By thus perpetuating the school which his own genius had originated, and by providing for it permanent support with a fixed domicile, Plato inaugurated a new epoch in the history of philosophy: this example was followed a few years afterwards by Aristotle, Zeno, and Epikurus. Moreover the proceeding was important in another way also, as it affected the preservation and authentication of his own manuscripts and compositions. It provided not only safe and lasting custody, such as no writer had ever enjoyed before, for Plato’s original manuscripts, but also a guarantee of some efficacy against any fraud or error which might seek to introduce other compositions into the list. That Plato himself was not indifferent on this head we may fairly believe, since we learn from Dionysius of Halikarnassus, that he was indefatigable in the work of correction: and his disciples, who took the great trouble of noting down themselves what he spoke in his lectures, would not be neglectful as to the simpler duty of preserving his manuscripts.[4] Now Speusippus and Xenokrates (also Aristotle, Hestiæus, the Opuntian Philippus, and the other Platonic pupils) must have had personal knowledge of all that Plato had written, whether finished dialogues, unfinished fragments, or preparatory sketches. They had perfect means of distinguishing his real compositions from forgeries passed off in his name: and they had every motive to expose such forgeries (if any were attempted) wherever they could, in order to uphold the reputation of their master. If any one composed a dialogue and circulated it under the name of Plato, the school was a known place, and its occupants were at hand to give information to all who enquired about the authenticity of the composition. The original MSS. of Plato (either in his own handwriting or in that of his secretary, if he employed one[5]) were doubtless treasured up in the school as sacred memorials of the great founder, and served as originals from which copies of unquestionable fidelity might be made, whenever the Scholarch granted permission. How long they continued to be so preserved we cannot say: nor do we know what was the condition of the MSS., or how long they were calculated to last. But probably many of the students frequenting the school would come for the express purpose of reading various works of Plato (either in the original MSS., or in faithful copies taken from them) with the exposition of the Scholarch; just as we know that the Roman M. Crassus (mentioned by Cicero), during his residence at Athens, studied the Platonic Gorgias with the aid of the Scholarch Charmadas.[6] The presidency of Speusippus and Xenokrates (taken jointly) lasted for thirty-three years; and even when they were replaced by successors who had enjoyed no personal intimacy with Plato, the motive to preserve the Platonic MSS. would still be operative, and the means of verifying what was really Platonic would still be possessed in the school. The original MSS. would be preserved, along with the treatises or dialogues which each successive Scholarch himself composed; thus forming a permanent and increasing school-library, probably enriched more or less by works acquired or purchased from others.
[4] Simplikius, Schol. Aristotel. Physic. f. 32, p. 334, b. 28, Brandis: λάβοι δ’ ἄν τις καὶ παρὰ Σπευσίππου καὶ παρὰ Ξενοκράτους, καὶ τῶν ἄλλων οἳ παρεγένοντο ἐν τῇ περὶ Τἀγαθοῦ τοῦ Πλάτωνος ἀκροάσει· πάντες γὰρ συνέγραψαν καὶ διεσώσαντο τὴν δόξαν αὐτοῦ. In another passage of the same Scholia (p. 362, a. 12) Simplikius mentions Herakleides (of Pontus), Hestiæus, and even Aristotle himself, as having taken notes of the same lectures.
Hermodôrus appears to have carried some of Plato’s dialogues to Sicily, and to have made money by selling them. See Cicero ad Atticum, xiii. 21: Suidas et Zenobius — λόγοισιν Ἑρμόδωρος ἐμπορεύεται. See Zeller, Dissert. De Hermodoro, p. 19. In the above-mentioned epistle Cicero compares his own relations with Atticus, to those of Plato with Hermodôrus. Hermodôrus had composed a treatise respecting Plato, from which some extracts were given by Derkyllides (the contemporary of Thrasyllus) as well as by Simplikius (Zeller, De Hermod. p. 20-21).
[5] We read in Cicero, (Academic. Priora, ii. 4, 11) that the handwriting of the Scholarch Philo, when his manuscript was brought from Athens to Alexandria, was recognised at once by his friends and pupils.
[6] Cicero, De Oratore, i. 11, 45-47: “florente Academiâ, quod eam Charmadas et Clitomachus et Æschines obtinebant … Platoni, cujus tum Athenis cum Charmadâ diligentius legi Gorgiam,” &c.
Security provided by the school for distinguishing what were Plato’s genuine writings.
It appears to me that the continuance of this school — founded by Plato himself at his own abode, permanently domiciliated, and including all the MSS. which he left in it — gives us an amount of assurance for the authenticity of the so-called Platonic compositions, such as does not belong to the works of other eminent contemporary authors, Aristippus, Antisthenes, Isokrates, Lysias, Demosthenes, Euripides, Aristophanes. After the decease of these last-mentioned authors, who can say what became of their MSS.? Where was any certain permanent custody provided for them? Isokrates had many pupils during his life, but left no school or μουσεῖον after his death. If any one composed a discourse, and tried to circulate it as the composition of Isokrates, among the bundles of judicial orations which were sold by the booksellers[7] as his (according to the testimony of Aristotle) — where was the person to be found, notorious and accessible, who could say: “I possess all the MSS. of Isokrates, and I can depose that this is not among them!” The chances of success for forgery or mistake were decidedly greater, in regard to the works of these authors, than they could be for those of Plato.
[7] Dionys. Halik. de Isocrate, p. 576 R. δεσμὰς πάνυ πολλὰς δικανικῶν λόγων Ἰσοκρατείων περιφέρεσθαί φησιν ὑπὸ τῶν βιβλιοπωλῶν Ἀριστοτέλης.
Unfinished fragments and preparatory sketches, preserved and published after Plato’s death.
Again, the existence of this school-library explains more easily how it is that unfinished, inferior, and fragmentary Platonic compositions have been preserved. That there must have existed such compositions I hold to be certain. How is it supposable that any author, even Plato could have brought to completion such masterpieces as Republic, Gorgias, Protagoras, Symposion, &c., without tentative and preparatory sketches, each of course in itself narrow, defective, perhaps of little value, but serving as material to be worked up or worked in? Most of these would be destroyed, but probably not all. If (as I believe) it be the fact, that all the Platonic MSS. were preserved as their author left them, some would probably be published (and some indeed are said to have been published) after his death; and among them would be included more or fewer of these unfinished performances, and sketches projected but abandoned. We can hardly suppose that Plato himself would have published fragments never finished, such as Kleitophon and Kritias[8] — the last ending in the middle of a sentence.