ode to the Olympic victory of Hieron of Acragas in 476 BCE: “Those who had 99 This content downloaded from 201.22.189.53 on Thu, 15 Oct 2020 13:46:05 UTC All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms

persevered thrice to keep their soul altogether from doing wrong in both realms complete the road of Zeus to the tower of Cronus” (Olympian Odes 2.68–70).30 The quoted lines refer the doctrine of transmigration of the soul and show both Pythagorean and Orphic influences.31 The philosophers’ souls, freed from the wheel of reincarnation 6,000 years before the appointed time, are compared to the Olympic victors (Phdr. 256b) and to the bacchant women (Phdr. 253a αἱ βάκχαι) that draw their enthusiasm from their god. The similes used here might be derived from the mystery cults. The “Orphic” gold leaves from Thurii and Hipponion mention both “the wrath of victory” (OF 488.6 στεφάνο‹υ›), in the context of release from reincarnation, and “initiated and bacchants who proceed the sacred way” (OF 474.15–16 ὁδὸν…μύσται καὶ βάχχοι ἱερὰν στείχουσι).

What about the strictly Pythagorean motifs? The inexplicable convergence between μνήμῃ (Phdr. 250c) and Ἔρως (Phdr. 257a, 265c) in defining the chariot myth can be explained on the basis of the passage excerpted from Philolaus of Croton, the same who sold three Pythagorean books to Plato.32 The passage from Philolaus, transmitted through Aristoxenus by the Theology of Arithmetics 10.59– 60, runs as follows: It (the decad―E. O.) is called ‘trust’ because, according to Philolaus, it is thanks to the decad and its parts that we have secure trust in things being precisely comprehensible. And this is why it might also be called Mnēmē, for the same reasons that the monad was called Mnēmosunē… Hence the Pythagoreans in their theology called it sometimes ‘universe’, sometimes ‘heaven’, sometimes ‘all’, sometimes ‘Fate’ and ‘eternity’, ‘power’ and ‘trust’ and ‘Ananke’, ‘Atlas’ and ‘unwearying’, and simply ‘God’ and ‘Phanes’ and ‘sun’.33

Philolaus equated the ‘decad’―the number 10 identified by the Pythagoreans with the sacred tetractys―with Memory (Μνήμη), whom the later Pythagoreans linked to the Orphic god Phanes whose name was an alias for Eros.34 It follows that the surprising equation of memory and love in the Phaedrus could be inspired by some Pythagorean and Orphic texts that were mostly transmitted orally in the classical period. We can add, at the moment, that the Pythagorean catechism included the special commandment on 100 This content downloaded from 201.22.189.53 on Thu, 15 Oct 2020 13:46:05 UTC All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms

“training one’s memory” (μνήμην ἀσκεῖν),35 which corresponds to the quoted passage on recollecting (Phdr. 249c). Moreover, it should be noticed that the lesser details of the Phaedrus that seem to be, at the first glance, nothing but literary ornamentation, hint at Pythagoreanism. Calliope (Phdr. 259d), mentioned in the Cicadas Fable as the patron-goddess of philosophers, was considered the Muse of philosophy among the ancient Pythagoreans.36 Even the curious prohibition on siesta, a midday nap, mentioned four times in the dialogue (Phdr. 242a, 259a, 259d), has Pythagorean overtones as an allusion to the Pythagorean Symbol no. 56: “Do not sleep at noon.”37 Finally, in the prayer to Pan (Phdr. 279a), Plato refers the Pythagorean friendship in quoting the proverb: “friends have everything in common.”38 The Pythagorean background explains several motifs in the Phaedrus, but cannot explain everything in the dialogue. How should we interpret “the gardens of words” that are sown and written when a philosopher reaches “forgetfulness of old age” (Phdr. 276d)? The “gardens” contradict not only the critique of writing discussed just before but also the sacred memory of the intelligible Beings and the philosophical process of anamnēsis, as described in the chariot myth. Why did Plato link writing to memory here while denying the possibility of any such linkage in the Egyptian tale (Phdr. 275a)? Memory in the Entella Tablet Perhaps we need to examine very strange documents to answer the question. There are words written on the Gold Leaves that have been discovered in several regions of the ancient Mediterranean world: in the Southern Italy, Achaia, Thessaly, Macedon, and the islands of Crete and Lesbos, but never in Attica. The tiny leaves of gold were inscribed with the mystic words, rolled up like a papyrus scroll and put into the right hand of the deceased, deposited on the chest or the mouth. The gold leaves belonged to the dead women and men who had been initiated into the mysteries, presumably the Dionysiac ones.39 So far, 46 texts have been published,40 of which eight come from Magna Graecia: Thurii, Petelia, Hipponion, and Entella, and date from the late fifth and fourth centuries BCE, or Plato’s lifetime. The Italian lamellae have a special interest for us, as containing longer texts in hexameter, from seven to 21 verses. Three 101 This content downloaded from 201.22.189.53 on Thu, 15 Oct 2020 13:46:05 UTC All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms

of them, from Hipponion, Petelia, and Entella, constitute guidelines for the dead on how to navigate the house of Hades. The Hipponion tablet (OF 474), which is the oldest example (ca. 400 BCE), has instructions for the dead woman on how to avoid the dangerous spring on her right, which is marked by the white cypress, where the souls of the dead get colder (OF 474.4 ψύχονται), it means: they are about to incarnate into the next human bodies.41 The most important thing is to drink from another pool: the lake of Memory (OF 474.6 Μναμοσύνας ἀπὸ λίμνης). Before that lake, the soul should ask the underground guardians to give her cold water, and address them with the following formula: “I am a child of Earth and starry Sky” (OF 474.10). This password was to legitimate the owner as an initiate into the mystery cult. After drinking some water from Memory, the soul of the deceased woman is liberated and can join the others initiated into the Dionysiac mysteries (OF 474.16 μύσται καὶ βάχχοι) who proceed along the sacred way. The Petelia tablet (OF 476) was originally made for a man who died in Plato’s times and later, under the Empire, was placed in a golden necklace case that is kept now in the British Museum (inv. 3155). The text calls the spring of Memory “divine” (OF 476.10 θείης ἀπὸ κρήνης) and the initiated “heroes” (OF 476.11 ἡρώεσσιν). The wording implies deification of the human soul, or rebirth of the dead man as divine after his death.42 Both tablets, from Hipponion and Petelia, have been dedicated to Memory: Μναμοσύνας τόδε †ἐριον† (OF 474.1, cf. OF 476.12 Μνημοσύνης τόδε †εριον†),43 and have been prepared by the owners before their death: “when you are about to die” (OF 474.1 = OF 476.12). Posidippus of Pella (310–240 BCE) composed The Testament in which he addressed Muses, who used to start the triennial ceremonies to Bacchus, asking them to help him to inscribe golden leaves in his old age before he goes down “the mystic path to Rhadamanthys.”44 It seems that the Muses, or someone else, helped the dying poet to inscribe them, because in Pella, Macedon, a gold leaf engraved with the name of “Posidippus, a pious initiate…” (OF 496b) has been unearthed in a third-century grave.45 The most striking parallels with the motif of memory in Plato are provided by the Entella tablet (OF 475). The Entella Tablet is unique, in that it contains the longest text (21 lines), is an enlarged version of 102 This content downloaded from 201.22.189.53 on Thu, 15 Oct 2020 13:46:05 UTC All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms

the Hipponion and Petelia tablets, and is the only lamella inscribed in two columns to be discovered in Sicily. Next to nothing is known about the circumstances of its discovery: it is said to have been found inside a terracotta lamp in a field near the village Petro (otherwise known as Petraro), close to Entella in central Sicily. Moreover, the gold foil is poorly preserved, photographs are not available, and no one ever saw it except the first editor, Jiří Frel, who tracked it down in the private collection in Geneva, Switzerland.46 This renders the critical examination of the longest extant inscription on golden leaf impossible. Anyway, scholars have proposed a series of emendations.47 Of them, the most significant, is the correction of the word οἱὸς (OF 475.12), rendered υἱὸς (“son”), to be replaced by ‘pais’ which means either “son” or “daughter.” The date of the text is unsure. According to Jiří Frel, it might be the third century BCE, but Alberto Bernabé argues for earlier dating: the fourth century BCE.48 The dialect is Ionic whereas the similar text engraved on the Hipponion tablet has been composed in Doric. The text of the Entella tablet reads: Col. A [- - - - when you are about to die [- - - - - - - - - - - - -] remembering hero [- - - - - - - - - - - - -] darkness enwrapping [- - - - - - upon the right a lake 5 and standing by it a white cypress. Descending to it, the souls of the dead refresh themselves. Do not even approach this spring! Ahead you will find from the Lake of Memory, cold water pouring forth; there are guards before it. 10 They will ask you, with astute wisdom, what you are seeking in the darkness of murky Hades. Say, ‘I am a child of Earth and starry Sky, I am parched with thirst and am dying; but grant me cold water from the Lake of Memory to drink.

15

Col. B But my race is heavenly. You yourselves know this.’ And they will announce you to the Chthonian Queen. and then they will grant you to drink from the Lake of Memory. and then [- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -]

103 This content downloaded from 201.22.189.53 on Thu, 15 Oct 2020 13:46:05 UTC All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms

20

symbols [- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -] and [- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -] (fragment of a word) [- - - - - - - - -].49

Despite the corruption of the text, which is damaged at the beginning of column one and the end of column two, the instruction given to the dead woman is quite clear: when you are about to die, write on the gold, or keep on remembering, what to do when the darkness overcomes you. In the house of Hades you will find on your right a fountain, labeled by the white cypress, where the souls of the dead come down to get colder (OF 475.6 ψύχονται). If you drink from the spring, you will incarnate immediately to return to the earth. You do not want this. So you look for another pool, the lake of Memory that is placed further along the path. The lake of cold water is guarded by the φυλακοί50 who prohibit unworthy souls from drinking from it. The thirsty soul, then, should legitimate her demands by reciting the sacred formula: “I am a child of Earth and starry Sky,” explaining that she comes from heaven (OF 475.15 γένος οὐράνιον),51 and saying the passwords (OF 475.19 σύμβολα). Unfortunately, the words following the σύμβολα are impossible to decipher, but one can suppose that they were some mystic formulas.52 This is a story with a happy ending: the underground guardians will announce the soul to the queen of the underworld and grant her water to drink from the Lake of Memory (OF 475.17 τῆς Μνημοσύνης ἀπὸ λίμνης). Then the soul becomes “the hero who remembers” (OF 475.2 μεμνήμενος ἥρως).53 What does the memory in question concern? This is the memory of the mysteries the dead person has been initiated into.54 It does not matter who you were in your previous life or what your individual fate was. You must remember only the holy initiation and the mystic key-words to find your way to the better place in the house of Hades. Your success in the netherworld depends on this memory. You had better write the words down on the gold leaves to have reminders for yourself in your old age. Conclusions It is true that Plato creatively reworked and elaborated on the particular motifs of the “Orphic” gold leaves from Entella and other 104 This content downloaded from 201.22.189.53 on Thu, 15 Oct 2020 13:46:05 UTC All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms

places in the Southern Italy,55 which might have been engraved by the time of his Sicilian travels. Plato’s adaptation of some Orphic tenets in the Phaedrus can be seen at the following points: 1. The soul needs to eat and drink. Plato says that the special pasture from the meadow on the Plain of Truth is needed for the soul’s wings, which otherwise will decay (Phdr. 246e, 248b–c). Pasturing the soul there is uneasy because of the crowding and strife of so many souls that all want to feed their horses together (Phdr. 248b). Similarly, the Entella tablet represents the soul as dying from thirst and asking for cold water to drink from the Lake of Memory, which is not available for everyone (OF 475.9–14). 2. Warning! Never consume junk food. The souls, then, who failed in the banquet and are therefore malnourished and “uninitiated” (Phdr. 248b ἀτελεῖς), must go away and consume “the food of opinion” (Phdr. 248b τροφῇ δοξαστῇ). After eating it, they fill up with forgetfulness and have to incarnate into nine human lives (Phdr. 248c–d = OF 459). Likewise, the Entella tablet warns its possessor to not quench her thirst in the spring which makes the souls of the dead colder, i.e. incarnate: “Do not even approach this spring!” (OF 475.7). The spring (OF 475.7 κρήνης) or fountain (OF 475.4 λίμνην), nameless but tagged by the white cypress, recurs in Plato’s Republic as the dry Plain of Forgetfulness and the river Amelēs (or Lēthē, Rep. 621c), from which every soul who goes into the next life must drink to forget the previous one (Rep. 621a–b = OF 462). The water from Amelēs-Lēthē causes incarnation and this is why it is forbidden; on the other hand, over-drinking makes the human forgetful (Rep. 621a = OF 462). 3. (Re)incarnation is bad. The incarnation caused by junk food or drink is considered a misfortune both by Plato and the “Orphic” gold leaves. The soul is harmless and safe, Plato says, as long as she stays in a discarnate condition (Phdr. 248c = OF 459). A similar attitude to incarnation is displayed on one of the Thurii tablets, which calls the generation machine “the circle of wearying heavy grief” (OF 488.5).56

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4. Memory is out there. If incarnation is caused by forgetfulness, the soul can escape it through memory. Both Plato and the so-called B tablets place the reservoir of memory in the netherworld: Plato above the heaven, in the supra-celestial place where the invisible Beings exist; the gold leaves from the Southern Italy in the depth of dark Hades. Nevertheless, Plato seems to reverse the process of remembering and recollecting. For, according to the gold leaves, the souls of the dead must remember the mysteries into which they have been initiated during their earthly lives and recollect them after death, whereas Plato teaches that the human being has to recollect during his lifetime the sacred things he saw in the netherworld. 5. Memory makes the soul divine. Plato says that memory grants divine status not only to the humans but also to the gods (Phdr. 248c). The gold leaves from Entella and Thurii connect the cold water of Memory to the process of deification: first, the initiated human soul is awakened after death as “a hero who remembers” (OF 475.2), next, she realizes that she belongs to “the heavenly race” (OF 475.15), and finally she becomes “a god instead of a mortal” (OF 488.10). 6. What is the end of the soul’s journey? Plato and one of the Thurii tablets give a unanimous and almost identical answer. Plato says that it is the “life of gods” (Phdr. 248a θεῶν βίος), who are always free from bodily affairs (Phdr. 246c–d). The Thurii tablet, dated from the fourth century BCE, reads: “For I also claim that I am of your blessed race…. Now I come, a suppliant, to holy Phersephoneia, that she, gracious, may send me to the seats of the blessed” (OF 489.3–7).57 Living with the gods is what guarantees the absolute freedom from the cycle of reincarnation.

Ewa Osek is associate professor at the John Paul II Catholic University of Lublin, Poland. Her research interests focus on the late ancient religions, the mystery cults, and so-called Orphism. Email [email protected] 2 Ewa Osek, “Soul-Food of Plato’s Phaedrus in the Later Platonist Tradition,” Eos 100 (2013): 88. 3 Kathryn Morgan, “Inspiration, Recollection, and Mimēsis in Plato’s Phaedrus,” in Ancient Models of Mind: Studies in Human and Divine 1

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Rationality, ed. Andrea Nightingale and David Sedley (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2010), 53–56. 4 Plato’s Phaedrus, trans. Reginald Hackforth (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1952), 93. 5 Hermias Alexandrinus, In Platonis Phaedrum Scholia, ed. Carlo M. Lucarini and Claudio Moreschini (Berlin: Gruyter, 2012), 187. 6 Euripides, Palamedes fr. 578 Kannicht; Ian Rutherford, “Μνήμης... φάρμακον at Plato Phaedrus 274e–275a: An Imitation of Euripides fr. 578?,” Hermes 118.3 (1990): 377–79. 7 Gorgias of Leontini, Defence of Palamedes 30; Aeschylus (or Euphorion), Prometheus Bound 461; Philip S. Horky, Plato and Pythagoreanism (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2013), 203, 219–23. 8 Plato’s Phaedrus, trans. Hackforth, 157. 9 Christopher Moore, “The Myth of Theuth in the Phaedrus,” in Plato and Myth: Studies on the Use and Status of Platonic Myths, ed. Catherine Collobert et al. (Leiden: Brill, 2012), 279–304. 10 Daniel S. Werner, Myth and Philosophy in Plato’s Phaedrus (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2012), 205–06. 11 Hermias Alexandrinus, In Platonis Phaedrum Scholia, 9–12. 12 Reginald Hackforth, “Introduction,” in Plato’s Phaedrus, trans. Hackforth, 8–12. 13 An anonymous author (“others”) qtd. in Diogenes Laertius, Lives of Eminent Philosophers 3.20. 14 Aristoxenus of Tarentum, Rules of Pedagogy fr. 43 Wehrli; Aristoxenus of Tarentum qtd. in Iamblichus of Chalcis, On the Pythagoreaan Way of Life 31.199. See also Pitagorici antichi: testimonianze e frammenti, ed. & trans. Maria Timpanaro Cardini (Milan: Bompiani, 2010), 60–62. 15 Onetor, Will the Wise Make Money, FGrHist 1113 F 1. See J. Radicke, Felix Jacoby Die Fragmente der griechischen Historiker Continued, fascicle 7: Imperial and Undated Authors (Leiden: Brill, 1999), 448–51. 16 The Fragments of Attic Comedy after Meineke, Bergk, and Kock Augmented (FrAC), vol. 2: Middle Comedy, ed. & trans. John M. Edmonds (Leiden: Brill, 1959), 478–83, 490–93, especially 479, note d; 491, note d. 17 Spiro Panagiotou, “Lysias and the Date of Plato’s Phaedrus,” Mnemosyne 28.4 (1975): 388–98 (argues for the year 365 BCE as the earliest date of the Phaedrus); Slobodan Dušanic, “The Political Context of Plato’s Phaedrus,” Rivista storicha dell’ Antichita 10 (1980): 1–26 (argues for the year 365 BCE); Holger Thesleff, Studies in Platonic Chronology (Helsinki: Societas Scientiarum Fennica, 1982), 171–80 (places the date of the Phaedrus between the 380s and the early 360s BCE).

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Carl Huffman, “Plato and the Pythagoreans,” in On Pythagoreanism, ed. Gabriele Cornelli et al. (Berlin: Gruyter, 2013), 237–70. 19 Timaeus of Tauromenium, History of Sicily, FGrHist 566 F 14: “Timaeus in the ninth book of his Histories says he (sc. Empedocles―E. O.) was a pupil of Pythagoras, adding that, having been convicted at that time of stealing his discourses, he was, like Plato, excluded from taking part in the discussions of the school.” (the Loeb translation) 20 Radcliffe G. Edmonds, Myths of the Underworld Journey: Plato, Aristophanes, and the ‘Orphic’ Gold Tablets (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2004), 159–220 (the myth in Plato’s Phaedo); Alberto Bernabé, “Ὁ Πλάτων παρῳδεῖ τὰ Ὀρφέως. Plato’s Transposition of Orphic Netherworld Imagery,” in Philosophy and Salvation in Greek Religion, ed. Vishwa Adluri (Berlin: Gruyter, 2013), 117–50 (the eschatological myths in Plato’s Phaedo, Gorgias, Republic, and Axiochus). 21 I quote the Orphic fragments (abbreviated OF) after the recent edition: Poetae epici Graeci: testimonia et fragmenta, pars 2: Orphicorum et Orphicis similium testimonia et fragmenta, 2 vols., ed. Albertus Bernabé (Monachii: Saur, 2004–05). 22 Procli Diadochi in Platonis Rem publicam commentarii, vol. 2, ed. Guilelmus Kroll (Leipzig: Teubner, 1901), 173. 23 Bernabé, “Ὁ Πλάτων παρῳδεῖ τὰ Ὀρφέως,” 144–49. 24 Francisco J. Gonzalez, “Combating Oblivion: The Myth of Er as Both Philosophy’s Challenge and Inspiration,” in Plato and Myth: Studies on the Use and Status of Platonic Myths, ed. Catherine Collobert et al. (Leiden: Brill, 2012), 259–78. 25 Plutarch of Chaeronea, On the Failure of Oracles 415D, 416B. 26 Bernabé, “Ὁ Πλάτων παρῳδεῖ τὰ Ὀρφέως,” 139. 27 Christoph Riedweg, Mysterienterminologie bei Platon, Philon und Klemens von Alexandrien (Berlin: Gruyter, 1987), 56. 28 Hermias Alexandrinus, In Platonis Phaedrum Scholia, 168–70. See also OF 208–12. 29 R. S. Bluck, “Plato, Pindar, and Metempsychosis,” American Journal of Philology 79.4 (1958): 407. 30 The Texts of Early Greek Philosophy: The Complete Fragments and Selected Testimonies of the Major Presocratics, ed. & trans. Daniel W. Graham, vol. 2 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2010), 917. 31 The Texts of Early Greek Philosophy, 929; OF 445. 32 See note 14. 33. Pseudo-Iamblichus, The Theology of Arithmetic: On the Mystical, Mathematical and Cosmological Symbolism of the First Ten Numbers, trans. Robin Waterfield (Grand Rapids: Phanes, 1988), 109–10. 18

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See OF 99. Pseudo-Pythagoras, Hieros Logos fr. 11, in The Pythagorean Texts of the Hellenistic Period, ed. Holger Thesleff (Åbo: Åbo Akademi, 1965), 163. 36 Plato’s Phaedrus, trans. Hackforth, 118, note 4. 37 Fridericus Boehm, De symbolis Pythagoreis (Berolinum: Driesner, 1905), 55– 56; Olympiodorus, A Commentary of Plato’s Phaedo, ed. & trans., Leendert G. Westerink (Amsterdam: North-Holland, 1976), 58. 38 Timaeus of Tauromenium, History of Sicily, FGrHist 566 F 13a. 39 It may be inferred, among others, from the stone inscription from the cemetery at Cumae, 496 BCE, which reads: οὐ θέμις ἐντοῦθα κεῖσθαι ἰ μὲ τὸν βεβαχχευμένον (OF 652). 40 There are at least eight editions, published between 1910 and 2011, of the “Orphic” gold leaves. Here I quote the lamellae aureae after Alberto Bernabé: Orphicorum et Orphicis similium testimonia et fragmenta, vol. 2, 9–79, nos. 474–96. 41 The ancient people used to associate ψυχή (“soul”) with ψῦχος (“cold breeze”) and ψυχόω (“make cold”, “animate”), see Etymologicum Magnum, ed. Thomas Gaisford (Amsterdam: Hakkert, 1967), 819, s.v. psuchē. Therefore, coldness and cold northern wind were considered as causing the incarnation, see Porphyry of Tyre, On the Cave of the Nymphs, 25. 42 The most extensive commentary on the so-called B tablets is found in: Alberto Bernabé and Ana I. Jiménez, Instructions for the Netherworld: The Orphic Gold Tablets, trans. Michael Chase (Leiden: Brill, 2008), 9–60. For the Hipponion tablet see also: Margherita Guarducci, Epigrafia greca, vol. 4: Epigrafi sacre pagane e christiane (Roma: Istituto Poligrafico, 1978), 258–70. 43 The reading εριον, i.e. ἠρίον (“tomb”), is usually emended to ἔργον (“a work”) or ἱερόν (“sacred to”). See: Radcliffe G. Edmonds, “The ‘Orphic’ Gold Tablets: Texts and Translations, with Critical Apparatus and Tables,” in The ‘Orphic’ Gold Tablets and Greek Religion: Further Along the Path, ed. Radcliffe G. Edmonds (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2011), 23, note 12; 31, note 1. 44 Supplementum Hellenisticum, ed. Hugh Lloyd-Jones and Peter Parson (Berlin: Gruyter, 1983), 340–43, no. 705. 45 The excellent photograph of the leaf of Posidippus is reproduced in: Beyond: Death and Afterlife in Ancient Greece, ed. Nicholas C. Stampolidis (Athens: Museum of Cycladic Art, 2014), 188 no. 101. For the identification of Posidippus, the poet of Pella, and the owner of the Posipippus leaf see: Matthew W. Dickie, “The Dionysiac Mysteries in Pella,” Zeitschrift für Papyrologie und Epigraphik 109 (1995): 81–86. 34 35

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Jiří Frel, “Una nuova laminella ‘orfica’,” Eirene 30 (1994): 183–84. The editio princeps has been reprinted in: Supplementum Epigraphicum Graecum, vol. 44, ed. H. W. Pleket et al. (Amsterdam: Gieben, 1994 [1997]), 224– 25, no. 750. 47 Ritual Texts for the Afterlife: Orpheus and the Bacchic Golden Tablets, ed. & trans. Fritz Graf and Sarah Iles Johnston (London: Routledge, 2007), 16– 17, no. 8; Bernabé and Jiménez, Instructions for the Netherworld, 248–50, no. L 2; Edmonds, “The ‘Orphic’ Gold Tablets,” 32–33, no. B11. 48 Bernabé and Jiménez, Instructions for the Netherworld, 3. 49 The English translation by Fritz Graf and Sarah Iles Johnston, Ritual Texts for the Afterlife, 17. 50 The similar personages appear in Plato’s Gorgias 523b: οἱ ἐπιμεληταὶ οἱ ἐκ μακάρων νήσων (“the custodians from the Isles of the Blest”). 51 Compare Plato, Timaeus 90a φυτὸν… οὐράνιον (“the heavenly plant”). 52 Compare the tablet from Pherai, Thessaly, OF 493: σύμβολα· Ἀνδρικεπαιδόθυρσον. Ἀνδρικεπαιδόθυρσον. Βριμώ. Βριμώ. 53 Compare OF 476.11: “And then you will celebrate [rites with the other] heroes” (trans. Edmonds, “The ‘Orphic’ Gold Tablets,” 22). 54 Alberto Bernabé, “Orphics and Pythagoreans: The Greek Perspective,” in On Pythagoreanism, ed. Gabriele Cornelli et al. (Berlin: Gruyter, 2013), 141. To support his view, Alberto Bernabé quotes the lines from the Orphic Hymns 77.9–10, in which the goddess Mnemosyne is invoked to keep awake the initiates’ memories of the initiation and to remove forgetfulness. On contrary, Radcliffe G. Edmonds is of opinion that memory in the gold leaves concerns the identity of the individual, see Edmonds, Myths of the Underworld Journey, 50–55. 55 Bernabé and Jiménez, Instructions for the Netherworld, 53–55; Bernabé, “Ὁ Πλάτων παρῳδεῖ τὰ Ὀρφέως,” 139–40. 56 Trans. Edmonds, “The ‘Orphic’ Gold Tablets,” 16. 57 Trans. Edmonds, “The ‘Orphic’ Gold Tablets,” 19. 46

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Parnassos Press – Fonte Aretusa Chapter Title: Political Ambition and Philosophic Constraint: Alcibiades, Socrates and the Sicilian Expedition Chapter Author(s): Christos C. Evangeliou Book Title: Philosopher Kings and Tragic Heroes Book Subtitle: Essays on Images and Ideas from Western Greece Book Editor(s): Heather L. Reid and Davide Tanasi Published by: Parnassos Press – Fonte Aretusa Stable URL: https://www.jstor.org/stable/j.ctvbj7gjn.10 JSTOR is a not-for-profit service that helps scholars, researchers, and students discover, use, and build upon a wide range of content in a trusted digital archive. We use information technology and tools to increase productivity and facilitate new forms of scholarship. For more information about JSTOR, please contact [email protected]. Your use of the JSTOR archive indicates your acceptance of the Terms & Conditions of Use, available at https://about.jstor.org/terms This content is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License (CC BY-NC-ND 4.0). To view a copy of this license, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/.

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Christos C. Evangeliou1 Political Ambition and Philosophic Constraint: Alcibiades, Socrates and the Sicilian Expedition Introduction One of the charges brought against Socrates was “corruption of the youth.” Xenophon, who was not present at the trial, expressed his amazement on hearing this, and commenting on this charge he mentioned Alcibiades as one of the Athenians allegedly corrupted by Socrates, who “exceeded all in licentiousness and insolence under the democracy” (Memo. 1.17).2 This Socratic educational failure regarding young Alcibiades has a parallel case in Plato’s failed attempt to educate Dionysius II, the Tyrant of Syracuse, in political virtue and leadership vividly documented in Letter VII. In this study I will explore the case of Socrates’s alleged failure to educate Alcibiades in ethics and politics and leave the case of Plato and his failure to properly educate Dionysius II for another time. My limited purpose in the present study is to address two related questions: Did Socrates have a corrupting influence on Alcibiades in particular, or on other Athenians more generally? What exactly was the relationship between these two Athenian men who dominated the political and intellectual stage of their city in the last third of the fifth century BCE? By identifying and critically analyzing the evidence found in the Platonic Dialogues, especially Alcibiades I, Symposium, Republic, and the Apology; Xenophon’s works, especially, Memorabilia, Apology, Symposium, Hellenica; Thucydides Histories, and Plutarch’s Alcibiades, I will attempt to show that the ultimate cause of Alcibiades’s corruption was not Socrates, but his unlimited political ambition and the Athenian Demos who fueled it with their adoration of him. Socrates and Alcibiades Alcibiades’s date of birth is not certain but it is placed with good probability in or around 450 BCE. That was a good time for Athens. The perilous Persian wars had come to an end about thirty years earlier with the victories of Salamis and Plataea, in which his father, Cleinias, had fought with distinction. A thirty year peace treaty had 111 This content downloaded from 201.22.189.53 on Thu, 15 Oct 2020 13:46:14 UTC All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms

been signed between Athens and its archrival, Sparta. His uncle Pericles was in power in Athens for ten years and would stay in power until his death in 429 BCE. Aspasia had not yet reached Athens or, at least, had not met Pericles. Socrates was about twenty years old, working as a stonecutter or studying philosophy and trying to figure out which of the Pre-Socratic philosophers he would finally prefer. Even when his father died in the battle of Coronea a few years later, the little boy Alcibiades was placed under the guardianship of his uncle Pericles, assuring a careful upbringing and a good education. Alcibiades was naturally very handsome, intelligent, rich, of noble birth from both sides of his family, daring, and promising to become a man of distinction in Athens.3 Due to these natural qualities and high connections, he had many admirers and lovers already as a teenager. Among these admirers was Socrates, but he was unlike all the others in that he would not flatter the youngster, nor would he stop following Alcibiades, even after he had passed the ephebeia. It was at the campaign in Potidaea in the year 431 BCE, just before the starting of the Peloponnesian War that we find the two men, the twenty year old Alcibiades and the forty year old Socrates, serving in the army with distinction as comrades in arms. In the battle, Socrates reportedly saved the life of the wounded young man, risking his own life and being honored for that. Here is how Alcibiades, according to Plato, remembered the memorable event: It was after all this [his elaborate scheme to seduce Socrates, using as bait his bodily beauty and charm], you must understand, that we were both sent on active service to Potidaea, where we messed together. Well, to begin with, he stood the hardships of the campaign far better than I did, or anyone else, for that matter. And if—and it’s always liable to happen when there is fighting going on—we were cut off from our supplies, there was no one who put such a good face on it…. And now I expect you’d like to hear what kind of show he made when we went into action, and I certainly think you ought to know. They gave me a decoration after one engagement, and do you know, Socrates had saved my life, absolutely singlehanded. I’d been wounded and he refused to leave me, and he got me out of it, too, armor and all. And as you know, Socrates, I went straight to the general staff and told them you ought to have the decoration, and you can neither deny that nor

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blame me for doing it. But the authorities thought that they’d rather give it to me, because of my family connections and so forth, and you were rather keener than they were that I should have it instead of you. (Symp. 219e-220e)

We should recall that the purpose of Alcibiades’s speech in the Symposium was to praise Socrates as an incarnated Eros adorned with all the cardinal virtues. His personal recollections and confessions aimed at revealing certain truths about Socrates coming out of the mouth of a mature man, who happened to be drunk and therefore unhindered in the pursuit of the truth in such matters. A few years later, in the battle of Delium (in 424 BCE), during the Athenian retreat in defeat, the equestrian Alcibiades had the chance to return the favor to Socrates by helping him and Laches as they were retreating with the army, while at the same time admiring the courage of his friends.4 Thus, in the eyes of the grown-up Alcibiades, the Socrates he had known earlier was a paragon of virtue, the most courageous, temperate, just, and wise man that Athens had ever known. His way of arguing and his ideas had an effect on Alcibiades who came to think that Socrates was “absolutely unique; there is no one like him, and I don’t believe there ever was…. But you’ll never find anyone like Socrates, or any ideas like his ideas.” Here is how Alcibiades describes the impression he got from listening to Socratic arguments: Anyone listening to Socrates for the first time would find his arguments simply laughable; he wraps them up in just the kind of expressions you’d expect of such an insufferable satyr. He talks of pack asses and blacksmiths and shoemakers and tanners, and he always seems to be saying the same old thing in just the same old way, so that anyone who was not used in his style and wasn’t very quick on the uptake would naturally take it for the most utter nonsense. But if you open up his arguments, and really get into the skin of them, you’ll find that they’re the only arguments in the world that have any sense at all, and that nobody else’s are so godlike, so rich in images of virtue, or so peculiarly, so entirely pertinent to those inquiries that help the seeker on his way to the goal of true nobility. 5 (Symp. 221d-222a)

This confession is certainly a great eulogy for Socrates from a man who was allegedly “corrupted” by the philosopher. At another point Alcibiades admits that he is torn between the appeal of politics 113 This content downloaded from 201.22.189.53 on Thu, 15 Oct 2020 13:46:14 UTC All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms

and the attraction of the “Socratic Siren.” Socrates is the only man who can make even a liberated man like the mature Alcibiades, soon to lead Athens to its greatest undertaking during the war, the Sicilian expedition, feel shame. He frankly confessed: He makes me admit that while I’m spending my time on politics I am neglecting all the things that are crying for attention in my-self. So I just refuse to listen to him-as if he were one of those Sirens, you know-and get out of earshot as quickly as I can, for fear he will keep me sitting listening till I’m positively senile. And there’s one thing I’ve never felt with anybody else—not the kind of thing you’d expect to find in me, either—and that is a sense of shame. Socrates is the only man in the world that can make me feel ashamed. Because there’s no getting away from it, I know I ought to do the things he tells me to, and yet the moment I’m out of his sight I don’t care what I do to keep in with the mob. So I dash off like a runaway slave, and keep out of his way as long as I can, and then next time I meet him I remember all that I had to admit the time before, and naturally I feel ashamed. (Symp. 216a-c)

This confession clearly reveals the great drama that was taking place in Alcibiades’s heart, as it was torn between these contrary attractions, the glory of politics and philosophic virtue. As we will see in the next section, the former would become stronger and stronger as time went on. His estrangement from Socrates, and even from the city of Athens after the Sicilian expedition, would push him to go astray by betraying his country to its enemies, both Greek and Barbarian. Alcibiades’s Ambition For thirty years politics in Athens was dominated by Alcibiades’s uncle, Pericles. During this time Athens reached the apex of its political and economic power as leader of the Delian League. It was a time of prosperity for Athens and rapid development for the Athenian genius and its creativity. An extraordinary artistic flowering followed in every field, especially in literature, architecture, and philosophy. But the period was brief and came to an end with the start of the Peloponnesian War in 431 BCE, and the terrible plague which came to Athens as a consequence of the war. Among its many victims was Pericles himself. With the death of Pericles in 429 BCE, the leadership of the Democratic Party passed on 114 This content downloaded from 201.22.189.53 on Thu, 15 Oct 2020 13:46:14 UTC All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms

to Cleon, a rather unscrupulous demagogue and warmonger. His death (in 422 BCE) opened the way for peace, the so-called Peace of Nicias, a year later between the Athenians and the Spartans, both of whom were exhausted by then. This was an opportune time for Alcibiades, then in his twenties, to come forward, to declare himself in the city of Athens and to claim his right to the leadership of the Democratic Party, which his uncle had served with dedication and distinction for thirty two years, and had left behind much glory and fond memories for many Athenians. It was at this crucial time that a meeting between Socrates and Alcibiades allegedly took place, and became the basis for the Platonic dialogue, known as Alcibiades I.6 At issue was the question of whether Alcibiades was well prepared and ready to assume the leadership of the Athenian Democracy as he thought, or was he perhaps in need of further training in the difficult art of politics. Before this, however, Socrates thought that they ought to clarify another question that was perplexing Alcibiades and probably other Athenians who were aware of their affair. Alcibiades was not a teenager anymore, he was almost thirty, and his many admirers and lovers had stopped following him around, except for one, Socrates. This was rather odd and needed an explanation. Furthermore, for the first time Socrates wanted to have a conversation with Alcibiades, while in previous years he had just followed him silently. In typical Socratic manner, he invoked the “divine sign” as being responsible for both his continued love for Alcibiades beyond the traditional limits and his willingness to speak with him now, the moment of this crucial decision to appear in front of the Athenian assembly and present himself. Socrates revealed that he was well aware of Alcibiades’s many blessings (his noble birth, his wealth, his high connections, his good looks, his innate intelligence, etc.), which were a source of pride for the young man and made him look down on his many admirers and lovers. But the philosopher also discerned in Alcibiades the will and ambition for more and more of all these goods, and especially for more honor and political power. Then he confessed to the listening Alcibiades:

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My love, Alcibiades, which I hardly like to confess, would long ago have passed away, as I flatter myself, if I saw you loving your good things, or thinking that you ought to pass life in the enjoyment of them. But I shall reveal other thoughts of yours, which you keep to yourself; whereby you will know that I have always had my eye on you. Suppose that at this moment some god came to you and said: Alcibiades, will you live as you are, or die in an instant if you are forbidden to make any further acquisition?—I verily believe that you would choose death...7 When you have gained the greatest power among us, you will go on to other Hellenic states, and not only to Hellenes, but to all the barbarians who inhabit the same continent with us. And if the god were then to say to you again: Here in Europe is to be your seat of empire, and you must not cross over into Asia or meddle with Asiatic affairs, I do not believe that you would choose to live upon these terms; but the world, as I may say, must be filled with your power and name…The explanation is, that all these designs of yours cannot be accomplished by you without my help; so great is the power which I believe myself to have over you and your concerns; and this I conceive to be the reason why the god has hitherto forbidden me to converse with you, and I have been long expecting his permission. For, as you hope to prove your own great value to the state, and having proved it, to attain at once to absolute power, so do I indulge a hope that I shall be the supreme power over you, if I am able to prove my own great value to you, and to show you that neither guardian, nor kinsman, nor any one is able to deliver into your hands the power which you desire, but I only, god being my helper. When you were young and your hopes were not yet matured, I should have wasted my time, and therefore, as I conceive, the god forbade me to converse with you; but now, having his permission, I will speak, for now you will listen to me. 8 (Alcibiades I, 104e-105e)

In the discussion that followed Socrates questioned Alcibiades about his capacity to advise the city of Athens on such important issues as war and peace, justice and injustice, and their relation to expediency, if he had neither learned about these matters nor had he discovered the truth about them himself. At this point Alcibiades admitted that his opponents in the assembly did not know any better than himself about these things, and he was in a better position than they to give advice. Socrates reminds him that his real competitors would be the kings of Sparta and Persia, with which Athens was or had been and will be at war for the hegemony of the world. The 116 This content downloaded from 201.22.189.53 on Thu, 15 Oct 2020 13:46:14 UTC All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms

lands that they ruled over and the forces at their command were much greater than those under Athenian control. With much irony Socrates imagined a scene involving the Persian and the Spartan queens and Dinomache, the mother of Alcibiades, and concludes ironically But how disgraceful, that we should not have as high a notion of what is required in us as our enemies' wives and mothers have of the qualities which are required in their assailants! O my friend, be persuaded by me, and hear the Delphian inscription, 'Know thyself'— not the men whom you think, but these kings are our rivals, and we can only overcome them by pains and skill. And if you fail in the required qualities, you will fail also in becoming renowned among Hellenes and Barbarians, which you seem to desire more than any other man ever desired anything. (Alcib. I, 123c-124b)

The rest of the dialogue is an attempt to find out the exact meaning of the Delphic precept “know they-self.” Who are we really as human beings? Why do so many confuse the things which belong to them with their real selves? The distinction between body and soul and the combination of the two (το συναμφότερον) is ancient. But upon Socratic/Platonic reflection, it turns out that the soul is the real self, in its capacity to acquire knowledge and self-knowledge. Just as the eye can see it-self reflected into a mirror or another eye, in an analogous way the soul can see it-self reflected into another soul or into itself and come to know itself as a thinking mind or intellect. In this way of thinking, those lovers who were attracted by the beauty of Alcibiades’s body did not really love him. The only true lover of him was really, “Socrates the son of Sophroniscus and Phaenarete” (Ibid. 131a). This paradox in the lovers’ behavior he tried to explain as follows: The reason was that I loved you for your own sake, whereas other men love what belongs to you; and your beauty, which is not you, is fading away, just as your true self is beginning to bloom. And I will never desert you, if you are not spoiled and deformed by the Athenian people; for the danger which I most fear is that you will become a lover of the people and will be spoiled by them. Many a noble Athenian has been ruined in this way. For the demos of the great-hearted Erechtheus is of a fair countenance, but you should see him naked; wherefore observe the caution which I give you. (Ibid. 132a)

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The caution mentioned here refers to the advice that, to avoid harm’s way, one ought to know himself and take care of his soul by embracing virtue, which he should also instill into the citizens. Most importantly, one should not obtain power or authority in order to do what he wishes as a tyrant, but to rule with “justice and wisdom,” which is also the will of God. The dialogue ends with Alcibiades confessing that hereafter their relation will be reversed, he will follow Socrates like a lover, and Socrates expressing his delight that his eros for Alcibiades has produced another little eros that is in need of care, like the chick of a stork. Expressing his hope that Alcibiades will persist in this new course of virtue, he still has a fear that the power of the demos to corrupt may prove too much for them both.9 The Sicilian Expedition We do not know how much time elapsed between this conversation, which Socrates and Alcibiades apparently had, and the entrance of the latter into Athenian power politics. However, he certainly did not take the philosophic advice to constrain himself, to prepare himself by knowing and mastering himself first. Even so, he quickly came to dominate the political scene in Athens and to have two diplomatic successes. First, following his advice and leadership, the Athenians supported an anti-Spartan alliance of Peloponnesian states that were not included in the Peloponnesian League, such as Argos, Elis and Arcadia. In the battle of Mantinea in 418 BCE, the Spartans won with difficulty, though “they have never since fully recovered confidence” and Athens kept its newly found allies in Peloponnese. Second, in 415 BCE, again with his advice and initiative, the Athenians committed themselves to an expedition against Syracuse and Sicily, which proved to be fateful indeed for Athens and Alcibiades.10 As Thucydides described it: By far the warmest advocate of the expedition was, however, Alcibiades, son of Clinias, who wished to thwart Nicias both as his political opponent and also because of the attack he had made upon him in his speech, and who was, besides, exceedingly ambitious of a command by which he hoped to reduce Sicily and Carthage, and personally to gain in wealth and reputation by means of his successes. For the position he held among the citizens led him to indulge his tastes beyond what his real means would bear, both in keeping horses

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and in the rest of his expenditure; and this later on had not a little to do with the ruin of the Athenian state. Alarmed at the greatness of his license in his own life and habits, and of the ambition which he showed in all things so-ever that he undertook, the mass of the people set him down as a pretender to the tyranny, and became his enemies; and although publicly his conduct of the war was as good as could be desired, individually his habits gave offence to everyone, and caused them to commit affairs to other hands, and thus before long to ruin the city. (Histor. XVIII)

