Volume 9

Plato : with an English translation.

  • Plato.
Date:
1914-1935
Catalogue details

Licence: In copyright

Credit: Plato : with an English translation. Source: Wellcome Collection.

    603/660 (page 591)
    Prefatory Note.—This letter, together with the twelfth, which also is addressed to Archytas, is generally recognized as a forgery, in spite of the evidence of Cicero, who quotes it as Plato’s twice (De fin. ii. 14, and De ofiic. i. 7). It is a colourless and common- place effusion which we would not willingly ascribe to Plato, and which no correspondent of his would be likely to preserve. Moreover, there are certain peculiarities of diction which point to a later hand. If Platonic, the letter must be dated after Plato’s first voyage to Sicily, when he first met Archytas, i.e. after 387 b.c. And at that date the Echecrates mentioned in the Pkaedo (if he is the person alluded to in 358 b) could not possibly be described as a “ youth.”