On Numenius the Platonic Philosopher

Numenius is called a Pythagorean philosopher by all the writers who mention him, nor can there be any doubt that he called himself such, although he wished for nothing other than to restore to its entirety the doctrine of Plato, which had been obscured by the Academic philosophers, as we shall demonstrate below in the words of Numenius himself. Numenius believes that Plato and Socrates received their doctrine from Pythagoras; regarding this matter, one should compare the words in his fragment I, § 6-7, from the books On the Disagreement of the Academics with Plato. A little later, he says that Plato was between Pythagoras and Socrates: ibid., § 9, where it is indicated by the words autò toûto this very thing that Numenius brought forward a certain common and established opinion about Plato.

It is the opinion of Dicaearchus, as handed down by Plutarch (Quaestiones convivales VIII, 2, 2, p. 719), that Plato joined and mixed the doctrines of Socrates and Pythagoras:

"But see whether he (Plato) has not hinted at something appropriate and familiar to you, since Dicaearchus believed that he was mixing Lycurgus with Socrates, no less than Pythagoras."

That this was well-known and greatly pleased philosophers of a later age is apparent both from the aforementioned passage of Plutarch and from what Proclus says (In Timaeum, p. 3), using nearly the same words as Numenius. These are indeed:

"If, therefore, he mixed the Pythagorean and Socratic character elsewhere, he appears to be doing this in this dialogue as well. For within it, from the Pythagorean habit, there is the high-mindedness, the intellectual nature, the drawing of everything from the intelligible realm, the defining of the whole in numbers, the mystical and symbolic indication of matters, the upward-leading nature that transcends partial apprehensions, and the declarative style; but from the Socratic humanity, there is the sociability, the gentleness, the demonstrative nature, the observation of things through images, the moral focus, and all such things."

These items agree so closely with the words of Numenius that it is evident both authors followed the footsteps of Dicaearchus. Finally, an anonymous poet also in the Palatine Anthology...