Responding to the conservative and good-natured Nicias, who was against this Sicilian adventure, but had been chosen by the Athenian assembly as one of the three generals, the other two being Alcibiades and Lamachus, Alcibiades brilliantly refuted the arguments of his opponent and easily persuaded the Demos to undertake the Sicilian Expedition and perhaps put an end to this long war with a victory there. The next step in Alcibiades’s grand policy would be to eliminate the Carthaginian threat in the West, and thus to prepare the way for a politically united Greece to attack and dissolve Persia, about a hundred years earlier under the great leadership of Alcibiades, instead of waiting for Alexander the Great in the future. He reminded the Athenians that he had earned the right to command the army, apparently referring to the battles of Potidaea and Mantinea; he claimed that his extravagant spending (such as entering seven chariots in the Olympic games, something which no other private citizen had done before, and winning first prize and taking the second and fourth place also), was actually good for the reputation of the city of Athens because such a thing “in the eyes of foreigners has an air of strength;” he asserted boldly that his youth had not been an obstacle to finding “fitting arguments to deal with the power of the Peloponnesians;” nor should they allow people like Nicias to divide the young Athenians (who were enthusiastic about the war) and the elderly (who were more hesitant), but all united to aim at victory in Sicily whose cities “are peopled with motley rabbles.” He went so far as to tell the Athenians that they “shall have the help of many barbarians, who from their hatred of the Syracusans will join us in attacking them;”11 he emphasized that it was their duty to help their allied cities in Sicily; he reminded them that, when it 119 This content downloaded from 201.22.189.53 on Thu, 15 Oct 2020 13:46:14 UTC All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms

comes to empire, “we must not be content with retaining but must scheme to extend it, for, if we cease to rule others, we are in danger of been ruled ourselves;” and, inaction being not a choice for an energetic and always enterprising people, he urged the Athenians to: Be convinced, then, that we shall augment our power at home by this adventure abroad, and let us make the expedition, and so humble the pride of the Peloponnesians by sailing off to Sicily, and letting them see how little we care for the peace that we are now enjoying; and at the same time we shall either become masters, as we very easily may, of the whole of Hellas through the accession of the Sicilian Hellenes, or in any case ruin the Syracusans, to the no small advantage of ourselves and our allies. The faculty of staying if successful, or of returning, will be secured to us by our navy, as we shall be superior at sea to all the Siceliots put together. And do not let the do-nothing policy which Nicias advocates, or his setting of the young against the old, turn you from your purpose, but in the good old fashion by which our fathers, old and young together, by their united counsels brought our affairs to their present height, do you endeavor still to advance them; understanding that neither youth nor old age can do anything the one without the other, but that levity, sobriety, and deliberate judgment are strongest when united, and that, by sinking into inaction, the city, like everything else, will wear itself out, and its skill in everything decay; while each fresh struggle will give it fresh experience, and make it more used to defend itself not in word but indeed. In short, my conviction is that a city not inactive by nature could not choose a quicker way to ruin itself than by suddenly adopting such a policy, and that the safest rule of life is to take one's character and institutions for better and for worse, and to live up to them as closely as one can. 12 (Hist. XVIII)

Alcibiades’s oratory and passion won the hearts and minds of the Athenians for the moment. They were persuaded to embark in an adventurous enterprise with many risks and few hopes. They put all their energy to prepare for this task which would involve a navy of more than a hundred ships and thousands of sailors and troops. If the Athenian people had stood fast with their decision and put their trust in Alcibiades all the way, he might have pulled it off with some good luck. But the mutilation of the Hermae the night before the Armada was to set sail, and the circulating rumors implicating Alcibiades and his friends in a sacrilege of parodying the Eleusinian 120 This content downloaded from 201.22.189.53 on Thu, 15 Oct 2020 13:46:14 UTC All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms

Mysteries, changed the situation and the mood of the people over night. After much debate, they decided to let the expedition proceed, under the leadership of the three generals, Nicias, Alcibiades and Lamachus. Alcibiades’s proposal to stand trial and have the chance to clear his name was not accepted. It was decided that he could defend himself after he returned from Sicily. Days later, when the Armada had already reached the Sicilian cost, the political opponents of Alcibiades contrived to persuade the Athenians to recall him to Athens and to defend himself on charges of sacrilege and conspiracy to overthrow the Democratic Government in Athens.13 When the news reached Alcibiades, he decided to defect to Sparta instead of returning to Athens fearing for his life. The Athenians, incensed with this apostasy, sentenced him to death in absentia, while he decided to become traitor of Athens and an adviser of her arch-enemy, Sparta. He passed on to Spartans valuable information about the Athenian war plans, and advised them to fortify Deceleia in Attica and to send the general Gelippus to Syracuse to organize the defense of the city and the island as a whole. Both moves proved costly to the Athenians, who suffered year-long raids by the Spartan army, and set-backs in Sicily at first and then complete defeat there. Alcibiades had taken his revenge on Athens by becoming a traitor to his beloved city. While in Sparta as their guest and friend, he seduced the wife of their king, Agis, with whom he produced a child in hopes of giving a king to them with his good genes. But, when he realized that the situation in Sparta was getting too hot for his convenience, he removed himself and ended up in the court of the Persian Satrap Tissaphernes, who ruled in the area of Asia Minor. Once again he proved himself a valuable guest and fugitive by giving good advice to traditional enemies of Greece, the Persians. He advised that it was in the interest of the Persians to shift their support between Athens and Sparta, so that they would keep fighting and exhausting themselves. As one would expect, the Athenians were both disgusted and fascinated by Alcibiades’s wheeling and dealing and his corruption and unscrupulousness. Seeing his friendship and influence with the Persian Satrap, and being pressed badly by the turn of the war with 121 This content downloaded from 201.22.189.53 on Thu, 15 Oct 2020 13:46:14 UTC All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms

Sparta, after the disaster of the Sicilian Expedition, they started having second thoughts about the way they had treated their capable general and potential helper in the war. They decided to forgive him for all past missteps and recall him back to Athens giving him sole power (αυτοκράτωρ).14 Strange as it may seem to us, Alcibiades managed to return to Athens triumphant.15 The decree of his recall had been passed earlier on a motion made by Critias, so the people had only to meet to hear Alcibiades and crown him with gold, declaring him general again but now with full powers in land and sea. Here is how Plutarch describes this memorable scene: At this time, therefore, the people had only to meet in assembly, and Alcibiades addressed them. He lamented and bewailed his own lot, but had only little and moderate blame to lay upon the people. The entire mischief he ascribed to a certain evil fortune and envious genius of his own. Then he descanted at great length upon the vain hopes which their enemies were cherishing, and wrought his hearers up to courage. At last they crowned him with crowns of gold, and elected him general with sole powers by land and sea. They voted also that his property be restored to him, and that the Eumolpidae and Heralds revoke the curses wherewith they had cursed him at the command of the people. The others revoked their curses, but Theodorus the High Priest said: "Nay, I invoked no evil upon him if he does no wrong to the city.” 16 (Alcib. 33. 1-3)

This moment was certainly only a ray of light in a gloomy situation, and not a happy ending of the drama in which Athens and Alcibiades had been the protagonists for the last quarter of a century. The Athenians expected immediate results and victories from Alcibiades, which he could not provide for lack of money, a vigorous Spartan resistance and the Persian meddling, ironically following his own previous advice to them of how to handle the rival Greek states. So in the first setback, the Athenians replaced Alcibiades with a collective leadership to conduct the war. But it was too late by then. In the sea battle of Arginusae (in 404B CE), the Spartans won a decisive victory. Athens was compelled to surrender, give up its fleet, pull down the walls, and accept the thirty tyrants as its government. The tragic end of Athens and Alcibiades came at the same time, and was described by Plutarch as follows, in a kind of 122 This content downloaded from 201.22.189.53 on Thu, 15 Oct 2020 13:46:14 UTC All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms

eulogy for the great Athenian, emphasizing both the hope that he inspired in the Athenians, and the fear in the Spartans and Thirty: The Athenians were greatly depressed at the loss of their supremacy. But when Lysander robbed them of their freedom too, and handed the city over to thirty men, then, their cause being lost, their eyes were opened to the course they would not take when salvation was yet in their power. They sorrowfully rehearsed all their mistakes and follies, the greatest of which they considered to be their second outburst of wrath against Alcibiades. He had been cast aside for no fault of his own; but they got angry because a subordinate of his lost a few ships disgracefully, and then they themselves, more disgracefully still, robbed the city of its ablest and most experienced general. And yet, in spite of their present plight, a vague hope still prevailed that the cause of Athens was not wholly lost so long as Alcibiades was alive. He had not, in times past, been satisfied to live his exile's life in idleness and quiet; nor now, if his means allowed, would he tolerate the insolence of the Lacedaemonians and the madness of the Thirty. It was not strange that the multitude indulged in such dreams, when even the Thirty were moved to anxious thought and inquiry, and made the greatest account of what Alcibiades was planning and doing. Finally, Critias tried to make it clear to Lysander that as long as Athens was a democracy the Lacedaemonians could not have safe rule over Hellas; and that Athens, even though she were very peacefully and well disposed towards oligarchy, would not be suffered, while Alcibiades was alive, to remain undisturbed in her present condition. However, Lysander was not persuaded by these arguments until a dispatch-roll came from the authorities at home bidding him put Alcibiades out of the way; either because they too were alarmed at the vigor and enterprise of the man, or because they were trying to gratify Agis. 17 (Alcib. 38. 1-4)

It is tempting to speculate what Socrates would have thought as he witnessed all these adventures in which Athens and Alcibiades, both of whom he loved, were involved in a love-hate relationship. Plutarch has stated that, during the preparations for the exhibition, “Many were they who sat in the palestras and lounging-places mapping out in the sand the shape of Sicily and the position of Libya and Carthage,” but “Socrates the philosopher and Meton the astrologer, are said to have had no hopes that any good would come to the city from this expedition; Socrates, as it is likely, because he got 123 This content downloaded from 201.22.189.53 on Thu, 15 Oct 2020 13:46:14 UTC All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms

an inkling of the future from the divine guide who was his familiar.” (Alcib. 17. 3-4). So, if Socrates had not approved of the Sicilian expedition at the beginning, he would have hardly approved of the recalling of Alcibiades after the expedition was under way, or for giving him all powers to conduct the war at sea and land as he saw fit. In his eyes, the volatility of the assembly was an indication of its lack of wisdom in politics, just as he had proven to Alcibiades when he was getting ready to enter the political arena. On the other hand, the adoration which the Athenian people felt for Alcibiades, as well as his readiness to flatter their feelings all the time, would have appeared to the philosopher as a clear case of corruption, of the kind that the Platonic Socrates has described in the Republic (492a-d). Conclusion It should be clear from our discussion, that the accumulated evidence from ancient sources, both contemporary and later, attest to Socrates’s virtue and his beneficial influence on associates, especially those who would pay attention to his words of wisdom, his kindness, and his virtuous actions, which set up a model for others to follow and become better men and better citizens. The case of Alcibiades, like that of Critias, who acted violently and against the interests of their city, are isolated and should not be blamed on Socrates, with whom they were associated briefly when they were young. Anyway they are overbalanced by many other cases of people who turned out to be good gentlemen. Especially the case of Alcibiades seems a tragic one, because Socrates had invested much hope in him as a precocious and promising youth. But the ambition and arrogance of the young man were such that they pushed him to rush into the Athenian politics, and to rule Athens, before he had learned how to rule his passions and to know him-self. Perhaps, if Athens was less unstable and less volatile as a Democracy and had embraced Alcibiades with the same trust as that which she had sown for his uncle-Pericles, the daring Sicilian expedition might have been successful against all odds. But the stress of the long Peloponnesian War made the Athenian State more nervous as time went on. 124 This content downloaded from 201.22.189.53 on Thu, 15 Oct 2020 13:46:14 UTC All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms

The war came to a disastrous end for Athens in 404 BCE. At the same year, Alcibiades met a violent and premature death in the court of a Persian Satrap, far away from Athens. A few years letter, in 399BCE, Socrates himself was brought to trial with the accusations of impiety and corruption of the youth of Athens. Instead of been honored for his service to Athens by improving the young, he was put to death for corrupting them. Thus the glory of Athens as a just polity was stained forever. Christos C. Evangeliou is a native of Greece and Professor of Ancient Hellenic Philosophy at Towson University, Maryland, USA. He studied the Classics and Philosophy at the University of Athens, Greece, and at Emory University from where he received his Ph.D. He is the author of numerous papers; six volumes of poetry (in Greek and English); and of four scholarly books: Aristotle’s Theory of Categories and Porphyry; The Genesis of Philosophy; Themata Politica: Hellenic and Euro-Atlantic; and Hellenic Philosophy: Origin and Character. 2 Xenophon, Memorabilia, E.C. Marchant, tr., in the Loeb, (Cambridge, Ma.: Harvard University Press, 1992). 3 According to Plutarch , “It is said, and with good reason, that the favor and affection which Socrates showed him contributed not a little to his reputation.” (Alcib. 1. 2) , in Parallel Lives, vol. IV, B. Perrin, tr., in the Loeb, (Cambridge, Ms.: Harvard University Press, 1916). 4 Plutarch, (Alcib. I, 7. 1-4). 5 As we will see, on this important point Plato and Xenophon agree on portraying Socrates as a teacher of virtue. 6 Traditionally this work was considered a genuine and good introduction to Platonic philosophy, although in modern times its authenticity has been questioned without good reason, in my view. The fact that the prejudiced theologian Schleiermacher started this modern tradition of doubting the authenticity of this dialogue would be sufficient reason to reject it. As I show The Hellenic Philosophy: Origin and Character, whenever the Moderns differ from the Ancients, the Moderns are wrong and biased in their approach. See on this, N. Denyer, ed., Plato, Alcibiades I, Cambridge: Cambridge Universit press, 2001), pp. 1-26. 7 This hypothetical dilemma may remind us of the one the Apology (29c-30c), where he stated that if he had to choose between giving up philosophy or death the latter would be the lesser evil for him. 8 The god in his passage should not be capitalized because it refers to the Socratic “divine sign.” Socrates’ hope, here expressed so clearly, that 1

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Alcibiades was now mature enough to listen to the philosopher, may be exaggerated. The Socratic Siren was not the only one Alcibiades was willing to listen t0 by coming of age. The Siren of the Athenian Demos and their power to honor or censure their leaders was also buzzing in his ears. So he may listen to Socrates for the moment, but would he act upon Socratic principles of virtue or play in power politics? 9 Plutarch, Alcib. I, 4.1-3. See also 6.1: “But the love of Socrates, though it had many powerful rivals, somehow mastered Alcibiades. For he was of good natural parts, and the words of his teacher took hold of him and wrung his heart and brought tears to his eyes. But sometimes he would surrender himself to the flatterers who tempted him with many pleasures, and slip away from Socrates, and suffer himself to be actually hunted down by him like a runaway slav e. And yet he feared and reverenced Socrates alone, and despised the rest of his lovers.” 10 Thucydides gives this description of the various peoples who came to Sicily at different times (Hist. XVIII), in the Loeb, C.F. Smith, tr., 1919. 11 This is indicative of Alcibiades’s behavior to employ all means, even barbarians against fellow Greeks, to achieve his political goals. As Plutarch remarks: “His character, in later life, displayed many inconsistencies and marked changes, as was natural amid his vast undertakings and varied fortunes. He was naturally a man of many strong passions, the mightiest of which were the love of rivalry and the love of preeminence.” (Alcib., 2. 1). 12 Compare this with what Plutarch wrote on these events, (Alcib. 17. 1-4). 13 See on this Thucydides, (Hist. XVIII). 14 Such absolute power came close to tyranny, but it was not clear how Alcibiades felt about tyranny at that time.” (Alcib. 35. 1-3) 15 Although his return to Athens had fallen on an inauspicious day, when the city celebrated the holyday of Plynteria, Alcibiades managed to overcome this and perhaps purify himself of the old accusation of blasphemy by arranging for the Eleusynian festivities of that year to be celebrated on land as opposed to the sea, as they had been since the Spartans fortified Deceleia, ironically following his advice. See Plutarch (Alcib. 34. 1-3) 16 Plutarch’s story is similar: (Alcib. 16. 1-3); Xenophon (Hellenica, I, IV) 17 In this way Agis, the Spartan King, would take revenge for the insult of his wife being seduced by Alcibiades the fugitive, and giving birth to a son, while the King was away fighting the Athenians in Deceleia during the war. In another version of Alcibiades’s demise, his assassins acted on behalf of the brothers of a virgin deflowered by him.

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Parnassos Press – Fonte Aretusa Chapter Title: Neither One nor the Other: Socrates as Strange Chapter Author(s): Lisa A. Wilkinson Book Title: Philosopher Kings and Tragic Heroes Book Subtitle: Essays on Images and Ideas from Western Greece Book Editor(s): Heather L. Reid and Davide Tanasi Published by: Parnassos Press – Fonte Aretusa Stable URL: https://www.jstor.org/stable/j.ctvbj7gjn.11 JSTOR is a not-for-profit service that helps scholars, researchers, and students discover, use, and build upon a wide range of content in a trusted digital archive. We use information technology and tools to increase productivity and facilitate new forms of scholarship. For more information about JSTOR, please contact [email protected]. Your use of the JSTOR archive indicates your acceptance of the Terms & Conditions of Use, available at https://about.jstor.org/terms This content is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License (CC BY-NC-ND 4.0). To view a copy of this license, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/.

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Lisa A. Wilkinson1 Neither One nor the Other: Socrates as Strange As many of us are foreigners, or strangers, to Ortygia, I focus here on what is -- or could be considered -- strange about Plato’s Socrates. Within the history of philosophy, Plato’s Socrates is certainly unique and inspiring: indeed, throughout the dialogues, Plato goes to great lengths to distinguish Socrates from other types of Athenians as well as from other types of philosophers. I add to this that the character Socrates’s oddness or peculiarity can also be seen in relation to a longstanding and respectable tradition of strangeness in the ancient world. This ‘other’ tradition receives its authority from the divine through the experience of wonder and solidarity rather than the formulae of inherited inspiration. Differing from the voices of Homer and Hesiod, practitioners of this other tradition speak in strange ways about gods who are less concerned with the politics of Olympus than they are with promoting harmony and well-being throughout the Greek world. An Athenian Stranger If stories about beneficent and loving gods sound strange to us, how much more strange might they sound to classical Athenians? With a question like this in mind, Stella Georgoudi asks, “In [Homer’s] … world of war and violence, [in] a world in which even the gods fight and vie with each other, what place is there for [a] divine group that aims at friendly association and synergy?”2 Part of the task of this paper is to reconcile their place in Plato’s portrait of Socrates in the Apology. Having spent considerable time in Southern Italy prior to composing the dialogues, there is no reason to think that the Athenian Plato was not influenced by Italy’s geographical ‘otherness’, or that his grieving reflections about the recently executed Socrates were not also impacted by his political experiences beyond Athens.3 Recent scholarship suggests that Plato’s Apology foregrounds the frayed and fraying ties of citizenship in fifth and fourth century Athens, i.e., it is actually Athens who is on trial here. I further suggest that Plato references social customs concerning strangers and their gifts against a background of Athens’ inherited 127 This content downloaded from 201.22.189.53 on Thu, 15 Oct 2020 13:46:35 UTC All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms

yet often silent tradition of cooperative and anti-agonistic gods; gods collectively called “The Twelve.” Strange new ways of speaking and thinking about the gods are often at odds with conventional wisdom about the divine. Generations before the birth of the historical Socrates, Xenophanes sings “there is one god greatest among gods and men” and Parmenides chants there is only “is.” These poetic truths hover on the periphery of accepted Athenian wisdom, in part because neither Xenophanes nor Parmenides is Athenian.4 Xenophanes, who refers to himself as a “wandering bard,” has been named for us as a xenos phanes, a stranger who appears, or more charitably, a stranger who shines.5 Whether Plato directly references the historical Parmenides as the Eleatic Stranger, or alludes to himself as the Athenian Stranger,6 Plato’s inclusion of actual or literary strangers is quite evident throughout the dialogues. Catherine Zuckert remarks that the conversations in the dialogues …are shown to have occurred at different times and places, and mostly but not always in Athens. The philosophical figure who guides the conversations in most of the dialogues is Socrates, but he is not Plato’s only philosopher. Plato also presents conversations in which an Athenian Stranger, Parmenides, Timaeus, and the Eleatic Stranger takes the lead.7

It is primarily due to Plato that we inherit Socrates as the “paradigmatic practitioner of the fledgling vocation called philosophy.”8 But if, as Zuckert suggests, Socrates is a philosopher because, like Plato’s strangers, Socrates ‘takes the lead,’ then Socrates is even odder still because he does not act or sound like Plato’s other philosophers. From the Apology, we receive the impression that what Plato’s Socrates says and does occurs in the very heart of the city, in overtly public spaces. Plato appeals to the public character of Socrates’s speech as well as its plain, some might say homely, manner at 17d. Here Socrates says, “if you hear me making my defense in the same kind of language as I am accustomed to use in the marketplace by the bankers’ tables, where many of you have heard me…do not be surprised or make a disturbance on that account.”9 While Xenophanes and Parmenides use the formulaic diction of the Greek 128 This content downloaded from 201.22.189.53 on Thu, 15 Oct 2020 13:46:35 UTC All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms

oral tradition to express their strange, new ideas, Socrates’ speech sounds more localized and personalized. We might say that Socratic speech is chthonic in comparison to the inspired speechifying of the poets and sophoi. But Socrates also claims a certain type of divine inspiration for his “occupation.” When at 30e Socrates tells the jurors that he is trying to prevent them from wrongdoing, he explains what he means by “wrongdoing” in terms of their treatment of the god’s gift to them: “for if you kill me you will not easily find another like me. I was attached to this city by the god -- although it seems a ridiculous thing to say -- as upon a great and noble horse which was somewhat sluggish because of its size and needed to be stirred up by a kind of gadfly” (30d-e5). Socrates readily admits that his ‘service to the god’ has an irritating and annoying effect upon many persons in Athens.10 But this practice is also said to constitute a “gift,” a doron, bequeathed to the city “by the god.” So the wrongdoing and mistreatment that Socrates claims he is trying to prevent involves appropriate behavior to gifts, specifically the god’s gift to Athens. Traditionally, gifts from the gods, like the stories of the Muses or the favors granted to athletes, are experienced in and as public: they are lauded as thauma idesthai, a wonder to behold, and memorialized in common for the collective glory of a family, a genos, phratry, or polis. As a “gift to the city,” then, Socrates positions himself in-between the polis and the divine: he occupies, as it were, unknown or unacknowledged territory. His speech and manner contrast sharply with his literal and legal place as a fellow citizen who stands accused. Provided the gift that is offered is acknowledged, received and reciprocated, Socrates and his city will be on the threshold of a relationship. But if the gift is not acknowledged, then Socrates will remain atopos: strange, unusual, “other.” In the ancient world, customs concerning the exchange of gifts between strangers are found as early as Book 6 in Homer’s Iliad. Here, two warriors, one Greek, one Trojan, lay down their arms on the battlefield of Ilium and will not harm one another because “their grandfathers were bound by xenia.” In lieu of the expectations for violence between them, Diomedes and Glaucus renew their bond, clasp hands, and exchange armor as a sign to all that they are 129 This content downloaded from 201.22.189.53 on Thu, 15 Oct 2020 13:46:35 UTC All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms

“friends from our father’s days.” At work in the Iliad, then, is a practice known as xenia, and at work in xenia is how enemies become friends. Xenia supersedes the expectations for battle, it takes precedence over the social orders that designate the two warriors as enemies. Between Diomedes and Glaucus, it is as if the world disappears: the proto-political or social reality that configures them in opposition to one another is replaced by another reality in which the memory of how their grandfathers behaved toward one another prescribes their present actions. Hence, the exchange of armor is incidental to the relationship xenia makes possible; the gifts are an effect of xenia but not its cause.11 The Twelve Gods Plato’s Socrates, of course, is not standing on the battlefield of Ilium but in a purportedly democratic court of law. And Socrates is not speaking to just a few interlocutors whom we usually surmise are character-types, if not outright historical allusions, to a particular genos, phratry, or other Athenian group. Rather, in the Apology, Socrates is addressing his largest and widest ranging audience in all of Plato’s dialogues: he speaks to the jurors and hundreds, some say thousands, of Athenians who crowd into the court on that fateful day in May. So it stands to reason that Plato’s Socrates would appeal to Athens’ most ubiquitous gods: gods revered at altars rather than shrines or temples, gods who inhabit the city the jurors just walked through to arrive at the court. These are also Athens’s most egalitarian gods, called collectively The Twelve. From the sixth century onward the Twelve Gods are established in the heart of the agora “where they offer help and protection to all citizens, regardless of any particular ties maintained with specific gods entailed by membership in a family, genos, phratry, or religious association.”12 The Twelve Gods include Concordia, Harmonia, Dike, and often Hades and Hermes; they are simultaneously inside and outside the circle of the Olympians, or those who, as Plato writes, “hold Olympos.”13 But Plato, too, is aware of the position and presence of the twelve: in the Laws, he distinguishes Hades as chthonian, and calls him “a great-benefactor” of the human race. In other literature, Hermes is identified as one of the twelve: he is born with “wonderful gifts,” is a god of transitions and of the in-between, 130 This content downloaded from 201.22.189.53 on Thu, 15 Oct 2020 13:46:35 UTC All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms

and thereby illustrates more than any other divinity the arts of giving and receiving with grace. In the under-story of the story of Prometheus, it is Hermes who apportions the meat from the bone and distinguishes the hosios offered to men from the hieros, or sacred smoke, offered to the divine. In her re-reading of the Homeric Hymn, Stella Georgoudi suggests that while Hermes creates the divine offering he does not partake in it: as one of the twelve, he does not need to “become one of Olympus’s inhabitants, or to obtain the glory, the kleos, promised condescendingly by Apollo, to secure his place in the group.”14 Rather, Hermes chooses to stand with his “eleven companions,” those twelve gods honored near Olympus, but outside Olympus. In contrast to the competitive and honor-loving world of frustrated gods and suffering warrior-aristocrats, the stories and traditions of the Twelve Gods illustrate a different type of divinity and a different model for human behavior. No less than Homer tells us that it is not Apollo, Zeus, or Athena, but Hermes who “sanctifies exchanges between men.” Honored at altars rather than shrines or temples, the divine twelve inhabit the center of the social world of Athens in much the same the way Plato’s Socrates inhabits its shops, walks its streets, and speaks with its citizens about chthonic subjects: bricklaying, midwifery, and the precise sub-sectioning of joints. These are the technai of a boyhood spent in the seedier section of urban Athens, yet Socrates weaves them into the types of topics that yield a common basis for conversational exchange regardless of his interlocutors “family, genos, phraty or religious association.” What most distinguishes Socrates from Plato’s other philosophers, then, could be those arts of the in-between that “sanctify exchanges between men.” Regardless of their interpersonal ties, Socrates understands how to make friends of enemies in ways that transcend the social and political boundaries limiting the scope of human relationships. This could also mean that Socrates understands how “just dealings” among citizens are intended as causes rather than effects of institutionalized laws.

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Friendship and Justice Support for this reading can be found a generation or more after Socrates’s death in Magna Moralia. Its author speculates upon the longevity and stability of different types of human relationships, which are all classified as “friendships.” The cause for friendship is said to be a type of justice: wherever justice is possible, friendship may follow. Marital, kinship and political relationships are all grouped together as the author makes a broad sweep of the different types of human “associations” or “dealings” and their varying degrees of justice. It should be noted that the most perfect justice is said to occur in the absence of conflict or strife, so the “firmest” or most long-lasting friendships are those that do not experience conflict in any way. Whatever can be said about the relationships between husbands and wives, sons and fathers, slaves and masters, and the varieties of associations that hold between citizens, is said in measure of relationships that are conflict-free. And there is only one conflict-free relationship: the friendship that exists between strangers. As stated in the Magna Moralia: Further it may perhaps be thought that wherever justice is possible, there friendship may exist too. Wherefore there are many species of friendship as there are just dealings. Now there can be justice between a [stranger] and a citizen, between a slave and his master, between one citizen and another, between son and father, between wife and husband, and generally every form of association has its separate form of friendship. But the firmest of friendships would seem to be that with a [stranger], for they have no common aim about which to dispute, as is the case with fellow citizens; for when these dispute with one another [for the priority,] they do not remain friends (2.1211a6-13).15

The author is not claiming that justice does not, or cannot, exist in conventional “friendships,” but the author is claiming that the most enduring relationships are, and will be, friendships between strangers because these are the only friendships that arise in the absence of any shared social or political order. Strangers are not kin and strangers are not fellow citizens, so they are not concerned about marital bonds, the well-being of extended family members, the state of the Assembly or any other governing body. Strangers do not share or contend a stake in the outcome of proposals, the institution of certain laws, or the strategies of rival political factions. While one 132 This content downloaded from 201.22.189.53 on Thu, 15 Oct 2020 13:46:35 UTC All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms

person might have a stake in any or all of these social and political developments, between the two persons no such common concern exists. We can say, then, that the shared aims and interests that hold for other types of friends do not exist for or between strangers. In comparison to conventional social and political relationships, the space between strangers is unoccupied and unknown, and -- by this account -- contains the greatest potential for justice. As mentioned, when Socrates positions himself as a gift, specifically a gift to the city, he creates an unoccupied space in the middle of the court, for a gift is not a gift if it is not accepted, and, of course, if it is rejected, it is no gift at all. Between strangers, gifts act as concrete expressions of a relationship they have freely and mutually agreed to pursue. Strangers are not obligated to become friends, and if strangers do become friends, they are not further obligated by any known law to speak or behave in certain ways. The oddest aspect of xenia is that if it is not acknowledged, it ceases to exist. Hence, the essential requirement of xenia is mutual recognition of the bond and mutual acknowledgment that the friendship can and should continue. By this, the gifts exchanged are expressions of these acknowledgments. Strangers who reverse this order, who see the exchange of gifts as obligatory and the friendship as an effect of this obligation, might engage in contests and disputes over the objects of exchange -- the gift- rather than the reasons for exchange -- the desire to become friends. But as long as gifts are recognized as effects rather than causes of relationships, there is no reason to be cynical or suspicious about the exchange of gifts. What Socrates offers to the court, then, is the possibility of a relationship in the heart of a city inhabited by a divine authority who, as Georgoudi says, “offers help and protection to all citizens” regardless of their interpersonal ties. This in-between position of a character like Socrates, as well as the potential for justice such positions evoke, are further supported by contemporary accounts of social relationships in the ancient world. The interpersonal ties that hold for kin and fellow citizens create a sense of social unity, but these ties do not protect these relationships from conflict or strife. To the contrary, the ties that bind us to one another are also the ties that divide us from one another. Famously analyzed by Jean-Pierre Vernant as the “opposed but 133 This content downloaded from 201.22.189.53 on Thu, 15 Oct 2020 13:46:35 UTC All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms

complementary” forces of philia and eris, friendship and strife form the twin poles of any society which continually pivots between ”an exaltation of the values of struggle, competition, and rivalry” and “a sense of belonging to a single community, with its demands for social unity and cohesion.”16 Similarly, the author of the Magna Moralia identifies the cause for dispute among friends as integral to the basis of their friendship: friends share a “common aim” or purpose; this is what designates them as ‘insiders’ to one another. “Just dealings” among friends vary in accordance to their common aim, i.e., at a practical level the common aim between “son and father” might differ from the common aim between “one citizen and another.” Yet all the variable and complex ways philoi are bound to one another create a pantheon of personal and social roles further complicated and enriched by a political order. Gabriel Herman writes, “Civic friends were related to one another not merely through friendship but through a whole array of other roles… they had rights and obligations towards each other by virtue of their common participation in formal institutions and in numerous informal groups and ties, which together made up the city’s social texture.” 17 Regardless of their “personal ties of attachment,” civic friends cannot be friends to everyone and cannot even be friends consistently because at some point or in some context their alliances and allegiances will prove incompatible. Alternatively, beyond the city, tribe, or family proper, relationships between strangers are free to develop or not without the “external authority” of the group, and this means they are free to develop in terms other than eris-philia.18 A Stranger to the Court It would seem, then, that only those who are strange, or who speak and behave strangely, are capable of breaking the cycle of friendship and strife that limits the potential for justice among citizens. Referring to himself as a gift, Plato’s Socrates alludes to the possibility of “just dealings” between those who are genuinely concerned to act justly. Highlighting his plain or usual manner of speaking, Plato’s Socrates also distances himself from alliances or allegiances with particular Athenian groups or sub-groups, including those assembled at court. For prior to his claim of himself as a gift, 134 This content downloaded from 201.22.189.53 on Thu, 15 Oct 2020 13:46:35 UTC All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms

Socrates distinguishes his manner of speaking from the speech of his prosecutors, and in general from the type of speaking usual in such a setting:19 The position is this: this is my first appearance in a lawcourt at the age of seventy; I am, therefore, a stranger to the manner of speaking here. Just as if I were really a stranger, you would excuse me if I spoke in that dialect and manner in which I had been brought up, so too my present request seems a just one, for you to pay no attention to my manner of speech –be it better or worse- but to concentrate your attention on whether what I say is just or not, for the excellence of a judge lies in this, as that of a speaker lies in telling the truth (17d1518a4).

Socrates claims he is a stranger to the court; he has never been there before, and so either because of this, or perhaps in spite of it, his manner of speaking will be unusual. Appealing to the position of the stranger, he asks his audience to accord to him the same type of hospitality they would grant anyone unfamiliar with the customs of the city. Yet oddly, and immediately thereafter, Socrates also asks his audience to pay no attention to how he speaks, but to focus instead upon whether what he says is just or not. He reasons that excellence in judgment comes from consideration of the content of what is said in lieu of its effect, yet it is precisely the effect of Socrates’s uncustomary talk that provokes the disclaimer in the first place: “this is my first appearance in a law-court at the age of seventy; I am, therefore, a stranger to the manner of speaking here.” This suggests that, on the one hand, Socrates positions himself as an “outsider” to the conventions of the court, yet, on the other hand, he remarks that regardless of whether one is an “insider,” a citizen, or an “outsider,” a stranger, the justice of what is said --and how we recognize thishas less to do with who is speaking and how they speak but everything to do with the ‘what’ of what is said: “…my present request seems a just one, for you to pay no attention to my manner of speech –be it better or worse- but to concentrate your attention on whether what I say is just or not, for the excellence of a judge lies in this, as that of a speaker lies in telling the truth.” Socrates promises the jury that he will tell the truth about what “has caused this reputation and slander.” It is a certain kind of 135 This content downloaded from 201.22.189.53 on Thu, 15 Oct 2020 13:46:35 UTC All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms

wisdom, he says, “Human wisdom, perhaps” (20d5), but this is not equivalent to the wisdom others may possess, they may be “wise with a wisdom more than human,” but he is not wise in this way, and anyone who says so “is lying and speaks slander to me” (20e2). Like much of what Socrates says in the Apology, this statement causes an uproar, thus Socrates says again, “Do not create a disturbance.” The jurors will not honor his request, so Socrates calls upon “the god at Delphi as my witness” and the brother of Chaerephon to attest that when Chaerephon asked the oracle -- again, “do not create a disturbance”-- whether any man is wiser than Socrates, the Oracle replied “no one is wiser” (21a5). The god at Delphi is generally considered to be Apollo, yet as Georgoudi reminds us, Apollo’s twin face is often Hermes, that god of the in-between. Ambiguity and duality associated with the god Apollo has led scholars and philosophers to remark upon the tragic character of Socrates, particularly in the Apology. Jacob Howland suggests that by aligning his “occupation” with the proclamation of the Oracle, Socrates “blurs the distinction between himself and the god in explaining his philosophical activity.”20 Like other protagonists in tragic drama, Socrates occupies a “gray zone” between “pure activity and pure passivity”: Socrates is responsible to obey the god, even if doing so leads to his death. Indeed, Plato’s Socrates says as much when he makes yet another disturbing claim: “…whether you acquit me or not, do so on the understanding that this is my course of action, even if I am to face death many times” (30c2). Howland suggests that the same sort of ambiguity that applies to Socrates’s agency, applies also to the city: he writes, “For the city’s punishment of Socrates’s injustice simultaneously crowns or completes Socrates’s punishment of the city’ injustice.” Yet immediately following his claim that he will not cease his occupation, even if he is “to face death many times,” Socrates asks the jurors again to listen to what he will say, for it will be to their advantage to do so. Although they will soon “hear other things at which [they] will perhaps cry out,” they should listen now. Why? Because if “you kill the sort of man I say I am, you will not harm me more than yourselves” (30c5). Here the jurors remain silent. After all

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of the other outbursts Plato portrays, Socrates’s claim that “you will not harm me more than yourselves” does not cause uproar. The Ctitizen-Stranger As an alternative to Howland’s reading of the Apology, I suggest that Socrates is not threatening retribution if the Athenians harm him, nor, I suggest, is he adopting a position of self-sacrifice or moral superiority.21 The claim “you will not harm me more than yourselves” neither excuses Socrates from harm nor condemns the Athenians to committing harm. Rather, the claim is articulated as an “if, then” statement, i.e., “if you kill the sort of man I say I am, [then] you will not harm me more than yourselves.” By this claim, Socrates articulates the particular relationship that holds between citizens. To the extent that an act which harms Socrates will also harm his fellow citizens, Socrates conceives of his penalty or his acquittal as a collective action, the consequences of which are collectively experienced, i.e., whatever they do to him they also do to themselves. That citizens are invariably connected to one another within the parameters of the “law” is implied by the dramatic setting, but Socrates’s claim is not a usual or conventional way of conceiving of the relationships that hold between persons in a court of law: jurors are in place to judge between sides in an agon timon, hence the expected manner of speaking in such a situation would include a variety of technai proven effective in swaying the jurors.22 In lieu of what is expected in such a situation, Socrates appeals to what citizens share in common, or could share in common given their treatment of “the gift.” The issue before the court, then, cannot simply be to apply justice but to determine together what is just. To a certain extent, whether Socrates is sentenced to death or not is secondary to the fundamental relationship that binds citizens as citizens before the law. That these are “equal” relationships in terms of shared protection and access to the law (isonomia) derives from a deeper sense of the “social” evolved from centuries-old practices of “sharing in common.” Again, what makes “insiders” inside to one another is what they “share in common,” what exists “in the middle” and “in between” them. If justice is something that citizens share in common, then justice cannot be appropriately understood as something one 137 This content downloaded from 201.22.189.53 on Thu, 15 Oct 2020 13:46:35 UTC All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms

side ‘has’ more than the other, because justice is what happens between citizens.23 Thus revealed, Socrates is a “gift” offered in the guise of a stranger. Or, as a stranger, Socrates is “the kind of person to be a gift of the god to the city” (31b): either way, Socrates embodies the space between citizens that indicates the potential value of their relationships. Citizens will surely disagree with one another, but in a genuine democracy citizens do not try to “outdo” one another, i.e., they do not seek victory at the expense of another citizen. As Greg Recco has shown, the very idea that justice is and can be contested is an oligarchic idea.24 While Socratic inquiry aims to establish a good that is freely discussed and created by citizens with respect to their shared obligations and responsibilities toward one another, oligarchic practice positions the good as something to be won. Hence disagreement and dissent within an oligarchy are necessarily partisan, evoking claims made on behalf of one group for the express purpose of silencing the claims of another group. Into the space between a law that could result from Socratic inquiry and a law that exists at least one remove from many of its citizens, Plato might allude to those “firmest of relationships” in order to foreground the significance of Socrates as a type of stranger, not just to the court but to the very practice by which laws become “laws.”25 While philosopher-kings and tragic heroes take their glory from the aristocratic pantheon of Olympus and suffer their futility or misery through the celestial weavings of the Fates, Plato’s Socrates takes a lesser known but no less profound way to immortality, walking his city’s streets, speaking with any and all of its citizens. His is the wonder of the city and the varieties of human relationships that layer its social textures. And so his is a strange yet chthonic wisdom, “human wisdom, perhaps.” But his legacy is significant enough to continue to jar Plato’s memory in the middle of the political battles of the fourth century: prior to coming to Syracuse, Plato tells us he was thinking that Athens “was no longer guided by the customs and practices of our fathers” (325d), yet Socrates, amid those fraying ties of citizenship, was still “the wisest and most just man of that time” (324e).26

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Lisa A. Wilkinson is Chair of the Department of Philosophy and Religion at Nebraska Wesleyan University. Most of her published work focuses on Ancient Greek Philosophy, including Socratic Charis: Philosophy without the Agon (Lexington Press, 2013), and Parmenides and To Eon (Continuum, 2009). She is currently interested in elaborating upon the theme of atopos in Plato’s portrayal of Socrates. She is grateful to the editors and staff at Lexington Press for allowing passages from Socratic Charis to appear in these Proceedings. [email protected]. 2 Stella Georgoudi, “The Twelve Gods of the Greeks: Variations on a Theme” in Antiquities, eds. Nicole Loraux, Gregory Nagy, and Laura Slatkin, (NY: The New Press, 2001), 348. (hereafter, page numbers will be referenced in the body of the text). 3 Many thanks to the editors of this volume for suggesting that there could be an explicit connection between Plato’s time in southern Italy and his characterization of Socrates. While here it is a suggestion, it is one that could yield insight for our comprehensive understanding of the origin and production of the dialogues. 4 Thanks specifically to Heather Reid for pointing out here that there could be an important connection between strangeness and the colonies, at least in Plato’s mind. 5 From Phanes, according to C. Keryeni in The Gods of the Greeks (London: Thames & Hudson Ltd., 2000) as one of the names given to Eros, in the Orphic tale of the origin of the cosmos 6 Cf: John Halverson in “Plato: The Athenian Stranger” in Arethusa, Vol. 30, Winter 1997, who argues that since the Laws is the last of Plato’s dialogues, his disenchantment with Athenian politics has made him estranged from his own polis. 7 Plato’s Philosophers: The Coherence of the Dialogues (Chicago: University Of Chicago Press, 2012), 1. 8 Gary Scott, Plato’s Socrates as Educator (New York: SUNY Press, 2000), 8. 9 Citations from the Apology follow G.M.A. Grube’s translation from The Trial and Death of Socrates (Indianapolis, IN: Hackett Publishing Company, 2000). 10 As an aside, given the significance of the navy to the majority of Athenians in 399, we might ask why Plato uses “gadfly” rather than a type of maritime pest, if –as many maintain- Plato’s invectives are antidemocratic, i.e., anti demos. 11 Lisa Wilkinson, Socratic Charis: Philosophy without the Agon (Lanham, MD: Lexington Press, 2013), pp.1-2. 12 Georgoudi, “Variations on a Theme,” 351 1

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From Laws, 10.904e. Plato here alludes to a ‘decree’ or ‘sentence’ from the gods who ‘dwell upon Olympus’. The phrase echoes the Odyssey, xix.43. 14 Ibid, p. 349. 15 The Magna Moralia, trans. G. Cyril Armstrong, The Loeb Classical Library (Cambridge, MA: Harvard UP, 1935). 16 The Origins of Greek Thought (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1995), 45-6. Passage including Vernant’s quote is found in Wilkinson, Socratic Charis, pp. 88-9. 17 Gabriel Herman, Ritualised Friendship and the Greek City (Cambridge: Cambridge UP, 1997), p. 30. Passage including Herman’s quote is also found in Wilkinson, Socratic Charis, p. 89. 18 Socratic Charis, p. 89. 19 For a discussion of what is not so “simple and plain” about Socrates speech, see E.E. Pender, “Plain Speaking? Socrates Polutropos,” Skepsis, Vol. 16, 2005, pp. 246-261. 20 Jacob Howland, “Plato’s Apology as Tragedy.” The Review of Politics, Vol. 70, Fall, 2008, pp. 519-538. 21 Socrates does mention that neither Meletus nor Anytus can harm him with the phrase “he could not harm me, for I do not think it is permitted that a better man be harmed by a worse” (30c-d). It is unclear whether Plato intends the “he” to refer to Meletus or Anytus, yet, regardless, Socrates conditional claim is addressed to the jury, not his accusers. 22 For a discussion of usual or expected manners of speech before an Athenian court, see Craig Cooper, “Forensic Oratory” in A Companion to Greek Rhetoric, ed. Ian Worthington (London: Blackwell Publishers, Ltd., 2007) pp. 203-219. 23 This discussion can also be found in Socratic Charis, pp. 115ff. 24 Cf: Athens Victorious: Democracy in Plato’s Republic, Lanham, MD: Lexington Press, 2008, p. 9ff. 25 Ibid, pp. 117ff. 26 Letter VII, trans. Glen Morrow, in Plato’s Complete Works, eds. John M. Cooper and D.S. Hutchinson, (Indianapolis, IN: Hackett Publishing Company, 1997). 13

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Parnassos Press – Fonte Aretusa Chapter Title: Philosopher-kings: A Communitarian Political Project Chapter Author(s): Carolina Araújo Book Title: Philosopher Kings and Tragic Heroes Book Subtitle: Essays on Images and Ideas from Western Greece Book Editor(s): Heather L. Reid and Davide Tanasi Published by: Parnassos Press – Fonte Aretusa Stable URL: http://www.jstor.com/stable/j.ctvbj7gjn.12 JSTOR is a not-for-profit service that helps scholars, researchers, and students discover, use, and build upon a wide range of content in a trusted digital archive. We use information technology and tools to increase productivity and facilitate new forms of scholarship. For more information about JSTOR, please contact [email protected]. Your use of the JSTOR archive indicates your acceptance of the Terms & Conditions of Use, available at https://about.jstor.org/terms This content is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License (CC BY-NC-ND 4.0). To view a copy of this license, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/.

