[38] Galen, Comm. ad Hippokrat. Ἐπιδημίας, vol. xvii. p. 606, 607, ed. Kühn.
Lykurgus, the contemporary of Demosthenes as an orator, conspicuous for many years in the civil and financial administration of Athens, caused a law to be passed, enacting that an official MS. should be made of the plays of Æschylus, Sophokles, and Euripides. No permission was granted to represent any of these dramas at the Dionysiac festival, except upon condition that the applicant and the actors whom he employed, should compare the MS. on which they intended to proceed, with the official MS. in the hands of the authorised secretary. The purpose was to prevent arbitrary amendments or omissions in these plays, at the pleasure of ὑποκρίται.
Ptolemy Euergetes borrowed from the Athenians these public and official MSS. of Æschylus, Sophokles, and Euripides on the plea that he wished to have exact copies of them taken at Alexandria, and under engagement to restore them as soon as this was done. He deposited with them the prodigious sum of fifteen talents, as a guarantee for the faithful restitution. When he got the MSS. at Alexandria, he caused copies of them to be taken on the finest paper. He then sent these copies to Athens, keeping the originals for the Alexandrine library; desiring the Athenians to retain the deposit of fifteen talents for themselves. Ptolemy Euergetes here pays, not merely the cost of the finest copying, but fifteen talents besides, for the possession of official MSS. of the three great Athenian tragedians; whose works in other manuscripts must have been in the library long before.
Respecting these official MSS. of the three great tragedians, prepared during the administration and under the auspices of the rhetor Lykurgus, see Plutarch, Vit. X. Orator, p. 841, also Boeckh, Græcæ Tragœd. Principia, pp. 13-15. The time when Lykurgus caused this to be done, must have been nearly coincident with the decease of Plato, 347 B.C. See Boeckh, Staatshaushaltung der Athener, vol. i. p. 468, ii. p. 244; Welcker, Griech. Trag. iii. p. 908; Korn, De Publico Æschyli, &c., Exemplari, Lykurgo Auctore Confecto, p. 6-9, Bonn, 1863.
In the passage cited above from Galen, we are farther informed, that Ptolemy Euergetes caused inquiries to be made, from the masters of all vessels which came to Alexandria, whether there were any MSS. on board; if there were, the MSS. were brought to the library, carefully copied out, and the copies given to the owners; the original MSS. being retained in the library, and registered in a separate compartment, under the general head of Τὰ ἐκ πλοίων, and with the name of the person from whom the acquisition had been made, annexed. Compare Wolf, Prolegg. ad Homerum, p. clxxv. These statements tend to show the care taken by the Alexandrine librarians, not only to acquire the best MSS., but also to keep good MSS. apart from bad, and to record the person and the quarter from which each acquisition had been made.
Large expenses incurred by the Ptolemies for procuring good MSS.
We cannot doubt that Demetrius could obtain permission, if he asked it, from the Scholarchs, to have such copies made. To them the operation was at once complimentary and lucrative; while among the Athenian philosophers generally, the name of Demetrius was acceptable, from the favour which he had shown to them during his season of political power — and that of Ptolemy popular from his liberalities. Or if we even suppose that Demetrius, instead of obtaining copies of the Platonic MSS. from the school, purchased copies from private persons or book-sellers (as he must have purchased the works of Demokritus and others) — he could, at any rate, assure himself of the authenticity of what he purchased, by information from the Scholarch.
Catalogue of Platonic works, prepared by Aristophanes, is trustworthy.
My purpose, in thus calling attention to the Platonic school and the Alexandrine Museum, is to show that the chance for preservation of Plato’s works complete and genuine after his decease, was unusually favourable. I think that they existed complete and genuine in the Alexandrine Museum before the time of Kallimachus, and, of course, during that of Aristophanes. If there were in the Museum any other works obtained from private vendors and professing to be Platonic, Kallimachus and Aristophanes had the means of distinguishing these from such as the Platonic school had furnished and could authenticate, and motive enough for keeping them apart from the certified Platonic catalogue. Whether there existed any spurious works of this sort in the Museum, Diogenes Laertius does not tell us; nor, unfortunately, does he set forth the full list of those which Aristophanes, recognising as Platonic, distributed either in triplets or in units. Diogenes mentions only the principle of distribution adopted, and a select portion of the compositions distributed. But as far as his positive information goes, I hold it to be perfectly worthy of trust. I consider that all the compositions recognised by Aristophanes as works of Plato are unquestionably such; and that his testimony greatly strengthens our assurance for the received catalogue, in many of those items which have been most contested by critics, upon supposed internal grounds. Aristophanes authenticates, among others, not merely the Leges, but also the Epinomis, the Minos, and the Epistolæ.
No canonical or exclusive order of the Platonic dialogues, when arranged by Aristophanes.