That Thrasyllus followed Aristophanes in the principle of his classification, is manifest: that he adopted the dramatic ground and principle of classification (while amending its details), not because he was himself guided by it, but because he found it already in use and sanctioned by the high authority of the Alexandrines — is also manifest, because he himself constructed and tacked to it a better classification, founded upon principles new and incongruous with the dramatic. In all this we trace the established ascendancy of the Alexandrine library and its eminent literati. Of which ascendancy a farther illustration appears, when we read in Diogenes Laertius that editions of Plato were published, carrying along with the text the special marks of annotation applied by the Alexandrines to Homer and other poets: the obelus to indicate a spurious passage, the obelus with two dots to denote a passage which had been improperly declared spurious, the X to signify peculiar locutions, the double line or Diplê to mark important or characteristic opinions of Plato — and others in like manner. A special price was paid for manuscripts of Plato with these illustrative appendages:[48] which must have been applied either by Alexandrines themselves, or by others trained in their school. When Thrasyllus set himself to edit and re-distribute the Platonic works, we may be sure that he must have consulted one or more public libraries, either at Alexandria, Athens, Rome, Tarsus, or elsewhere. Nowhere else could he find all the works together. Now the proceedings ascribed to him show that he attached himself to the Alexandrine library, and to the authority of its most eminent critics.
[48] Diog. L. iii. 65, 66. Ἐπεὶ δὲ καὶ σημεῖά τινα τοῖς βιβλίοις αὐτοῦ παρατίθεται, φέρε καὶ περὶ τούτων τι εἴπωμεν, &c. He then proceeds to enumerate the σημεῖα.
It is important to note that Diogenes cites this statement (respecting the peculiar critical marks appended to manuscripts of the Platonic works) from Antigonus of Karystus in his Life of Zeno the Stoic. Now the date of Antigonus is placed by Mr. Fynes Clinton in B.C. 225, before the death of Ptolemy III. Euergetes (see Fasti Hellen. B.C. 225, also Appendix, 12, 80). Antigonus must thus have been contemporary both with Kallimachus and with Aristophanes of Byzantium: he notices the marked manuscripts of Plato as something newly edited — νεωστὶ ἐκδοθέντα): and we may thus see that the work of critical marking must have been performed either by Kallimachus and Aristophanes themselves (one or both) or by some of their contemporaries. Among the titles of the lost treatises of Kallimachus, one is — about the γλῶσσαι or peculiar phrases of Demokritus. It is therefore noway improbable that Kallimachus should have bestowed attention upon the peculiarities of the Platonic text, and the inaccuracies of manuscripts. The library had probably acquired several different manuscripts of the Platonic compositions, as it had of the Iliad and Odyssey, and of the Attic tragedies.
Thrasyllus followed the Alexandrine library and Aristophanes, as to genuine Platonic works.
Probably it was this same authority that Thrasyllus followed in determining which were the real works of Plato, and in setting aside pretended works. He accepted the collection of Platonic compositions sanctioned by Aristophanes and recognised as such in the Alexandrine library. As far as our positive knowledge goes, it fully bears out what is here stated: all the compositions recognised by Aristophanes (unfortunately Diogenes does not give a complete enumeration of those which he recognised) are to be found in the catalogue of Thrasyllus. And the evidentiary value of this fact is so much the greater, because the most questionable compositions (I mean, those which modern critics reject or even despise) are expressly included in the recognition of Aristophanes, and passed from him to Thrasyllus — Leges, Epinomis, Minos, Epistolæ, Sophistês, Politikus. Exactly on those points on which the authority of Thrasyllus requires to be fortified against modern objectors, it receives all the support which coincidence with Aristophanes can impart. When we know that Thrasyllus adhered to Aristophanes on so many disputable points of the catalogue, we may infer pretty certainly that he adhered to him in the remainder. In regard to the question, Which were Plato’s genuine works? it was perfectly natural that Thrasyllus should accept the recognition of the greatest library then existing: a library, the written records of which could be traced back to Demetrius Phalereus. He followed this external authority: he did not take each dialogue to pieces, to try whether it conformed to a certain internal standard — a “platonisches Gefühl” — of his own.
Ten spurious dialogues, rejected by all other critics as well as by Thrasyllus — evidence that these critics followed the common authority of the Alexandrine library.
That the question between genuine and spurious Platonic dialogues was tried in the days of Thrasyllus, by external authority and not by internal feeling — we may see farther by the way in which Diogenes Laertius speaks of the spurious dialogues. “The following dialogues (he says) are declared to be spurious by common consent: 1. Eryxias or Erasistratus. 2. Akephali or Sisyphus. 3. Demodokus. 4. Axiochus. 5. Halkyon. 6. Midon or Hippotrophus. 7. Phæakes. 8. Chelidon. 9. Hebdomê. 10. Epimenides.”[49] There was, then, unanimity, so far as the knowledge of Diogenes Laertius reached, as to genuine and spurious. All the critics whom he valued, Thrasyllus among them, pronounced the above ten dialogues to be spurious: all of them agreed also in accepting the dialogues in the list of Thrasyllus as genuine.[50] Of course the ten spurious dialogues must have been talked of by some persons, or must have got footing in some editions or libraries, as real works of Plato: otherwise there could have been no trial had or sentence passed upon them. But what Diogenes affirms is, that Thrasyllus and all the critics whose opinion he esteemed, concurred in rejecting them. We may surely presume that this unanimity among the critics, both as to all that they accepted and all that they rejected, arose from common acquiescence in the authority of the Alexandrine library.[51] The ten rejected dialogues were not in the Alexandrine library — or at least not among the rolls therein recognised as Platonic.
[49] Diog. L. iii. 62: νοθεύονται δὲ τῶν διαλόγων ὁμολογουμένως.
Compare Prolegomena τῆς Πλάτωνος Φιλοσοφίας, in Hermann’s Appendix Platonica, p. 219.
[50] It has been contended by some modern critics, that Thrasyllus himself doubted whether the Hipparchus was Plato’s work. When I consider that [dialogue], I shall show that there is no adequate ground for believing that Thrasyllus doubted its genuineness.