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Part III Plato at Syracuse

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Carolina Araújo1 Philosopher-kings: A Communitarian Political Project In his post-war pamphlet against Plato, Karl Popper claimed that Plato tacitly assumed the theory of (unchecked) sovereignty, i.e., that “the question of an institutional control of the rulers, and of an institutional balancing of their powers is there eliminated without ever having been raised.”2 This essay3 aims to show that this is wrong. In the Republic Plato clearly proposes an institutional control of the rulers, which is supposed to be put in practice by the government of philosophers, but not only through it. However, since this control is presented within categories that contemporary political thought, for different reasons, abhors – eugenics, patriotism and prohibition of private property – it was completely dismissed by interpreters from the 20th century onwards. Either influenced by Popper or by the historical experience of totalitarian regimes, contemporary scholarship is in general mistaken about the meaning of the “philosopher-kings project” in Plato’s Republic. This essay begins by presenting the argumentative structure of the fifth book of Plato’s Republic and defends that its central argument is that the unity of the city depends on the public life of the rulers, which implies the prohibition of family and private property. Next, it tries to show that the philosopher-kings are a means, one among others, to produce this very specific notion of political unity. Finally it briefly points out that this reading is compatible with the Platonic political proposals found in the Timaeus, the Laws, in Aristotle’s Politics and in the Seventh Letter. The community The argument of Republic V aims at clarifying what Socrates meant earlier (424a1-3), in reference to marriages and procreation of children, with the saying that among friends everything must be held in common as far as possible.4 The book is therefore an excursus that departs from the main argument about the happiness of the just man and leads into the principles of political philosophy expressed in the form of the traditional genre of Politeia writings.5 In general, this literature describes different ways of life among different people and 143 This content downloaded from 201.22.189.53 on Fri, 16 Oct 2020 19:56:16 UTC All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms

finds in Herodotus’s ethnography its predecessor. The description of different customs suggests a relativization of our own way of being and challenges our preconceptions about the good. Plato takes the genre to its limits, making us exercise our thought in projecting a way of collective living in which we could be happy. If we are good readers of Plato’s text, we will definitely reflect on the issues raised throughout the dialogue, and therefore experiment in thought with the work of a legislator.6 This is the reason why the Republic is a protreptic literary work, aiming at changing the reader’s mind. As a result, the institutions that we can rationally accept as good should be considered as the laws of this city in speech,7 laws that we think would be acceptable to all citizens. From Book V to the end of Book VII, the Kallipolis will not function as an instrumental model for the inquiry about justice in the soul anymore (472c4-d1), but rather as a rational model of a good city (472d9-10) in relation to which one can find out “what defect in cities now prevents them from being thus governed”8 (473b4-5). This specific purpose adds to Plato’s Politeia two further challenges: to justify why this model is the best and how it can come to being (456c5-6). Socrates begins by defending the public education and political activity of women (451e4-5, 456b4-5). Although not the subject of Socrates’s earlier statement on the community of wives and children, equality of women represents a powerful premise to his main point. The so-called first wave of laughter that resumes from the principle that each citizen ought to do her own according to her nature (453b14), shows that women have natural capacities for public functions, and infers that marriage should not be understood as a “possession of women” (424a1). For the purpose of this essay, I shall not discuss the validity of Plato’s demonstration on the equality of women,9 it suffices to note that its function in the text is to grant that the community of women and children follows from the very reason why they founded the city (see 457c7-8).10 Socrates takes it as obvious that the community of wives and children is highly beneficial (457d6-8). At first, his reason seems to be that it contributes to a eugenic project (459a1-4),11 but I would advise not to take this claim as the whole of the matter. After all, Socrates’s 144 This content downloaded from 201.22.189.53 on Fri, 16 Oct 2020 19:56:16 UTC All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms

ingenious fake lottery aims primarily to avoid the recognition of family bonds, and not exactly at the improvement of individuals. Besides that, it will be the pretention to breed human beings that will lead to the mistake that will bring Kallipolis to its own ruin. Moreover, his final word on the issue is that the community of wives and children is good because there is no “greater good than what binds it [the city] together and makes it one” (462b1-2, see also 464b56). The community of wives and children does not aim primarily at producing the best individuals, it aims at removing a powerful obstacle to the unity of the city: family and the private property it represents. In other words, maintaining the unity of the city implies attacking the power produced by the accumulation of private resources from generation to generation, introducing a difference of power between citizens since birth, no matter what kind of qualities these individuals have. Communitarian life is also based on the foundation of the city. If Socrates, back in the second book, suggests that a city comes to being in order to supply our basic needs for living (369d), he immediately retracts this suggestion. One could definitely provide for oneself alone (369e-370a). The reason for living with others is that by ourselves we are not able to provide ourselves with good things (370b): the city is our strategy to live well and not only to survive. The principle that one individual could not produce well all the things he needs grants the city its raison d’être. This means that a city is responsible for guaranteeing production and supporting communitarian exchange. It should come as no surprise that even the simplest city needs money as its means for exchange (371b), the exchange that supports the community. The problem is that money is not only a means for exchange, it becomes the very symbol of the luxury which, introduced into the city by Glaucon’s request (372d-373a), will make it ill. “Economy is ambivalent, it both generates and destroys the city”, says Helmer, who concludes that economy “has a real political positivity, and only true politics can make it pass from potentiality to act, turning its charge of potential destruction into the benefit of the whole city”.12 Money is a necessity and a threat to the functional system of a city and Socrates sets out to combat both its excesses and faults. On the 145 This content downloaded from 201.22.189.53 on Fri, 16 Oct 2020 19:56:16 UTC All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms

one hand, the accumulation of money makes the citizens idle and careless regarding the production that supports the city exchange (421d4-9). On the other hand, the lack of money does not allow the proper use of the means required for the good accomplishment of functions (421d11-e1), the basic principle of the city. Hence the city as a whole will not be allowed to accumulate property, even if a part of it is still allowed to own things. The control of the economic threat requires even stronger measures regarding those in power, preventing them from turning from watchdogs into wolves (416a6). Since their upbringing they must be told that they have divine gold and silver in their souls, so that when they finally get to their offices the guardians will understand that they will not be allowed to own private property beyond the absolutely necessary (416d6-7, 464b-e). They will not be allowed to have houses or to inhabit private places that do not grant constant public access (416d7-8), they shall not be able to have a life hidden from the eyes of the city. Their wage will be granted by the public funds and restricted to provide them a life in which they hold in common housing, meals, lovers and children (458d7-8; 458c8-9), in other words, a life open in public. A feature that has been hardly noticed is how the community of property, wives and children among guardians leads to the unity of the whole city generating the community of pleasure and pain that makes it resemble an organism, the body politic.13 Aristotle, for instance, clearly does not understand how one community leads to the other.14 Again, the point seems to be fairly stated. The emotional community, as Socrates presents it, is a particular perception shared among all citizens – and not only the rulers – of the Kallipolis, a perception about what belongs to them or not (462c3-4). Granted that they will conceive citizenship in analogy with the organs of a body, to be a citizen of such a city means to understand that whatever they possess is given to them within an exchange system that was supported by the city and whose justice is granted by the rulers. How are they supposed to achieve this understanding? By the most persuasive means: vision. They will see their own necessities being supplied and, even if they could still desire more, they will at least see that no one is better off in the city, in particular the ones 146 This content downloaded from 201.22.189.53 on Fri, 16 Oct 2020 19:56:16 UTC All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms

who manage the wealth, the rulers. So visible is the fair distribution and the lack of interest in wealth of the rulers that the ruled gladly assume the responsibility of paying for the basic expenses of their public life. It is the communitarian and public way of life of the rulers that changes the way the ruled see them and therefore creates a strong bond throughout the city; a bond that Thrasymachus thought impossible and which the skeptical Aristotle describes as a “wonderful friendship of everyone to everyone”.15 The unity of the city is provided by empathy (463e5-6), as Pradeau puts it: “According to Plato, politics must organize and rationalize a material that is not entirely rational.”16 The nature of this connection is not rational, it is based upon perception and reaction; Socrates even suggests that it is a kind of community that also occurs among animals (466d7). By looking at the public life of the ruler the ruled recognizes her as someone who cares for his own integrity and not as some master he is supposed to obey blindly (463a). This leads us to the opening of this essay: communitarian life is an institution for public control of the rulers, a way to prevent the best-educated people in the city from becoming its most dangerous enemies, precisely the control Popper claimed Plato failed to provide. It is understandable that, given the Zeitgeist that motivated Popper’s denunciation, the Eugenics of the community of wives and children was mistaken for an end in itself. But it is about time to reconsider Plato’s view on the matter.17 Plato’s proposal was pacifist to the highest degree (465b). It was designed to avoid sedition (464d-e), precisely because wealth, children and relatives roughly exhaust the objects about which human beings fight (464e). Moreover, this is a project that also aims eventually to extend this community beyond the limits of a city (465c6-7), preventing war between Greek cities (469b10; 470c1-2; 470e8-9). The community, as far as possible Up to this point I focused on why Socrates considers the community of wives and children good; now I would like to stress that Socrates aims at dissolving the family as far as possible. “As far as possible” is an important qualification here, for two reasons. In the first place because the methodological approach of the argument in 147 This content downloaded from 201.22.189.53 on Fri, 16 Oct 2020 19:56:16 UTC All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms

Book V required that the community should be proved to be the best and to be possible. If the unity of the city sustains the community as something good, the challenge about proving it possible is, by Socrates’ own request, postponed, and the whole matter is analyzed purely as a hypothesis (458b). In the second place because Socrates keeps reminding us along his whole argument that his project is feasible only to a certain extent (458e3-4, 459a9-10, 459b2, 460a5, 462b5, 464a6, 464d3-4, 466c9, 469b10 see also 429e6-7). It is remarkable that having found its best image in the body politic, the city community will also find its limit in the individual body of each citizen (464d8). The limit is not a normative one, it is intrinsic to the human condition. The general objection to Plato’s communitarian life, one we find already in Aristotle, is that it goes against human nature. However, this is not an objection: it is precisely the problem Plato was trying to address since the beginning of Book V. Socrates’s answer about the possibility of the project involves a consideration about what it means for good things to be possible, and this is why he asked permission to first exam the issue only hypothetically. When pressed by Glaucon not to avoid giving an account of the feasibility of the project (471c4-7, see also 466d), Socrates finally explains (i) why he thinks that the possibility is limited, and sets out to argue (ii) how it would be most possible (472e). For (i) he asks Glaucon: ”Can something be acted out in fact exactly as it was spoken in word? Or is it natural for action to touch less of truth and reality than speech, even if most people do not think so? Do you agree, or not?” (473a1-2). As we can see in this passage, logos presents things more clearly; it has a closer connection to truth than action, so that a city founded in speech works better as a model for making clear what it means to be a city. Action, by its turn, is the way human beings accomplish the things presented to them in logoi. Actions never happen the way described in speech, they will happen approximately, according to their circumstances. The question about the feasibility of Kallipolis - i.e., how to found the polis in action, and not in speech - depends on something that is external to it. Therefore, possibility means approximation (473a7). Actual cities are not going to become a community, but they may come closer to that. 148 This content downloaded from 201.22.189.53 on Fri, 16 Oct 2020 19:56:16 UTC All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms

As for (ii) Socrates suggests a specific kind of inquiry: “Then next, it seems, we must try to seek out and show what defect in cities now prevents them from being thus governed, and what least change would bring a city to this kind of constitution” (473b). We need the previous diagnosis about how a city is doing wrong, our first stage, in order to see what for this city in particular would be the applicable minimal change. Morrison thought the change here implied would count as a ‘minimal sufficient condition’ for Kallipolis, arguing that, “if a city made this change, it alone (together with its consequences) would produce a city close to ideal”.18 But there is a logical objection to this reading: what kind of criterion would answer for such a “minimal sufficient condition”, in Morrison’s terms, if the change itself, as we saw, is limited to an approximation? What degree would be “sufficient” for something to get closer to its true being? If we are dealing with approximations, every single step must be relevant, and none of them sufficient. I suggest that the preference for the minimal change answers to the need for an easier implementation of the communitarian project, and consists in the diagnosis of the actual regime in which it will be implemented. This means that, when Socrates introduces the philosopher-kings project, he is considering the regimes in which the change can be reducible to a single one (473c). To put it more clearly: the philosopher-kings project is not Socrates’s single alternative in order to bring about community among citizens, he describes it as simply being the preferable one (μάλιστα – 472d) because it requires minimal change. This is the methodological context in which we must interpret the passage. Therefore I think three points should not be overlooked in any interpretation of the philosopher-kings project: (A) it consists in Socrates’s answer about the feasibility of the community of wealth and family, i.e., it is a means to promoting the greatest good for cities and not a good in itself; (B) it is a means to an approximation of this community, since actual cities can never become perfect communities (see εἰς τὸ δυνατὸν at 473d7); (C) it is a means based on the diagnostic of actual cities and a project applicable only to some of them.

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The text is clear in saying that philosopher-kings are a means applicable to cities ruled by kings and dynasts (473d; 499c; 502a). As far as the classification of regimes in the Republic goes, monarchies and dynasties are intermediate regimes (544d). I take this to mean that, while the evil in the four kinds of corrupted regimes worth mentioning has a proper definition (544d), the evil and the goodness in monarchies and dynasties depend on the character of the ruler and the laws he establishes. In contradistinction to the other degenerated regimes in which sedition and instability are always present, the mark of monarchies and dynasties is that legitimation is a given; they are long-established regimes in which opposition to the will of the ruler is nonexistent. As intermediates, monarchies and dynasties can prioritize honor, money, freedom or unrestricted pleasures; but they may also prioritize knowledge, it all depends on the ruler. This indistinct character of the regime is precisely what makes it the opportunity for the minimal change Socrates was looking for. As for the change itself, it may have two different routes: the ruler converted into a philosopher or the philosopher acclaimed as ruler. We already noted that the first option was suggested because of the assumed legitimacy; the second also implies it, since it is proposed according to the model of the patient knocking at the physician’s door (489b8-c2). It is central to the philosopher-kings project that the philosopher does not have to deal with granting legitimacy to his government. This, after all, shows that the privilege given to the philosopher-kings project – one among other means to make the community happen – is based on the same pacifist claim involved in the community: the minimal change is obviously good because it avoids sedition (470c9-d1). A consequence of this interpretation is that philosopher-rulers are not those who were educated by Kallipolis. As Vegetti puts it, there is a difference between the archontes in book IV and V and the philosopher-kings in books V and VI, the latter have “the grounding task of transformation”; “they have in actual reality the role of legislators which is developed in words by the interlocutors in the dialogue”, “the difference, in brief, is the one between governing an already existing state and establishing ex novo the constitutional order”.19 Once in power, total power, the philosopher will establish 150 This content downloaded from 201.22.189.53 on Fri, 16 Oct 2020 19:56:16 UTC All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms

the laws, and the laws must be such that they allow him not to rule, even if only occasionally, because ruling is what he does not want to do. Taking turns in ruling is a central institution in Kallipolis, and this is incompatible with being a king or a dynast. Philosopher-kings are legislators, not rulers, and it is the power to reformulate all laws according to their knowledge of what is best that makes them relevant. Even if it is not impossible (499c), it is a very unlikely project, an unlikelihood that increasingly grows throughout the pages of books six and seven, to the point that Socrates proposes further measures, such as the clear slate and the exile of all adults, which, though not intrinsic to the project, may be some ad hoc help. The beginning of a community based in one single individual depends on a very unlikely acceptance of the new laws, an acceptance that the Republic itself, as a protreptic literary work, begins to spread. The Republic’s early tradition Plato sets the Timaeus on the day following a dialogue that is very similar to the Republic (17b2, c1). In recapitulating what was discussed on the previous day, Socrates mentions the following (17d19a): what is the best regime and the men that compose it, the distinction between producers and warriors, the division of function, friendship as the relation between rulers and ruled, the moral education of the guardians, the prohibition of private property to guardians, their common life, the natural equality of women, the community of wives and children aiming at the conception that all the citizens belong to the same family, and the eugenic selection of children. When asked if there was anything missing, Timaeus answers: “Not at all” (19b1). Interpreters have long discussed what has happened to the philosopher-kings project, suggesting that, being a later dialogue, the Timaeus presents another political project. This alleged new political project is to be found in Plato’s Laws, also a dialogue in which the philosopher-kings project does not appear and which proposes a “second best” regime. On closer inspection, however, the notion of “second best” proves to be much closer to Plato’s political project in the Republic than usually recognized. It is justified by the mortal nature of human beings 151 This content downloaded from 201.22.189.53 on Fri, 16 Oct 2020 19:56:16 UTC All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms

(875b) and presented as an abandonment of the “sacred line” when it comes to enacting legislation, an approach described as a simultaneous use of reasoning and experience (739a4). This legislative operation shall now take into consideration the experience of the circumstances involved, but it still cannot dismiss the first best regime, the model in speech (739e1). The model is also described as existing nowhere except to a small extent (875d), and the “second best” is the one which comes as close as possible to the “first best” (739e2). Were this not enough evidence for some continuity in the Platonic political project through his later works, one cannot forget that the first best regime in the Laws is described precisely as a community of wives and children, justified on the principle that “it is in the interest of both the common and the private that the common, rather than the private, be established nobly” (875a-b).20 True, the Laws adopts another strategy of implementing the community, legislation. But while doing so it also suggests that some kind of tyranny could make the change faster (739a5, 713e4), and that an optimized means would be the no less paradoxical existence of a prudent tyrant: “If this should occur where the powerful are the smallest in number, but the strongest, as in tyranny, then the change is apt to take place there swiftly and easily” (710d). As Schofield puts it: “like the Republic, the Laws still sees the power of a ruler of a certain character (preferably, as in the Republic, one such person, but if not one, two, and if not two, as small a number as possible) as the crucial prerequisite if the best city is to be established”.21 That the philosopher-kings project is one alternative and not the main proposal of Plato’s political philosophy is also attested by Aristotle in his Politics, who describes Plato’s project in the Republic as a community in which “it is possible for citizens to go shares with each other in children, in wives, and in possessions” (1261a4-6).22 We already saw that Aristotle did not understand the relationship between the community of wives and children and the emotional community of the city and therefore complains about Plato’s lack of clarity (1261a10-12). Now, in describing the project as impossible (1261a14), Aristotle agrees with Plato, in part because Plato defends a notion of possibility as approximation, but mostly because Aristotle himself recognizes that Sparta is to a certain extent a case of this 152 This content downloaded from 201.22.189.53 on Fri, 16 Oct 2020 19:56:16 UTC All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms

Platonic community (1263a30-32). Aristotle’s only remaining criticism then is that this kind of community does not contribute to the unity of the city (1261a15-30), a criticism that rests on Aristotle’s consideration that property is an inherent trait of human beings, inasmuch as one would only care for one’s own and not for what is common (1261b32-1262a24). This is not the occasion to make a case about who is right about human nature, but only to point out that Aristotle also reads the Republic’s main point as being the community that establishes bonds of friendship among all the citizens (1265b15). So I think Vegetti is right when he suggests that “Aristotle has read, better said, re-read, the Republic through its Platonic summary in the Timaeus.” When, however, he adds that “it is anyhow clear about Aristotle that, if he is an unfaithful interpreter of the Republic, this is because he follows the reading offered by old Plato in the Laws,”23 I cannot fully agree. To understand the Republic through the lenses of the Timeaus and the Laws when it comes to describing the best city as a community is not an unfaithful interpretation of the Republic. On the contrary, from what I have presented here I conclude that Plato reiterated throughout his life that the best political model, although to a certain extent impossible, was the emotional community of the city based on the community of property, wives and children. The testimony of the Seventh Letter I would like to finish by analyzing another early interpretation of the Platonic philosopher-king project: the Seventh Letter. First I must say that I consider the Seventh Letter to be inauthentic for the sole reason that pseudo-epistolography was in Antiquity a very specific literary genre with apologetic purposes,24 a position that still allows the possibility, as suggested by Butti di Lima,25 that it has been written by Plato, but not as an actual letter to Dion’s friends. That being said, I think it is safe to consider the letter one of the earlier interpretations of the Republic in addition to the three previous ones. In a very recent volume Michael Frede defends a different argument for the inauthenticity of the letter, saying that on the date of the letter, 354-353 BCE, Plato was engaged in writing the Laws, 153 This content downloaded from 201.22.189.53 on Fri, 16 Oct 2020 19:56:16 UTC All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms

which “envisages a state in which the rulers or those in power are not philosophers.” Therefore, he concludes, “we need an explanation why Plato even in writing the Seventh Letter still should be unwilling to consider a second-best constitution, and only countenance the rule of philosophers. I not only do not know of any explanation for this, but also cannot think of any.”26 I think I have provided some explanation based on the continuity of the project of the Republic and the Laws. 27 But to put it on an even more stable basis, I would like to add some remarks on the political project of the Seventh Letter. At 326a7-b4, the Seventh Letter presents a paraphrase of the philosopher-kings passage in the Republic, a resemblance which Burnyeat considers proof of plagiarism.28 This is the conclusion to which Plato, the character, has come after his disappointment with Athenian politics. But the relevant point is that the conclusion is extracted from a central premise, that, in politics “it was impossible to do anything without friends and loyal followers” (325d1-2). 29 These were the thoughts that Dion heard from Plato and that promoted their friendship, a relationship that caused Plato unknowingly to contribute to the dissolution of tyranny in Sicily (327b4-5). This contribution took the form of Dion introducing another way of living in Sicily, above all because others began to act like him (327c2). As the letter states, the purpose of Plato’s speeches is to change the mind of the young and generate among them friendship and community (328d6-e1). It was the purpose of disseminating the philosophical lifestyle that led Dion to Dionysius II, expecting that he could expand it to the whole territory (327d3-6) without slaughter or killing (327d4-5, see also 331d2-3). The fact that the expectations about Dionysius were mistaken does not deny either the consistency or the possibility of the project. The Sicilian failure has two different, but not unconnected, reasons, one concerning the soul of the ruler, the other concerning the regime of the city. Dionysius never became a friend of Plato (330b2) because he was persuaded only to be a friend to himself (332d3-5). This leads us to the regime: in contradistinction to the dynasty that Dion described (328a1), Syracuse was overtaken by sedition (329b7-8), and this rivalry never allowed Dionysius to listen to Plato and neglect the other party. But still Plato would insist that 154 This content downloaded from 201.22.189.53 on Fri, 16 Oct 2020 19:56:16 UTC All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms

virtue depends on friendship (332c4-6), which depends on selfcontrol (331d8-e1), and that this friendship produces community in government, at first among rulers, but then among the ruled (332a35) and finally among other cities, as Plato would praise Darius for expanding his domain through a community based on trust (332a3b6). Conclusion I assume to have argued here, against the interpreters that saw in Plato’s Republic a defense of closed regimes, that the central feature of Platonic political philosophy is the material as well as emotional community among citizens, which is granted by the constant surveillance of the life of rulers. The kernel of this project is presented in Book V as the community of wives and children, a proposal that aims at dissolving family, an institution that emotionally segregates citizens and that accumulates wealth through generations. A life lived in public without private property is required from rulers in order to grant to all citizens the visibility of a fair politics. I also argued that Plato understood this as an unlikely political project and that, among other means through which it could happen, he suggests the possibility of philosopher-kings as a preferable one. Philosopher-kings is a preferable means because it requires minimal change and therefore avoids the worst of evils: sedition. Philosopherkings are legislators who would allow the Platonic political project to come to being; they are not the rulers of the Kallipolis itself. As evidence for this claim I resorted both to the text of the Republic and to its earlier Platonic and non-Platonic interpretations, found in the Timaeus, the Laws, Aristotle’s Politics and the Seventh Letter. Carolina Araújo is Professor of Philosophy at Universidade Federal do Rio de Janeiro (UFRJ), researcher of Conselho Nacional de Pesquisa (CNPq) and vice-president of ALFA, the Latin-American Society for Ancient Philosophy . Her work focuses on Plato and includes Da Arte: uma leitura do Gorgias de Platão (UFMG, 2008) and, as editor, Verdade e espetáculo: Platão e a questão do ser (7letras/Faperj: 2014). 2 Karl R. Popper, The Open Society and Its Enemies: 1 Plato (Princeton: Princeton University Press 1966), 125-126. 1

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This research was supported by Conselho Nacional de Pesquisa (CNPq). Plato’s scholiast refers the saying to Pythagoras, but it seems to be a customary Platonic projection to Pythagors; see D. Dawson, Cities of the Gods: Communist Utopias in Greek Thought (Oxford: OUP, 1992), 15-18. 5 See Jacqueline Bordes, Politeia dans la pensée grecque jusqu’à Aristote (Paris: Les Belles Lettres, 1982), 126-227 and Malcolm Schofield, Plato Political Philosophy (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2006), 30-50. 6 See Schofield, Plato Political Philosophy, 35. 7 See J. F. Pradeau, La communauté des affections (Paris: Vrin, 2008), 100-101. 8 All translations of Plato’s Republic are taken from Plato, The Republic, Translated by R. E. Allen (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2006). 9 I consider it anachronism to search in Plato for a modern justification for sexual equality and thus to consider him feminist or anti-feminist. 10 The connection between the two laws, as a matter of fact, was not Plato’s invention, see Xenophon, The Lacedemonian Constitution, 1. 3-9 11 For an illuminating view of eugenic practices in reference to Theaetetus, see S. Gastaldi, “La seconda ondata: la comunanza di donne e figli”, in Platone: Repubblica, ed. M. Vegetti (Naples: Bibliopolis, 2000), 272. 12 É. Helmer, La Part du Bronze: Platon et l’économie (Paris: Vrin, 2010), 7-8. 13 See Pradeau, La Communauté des Affections, 10. 14 See Aristotle, Politics, 1261a10-12, 1262a40-b7. 15 Aristotle, Politics, 1263b15. 16 Pradeau, La Communauté des Affections, 7, my translation. 17 20th century eugenics was not exclusive to totalitarian regimes, but also pursued by important liberal democracies in the name of science. For an accurate account of Plato’s eugenics, see M. Veggetti, “La ‘razza pura’” in Platone: Repubblica, ed. M. Vegetti, op. cit., 299. 18 Donald R. Morrison. “The Utopian Character of Plato’s Ideal City” in The Cambridge Companion to Plato’s Republic, ed. G. R. F. Ferrari (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2007) 236. 19 Mario Vegetti, “Il regno filosofico” in Platone: Repubblica, ed. Mario Vegetti (Naples: Bibliopolis, 2000), 336, my translation. 20 All translations of Plato’s Laws refer to Plato, The Laws, translated by Thomas Pangle (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1988). 21 Malcolm Schofield, Saving the city: Philosopher-Kings and other classical paradigms (London: Routledge, 1988), 40. 22 All translations of Aristotle’s Politics refer to Aristotle, The Politics, translated by Trevor Saunders (Oxford, Clarendon Press, 2002). 3 4

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Mario Vegetti, “La critica aristotelica alla Repubblica nel secondo libro della Politica, il Timeo e le Leggi” in Platone: Repubblica, ed. Mario Vegetti (Naples: Bibliopolis, 2000), 443, 446, my translation. 24 See Ludwig Edelstein, Plato’s Seventh Letter. (Leiden: Brill, 1966), a point also made by Michael Frede, “Seminar 1” in The Seventh Platonic Letter: a seminar, ed. M. Burnyeat et al. (Oxford: Oxford U. Press, 2015). 25 Paulo Butti di Lima. Platone: l’utopia del potere (Venezia: Marsilio, 2015), 27. 26 Michael Frede, “Seminar 4” in The Seventh Platonic Letter: a seminar, 51, 52. 27 D. Scott, “Editor’s guide” in The Seventh Platonic Letter: a seminar, 94-96, claims the Letter takes a position on the best constitution and clearly affirms, at 326b5-6, that it was on his first visit to Sicily, not later, that Plato thought philosopher-kings were the only way for a just city. 28 Miles Burnyeat, “The pseudo-philosophical digression in Epistle VII” in The Seventh Platonic Letter: a seminar, 131. 29 Translation refers to Plato, “Letters”, translated by Glenn Morrow in Plato, Complete works, ed. John Cooper (Indianapolis: Hackett, 1997). 23

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Parnassos Press – Fonte Aretusa Chapter Title: The Education of Tyrants: Democratic Education in the Republic Chapter Author(s): Samantha Deane Book Title: Philosopher Kings and Tragic Heroes Book Subtitle: Essays on Images and Ideas from Western Greece Book Editor(s): Heather L. Reid and Davide Tanasi Published by: Parnassos Press – Fonte Aretusa Stable URL: http://www.jstor.com/stable/j.ctvbj7gjn.13 JSTOR is a not-for-profit service that helps scholars, researchers, and students discover, use, and build upon a wide range of content in a trusted digital archive. We use information technology and tools to increase productivity and facilitate new forms of scholarship. For more information about JSTOR, please contact [email protected]. Your use of the JSTOR archive indicates your acceptance of the Terms & Conditions of Use, available at https://about.jstor.org/terms This content is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License (CC BY-NC-ND 4.0). To view a copy of this license, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/.

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Samantha Deane1 The Education of Tyrants: Democratic Education in the Republic Introduction In the Seventh Letter, Socrates’s attempt to educate Dionysius on the principles of just rule indicate that Plato was deeply concerned about the establishment of a just political system in a place where he saw the potential to accomplish what had proved impossible in Athens. The education of potential tyrants, like Dionysius, by way of a “nontechnical dialectic” is a vital concern of both the Republic and Plato’s Seventh Letter. In the Seventh Letter Plato is certainly not counseling Dionysus to become a democrat, and is in fact hoping to discover his illusive philosopher king. Nonetheless, I argue that the educational protreptic of the Seventh Letter is democratic because Plato has come to see democracy as the viable option for the nonideal world. To elucidate the educative labor of Socrates, a labor that is democratic by orientation and ethically preoccupied with the tyrant, I begin by crafting a picture of democracy’s relationship to education given renderings of democracy in Book of VIII Plato’s Republic.2 I argue that Socrates’s criticism of and warnings about democracy lead the careful reader to acknowledge a productive tension latent in Socrates’s admonishments. Democracy may reside a tinge above tyranny in the official story of Book VIII, but it proves to be vital for the material existence of philosophy. If a sick democracy is one where citizens shed and adopt divergent constitutions as a bee meanders from flower to flower, then a healthy democracy ought to be one where citizens think deeply about their being. A healthy democracy demands education that will teach its future citizens to think critically about their civic associations. By way of a careful reading of the Republic I hope to show that a healthy democracy demands a nontechnical dialectic education of the sort practiced by Socrates, but not necessarily as it is outlined in Books VI and VII.3 Moreover, the sort of dialectic education Socrates practices in the Republic and in his correspondence with Dionysius I 159 This content downloaded from 201.22.189.53 on Fri, 16 Oct 2020 19:56:25 UTC All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms

and Dionysius II is, in fact, democratic education in that it illuminates the importance of freedom to consider one’s personal constitution as well as the necessity of association. The legacy of democratic education does not merely begin with Athens because the Athenians are accredited with being the first to experiment with democracy. Rather, an essential component of democratic education is evident in Plato’s thoughts on the prospect of political education for a just and non-tyrannical political world. Constitutions in the Republic The Republic is a text about things pertaining to the polis; it is Plato’s longest answer to the problem of associated living. After forgoing the austere city early in Book II Socrates comes to say that, “the best governed city is the one in which people say mine and not mine about the same things in the same way.”4 Prima facie, Book VIII’s story of degenerating constitutions is premised on people ceasing to agree on the terms of society. Circumscribed within the story of degeneration is the evolution of democracy. As the story goes, after the poor democrat comes to understand the oligarch’s “cultivated” weakness civil war ensues.5 At 557a Socrates indicates that, “Democracy comes about when the poor are victorious, killing some of their opponents, expelling others, giving an equal share in ruling under the constitution, and for the most part assigning people to positions by rule of lot.” At 560c-d democracy is also described as a disease that comes from the outside to seduce the son of the oligarch, who lacks the necessary education to ignore the seduction of the lotus eaters. As the democratic disease spreads, an internal revolution leads the young democrat to live with the majority.6 In so doing, he exiles the desires that ruled his oligarchic constitution namely moderation and reverence, welcoming instead insolence, anarchy, extravagance, and shamelessness; couching each in positive values of the democracy.7 Finally, by allowing equality to each desire he surrenders rule of himself to whichever desire reigns on any given day. Socrates’s issue with the equality of desires is similar to the issue he identifies with Callicles’s hedonism in the Gorgias: if all desires are equal, then all pleasures are equal, which means happiness is 160 This content downloaded from 201.22.189.53 on Fri, 16 Oct 2020 19:56:25 UTC All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms

predicated on the satisfaction of whichever desires rules at the 8 moment. As Socrates characterizes him, the democratic person has no appetite for the necessary discrimination of desires; instead he is liable to follow each desire like bee to honey. Socrates’s democratic individual and the entire system, for that matter, is characterized by its lack of definition. In Saxonhouse’s parlance, “Book 8... presents democracy as a regime that in its insistence on freedom and equality 9 is a regime of formlessness, one that lacks eide.” Lacking eide, the only thing that defines the democratic city is its love for freedom and equality. Socrates’s fundamental issue with democracy rests on the broad and ambiguous quality of freedom, because freedom means everyone has the license to do what they want; thus, they can choose to arrange their life in any manner that suits their constitution.10 What becomes apparent and problematic, especially in light of Socrates’s definition of justice, is that all varieties of people and all varieties of constitutions will thrive under this one singular constitution.11 Under the umbrella of a democratic constitution the value of minding your own techne is lost— instead you have the freedom to mind everyone’s or none at all. Paul Woodruff nuances the way we ought to think about freedom as a democratic Athenian construct.12 As Woodruff explains it, “On the positive side, if you are free, then you are free to do something, and the Athenians wanted to be free to take part in their own government. On the negative side, if you are free, there are certain things you are free from. In Athens, what the people wanted to be free from...was tyranny.”13 While the freedom Socrates’s speaks of in Book VIII most often accounts for a person’s ability to appease their appetite, if we are to remain in the mindset of the Republic, then we can also infer that freedom corresponds to freedom to rule oneself—to be free from internal tyranny or to be free to do what is your own. Greg Recco delineates the problem of freedom within the constraints of the liberal and illiberal person to say just this. Within Recco’s construct, liberality is the emulation of moderation; it is choosing to use your freedom to live responsibility within your community.14 Accordingly, license correlates with “freedom to” in the sense that one has the freedom to do whatever they desire; however, in choosing to do one thing other actions are 161 This content downloaded from 201.22.189.53 on Fri, 16 Oct 2020 19:56:25 UTC All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms

necessarily limited. Freedom does not, therefore, have to be understood as freedom from the responsibility to live an arranged psychic and physical life, and, yet, this is Socrates’s strongest grievance. At 563d Socrates states: “To sum up,” democracy that is, “Do you notice how all these things together make the citizens’ souls so sensitive that, if anyone even puts upon himself the least degree of slavery, they become angry and cannot endure it. And in the end, as you know, they take no notice of the laws, whether written or unwritten in order to avoid having any master at all.” The democrat “becomes” when he discards moderation, takes freedom to be his only master, and equates law with oppression, but in so doing he opens himself itself up to dissolution. The onslaught of tyranny is ushered in with the intoxicating prospect of complete freedom; desiring no master the democrat invites tyranny into his soul in a vain attempt to protect his freedom. Dialectical Practice: The Labor of Socrates If a sick democracy is one where citizens shed and adopt divergent constitutions, then a healthy democracy should to be one where citizens think deeply about their being. A healthy democracy would demand an education that teaches its future citizens to think critically about their civic associations. This is not to say that Socrates expounds on healthy democracies or imagines justice democratically—as people choosing their own good life. Nevertheless, even though Socrates does not expound on democracy’s laudable features, he does hint at a more generous reading, and that generous reading lies in the potentiality of the dialectic. Think back to the moment of degeneration that brings democracy into being; democracy is described as a disease that comes from the outside to seduce the son of the oligarch, who lacks the necessary education to ignore the seduction of the lotus eaters. When the disease spreads it affects previously held values and the young oligarch goes to live with the majority. This necessary education is, in fact, the ability to engage in Socratic elenchus — to stand up to the test of the dialectic. Now, a “necessary education” 162 This content downloaded from 201.22.189.53 on Fri, 16 Oct 2020 19:56:25 UTC All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms

that could stave off the revaluation of oligarchic values may not be possible given the fact that oligarchy is premised on the private acquisition of money and “bad discipline.”15 Or put another way, in the case of oligarchy, those faced with dialectical practice ought to revalue their oligarchic values making the educational demand of the oligarchy incompatible with Socrates’s “necessary education.” Alternatively, when democracy is premised on life with the majority and the centrality of freedom, dialectic education becomes both possible and necessary. In fact, at 557d Socrates states that anyone looking to take up the task of “putting a city in order” as he and his interlocutors are doing, “should probably go to a democracy, as to a supermarket of constitutions, pick out whatever pleases him and establish that.” There is obvious distaste in the supermarket metaphor, but it is also a specific acknowledgement that dialectical activity is “ ‘probably’ only possible in a democracy.”16 The conception of the dialectic I am working with is not a technical one. While there are plenty of technical meanings ascribed to the dialectic in the Republic itself, these technical definitions often contradict explanations of the dialectic in other parts of the Platonic corpus.17 Thus, without a long digression on the technical meaning of the dialectic throughout Plato’s work, suffice it to say that a nontechnical understanding of the dialectic “originates in dialegesthai.”18 Following David Roochnik’s theorization of a nontechnical sense of the dialectic we can say, “there is no official Socratic method…there is only Socrates at work conversing with a variety of people in a variety of ways.”19 Thus, while there is not a comprehensive definition of dialegesthai to which we can now turn, there is a practice of it on which observations can be ventured. The five characteristics of dialegesthai in accordance with the nontechnical dialectic are: One, dialogue requires more than one person. Two, “because it is dialogical it is site specific.” Three, interruptions are a part of the conversation, such that they may redefine the conversation itself. Four, insofar as interruptions occur digressions will follow. Five, digressions often serve to revise and negate earlier propositions. Taken together these five observations lead to the conclusion that the text of the Republic must be interpreted in light of its entirety. After all it is a situated conversation between a handful of men who begin 163 This content downloaded from 201.22.189.53 on Fri, 16 Oct 2020 19:56:25 UTC All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms

with one question, digress into others, only to revise earlier propositions. Hence, the fact that “Plato articulates his views not in a single part of the dialogue but only in the whole conversation,” 20 requires us to be cognizant of the text as a functioning whole. If the dialectic is fundamentally expressed in conversation, then according to Gregg Recco it “should provide the ability to give an account of the being of each thing, arrived at through asking and answering.”21 It consists of knowing things in relation to a network of questions and answers, and while the dialectic is a positive process of education—in practice it presents a valid danger. When the old beliefs are discarded without sounds truths to take their place, or when a digression is never re-oriented toward the whole, one has effectively untied all of her Daedalus statues. This is the exact scenario presented in story of the oligarch’s son who becomes a democrat. At 560b Socrates says; “And seeing the citadel of the young man’s soul empty of knowledge, fine ways of living, and words of truth (which are the best watchmen and guardians of the thoughts of those men whom the gods love), they (false and boastfull words) finally occupy that citadel themselves.” Without the proper education based on dialectical practice the young oligarch has no recourse to withstand new democratic “truths.” There is a real worry here that the dialectic I am describing might sound a good deal like the method employed by sophists, who in Alexander Nehamas’s phrasing practice a “method of questionand-answer and who did not intentionally use fallacious reasoning.”22 However, this worry vanishes when we follow Nehamas and take Vlastos’s “say-what-you-believe” constraint into account. The “say-what-you-believe” constraint reflects the notion that Socrates’s aim in dialectic elenchus is to test the truth, not merely to win the argument. That is to say, “Socrates’s desire to test his interlocutors’ seriousness” is an effort to change their very lives. 23 Further, according to Nehamas the only thing that distinguishes philosophy from sophistry is the purpose of the conversation. The kind of dialectical practice advanced in the Republic requires one to engage in a conversation of reasonable questions and answers to get at the truth. The purpose of the conversation is to consider the things that pertain to life in society, in a polis. Therefore, it should be no 164 This content downloaded from 201.22.189.53 on Fri, 16 Oct 2020 19:56:25 UTC All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms

surprise that assessing the merits and ethics of life in the public requires dialectical practice. Since the plight of democracy is that it “allows for the blooming of a hundred flowers and ten thousand weeds,” education in a democracy must be dialectic education.24 With the proper education, that is, training in the dialectic, democracy facilitates the inclusion of diverse peoples and constitutions—justly. Diversity, which the kallipolis would censure, is thus not only necessary for interlocutors who are looking to create their ideal city, it is the fundamental education of human drama. In a healthy democracy Socratic “soulcraft” is utterly dependent on the working of dialectic elenchus to facilitate the human ability to determine associations. Dialectical practice is the linchpin that keeps the wheels of democracy spinning; further, when the ability to engage in vigorous honest conversation with one’s associates dissipates, tyranny is not long on the horizon. Despite all the ways in which a nontechnical dialectic helps flesh out the practice of Socrates, it is difficult to figure out what to do with Republic’s inherent tensions—just what does tyranny tell us about democracy? On the one hand, Socrates vividly details the decline of political constitutions in Book VIII, decidedly placing democracy a tinge above tyranny. Moreover, the ideal political constitution, the kallipolis, is profoundly undemocratic for the simple fact that it subordinates the individual to the community. On the other hand, the same text presents descriptions of dialectic and philosophic education that require the cautious reader to question the abasement of democracy. While it may be “absurd to call Socrates a democrat in his sense of the term,”25 what I am arguing is that Socrates has an interest in democracy, and that this interest is not entirely negative given a nontechnical understanding of dialectical practice as the work of conversing in a state of diversity. Thus, the Republic’s tensions direct us toward a Socrates whose labor is dialectical practice, the product of which turns out to be democratically educative. The Education of Dionysius If we think about the Republic as a whole text, we have a dialogue that begins with a query about death, ends with an eschatological myth about the journey of the soul, and considers the 165 This content downloaded from 201.22.189.53 on Fri, 16 Oct 2020 19:56:25 UTC All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms

various possibilities of life in the middle. It is a text characterized by interruptions, digressions, rebukes, insults, jokes, theoretical conversation, discussion, and recitation. In large part the text bears witness to Socrates’s conversation with Glaucon, who is central to his educative mission. But Glaucon doesn’t acquiesce to his role as a guardian so easily––after all, women would have a share in his labor and he finds this unacceptable. It is only after wading through the kallipolis, timocracy, and oligarchy that Glaucon finds a suitable life for diverse luxury and philosophical pursuits. The final image of the tyrant is Socrates’s warning— his last ditch effort to educate—that is, to fully turn the soul of the possible tyrant toward democracy. Since each soul and, of course, each city runs the risk of contracting tyrannical natures, Socrates is forever educating the potential tyrant. However, while there is a strong reason to think Plato believed he was in the process of turning the potential tyrant Dionysius into a philosopher king his method was democratically educative. In the case of Plato’s letters to Dionysius I, already established tyrant of formerly democratic Syracuse, and Dionysius II, his son, we have an extended conversation between Plato and actually existing tyranny. Over the course of the letters I, II, III, and XIII we see Plato pleading with Dionysius II to consider his future, to think through his actions, and to make friends with philosophy.26 Alternatively in Letter VII, the longest and most interesting, Plato writes a reply to Dion’s family and associates following Dion’s death. Here Plato writes about the process by which Dion came to believe, “the Syracusans… ought to be free and live under the best of laws.”27 Plato’s musings throughout letter VII center on the question of how one arrives at the belief that a people ought to be free and lawabiding, and his answer lies within a notion of friendship. Plato frames his life work as a call to friendship; a call to, first, befriend one’s self, and second, to befriend philosophy.28 This is the tactic he and Dion took with Dionysius, and even though it was unsuccessful in saving Dion’s life, Plato stays faithful to the idea in his counsel to Dion’s grief-stricken friends. To befriend oneself is to order one’s soul. It is to approximate justice and forgo vengeance. Nonetheless, it is not a journey one can embark on alone. In fact, the point of talking about a tyrant’s lack of 166 This content downloaded from 201.22.189.53 on Fri, 16 Oct 2020 19:56:25 UTC All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms

friends, the inability to choose associates, is to say that one cannot 29 befriend oneself without first befriending others. The problem is that friends by “facile comradeship,” are not the kind of companions 30 suitable for the joint pursuit of virtue. But friends made in the mutual pursuit of wisdom and virtue, in the foreground of a liberal culture, are the friends with whom one can embark on the adventure of philosophical friendship.31 Philosophical friendship obtains in conversation among those willing and able to order their souls. It might seem strange to say that the philosophical labor of Socrates was really that of making friends, as it is no secret that he was killed in part because of his foul personality. However, Plato’s letters are a testament to the notion that the task of educating the potential tyrant mandates the ability to talk with a variety of people in a variety of ways. It requires the work of Socrates. The letters are one point at which Plato is not using Socrates to speak. Whether authentic or not, they are another picture of Plato the philosopher. In this way, they evidence Plato taking on the work of Socrates. Let us not forget, explaining his own rationale for traveling to Syracuse Plato says, “above all I was ashamed lest I appear to myself as a pure theorist, unwilling to touch any practical task.”32 Plato chose to honor his friendship to Dion by doing the labor of Socrates, no small or entirely safe endeavor. Concluding Thoughts If we take the Republic to be an educative text advancing theories as pedagogy, then we have to take each image as necessary for our education. The final cave image does not override the initial sun image; rather, it builds upon the sun and divided line images to educate the reader and interlocutor. Recco argues that “the image must be interpreted in light of its final stage” and so too should Book VIII.33 The question is not whether Socrates or Plato was democratic, but rather what the final image of the tyrant tells us about the degeneration of constitutions in general and democracy in specific. The continuously devolving city of Book VIII reaches its final iteration with tyranny. While the tyrant of Book VIII appears to thrive on the license to do whatever he wants, he quickly becomes a slave to his own security arrangements. In the space between strong 167 This content downloaded from 201.22.189.53 on Fri, 16 Oct 2020 19:56:25 UTC All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms

democracy and its weak counterpart, tyranny, emerges a national security state where freedom is relinquished out of fear that it may be forcefully taken. The education of the potential tyrant, of Dionysius and Glaucon, to determine associations, to make friends, and to ultimately befriend philosophy is methodologically rooted in the practice of dialegesthai. What’s more dialegesthai is necessarily oriented toward freedom and diversity. The relationship between democracy and education in the Republic is best characterized by thinking back to the Republic’s setting on the seedy port of Athens. The Piraeus is a place of mixing and crossing. It is a place where new ideas and constitutions are traded—thus, is it also the space most in need of the labor of Socrates. To successfully thrive in an atmosphere where constitutions are traded and tried out one must be accustomed to conversing with a diverse array of people without losing oneself. In fact, the stability of the Piraeus is dependent upon residents who do not swoon at grandiose new constitutions but who are free to consider their merit. Insofar as we attend to both Socrates’s cautious appraisal of democracy as well as the ways in which he practiced dialegesthai, Socrates’s evaluation of democracy reminds us that a healthy democracy demands a trained soul and relationship with fellow citizens, not the unabashed worship of freedom. Dialogue and deliberation with diverse others is the heart of democracy, and educating children to live in a democracy requires that they know something about mediated face-to-face relationships. In the “digression” of the Seventh Letter, which in light of our reading is less digressing than first imagined, Plato tells us that, “knowledge is not something that can be put into word like other sciences; but after long-continued intercourse between teacher and pupil, in joint pursuit of the subject, suddenly, like light flashing forth when a fire is kindled, it is born in the soul and straightaway nourishes itself.” 34 Dialogue is the key “to figuring it out;” it is only through dialogue between friends that knowledge blossoms in the soul.

