Ocellus Lucanus On the Nature of the Universe (Taylor 1831)

The former of these works was held in such high estimation by Plato and Aristotle that the latter, as Syrianus observes (in Aristotle’s Metaphysics), "has nearly taken the whole of his two books on Generation and Corruption from this work." That Plato anxiously desired to see it is evident from his epistle to Archytas, of which the following is a translation:

“Plato to Archytas the Tarentine, prosperity.

“It is wonderful with what pleasure we received the commentaries which came from you, and how very much we were delighted with the genius of their author. To us, indeed, he appeared to be a man worthy of his ancient progenitors. For these men are said to have been ten thousand In all the editions of Plato, myrioi, conformably to the above translation; but from Diogenes Laertius, who, in his Life of Archytas, gives this epistle of Plato, it appears that the true reading is Myraioi, i.e., Myrenees, so called from Myra, a city of Lycia in Asia Minor (see Pliny, v. 27; Strabo xiv. 666). This 12th epistle of Plato, though ascribed by Thrasyllus and Diogenes Laertius to Plato, is marked in the Greek manuscripts as spurious. in number; and, according to report, were the best of all those Trojans that migrated under Laomedon.”