THE LIFE OF PLATO BY MARSILIO.

The text begins mid-sentence, continuing from the previous page regarding Plato's estate. ...he bestowed all things upon others except for a small suburban estate which they called the Academy. Content with this alone, he lived his life. And although he stood as a teacher and friend to princes, he nevertheless accepted no riches from them. King Dionysius Dionysius II, Tyrant of Syracuse used to say to his followers: "Aristippus always asks for money; Plato always asks for books." Add to this that he neither took a wife nor lived in the city: free from all things, serving truth alone. Whence Saint Jerome says: "Plato traveled with great labor through Egypt, and to Archytas of Tarentum, and that coast of Italy which was once called Great Greece Magna Graecia; so that he who was a master and powerful at Athens, and whose doctrines echoed through the gymnasia of the Academy, might become a pilgrim and a disciple, preferring to learn the discoveries of others with modesty rather than to thrust forward his own with impudence." Finally, while he pursued letters as if they were fleeing across the whole world, he was captured by pirates and sold; he even obeyed a most cruel tyrant as a captive, bound and a slave; yet because he was a philosopher, he was greater than the one who bought him. These are the words of Jerome.

THE PIETY AND GRATITUDE OF PLATO.

Gracious was he toward God: from whom he said the beginning of thinking, speaking, and acting in all matters must be sought, and he himself always did so. Furthermore, he gave thanks to God daily: that he had been born a human, not a brute animal; that he was a Greek, not a barbarian; and that he lived in the times of Socrates. That he was grateful to his teachers and to all his friends is evidenced by his dialogues. In these, he honors them all wonderfully and attributes his own books to Socrates. For not only does he introduce him as the disputant in almost all the dialogues, but he also writes that all things composed by himself were not his own, but belonged to Socrates.

WHAT PLATO AFFIRMED.

In those things which are subject to the senses, he defended the views of Heraclitus. Furthermore, in those things pertaining to the intellect, he mostly agreed with Pythagoras. In civil matters, however, he embraced his teacher Socrates. These are the things he asserted everywhere: That God provides for all things. That the souls of men are immortal. That there will be rewards for the good and punishments for the evil. Augustine, in his book Against the Academics, says that the authority of Christ is to be preferred above all. But if one must act by reason, he says he finds among the Platonists that which is not repugnant to the sacred writings of the Christians. Dionysius the Areopagite indicated the same; Eusebius later and Cyril declared it more extensively. Hence Augustine in his book On True Religion says: "The Platonists, with a few things changed, would become Christians." And in his Confessions, he relates that he found almost the entire prologue of the Gospel of John among the Platonists. Therefore, in the second book of The City of God, he says: "Labeo the Theologian, among the gentiles, thought Plato should be numbered among the demigods, just as Hercules and Romulus; he places demigods above heroes, but locates both among the divinities. Nevertheless, I do not doubt that this man whom he calls a demigod should be preferred not only to heroes, but even to the gods themselves." Whence he says he chose the Platonists before all others because they judged more correctly concerning divine and human matters than the rest of the philosophers. Marcus Varro had also judged this previously; and Apuleius made Plato not only superior to heroes, but equal to the gods: because, clearly, he penetrated the inner sanctuaries of divine things. Plato was endowed with such modesty that, although he had acquired a marvelous authority above others, yet when asked by someone to what extent his precepts should be obeyed, he replied: "Until someone more sacred appears on earth who may open the fountain of truth to all; him, finally, all should follow." He added that he had discovered nothing by his own light, but only by the divine light. What he felt in philosophy, we have treated sufficiently in our book On Love and in our Theology Ficino refers here to his own works, De Amore and Platonic Theology.

PLATO’S RETURN TO HIS CELESTIAL HOMELAND, AND PRAISES.

He departed on his own birthday, having completed eighty-one years without any doubt. Therefore, the Magi who were then in Athens sacrificed to Plato, thinking his lot had been greater than the human one, because he had completed the most perfect number, which nine multiplied by nine produces. And what is wonderful, even at that age and on that very day, he was writing. Concerning this, Cicero says: "There is also the calm and light old age of a quiet, pure, and elegantly spent life, such as we have heard of Plato’s, who died while writing in his eighty-first year." Seneca also affirms that this happened to Plato by the benefit of his sobriety and diligence. Some say he returned to those above while writing, others while reclining at a wedding feast after the tables were removed during a discussion. Aristotle consecrated an altar and a statue to Plato in a temple with this epigram:

original: ".i. Aram Aristoteles hanc Platoni dicavit, viro quem nefas est a malis laudari."
"Aristotle dedicated this altar to Plato, a man whom it is a sin for the wicked to praise." Aristotle adds: "He who alone, by his life, teaching, character, and speech, admonished all and gave monuments, so that they might be able to lead a happy life through virtue. No future ages shall bring forth such a man." Other wise men also added many poems in praise of Plato, but there are three principal epigrams. The first is this sentiment: "He excelled all in temperance and justice; indeed, he so surpassed them in wisdom that he utterly overcame all envy." The second sense is this: "Plato is [numbered] among the gods..."