1

Samantha Deane is a Doctoral Student in the Department of Cultural and Educational Policy Studies at the University of Loyola Chicago, 820 N. Michigan Ave., Chicago, IL 60611. Her research explores philosophies

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of democratic education. Recent publications include: “Dressing Diversity:
Politics of Difference and the Case of School Uniforms” in Philosophical Studies in Education (46, 2015); Email [email protected]. 2 Plato, The Republic, in Plato Complete Works, edited by John M. Cooper (Indianapolis: Hackett Publishing, 1997). 3 That one can read Socrates has having an understanding of “healthy democracy” requires particular attention to the Republic as a whole. See Gregg Recco, Athens Victorious: Democracy in Plato's Republic, (Lexington Books, 2007). 4 Plato, Republic, 462c. 5 Ibid., 556d-e. 6 Ibid., 560c-d. 7 Ibid., 561c-d. 8 Plato, Gorgias, in Plato Complete Works, edited by John M. Cooper (Indianapolis: Hackett Publishing, 1997), 491e-492c. 9 Arlene W. Saxonhouse, "Democracy, Equality, and Eide: A Radical View from Book 8 of Plato's Republic." American Political Science Review 92, no. 02 (1998): 273. 10 Plato, Republic, 557b 11 “Then it looks as though this is the finest or most beautiful of the constitutions, for, like a coat embroidered with every kind of ornament, this city, embroidered with every kind of character type, would seem to be the most beautiful.” Plato, Republic, 557c. 12 Paul Woodruff, First Democracy: The Challenge of An Ancient Ideal, (New York: Oxford University Press, 2005), p. 67. 13 Ibid 14 Recco, Athens Victorious, 156-161. 15 Plato, Republic, 555d. 16 David Roochnik, Beautiful City: The Dialectical Character of Plato's Republic (Cornell University Press, 2008), p. 2. 17 Not to mention the fact that Socrates purposefully tells Glaucon that he won’t be able to follow a technical definition. Plato, Republic, 533a. 18 Roochnik, Beautiful City, 140. 19 Ibid., 142. 20 Ibid., 142-146. 21 Recco, Athens Victorious, 221. 22 Alexander Nehamas, “Eristic, Antilogic, Sophistic, Dialectic: Plato’s Demarcation of Philosophy from Sophistry,” in Virtues of authenticity: Essays on Plato and Socrates (Princeton University Press, 1999), 115. 23 Ibid., 116.

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Roochnik, Beautiful City, 12. Stanley Rosen, Plato’s Republic: A Study (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2005), 314. 26 Plato, Letter II, in Plato Complete Works, edited by John M. Cooper (Indianapolis: Hackett Publishing, 1997), 312c.; Plato, Letter I, in Plato Complete Works, edited by John M. Cooper (Indianapolis: Hackett Publishing, 1997), 310. 27Plato, Letter VII, in Plato Complete Works, edited by John M. Cooper (Indianapolis: Hackett Publishing, 1997), 324b. 28 Plato, Letter VII, 332d; 335d. 29 Ibid., 332d. 30 Ibid., 333e-335d. 31 Ibid., 334b; Bradley V Lewis, "The Rhetoric of Philosophical Politics in Plato's " Seventh Letter"." Philosophy & Rhetoric (2000): 30. 32 Plato, Letter VII, 328c. 33 Recco, Athens Victorious,196. 34 Plato, Letter VII, 341d-e. 24 25

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Parnassos Press – Fonte Aretusa Chapter Title: Power/Knowledge in Syracuse, or Why the Digression in the Seventh Letter is Not a Digression Chapter Author(s): Jill Gordon Book Title: Philosopher Kings and Tragic Heroes Book Subtitle: Essays on Images and Ideas from Western Greece Book Editor(s): Heather L. Reid and Davide Tanasi Published by: Parnassos Press – Fonte Aretusa Stable URL: https://www.jstor.org/stable/j.ctvbj7gjn.14 JSTOR is a not-for-profit service that helps scholars, researchers, and students discover, use, and build upon a wide range of content in a trusted digital archive. We use information technology and tools to increase productivity and facilitate new forms of scholarship. For more information about JSTOR, please contact [email protected]. Your use of the JSTOR archive indicates your acceptance of the Terms & Conditions of Use, available at https://about.jstor.org/terms This content is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License (CC BY-NC-ND 4.0). To view a copy of this license, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/.

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Jill Gordon1 Power/Knowledge in Syracuse, or Why the Digression in the Seventh Letter is Not a Digression Introduction Scholars presumably believe that the Seventh Letter’s discussion of names, definitions, image, knowledge and the thing itself (onomata, logoi, eidolon, epistēmē, auto, 342a-345b) takes the narrator’s attention away from the letter’s political concerns, and so consider it a “digression.”2 Perhaps, however, the digression is not a digression at all. The letter itself describes the discussion as a story and a wandering (tōi muthōi kai planōi, 344d), and it warrants investigation whether the passage is integral to the surrounding themes of the Letter. This exploration of Seventh Letter is inspired, in part, by Foucault’s insights into knowledge and power, or more specifically, what he calls regimes of discourse and regimes of truth. It will address some of the views proffered in his 1971 Lectures on the Will to Know,3 which provides a lens through which to view the Letter and to understand the function of the so-called digression as part of a continuous whole, comprising the political, the epistemic, and the discursive. The entire letter is a battle against false logoi, an attempt to persuade with true logoi, the inherent difficulty of each task, and the political stakes of that situation. In short, Foucault’s work can help us to see that the digression is not a digression, after all. In order to demonstrate that the so-called digression in the Seventh Letter is integral to the letter as a whole, I first present Foucault’s genealogy of truth and explain how it bears on the Letter. Foucault’s genealogy begins with the Homeric oath and ultimately links truth to discourse, and both truth and discourse to political power and justice in the classical period. In the second section of the essay I turn to the letter itself and show what type of document it is: a truth-telling document, as Foucault accounts for truth in the classical period. Then in part III I show that the “digression” addresses certain obstacles to truth telling and thus to power, rooting these obstacles in the limitations of discourse itself. In the final section, the argument turns to rhetorical and sophistic regimes of truth that originate in Sicily, and the manner in which these are 171 This content downloaded from 201.22.189.53 on Fri, 16 Oct 2020 19:56:35 UTC All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms

unstable logoi that challenge the narrator’s vision of truth and power. The Letter, which can thus be read as a continuous whole, works against this instability, gesturing at establishing truth and power by way of a stable logos. At the same time, however, the Letter indicates that instability is inherent in word, definition, and image. The Letter thus raises challenging and perhaps paradoxical issues for knowledge, truth, power, and stability. Genealogy of ancient regimes of truth In his 1971 lectures, Foucault is beginning to formulate ideas about truth and power that appear later in his better known work from the mid-1970s and early 1980s, though in a slightly different idiom. In this earlier work, Foucault traces two transitions in Greek institutional systems of truth: first, a transition from the archaic period to Solon, and second, a transformation from those early years of Athenian democracy into the late classical period. I situate the Letter against the background Foucault establishes regarding truth regimes, mindful of the concern in the classical period about the epistemic commitments and discursive practices of sophists and rhetoricians. This necessitates paying attention to what the Letter tells us about truth, which in turn, if Foucault’s insights are correct, reveals something about what it has to tell us about power. Most importantly, it tells us something about the integral nature of the Letter and its “digression,” which is my primary concern. According to Foucault’s genealogy, truth in the archaic period emerges from an agōn, or struggle, in which one party swears an oath as a challenge to another. By accepting or not accepting that challenge, the truth emerges through the struggle. “…[T]he assertion assumed or conceded does not fundamentally concern the truth of the proposition, but the speaking subject’s will to hold to what he has said. The assertion belongs to the realm of the oath rather than to that of the factual observation” (62). Foucault illustrates his view through two examples, both from the Iliad: the dispute regarding whether Antilochus cheated in a chariot race to overcome Menelaus, despite having weaker horses (23.565-614); and the scene on Achilles’s shield depicting a dispute (18.497-509). I shall limit myself to his analysis of the first, which is 172 This content downloaded from 201.22.189.53 on Fri, 16 Oct 2020 19:56:35 UTC All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms

representative of his fundamental point that truth is established in this archaic period through swearing an oath and making a challenge.4 In this scene between Menelaus and Antilochus, Foucault tells us that, at first, Menelaus proposes to bring the case before the “guides” of the Argives for them to judge in front of the people. But then he immediately changes his mind and gives the judgment to himself. “And ‘according to rule,’ he proposes that Antilochus swear ‘by he who holds up the earth, who shakes it’ that he did not impede Menelaus’s chariot… Antilochus gives way, acknowledging his fault (74).”5 Foucault understands this episode as a kind of truth procedure in which “The truth is not what one says (or the relationship between what one says and what is or is not the case in fact). It is what one confronts, what one does or does not accept to face up to. It is the formidable force to which one surrenders. It is an autonomous force” (75). Even more vividly, he claims that in the archaic world, Truth does not have its seat in discourse…One approaches it through discourse; discourse, in the form of the oath and the imprecation, designates the person who has exposed himself to its unbearable gaze. If something is disclosed in the oath of truth, it is not what happened, it is not things themselves, but rather the defenseless nakedness of the person who agrees to being seized by it, or on the contrary the evasion of the person who tries to escape it…The power of the truth is not introduced by an arbitral intervention. One of the two parties throws down a challenge to the other…This means that the oath in which the truth is asserted always arises from the series of rivalries. It is a phase of the agōn, one of the faces of struggle. (75)

Foucault summarizes the elements of archaic truth as struggle, confrontation, challenge to make the oath of truth, and finally, confrontation with the gods (77). Truth is not observed; it is sworn: oath and imprecations.—The word of truth does not rest on what has been seen or experienced; it exposes itself to the possible future anger of the gods.—The word of truth does not disclose what has happened; although directed at the facts, it indicates the person who takes the risk, by excluding the person who declines the risk.—Finally, it does not found a just decision; through its specific effectiveness, it wins the day. (84)

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As Foucault works to establish the points on which he will contrast archaic truth with truth in the classical period, he tells us that The non-verbal equivalent for the word of truth is the ordeal, the test, or being exposed or exposing someone to undefined danger. Taking the oath of truth or exposing oneself to the danger of blows, the thunderbolt, the sea, wild beast…In archaic judicial practice, the word of truth is not linked to light and looking at things; it is linked to the obscurity of the future and uncertain event. (85)

Hesiod’s texts prove crucial, according to Foucault, in bridging the archaic and the classical modes of truth, moving the Greeks from truth as oath and ordeal in the archaic period, to truth as independent arbiter in the classical period. The fulcrum for this shift from this archaic to the classical notion of truth is krineîn, a particular kind of judgment that relies on deciding and discerning. Foucault sees in Hesiod two forms of “judgment,” dikazein and krineîn, which he says are “correlative” (94), and most significant to his genealogy, krineîn “gradually occupies the whole space of Greek judicial practice” (90). The transition from the truth of the archaic period— truth rooted in agōn and the swearing of oaths to the gods, including Dikē and Zeus—relies on the emergence of dikaion from Dikē. In dikaion, as opposed to Dikē, justice and good judgment are now rooted in measure, balance, and order. In Hesiod’s texts, these are evident in time cycles in human life and in cosmic movement; in planting and sowing; indebtedness and paying back; moments of promise and remittance. In short, dikaion is found in the cosmic order and the reflective order of the “works and days” of human life. “The decisive oath is replaced (or at least begins to be replaced) by the judgment-measure. At the same time, the truth-challenge, truth by ordeal is replaced by truth-knowledge” (108). The truth knowledge here in Hesiod is rooted in discerning the measure of time, in discerning the measure of labor, the measure of growing, and so forth. As an intermediate figure, then, Hesiod points the way forward in the long genealogy from the invocation of the divine Dikē to dikaion, from dikaion to krinein, and finally in the classical period, from krinein to alētheia, that is to say, a genealogy, beginning from Justice, then justice, then discernment, and finally truth. 174 This content downloaded from 201.22.189.53 on Fri, 16 Oct 2020 19:56:35 UTC All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms

Foucault turns to judicial institutions to find that in classical judicial practices truth emerges as a third entity, separate and independent of either of the two parties to a dispute. It is spoken by a literal third party, the witness, who is on neither one side nor the other (75). The witness conveys factual observation through speech, and truth decides between people (77). The decision of justice will have to be right (juste), the sentence will have to express dikaion and alēthēs, the just and the true, that which is fitted to the order of the world and things, and which restores this very order when it has been disturbed…[T]he knowledge which was linked to power…will now be linked to dikaion. Its primary role will be to ensure relations of justice, to help restore order, to put things back in their place and time. Knowledge will not be produced [in order] to triumph, master, and govern, so much as to enable and even constrain repayment of what is due. To be in the truth will be more to be in the just than to be in power. (120)

What we see developing in the Athenian court system is paradigmatic of this regime of truth, and knowing and telling the truth are bound up with justice. Truth and Justice in the Seventh Letter The Seventh Letter reflects this classical regime of truth in which judgment of truth is made on the facts of the matter as told by a witness. It makes truth claims, it presents its narrator as a witness and its audiences as judges of the truth, and it links judging and truth to justice. Plato to Dion’s associates and friends, Greetings. You wrote to me that I ought to consider that your policy was the same as that which Dion had; and moreover you charged me to support it, so far as I can, both by deed and word. Now if you really hold the same views and aims as he, I consent to support them, but if not, I will ponder the matter many times over. And what was his policy and his aim I will tell you, and that as I may say, not from mere conjecture but from certain knowledge… Dion… believed that the Syracusans ought to be free and dwell under the best laws… Now the manner in which these views originated is a story well worth hearing for young and old alike, and I shall endeavor to narrate it to you from the beginning; for at the present moment it is opportune. (323-324b, my emphasis)6

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The letter announces in these early lines that it is based on the narrator’s knowledge of events and that it is something worth hearing. 7 Its narrator bears witness to facts that will adjudicate the truth for the hearers of the letter, and the letter aims to convey a truth over against rumors or falsities that are circulating among Dion’s friends.8 These introductory themes resonate with Foucault’s understanding of changes in Greek notions of truth and justice, and they will help to shed light on the “digression,” which raises concerns about the limitations of names, definitions, images, and knowledge. The inherent limitations of these likewise limit justice. Before saying anything about his voyages to Syracuse or the righteousness of Dion, the narrator begins with Socrates’ treatment at the hands of the Thirty, which grounds the connections between truth and justice. He says that in his youthful mind, he assumed that the Thirty would lead the city from an unjust way of life to a just way of life (ek tinos adikou biou epi dikaion, 324d). In a short time, however, he saw that this was not true, and above all, he saw the previous regime in the city as a golden age, by comparison, when he saw how the Thirty treated Socrates, who is described here as “the most just” (dikaiotaton, 324e). Plato thus makes it clear here that he is testifying about the just and the unjust. The Thirty Tyrants constituted a regime that could treat the most just unjustly. Plato moves quickly from the regime of the Thirty, whose demise led him to believe again that he might participate in politics, to the indictment and execution of Socrates under the democracy, which forever convinced him that the tribes of humanity will have no freedom from evils until the correct and true philosophers rule or those in power in the cities have a divine share in philosophy (326a-b). This, he tells us, was his mindset when he arrived for the first time in Sicily. These opening pages of the letter thus establish Plato’s purpose—to tell the truth or bear witness—and his state of mind—convinced that the wrong people were in power everywhere and that he did not, as a result, wish to participate in politics. The narrator then introduces the connection between logos and politics, thus unveiling a regime of truth, which enriches the narrative leading up to the so-called digression:

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How can I say that my coming to Sicily then was the beginning of all these disasters? Dion was a young man at that time, and in our conversations I imparted to him (mēnuōn dia logōn) my ideas of human welfare and urged him to put them into practice; and in so doing I was secretly, and all unwittingly, working for the future destruction of the tyranny (326e-327a).

Tracing this link between logos and politics through the first half of the Letter highlights its thematic role and consequently puts the digression in a new light. Just after the passage cited above, Plato emphasizes that the quick-witted Dion grasped his arguments (logous, 327a) and that he came to embody in action what he had grasped from right argument (orthōn logōn, 327c). These passages convey clearly that instruction through logoi can lead to the overthrow of tyranny. The particular logoi that Dion heard and acquired under Plato’s tutelage led to his desire for the noblest and best life and, ultimately, to attempt to overthrow the tyrant. Before that happened, however, Dion and Plato made several attempts to get that future tyrant, Dionysius the Younger, to hear the correct logos from Plato. Plato also tells us that Dion urged his visit to Syracuse because the time was right because of his (Dion’s) own power (tēn hautou dunamin, 328a) in Syracuse, the youth of Dionysius, and the extent of the empire in Italy. Now, if ever, Dion urged, was the time to see philosophers rule in the great cities (327e-328a). The Letter conveys that logos plays a central role in that possibility. Plato takes on the task with some trepidation of failure, and in his dreams he is urged to bring logos in the form of arguments and persuasion to Dion and to Syracuse. At one point he imagines the voice of Dion, saying, “O Plato, I come to you as an exile not to beg for foot-soldiers, nor because I lack horse-soldiers to ward off mine enemies, but to beg for arguments and persuasion (logōn kai peithous), whereby you above all, as I know, are able to convert young men to what is good and just and thereby to bring them always into a state of mutual friendliness and comradeship” (328d-e). Upon his arrival, Plato finds that Dion’s name is mired in slander (diabolōn, 329b), and his fear increases now, lest Dionysius take him as a further threat because of his associations with Dion. One cannot help but think of the same slander that undoes Socrates, as described in Plato’s Apology (18d, 20c, 20d, 20e, and 28a), a poignant case of logos aimed at truth 177 This content downloaded from 201.22.189.53 on Fri, 16 Oct 2020 19:56:35 UTC All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms

and justice. Clearly the Letter indicates that Plato must bring true logos to Syracuse to prevent another injustice from happening. And further, he must undo another logos, the false logos circulating about Dion’s intentions. After describing Dionysius’s disguised abduction of him in Syracuse, Plato reports the need to expose the truth of what was really happening: “But what were the facts? For the truth must be told” (to d’eiche dē pōs? To gar alēthes dei phrazein, 330a). This narration typifies Foucault’s description of the new regime of truth ushered in to classical Greece. Plato thinks the best way to convince Dionysius that he was his special friend, and closer to him than to Dion, was to occupy the young tyrant with learning and listening to Plato; nonetheless, Dionysius continued to be distracted by the talk of the slanderers (tous tōn diaballontōn logous, 330b) and fearing the success of Dion’s designs against him. Plato carried on nonetheless, hoping Dionysius might develop a genuine desire for philosophy. On Plato’s second visit to Syracuse, the concerns with words, language, and political power continue. He prefaces the tale of his second visit with an apt analogy that again highlights the political role of logos (330c-331d). The doctor would only counsel the patient who could listen to the advice and benefit from it by changing her actions accordingly; likewise, with diseased regimes, the good man knows when to stop giving counsel to a regime or ruler that will not listen to the advice. So likewise it behooves the man of sense to hold, while he lives, the same view concerning his own State: if it appears to him to be ill governed he ought to speak (legein men,), if [it] so be that his speech is not likely to prove fruitless nor to cause his death (ei melloi mēte mataiōs erein mēte apothaneisthai legōn... (331c-d)

Speaking the truth can right the city, but not always. Anticipating the themes introduced by the “digression,” we can see here that there are limitations to logos. It is possible that a true logos, such as sound advice to a ruler, can go unheeded, and a false logos, such as the false rumors that circulate about Dion, can be persuasive. A central aim of Plato’s counsel to Dionysius—expressed in unclear and veiled logos (legontes ouk enargōs ho’utōs, ou gar hēn asphales, ainittomenoi de kai diamachomenoi tois logois…, 332d) for 178 This content downloaded from 201.22.189.53 on Fri, 16 Oct 2020 19:56:35 UTC All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms

reasons of safety—was that the tyrant needed to cultivate more loyal friends in order to create and sustain lasting political power. “And if he had pursued the course we described (legomen) and made himself right minded (emphrona) and sober minded (sōphrona),” then he could have united the cities of Sicily against the barbarians and had twice the empire of his father (332d-333a). The letter goes on to relate what one might describe as Dionysius’s inability to discern (krinein) the true from the false. He listens to the slanderers and what they say (ho de tois diaballousin hupēkousen kai legousin…, 333b) about Dion and Dion’s motives instead of seeing Dion’s acts as an attempt to improve the power of Syracuse, and Dionysius himself (333b-c). The contested ground here is most assuredly things said and whether they attach to some truth or not. And, Dionysius’s failures, even those we might consider his moral failures, are attached to this failure at hearing the correct logos, hearing logoi correctly, and getting the truth. The problem, of course, was that these slanderous logoi triumphed in Syracuse (tauta tote enikēse kai to deuteron en Surakosiois legomena…, 333c), Plato failed in his attempts to persuade, and Dionysius acted against Dion. The narrator concludes this segment of the letter saying emphatically “This is my logos” (ho g’emos logos, 334c). Stressing the point, he says again that “these are the words I said” (ego legōn tauta, 334c), and had Dionysius or the slanderers listened and been persuaded by these logoi, perhaps justice, power, and philosophy might have been joined together in the same person (335c-d). There is power in words and arguments, and their power can upset a tyranny. Perhaps. In the final segment of the Letter preceding the so-called digression, the narrator again says he is bound by justice to tell the truth (Dikaios dē legein eimi t’alēthes, 339a), reconfirming the Letter as a truth telling logos, a witness’s testimony to matters of fact. The narrator tells the reader that once again the recurring argument (palin ho logos, 339a) was that Plato should not betray Dion and so must go again to Syracuse to see whether any of the reports were true that Dionysius had great desire for philosophy (339d-e). He investigates the rumors that Dionysius is keen on philosophy and finds out the truth of the matter by way of a test (elenchon, 340b). 179 This content downloaded from 201.22.189.53 on Fri, 16 Oct 2020 19:56:35 UTC All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms

There exists a method for testing (esti dē tis tropos tou peri ta toiauta peiran lambanein), he tells us, which is not ignoble (ouk agennēs, 340b) and which works well with tyrants: show them how arduous will be the task, what many things will need be done, and then see whether they are still enthused for the task (340b-341a). This test, he says, is most clear and most infallible in separating out those ready, and those not ready, to study philosophy. When he told Dionysius that there was this test, the young tyrant simply replied that he already was sufficiently informed about Plato’s doctrines (341a). The narrator famously tells his readers: “There does not exist, nor will there ever exist, any treatise of mine dealing therewith.” (oukoun emon ge peri auton esti suggramma oude mēpote genētai, 341c). And here begins the digression and its discussion of word, argument, image, and knowledge. The So-Called Digression The digression is itself a demonstration of the very test the author of the letter is referring to. If the audience of the letter can get through this difficult passage, then the narrator may know whether they are serious about grasping the truth and creating justice in Syracuse. In this way already, the digression seems more of a piece with the rest of the Letter, but there are deeper reasons for viewing the digression as an integral part of the rest of the Letter and its concerns about truth and logoi. The arduous piece of philosophizing, looks like this in a simplified form:9 There is a true argument (tis logos alēthēs, 342a) that the narrator has frequently laid out in the past, and it points to the weakness of language or logos (dia to tōn logōn asthenes, 343a). In order to have perfect knowledge (teleōs epistēmēs, 342d) of any thing in-itself, one must grasp four other things: its name, its definition, its image, and then knowledge—a knowledge of these three preceding things. The soul endeavors to know the thing itself, which the Letter emphasizes is fixed and stable (bebaios, 343b),10 but the instruments of knowledge (name, definition, and image) give the soul what it is not seeking, namely stability, and instead fill everyone with the utmost perplexity and confusion (aporias te kai asapheias epimplēsi pasēs hōs epos epein pant’andra, 343c). We prove capable of using and testing 180 This content downloaded from 201.22.189.53 on Fri, 16 Oct 2020 19:56:35 UTC All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms

the four components of knowledge, but we do not do so well grasping the real thing itself. “And so with each of the Four, their inaccuracy is an endless topic…” (343b). When it comes to answering questions or making explanations about the thing itself, the Letter tells us: [A]nyone who is able and willing to upset the argument gains the day, and makes the person who is expounding his view by speech or writing or answers (en logois hē grammasin hē apokrisesi) appear to most of his hearers to be wholly ignorant of the subjects about which he is attempting to write or speak; for they are ignorant sometimes of the fact that it is not the soul of the writer or speaker that is being convicted (hē lexantos elenchetai) but the nature of each of the Four, which is essentially defective (343d-e).

The names, definitions, and images are essentially defective, and can thus be manipulated in such a way as to be refuted, but the speaker’s soul, or perhaps the things themselves, have not necessarily thus been refuted. This is a rhetorical outcome one might commonly see in sophistic, and it resonates with the concerns expressed in the early passages of the Letter that the friends of Dion will believe the rumors and not know the truth that the Letter is trying to convey. It matters very much then that names, logoi, images, and knowledge attach to stable things. Mirroring Foucault’s account of the classical view of truth in which dikaion is central, the Letter then claims that neither quickness in learning nor good memory makes someone capable of knowing the thing itself. Rather, only the person who is naturally akin to justice and all other forms of beauty (hoste hoposoi tōn dikaiōn te kai tōn allōn hosa kala, 344a) can attain truth. And even in those instances, only after much labor, after names, definitions, images and other things have been rubbed together, kneaded over time (tribomena), asking and answering questions, directing all their human powers— only then can the spark of illumination come to the nature of anything (344b). The narrator concludes by saying that every serious man avoids putting his most serious work in writing, but instead it “abides in the fairest regions he possesses” (keitai de pou en chōra tai kallistē tōn toutou, 344c). This cryptic, but utterly Platonic, claim is fitting. Even those naturally akin to justice will still need to engage in 181 This content downloaded from 201.22.189.53 on Fri, 16 Oct 2020 19:56:35 UTC All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms

serious dialectic in order to spark any illumination about reality, and due to the inherent limitations of names, definitions, and images, writing will not capture or convey that reality. Immediately after his discussion of the inherent limitations of names, definitions, images, and knowledge, the narrator appeals to those who are following along (ho sunepispomenos, 344d), and calls what the followers have been following a “story and wandering” (tōi muthōi te kai planōi, 344d). This particular description of the passage surprisingly furthers the case that the so-called digression is integral to the rest of the Letter. While the Greek term planō is now canonically translated as “digression,” it has various meanings. It is, first of all, a different term than what is used in the Theaetetus. There, the word translated as “digression” is parergon, which refers to something that is beside the main subject, subordinate to what is central, a secondary concern, an appendix, an ancillary purpose.11 In Theaetetus Socrates declares somewhat abruptly, “But this is a digression. —Let us turn away from these matters.” (Theaetetus, 177b). The term, planō, in the Letter means a wandering, a roaming. It can indicate continuity among the Letter’s themes, not discontinuity. The limitations of names, definitions, and images—that is to say, the limitations of logos, broadly construed—are central not peripheral to the narrator’s political concerns in the Letter, and the Letter wanders through these subjects. The links between the limitations of logos and the narrator’s political concerns echo similar concerns expressed in Plato’s dialogues. We have seen already the degree to which the Letter aims to speak out against rumors, to establish stability (bebaios) and truth, and to link these to stable and true politics. The attitude of the Seventh Letter is consistent with the Apology’s portrayal of the power of the rumors that helped to undo Socrates and with the anxiety over sophistry that animates Plato and other thinkers in the late classical period, especially the anxiety over unstable meaning of words and unstable objects of knowledge.12 This highlights exactly what is at stake in the Seventh Letter and what power underlies the new regime of truth defended in the Letter. Name, definition, and word are all powerful, despite their limitations; they can be used to persuade one of false rumors or create paranoia in a ruler about those who aim to 182 This content downloaded from 201.22.189.53 on Fri, 16 Oct 2020 19:56:35 UTC All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms

help the city, but they can also be used to persuade a young tyrant to practice philosophy or to persuade the friends of Dion that he aimed to benefit Syracuse and her allies. Lest we think in terms of a clean binary of truth and falsity, things in themselves and images of them, however, the Letter quite muddies these waters. Yes, the narrator aims to expose the truth, and yes the narrator is concerned about the power of the false rumors, and yes he links truth to justice. But he is also saying that there is something inherent to the logos that will always prevent our fully grasping truth, and hence will prevent perfect justice. Knowledge/Power in Syracuse Sicily is the birthplace of the self-conscious use of unstable discourse in the exercise of political power. There we see the origins of a certain kind of unstable logos. Tisias and Corax are taken to have invented rhetorical techniques that make their way into the public or political sphere.13 Though uncredited, Marcel Detienne’s 1967 work, The Masters of Truth in Archaic Greece, supplies much of the theoretical background to Foucault’s 1971 lectures, and he focuses on this unstable logos.14 Detienne tell us that “Both sophistry and rhetoric, which appeared with the advent of the Greek city, were forms of thought founded on ambiguity. This is not only because they developed in the political sphere, the particular world of ambiguity, but also because they defined themselves as instruments that formulated the theory and logic of ambiguity and made effective action on that same level of ambiguity possible” (116). As Foucault echoes in his own lectures,15 Detienne indicates that sophistry and rhetoric threaten or perhaps destroy stable truth discourse. “In a fundamentally ambiguous world, these mental techniques allowed the domination of men through the power of ambiguity itself” (118). Detienne locates power in the very aspect of the logos that worries the narrator of the Letter, namely, the political use of ambiguity: “Discourse was certainly an instrument, but not a way to know reality. Logos was a reality in itself, but not a signifier pointing to the signified. In this type of speech there was no distance between words and things” (118). Detienne explains how Sicilian rhetoric disrupted the type of 183 This content downloaded from 201.22.189.53 on Fri, 16 Oct 2020 19:56:35 UTC All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms

truth that the narrator of the Letter wishes to defend: “The power of logos is immense: it brings pleasure, dispels worries, fascinates, persuades, and changes things as though by magic. At this level, logos never attempts to tell Alētheia… Sophistry and rhetoric were thus beyond the scope of Alētheia” (118- 119).16 What the Letter aims to do is to tether justice (dikaion) to truth (alētheia). What is needed for that is a stable logos—a way for names, definitions, arguments and knowledge to attach to justice itself, and for justice to be true justice. Such a knowledge regime, whether discursive or political, might combat the slanderers and sophists, and secure a place for those who give witness to truth and justice. Although in a manner true to Platonic ambiguity, it might not. The so-called digression is therefore an integral part of the narrator’s attempts to bring truth and justice to Syracuse and, at the same time, to recognize the inherent limitations of the means to do that.

Jill Gordon is the Charles A. Dana Professor of Philosophy at Colby College. She is the author of Plato’s Erotic World: From Cosmic Origins to Human Death, (Cambridge University Press, 2012); Turning Toward Philosophy: Literary Device and Dramatic Structure in Plato’s Dialogues, (Penn State Press, 1999); and several journal articles in ancient Greek philosophy. She also publishes on philosophy of race, social philosophy, and economic justice. 2 I take no position here on the authenticity of the letter, but will refer to its narrator; when I do refer to “Plato,” I intend the personae of that narrator. My argument here does not depend on the authenticity of the letter as penned by Plato himself, but relies only on the letter’s origins in the late classical period and its author’s familiarity with Platonic work. There is a vast literature on the letter’s authenticity, but I direct the reader to the most recent work on the issue which is a lively, thorough, and erudite resource, if slightly grouchy: Myles Burnyeat & Michael Frede, The Pseudo-Platonic Seventh Letter, edited by Dominic Scott, (New York, Oxford University Press, 2015). 3 Michele Foucault, Lectures on the Will to Know: Lectures at the Collège de France, 1970-1971, edited by Arnold I. Davidson, (Palgrave McMillan, 2013). All page references to this text appear parenthetically in the text. 4 The shield depicts two men in dispute, and Foucault says it includes these important characteristics: “Each judge is linked to sovereignty when he speaks [holding the scepter]. To give his view is to be, for a time at 1

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least, sovereign… Nevertheless, we can see that this is a very limited and partial sovereignty… Sovereignty intervenes only indirectly since it only judges the judges and is present only symbolically in the scepter held by the judges”; “the matter of the murder itself is not submitted to the judges… [They] do not intervene with regard to the offence; they intervene with regard to the application of the legal customs put to work by private individuals in order to regulate their disputes”; “the judges are in a secondary position…they do not have to tell the truth: they do not have to establish the truth of the facts, they have to say what must be done”; and finally, “Supporters of the two adversaries are pressing around the scene where the dispute unfolds… It is a whole group of which he [the litigant] is a part. It is this group, as a whole, which will win or lose. The individual is not a subject of right” (79-80). 5 In his discussion of the depiction of an oath challenge on Achilles’s shield, Foucault sees signs of the transition to come in which the power of judgment, truth, and discourse are transformed: the identification of political and juridical power; the substitution of written law for the histōr, or wise judge; and judgments based on established fact (81). 6 R.G. Bury, Translator, Epistles, Seventh Letter, Loeb Classical Library, (Harvard University Press, 1989). All quotations come from this edition. 7 Hearing is the counterpart to witnessing, and thus we and the audience of the letter shall know the truth by hearing it from its author. Hearing and listening are clearly thematized in the letter, as evidenced by their frequent appearance: 335a ff.; 337e; 338e, 339a; 339e; 340c; 341b ff. Though listening could arguably be considered different from hearing, see Sophie Hartounian-Gordon, “Listening—in a Democratic Society,” Philosophy of Education Yearbook (2003): 1-18. 8 This project does not address Foucault’s work on parrhesia, “plain speaking” or “truth-telling,” which he develops later, in the early 1980s. 9 I do not intend this to be a detailed analysis of the “digression,” but rather an argument for its being continuous with the whole of the letter on philosophical and political grounds. There are, of course, many fine works on the Seventh Letter’s “digression,” and I consulted the following: Giorgio Agamben and Julia Schiesari, “The Thing Itself,” Substance 16:2 (1987): 18-28; Francisco J. Gonzalez, “Nonpropositional Knowledge in Plato,” Apeiron 31:3 (1998): 235-284; Andrew Hull, The Mystery of the Seventh Platonic Epistle: An Analysis of the Philosophical Digression, Doctoral Dissertation, Emory College of Arts and Sciences

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(2012); V. Bradley Lewis, “The Rhetoric of Philosophical Politics in Plato’s ‘Seventh Letter,’” Philosophy and Rhetoric 33:1 (2000): 23-38; Eric W. Robinson, “The Sophists and Democracy Beyond Athens,” Rhetorica 25:1 (2007): 109-122; and Harold Tarrant, “Middle Platonism and the Seventh Epistle,” Phronesis 28:1 (1983): 75-103. 10 Cognates of this term appear four times in just this portion of the Stephanus page at 343b. One could perhaps make the argument that the inherent instability in logos corresponds to an inherent instability in political power, both as depicted in the Seventh Letter and in other Platonic texts. 11 Liddell-Scott-Jones, Greek-English Lexicon, accessed through Perseus Project, www.perseus.tufts.edu. Planō can also mean deception, but that meaning is unlikely in this context. See also Phaedrus, 274a where a cognate of parergon is again used. See also Republic 411e, 477b, and 498a. See also Phaedo 91a. 12 For example, Book 4 of Aristotle’s Metaphysics Γ. 13 See, for example, D.A.G. Hinks, “Tisias and Corax and the Invention of Rhetoric,” Classical Quarterly 34:1/2 (1940): 61-69; and Thomas Cole, “Who Was Corax?” Illinois Classical Studies 16:1/2 (1991):65-81. Of course there are examples of unstable logoi, and of authors’ selfconscious reliance on them before Tisias and Corax. The particular type of political uses of their rhetoric, however, place them at the beginning of the kind of rhetoric that poses political and epistemic anxiety among the philosophers of the classical era. 14 Marcel Detienne, The Masters of Truth in Archaic Greece, with a forward by Pierre Vidal-Naquet, translated by Janet Lloyd, Zone Books, New York, 1996. I will cite this text parenthetically in the main body of the paper. Detienne’s influence is telegraphed by Foucault, Lectures on the Will to Know, 96, where he refers to Solon and Empedocles as “masters of truth,” and it is evident in substantive theoretical ways throughout the lectures. The translator and editors of Foucault’s lectures note various connections to Detienne’s work, and Daniel Defert also discusses Detienne in his essay, “Course Context,” included in the Foucault volume, 262-286. 15 Foucault, Lectures on the Will to Know, 62 ff. 16 See also Detienne, The Masters of Truth in Archaic Greece, 133-134 on Parmenides and the Eleatic effect on alētheia, which also causes this same kind of anxiety; and see Vidal-Naquet’s foreword, in that same volume, 11.

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Parnassos Press – Fonte Aretusa Chapter Title: Plato’s Discovery in Sicily: Philosophy and Life-Structuring Practices in the Seventh Letter Chapter Author(s): Robert Metcalf Book Title: Philosopher Kings and Tragic Heroes Book Subtitle: Essays on Images and Ideas from Western Greece Book Editor(s): Heather L. Reid and Davide Tanasi Published by: Parnassos Press – Fonte Aretusa Stable URL: https://www.jstor.org/stable/j.ctvbj7gjn.15 JSTOR is a not-for-profit service that helps scholars, researchers, and students discover, use, and build upon a wide range of content in a trusted digital archive. We use information technology and tools to increase productivity and facilitate new forms of scholarship. For more information about JSTOR, please contact [email protected]. Your use of the JSTOR archive indicates your acceptance of the Terms & Conditions of Use, available at https://about.jstor.org/terms This content is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License (CC BY-NC-ND 4.0). To view a copy of this license, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/.

