On Numenius the Platonic Philosopher

Stallbaum refers these to the secret doctrine of the Pythagoreans (though he concedes that those who thought of the Orphic mysteries may have seen something of the truth), contending that the mysteries are nowhere called by the name "secret things" in Plato. Olympiodorus, however, on this passage (p. 3 Finckh) and Proclus on Plato's Republic p. 372 think that Plato refers to the Eleusinian mysteries. It does not matter to us which of them has grasped Plato's meaning more accurately: for we are asking what Numenius determined. It is therefore most significant to us that later Platonists after Numenius related the passage of the Phaedo to the Eleusinian rites; for from this it becomes highly probable that Numenius did the same. Since these things are so, you will easily convince yourself that Numenius' opinion about the prison was also taken by the commentator from his Epops.

To that opinion—that we are held by pleasure as if in a prison—Numenius was perhaps led here by the passage of Plato's Cratylus p. 403 C, where Socrates says that pleasure or desire is a bond even stronger than necessity:

Soc. Tell me, for any living creature, which bond is stronger for remaining wherever it is, necessity or desire?
Herm. Desire is far stronger, Socrates.

From these, therefore, it appears what Numenius intended in the Epops. I think he had the Cratylus of Plato in mind when writing this book, for it is consistent that this kind of etymology greatly pleased him. For Numenius, like all Asian philosophers, favored allegory. This must be kept in mind when judging his opinions and writings, especially his books On Numbers.