Horses for courses: Plato's vocabulary and authority in the Onomasticon

Abstract The Onomasticon by Julius Pollux is more than just a word-hoard: Pollux’s work actively mediates, through lexicographic appraisal, the cultural assets and anxieties of the Second Sophistic. In the light of the ongoing debate among the Imperial intellectuals and specifically Platonists about the value of style and diction as ingredients of the Platonic text, the numerous references to Plato’s vocabulary from across the Onomasticon bespeak an essentially coherent yet ambivalent attitude. Pollux cites Platonic words both appreciatively (at times, demonstrating reasonable awareness of the philosophical content) and critically; there is a tendency to characterize Plato’s lexical choices as strained and cavalier. As a case study of how Pollux deals with a famous Platonic passage that was held dear by the Middle Platonists and Imperial pepaideumenoi at large, his handling of the epithets used in the description of the two horses in the Chariot Allegory (Phdr. 253d–e) is examined.</jats:p

The City and the Self in Plutarch

Chapter 13 investigates Plutarch’s conception of the polis as a somatic, psychological, and moral entity, which recalls and elaborates the city/soul analogy in Plato’s Republic. It is argued that the tropes for the soul in Plutarch are not dominated by contemporary references to the Roman empire, but rather point to a timeless, palpably classical, polis fighting off the enemies from its gates. Such a ‘defensive’ turn of the city/soul analogy does not, however, make it any less valuable to Plutarch as a Platonically bent interpreter of the past and of the imperial present. The city/soul analogy helps to triangulate the three major ideological circuits of the Plutarchan macrotext: his sustained interest in human soul and character, his scrutiny of city-state politics from a perspective which is simultaneously pragmatic and idealistic, and his decision to explore both character and the polis with, and through, Plato.</p

Cornutus

Lucius Annaeus Cornutus stammte aus Leptis Magna in Libyen und lebte zur Zeit Kaiser Neros als stoischer Philosoph in Rom. Von seinen Werken (Schriften zur Rhetorik und Philosophie; Kommentar zum Dichter Vergil) ist vollständig nur die hier erstmals in deutscher Übersetzung vorgelegte Epidromê tôn kata tên Hellênikên theologian paradedomenôn (,Überblick über das in der griechischen Götterlehre Überlieferte‘) erhalten. Dieses Werk stellt ein ebenso einzig- wie eigenartiges Handbuch der stoischen allegorischen Götterdeutung dar, das für jede griechische Gottheit, von Uranos bis Hades, eine etymologische und allegorische Deutung ihrer Namen, Epitheta und Attribute sowie einiger Aspekte der mit ihnen verbundenen Mythen, Riten und bildlichen Darstellungen liefert. Damit bildet es einen bemerkenswerten Versuch, den klassischen antiken Polytheismus mit Hilfe einer entwickelten Philosophie zu deuten