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Robert Metcalf1 Plato’s Discovery in Sicily: Philosophy and Life-Structuring Practices in the Seventh Letter If Plato’s Seventh Letter is authentic (a matter of ongoing scholarly debate), it offers us a fascinating view into the philosopher’s thinking before and after his voyages to Sicily.2 Most famously, the Letter recounts his own disillusionment with politics in Athens before setting forth for Sicily (325c-d) and his hopes for having some meaningful impact on political life if he should convince the younger Dionysius of his ideas on these matters—an attempt, as he describes it, “to realize our theories concerning laws and government [τὰ διανοηθέντα περὶ νόμων τε καὶ πολιτείας ἀποτελεῖν ἐγχειρήσοι]” (328b).3 Those hopes were thoroughly disappointed in Sicily, and no doubt the bitterness of the experience colored his observations of the place. But what is most significant philosophically is what Plato discovered during his time in Sicily: namely, that an appreciation of philosophy as a life-structuring practice [epitēdeuma]—and, indeed, one that is radically incompatible with the practices that he found to be prevalent in Syracuse—goes hand in hand with the critique of writing famously articulated in the Seventh Letter (especially 341c-344d) as well as in the Phaedrus 275b,ff and the Statesman 294a-299e.4 The core idea here, implicit throughout Plato’s writings but presented most explicitly in the Seventh Letter, is that philosophy is not the sort of thing that one can take up aside from or untouched by one’s other practices, as if it were comparable to going once to the gym or taking up flute-playing on a whim (cf. Republic 561c-d). Rather, unless one takes up philosophy in the sustained and committed way required of it as an epitēdeuma, one will not understand the claims made within philosophical discourse. And yet, the ‘fixed’ character of writing (or at least treatise-writing) is shown by Plato to be anathema to the integrity of philosophy as an epitēdeuma allowing for, and requiring, change over time. In what follows I shall focus on the connections drawn in the Seventh Letter between Plato’s understanding of “life-structuring practices,” 187 This content downloaded from 201.22.189.53 on Fri, 16 Oct 2020 19:56:44 UTC All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms

epitēdeumata, and the critique of a certain kind of writing as the proper medium for philosophy. Epitēdeumata in Laches and Republic But to begin, we should note that life-structuring practices [epitēdeumata] are thematized extensively in Plato’s writings, and in such a way that lies in the background of the Seventh Letter. Consider, for example, how they are brought up for discussion early in the Laches—roughly 178a-190b—which is the stretch of the dialogue preceding Socrates’s question as to whether they know what virtue is [τὸ εἰδέναι ὅτι ποτ᾽ ἔστιν ἀρετή], a question that then turns into the project of defining that ‘part’ of virtue which is courage [ἀνδρεία] (190c-d). In this opening stretch of the dialogue, Lysimachus raises the issue as to what sort of training or ‘care of the self’ would make their sons the best men possible [πῶς ἂν θεραπευθέντες γένοιντο ἄριστοι] (179b), which is reformulated as follows: “so we are looking into the question as to what study or practice would make them turn out best [ἡμεῖς δὲ δὴ τοῦτο σκοποῦμεν, τί ἂν οὗτοι μαθόντες ἢ ἐπιτηδεύσαντες ὅτι ἄριστοι γένοιντο]” (179d). The locution, “study or practice” is repeated at 180a [μάθημα…ἢ ἐπιτήδευμα] and then is repeated a number of times in what follows (180c, 182c, 183a, 185b); yet, in context it is clear that the locution marks out not a disjunctive alternative, but rather an apposition that amplifies the sense of each term.5 In other words, the formulation, μάθημα…ἢ ἐπιτήδευμα, is meant, I take it, to hold open the range of possible life-structuring activities that might contribute to the parenting of a child, so that he turn out the best that he might be.6 Accordingly, the question of epitēdeumata and mathēmata in the Laches points to this pre-understanding of the terms: we are considering engaged, life-structuring activities—ones that require focus and ongoing dedication, such that the young men under one’s care are not “allowed to do whatever they please [ἀνεῖναι αὐτοὺς ὅτι βούλονται ποιεῖν]” (179a), but must submit to a training and discipline that ranges across the distinction between moral and intellectual. By the time Socrates takes over the discussion in the Laches, the focal question has become “the manner in which virtue 188 This content downloaded from 201.22.189.53 on Fri, 16 Oct 2020 19:56:44 UTC All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms

might be added to the souls of one’s sons to make them better [τίν᾽ ἂν τρόπον τοῖς ὑέσιν αὐτῶν ἀρετὴ παραγενομένη ταῖς ψυχαῖς ἀμείνους ποιήσειε]” (190b)—which suggests just what has been taken for granted all along, that it is through devotion to some lifestructuring practices rather than others that one becomes the best one can be. But of course it is the Republic that carries out the most sustained thematization of life-structuring practices [epitēdeumata], and in such a way that is most illuminating for reading the Seventh Letter. The question posed in Book II of the Republic, and then in play until the end of the work, is whether justice is “to be practiced [epitēdeuteon]” for its own sake or for some other benefit (358a, 358c, 359b, 360e, 362a). As he then goes about crafting a response to this question, Socrates theorizes guardians who are ‘naturally suited’ to their lifestructuring practice (374e)—an epitēdeuma incompatible with that of ‘imitation’ (394e-395d), as well as other things. Later, in Book IV, Socrates will lay down the rule that “each person must practice the one pursuit … for which he is naturally best suited” [ἓν δέοι ἐπιτηδεύειν τῶν περὶ τὴν πόλιν, εἰς ὃ αὐτοῦ ἡ φύσις ἐπιτηδειοτάτη πεφυκυῖα εἴη]” (433a), the philosophical/political importance of which is presented in a memorable passage: Every other citizen, too, must be assigned to what naturally suits him, with one person assigned to one job [καὶ τοὺς ἄλλους πολίτας, πρὸς ὅ τις πέφυκεν, πρὸς τοῦτο ἕνα πρὸς ἓν ἕκαστον ἔργον δεῖ κομίζειν], so that, practicing his own pursuit [ὅπως ἂν ἓν τὸ αὑτοῦ ἐπιτηδεύων], each one of them will become one not many, and the entire polis thereby naturally grow to be one, not many [ἕκαστος μὴ πολλοὶ ἀλλ᾽ εἷς γίγνηται, καὶ οὕτω δὴ σύμπασα ἡ πόλις μία φύηται ἀλλὰ μὴ πολλαί]. (423d)

Yet, famously, the idea of what is ‘naturally suited’ to a person is problematized by Socrates in the Republic, most dramatically in his discussion of women and guardianship in Book V. While women traditionally had been confined to the traditional practices of weaving, cooking, etc. (455c), Socrates argues that there is no practice [ἐπιτήδευμα] relevant to the management of the polis that belongs to a woman because she is a woman, or to a man because he is a man; but the various natural capacities are distributed

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in a similar way between both creatures, and women can share by nature in every practice [ἐπιτήδευμα]. (455d)

Accordingly, since what is at issue are not every kind of differences or sameness in natures, but only what pertains to practices [πρὸς αὐτὰ τεῖνον τὰ ἐπιτηδεύματα]” (455c-d), and since men and women differ only sexually (454d-e), Socrates concludes that “we shall believe that guardians and their women must have the same practices [δεῖν τὰ αὐτὰ ἐπιτηδεύειν]” (456b)—repeated later when he says that they “must practice all things in common” [δεῖ κοινῇ πάντα ἐπιτηδεύειν] (457b-c). The underlying conceptualization of epitēdeumata has it that they are practices shaping one’s life, and often at a pre-theoretical level— as is indicated for example, when Socrates remarks that the lawgivers for kallipolis will not need to legislate everything, since some things will follow of themselves from the life-structuring practices in place [τὰ δὲ ὅτι αὐτόματα ἔπεισιν ἐκ τῶν ἔμπροσθεν ἐπιτηδευμάτων] (427a).7 In later Books of the Republic, the fundamental significance of epitēdeumata is shown to have significant implications for Socrates’ discourse as to the relation between philosophy and the polis. In fact, his bold claim that those who are philosophical by nature should exercise political power will seem crazy to hoi polloi, since they “think that those who engage in philosophy long-term become utterly useless to society on account of the practice [ὑπὸ τοῦ ἐπιτηδεύματος]” (487a-d). For this reason, Socrates says that they must show hoi polloi what they mean by ‘philosophers’ and define their nature and show that the philosophical practice [ἐπιτήδευμα] that they have in mind is, in fact, the opposite of what it now is (497e, 499e-500a). At the same time, however, Socrates recognizes that the epitēdeumata now structuring the polis will be an obstacle to those with the right nature pursuing the philosophical practice. Referring to this predicament as “Diomedean compulsion,” Socrates asks how a young man with a philosophical nature can survive the rhetoricopolitical situations of the present, where there will be extreme pressure to “call the same things fair or foul as these people, practice what they practice, and become like them? [φήσειν τε τὰ αὐτὰ τούτοις καλὰ καὶ αἰσχρὰ εἶναι, καὶ ἐπιτηδεύσειν ἅπερ ἂν οὗτοι, καὶ ἔσεσθαι τοιοῦτον;]” (492c; see also 492d-493d). We shall return 190 This content downloaded from 201.22.189.53 on Fri, 16 Oct 2020 19:56:44 UTC All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms

to the political problem of philosophy understood as an epitēdeuma in what follows. Epitēdeumata in the Seventh Letter In any case, on the basis of these reflections upon life-structuring practices from the Laches and Republic, we can appreciate the issue addressed early in the Seventh Letter, when Plato writes about what he found in Sicily when he first traveled there: [A]t the time of my first arrival…I was in no wise pleased at all with the “happy life [βίος εὐδαίμων]” as it is they call it there, replete as it is with Italian and Syracusan banquetings; for thus one’s existence is spent in gorging food twice a day and never sleeping alone at night, and all the practices which accompany this mode of living [καὶ ὅσα τούτῳ ἐπιτηδεύματα συνέπεται τῷ βίῳ]. For not a single man of all who live beneath the heavens could ever become wise if these were his practices from his youth [ἐκ γὰρ τούτων τῶν ἐθῶν οὔτ᾽ ἂν φρόνιμος οὐδείς ποτε γενέσθαι τῶν ὑπὸ τὸν οὐρανὸν ἀνθρώπων ἐκ νέου ἐπιτηδεύων δύναιτο], since none will be found to possess a nature so admirably compounded; nor would he ever be likely to become temperate, and the same may truly be said of all other forms of virtue [οὐχ οὕτως θαυμαστῇ φύσει κραθήσεται σώφρων δὲ οὐδ᾽ ἂν μελλήσαι ποτὲ γενέσθαι, καὶ δὴ καὶ περὶ τῆς ἄλλης ἀρετῆς ὁ αὐτὸς λόγος ἂν εἴη]. And no polis would remain stable under laws of any kind, if its citizens, while supposing that they ought to spend/consume everything to excess, yet believed that they ought to cease from all exertion except partying and drinking and serious pursuit of sexual escapades [πόλις τε οὐδεμία ἂν ἠρεμήσαι κατὰ νόμους οὐδ᾽ οὑστινασοῦν ἀνδρῶν οἰομένων ἀναλίσκειν μὲν δεῖν πάντα εἰς ὑπερβολάς, ἀργῶν δὲ εἰς ἅπαντα ἡγουμένων αὖ δεῖν γίγνεσθαι πλὴν ἐς εὐωχίας καὶ πότους καὶ ἀφροδισίων σπουδὰς διαπονουμένας]. Of necessity these poleis never cease changing [μεταβαλλούσας] into tyrannies, oligarchies, and democracies, and the men who hold power in them cannot endure so much as the mention of the name of a just government with equal laws. (326b-d).8

While Moses Finley calls “outright nonsense” the complaint voiced in the Seventh Letter, to the effect that “that the people indulged in too much eating and too much sex,”9 the more basic point—namely, that the life-structuring practices that define a polis may be inhospitable to, or possibly even altogether incompatible with, becoming wise 191 This content downloaded from 201.22.189.53 on Fri, 16 Oct 2020 19:56:44 UTC All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms

[φρόνιμος] or temperate [σώφρων]—clearly echoes the other texts of Plato that we have considered. Furthermore, we should note that the inhospitability of Sicilian practices to Plato’s political-philosophical project is made evident a bit later in the Seventh Letter, when Plato writes that people living according to these life-structuring practices will not heed “the ancient and holy doctrines which declare to us that the soul is immortal and that it has judges and pays the greatest penalties [τοῖς παλαιοῖς τε καὶ ἱεροῖς λόγοις, οἳ δὴ μηνύουσιν ἡμῖν ἀθάνατον ψυχὴν εἶναι δικαστάς τε ἴσχειν καὶ τίνειν τὰς μεγίστας τιμωρίας],” for to these doctrines the man who is fond of riches but poor in soul listens not, or if he listens he laughs them (as he thinks) to scorn, while he shamelessly plunders from all quarters everything which he thinks likely to provide himself, like a beast, with food or drink or the satiating himself with the slavish and graceless pleasure which is miscalled by the name of the Goddess of Love [ὧν ὁ φιλοχρήματος πένης τε ἀνὴρ τὴν ψυχὴν οὔτε ἀκούει, ἐάν τε ἀκούσῃ, καταγελῶν, ὡς οἴεται, πανταχόθεν ἀναιδῶς ἁρπάζει πᾶν ὅτιπερ ἂν οἴηται, καθάπερ θηρίον, φαγεῖν ἢ πιεῖν ἢ περὶ τὴν ἀνδραποδώδη καὶ ἀχάριστον, ἀφροδίσιον λεγομένην οὐκ ὀρθῶς, ἡδονὴν ποριεῖν αὑτῷ τοὐμπίμπλασθαι] (334e-335a).10

Plato’s reaction to the Sicilian life-structuring practices is extreme, to be sure, but it is arguably of a piece with the Republic’s portrait of most people, “always occupied with feasts and the like [εὐωχίαις δὲ καὶ τοῖς τοιούτοις ἀεὶ συνόντες],” being “always looking downward like cattle and, with their heads bent over the earth or the dinner table, they feed, gorge themselves, and copulate [ἀλλὰ βοσκημάτων δίκην κάτω ἀεὶ βλέποντες καὶ κεκυφότες εἰς γῆν καὶ εἰς τραπέζας βόσκονται χορταζόμενοι καὶ ὀχεύοντες]” (586a). Accordingly, when Socrates ‘purges’ kallipolis of the luxuries desired at least initially by Glaucon and Adeimantus, including prostitutes and pastries (cf. 373a, 404d), Socrates includes Syracusan cuisine and “complex Sicilian delicacies” among the prohibited luxuries for the sake of safeguarding the guardians’ healthy and virtuous way of life (404d). Nonetheless, the epitēdeumata contrary to those of the philosopher remain an ongoing concern in the Republic. For example, in Republic Book VII, in a discussion of the dogmata that we hold from childhood about what things are just and fine (538c), 192 This content downloaded from 201.22.189.53 on Fri, 16 Oct 2020 19:56:44 UTC All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms

Socrates says that there are life-structuring practices committed to moral virtue, heeding the traditional dogmata, but, opposed to these there are also “other practices… which possess pleasures that flatter our soul and attract it to themselves, but which do not persuade people who are at all moderate—who continue to honor and obey the convictions of their fathers [καὶ ἄλλα ἐναντία τούτων ἐπιτηδεύματα ἡδονὰς ἔχοντα, ἃ κολακεύει μὲν ἡμῶν τὴν ψυχὴν καὶ ἕλκει ἐφ᾽ αὑτά, πείθει δ᾽ οὒ τοὺς καὶ ὁπῃοῦν μετρίους: ἀλλ᾽ ἐκεῖνα τιμῶσι τὰ πάτρια καὶ ἐκείνοις πειθαρχοῦσιν]” (538d).11 Here we have a reiteration of the claim implicit in Socrates’ question: “Is it not the case that fine practices lead to the possession of virtue, shameful ones to vice [ἆρ᾽ οὖν οὐ καὶ τὰ μὲν καλὰ ἐπιτηδεύματα εἰς ἀρετῆς κτῆσιν φέρει, τὰ δ᾽ αἰσχρὰ εἰς κακίας;]?” (444e-445a). The very concept of a life-structuring practice at issue here entails the idea that being virtuous, and remaining virtuous in the face of temptation, requires steadfast habituation and moral training—see, for example, Socrates’ claim that virtues of the soul besides ‘wisdom’ [phronēsai] are acquired “by habit and by practice [ἐμποιεῖσθαι ἔθεσι καὶ ἀσκήσεσιν]” (518e). But it’s not just that specific epitēdeumata divide the philosopher from the satisfied hedonist. Plato diagnoses the profound difference between a true philosopher and the skin-deep ‘intellectual’ in terms of the fundamental importance of life-structuring practices, as we see in the following passage from the Seventh Letter: For on hearing this—if the pupil be truly philosophic, in sympathy with the subject and worthy of it, because divinely gifted [ἐὰν μὲν ὄντως ᾖ φιλόσοφος οἰκεῖός τε καὶ ἄξιος τοῦ πράγματος θεῖος ὤν]— he believes that he has been shown a wondrous path [ὁδόν… θαυμαστὴν] and that he must brace himself at once to follow it, and that life will not be worth living if he does otherwise [καὶ οὐ βιωτὸν ἄλλως ποιοῦντι]. After this he braces both himself and him who is guiding him on the path, nor does he desist until either he has reached the goal of all his studies, or else has gained such power as to be capable of directing his own steps without the aid of the instructor [οὐκ ἀνίησιν πρὶν ἂν ἢ τέλος ἐπιθῇ πᾶσιν, ἢ λάβῃ δύναμιν ὥστε αὐτὸς αὑτὸν χωρὶς τοῦ δείξοντος δυνατὸς εἶναι ποδηγεῖν]. It is thus and in this frame of mind that such a student lives, occupied indeed in whatever occupations he may find himself, but always beyond all else

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cleaving fast to philosophy and to that mode of daily life which will best make him apt to learn and of retentive mind and able to reason within himself soberly; but the mode of life which is opposite to this he continually abhors [ταύτῃ καὶ κατὰ ταῦτα διανοηθεὶς ὁ τοιοῦτος ζῇ, πράττων μὲν ἐν αἷστισιν ἂν ᾖ πράξεσιν, παρὰ πάντα δὲ ἀεὶ φιλοσοφίας ἐχόμενος καὶ τροφῆς τῆς καθ᾽ ἡμέραν ἥτις ἂν αὐτὸν μάλιστα εὐμαθῆ τε καὶ μνήμονα καὶ λογίζεσθαι δυνατὸν ἐν αὑτῷ νήφοντα ἀπεργάζηται: τὴν δὲ ἐναντίαν ταύτῃ μισῶν διατελεῖ]. Those, on the other hand, who are in reality not philosophic, but superficially tinged by opinions—like men whose bodies are sunburned—when they see how many studies are required and how great the labor, and how the orderly mode of daily life is that which befits the subject, they deem it difficult or impossible for themselves, and thus become in fact incapable of practicing it [ἐπιτηδεύειν δυνατοὶ γίγνονται]. (340c-e).

Before this passage, the word ‘ponos’—“labor” or “exertion”— was used in the Seventh Letter only ironically for the ‘effort’ devoted to sexual escapades. Here the word is used for the labor that must be expended in order to pursue philosophy as an epitēdeuma. Now, of course, philosophy is portrayed as an epitēdeuma involving considerable effort throughout Plato’s writings—most memorably in the Apology, where Socrates presents his practice of philosophy as a rather consuming ‘occupation’ [ἀσχολία] (23b), requiring that he neglect his private interests to some extent in order to attend to something beyond himself (31b), and even as a matter of “labors undertaken to prove the Delphic oracle irrefutable [πόνους τινὰς πονοῦντος ἵνα μοι καὶ ἀνέλεγκτος ἡ μαντεία γένοιτο]” (22a).12 While Socrates may be indulging in some rhetorical overstatement before the jury, it is nonetheless the case that philosophy is an onerous life-structuring practice, involving a great deal of effort, ponos. Philosophy is demanding just in itself, given the energy and commitment required to push through the difficulties involved in its subject matter; but, in addition, if it is opposed by the life-structuring practices of the polis where it takes shape, then it is easy to imagine what Socrates calls, in the Republic, “the sort of destruction and corruption that the nature best suited for the best practice undergoes [οὗτος δή…ὄλεθρός τε καὶ διαφθορὰ τοσαύτη τε καὶ τοιαύτη τῆς βελτίστης φύσεως εἰς τὸ ἄριστον ἐπιτήδευμα]” (495b). In light of 194 This content downloaded from 201.22.189.53 on Fri, 16 Oct 2020 19:56:44 UTC All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms

the obstacles facing philosophy as an epitēdeuma, we can understand the question that Socrates asks in the Republic: “[D]o you see any way to preserve a philosophic nature and ensure that it will continue to practice philosophy and reach the end? [ἐκ δὴ τούτων τίνα ὁρᾷς σωτηρίαν φιλοσόφῳ φύσει, ὥστ᾽ ἐν τῷ ἐπιτηδεύματι μείνασαν πρὸς τέλος ἐλθεῖν;]” (494a, cf. also 495a).13 The Critique of Syngrammatic Writing Now, it is right on the heels of this extended meditation on epitēdeumata in the Seventh Letter that we find those famous passages formulating a critique of (syngrammatic) writing. Most famous, no doubt, is the key passage at 341c-e, where Plato writes: Concerning all these writers, or prospective writers, who claim to know the subjects which I seriously study [τοσόνδε γε μὴν περὶ πάντων ἔχω φράζειν τῶν γεγραφότων καὶ γραψόντων, ὅσοι φασὶν εἰδέναι περὶ ὧν ἐγὼ σπουδάζω], whether as hearers of mine or of other teachers, or from their own discoveries; it is impossible, in my judgment at least, that these men should understand anything about this subject. There does not exist, nor will there ever exist, any treatise of mine dealing therewith—for it does not at all admit of verbal expression like other studies [οὔκουν ἐμόν γε περὶ αὐτῶν ἔστιν σύγγραμμα οὐδὲ μήποτε γένηται: ῥητὸν γὰρ οὐδαμῶς ἐστιν ὡς ἄλλα μαθήματα]. Rather, as a result of prolonged intellectual engagement with the matter itself and living together with it, it is brought to birth in the soul on a sudden, as light that is kindled by a leaping spark, and thereafter it nourishes itself [ἀλλ᾽ ἐκ πολλῆς συνουσίας γιγνομένης περὶ τὸ πρᾶγμα αὐτὸ καὶ τοῦ συζῆν ἐξαίφνης, οἷον ἀπὸ πυρὸς πηδήσαντος ἐξαφθὲν φῶς, ἐν τῇ ψυχῇ γενόμενον αὐτὸ ἑαυτὸ ἤδη τρέφει]. (341c-e)

While it is not clear what exactly Plato means by the “being-together” [sunousia] and “living-together” [suzēn] mentioned in this passage,14 what is clear, in any case, is that the matters about which some unnamed others claim to have represented Plato’s views “do not admit of verbal expression like other studies”: ῥητὸν γὰρ οὐδαμῶς ἐστιν ὡς ἄλλα μαθήματα. Notice that Plato is not merely denying a written formulation, but any verbal formulation like that in other studies. He repeats this denial when he says, first, that the best statement of such things would be his own, but second, he says “And if I had thought that these subjects ought to be fully stated in writing 195 This content downloaded from 201.22.189.53 on Fri, 16 Oct 2020 19:56:44 UTC All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms

or in speech to the public [εἰ δέ μοι ἐφαίνετο γραπτέα θ᾽ ἱκανῶς εἶναι πρὸς τοὺς πολλοὺς καὶ ῥητά], what nobler action could I have performed in my life than that of writing what is of great benefit to mankind and bringing forth to the light for all men the nature of reality?” (341d-e). In connection with this claim, we should remember that what is problematic about writing here is shown elsewhere in Plato’s texts to apply to spoken discourse as well: in the Protagoras, for example, Socrates says of public speakers, “[S]uppose you put a question to one of them—they are just like books [ὥσπερ βιβλία], incapable of either answering you or putting a question of their own”—at which point he likens these orators to “brazen vessels [that] ring a long time after they have been struck and prolong the note unless you put your hand on them” (328e-329b).15 Thus, whereas some of Plato’s contemporaries—e.g., Gorgias, in his “Funeral Oration,” and Alcidamas, in On the Sophists—contrasted the fluidity and responsiveness of spoken discourse with the rigid inflexibility of writing, Plato’s texts target the typical discourse of orators with the very same criticism leveled against writing, here in the Seventh Letter as well as in the Statesman and Phaedrus.16 It is shortly after this that the complicated discussion of the ‘four’ commences, a discussion that clearly is meant to further explain and justify the critique of writing, since the discussion of the four makes clear what Plato calls “the weakness inherent in logoi [τὸ τῶν λόγων ἀσθενές],” on account of which, he writes “no man of intelligence will ever venture to commit to it the concepts of his reason [ὧν ἕνεκα νοῦν ἔχων οὐδεὶς τολμήσει ποτὲ εἰς αὐτὸ τιθέναι τὰ νενοημένα ὑπ᾽ αὐτοῦ], especially when it is unalterable—as is the case with what is formulated in writing [καὶ ταῦτα εἰς ἀμετακίνητον, ὃ δὴ πάσχει τὰ γεγραμμένα τύποις]” (342e-343a). He then concludes as follows: And this is the reason why every serious man in dealing with really serious subjects carefully avoids writing, lest thereby he may possibly cast them as a prey to the envy and stupidity of the public [διὸ δὴ πᾶς ἀνὴρ σπουδαῖος τῶν ὄντων σπουδαίων πέρι πολλοῦ δεῖ μὴ γράψας ποτὲ ἐν ἀνθρώποις εἰς φθόνον καὶ ἀπορίαν καταβαλεῖ]. In one word, then, our conclusion must be that whenever one sees a man’s written compositions [συγγράμματα γεγραμμένα]—whether they be the laws of a legislator or anything else in any other form—these are

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not his most serious works, if it so be that the writer himself is serious [ὡς οὐκ ἦν τούτῳ ταῦτα σπουδαιότατα, εἴπερ ἔστ᾽ αὐτὸς σπουδαῖος]: rather those works abide in the fairest region he possesses [κεῖται δέ που ἐν χώρᾳ τῇ καλλίστῃ τῶν τούτου]. If, however, these really are his serious efforts, and put into writing, it is not the gods but mortal men who ‘Then of a truth themselves have utterly ruined his senses.’ (344c-d)17

Arguably, the most important word used by Plato in these latter passages is syngramma—for here in the Seventh Letter he denies that there is any syngramma of his philosophical thinking, as he also does in the Second Letter, when he writes: “there is no syngramma of Plato’s, nor will there be, but those so called are of a Socrates become young and beautiful [οὐδ᾽ ἔστιν σύγγραμμα Πλάτωνος οὐδὲν οὐδ᾽ ἔσται, τὰ δὲ νῦν λεγόμενα Σωκράτους ἐστὶν καλοῦ καὶ νέου γεγονότος]” (314c). But what exactly is a syngramma? Most generally, syngramma is used in Plato’s texts to refer to a treatise that can be scrutinized (cf. Gorgias 462b-c; Theaetetus 166c-d), which is to say, a ‘completed,’ and therefore unrevisable, form of writing.18 Fittingly, then, the passages from the Seventh Letter above offer us the following reason for why there can be no syngramma of his philosophical thinking: namely, that philosophy cannot properly be transposed “into something unalterable [εἰς ἀμετακίνητον]—as is the case with what is formulated in writing [ὃ δὴ πάσχει τὰ γεγραμμένα τύποις]” (342e-343a). To appreciate this key aspect of Plato’s critique of syngrammatic writing, we should compare the Seventh Letter’s handling of the issue with what we find in the Statesman and the Phaedrus. In Plato’s Statesman, the Stranger introduces the problematization of syngrammata when he asks whether things should be practiced “in conformity with writings and not in conformity with technē [κατὰ συγγράμματα… καὶ μὴ κατὰ τέχνην].”19 As the greater context of the Statesman makes clear, the syngramma as a form of writing has its use in limiting the range of meaning—e.g., the meaning of the laws which are to be binding upon rulers, so that the rulers can be held accountable in relation to them.20 Indeed, the Stranger’s thought-experiment at Statesman 295ad relates the situation of a lawgiver to a scenario in which a physician or gymnastic trainer is going away and will be absent for a while 197 This content downloaded from 201.22.189.53 on Fri, 16 Oct 2020 19:56:44 UTC All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms

from those in his care [ἀποδημεῖν καὶ ἀπέσεσθαι τῶν θεραπευομένων συχνόν]. In such a scenario, the one with epistēmē might write down instructions as ‘reminders [ὑπομνήματα]’ of the practice that they had hitherto been involved in (295b-c). But suppose he returned sooner than expected and wanted to revise his written instructions [τὰ γράμματα] for the sake of some improvement of care. Would it not be absurd, the Stranger asks, to persist in the opinion that no one must transgress the old laws, neither he himself by enacting new ones nor his patient by venturing to do anything contrary to the written rules, under the conviction that these laws were medicinal and healthy and anything else was unhealthy and unscientific [καρτερῶν δ᾽ ἂν ἡγοῖτο δεῖν μὴ ἐκβαίνειν τἀρχαῖά ποτε νομοθετηθέντα μήτε αὐτὸν προστάττοντα ἄλλα μήτε τὸν κάμνοντα ἕτερα τολμῶντα παρὰ τὰ γραφέντα δρᾶν, ὡς ταῦτα ὄντα ἰατρικὰ καὶ ὑγιεινά, τὰ δὲ ἑτέρως γιγνόμενα νοσώδη τε καὶ οὐκ ἔντεχνα]? (295d)

Thus, the thought-experiment shifts from a situation where the immediate presence of the trainer/physician to the one cared for obviates the need for writing, to a situation of absence requiring the mediation of writing, but in such a way as to preclude any revision or innovation. Writing is something that the true statesman resorts to only as an expedient in the time of his absence; and once the absence is overcome by his return, the writings become an impediment to his orthē archē. Soul-writing in Phaedrus The inflexibility of writing, or at least syngrammatic writing, is underscored in the Phaedrus’ account of writing as “continuing to signify just that very same thing forever [ἕν τι σημαίνει μόνον ταὐτὸν ἀεί]” even when it is questioned (275d). Written discourse, Socrates explains, reaches indiscriminately those with understanding and those without it, for it cannot select its readership, and if it is attacked unfairly, Socrates says, “it always needs its father’s support—alone, it can neither defend itself nor come to its own support” (275e). But by contrast with this inflexible and indiscriminate form of writing, Socrates then imagines “another kind of speech, or word… The word which is written with knowledge in 198 This content downloaded from 201.22.189.53 on Fri, 16 Oct 2020 19:56:44 UTC All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms

the soul of the learner [ὃς μετ᾽ ἐπιστήμης γράφεται ἐν τῇ τοῦ μανθάνοντος ψυχῇ], which is able to defend itself and knows to whom it should speak, and before whom to be silent [δυνατὸς μὲν ἀμῦναι ἑαυτῷ, ἐπιστήμων δὲ λέγειν τε καὶ σιγᾶν πρὸς οὓς δεῖ]” (276a).21 Socrates then describes this alternative form of writing in the following terms: when one makes use of the art of dialectic and plants and sows in a fitting soul words with knowledge which are able to help themselves and him who planted them, which are not fruitless, but yield seed from which there spring up in other characters other words capable of continuing the process for ever, and which make their possessor happy, to the farthest possible limit of human happiness [ὅταν τις τῇ διαλεκτικῇ τέχνῃ χρώμενος, λαβὼν ψυχὴν προσήκουσαν, φυτεύῃ τε καὶ σπείρῃ μετ᾽ ἐπιστήμης λόγους, οἳ ἑαυτοῖς τῷ τε φυτεύσαντι βοηθεῖν ἱκανοὶ καὶ οὐχὶ ἄκαρποι ἀλλὰ ἔχοντες σπέρμα, ὅθεν ἄλλοι ἐν ἄλλοις ἤθεσι φυόμενοι τοῦτ᾽ ἀεὶ ἀθάνατον παρέχειν ἱκανοί, καὶ τὸν ἔχοντα εὐδαιμονεῖν ποιοῦντες εἰς ὅσον ἀνθρώπῳ δυνατὸν μάλιστα]. (276e-277a)

The soul-writing hypothesized here is not one constrained to only ever signify the same thing, but is instead a form of writing that accomplishes—to borrow a line from Nietzsche—something pregnant with a future: casting seed from which there spring up in other characters other words capable of continuing the process undyingly [ὅθεν ἄλλοι ἐν ἄλλοις ἤθεσι φυόμενοι τοῦτ᾽ ἀεὶ ἀθάνατον παρέχειν ἱκανοί].22 This alternative form of writing, as formulated by Socrates in the Phaedrus, has much to recommend it philosophically—not least of all the prospect of helping us make sense of Plato’s own dialogue-form of writing as something quite different from syngrammatic writing.23 Indeed, the wide gulf between syngrammatic writing and Plato’s writing of dialogues is captured well by David Halperin when he writes, commenting on these passages from the Phaedrus: “[K]nowledge must not be conceived as something that that can be captured by a written formula. Rather, it is a dynamic, self-regenerating possession of a living soul, dependent on melete; it is a continuing capacity to understand, and so it cannot be reduced to a set of mere propositions: it cannot be fixed in any static form.”24 Though Halperin does not connect this idea with Plato’s concept of 199 This content downloaded from 201.22.189.53 on Fri, 16 Oct 2020 19:56:44 UTC All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms

epitēdeuma, it should be clear that the understanding of philosophy as an epitēdeuma is the most promising route to make sense of the ‘knowledge’ that he has in mind, as well as the sense of ‘knowledge’ that Michael Frede locates in Plato’s thinking: “Knowledge,” he writes, “involves that the rest of one’s beliefs, and hence, at least in some cases, one’s whole life, be in line with one’s argument… In this way knowledge, or at least a certain kind of knowledge Plato is particularly interested in, is a highly personal kind of achievement… tied to one’s own experience, way of life, interests, status, and the like.”25 To capture this insight in Plato’s own words, we would want to reiterate that philosophy, at least as presented in Plato’s texts, is not a set of doctrines that one might set down in syngrammatic form, but is rather a life-long, life-structuring practice, to which writing and teaching relate somewhat obliquely.26 Presumably, one might inspire others, too, to take up philosophy through the soul-writing imagined in the Phaedrus, or through the writing of dialogues like Plato’s—if this is something different from the ‘soul-writing’ that Socrates has in mind. But at the very least we can see why the Seventh Letter connects the attention to epitēdeumata—both the problematic epitēdeumata that Plato observed in Sicily, as well as the epitēdeuma that philosophy itself represents—and the critique of syngrammatic writing. While writing is approached from different directions and dramatic contexts in the Seventh Letter, Phaedrus and Statesman, we can nonetheless discern a shared problematization of writing underlying these texts: namely, all three texts contrast the inalterability of writing over against a living, dynamic practice that requires an ability to articulate things differently than before. What is distinctive about the Seventh Letter in this regard is that Plato here makes more explicit the character of philosophy itself as an ongoing, dynamic, life-structuring practice, while denying that there is any syngramma of “Plato’s philosophy.” Thus, the fact that the critique of writing and the understanding of philosophy as a life-structuring practice are joined here in the Seventh Letter is what justifies us in calling it Plato’s “discovery in Sicily.”27

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Robert Metcalf is Associate Professor of Philosophy at the University of Colorado Denver. He is Co-Translator of Martin Heidegger’s Basic Concepts of Aristotelian Philosophy (Indiana University Press, 2009). His articles on Greek philosophy have been published in Ancient Philosophy, Philosophy and Rhetoric, Epoché, Internationales Jahrbuch für Hermeneutik, and elsewhere. It makes sense that the authenticity of Plato’s Seventh Letter remains a matter of debate, given that the text is first mentioned in antiquity in Cicero’s Tusculan Disputations (V.35). Nonetheless, much of the skepticism directed against the text’s authenticity is based on the argument that if the Letter is authentic, then Plato “abandoned views he professed in his works”—see, for example, Ludwig Edelstein, Plato’s Seventh Letter (Leiden: E. J. Brill, 1966), 24. In fact, however, the Letter calls into question whether Plato’s writings are the sort of thing in which views could be professed. For a view contrary to Edelstein’s, see Glenn Morrow, Plato’s Epistles (Indianapolis: Bobbs-Merrill, 1963), 57: “As a whole the Seventh Epistle produces as unified an impression upon the reader as does almost any of the later dialogues; and the very inadequacy of its form to the wealth of the material it contains is, if anything, a trait that suggests the hand of Plato in his old age.” Admittedly, the Seventh Letter sounds a distinct echo of the Republic when Plato writes that it is only by philosophy that “one is enabled to discern all forms of justice both political and individual [ἐπαινῶν τὴν ὀρθὴν φιλοσοφίαν, ὡς ἐκ ταύτης ἔστιν τά τε πολιτικὰ δίκαια καὶ τὰ τῶν ἰδιωτῶν πάντα κατιδεῖν]—wherefore the classes of mankind will have no cessation from evils until either the class of those who are right and true philosophers attains political supremacy, or else the class of those who hold power in the poleis becomes, by some divine dispensation, really philosophical [κακῶν οὖν οὐ λήξειν τὰ ἀνθρώπινα γένη, πρὶν ἂν ἢ τὸ τῶν φιλοσοφούντων ὀρθῶς γε καὶ ἀληθῶς γένος εἰς ἀρχὰς ἔλθῃ τὰς πολιτικὰς ἢ τὸ τῶν δυναστευόντων ἐν ταῖς πόλεσιν ἔκ τινος μοίρας θείας ὄντως φιλοσοφήσῃ]” (326a-b). But as to the idea that, during this trip to Sicily, Plato’s aim was a matter of “translating into practice the ideas about how a state should be run which he worked out in his dialogues, and especially in the Republic,” see the discussion in Moses Finley, Aspects of Antiquity: Discoveries and Contoversies (New York: Viking, 1968): “It is hard to imagine a more improbable arena in which to try out Plato’s radical political theories” (76); and further, “nothing in either [the Seventh Letter or Eighth Letter] warrants the view that Plato proposed to convert Dionysius II into a

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philosopher-king and thus realize on earth the ideal state of his Republic” (80). See also Sara S. Monoson, Plato’s Democratic Entanglements (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2000): “As the Letter tells it, a chance to ‘implement’ the ‘policies’ advocated in the Republic—and even those of the Laws—did not figure into Plato’s deliberations” (150). The latter two texts I have analyzed at greater length in my essay, “Syngrammatology in Plato’s Statesman,” forthcoming in Plato’s ‘Statesman’: Dialectic, Myth and Politics, edited by John Sallis, Albany, NY: SUNY Press, expected publication in 2016. Note that epitēdeuma is used without apposition to mathēma at 183c, 186d; mathēma is used without apposition to epitēdeuma at 181e, 182a, 182d, 184c, 185e); mathēma is used in connection with “fighting in armor” (179e, 181c); epitēdeuein is used ‘additively’ with zētein at 182e—the Spartans’ only concern is to seek out and practice [ζητεῖν καὶ ἐπιτηδεύειν] whatever will give them the upper hand in warfare. Other associated concepts include caring for oneself [ἐπιμελήσονται] (179d), education [παιδεία] (180c, 184e, 186d, 189d), ways of occupying one’s time [τὰς διατριβὰς] (180d, 181e), practicing or training oneself [ἀσκεῖν] (184e). The upshot of these passages in the Laches is that epitēdeumata are understood in apposition to mathēmata, but whereas the latter term suggests a specifically intellectual subject matter that is studied and learned (e.g., ‘mathematics’), the Greek terms at issue here—at least in Plato’s use of them—do not confirm the hypothesis that mathēmata incline toward the intellectual while epitēdeumata veer toward the practical. Indeed, the main example that the interlocutors focus on as a mathēma is “fighting in armor” (179e, 181c). Notice the parallel manner in which this formulation is used in the Republic—for example, Socrates’ question: “In what way, by means of what subjects and practices, will the saviors of our constitution come to exist, and at what ages they will take up each of them [τίνα τρόπον ἡμῖν καὶ ἐκ τίνων μαθημάτων τε καὶ ἐπιτηδευμάτων οἱ σωτῆρες ἐνέσονται τῆς πολιτείας, καὶ κατὰ ποίας ἡλικίας ἕκαστοι ἑκάστων ἁπτόμενοι;]?” (502c-d). Consider also the specifically philosophical sense of epitēdeumata in Diotima’s speech in the Symposium, where epitēdeumata are characterized as the link between the soul and the higher activities that the soul can engage in through philosophy. In the middle of the famous ‘ladder of love’ account, Socrates/Diotima says: “As a result, our lover will be forced to gaze at the beauty of practices and laws/mores and to see that all this is akin to itself, such that he will

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think that the beauty of bodies is a thing of no importance [ἀναγκασθῇ αὖ θεάσασθαι τὸ ἐν τοῖς ἐπιτηδεύμασι καὶ τοῖς νόμοις καλὸν καὶ τοῦτ᾽ ἰδεῖν ὅτι πᾶν αὐτὸ αὑτῷ συγγενές ἐστιν, ἵνα τὸ περὶ τὸ σῶμα καλὸν σμικρόν τι ἡγήσηται εἶναι]. After practices he must move on to various kinds of knowledge, with the result that he will see the beauty of knowledge and be looking mainly not at beauty in some particular instance [μετὰ δὲ τὰ ἐπιτηδεύματα ἐπὶ τὰς ἐπιστήμας ἀγαγεῖν, ἵνα ἴδῃ αὖ ἐπιστημῶν κάλλος, καὶ βλέπων πρὸς πολὺ ἤδη τὸ καλὸν μηκέτι τὸ παρ᾽ ἑνί]… but the lover is turned to the great sea of beauty, and, gazing upon this, he gives birth to many gloriously beautiful discourses and thoughts, in unstinting love of wisdom [ἀλλ᾽ ἐπὶ τὸ πολὺ πέλαγος τετραμμένος τοῦ καλοῦ καὶ θεωρῶν πολλοὺς καὶ καλοὺς λόγους καὶ μεγαλοπρεπεῖς τίκτῃ καὶ διανοήματα ἐν φιλοσοφίᾳ ἀφθόνῳ]” (210b-c). The idea expressed here that epitēdeumata provide the link between the soul and the successive objects of philosophical study is, of course, sketched out in great detail in the Republic. On the ‘pre-theoretical’ operation of epitēdeumata, see also Socrates’ claim that the real threat to a well-structured polis is that lawlessness [paranomia] will flow over pros ta ēthē kai ta epitēdeumata, “toward character traits and life-structuring practices”—and ultimately then “overthrow everything public and private” (424d-e). Similarly, in the Seventh Letter, we find Plato writing of “the true conviction that no polis nor any individual man can ever become happy unless he passes his life devoted to justice with wisdom, whether it be that he possesses these virtues within himself or as the result of being reared and trained righteously under pious/holy rulers in their ways [δόξαν…τὴν ἀληθῆ, ὡς οὐκ ἄν ποτε γένοιτο εὐδαίμων οὔτε πόλις οὔτ᾽ ἀνὴρ οὐδείς, ὃς ἂν μὴ μετὰ φρονήσεως ὑπὸ δικαιοσύνῃ διαγάγῃ τὸν βίον, ἤτοι ἐν αὑτῷ κεκτημένος ἢ ὁσίων ἀνδρῶν ἀρχόντων ἐν ἤθεσιν τραφείς τε καὶ παιδευθεὶς ἐνδίκως]” (335d-e). Right after the last sentence of this passage, Plato writes: “Holding these views, then, as well as those previously formed [ταῦτα δὴ πρὸς τοῖς πρόσθε διανοούμενος], I travelled through to Syracuse” (326d), so that the passage as a whole is framed by remarks on what conception he had [τὴν διάνοιαν ἔχων], what he was thinking [διανοούμενος] as he traveled to Syracuse. Note, too, that the verb Plato uses in connection with the polis ‘remaining stable [eremein]’ is used in the Gorgias for the logos that remains stable while others have been refuted (527b: ἀλλ᾽ ἐν τοσούτοις λόγοις τῶν ἄλλων ἐλεγχομένων μόνος οὗτος ἠρεμεῖ ὁ

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λόγος, ὡς εὐλαβητέον ἐστὶν τὸ ἀδικεῖν μᾶλλον ἢ τὸ ἀδικεῖσθαι, καὶ παντὸς μᾶλλον ἀνδρὶ μελετητέον οὐ τὸ δοκεῖν εἶναι ἀγαθὸν ἀλλὰ τὸ εἶναι, καὶ ἰδίᾳ καὶ δημοσίᾳ). 9 See Finley, op cit., 79. The full quotation is as follows: “Finally, the letters contain some outright nonsense, of which two examples: On his first visit to Syracuse, the private visit, the letter states that Plato found conditions there unsatisfactory and disagreeable. Because of the tyranny of the elder Dionysius, no doubt? But there is not a word about that. The actual complaint is merely that the people indulged in too much eating and too much sex,” 79. 10 The passage continues: “for he is blind and fails to see what a burden of sin—how grave an evil—ever accompanies each wrong-doing; which burden the wrong-doer must of necessity drag after him both while he moves about on earth, and when he has gone beneath the earth again on a journey that is without honor and in all ways utterly miserable [τυφλὸς ὢν καὶ οὐχ ὁρῶν, οἷς συνέπεται τῶν ἁρπαγμάτων ἀνοσιουργία, κακὸν ἡλίκον ἀεὶ μετ᾽ ἀδικήματος ἑκάστου, ἣν ἀναγκαῖον τῷ ἀδικήσαντι συνεφέλκειν ἐπί τε γῇ στρεφομένῳ καὶ ὑπὸ γῆς νοστήσαντι πορείαν ἄτιμόν τε καὶ ἀθλίαν πάντως πανταχῇ]. Of these and other things I tried to persuade Dion [Δίωνα δὴ ἐγὼ λέγων ταῦτά τε καὶ ἄλλα τοιαῦτα ἔπειθον]” (335b-335c). The reference to ancient and holy doctrines about the soul—doctrines on account of which one should account it a lesser evil to suffer than to perform great iniquities and injustices [διὸ καὶ τὰ μεγάλα ἁμαρτήματα καὶ ἀδικήματα σμικρότερον εἶναι χρὴ νομίζειν κακὸν πάσχειν ἢ δρᾶσαι]—is introduced by way of the following lines: “For whatsoever suffering a man undergoes when striving after what is noblest both for himself and for his polis is always right and noble [τὸ γὰρ τῶν καλλίστων ἐφιέμενον αὑτῷ τε καὶ πόλει πάσχειν ὅτι ἂν πάσχῃ πᾶν ὀρθὸν καὶ καλόν]. For by nature none of us is immortal, and if any man should come to be so he would not be happy, as the vulgar believe; for no evil nor good worthy of mention belongs to what is soulless, but they befall the soul whether it be united with a body or separated therefrom [οὔτε γὰρ πέφυκεν ἀθάνατος ἡμῶν οὐδείς, οὔτ᾽ εἴ τῳ συμβαίη, γένοιτο ἂν εὐδαίμων, ὡς δοκεῖ τοῖς πολλοῖς: κακὸν γὰρ καὶ ἀγαθὸν οὐδὲν λόγου ἄξιόν ἐστιν τοῖς ἀψύχοις, ἀλλ᾽ ἢ μετὰ σώματος οὔσῃ ψυχῇ τοῦτο συμβήσεται ἑκάστῃ ἢ κεχωρισμένῃ]” (334e-335a). 11 Numerous times in the Republic Socrates speaks of such starkly contrasted epitēdeumata as being the “opposites” of one another—for example, at

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489c-d, he says: “It is not easy for the best practice to be highly honored by those whose practices are its very opposites [οὐ ῥᾴδιον εὐδοκιμεῖν τὸ βέλτιστον ἐπιτήδευμα ὑπὸ τῶν τἀναντία ἐπιτηδευόντων].” To be sure, there is more than a tinge of irony in Socrates’s account of his philosophical activity as one of “service to the god” (30a). See my discussion of this issue in “The Philosophical Rhetoric of Socrates’ Mission,” Philosophy and Rhetoric, 37 (2004), 143-166. Shortly thereafter in the Republic, Socrates goes so far as to relate the difference between philosophical and unphilosophical epitēdeumata to the difference between the divine and the human: “There is not one polis today with a constitution worthy of the philosophical nature… But if [a philosophical nature] were to find the best constitution, as it is itself the best, it would be clear that it is really divine and that other natures and practices are merely human [εἰ δὲ λήψεται τὴν ἀρίστην πολιτείαν, ὥσπερ καὶ αὐτὸ ἄριστόν ἐστιν, τότε δηλώσει ὅτι τοῦτο μὲν τῷ ὄντι θεῖον ἦν, τὰ δὲ ἄλλα ἀνθρώπινα, τά τε τῶν φύσεων καὶ τῶν ἐπιτηδευμάτων]” (497b). Drew Hyland, Plato and the Question of Beauty (Bloomington & Indianapolis: Indiana University Press, 2008) notes this underdetermination in his discussion of the Letter: “The sunousias and suzen suggest so strongly the quality of doing something ‘together’ that many translators simply render this as something like ‘after long-continued intercourse between teacher and pupil, in joint pursuit of the subject.’ This is certainly plausible and perhaps the most plausible reading… though it must be said that the grammar does not strictly demand that the togetherness be of two people rather than the togetherness of the individual and the matter for thought” (104). See also the argument in Monoson, op cit., that Plato held to the Socratic belief in sunousia [conversation] as the basis of higher education—“that is, he not only insisted on discussion as a method but also carefully cultivated an open intellectual environment” (139). As Desjardins puts it, “the very same criticism that in Phaedrus is brought to bear on the written word is in the Protagoras, Theaetetus and Sophist brought to bear against the spoken word, and, moreover, in terms that seem deliberately designed to echo each other”—see Rosemary Desjardins, “Why Dialogues? Plato’s Serious Play,” in Platonic Writings/Platonic Readings, edited by Charles L. Griswold (University Park, PA: The Pennsylvania State University Press, 2002), 111.

