THE LIFE OF PLATO BY MARSILIO Marsilio Ficino (1433–1499), the Italian scholar who led the revival of Neoplatonism..

THE ELOQUENCE, WISDOM, AND AUTHORITY OF PLATO.

Decorative woodcut initial 'S' at the beginning of the paragraph, featuring foliate and vine patterns.The style of Plato, as Aristotle says, flows midway between prose and poetry. His sweetness and abundance are so great that Cicero called Plato the most weighty authority in both understanding and speaking. He added: that if Jupiter had wished to speak in a human tongue, he would have spoken in no other than that of Plato original: "si Iupiter humana lingua loqui voluisset: non alia q̃ Platonis lingua fuisse locuturū". Indeed, there was such great learning in him that, whereas before him all illustrious men among the Greeks had traveled to foreign nations for the sake of wisdom, after Plato's time other nations flocked to Athens. Even Aristotle, endowed with such marvelous genius and most eager for new ideas literally "new heresy," here meaning a new school of thought, when he approached Plato as a nearly grown man, listened to him for twenty continuous years. Add to this that before he approached Plato, he was already advanced in letters. Thereafter, he had Plato as his only teacher. I pass over what is written by Cicero: I would rather err with Plato than think rightly with the others. Furthermore, he, along with Panaetius, calls him the "Homer of Philosophers." I pass over that saying of Quintilian: Who could doubt that Plato is supreme, whether in the sharpness of his debating or in a certain divine and Homeric eloquence of speech? For his speech rises far above prose—what the Greeks call "pedestrian" speech—so that he seems to me to be inspired not by human genius, but by some Delphic oracle. By a certain divine wisdom and integrity, he seems to have acquired for himself a marvelous authority even in his own homeland, which very rarely happens. Upon returning from Sicily, when Plato arrived at that most magnificent celebration of the Olympics—as if at a gathering of the whole world—he was received with such joyful encounters by everyone that he seemed like a god sent down from heaven to mortals. You would have seen the games deserted, the spectacles of the athletes abandoned, and the boxers left alone; and what is more admirable, those who had come to the Olympics across such long stretches of land and sea for the sake of feeding their eyes and minds and for other reasons, forgetting every pleasure, went to Plato. They gazed at Plato; they rested in Plato as if in the most pleasant of inns. When someone was performing a tragedy and no one was present except Plato, and some were casting it as a disgrace to him that no one was there except one man, he replied: "Even this one man is more than the entire Athenian people."

THE CHARITY, MAGNANIMITY, AND HOLINESS OF PLATO.

Decorative woodcut initial 'Q' at the beginning of the paragraph, featuring foliate and floral decorations.How great and constant a spirit he possessed, especially in the cause of his friends, his letters declare. He often boldly rebuked the Tyrant Dionysius of Syracuse for governing unjustly or for deceiving friends, even in the presence of witnesses; so far was he from flattering him. I pass over those lesser matters, such as when Dionysius ordered at a banquet that each person should dance dressed in purple. Aristippus danced first, but Plato refused, saying it was not fitting for a philosopher to wear women's clothing. There was also his contempt for the tyrant and his defense of Dion. Furthermore, the wicked accuser Crobylus had set a day for trial and sought a capital sentence against the most brave general Chabrias. Therefore, when Chabrias, deserted by the rest of the citizens out of fear of danger, ascended to the citadel, Plato alone was always present to offer him aid. When the slanderer Crobylus, in order to deter him from his patronage, said threateningly, "You come to offer defense for others, unaware that the poison of Socrates awaits you too," he replied: "Once, Crobylus, when I was a soldier for the dignity of my country, I was not slow in enduring dangers; now, for my duty and the safety of a friend, though you threaten swords and poison and fire, I refuse no danger." When Socrates was most unjustly shut in prison, Plato gathered money to ransom the innocent man. And while the trial was being conducted, ascending the platform, he began to plead thus: "Since I am younger, men of Athens, than all these who have ascended the tribunal..." But the tyrannical judges, fearing lest he move the citizens by his authority and eloquence, suddenly interrupted and shouted, "Get down!" Plato went home. For as much as they labored under a disease of a wicked mind, he then labored under a disease of the body. The persecutors of Socrates, however, paid the penalty shortly thereafter. When one of his fellow students, incited by envy that Xenocrates was so pleasing and acceptable to Plato, tried to stir up enmities against him, he reported many of Xenocrates' insults against Plato. Plato, rejecting the accusation in the middle of the speech, ignored it. The detractor persisted, affirming the crime with a severe expression. Finally, when he called all the gods and goddesses to witness, Plato, to free himself from the man's persistence, said, "So be it. But Xenocrates is so strong in faith and gravity that he would never have said those things unless he judged it to be expedient." That Xenocrates imitated the gravity and magnanimity of Plato is a matter of record. Plutarch is witness that Dion also imitated him. Furthermore, Philiscus, describing the life of the orator Lycurgus, says: "Lycurgus was a great man, and many things were performed by him excellently, which no one could have done who had not been a listener of Plato." When Demosthenes was fleeing Antipater, and Archias promised with smooth words that he would save his life, he said, "Far be it from me that I should prefer to live basely than to die honorably, after I have heard Xenocrates and Plato debating on the immortality of the soul." The same man, writing to a certain Heracleodorus, a fellow student of his, and rebuking him because, after he had heard Plato, he neglected the good arts and led a life of little honor, said: "Are you not ashamed to neglect those things which you received from Plato?" Dionysius, writing to Speusippus, says, "Plato..."