The dissertation examines interactions of three Second Sophistic authors (Plutarch, Dio Chrysostom, and Ailios Aristeides) with Plato and his dialogues. Although the significance of Plato and his dialogues for Greek literature of the imperial period is well-known, there is lack of nuanced case studies attempting to uncover the mechanics and purpose of literary interactions with Plato. Scholarship tends to explain Plato’s presence in the Second Sophistic literature en masse as a socio-cultural phenomenon, interpreting Platonic presence in the Greek imperial authors as a cultural and stylistic statement on their part: as a means by which authors create their cultural identity and construct the cultural status of the present. Consequently, particular instances of the interaction between Second Sophistic authors and Plato frequently remain unexamined. In my examination of texts by Dio, Plutarch, and Ailios Aristeides, I focus on their meaning and how it is shaped and modified by placing Plato in the background.
In the Introduction, I offer a broad picture of the reception of Plato and his dialogues before and during the Second Sophistic. I draw attention to the fact that by interacting with Plato, a Second Sophistic author located himself within a lengthy and complex tradition of Platonic reception. I examine different literary strategies by means of which Second Sophistic authors interact with Plato, with special emphasis on a literary allusion and a dialogic genre as two ways of positioning one’s work vis-à-vis Plato’s text(s).
The three chapters of my dissertation examine different approaches to Plato and Platonic legacy. In the first chapter, I examine two dialogues which evoke Plato both structurally and verbally: Dio Chrysostom’s Charidemos and Plutarch’s Symposion of the Seven Sages. Both these texts make a considerable use of Plato’s Phaidon. I examine literary techniques by means of which Dio and Plutarch evoke Platonic text and ask the question about the function and significance of the Platonic background.
In the second chapter I focus on Platonic allusions in two non-dialogic works by these two same authors: Plutarch’s On listening, a work focused on philosophical education, and Dio’s Euboïkos. The affinity of these two works lies in their choice of the Republic as a subtext; in my examination I argue that recurrent references to the Republic are a sign of an intense interaction with Plato’s views on education and politics as expressed in this particular dialogue.
In the third chapter I move to a slightly younger author and examine Ailios Aristeides’ To Plato: in Defence of Oratory, to show an author actively engaged in the discussion over the Platonic legacy and the values and perils that it involved.