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Notice that a careful comparison of Plato and Alcidamas challenges Derrida’s stance: “Plato is following certain rhetors and sophists before him who, as a contrast to the cadaverous rigidity of writing, had held up the living spoken word, which infallibly conforms to the necessities of the situation at hand… feigning to bend and adapt at the moment that it is actually achieving maximum persuasiveness and control”— see Jacques Derrida, “Plato’s Pharmacy,” in Dissemination, translated by Barbara Johnson (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1981), 79. 17 The passage concludes as follows: “Whosoever, then, has accompanied me in this story and this wandering of mine will know full well that, whether it be Dionysius or any lesser or greater man who has written something about the highest and first truths of Nature, nothing of what he has written, as my argument shows, is based on sound teaching or study [τούτῳ δὴ τῷ μύθῳ τε καὶ πλάνῳ ὁ συνεπισπόμενος εὖ εἴσεται, εἴτ᾽ οὖν Διονύσιος ἔγραψέν τι τῶν περὶ φύσεως ἄκρων καὶ πρώτων εἴτε τις ἐλάττων εἴτε μείζων, ὡς οὐδὲν ἀκηκοὼς οὐδὲ μεμαθηκὼς ἦν ὑγιὲς ὧν ἔγραψεν κατὰ τὸν ἐμὸν λόγον]” (344d). Two passages emphasize the point at issue in this quotation: first, when Plato writes of exposing these truths “to unseemly and degrading treatment [ὁμοίως γὰρ ἂν αὐτὰ ἐσέβετο ἐμοί, καὶ οὐκ ἂν αὐτὰ ἐτόλμησεν εἰς ἀναρμοστίαν καὶ ἀπρέπειαν ἐκβάλλειν]” (ibid). And second, the earlier passage where he writes, “But were I to undertake this task it would not, as I think, prove a good thing for men, save for some few who are able to discover the truth themselves with but little instruction; for as to the rest, some it would most unseasonably fill with a mistaken contempt, and others with an overweening and empty aspiration, as though they had learnt some sublime mysteries” (341c-e). 18 The word is used precisely in this way in Herodotus’ Histories (cf. I.47.148.2); in later antiquity, Galen uses the distinction between syngrammata and hypomnēmata to contrast Hippocrates’s written treatises as opposed to his own clinical notes (16.532, 543), or his commentaries on Hippocrates’s treatises (16.811). 19 Note that the Stranger specifies by way of examples what a syngrammatic oversight of the technai implies: “[O]r should we in turn observe some kind of feeding of horses occurring in conformity with syngrammata or the entire grooming of herds, or divination or whatever entire part serving has comprehended, or draughts-playing or all of arithmetic, or whether it’s bare or plane or involved in three dimensions or speeds…” (299d-e). At one point the Stranger even brings in some entomology to 16

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explain why laws as syngrammata are indispensable: “since there is no king that comes to be in our poleis,” he explains, “who’s of the sort that naturally arises like the ruler of bees in the hives—one who’s right from the start exceptional in his body and his soul [νῦν δέ γε ὁπότε οὐκ ἔστι γιγνόμενος…ἐν ταῖς πόλεσι βασιλεὺς οἷος ἐν σμήνεσιν ἐμφύεται, τό τε σῶμα εὐθὺς καὶ τὴν ψυχὴν διαφέρων εἷς]—we must, it seems, once we’ve come together, write up syngrammata [δεῖ δὴ συνελθόντας συγγράμματα γράφειν]” (301d-e). 20 Indeed, the subsequent line of argument in the Statesman presupposes this understanding of syngrammata in terms of constraint: the consideration raised by the Stranger as to why failing to adhere to the laws would be even a greater evil than prohibiting zētein is the prospect of someone disregarding the writings and acting contrary to them out of graft or favoritism [μηδὲν φροντίζων τῶν γραμμάτων ἢ κέρδους ἕνεκέν τινος ἢ χάριτος ἰδίας παρὰ ταῦτ᾽ ἐπιχειροῖ δρᾶν ἕτερα] (300a). 21 Notice that, at this point, Phaedrus responds: “You mean the living and breathing word of him who knows, of which the written word may justly be called the image/ghost [τὸν τοῦ εἰδότος λόγον λέγεις ζῶντα καὶ ἔμψυχον, οὗ ὁ γεγραμμένος εἴδωλον ἄν τι λέγοιτο δικαίως]” (Phaedrus 276a). 22 Accordingly, “soul-writing” points toward a distinctive philosophical practice of educating others—and quite at odds with the sort of learning denigrated in the Seventh Letter under the description “crammed with borrowed doctrines [τοῖς τῶν παρακουσμάτων μεστοῖς]” (340b). See my discussion of the teaching of philosophy as understood in terms of Plato’s concept of epitēdeumata in Robert Metcalf, “Living with the Matter Itself: The Practice of Philosophy Reexamined,” Philosophy in the Contemporary World 21 (2014): 41-53. 23 At the very least, Plato’s dialogues are radically unlike syngrammatic writings in that they preserve authorial silence about the matters discussed. Aryeh Kosman captures this well when he quotes the Second Letter’s assertion that there is no syngramma of Plato, but writings of a Socrates ‘refurbished and made young’ (314c), and then comments “This surely makes it seem that Plato has crafted the dialogues with authorial silence and the resultant mimesis very much in mind”—see Kosman, “Silence and Imitation in the Platonic Dialogues,” in Methods of Interpreting Plato and His Dialogues: Oxford Studies in Ancient Philosophy—Supplementary Volume, edited by James C. Klagge & Nicholas D. Smith (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1992), 72-92, on pg. 83. Later in the same essay Kosman writes: “We shall not be able

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to read directly out of the dialogues anything that counts eo ipso as a theory of Plato; we shall be unable simply to extract a passage and imagine that straight away we have Plato’s theory of this or of that” (85). Likewise, Michael Frede writes: “Plato writes in such a way that it is not clear from the very form of his writing whether he endorses an argument or not… [T]he form of a Platonic dialogue is such that the mere fact that an argument is advanced in the dialogue does not yet mean that it is endorsed by Plato”—see Frede, “Plato’s Arguments and the Dialogue Form,” in Methods of Interpreting Plato and His Dialogues: Oxford Studies in Ancient Philosophy—Supplementary Volume, edited by James C. Klagge & Nicholas D. Smith (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1992), pp. 201-219, on pg. 203. See also Kathryn Morgan, Myth and Philosophy from the Presocratics to Plato (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2000), which argues that “[w]e have the evidence of the Phaedrus and the Seventh Letter that literary dialogues, and possibly language in general, cannot reproduce philosophical insight, although they may play (seriously) at doing so” (287). 24 David M. Halperin, “Plato and the Erotics of Narrativity,” in Methods of Interpreting Plato and His Dialogues: Oxford Studies in Ancient Philosophy—Supplementary Volume, edited by James C. Klagge & Nicholas D. Smith (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1992), 93-129, on pg. 104. 25 Frede, op cit., 216. 26 Hyland, op cit., writes: “Surely if philosophy, if Plato’s philosophy, were a set of doctrines—what we have come to call in our day ‘philosophical positions’—then it could be put into words just as mathematical, historical, or literary theories can be put into words… At the very least then, the first implication of this remarkable statement in the Seventh Letter is that Plato emphatically did not think of his philosophy as that set of formulated doctrines we call ‘Platonism’” (104). He then writes later: “This means, as Plato himself insisted in both his Second and Seventh Letters, that the dialogues are not ‘Plato’s philosophy.’… To speak properly then—and in a sense which we should call ‘Platonic’— one should not speak, strictly, of ‘philosophy,’ nor of ‘my philosophy,’ much less of ‘Plato’s philosophy.’ One should speak rather of ‘philosophical existence’” (134). 27 An earlier and shorter version of this essay was presented at the Fonte Aretusa conference held in Siracusa, May 2015. I am indebted to the conference organizer, Heather Reid, and to my co-panelists at the conference, Samantha Deane and Jill Gordon, as well as to Francisco Gonzalez for his comments during that session.

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Parnassos Press – Fonte Aretusa Chapter Title: Did Heidegger go to Syracuse? Chapter Author(s): Francisco J. Gonzalez Book Title: Philosopher Kings and Tragic Heroes Book Subtitle: Essays on Images and Ideas from Western Greece Book Editor(s): Heather L. Reid and Davide Tanasi Published by: Parnassos Press – Fonte Aretusa Stable URL: https://www.jstor.org/stable/j.ctvbj7gjn.16 JSTOR is a not-for-profit service that helps scholars, researchers, and students discover, use, and build upon a wide range of content in a trusted digital archive. We use information technology and tools to increase productivity and facilitate new forms of scholarship. For more information about JSTOR, please contact [email protected]. Your use of the JSTOR archive indicates your acceptance of the Terms & Conditions of Use, available at https://about.jstor.org/terms This content is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License (CC BY-NC-ND 4.0). To view a copy of this license, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/.

Parnassos Press – Fonte Aretusa is collaborating with JSTOR to digitize, preserve and extend access to Philosopher Kings and Tragic Heroes

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Francisco J. Gonzalez1 Did Heidegger go to Syracuse? Introduction Martin Heidegger’s involvement with National Socialism in the 1930s has been often compared to Plato’s trip to Syracuse supposedly to put into practice his ideal of ‘philosopher-kings’ by converting the tyrant of Syracuse, Dionysius II, to philosophy. In both cases we are meant to see nothing more than the disastrous consequences of philosophers getting involved in politics. The argument of this essay, however, is that the comparison is a complete misrepresentation of the politics of both Plato and Heidegger. The differences between the views of these two thinkers on the relation between politics and philosophy are so great as to allow for no meaningful parallel between their two stories of political engagement. Heidegger did not go to Syracuse, never pursuing a project even remotely similar to that of Plato, and Plato would have found Heidegger’s own politics utterly incomprehensible, even deeply repugnant.2 Before turning to this argument, we should note that the connection between Heidegger and Syracuse is often made with the purpose of defending Heidegger.3 Thus Gadamer chose “Back from Syracuse?” as the title for his response to the book by Victor Farias4 that made the case that Heidegger’s involvement with National Socialism, far from being a naive or innocent mistake, had deep roots in his philosophy. In the course of his response, Gadamer explains his choice of title as follows: That Heidegger’s revolution in the universities failed, and that his involvement in the cultural politics of the Third Reich was a sad story we watched at a distance with anxiety, has led many to think about what Plato came up against in Syracuse. Indeed, after Heidegger resigned from the rectorate, one of his Freiburg friends, seeing him in the streetcar, greeted him: ‘Back from Syracuse?’ 5

The clear suggestion here is that Heidegger’s involvement with National Socialism was simply unfortunate in the same way as was Plato’s trip to Sicily: like Plato he entered politics with the good, if naïve, intention of political reform (in particular, reform of the 209 This content downloaded from 201.22.189.53 on Fri, 16 Oct 2020 19:56:54 UTC All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms

university) and was defeated by the hard facts of political reality. In both cases we have nothing more than a ‘sad story’. The same apologetic purpose of tying Heidegger to Syracuse is even more explicit in Hannah Arendt’s celebratory, not to say sycophantic, text, “Heidegger at Eighty”: Now we all know that Heidegger, too, once succumbed to the temptation to change his ‘residence' and to get involved in the world of human affairs. As to the world, he was served somewhat worse than Plato because the tyrant and his victims were not located beyond the sea, but in his own country. As to Heidegger himself, I believe that the matter stands differently. He was still young enough to learn from the shock of the collision, which after ten short hectic months thirty-seven years ago drove him back to his residence, and to settle in his thinking what he had experienced ...

Arendt here manages to use the comparison with Plato to Heidegger’s advantage. First, Heidegger’s story was even sadder than Plato’s because he had to endure the tyrant and his victims at home rather than across the sea. Secondly, he nevertheless managed better than Plato, perhaps because of his greater youth, to learn from his mistake. Despite these differences, what they both share, according to Arendt, is being victims of the perennial opposition between the residence of the thinker and the world of political affairs. This enables her to characterize Heidegger’s involvement with the Führer as “a déformation professionelle” therefore shared by Plato and every other philosopher.6 We see in both passages an apologetic agenda that consists, first, of suggesting that Plato’s failure in Sicily is simply emblematic of a naiveté that ‘deforms’ the profession of philosophy in its relation to politics, and second, of defending Heidegger’s involvement in the politics of National Socialism as another symptom of the same ‘deformation’ and therefore as nothing out of the ordinary. We can articulate as follows the assumptions being made here about both philosophers: 1) Plato’s failure in Syracuse was the result of naively believing that the ideal republic existing only in the sky of his philosophical theory could be realized here on earth and that philosophical knowledge could be an adequate substitute for political judgment; 2) Heidegger’s failure in Nazi Germany was the 210 This content downloaded from 201.22.189.53 on Fri, 16 Oct 2020 19:56:54 UTC All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms

result of naively believing that his philosophy of being could be translated into politics and that the philosopher could be the real Führer of a political movement. Both of these assumptions, I wish to argue here, are completely false. Plato as Political Realist in the Seventh Letter7 Plato was not motivated by a desire to realize his ‘ideal republic’ in Syracuse The first point to make with regard to Plato is that, contrary to what is often assumed, the project of Plato, Dion and his followers had nothing to do with ‘wiping the slate clean’ and imposing on Syracuse something like the state described in the Republic. Plato indeed explains his trips to Syracuse by expressing his shame at appearing to himself to be nothing but empty words (παντάπασι λόγος μόνον ἀτεχνῶς τις), unwilling to undertake any deed (ἔργον, 328c7-8). He could therefore be said to have gone to put his ideas into effect. But what ideas? Plato speaks of τὰ διανοηθέντα περὶ νόμων τε καὶ πολιτείας (328b10-c1).8 So what are these thoughts on laws and the constitution? The one clear political doctrine Plato articulates in the letter, what he calls the thought about the city (διανοούμενον περὶ πόλεως, 331c8) that the man of sense must live by, is the following: if one finds a city badly governed, to speak out if one’s words will be neither vain nor suicidal, but not to impose a political change on the city with violence in a case where it cannot become better without expulsions and massacres, keeping in this case quiet while praying for the best for oneself and the city (331c9-d6). These are hardly the words of an ideological revolutionary!9 The other political doctrine that Plato claims to form part of his advice is the following: that neither Sicily nor any other city should be subject to despotic rulers, but only to laws (334c7-9).10 Despotism can appeal only to people who are servile and who know nothing, neither in the present time nor the time to come (kairos), about what is good and just, either human or divine (334d2-6). As for the reform Dion sought in acceding to power,11 Plato describes it as simply the introduction of good order by making good laws for his citizens, freeing the rest of Sicily from barbarians, and through such acts showing what the virtues of a just, courageous, temperate and philosophical man can achieve (335e-336b). Another related principle the letter articulates is 211 This content downloaded from 201.22.189.53 on Fri, 16 Oct 2020 19:56:54 UTC All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms

that the victors should show themselves even more submissive to the laws than the vanquished (337c8-d2). In short, what Dion wanted is what Plato himself wanted: a constitution of just and noble laws obtained without any assassinations or expulsions (351c4-6). There is therefore no suggestion here of ‘wiping the slate clean’. Plato’s recognition of the role of circumstances, chance and the opportune moment in politics If Plato does not have the naiveté of thinking that he can realize his ideal republic in Syracuse, this is because the letter shows him to be fully aware of the fact that good governance depends on factors over which philosophy has no control. First, a central idea here is that one must always wait for the ‘opportune moment’ (καιρός) to speak and act. Plato would not now be writing this letter to Dion’s companions if it were not the opportune moment for what Plato has to say (324b7-8). In the political upheavals of his youth, he always looked for the opportune moment to act (326a1). He is first persuaded to come to Syracuse in part by Dion’s claim that this is the opportune moment Plato has been waiting for (327e3). But there is also the recognition that one must contend with chance as well as with the character of the Sicilian people and the power structures currently in place.12 This is why Plato goes to Syracuse not with naive optimism, but with fear, both the second time (φόβος, 328b3)13 and even more the third time (πολλὰ δεδιὼς, 340a3), despite in the last case not considering it impossible for a young man like Dionysius to be possessed with ἔρως for the best life (339e3-6). Fear is the proper disposition of a politics that recognizes its dependence on chance. It is important in this context to note that Plato does not need Sicily to dispel any illusions he might have had with regard to politics as he is described as being disillusioned much earlier by Athenian politics. Furthermore, philosophy is the consequence of his disillusionment with politics rather than the cause. The letter does not depict Plato as someone who starts with philosophy and then makes an ill-advised foray into politics. He begins with politics, deciding early on to dedicate himself to “the common matters of the city” (τὰ κοινὰ τῆς πόλεως, 324b10), even before he was his own master. After the fall of the Thirty he is once again possessed by “the desire to practice those things that are common and pertain to the 212 This content downloaded from 201.22.189.53 on Fri, 16 Oct 2020 19:56:54 UTC All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms

city” (ἡ περὶ τὸ πράττειν τὰ κοινὰ καὶ πολιτικὰ ἐπιθυμία, 325a10b1). He soon saw the difficulty, however, of correctly managing political affairs (325c10-d1). Indeed, his head started spinning (ἰλλιγιᾶν) with all the political upheaval, but he kept always on the lookout for the opportune moment to take action (τοῦ δὲ πράττειν αὖ περιμένειν αἰεὶ καιρούς, 326a1). He soon came to see that all cities were so badly governed that a great amount of work along with chance (μετὰ τύχης, 326a5)14 would be required for change.15 It is at this point that Plato introduces the need for philosophy, claiming that it is what enables us to see what is just, both in the political sphere and in the individual (326a7-8). There will be, he concludes, no end to evil for the human species until true philosophers assume political power or current rulers begin to philosophize through some divine dispensation (326a9-b3).16 Kings becoming philosophers? But is it not clear that what Plato therefore seeks to do in Sicily is realize his idea that philosophers should be kings and kings philosophers and is it not this that entitles us to speak of his political naiveté? Plato indeed appears to go to Syracuse with the hope of the same people becoming philosophers and rulers of great cities (328ab). But did Plato really go to Syracuse with the truly naive intention of turning Dionysius into a philosopher?17 This is often simply assumed and common translations of what Plato says at 330a8-b1 indeed make this assumption quite natural: “How this best could have come about [winning Plato’s praise and friendship], if at all, was through his becoming my disciple and associating with me in discourse about philosophy” (Glenn R. Morrow).18 But this talk of Dionysius becoming Plato’s disciple is not there in the Greek, which is indeed much more ambiguous: “He shrank from the best way in which this could come about, if it could come about: to associate and become familiar with me as would one listening to and learning what I have to say about philosophy.” There is no suggestion here that it is Plato’s aim to make Dionysius into his disciple. He says simply that Dionysius could best win his friendship by associating with him in conversation; as for what Plato would have to say in such conversation, its philosophical content would comprise no more than talk about philosophy. Indeed, what Plato in the end had to say to 213 This content downloaded from 201.22.189.53 on Fri, 16 Oct 2020 19:56:54 UTC All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms

Dionysius about philosophy appears to have been no more than what was required by “the anti-tyrant test”: a simultaneously protreptic and apotreptic description of both the great rewards and the great difficulties of studying philosophy. What awakened earlier in Dion a desire for the best and most beautiful life (327c9-d2) is precisely this kind of συνουσία with Plato. What Dionysius’s failure of the anti-tyrant test is said to show is that he, in contrast, is not capable of “living with care for intelligence and virtue” (φρονήσεως τε καὶ ἀρετῆς ζῆν ἐπιμελοὺμενος, 345b4-5). As for Dionysius’s book, Plato makes it clear that Dionysius based it on what he heard from others, not from Plato. Here too translations are misleading. A literal translation would read as follows: “Many things I neither discussed nor Dionysius sought to hear. For he pretended to know himself many and the most important things and to possess them sufficiently on the basis of what he had heard from others (διὰ τὰς ὑπὸ τῶν ἄλλων παρακοάς). I hear that afterwards he wrote about the things he had heard at the time (περὶ ὧν τότε ἤκουε), presenting it as his own work (τέχνη)19 and nothing of (the things, the people?) he had heard” (341a10-b6). Now consider Morrow’s translation: “Later, I hear, he wrote a book on the matters we talked about, putting it forward as his own teaching, not what he had learned from me.” What is in italics is inserted into the text by Morrow and with no justification. The natural way of understanding the passage is that the things Dionysius heard at the time and on which he based his book are the things he heard from others, not from Plato.20 The rest of the letter shows that the only hope Plato had for Dionysius—and even that was a faint hope—is that he had a desire for virtue and thus could be converted into a just ruler. The advice he therefore describes himself as giving to Dionysius is that he be master of himself and possess reliable friends: advice that is far, in short, from any kind of teaching on the ultimate principles of reality!21 So while we have the idea of philosopher-kings here, what the unity of philosophy and power ‘in the same’ (ἐν ταὐτῷ, 335d1-2) would show to all, according to the letter, is simply the true opinion (ἀληθῆς δόξα) that “neither city nor man can be just when they do not carry out their life with prudence and under justice” (335d5-8).22 214 This content downloaded from 201.22.189.53 on Fri, 16 Oct 2020 19:56:54 UTC All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms

The connection made in the letter between philosophy and politics is therefore that philosophy is required for the kind of life and character we need to see in the rulers of a just society. Thus, as we have seen, the advice Plato claims to have given Dionysius, the same he is giving now to the friends of Dion, is to be master of himself and possess reliable friends (331d9-e1). We have nowhere the suggestion that philosophical knowledge will be applied to politics, that political decisions will be derived from philosophical truths. Such truths are eternal and unchanging whereas we have seen the letter emphasize that political decisions must respond to chance, circumstance, and the opportune moment. Foucault’s reading of the letter is of a great value for recognizing this key point: “this philosophizing should not define for politics what it has to do. It has to define for the government, for the political man, that which he has to be. It is a question of the being of the political man, of his mode of being.”23 And here the act of the letter itself is revealing: the advice Plato gives the friends of Dion is, first of all, not derived from any philosophical theories but completely focused on the practical and narrowly political issues they must resolve (restoring order after civil war, taking steps to prevent further dissension, etc.); secondly, as Foucault also notes, Plato does not even propose any specific laws but leaves that entirely to them (251). Foucault furthermore perceptively notes the striking fact that when Plato’s counsel makes reference to the immortality of the soul, a perfect opportunity for introducing his own theories on the matter, he instead advises Dion’s friends to place their trust in “the ancient and holy accounts” (τοῖς παλαιοῖς τε καὶ ἱεροῖς λόγοις, 335a2-3). Foucault remarks: “These non-philosophical accounts, these accounts of religious beliefs and of sacred traditions, are what ought to constitute the theoretical backdrop to which the political man refers” (253). It is, in short, completely mistaken to see Plato in Syracuse as attempting to implement his philosophical theories and being defeated by a recalcitrant reality he did not anticipate.24 It is therefore surprising, to say the least, that Michael Frede’s recently published case against the authenticity of the Seventh Letter is based on the premise that “the author of the Seventh Letter clearly presents Plato as trying as well as he can to turn Syracuse into the 215 This content downloaded from 201.22.189.53 on Fri, 16 Oct 2020 19:56:54 UTC All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms

ideal state of the Republic” (75; see also 48), an aim, Frede argues, that Plato cannot possibly have had at the time he was writing the Laws.25 Frede’s justification for this premise appears to amount to this: 1) the idea of philosopher-kings is quoted from the Republic as the solution to political evils and 2) Plato’s hopes for Syracuse appear to depend entirely on turning Dionysius into a philosopher and on Dion’s already being a philosopher. But what Frede needs to show is that the Plato of the letter seeks to make them into philosopher-kings in exactly the sense articulated in the Republic; indeed, on this claim depends his other argument against authenticity, i.e., that Dion falls far short of being, and that Dionysius could never have seriously been thought to have even the potential for becoming that kind of perfectly wise and just philosopher (59-65, 78-84). But that the Plato of the letter sought to realize the ideal of philosopher-kings exactly as presented in the Republic is something we must assume only if we have evidence for believing that he sought to turn Syracuse into exactly the ideal republic described in that dialogue with its guardian class, its abolition of private property, its holding of women and children in common, etc. But there is absolutely no suggestion of the latter in the Seventh Letter. This is something noted by Myles Burnyeat in the same volume: “There is not a word about the other controversial institutions of the Republic: cultural reform, abolition of the family and private property for the ruling class, a full-time citizens’ militia. Some scholars supposed that Plato hoped to turn Syracuse into the ideal city of the Republic. But that is not the message of VII, which restricts itself to promoting the rule of a philosopher” (141). Against this Frede appears to rests everything on the claim at 327c5-6 that Dionysius’s conversion to philosophy and the life of virtue will grant him and all his Syracusan subjects ‘immeasurable bliss’ (amêchanon makariotêti); surely, Frede reasons, only a city exactly like that of the Republic, and therefore philosopher-rulers exactly like those required for such a city, could provide immeasurable bliss (54)! But can so much be read into what in the context is likely to be an exaggeration for rhetorical effect? The sole reason given in the letter for wishing to turn Dionysius into a philosopher, as we have seen, is to make him a just person who will therefore enact, without having to resort to violence, just laws that 216 This content downloaded from 201.22.189.53 on Fri, 16 Oct 2020 19:56:54 UTC All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms

apply equally to ruler and ruled, where all the emphasis is on the importance of such laws.26 Frede’s argument is singled out here for critique only as the most recent representative of a common misreading of the letter. It is also important to note, however, that many scholars most recently working on the letter are on the side of Burnyeat here and not Frede.27 Plato’s ‘error’ What, then, was Plato’s error? It is significant that his harshest Ancient critics, unlike modern critics, never thought of accusing him of naive idealism or political blindness. Their accusation, instead, is that Plato was the parasite and flatterer of a tyrant and thus that he sacrificed his principles to gain power. What they accused Plato of, in short, was moral corruption.28 The response of the Seventh Letter to such an accusation is to describe Plato’s Sicilian adventure as πλάνη and ἀτυχία (350d7).29 It was not a political or moral error, not a philosophical error, but simply a result of that ‘chance’ on which, as Plato knew full well, all political success depends. Plato was not surprised by the events in Syracuse. He knew the risks and therefore went to Syracuse on both occasions with fear. There he met with the mischance of what he feared coming to pass. Heidegger’s amoral and apolitical politics Heidegger’s account of his ‘error’ There is a close parallel to Plato’s Seventh Letter in the case of Martin Heidegger: it is a text he wrote after the war entitled, “The Rectorate 1933/34: Facts and Thoughts.” This text has been much discussed since its publication,30 provoking very different reactions; it is fair to say, however, that given what we know today, it has come to appear at best misleading and at worst dishonest. With the recent publication of the notebooks Heidegger kept during the 1930’s and 1940’s we have what is at least a more candid and less reserved presentation of his view on political matters at the time. As has been noted, these notebooks are not simply a private diary but were clearly meant to be read by others, so that they are in this way similar to the Seventh Letter, which has the form of a private document while really being intended as a public document. The fact that Heidegger 217 This content downloaded from 201.22.189.53 on Fri, 16 Oct 2020 19:56:54 UTC All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms

insisted on these notebooks not being published until well after his death suggests, however, that he reveals more here than in the text published during his lifetime. In the notebooks Heidegger repeatedly describes his position in 1933, when he became rector of Freiburg University and joined the National Socialist party, with a word akin to the word Plato used: Irrtum or Irren, which could be a direct translation of the Greek πλανή and means ‘erring’ in the sense of ‘going astray’. But how does Heidegger understand his error? I will focus here on an especially important section from the notebooks of 1938/3931 in which Heidegger characterizes his mistake as follows: “Thinking purely ‘metaphysically’ (i.e., in terms of the history of being), in the years 1930-34 [note the dates!] I took National Socialism to be the possibility of a transition to a new beginning and gave it this interpretation” (408). But Heidegger then proceeds to describe this not as an over-estimation of the movement, but rather as an under-estimation. This is because what he now recognizes the movement as carrying out is “the completion of modernity [die Vollendung der Neuzeit].” This is clearly what Heidegger notoriously describes in the 1935 course “Introduction to Metaphysics” as the “inner truth and greatness” of National Socialism.32 Here this inner greatness makes of National Socialism not something to be criticized, but something to be affirmed. “The result of full insight into the earlier deception about the essence and the historical essential power of National Socialism is first the necessity of its affirmation and indeed on philosophical grounds” (408). Heidegger then asks how such an “essential affirmation” could be valued less than a merely superficial and blind agreement (408-9). The implication is clear. Heidegger no longer loudly applauds National Socialism, but he affirms it in a much more essential way. He continues to think of National Socialism purely metaphysically: the difference is that while he earlier thought it represented a new beginning, he now sees it as the full realization of the first beginning and therefore in a sense as even greater than he thought: there could be no new beginning without the completion of the first beginning carried out by National Socialism.

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But why National Socialism in particular? The answer is made clear in the following comment: “In what one calls, geographically and politically, the ‘Western democracies’, modernity has long ago come to a standstill and indeed in its explicit and implicit ‘metaphysics’; the power, and above all the essential calling, is lacking for the step towards completion” (405-6). The western democracies lack the strength to carry out the Vollendung that Heidegger sees National Socialism as carrying out. And the undemocratic, dictatorial character of the latter is key to the required power, as Heidegger makes clear in the following passage: Those who carry out the completion of modernity towards its highest essence are misleadingly called ‘dictators’ and only from the leftbehind position of the democracies—their greatness lies in the fact that they are capable of being ‘dictatorial’, that they sense the hidden necessity of the machination of being and do not let themselves be forced off course by any temptation (404).

Heidegger makes it clear that any moral criticisms here are completely beside the point: “Never, however, should these supports of violence be ‘morally’ devalued…” (404). Heidegger in these pages begins to speak of “the brutality of being” that names the “unconditionality of the machination of being [Machenschaft des Seins]” and that, he insists, has nothing to do with some bürgerlich moral judgment (42, p. 394). This brutality of being has as a consequence the brutality of man, by which is meant man taking himself to be a factum brutum and ‘grounding’ his animality (Tierheit) through a doctrine about race (396). It is not too hard to imagine the brutality in deed that will result from this metaphysical brutality. “But the predator, outfitted with the means of the most advanced technology—completes the realization of the brutality of being, and indeed in such a way that all ‘culture’ and historically calculated history—the image of history—is placed in its dust…” (397). Heidegger did not simply overlook the brutality of Nationalism Socialism in seeking something else of value in it; he considered its brutality to be essential to its inner truth and greatness. Here again, silly moral criticisms are beside the point. “Therefore, every ‘political’, every ‘moral’, every ‘religious’ critique and every critique concerned with ‘culture’ not only is short-sighted, 219 This content downloaded from 201.22.189.53 on Fri, 16 Oct 2020 19:56:54 UTC All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms

but is already as a ‘critique’ a misunderstanding, because the unconditional brutality of mankind corresponds and must correspond to the completion of the machination in being itself” (402). Heidegger’s moral ‘barbarism’ The result of all this is that, in contrast to Plato’s emphasis on virtue as the condition of all politics, Heidegger’s politics is characterized by ‘brutality’ and ‘barbarism’. Heidegger in a note written as early as 1932, and therefore before his assumption of the rectorship, explicitly characterizes National Socialism as a ‘barbaric principle’ only to claim that in this lies its essence and possible greatness. The danger, Heidegger claims, lies not in the barbaric principle itself, but in the possibility that it will be rendered harmless through the preaching of what is true, good, and beautiful!33 We see here why Heidegger will never object to the ugliness, the evil, the mendaciousness of National Socialism. This he takes to be essential to the greatness of the movement, whether this greatness is understood as the possibility of a fundamental transformation in our relation to being and thus of another beginning or as the completion of the first beginning and thus as the completion of the metaphysical, technological relation to being understood as machination. As for ‘culture’, all of Heidegger’s references to this notion positively drip with contempt. ‘Culture’ is conservative, is nothing but “the cobbling together of what has been” (GA94, p. 195). Barbarism and collapse are not, Heidegger insists, the greatest danger “because these conditions can impel us towards an extreme situation and thus bring forth a need” (330). The greatest danger in Heidegger’s view is instead “mediocrity [die Durchschnittlichkeit].” This is why in later notebooks, writing on the eve of World War Two, Heidegger can chillingly comment that if understanding and compromise could avoid much horror and suffering, they would only drag man deeper into the ‘humanization’ [Vermenschung] of himself and of beings and into the stupidity of a domination of all beings blind to the history of being (GA95, 194). It is not hard to guess which option Heidegger considers worse. War, as he goes on to say, is not what is most frightening (GA95, 202). 220 This content downloaded from 201.22.189.53 on Fri, 16 Oct 2020 19:56:54 UTC All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms

Heidegger’s political nihilism In the notebooks of 1938/39 one therefore finds Heidegger defending a completely amoral conception of politics that is well suited to the Nazis. He describes the gullibility [Gutgläubigkeit] of the people as a powerful weapon. The ruler will reveal to the people what he truly wants only once his success is guaranteed; then his task will be to make the people recognize their own will in the fulfillment of the ruler’s will. The value of such concealment and deception cannot be minimized by any ‘moral’ (Heidegger’s quotes) points of view (GA95, 190). Heidegger here also hints at a higher politics, though not higher because it is any more moral. Heidegger imagines the possibility of Da-sein being sustained by a truth that, rather than goals or success, knows other sources of rule. Here Heidegger is presumably alluding to the rule of being itself. But such rule is, if anything, even more amoral: “But then does ‘morality’, as a supplemental teaching, first become truly impossible” (190). A later section (58a) makes even more explicit what Heidegger is suggesting here: “Political action should not be measured by the standard of sensitivity and moral uprightness (Sittenrichterei)” (GA95, p. 232). But then from where should such action derive its law? We get this extraordinary response: Political action, which is indeed nothing in itself but is fully built into the essence of contemporary man and his history, finds its law in the ruthless [rücksichtslos] development towards an unrestrained and absolute reckoning with the putting into motion of masses as a whole--, all appeals to the preservation of the substance of the people and the like are necessary, but they always remain only pretexts for the unlimited domination of the political…” (my emphasis)

We find here perhaps the most important claim for understanding Heidegger’s ‘politics’: ‘political action’ is nothing in itself because it is simply what we have seen Heidegger describe as “the completion of modernity” and as such it must be utterly ruthless and amoral. For Heidegger it would therefore be the greatest stupidity to raise any political objections, much less moral objections, to National Socialism or any other political worldview, whatever its horrors. He makes this perfectly clear in a later section (41):

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To want to combat political worldviews politically, indeed to want to burden them with arbitrary and isolated scruples, is to fail to understand that what comes to pass in them is something of which they themselves are not master, of which they are only the passive and shackled executors--; namely, the forgetting of being (Seinsverlassenheit) that being (Seyn) itself has bequeathed to beings, the hidden refusal of the commencement and of the sites of originary decisions. Therefore it can never occur to reflection (Besinnung) to take seriously common short-sighted objections against those political movements. (GA95, 317-318)

Defenders of Heidegger who claim that he stopped supporting National Socialism after his initial ‘error’ perhaps have a point, though it needs, as we have seen, to be greatly qualified; where they go completely wrong is in suggesting that Heidegger became a critic of National Socialism. As the above shows, he was no more a critic of National Socialism than he was of any other possible or actual political movement, which is to say that he was a critic of none. The conclusion we must reach on the basis of the Schwarze Hefte is not that Heidegger was a National Socialist or that he was immoral, but rather that he was the most apolitical and amoral thinker in the history of Western philosophy, where these terms express not a mere indifference to politics and morality, but the denial of any legitimacy whatsoever to political or moral thought. Conclusion The above should make clear that Heidegger’s relation to National Socialism, rather than in any way reenacting Plato’s trip to Syracuse, is the utter negation of everything such a trip represented. If for Plato the trip was about morally educating the ruler, encouraging the creation of just laws, and putting an end to political faction and violence, Heidegger not only accepts the brutality and barbarism of National Socialism, but gives it metaphysical justification as a result of the brutality and barbarism of being itself. Whether he sees the greatness of National Socialism as lying in its transition to a new beginning, as he did in 1930-34, or as lying in its culmination of the modern technological age in such a way as to call for a new beginning, as he did afterwards, what Plato and we would object to in National Socialism is for Heidegger of such triviality and 222 This content downloaded from 201.22.189.53 on Fri, 16 Oct 2020 19:56:54 UTC All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms

vacuity as not to be worthy of serious philosophical reflection, much less self-righteous bourgeois moral-indignation at the violation of human rights and the loss of life. Plato’s trip to Syracuse is a recognition that political action is something in itself, making special demands and subject to conditions outside the control of philosophy, such as circumstance, chance, and the opportune moment. Furthermore, the project of such a trip is not to substitute philosophy for politics (which would involve confusing a philosophical ideal with a real city), but to have philosophy influence politics by way of morally improving the character of the ruler and lawmaker. For Heidegger, in contrast, any critique of the politics of National Socialism, any attempt at morally improving it, is an absurdity because such politics, being nothing in itself, is only the completion of the modern technological age to which both brutality and barbarism are indispensable. To lump Plato and Heidegger together as both symptoms of the same old problem philosophers have always had with politics does justice to neither; if it serves, as we have noted, the apologetics of some Heideggerians, such apologetics does Heidegger himself less justice than confronting what is genuinely problematic and even shocking in his relation to politics. Francisco J. Gonzalez is Professor of Philosophy at the University of Ottawa. His publications include Dialectic and Dialogue: Plato’s Practice of Philosophical Inquiry (Northwestern, 1998) and Plato and Heidegger: A Question of Dialogue (Penn State, 2009); Email: [email protected] 2In an earlier article, "Heidegger's 1933 Misappropriation of Plato's Republic", in Ermeneutica e Filosofia Antica, F. Trabattoni and M. Bergomi, eds. (Milan: Cisalpino, 2012), 63-119, I defend a similarly thesis, though there through a reading of the Republic and of Heidegger’s writings as published at the time, i.e., not including the Schwarze Hefte. 3 Though not always. Hugo Ott, certainly no apologist for Heidegger, finds the parallel between Heidegger’s rectorship and Plato’s trip to Syracuse so obvious that, without any explicit reference to Plato and therefore any justification, he simply entitles his chapter on the aftermath of Heidegger’s rectorship, “Back from Syracuse” (Martin Heidegger: Unterwegs zu seiner Biographie [Frankfurt am Main: Campus Verlag, 1992], 249-254). 1

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Published in English translation as Heidegger and Nazism (Philadelphia: Temple University Press, 1989). 5 Trans. John McCumber, Critical Inquiry 15, vol. 2 (Winter 1989): 429. 6 Hannah Arendt, “Martin Heidegger at Eighty,” New York Review of Books, October 21, 1971. 7 I am not defending any position here on the authenticity of the letter. I am reading the text as a particular depiction of the relation between philosophy and politics that many have tried wrongly, as I will argue, to turn into an explanation and justification of Heidegger’s political involvement. I am skeptical about authenticity, but not on account of the letter’s content: I reject both Michael Frede’s argument against authenticity based on the political content (for reasons presented below), as well as Myles Burnyeat’s argument based on the philosophical content (because it depends on an idea of what makes philosophical sense that is apparently peculiar to Burnyeat); for a different idea, see my reading of the philosophical digression in ch. 9 of Dialectic and Dialogue: Plato’s Practice of Inquiry [Northwestern, 1998]), both found in a recently published volume: The Seventh Platonic Letter: A Seminar, ed. Dominic Scott (Oxford University Press, 2015). What I find convincing are the general historical reasons outlined by Frede, pp. 3-40 (the letter is suspect, in short, because of the company it keeps) as well as stylistic reasons, some of which are presented by Burnyeat in the same volume (193-195). 8 Therefore, M. Isnardi Parenti rightly comments on these lines: “qui c’è un equivoco nella critica che è opportuno dissipare subito: Platone non parla degli ideali da lui tracciati nella Repubblica, che sono in realtà solo nel cielo delle idee . . .” (Platone: Lettere [Mondadori, 2002], 220-221). 9 One must therefore wonder how Luc Brisson can suggest that Plato is the kind of advisor “qui pretend changer radicalement l’équilibre des forces en presence, sans se plier à quelque négociation et à quelque compromise que ce soit” (Platon: Lettres, 4th ed. [Paris: Flammarion, 2004], 55). As Isnardi Parenti notes, many have seen in this prohibition of violent revolution evidence of the dialogue’s inauthenticity since they see it as inconsistent with Plato’s position in the Republic (220, 223). 10 Isnardi Parenti characterizes Plato’s advice here as being “quanto Platone ritiene di poter fare per una città che esiste e che ha già avuto una storia complessa” (226). 11 Jürgen Sprute assumes that Plato’s aim in going to Syracuse was the realization of his political ideals in the Republic, but he argues that Dion 4

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in contrast acted out of purely private interests (“Dions Syrakusanische Politik und die Politischen Ideale Platons,” Hermes 100, no. 3 [1972]: 299, 301) and that Plato’s personal attachment blinded him to this fact (312-312). The opposite conclusion regarding Dion’s motives is reached by Kurt von Fritz (Platon in Sizilien und das Problem der Philosophenherrschaft [Berlin: Walter de Gruyter, 1968], 63-108). 12 Raül Garrigasait Colomès has rightly drawn attention to the emphasis the letter places on the importance of chance in every political endeavor (Cartes [Barcelona: Fundació Bernat Metge, 2009], 31). 13 V. Bradley Lewis rightly observes, “These apprehensions are important, for they belie any sense of political idealism or zeal for massive political reform, the sort of zeal that must have been present if Plato’s intentions had been something like the establishment of Kallipolis in Sicily. Just what were Plato’s expectations? They were anything but naive” (“The Seventh Letter and the Unity of Plato’s Political Philosophy,” The Southern Journal of Philosophy 38 [2000]: 233). 14 The necessity to contend with chance in politics is a theme that runs throughout the letter. This is why it seems simply wrong to assert that Plato was convinced of the “absolutely efficacy” of his counsels (Brisson, pp. 54-55). 15 See Lewis, 236. 16 Colomès is therefore right to describe Plato’s objective in his third visit to Sicily as “eminentment pràctic” (19). He notes that the sequence of facts recounted by the letter enables us to see “a Plato very different from that daydreamer and constructor of ideal cities that certain views today tend to present him as. The desire to participate in public matters does not take its initiative from a prior conception of the ‘perfect city’; Plato does not approach the city with his vision resting on a celestial model; the philosopher, in fact, does not approach the city because he is already there” (29; my translation). As Colomès notes, in the letter Plato turns to philosophy only from and through politics, so that his philosophy from the very start has a political orientation (30-31). The reason for association between philosophy and politics is therefore explained “not from an abstract and purely ‘intellectual’ position, but from a rootedness in the city” (31) 17 Isnardi Parenti speaks of Plato’s great imprudence in trying to turn Dionysius into a philosopher (xviii). We can agree with H. T. Karsten that Plato “non tamen tam rerum hominumque ignarus fuit, ut perfectam illam quam mente informasse civitatis imaginem reapse effectam reddi posse putaret, aut Dionysium talem regem fore

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confideret, cuius imperio δύναμις et φιλοσοφία velut in unum conflatae, ut dicit, optimae civitatis effigiem ob oculos ponerent» (Commentatio critica de Platonis quae ferunter Epistolis [1864], 127); but this is no argument for the author of the letter not being Plato since the author nowhere expresses such a naive belief! 18 Likewise: “Mais il hésitait à prendre pour cela le meilleur moyen, à supposer que ce moyen existait, c’est-à-dire, bien sûr, se familiariser avec moi et me fréquenter comme élève et comme auditeur de mon enseignement philosophique” (Brisson); “frequentarmi, ascolatare le mie lezioni, imparare le mie dottrine filosofische” (Isnardi Parenti). 19 Isnardi Parenti interprets this as “un trattato o un manuale per apprendere bene et rapidamente la filosofia” (235). 20 Brisson here translates correctly, and also Isnardi Parenti: “Mi hanno detto che più tardi ha messo anche per iscritto quello que aveva appreso, presentandolo come un suo trattato e non come frutto dell’insegnamento altrui”. 21 Lewis also casts doubt on the common assumption that Plato was trying to turn Dionysius into a philosopher (242-3 & 249 n. 38). 22 Lewis argues that what we have here is simply the view that “Philosophical rule is an answer to the problem of stasis” (239). See also Colomès (32). 23 Le gouvernement de soi et des autres (Paris: Gallimard/Seuil, 2008), 273. 24 Dennis Schmidt completely misrepresents the letter on this point (“The Baby and the Bath Water: on Heidegger and Political Life,” in Heidegger and Practical Philosophy, eds. François Raffoul and David Pettigrew [SUNY Press: 2002], 162-165), characterizing it as “a protracted defense of the most basic metaphysical conviction about the relation of philosophy to politics, namely, that political decision be submitted to philosophical control” (163). What is significant about this misrepresentation is that it serves Schmidt’s apologetic aim of arguing not only that Heidegger’s politics is a repetition of Plato’s trip to Syracuse, but that it is a result of Heidegger’s thought becoming momentarily contaminated with Platonism. 25 See p. 52. Frede’s surprise that the Syracusan project does not follow the program of the Laws is itself surprising: is there not a major difference between a colony to be founded from scratch and a city like Syracuse with existing laws and power structures? 26 Frede himself must recognize this emphasis as an important difference between the letter and the Republic (p. 51).

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27

28

29

30

In addition to Colomès (36-37), Isnardi Parenti, and Lewis, already cited above, see Susan Sara Monoson, Plato’s Democratic Entanglements (Princeton University Press, 2000), pp. 147-150, and Mark A. Ralkowski, who asserts succinctly: “The kallipolis simply wasn’t part of their plans” (Heidegger’s Platonism [Continuum, 2009], p. 149). Even the editor of Frede’s seminar notes, Dominic Scott, while agreeing, wrongly in my view, that Plato set out to create the philosopher-rulers of the Republic (an agreement that makes him find Frede’s second argument against authenticity as noted above compelling, 97), takes issue with Frede in noting, on the basis of 337c6-d8, that the Plato of the letter comes to recognize and settle for the ‘second-best’ solution of a rule of law to which both rulers and ruled are subject, even if there is no philosopher ruling (95). Von Fritz seems to need no evidence that Plato sought to realize his ideal republic in Syracuse since he appears to think that such a project follows a apriori from Plato’s having written the Republic (33). See pp. 26-7 of Colomès for Ancient criticism of Plato’s involvement with Dionysus: specifically, his characterization as the parasite of a tyrant by Aristoxenus of Tarent (pupil of Aristotle) and the characterization of the Platonists as διονυσοκόλακες by Epicurus. Von Fritz believes that the facts of Plato’s lack of success in Sicily by themselves show him to have been guilty of “politically an extremely poor judgment” (17). But how does it show poor political judgment to recognize, as Plato did, that success depends largely on chance and circumstance and then to be proven right rather than wrong when chance and circumstance turn out to be unfavorable? One might question Plato’s decision to engage in a project he saw as having little prospect for success out of a sense of obligation to his friends, but this could clearly not be called politically poor judgment. Von Fritz himself (53-54), as well as Monoson (149), note the importance of this nonpolitical motive. Die Selbstbehauptung der deutschen Universität : Rede gehalten bei der feierlichen Übernahme des Rektorats der Universität Freiburg i. Br. am 27.5.1933 ; Das Rektorat 1933/34 : Tatsachen und Gedanken (Frankfurt am Main: Vittorio Klostermann, 1983). Translated by Karsten Harries as “The Self-Assertion of the German University: Address, Delivered on the Solemn Assumption of the Rectorate of the University of Freiburg; The Rectorate 1933/34: Facts and Thoughts,” Review of Metaphysics 38 (1985): 467-502.

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Überlegungen VII-XI (Schwarze Hefte 1938-1939), Gesamtausgabe 95 (Frankfurt am Main: Vittorio Klostermann, 2014), sec. 53, pp. 408-9. 32 Heidegger there claimed that what is bandied about as the philosophy of National Socialism has nothing to with “mit der inneren Wahrheit und Größe dieser Bewegung” and then explains with a parenthesis that has been shown to have been added later: “(nämlich mit der Begegnung der planetarisch bestimmten Technik und des neuzeitlichen Menschen)” (Einführung in die Metaphysik [Tübingen: Max Niemeyer, 1953], p. 152; Gesamtausgabe 40 [Vittorio Klostermann, 1983], p. 208). 33 Überlegungen II-VI (Schwarze Hefte 1931-1938), Gesamtausgabe 94 (Frankfurt am Main: Vittorio Klostermann, 2014), 194. 31

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Parnassos Press – Fonte Aretusa Chapter Title: Success against all odds, failure against all logic: Plutarch on Dion, Timoleon, and the liberation of Sicily Chapter Author(s): Marion Theresa Schneider Book Title: Philosopher Kings and Tragic Heroes Book Subtitle: Essays on Images and Ideas from Western Greece Book Editor(s): Heather L. Reid and Davide Tanasi Published by: Parnassos Press – Fonte Aretusa Stable URL: https://www.jstor.org/stable/j.ctvbj7gjn.17 JSTOR is a not-for-profit service that helps scholars, researchers, and students discover, use, and build upon a wide range of content in a trusted digital archive. We use information technology and tools to increase productivity and facilitate new forms of scholarship. For more information about JSTOR, please contact [email protected]. Your use of the JSTOR archive indicates your acceptance of the Terms & Conditions of Use, available at https://about.jstor.org/terms This content is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License (CC BY-NC-ND 4.0). To view a copy of this license, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/.

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Marion Theresa Schneider1 Success against all odds, failure against all logic: Plutarch on Dion, Timoleon, and the liberation of Sicily The ‘inexplicable’ liberation of Sicily in Plutarch’s Lives When looking at the beautiful scenery of Syracuse today, one can hardly believe that there once was a time when Sicily was regarded as almost synonymous with enslavement and tyranny; yet, there really was a time when people looking at Syracuse could hardly believe that Sicily could be free. Take, for example, Plutarch’s account of the two attempts at freeing Sicily from tyranny made by Dion of Syracuse in 357 BCE and Timoleon of Corinth in 345/4 BCE: In his Life of Dion, the Platonic philosopher and biographer Plutarch (~45 ~125 CE) paints a brilliant picture of the scene when in 355 BCE, Apollocrates, eldest son of Dionysius II, and at this point commander of the tyrant’s citadel on the island of Ortygia, finally had to surrender the citadel to the people of Syracuse and leave the city, accompanied by the royal family. The picture Plutarch paints of the Syracusans’ reaction to this event is full of vivid imagination, joy – and wonder (Plut. Dion 50, 3-4): …and no one who was then in Syracuse missed that sight, nay, they called upon the absent ones also, pitying them because they could not behold this day and the rising of the sun upon a free Syracuse. For since, among the illustrations men give of the mutations of fortune, the expulsion of Dionysius is still to this day the strongest and plainest, what joy must we suppose those men themselves then felt, and how great a pride, who, with the fewest resources (ἐλαχίσταις ἀφορμαῖς), overthrew the greatest tyranny that ever was (τὴν μεγίστην τῶν πώποτε τυραννίδων)!2

It is not only in the Life of Dion that Plutarch lays great stress on the paradox between the rather hopeless starting-points of Dion’s enterprise of freeing Sicily and its unbelievable success (however short it may have been); he also does so in his biography of Dion’s more successful ‘successor’, Timoleon. Here (Timol. 1, 4) we are told with equal astonishment about the strange facts concerning the temporary liberation of Sicily from the tyranny achieved by Dion, 229 This content downloaded from 201.22.189.53 on Fri, 16 Oct 2020 19:57:04 UTC All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms

and about its temporary re-enslavement in 346 BCE (after Dion had been murdered): The tyrant, Dionysios II, “had been unaccountably (παραλόγως) deprived by a small force of the greatest tyranny that ever was, and now more unaccountably still (παραλογώτερον) he had become, from a lowly exile, master of those who drove him forth.”3 Not much later (16, 1), the fortune of Dionysius is reversed again, and this time ultimately, due to the success of Timoleon. As Plutarch notes: “But though the misfortune of Dionysius seemed extraordinary (παραλόγου), none the less did the good fortune of Timoleon have something marvelous (θαυμαστόν) about it.”4 Two questions may arise when looking at these statements of astonishment: First, one may wonder what truth there was to this ‘paradoxical’ nature of the liberation of Sicily as perceived by Plutarch. Was he the only one to regard the liberation of Sicily as an unexpected, inexplicable event, or was this notion of astonishment at Dion’s, and later Timoleon’s, achievements against all expectations common to other historians as well, even contemporaries, and as such almost amounting to a fact? Secondly, whether fact or fiction, may there have been a special end to whose purpose Plutarch employed or stressed the theme of ‘inexplicability’ in telling the story of Dion and Timoleon at Syracuse? It was, after all, also the story of the failed historical attempt to put into practice the theoretical political ideals of his philosophical teacher, Plato, at Syracuse, and the more successful story of the unphilosophical general Timoleon. In order to answer these questions, a comparison will be needed with other reports on Dion’s enterprise in Sicily and with the views held by their authors (e. g. Diodorus Siculus or Nepos) as well as between Plutarch’s contrasting Lives of Dion and Timoleon. Both comparisons, I argue, can lead us to a deeper understanding of Plutarch’s perception not only with regard to the ‘inexplicable’ liberation of Sicily launched by the teachings of Plato, but also the ‘inexplicable’ failure of Dion and the teachings of Plato at Syracuse. The ‘inexplicable’ liberation of Sicily - Facts or Fiction? Of course, literature, especially in antiquity, is full of ‘paradoxical’ stories like those of Dion and Timoleon as told by Plutarch. We might think of the whole genre of Paradoxography or 230 This content downloaded from 201.22.189.53 on Fri, 16 Oct 2020 19:57:04 UTC All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms

Thaumasia-literature.5 This popularity of paradoxical stories might be due either to a literary topos or to an anthropological constant in human experience (which both could be termed “David against Goliath”). In the case of the liberation of Sicily, the notion of a success that no logical calculation would have predicted actually seems to have been so common to historians that we may with good reason assume that there must have been some historical truth to it. Compare the way in which Diodorus Siculus (1st century BCE) phrases his view on Dion’s victory over Dionysius II in 357 BCE in his universal history, the Bibliotheke (16, 9, 1-3): Dion, son of Hipparinus, sailed to Sicily intending to overthrow the tyranny of Dionysius, and with slenderer resources than those of any conqueror before his time (ἐλαχίσταις δὲ τῶν πρὸ αὐτοῦ πάντων χρησάμενος ἀφορμαῖς) he succeeded contrary to all expectation (ἀνελπίστως) in overthrowing the greatest realm in all Europe (μεγίστην δυναστείαν τῶν κατὰ τὴν Εὐρώπην). Who, indeed, would have believed that, putting ashore with two merchantmen, he could actually have overcome the despot who had at his disposal four hundred ships of war, infantry numbering nearly one hundred thousand, ten thousand horses, and as great a store of arms, food, and money as one in all probability possessed who had to maintain lavishly the aforesaid forces; and, apart from all we have mentioned, had a city which was the largest of the cities of Hellas, and harbours and docks and fortified citadels that were impregnable, and, besides, a great number of powerful allies? The cause for Dion's successes was, above all others, his own nobility of spirit (ἡ ἰδία λαμπρότης τῆς ψυχῆς), his courage (ἀνδρεία) and the willing support of those who were to be liberated (ἡ τῶν ἐλευθεροῦσθαι μελλόντων εὔνοια), but still more important than all these were the pusillanimity of the tyrant and his subjects' hatred of him (ἥ τε ἀνανδρία τοῦ τυράννου καὶ τὸ τῶν ἀρχομένων πρὸς αὐτὸν μῖσος); for when all these characteristics merged at a single critical moment (πάντα γὰρ ταῦτα πρὸς ἕνα καιρὸν συνδραμόντα), they unexpectedly (παραδόξως) brought to a successful close deeds which were considered impossible (τὰς ἀπιστουμένας πράξεις πρὸς τέλος ἤγαγεν).6

We note the striking similarities between Plutarch and Diodorus concerning the focus on the paradoxical side of the events leading to the liberation of Sicily; admittedly both authors generally shared a striking fascination with paradoxical events,7 but while this 231 This content downloaded from 201.22.189.53 on Fri, 16 Oct 2020 19:57:04 UTC All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms

fascination may explain some of the interest they took in the stories of Dion and Timoleon first-hand, it does not tell us much about the historical truth behind them. Of course, since the similarities between Plutarch and Diodorus are even such that they use the same phrases (τὴν μεγίστην… τυραννίδων… ἐλαχίσταις ἀφορμαῖς/ἐλαχίσταις… ἀφορμαῖς…μεγίστην δυναστεία), the notion of paradoxical success might be due to a common source both authors shared at this point of the story. This common source may have been Ephorus, probably Diodorus’s main source for the passages on Dion and at least one of the major sources used by Plutarch;8 since Ephorus in turn may have been influenced by the report of Dion’s comrade, Timonides of Leucas,9 which was widely used by Plutarch for the middle section of his biography, there may also have been a more indirect link between the versions of Diodorus and Plutarch. Yet, generally Plutarch and Diodorus are considered as representing two different, and often opposite, strands of tradition on the history of Dion.10 Common source or not, however, there is still one major difference between both authors that cannot be explained away so easily, namely the way they actually use the shared information on the paradoxical nature of the liberation of Sicily: Diodorus, in contrast to Plutarch, at once adds a variety of logical explanations for the strange facts related (Dion’s nobility of spirit and courage, the willing support of the tyrant’s subjects, the tyrant’s cowardice and the hatred he inspired in his people); in his eyes, a series of plausible events and sentiments coming together at the right point in time made the impossible happen. In Plutarch, the statements of inexplicable success and failure are not followed by any such clear explanation on the author’s side, rather, they feature as a kind of concluding comment on the strangeness of these events. Almost the same is the case when we compare Plutarch’s account of Dion’s enterprise with that of Cornelius Nepos (1st century BCE) in his book on Great generals of foreign nations (Excellentium Imperatorum Vitae). Nepos’s short report on the liberation of Sicily through Dion features two numerical facts (10 000 horsemen, 100 000 on foot) that must derive from a common source with Diodorus (maybe, again, Ephorus, since Nepos’s main source, Timaios, is usually held to be responsible for the many striking 232 This content downloaded from 201.22.189.53 on Fri, 16 Oct 2020 19:57:04 UTC All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms

differences between him and Diodorus;11 but since there are scholars who argue that Nepos’s biography wholly relied on one single source, namely Timaios,12 the similar numbers may as well derive from another tradition). Far more importantly, though, it also includes two further formulations that again stress the general perception of Dion’s paradoxical success (Dion 5, 3): Nevertheless Dion, relying less upon his own resources than on hatred of the tyrant (fretus non tam suis copiis quam odio tyranny), although he had but two transports, sallied forth with the greatest courage to attack a dynasty of fifty years’ duration, defended by five hundred war ships, ten thousand horsemen and a hundred thousand on foot. And he so easily (adeo facile) overthrew his opponents – a success which filled all nations with amazement (quod omnibus gentibus admirabile est uisum) – that two days after landing in Sicily he entered Syracuse; which goes to show that no rule is secure which is not founded upon the devotion of its subjects.13

Nepos, we see, adds more and more evidence to a common thread running through ancient historiography, i.e. the tendency of portraying the liberation of Sicily as something perceived already by its contemporaries as a paradoxical event. But Nepos, like Diodorus and unlike Plutarch, does not simply identify with the amazement of Dion’s contemporaries. He at once gives his own logical explanation for the events, based on his own political convictions: as a lover of freedom, libertas, and a hater of tyrants; to him, no tyranny, however strong, can be safe from being overthrown if the tyrant cannot make his subjects love him and consent to his rule. At this point, having seen already some of the numbers given by Diodorus and Nepos to visualize the factual discrepancy between the mighty army of the tyrant of Syracuse and Dion’s small band of desperadoes setting out to overthrow him and granted with such inexplicable success, we might – with all due caution – want to ascertain some of the truth behind their numbers and behind the theme of their unexpected success. Of course, there can be no doubt that the tyrant Dionysius, with his army and his fortifications, was indeed powerful – whether the numbers of his men, listed by both Diodorus and Nepos as accruing to 10,000 horsemen, 100,000 foot soldiers, and between 400 and 500 233 This content downloaded from 201.22.189.53 on Fri, 16 Oct 2020 19:57:04 UTC All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms

ships, be exact or not. But there has been some doubt concerning the numbers of Dion’s men as given by Plutarch and Diodorus Siculus. Plutarch lists 800 Greek mercenaries crossing the Adriatic onboard about five ships (cf. Plut. Dion 22, 8). They are joined by about 5,000 Sicilians (Plut. Dion 27, 5), accruing to a total of only 5,800 men fighting against the army of Dionysius – a small band indeed, one might say. Diodorus however paints a somewhat different picture: In his version, Dion’s 1,000/3,000 Greek mercenaries (Diod. 16, 9, 5-6.; 16, 17, 3 – the numbers vary) are joined by no less than 20,000 Sicilians (Diod. 16, 9, 5-6); for the battle of Syracuse we even read of a total of 50,000 men on Dion’s side (Diod. 16, 10, 5 – however this calculation may have come about): a bit more of an army of liberators and ten times as many as related by Plutarch. So what is to be made of all these numbers? Very little but the conclusion that there must have been more than one tradition on the liberation of Sicily,14 with all traditions agreeing on the unpredictable nature of Dion’s success, while disagreeing somewhat on its extent. Concerning Diodorus and Plutarch, the contradictory numbers have been blamed on their somewhat biased sources, Plutarch’s number of 5,800 men being received from Dion’s fellow-combatant, Timonides, and being meant to glorify Dion’s success, Diodorus’s 50,000 being a typical exaggeration as so many found in Ephorus.15 So far then, it has already become rather unlikely that the general agreement on the paradoxical nature of Dion’s success against Dionysius was simply due to the character of one single early source that influenced all our other evidence, directly or indirectly. Yet, we might want to strengthen this argument by looking into one last piece of evidence, this time more or less contemporary to the events in question: In his Adversus Leptinem the rhetorician Demosthenes refers to the events concerning Dion’s expedition to Sicily only one or two years afterwards16 in a manner very similar to Diodorus, Nepos, and Plutarch (Demosthenes 20, 162): Nor again could the present Dionysius ever have expected (οὐδέ γ' ὁ νῦν ὢν Διονύσιος ἤλπισεν ἄν ποτ' ἴσως) that Dion would come against him in a cargo-boat with a handful of soldiers and expel the master of so many warships and mercenaries and cities. But, methinks, the future is hidden from all men, and great events hang on small chances (μικροὶ καιροὶ μεγάλων πραγμάτων αἴτιοι γίγνονται).

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Therefore we must be modest in the day of prosperity, and must show that we are not blind to the future.17

Here, Demosthenes is not really concerned with the actual liberation of Sicily nor is he favoring any of the participants: he merely uses the unexpected downfall of Dionysius as an example supporting his own argument of how little men (and namely, his opponent in this case, the legislator Leptines) can predict the future.18 Even if the Athenians’ only source on Dion’s victory may have been the letters Timonides sent to Plato’s disciple Speusippus, the example of Dionysius and Dion would certainly not have had any plausibility for Demosthenes’s audience, if there had been any dispute about the unexpectedness of Dion’s success beforehand: If there had been more than a few smaller ships leaving from Greece with more than one thousand mercenaries and joined by more than a few thousand Sicilians, in short, if the victory over Dionysius had not come against all expectation (παρὰ δόξαν), the audience of Demosthenes, being fully aware of the events and their outcome (since it had happened only one or two years earlier), would not have been convinced by his exaggeration.19 Therefore, the whole use of the example within Demosthenes’s argumentation before his audience of contemporary Greeks rests on the factual character of Dion’s ‘unexpected’ success. Explaining the ‘inexplicable’ – Plutarch’s interpretation So we have seen that all of the more important sources on Dion’s enterprise in Syracuse refer to the liberation of Sicily as a kind of inexplicable, paradoxical event. We have also seen, though, that Diodorus as well as Nepos at once added what rational explanations they could find for the inexplicable to have come to pass the way it did: For Diodorus Siculus, the Sicilian patriot who revels in highlighting deeds and achievements brought about by his countrymen,20 it had been the natural prowess and nobility of the Syracusan prince Dion and the courageous people of Syracuse and Sicily that, combined at the critical moment, had made the impossible possible. For Nepos, the Roman Republican and hater of tyrants, who ponders on what keeps powerful military leaders from becoming a risk to libertas and on what gives some people the strength to defeat a tyrant,21 it is the intrinsic weakness of every tyranny – the inability to 235 This content downloaded from 201.22.189.53 on Fri, 16 Oct 2020 19:57:04 UTC All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms

win the support of its people – that inevitably led to the end of the tyranny of Dionysius. In Demosthenes, the liberation of Sicily becomes only one in a row of similar examples in his line of argument, which states that there are events that cannot be predicted and therefore should be a warning to people prone to hubris like his opponent, Leptines. Each of these authors commenting on the liberation of Sicily uses the simple, general perception of a seemingly inexplicable event to support their own argument and conviction. So what about Plutarch: does he, too, offer some clear logical explanation for the paradoxical events he observes? The case is not as clear in Plutarch as it is in Diodorus, Nepos, or Demosthenes: There is no explanation directly following Plutarch’s observations on the paradoxical liberation and re-enslavement of Sicily. Rather these observations stand for themselves, more like a concluding comment than a question aiming at an answer. In order to find reasons that could explain the inexplicable nature of the liberation of Sicily in the eyes of Plutarch, or to discover more about his purpose when he employs this trope in his story of Dion, one should best take a closer look at his Life of Dion and his Life of Timoleon together. a) Dion’s rise against all odds Even though Plutarch is less explicit on his explanations for the extraordinary liberation of Sicily than Nepos or Diodorus, there is, of course, a line of more or less implicit logical reasons for Dion’s success that can be extracted from his narration in the course of the Life. Like Nepos and Diodorus for example, Plutarch refers to the people’s hatred of Dionysius as an important element clearing the way for Dion’s glorious entry into Syracuse (Comp. Dionis et Bruti 4, 1-2): “For Dionysius must have been despised by everyone of his associates, devoted as he was to wine, dice, and women… Therefore Dion had only to be seen in Sicily, and many thousands joined him in attacking Dionysius (διὸ τῷ μὲν ὀφθέντι μόνον ἐν Σικελίᾳ μυριάδες οὐκ ὀλίγαι συνέστησαν ἐπὶ Διονύσιον).”22 This critical observation, though, is only made in comparison with the parallel life of Brutus at the end of both Lives (where it marks an important difference between both men). It is not really one that is stressed by Plutarch in the Life of Dion itself more than usual in a story about overthrowing a tyrant.23 In the actual narrative, the 236 This content downloaded from 201.22.189.53 on Fri, 16 Oct 2020 19:57:04 UTC All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms

‘myriads’ of men joining the expedition (a rhetorical exaggeration, obviously) had melted down to a few thousand. But besides the people’s hatred of Dionysius as a natural stimulus for joining Dion’s ‘march of the Thousand’24 towards Syracuse, there are also some references to a positive kind of yearning for being saved from tyranny through philosophy which Plutarch perceives in Sicily (Dion 19, 1-2): “His [i.e. Plato’s] arrival filled Dionysius with great joy, and the Sicilians [Sicily] again with great hope; they all prayed and laboured zealously that Plato might triumph over Philistus, and philosophy over tyranny (Σικελίαν, συνευχομένην καὶ συμφιλοτιμουμένην, Πλάτωνα μὲν Φιλίστου περιγενέσθαι, φιλοσοφίαν δὲ τυραννίδος).”25 Love of wisdom as an impetus for the Sicilians to turn their eyes towards Plato and Dion – wouldn’t that be an excellent explanation for the liberation of Sicily from the perspective of a Platonic philosopher like Plutarch? On closer inspection, though, observations like this are, unlike those of Diodorus before, not stated by Plutarch as facts that already have come to pass; rather, they are hopeful illusions that often do not even reflect his own opinions on the people of Sicily, but those of his sources and/or agents in the story (e.g. Timonides or Speusippos) who follow a clear aim: Their portrait of the people of Syracuse as longing for Plato’s philosophy and Dion’s military aid was meant to convince either Plato and Dion of the necessity to return to Syracuse or to demonstrate to their other readers how right Plato and Dion were in actually doing so. See for example Speusippus’s entreaty shortly before Dion’s actual return to Sicily and the way it anticipates the trope of the small resources overpowering a tyranny (Dion 22, 1): From this time on Dion turned his thoughts to war. With this Plato himself would have nothing to do, out of respect for his tie of hospitality with Dionysius, and because of his age. But Speusippus and the rest of his companions co-operated with Dion and besought him to free Sicily, which stretched out her arms to him and eagerly awaited his coming (Σικελίαν, χεῖρας ὀρέγουσαν αὐτῷ καὶ προθύμως ὑποδεχομένην)… For all now spoke in the same strain, begging and exhorting Dion to come without ships, men-at-arms, or horses; he was simply to come himself in a small boat, and lend the Sicilians his person and his name against Dionysius (παρὰ πάντων λόγος,

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δεομένων καὶ παρακελευομένων ἐλθεῖν Δίωνα μὴ ναῦς ἔχοντα μηδ' ὁπλίτας μηδ' ἵππους, ἀλλ' αὐτὸν εἰς ὑπηρετικὸν ἐμβάντα χρῆσαι τὸ σῶμα καὶ τοὔνομα Σικελιώταις ἐπὶ τὸν Διονύσιον).26

Could these hopes and expectations which the Sicilians allegedly set on Dion, his person and his name, be an explanation for his inexplicable success? Not in the eyes of Plutarch, I argue. The opinion Plutarch had of the people of Syracuse/Sicily seems to have differed very much from that professed by some protagonists in the Life. Of course, Plutarch observes, the people of Sicily were longing for liberty, and this emotional element of longing made up for some deficiencies in their numbers or weapons (cf. 27, 5). Of course, he observes, the Syracusans wanted to be saved from tyranny and, accordingly, received Dion and his men with a welcoming worthy of gods when they proved to be successful (cf. 24, 5-10; 28, 4; 29, 2; 46, 12). But in between these moments of triumph and success, when times were getting harder and actual choices had to be made, the Syracusans again and again proved to be a fickle, unwise, and egoistic people – philosophy did not rank that high among them when it came to decision making (see especially chapter 32 onward). If there was any human contribution to Dion’s military success in Sicily on the part of other parties worth mentioning, in the eyes of Plutarch it was surely not that of the Sicilians, but the prowess, the experience, and the spirit of the Greek mercenaries that could make up for any lack in numbers (cf. 22, 8). Again and again, they play the crucial roles among Dion’s men, more than once saving the day for the rest of them. And again and again, the expectations of the enemy (the Syracusans themselves, respectively) to find the smaller force of Dion easy prey are confounded because of just these characteristics (e.g. 30, 10-11; 38, 6). Afterwards, of course, their number is exaggerated by the responsible commanders who are overtaken by this small force without too much of a fight of resistance (e.g. Timocrates in 28, 2). Yet, in my opinion, none of these rational explanations implicitly given by Plutarch in the course of events suffices to explain the paradoxical success of Dion as observed in the passages above. Rather, Plutarch from the beginning of the Life of Dion explicitly stresses a different, irrational element that in his eyes seems to have 238 This content downloaded from 201.22.189.53 on Fri, 16 Oct 2020 19:57:04 UTC All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms

been at the core of the whole liberation of Sicily: the support Dion and Plato received from some divine power that wanted to use both the prince and the philosopher for laying the foundation of a free Sicily. It was “by some divine good fortune (θείᾳ τινὶ τύχῃ)”, Plutarch observes, that “Plato came to Sicily. This was not of man’s devising, but some heavenly power, as it would seem (κατ' οὐδένα λογισμὸν ἀνθρώπινον· ἀλλὰ δαίμων τις ὡς ἔοικε), laying far in advance of the time a foundation for the liberty of Syracuse, and devising a subversion of tyranny, brought Plato from Italy to Syracuse and made Dion his disciple.”27 Plutarch here is taking up the argumentation, even the wording of Plato’s Seventh Letter,28 but the meaning of words and, consequently, the meaning of the whole passage reflecting the intention of the writer has changed since the Seventh Letter was written: When Plato points to tyche’s role in his coming to Sicily, he is speaking of blind fortune, a more or less irrational power that he cannot control at all (at the end of the letter, it is plainly characterized as τύχη τις ἀνθρώπων κρείττων, 737d). It is this blind fortune that consequently can be made responsible for all the mishaps to follow, without passing any judgement on Plato’s own intentions or actions regarding Syracuse.29 Tyche still has a similar meaning in the philosophical writings of Plutarch, but in his Lives the term has become something different: here tyche (as expressed in the epithet theios above) denotes a godlike, divine power that is not blind, but steers the world intentionally, although men cannot know these intentions. Plutarch uses tyche in his lives as almost a synonym for providence (πρόνοια).30 Accordingly, tyche’s influence on the events in Sicily does not so much diminish Plato’s or Dion’s responsibility for its liberation, but rather lends them authority. It elevates their intentions, their actions, and their outcome. The fact that Plato and Dion were right in taking action in Syracuse is proven by the success bestowed upon them by divine powers. Again and again, these forces interfere on their behalf causing the most extraordinary, inexplicable events to happen so the impossible liberation of Sicily can take place. For example, when Dion finally reaches Sicily, he learns from the Carthaginian commander Synalos that Dionysius has by chance just sailed to Italy with eighty ships (26, 1): “But what most of all encouraged them was 239 This content downloaded from 201.22.189.53 on Fri, 16 Oct 2020 19:57:04 UTC All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms

the accidental (τὸ συμβεβηκὸς αὐτομάτως) absence of Dionysius from Syracuse; for it chanced (ἐτύγχανεν) that he had recently sailed with eighty ships to Italy.”31 The tyrant learns of Dion’s expedition later still, due to an even stranger accident (τύχη τις παράλογος) befalling the messenger sent to him by the then commander of Syracuse, Timocrates: a wolf steals the wallet containing the report for Dionysios, and the messenger, out of fear of Dionysios’s reaction, runs away rather than telling the tyrant about his mishap (26, 7-27, 1).32 In addition, a row of prodigious omina accompanies Dion’s march towards Syracuse and his entry into the city. Plutarch’s observation that there was something extraordinary, unaccountable about Dion’s success in Sicily does fit very well with these reported stories, which do not feature in Diodorus or Nepos. Yet, of course, Plutarch’s narration cannot end here: At the peak of his success, as it were, Dion’s fortune seems to undergo a serious change. This change of fortune is put in one very expressive scene by Plutarch: The hour of Dion’s greatest triumph over tyranny, when he addresses the people of Syracuse to proclaim their freedom standing on the monumental sun-dial built by the tyrants, is overshadowed by the very ambiguous interpretation of the soothsayers who interpret the circumstances of this address as both a good omen for Syracuse and a bad omen for the personal career of Dion (29, 5): “To the soothsayers … it seemed a most happy omen, that Dion, when he harangued the people, had put under his feet the ambitious monument of the tyrant; but because it was a sun-dial upon which he stood when he was elected general, they feared that his enterprise might undergo some speedy change of fortune (μὴ τροπήν τινα τῆς τύχης αἱ πράξεις ταχεῖαν λάβωσιν).” 33 b) Dion’s fall against all logic There seems to be a clear cut in Dion’s fortune: while providence together with the people of Syracuse seems to have supported his endeavor of freeing Sicily from tyranny, the gods obviously abandoned his cause as soon as it has been achieved. Dion’s further endeavors to install a Platonic government in Syracuse are neither supported by the people nor by the gods. Does Plutarch give us any hints as to why Dion stopped being successful? 240 This content downloaded from 201.22.189.53 on Fri, 16 Oct 2020 19:57:04 UTC All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms

Although one might call the whole Life of Dion a careful analysis of just that same question, Plutarch again does not provide us with an easy answer, perhaps because he himself could only guess what actually went wrong. There are, however, two character traits of Dion that in the eyes of Plutarch may have accounted for much of his failure as a politician: On the one hand, there is Dion’s unfortunate character trait of αὐθάδεια, his lack of amiability and his austere, philosophical mindset that indeed could be blamed for his lacking popularity among ordinary, non-philosophical men. Plutarch pointed to this character trait twice earlier in the life, and it begins to show again after the liberation of Sicily (Dion 52, 5-6): Nevertheless, he made it a point not to remit or relax at all the gravity of his manners or his haughtiness in dealing with the people (τοῦ μέντοι περὶ τὰς ὁμιλίας ὄγκου καὶ τοῦ πρὸς τὸν δῆμον ἀτενοῦς), although his situation called for a gracious demeanor (χάριτος), and although Plato, as I have said, wrote and warned him that self-will (αὐθάδεια) was ‘a companion of solitude.’ But he seems to have been of a temper naturally averse to graciousness, and, besides, he was ambitious to curb the Syracusans, who were given to excessive license and luxury.34

While before any critical reference to Dion’s αὐθάδεια had been made from the perspective of agents in the story (Plato or people at the court of Dionysius the Younger), it is in this passage that we get closest to an explicit critical statement on Dion from Plutarch himself. But mark that it is not Dion’s nature that is criticized by the author, but his refusal to work on it and improve it – pointing out that his teacher, Plato, had not been mistaken about Dion’s whole true nature, only about one single character trait that may have proved tragic in a politician, but does not detract so much from their philosophical ideals. On the other hand, Dion more than once displays an unfortunate kind of political and personal naivety that makes him easy prey for demagogues (like Heracleides and his supporters) and false friends (like Callippus). In comparison with Brutus’s choice of friends or the good influence that he had on them, Dion’s unwise choices may account for his final failure (Comp. Dionis et Bruti 4, 7-8): “But Dion 241 This content downloaded from 201.22.189.53 on Fri, 16 Oct 2020 19:57:04 UTC All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms

either chose unwisely and entrusted himself to bad men, or else treated the men of his choice so as to turn them from good to bad, neither of which are mistakes a prudent man ought to make. And in fact Plato censures him for choosing such friends as proved his ruin (τοιούτους ἑλομένῳ φίλους ὑφ' ὧν ἀπώλετο).”35 Yet again, the judgement Plutarch passes on Dion in this comparison differs considerably from the picture he paints of him in the Life. And again, the critical assessment of Dion is not expressed as the author’s opinion itself, but as the reported opinion of his teacher, Plato, very likely meant to distance himself from Dion’s failure and its possible reasons. For one might ask as well: how could someone trained and educated by Plato, his favorite disciple even, living according to Plato’s principles and trying to install them in a whole state be so unwise as to die from having chosen “false companions”? One might want to ask so even more in comparison to the success achieved in Sicily some time later by someone who had nothing to do with Plato at all. And indeed, Plutarch himself seems to be puzzled at the fact that Dion, though trying to endow Sicily with the benefits of philosophy and to act himself according to the ideals instilled in him by Plato, turned out to be unfortunate in his efforts, while his successor, Timoleon of Corinth, the honest general without the slightest philosophical aspirations,36 succeeded in liberating Sicily from tyranny and re-establishing democracy and economic welfare in Sicily. Was it the mere will of the gods, of blind fortune, or of an evil demon that Dion should not be successful, thus making impossible any judgement of his actions or ideals? Or does the comparison with Timoleon’s no more logical success indicate that, in the eyes of Plutarch, there never was a real hope for Sicily to be saved by the philosophy of Plato; Plutarch’s story of a series of “unaccountable” events being the gentle way of telling us so? c) Timoleon’s rise against all logic When Timoleon is summoned by the Syracusans for help, some time after Dion’s death, his factual situation is not much different from that encountered by Dion on his march towards Syracuse: the number of 1,000 Corinthians against the “great numbers of Carthaginian triremes” which Hicetas, the current tyrant, had sent for, is certainly not in favour of Timoleon’s enterprise. When they 242 This content downloaded from 201.22.189.53 on Fri, 16 Oct 2020 19:57:04 UTC All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms

engage in battle for the first time, it is less than twelve hundred men on Timoleon’s side (οἱ σύμπαντες ἦσαν οὐ πλείους χιλίων διακοσίων) against five thousand on Hicetas’s side (Timol. 12, 4-537). Later on, when the Carthaginian general Mago arrives, the number of his ships is specified as a total of 150 containing an infantry of 60,000 men. In addition to this factual deficiency, there is not much enthusiasm left among the people of Syracuse that could make up for their lack in numbers as it might have done in Dion’s case: the continuing series of “liberators” of Sicily getting killed by other “liberators” or professed “liberators” turning into tyrants seems to have left them totally disillusioned as to the motives of anyone professing to come to the rescue of Syracuse – not to speak of the desperate state of their city at the very moment (Timol. 11, 5-12, 1): But Hicetas was afraid when he learned that Timoleon had crossed the strait, and sent for great numbers of the Carthaginian triremes. And now it was that the Syracusans altogether despaired of their deliverance, seeing their harbour in the power of the Carthaginians, their city in the hands of Hicetas and their citadel in the possession of Dionysius; while Timoleon had but a hold as it were on the fringe of Sicily in the little city of Tauromenium, with a feeble hope and a small force to support him (ἐπ' ἐλπίδος ἀσθενοῦς καὶ βραχείας δυνάμεως); for apart from a thousand soldiers and provisions barely sufficient for them, he had nothing. Nor did the cities feel confidence in him, over full of ills as they were and embittered against all leaders of armies, particularly by reason of the perfidy of Callippus and Pharax, one of whom was an Athenian, and the other a Lacedaemonian; but both of them, while declaring that they came to secure the freedom of Sicily and wished to overthrow its tyrants, made the calamities of Sicily under her tyrants seem as gold in comparison, and brought her people to think those more to be envied who had perished in slavery than those who had lived to see her independence. Expecting, therefore, that the Corinthian leader would be no whit better than those who had preceded him, but that the same sophistries and lures were come to them again, and that with fair hopes and kind promises they were to be made docile enough to receive a new master in place of an old one, they all suspected and repulsed the appeals of the Corinthians except the people of Adranum. 38

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Timoleon counters the enemy’s strength with his tactics (e.g. by overpowering them while still preparing their military camp or secretly supplying the besieged citadel with food from Catana, cf. Timol. 12, 3-9; 18, 1). But the fact that Dionysius surrenders to Timoleon after the very first battle out of spite for Hicetas is certainly not due to any of Timoleon’s tactics, but considered an unexpectedly lucky event (τὴν ἀνέλπιστον εὐτυχίαν) that even surprises the general himself (Timol. 13, 3). Plutarch, who ponders much on the change of fortune in the life of Dionysius the Younger (cf. chapters 13 to 15), very often stresses the paradoxical nature of both the misfortune of Timoleon’s enemies and of Timoleon’s own luck (cf. 16, 1; 16, 10-12; ). At times, he even seems to attribute Timoleon’s success more to his luck than to his valor, especially in the case of the inexplicable defeat of the Carthaginians without so much as a battle. The question whether it was τύχη or ἀρετή that led Timoleon to his success is put like a theme at the beginning of the episode (19, 1): “In these successes, then, foresight and valor might still dispute the claims of Fortune; but that which followed them would seem to have been wholly due to good fortune (παντάπασιν ἔοικε συμβῆναι κατ' εὐτυχίαν)…”39 Timoleon himself seems to answer the question in favor of his own good fortune that outweighs his military deficiencies (cf. 20, 1: “…relying on the good fortune and success that attended his efforts rather than the strength of his army (οἷς εὐτύχει καὶ κατώρθου μᾶλλον ἢ τῇ δυνάμει πεποιθώς); for his followers were not more than four thousand in number”40). But the true relationship between the personal valor of a general, the factual numbers of his army, and the part that fortune plays in any military event, is perhaps best phrased from the perspective of the Carthaginian general Mago, who in the end leaves Sicily for no real reason at all, but only out of fear of Timoleon’s good luck and suspicion of his allies. Hicetas’s hint at the numbers of both armies that seem so favorable to them is reversed by Mago (20, 11): …when Hicetas begged him to remain and tried to show him how much superior they were to their enemies, he thought rather that they were more inferior to Timoleon in bravery and good fortune (ἀρετῇ καὶ τύχῃ) than they surpassed him in the number of their forces (πλήθει δυνάμεως), and weighing anchor at once, sailed off to Libya,

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thus letting Sicily slip out of his hands disgracefully and for no reason that man could suggest (κατ' οὐδένα λογισμὸν ἀνθρώπινον).41

In the eyes of Plutarch, logic (at least from the human perspective, κατ' οὐδένα λογισμὸν ἀνθρώπινον, the same term that is used in Dion 4, 3) cannot account for why Timoleon was successful in liberating Sicily from all its tyrants – Dionysius the younger, the Carthaginians, and Hicetas – but he perceives a kind of divine quality in the good luck that accompanies all his enterprises (military, diplomatic, and political): a divine presence watching over his actions and leading him to success. It is this higher force, τύχη, that can make up for any lack in numbers and, consequently, serve as an “explanation” for the most inexplicable event. While the facts of Timoleon’s extraordinary success in Sicily are, to a large extent, confirmed by Diodorus Siculus as well as by archaeological evidence, this interpretation of it given by Plutarch is singular.42 In Plutarch, Timoleon himself in his humble way experiences his success as the gift of a higher power: in this divine power’s greater plan of liberating Sicily the role of the liberator is granted to him. For that grace Timoleon is thankful and worships his protective deity in return. One may well ask, as Plutarch does at the beginning of the syzygy of Timoleon and Aemilius Paullus and as many interpreters of both lives have done since, if this divine support does not take away all the credit from Timoleon’s achievements. Yet, in the eyes of the equally religious, but more philosophical Plutarch, Timoleon could never have had such divine support if he had not deserved it by his extraordinary virtue. It is the two components coming together, virtue and good fortune joining into a kind of fortunate virtue, that account for Timoleon’s success (Timol. 36, 4-7): …if we compare the generalship of Epaminondas and Agesilaüs, which in both cases was full of toil and bitter struggles, with that of Timoleon, which was exercised with much ease as well as glory, it appears to men of just and careful reasoning a product, not of fortune, but of fortunate valour (ἀρετῆς εὐτυχούσης). And yet all his successes were ascribed by him to fortune; for in his letters to his friends at home and in his public addresses to the Syracusans he often said he was thankful to God, who, desiring to save Sicily, gave him the name and title of its saviour (βουλόμενος σῶσαι

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Σικελίαν ἐπεγράψατο τὴν αὐτοῦ προσηγορίαν). Moreover, in his house he built a shrine for sacrifice to Automatia, or Chance, and the house itself he consecrated to man's sacred genius.43

What does this conclusion regarding Timoleon’s “fortunate virtue” in liberating and re-establishing Sicily tell us about the view Plutarch held on Dion’s failure to achieve the same ends? In my opinion, it does no less than lend a new meaning to the introductory sentences of Plutarch’s Life of Dion, namely Dion 1, 3, where it says that “… we need not wonder that, in the performance of actions that were often kindred and alike, they [i.e. Dion and Brutus] bore witness to the doctrine of their teacher in virtue [i.e. Plato], that wisdom (φρονήσει) and justice (δικαιοσύνῃ) must be united with power (δύναμιν) and good fortune (τύχην) if public careers are to take on beauty (κάλλος) as well as grandeur (μέγεθος).”44 Usually this sentence is held to be one more of those renderings of Plato’s statement of the philosopher-kings, but re-read with Plutarch’s Life of Timoleon in mind and with an outlook on the end of Dion it becomes more than just a list of criteria constituting a philosopher-king: they are criteria which, if lacking, might make a possible philosopher-king fail. Especially one criterion has stolen into the list – or at least gained weight – that did not play too much of a role in Plato, but can explain in a very subtle way why Dion – and with him Plato – failed where Timoleon was successful: it is unpredictable, unavailable τύχη – we might conclude – without which there is no good outcome for any project however virtuous it may be.45 Since human reasoning does not have any influence on this last, unpredictable component of τύχη, no one can be blamed for it either. If there is no logic by which we can explain success, there is also no logic by which to explain failure. By pointing to the inexplicable in the story of the liberation of Sicily and in the failure of Dion, Plutarch can avoid passing a judgement on Dion’s and Plato’s undertakings in Syracuse. Otherwise, his judgement might not have turned out to be as favorable as he, being a Platonic philosopher himself, would have wished it to be. 1

Marion Theresa Schneider is a doctoral student at the Institut für Klassische Philologie, Julius-Maximilians-Universität, Würzburg. She is working on a commentary on Plutarch’s Life of Dion.

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Plut. Dion 50, 3-4: … ἐξέπλει πρὸς τὸν πατέρα, τοῦ Δίωνος ἀσφαλῶς μὲν ἐκπέμποντος, οὐδενὸς δὲ τῶν ἐν Συρακούσαις ἀπολείποντος ἐκείνην τὴν ὄψιν, ἀλλὰ καὶ τοὺς μὴ περιόντας ἐπιβοωμένων, ὅτι τὴν ἡμέραν ταύτην καὶ τὸν ἥλιον ἐλευθέραις ἀνίσχοντα ταῖς Συρακούσαις οὐκ ἐφορῶσιν. ὅπου γὰρ ἔτι νῦν τῶν λεγομένων κατὰ τῆς τύχης παραδειγμάτων ἐμφανέστατόν ἐστι καὶ μέγιστον ἡ Διονυσίου φυγή, τίνα χρὴ δοκεῖν αὐτῶν ἐκείνων τὴν τότε χαρὰν γενέσθαι, καὶ πηλίκον φρονῆσαι τοὺς τὴν μεγίστην τῶν πώποτε τυραννίδων καθελόντας ἐλαχίσταις ἀφορμαῖς; All translations from the Lives of Dion and Timoleon from Plutarch, Lives, Vol. VI, trans. By Bernadotte Perrin (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1918). Some scholars have argued that scenes like this one up to chapter 52 of Plutarch’s account may still have been influenced by the report of Timonides of Leucas, Dion’s fellow-combatant and probably eyewitness to the scene, cf. Hugo Müller, De fontibus Plutarchi vitam Dionis enarrantis (PhD. Diss., University of Greifswald, 1876), 53–54; Wilhelm Biedenweg, Plutarchs Quellen in den Lebensbeschreibungen des Dion und Timoleon (Leipzig: Teubner, 1884), 20; Glenn R. Morrow, Studies in the Platonic Epistles, with a Translation and Notes (Urbana: University of Illinois, 1935), 40. 3 Timol. 1, 4: Διονύσιος ἔτει δεκάτῳ ξένους συναγαγὼν καὶ τὸν τότε κρατοῦντα τῶν Συρακοσίων Νυσαῖον ἐξελάσας ἀνέλαβε τὰ πράγματα πάλιν καὶ καθειστήκει τύραννος ἐξ ἀρχῆς, παραλόγως μὲν ὑπὸ μικρᾶς δυνάμεως τὴν μεγίστην τῶν πώποτε τυραννίδων ἀπολέσας, παραλογώτερον δ' αὖθις ἐκ φυγάδος καὶ ταπεινοῦ τῶν ἐκβαλόντων κύριος γενόμενος. 4 Timol. 16, 1-3: Τῆς δὲ Διονυσίου δυστυχίας παραλόγου φανείσης, οὐχ ἧττον ἡ Τιμολέοντος εὐτυχία τὸ θαυμαστὸν ἔσχεν. ἐπιβὰς γὰρ Σικελίας, ἐν ἡμέραις πεντήκοντα τήν τ' ἀκρόπολιν τῶν Συρακοσίων παρέλαβε, καὶ Διονύσιον εἰς Πελοπόννησον ἐξέπεμψεν. 5 See Otta Wenskus and Lorraine Daston, „Paradoxographoi,“ in Der neue Pauly, vol. 9, ed. H. Cancik et al. (Stuttgart: Metzler, 2000), cols. 309–314. 6 Diod. Sic. 16, 9, 1-3: ἐπὶ δὲ τούτων Δίων ὁ Ἱππαρίνου κατέπλευσεν εἰς τὴν Σικελίαν καταλύσων τὴν Διονυσίου τυραννίδα, ἐλαχίσταις δὲ τῶν πρὸ αὐτοῦ πάντων χρησάμενος ἀφορμαῖς μεγίστην δυναστείαν τῶν κατὰ τὴν Εὐρώπην κατέλυσεν ἀνελπίστως. τίς γὰρ ἂν πιστεύσειεν ὅτι δυσὶ φορτηγοῖς ναυσὶ καταπλεύσας περιεγένετο δυνάστου ναῦς μὲν μακρὰς ἔχοντος τετρακοσίας, στρατιώτας δὲ πεζοὺς μὲν εἰς δέκα μυριάδας, ἱππεῖς δὲ μυρίους, ὅπλων δὲ καὶ σίτου καὶ χρημάτων τοσαύτην παρασκευὴν ὅσην εἰκός ἐστι 2

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κεκτῆσθαι τὸν μέλλοντα χορηγήσειν δαψιλῶς ταῖς προειρημέναις δυνάμεσι, χωρὶς δὲ τῶν εἰρημένων πόλιν μὲν ἔχοντα μεγίστην τῶν Ἑλληνίδων, λιμένας δὲ καὶ νεώρια καὶ κατεσκευαςμένας ἀκροπόλεις ἀναλώτους, ἔτι δὲ συμμάχων δυνατῶν ἔχοντα πλῆθος; αἰτία δ' ὑπῆρχε τῷ Δίωνι τῶν προτερημάτων μάλιστα μὲν ἡ ἰδία λαμπρότης τῆς ψυχῆς καὶ ἀνδρεία καὶ ἡ τῶν ἐλευθεροῦσθαι μελλόντων εὔνοια, τὸ δὲ τούτων ἁπάντων μεῖζον ἥ τε ἀνανδρία τοῦ τυράννου καὶ τὸ τῶν ἀρχομένων πρὸς αὐτὸν μῖσος· πάντα γὰρ ταῦτα πρὸς ἕνα καιρὸν συνδραμόντα παραδόξως τὰς ἀπιστουμένας πράξεις πρὸς τέλος ἤγαγεν. Diodorus Siculus, Diodorus of Sicily in Twelve Volumes, trans. C. H. Oldfather. Vol. 4-8. (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press; London: William Heinemann, Ltd. 1989). Cf. also 16, 11, 1-2. For Diodorus’s contemplations on the fickleness of fortune when describing the great changes in the forune of Dionysios the Younger, cf. as well 16, 70, 1-3. 7 Παράδοξος is certainly one of Diodorus’s favourite terms, cf. Rudolf Neubert, Spuren selbständiger Thätigkeit bei Diodor (Bautzen: Monse, 1890), 10; 22–23. For Plutarch, cf. e.g. De def. or. 418c; Rom. 8,8f.; Galba 19, 5; Sertorius 19, 8; Cato Min. 11, 3 etc. 8 For Ephorus in Diodorus, see Christian August Volquardsen, Untersuchungen über die Quellen der griechischen und sicilischen Geschichten bei Diodor, Buch XI bis XVI (Kiel: Schwers'sche Buchhandlung, 1868), 85; Müller, De fontibus, 40–47; Lionel Jehuda Sanders, The legend of Dion (Toronto: Edgar Kent, 2008), 153 note 327. 9 Cf. Müller, De fontibus, 43. 10 Cf. Sanders, Legend of Dion, 153–154. 11 Cf. Müller, De fontibus, 40–47; Morrow, Platonic Epistles, 34. 12 Cf. Müller, De fontibus, 9–10. 13 Nepos, Dion 5, 3: sed Dion, fretus non tam suis copiis quam odio tyranni, maximo animo duabus onerariis nauibus quinquaginta annorum imperium, munitum quingentis longis nauibus, decem equitum centumque peditum milibus, profectus oppugnatum, quod omnibus gentibus admirabile est uisum, adeo facile perculit, ut post diem tertium, quam Siciliam attigerat, Syracusas introierit. ex quo intellegi potest nullum esse imperium tutum nisi beneuolentia munitum. Cornelius Nepos, On Great Generals. On Historians, trans. by J. C. Rolfe (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1929). On Timoleon cf. Timol. 2, 1: Timoleon missus incredibili felicitate Dionysium tota Sicilia depulit. 14 On the traditions on Dion, see Sanders, Legend of Dion.

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Cf. Müller, De fontibus, 46; J. Harward, The Platonic Epistles (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1932), 30; Sanders, Legend of Dion, 49. On typical numbers in ancient historiography in general, see Detlev Fehling, Die Quellenangaben bei Herodot. Studien zur Erzählkunst Herodots (Berlin: de Gruyter, 1971), 159 and 163. 16 Demosthenes’s Adversus Leptinem is dated by Dionysios of Halikarnassos to the archonship of Kallistratos, that is to the second year of the 106th Olympiad = 355/4 BC; for a discussion of this date, see Christos Kremmydas, Commentary on Demosthenes Against Leptines. With Introduction, Text, and Translation (Oxford, New York: Oxford University Press, 2012), 33–34. 17 Demosth. 20, 162: οὐδέ γ' ὁ νῦν ὢν Διονύσιος ἤλπισεν ἄν ποτ' ἴσως πλοίῳ στρογγύλῳ καὶ στρατιώταις ὀλίγοις Δίων' ἐλθόντ' ἐφ' αὑτὸν ἐκβαλεῖν τὸν τριήρεις πολλὰς καὶ ξένους καὶ πόλεις κεκτημένον. ἀλλ', οἶμαι, τὸ μέλλον ἄδηλον πᾶσιν ἀνθρώποις, καὶ μικροὶ καιροὶ μεγάλων πραγμάτων αἴτιοι γίγνονται. διὸ δεῖ μετριάζειν ἐν ταῖς εὐπραξίαις καὶ προορωμένους τὸ μέλλον φαίνεσθαι. Demosthenes, trans. by C. A. Vince, M. A. and J. H. Vince, M.A. (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press; London: William Heinemann Ltd., 1926). 18 For more detailed discussion, see Kremmydas, Adversus Leptinem, 162f. 19 Cf. Harward, Platonic Epistles, 31. 20 Cf. e.g. Neubert, Spuren selbständiger Tätigkeit, 9. 21 Cf. A. C. Dionisotti, “Nepos and the generals”, Journal of Roman Studies 78 (1988): 35– 49; on contemporary history influencing Nepos’s perception and depiction of the past, see also Sanders, Legend of Dion, 156–163. 22 Comp. Dionis et Bruti 4, 1-2: Διονυσίου μὲν γὰρ οὐδεὶς ὅστις οὐκ ἂν κατεφρόνησε τῶν συνήθων, ἐν μέθαις καὶ κύβοις καὶ γυναιξὶ τὰς πλείστας ποιουμένου διατριβάς·… διὸ τῷ μὲν ὀφθέντι μόνον ἐν Σικελίᾳ μυριάδες οὐκ ὀλίγαι συνέστησαν ἐπὶ Διονύσιον· 23 Hartmut Erbse, „Die Bedeutung der Synkrisis in den Parallelbiographien Plutarchs“, Hermes 84 (1956): 414ff. argues, though, that there is no point of comparison that is not dealt with in the narrative Dion and Brutus. 24 Harward, Platonic Epistles, 32. 25 Dion 19, 1-2: Ἐλθὼν δὲ μεγάλης μὲν αὐτὸν ἐνέπλησε χαρᾶς, μεγάλης δὲ πάλιν ἐλπίδος Σικελίαν, συνευχομένην καὶ συμφιλοτιμουμένην, Πλάτωνα μὲν Φιλίστου περιγενέσθαι, φιλοσοφίαν δὲ τυραννίδος. 26 Dion 22, 1-3: Ὁ δὲ Δίων ἐντεῦθεν ἤδη τρέπεται πρὸς πόλεμον, αὐτοῦ μὲν Πλάτωνος ἐκποδὼν ἱσταμένου δι' αἰδῶ τῆς πρὸς Διονύσιον ξενίας καὶ γῆρας, Σπευσίππου δὲ καὶ τῶν ἄλλων ἑταίρων τῷ Δίωνι συλλαμβανόντων καὶ παρακελευομένων ἐλευθεροῦν Σικελίαν, 15

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χεῖρας ὀρέγουσαν αὐτῷ καὶ προθύμως ὑποδεχομένην. … ὁ γὰρ αὐτὸς ἦν παρὰ πάντων λόγος, δεομένων καὶ παρακελευομένων ἐλθεῖν Δίωνα μὴ ναῦς ἔχοντα μηδ' ὁπλίτας μηδ' ἵππους, ἀλλ' αὐτὸν εἰς ὑπηρετικὸν ἐμβάντα χρῆσαι τὸ σῶμα καὶ τοὔνομα Σικελιώταις ἐπὶ τὸν Διονύσιον. 27 Dion 4, 3-4: ὢν δὲ καὶ πρότερον ὑψηλὸς τῷ ἤθει καὶ μεγαλόφρων καὶ ἀνδρώδης, ἔτι μᾶλλον ἐπέδωκε πρὸς ταῦτα θείᾳ τινὶ τύχῃ Πλάτωνος εἰς Σικελίαν παραβαλόντος κατ' οὐδένα λογισμὸν ἀνθρώπινον· ἀλλὰ δαίμων τις ὡς ἔοικε, πόρρωθεν ἀρχὴν ἐλευθερίας [παρα] βαλλόμενος Συρακοσίοις καὶ τυραννίδος κατάλυσιν μηχανώμενος, ἐκόμισεν ἐξ Ἰταλίας εἰς Συρακούσας Πλάτωνα καὶ Δίωνα συνήγαγεν εἰς λόγους αὐτῷ… 28 Plat. Ep. 7, 326e: ... ἴσως μὲν κατὰ τύχην, ἔοικεν μὴν τότε μηχανωμένῳ τινὶ τῶν κρειττόνων ἀρχὴν βαλέσθαι τῶν νῦν γεγονότων πραγμάτων περὶ Δίωνα καὶ τῶν περὶ Συρακούσας. 29 Cf. Arnd Zimmermann, Tyche bei Platon (PhD. Diss., Bonn, 1968), 91–97. 30 On the different meanings of tyche in Plutarch, see Simon Swain, “Plutarch: Chance, Providence, and History”, The American Journal of Philology 110 (1989): 272–302. It has been argued that the concept of a Roman goddess Fortuna/Felicitas played some part in Plutarch’s conception of fortune, cf. Sven-Tage Theodorsson, “Timoleon, the fortunate general”, in The statesman in Plutarch's works. Proceedings of the Sixth International Conference of the International Plutarch Society, Nijmegen/Castle Hernen, May 1-5, 2002. 2, The statesman in Plutarch's Greek and Roman lives, ed. Lukas De Blois et al. (Leiden: Brill, 2005), 221. 31 Dion 26, 1: Μάλιστα δ' αὐτοὺς ἐθάρρυνε τὸ συμβεβηκὸς αὐτομάτως περὶ τὴν ἀποδημίαν τοῦ Διονυσίου· νεωστὶ γὰρ ἐκπεπλευκὼς ἐτύγχανεν ὀγδοήκοντα ναυσὶν εἰς τὴν Ἰταλίαν. 32 Dion 26, 7: τῷ δὲ πεμφθέντι γραμματοφόρῳ τύχη τις συμπίπτει παράλογος etc. 33 Dion 29, 5: τοῖς δὲ μάντεσιν αὖθις ἐδόκει τὸ μὲν ὑπὸ πόδας λαβεῖν τὸν Δίωνα δημηγοροῦντα τὴν φιλοτιμίαν καὶ τὸ ἀνάθημα τοῦ τυράννου λαμπρὸν εἶναι σημεῖον· ὅτι δ' ἡλιοτρόπιον ἦν ἐφ' οὗ βεβηκὼς ᾑρέθη στρατηγός, ὠρρώδουν μὴ τροπήν τινα τῆς τύχης αἱ πράξεις ταχεῖαν λάβωσιν. 34 Dion 52, 5-6: τοῦ μέντοι περὶ τὰς ὁμιλίας ὄγκου καὶ τοῦ πρὸς τὸν δῆμον ἀτενοῦς ἐφιλονίκει μηδὲν ὑφελεῖν μηδὲ χαλάσαι, καίτοι τῶν πραγμάτων αὐτῷ χάριτος ἐνδεῶν ὄντων καὶ Πλάτωνος ἐπιτιμῶντος, ὡς εἰρήκαμεν (c. 8, 4), καὶ γράφοντος (ep. 4, 321c), ὅτι ἡ αὐθάδεια ἐρημίᾳ σύνοικός ἐστιν. ἀλλὰ φύσει τε φαίνεται πρὸς τὸ

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πιθανὸν δυσκεράστῳ κεχρημένος, ἀντισπᾶν τε τοὺς Συρακοσίους ἄγαν ἀνειμένους καὶ διατεθρυμμένους προθυμούμενος. 35 Comp. Dionis et Bruti 4, 7-8: Δίων δ' εἴτε κρίνας κακῶς ἐπίστευσεν ἑαυτὸν πονηροῖς, εἴτε χρώμενος ἐποίησεν ἐκ χρηστῶν πονηρούς, οὐδέτερον παθεῖν ἀνδρὶ φρονίμῳ προσῆκον. ἐπιτιμᾷ δὲ καὶ Πλάτων αὐτῷ, τοιούτους ἑλομένῳ φίλους ὑφ' ὧν ἀπώλετο. 36 Theodorsson, “Timoleon,” 224ff, argues convincingly against the idea that Timoleon’s program for post-tyrannical Sicily was influenced by Plato. 37 Timol. 12, 4-5: καί πως ἀπ' αὐτομάτου συνέτυχε σπευδόντων ἀμφοτέρων εἰς ἕνα καιρὸν ἀμφοτέροις γενέσθαι τὴν παρουσίαν. ἀλλ' Ἱκέτης μὲν ἧκε πεντακισχιλίους στρατιώτας ἔχων, Τιμολέοντι δ' οἱ σύμπαντες ἦσαν οὐ πλείους χιλίων διακοσίων· 38 Timol. 11, 5-12, 1: ὅτε καὶ παντάπασι συνέβη τοὺς Συρακοσίους ἀπογνῶναι τὴν σωτηρίαν, ὁρῶντας τοῦ μὲν λιμένος αὐτῶν Καρχηδονίους κρατοῦντας, τὴν δὲ πόλιν Ἱκέτην ἔχοντα, τῆς δ' ἄκρας κυριεύοντα Διονύσιον, Τιμολέοντα δ' ὥσπερ ἐκ κρασπέδου τινὸς λεπτοῦ τῆς Ταυρομενιτῶν πολίχνης τῇ Σικελίᾳ προσηρτημένον ἐπ' ἐλπίδος ἀσθενοῦς καὶ βραχείας δυνάμεως· χιλίων γὰρ αὐτῷ στρατιωτῶν καὶ τροφῆς τούτοις ἀναγκαίας πλέον οὐδὲν ὑπῆρχεν· οὐδ' ἐπίστευον αἱ πόλεις, διάπλεαι κακῶν οὖσαι καὶ πρὸς ἅπαντας ἀπηγριωμέναι τοὺς ἡγουμένους στρατοπέδων, μάλιστα διὰ τὴν Καλλίππου καὶ Φάρακος ἀπιστίαν, ὧν ὁ μὲν Ἀθηναῖος ὤν, ὁ δὲ Λακεδαιμόνιος, ἀμφότεροι δὲ φάσκοντες ὑπὲρ τῆς ἐλευθερίας ἥκειν καὶ καταλύειν τοὺς μονάρχους, χρυσὸν δειξαν τῇ Σικελίᾳ τὰς ἐν τῇ τυραννίδι συμφοράς, καὶ μακαριωτέρους δοκεῖν ἐποίησαν τοὺς καταστρέψαντας ἐν τῇ δουλείᾳ τῶν ἐπιδόντων τὴν αὐτονομίαν. Οὐδὲν οὖν ἐκείνων βελτίονα τὸν Κορίνθιον ἔσεσθαι προσδοκῶντες, ἀλλὰ ταὐτὰ πάλιν ἥκειν ἐπ' αὐτοὺς σοφίσματα καὶ δελεάσματα, μετ' ἐλπίδων χρηστῶν καὶ φιλανθρώπων ὑποσχέσεων εἰς μεταβολὴν δεσπότου καινοῦ τιθασευομένους, ὑπώ πτευον καὶ διεκρούοντο τὰς τῶν Κορινθίων προκλήσεις, πλὴν Ἀδρανιτῶν· 39 Timol. 19, 1: Ταῦτα μὲν οὖν ἔτι τῇ προνοίᾳ καὶ ἀρετῇ δίδωσί τινα πρὸς τὴν τύχην ἀμφισβήτησιν· τὸ δ' ἐπὶ τούτοις γενόμενον παντάπασιν ἔοικε συμβῆναι κατ' εὐτυχίαν. 40 Timol. 20, 1: „οἷς εὐτύχει καὶ κατώρθου μᾶλλον ἢ τῇ δυνάμει πεποιθώς· οὐ γὰρ ἦσαν οἱ σὺν αὐτῷ πλείους τετρακισχιλίων.“ 41 Timol. 20, 11: διὸ καί δεομένου τοῦ Ἱκέτου παραμένειν, καὶ διδάσκοντος ὅσῳ πλείονές εἰσι τῶν πολεμίων, μᾶλλον οἰόμενος ἀρετῇ καὶ τύχῃ λείπεσθαι Τιμολέοντος ἢ πλήθει δυνάμεως

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ὑπερβάλλειν, ἄρας εὐθὺς ἀπέπλευσεν εἰς Λιβύην, αἰσχρῶς κατ' οὐδένα λογισμὸν ἀνθρώπινον ἐκ τῶν χειρῶν ἀφεὶς Σικελίαν. 42 cf. Theodorsson, “Timoleon,” 218–219. 43 Timol. 36, 4-7: … οὕτως παρὰ τὴν Ἐπαμεινώνδου στρατηγίαν καὶ τὴν Ἀγησιλάου, πολυπόνους γενομένας καὶ δυσάγωνας, ἡ Τιμολέοντος ἀντεξεταζομένη καὶ μετὰ τοῦ καλοῦ πολὺ τὸ ῥᾴδιον ἔχουσα, φαίνεται τοῖς εὖ καὶ δικαίως λογιζομένοις οὐ τύχης ἔργον, ἀλλ' ἀρετῆς εὐτυχούσης. καίτοι πάντα γ' ἐκεῖνος εἰς τὴν τύχην ἀνῆπτε τὰ καταρθούμενα· καὶ γὰρ γράφων τοῖς οἴκοι φίλοις, καὶ δημηγορῶν πρὸς τοὺς Συρακοσίους, πολλάκις ἔφη τῷ θεῷ χάριν ἔχειν, ὅτι βουλόμενος σῶσαι Σικελίαν ἐπεγράψατο τὴν αὐτοῦ προςηγορίαν. ἐπὶ δὲ τῆς οἰκίας ἱερὸν ἱδρυσάμενος Αὐτοματίας ἔθυεν, αὐτὴν δὲ τὴν οἰκίαν Ἱερῷ Δαίμονι καθιέρωσεν. 44 Dion 1, 3: καὶ τὸ μὲν ὅμοια πολλὰ καὶ ἀδελφὰ πράξαντας μαρτυρῆσαι τῷ καθηγεμόνι τῆς ἀρετῆς, ὅτι δεῖ φρονήσει καὶ δικαιοσύνῃ δύναμιν ἐπὶ τὸ αὐτὸ καὶ τύχην συνελθεῖν, ἵνα κάλλος ἅμα καὶ μέγεθος αἱ πολιτικαὶ πράξεις λάβωσιν, οὐ θαυμαστόν ἐστιν. 45 Plutarch, no doubt regarded Dion as a virtuous man: At the beginning of the syzygy he even wonders if the story of Dion and Brutus might not be an argument for the existence of evil daimones whose intention is to bring down virtuous men, not by any logic of crime and punishment, but out of their own irrational envy of virtue and goodness (cf. Dion 2, 5-6; compare Plat. Ep. 7, 336b).

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Parnassos Press – Fonte Aretusa Chapter Title: Shaping Audience Perspectives through Deictic Patterns: Aeschylus’s Persae Chapter Author(s): Nancy Felson and Laura M. Slatkin Book Title: Philosopher Kings and Tragic Heroes Book Subtitle: Essays on Images and Ideas from Western Greece Book Editor(s): Heather L. Reid and Davide Tanasi Published by: Parnassos Press – Fonte Aretusa Stable URL: http://www.jstor.com/stable/j.ctvbj7gjn.18 JSTOR is a not-for-profit service that helps scholars, researchers, and students discover, use, and build upon a wide range of content in a trusted digital archive. We use information technology and tools to increase productivity and facilitate new forms of scholarship. For more information about JSTOR, please contact [email protected]. Your use of the JSTOR archive indicates your acceptance of the Terms & Conditions of Use, available at https://about.jstor.org/terms This content is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License (CC BY-NC-ND 4.0). To view a copy of this license, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/.

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Part IV Drama

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Nancy Felson and Laura M. Slatkin1 Shaping Audience Perspectives through Deictic Patterns: Aeschylus’s Persae Introduction In Aeschylus's Persae historical irony and dramatic irony reverberate in multiple and shifting ways, enacting a brilliantly vertiginous fusion of historical and dramatic event. To explain the play’s achievement of these effects we have organized our observations along two major axes: first, the specific logic and workings of two types of deictics within the play – pointing language that situates audiences and orients or shapes their sympathies (at least while they are at the theater); and, relatedly, the ways in which the play problematizes its own interpretation by dislocating and relocating, and by enacting, and indeed interrogating, history-asevent. In 458 BCE, fourteen years after the premiere of the Persae, Aeschylus presented the Oresteia at the Theater of Dionysus in Athens. In Agamemnon, Clytemnestra and the other characters visualize the fall of Troy as “over there” and news of its fall moves from Troy to Argos. Thus the palace in Argos is the center of the here-and-now; all speakers are either already in the palace or arriving there from Troy. The beacons that signal the fall of Troy move, as well, along the peaks of mountains, creating a pathway from Troy to Argos suggestive of the homeward journey of those who went to Troy. At a likely first performance of the Persae at the same theater in 472, as part of a prize-winning tetralogy of apparently thematically unrelated plays, Aeschylus introduces a dramatic strategy that he may have adapted from Phrynichus’s Phoenissae: like his predecessor, he sets all the action not in Greece and specifically not in Athens but at or near the Persian court.2 As Gruen and others note, Aeschylus makes all his characters Persian: in the course of the play no individual Greek is even named.3 Moreover, news of their defeat travels in a direction opposite from that of Agamemnon, namely eastward, from Greece to Persia, first via a messenger who portrays himself as an eye-witness of the momentous battle of Salamis, “over 255 This content downloaded from 201.22.189.53 on Fri, 16 Oct 2020 19:57:14 UTC All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms

there,” and later by King Xerxes himself, when he returns unaccompanied and in rags (γυμνός...προπομπῶν, 1036) and tells his abbreviated version of the same event in response to the Chorus’ interrogation (966ff). Later in the paper we will consider the pragmatics of a likely/probable second performance of the Persae in Syracuse. Important recent scholarship presents persuasive (if not iron-clad) evidence for its being staged there.4 How would an ancient audience in Hieron’s theater have experienced the locations, dislocations, and transports that structure the play? Would the ancient association of the Sicilian victory over Carthage in the battle of Himera with the Athenian victory at Salamis, as reported by Herodotus (7.165-167) and adverted to by Pindar in Pythian 1, have allowed for a metaphorical equation of these battles? Aeschylus transports his first audience from Athens to Susa and gives them a Persian insider’s perspective on the battle at Salamis – insofar as they can identify with the chorus of Persian elders, the Persian Queen Atossa, and even the ghost of Darius as he receives second-hand news of the disaster. The deictics indicate what is present here and now and what is at a distance. The term ‘deixis’ refers to the linguistic role of situating a referent or action in time and space.5 The deixis-bearing parts of speech are pronouns, adverbs, and verbs. Pronominal deixis is often associated with the three persons of conversational discourse: first person (proximal deixis), third person (distal deixis), and second person (intermediate deixis). Deixis is opposed to anaphora (the function of reactivating a prior referent) and cataphora (the function of invoking a subsequent referent). All types of deixis presuppose some fixed point or origo, the deictic center, which serves as the locus of deictic perspective. The origo is where the I, here, and now all intersect. Playwrights and poets manipulate deictic systems to transport audiences vicariously across space and time. Bühler’s breakthrough (1938) was to distinguish ocular deixis (what he calls “demonstratio ad oculos”) from imaginative deixis (“deixis am Phantasma”).6 Most of the deictics we discuss – in the parodos and the messenger’s speech and the lamentation – are of the second type. Analyzing them helps us to trace what we surmise 256 This content downloaded from 201.22.189.53 on Fri, 16 Oct 2020 19:57:14 UTC All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms

would be the experience first of an Athenian audience in 472 and then of subsequent audiences, including those at a probable reperformance in Syracuse. Through this displacement and vicarious transport, what was proximal to the Athenians becomes distal, and what was distal, proximal. In the messenger’s speech and in Xerxes’s brief recapitulation of the battle the playwright couples deictics with geographical detail to produce specific poetic effects. Our findings support interpretations of the play that find a high degree of audience identification with the defeated Persian foe, an enhanced capacity to empathize with them that counterbalances any tendency to exoticize, ‘orientalize’, or even demonize, them.7 Parodos (1-154) As they enter, the first-person choral speakers introduce themselves as “we who are here before you are the famous Faithful” (in Svenbro’s translation). With the deictic τάδε, modifying πιστὰ – the very first word of the play – they situate themselves and the action of the play in the Persian court at Susa, 8 where Queen Atossa will soon arrive by chariot.9 The entire parodos sustains this placement of the deictic center or origo at the Persian court, and the Chorus, using several types of deictics, removes audiences from their literal, historical location and transports them imaginatively to that court. Such vicarious transport is irresistible: the linguistic force of deixis overrides any ideological resistance, though once the transport is achieved, the playwright complicates the audience’s perspective by other techniques, as we shall see.10 Thus, it is useful to set forth and take into consideration the impact of the relocation at Susa on our reading of the play. Of the Persians, who have departed for the land of Greece, we are called the Trusted, the guardians of the wealthy palace rich in gold, whom our lord himself, King Xerxes son of Darius, chose by seniority to supervise the country. But by now the spirit within me, all too ready to foresee evil, is troubled about the return of the King and of his vast army of men;

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for all the strength of the Asiatic race has departed, and howls for her young husband; and no messenger, no horseman, has come to the Persian capital. They left the walls of Susa and Agbatana and the ancient ramparts of Cissia and went, some on horseback, some on board ship, and the marching infantry providing the fighting masses. Persae 1-2111

Alongside their self-reference as Tάδε…πιστὰ,” the Chorus repeatedly uses verbs of motion outward from their origo at Susa in the direction of Greece, as in lines 1 and 2 (Περσῶν τῶν οἰχομένων/ Ἑλλάδ᾿ ἐς αἶαν,“ with the Persians who have departed for the land of Greece”), and in line 13 (οἴχωκε, “the strength … has departed). Verbs of leaving, such as “they left the walls and went” (18: προλιπόντες ἔβαν), reinforce the origo at Susa: they designate the Chorus as those who have stayed, those left behind. In addition, the Chorus repeatedly uses the lexically deictic noun nostos to refer to the anticipated and yearned for return to Persia of the military forces and of Xerxes, as in 8-11, and they describe wives and mothers yearning for a young husband or a son, even howling (13: βαΰζει), another example of emotions oriented in the direction of Greece. In the catalogue that follows, the Chorus presents their march as if this is the very moment of departure (cf. Iliad, Book 2). As M. Hopman remarks, “the Chorus’ action in the parodos … symbolically reenacts the march of Xerxes’s army (16-64).”12 The Elders dramatize their account with the use of visualizing and emotional phrases, such as “fearsome to behold” (27: φοβεροὶ… ἰδεῖν) and “terrifying to combat” (27: δεινοὶ…μάχην) and, with the exception of ἔπεμψεν (34), they use the present tense for nearly all verbs of motion: σοῦνται (25): ἓπεται (41, 57); κατέχουσιν (43); ἐξορμῶσιν (46), στεῦνται (49), πέμπει (54).13 Their internal audience is made to feel present as the men set out, “eager to impose the yoke of slavery on Greece” (49). We will find a corresponding march in the opposite direction in the messenger’s account of the return (480-514) of “not many” of the army to their home (510) and in the final procession to the palace of Xerxes and the Chorus, in lamentation. 258 This content downloaded from 201.22.189.53 on Fri, 16 Oct 2020 19:57:14 UTC All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms

As the Chorus concludes its account of the departure, we find the same directional verb, οἴχεται (60) and the same notion that those left behind yearn for the return of the departed. This combination brings about a westward orientation of the Chorus in the direction of Greece: Such is the flower of the men of Persia’s land that has departed, for whom the whole land of Asia, which reared them, sighs with a longing that burns, and parents and wives count the days and tremble as the time stretches out. 59-6414

The longing of the Persian wives who have sent off their warrior husbands and been “left behind, a partner unpartnered” (μονόζυξ, 137) is also the theme of the choral ode at 126-37, which sustains the opposition between here and there. As Hopman astutely observes, the Chorus represents multiple perspectives on the events: She writes (67), “Through the seamless blending of various perspectives into a powerful song-and-dance performance, the multi-referential chorus complicates and challenges polar divisions between old and young, male and female, and Greek and Persian.”15 Deictic Patterns in the Messenger’s speech (249-514) From his appearance until his exit, the Persian messenger’s account of the Battle of Salamis and its aftermath intermingles distal and proximal deixis. Initially, in considering his account an embedded narrative or mise en abyme, we assumed that the he was relocating his internal audience of Atossa and the Chorus vicariously at Salamis, to eyewitness the battle, much as Aeschylus relocates his Athenian audience to Susa for the duration of the play. But careful study of the verb-forms and other features convinced us that, in the messenger’s speeches, vicarious transport occurs only to a limited extent, and that proximal, here-and-now deictics, including present tense verbs and quoted speech, are mostly reserved for the aftermath of the battle. The messenger recounts many details of the battle as a historical narrative, using the aorist and emphasizing the events he narrates. 259 This content downloaded from 201.22.189.53 on Fri, 16 Oct 2020 19:57:14 UTC All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms

His single instance of direct discourse (402-5: “Come on, sons of the Greeks, for the freedom of your homeland, for the freedom of your children, your wives, the temples of your fathers’ gods, and the tombs of your ancestors! Now all is at stake!”16) highlights his presence at the event and allows those left behind to overhear the Greek commander exhort his fleet, but not necessarily to relocate with the narrator at the site of the Battle as it is taking place. Despite the proximal deictics in the commander’s exhortation of his men and despite the use of imperfects, which, as Egbert Bakker shows, reinforce the sense of the speaker as an eyewitness,17 the battle description falls short of vicarious transport.18 The messenger does present the current state of the fallen Persian and allied leaders with sufficient vividness for Atossa and the Chorus to visualize their compatriots’ battered corpses, as if they were present with the messenger at this later point. Only in his description of the fallen do his listeners relocate vicariously to Salamis, and this is after the defeat. Atossa and the Elders were already oriented toward Greece from the time of the men’s departure. Now, in preparation for the formal lament, they gain more information, more insight and indeed imaginative access to events that have recently occurred “over there” – in the geographical region around the Bay of Salamis, where the corpses remain, left behind by Xerxes. The poetic effect of this vicarious experience is to produce lamentation on the part of the internal Persian audience. In narratological terms, the Persian longing for the return of their men is attenuated until the appearance of the messenger bearing (bad) news and of a (tattered and defeated) Xerxes, who then unites his people, represented by the (erstwhile critical) Elders, in collective mourning. The establishment (and frequent reinforcement) of the origo at Susa emphasizes a marked geographical distance between the Persian court and Salamis, where the Persian and Greek forces engage. The Chorus’ perspective on events, in this sense, appears equidistant from both sides in the conflict. This is reflected in their gnomic meditations, which speak to the common condition of Persians and Greeks: 260 This content downloaded from 201.22.189.53 on Fri, 16 Oct 2020 19:57:14 UTC All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms

But what mortal man can escape the guileful deception of a god? Who is so light of foot that he has power to leap easily away? For Ruin begins by fawning on a man in a friendly way and leads him astray into her net, from which it is impossible for a mortal to escape and flee. 93-10019

The Chorus’ universalizing musings co-exist with their particular, local fears on behalf of the flower of Persian youth, whom they describe in the diction of anthos and pothos, terms that could equally apply to the Greeks, reminiscent as they are of Iliadic similes of the Achaean army and of early elegiac exhortation.20 As in Callinus and Tyrtaeus,21 the Chorus captures the intense longing of parents and wives for their men away at war: And beds are filled with tears because the men are missed and longed for: Persian women, grieving amid their luxury, every one, loving and longing for her husband, having sent on his way the bold warrior who was her bedfellow, is left behind, a partner unpartnered. 132-3722

There is throughout the play a striking and diagnostic toggling between what we might call the characterization of Persians-asPersians on the one hand, and, on the other, of Persians-as-mortals like everyone else, as generic humans. The play offers at the very least a kind of double-consciousness, as the chorus and Atossa move between these domains – one is the socio-cultural-political (Persians vs. Greeks) and the other anthropological, viewing humans qua humans. Atossa reports her dream: a kind of primal vision, in which the Greek and the Persian are actually two sisters of one genos, between whom a stasis has arisen. She envisions their original unity by undoing the difference between ‘there’ and ‘here’ – between the territory of the Greeks and the home of the Persians. Their separation from each other is imagined as purely contingent, fortuitous.

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There seemed to come into my sight two finely dressed women, one arrayed in Persian, the other in Doric robes, outstandingly superior in stature to the women of real life, of flawless beauty, and sisters of the same stock: one, by the fall of the lot, was a native and inhabitant of the land of Greece, the other of the Orient. I seemed to see these two raising some kind of strife between themselves… 181-8923

This mobility of perspective prevents any straightforward essentializing of the Persian subject position: Helen Bacon offers an early, incisive criticism of the view that Aeschylus is trafficking in any simple “orientalizing” stereotyping: There are, of course, many general, and somewhat more formulaic, references to foreign customs and manners in Aeschylus – particularly to the wealth, luxury, emotional violence, and lack of political freedom of Persians, Phrygians, and foreigners in general. Such references have sometimes been interpreted as implying that Aeschylus thought of foreigners as naturally “inferior” to Greeks. I… disagree… with this view… Aeschylus may criticize a foreigner or a foreign institution, but of inferiority as a natural characteristic of foreigners, nationally or individually, there is little talk in Aeschylus.24

More recently, Erich Gruen gives an eloquent refutation of the “orientalizing” interpretation of the play, in a book that responds to Edward Said’s influential theories about self and other in the context of colonialization. Gruen writes (16): Are we to infer Athenian swaggering, a chauvinistic bellicosity, reveling in the deserved distress of the defeated? The dolorous mourning of the Persians, to be sure, pervades the play. For some, the poet here calls attention to barbarian weakness of character, emasculating their males by having them lament like hysterical females. But that may miss the point. Greek men also mourned in Attic tragedy. Aeschylus went beyond patriotic caricature. Triumphalism hardly captures the tone of the tragedy. The poet refrains from proclaiming the success of Hellenic values over Persian practices… It would be absurd to imagine that Aeschylus, who had fought in the Athenian ranks, wept for Persia--or expected his audience to do so. This is no antiwar drama. Nor does it resolve itself into a humanitarian reflection on the universal suffering wrought by conflict among the nations. The play transcends an antithesis of Greek and barbarian, but stops short of dissolving distinction. 25

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While we appreciate Gruen’s important refinement of readings of the play as either a “triumphalist” or an “anti-war” drama, we would argue that the Persae does create for its audiences a possible space for reflections on universal suffering, precisely through its perspectivalism. In our view (as we suggest further below), it creates and sustains a tension between the generic human on the one hand and (in Gruen’s words) the “antithesis of Greek and barbarian.” The Chorus’ stichomythia with Atossa begins by underscoring Athens and its people as remote, and yet intelligible; in fact, it is Xerxes who seems more puzzling to his mother. Atossa’s complete innocence even of Athens’s location gives Aeschylus the opportunity to offer an assessment of Athens from an outsider and for an outsider. Queen: Where in the world do they say that Athens is situated? Chorus: Far away, near the place where the Lord Sun declines and sets. Queen: And yet my son had a desire to conquer that city? 26 Chorus: Yes, because all Greece would then become subject to the King. Queen: Do they have such great numbers of men in their army? Chorus: And an army of a quality that has already done the Medes a great deal of harm. Queen: Why, are they distinguished for their wielding of the drawn bow and its darts? Chorus: Not at all; they use spears for close combat and carry shields for defense. Queen: And what else apart from that? Is there sufficient wealth in their stores? Chorus: They have a fountain of silver, a treasure in their soil. Queen: And who is the shepherd, master and commander over their host? Chorus: They are not called slaves or subjects to any man. Queen: How then can they resist an invading enemy? Chorus: Well enough to have destroyed the large and splendid army of Darius. Queen: What you say is fearful to think about, for the parents of those who have gone there. 231-4527

The hallmark of this play, in its deictic operations, is that the Athenian audience for the play is put in a position to see themselves from two places, both distantiated and mirrored; this creates an ambivalence, expressed here in Atossa’s incredulity at Xerxes’s 263 This content downloaded from 201.22.189.53 on Fri, 16 Oct 2020 19:57:14 UTC All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms

desire to conquer them. Is she incredulous because the Athenians are so impressive or so unimpressive? We might say that we see Atossa go through a process of coming to know Athens, going from a blank slate to disbelief that keeps heightening as she hears of their total devastation of the Persian force. Aeschylus affirms Athens’ remarkable victory and at the same time allows the Athenian audience to see that victory through a mother’s anguished focalization. Atossa’s questions, however, broach a wider terrain. As she inquires after motivations and consequences, she enters, one might say, the territory of the historian. From what vantage point or location can one know what questions to ask of a historical event? The deictic operations through which the Persae situates its spectators in relation to the action take on special force, given that it is our only surviving play about an event in which members of its original audience, its playwright, and, quite possibly, some of its actors took part. We might say that, strikingly, Aeschylus uses Atossa’s innocence and curiosity to raise ethical assessments of a historical event in which he himself participated. In foregrounding the ‘here and now’ of the play’s internal audience as it awaits the outcome – the question of how and when the news will travel – the drama focuses on the mediation of the event through Atossa’s exchange with the chorus of elders – her inquiries and their responses, and their collaboratively imagined version of what is transpiring (‘history’ rendered as ‘news’). Similarly, the Messenger’s eyewitness report,28 interleaved with the Chorus’ horrified questions, enacts a complex, perspectivallyinflected unfolding of what can only be known retroactively as the full extent of the Persians’ defeat. And I can also tell you, Persians, what kinds of horrors came to pass; I was there myself, I did not merely hear the reports of others. 266-67 29

The messenger provides access to his internal audience for the recent disastrous events in the Bay of Salamis and the current state of the corpses of those Xerxes left behind. What might be straightforward narration in the hands of a historian, here is developed as progressive revelation. The focus is as much on the 264 This content downloaded from 201.22.189.53 on ffff:ffff on Thu, 01 Jan 1976 12:34:56 UTC All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms

reception as on the telling, as – with each question and response – the interspersed reactions bring the horror home. The problem of understanding a momentous historical event – signaled by the exchange with Atossa, and recognizing its significance -- converges with the reversal and recognition that the play dramatizes. Unlike Phrynicus’s Phoenissae, in which everything is already known, the Persae is set at the moment of discovery. The play’s attention is not on preparations for battle (as in Herodotus), nor on action in battle (as in e.g. Septem), but on the impact of the reversal; not so much on any of the agents in the event as on the audience for it. The emphasis is on subjectivized event — on event as subjective experience — multiplied, complexly so. Telling and hearing are experienced as a wound. In a sense, there is no present, or the present is elided – between anticipation and retrospection -- and this is reflected in the deictic terms of: what a good life we had here, then. The problem of recognizing the significance of the event is highlighted by the proliferation of superlatives that saturate the speeches of the last half of the play. The chorus and the messenger insist on the vastness, the totality, of every aspect of the disaster; πᾶς, πᾶν (“all”) and derivatives are pervasive: It is terrible to be the first to announce terrible news, but I have no choice but to reveal the whole sad tale (πᾶν...πάθος), Persians: the whole of the oriental army (στρατὸς...πᾶς) has been destroyed! 2535530 … I assure you, all those forces (πάντα... ἐκεῖνα) are annihilated and I myself never expected to see the day of my return. 260-6131 … Otototoi! It was all in vain that those many weapons, all mingled together (παμμιγῆ), went from the land of Asia to the country of Zeus, the land of Hellas! 268-7132 … The shores of Salamis, and all the region near them (πᾶς...τόπος), are full of corpses wretchedly slain. 272-7333 … Raise a crying voice of woe for the wretched fate of , for the way have caused

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total disaster (πάντα παγκάκως)! Aiai, for our destroyed army! etc. 280-8334

A concentration of alpha-privatives suggests the inexpressible, immeasurable enormity of the reversal: I myself never expected (ἀέλπτως) to see the day of my return. 26135 … Truly this old life of ours has proved itself too long, when we hear this sorrow beyond all expectation (τόδε πῆμ᾿ ἄελπτον)! 262-6436 …