1. G. Janell, Jahrbűcher fűr klassische Philologie, Suppl. 26 (1901) 263-336. In discussing Janell’s work I draw on Brandwood 1990, 153-166.
2. Cherniss, H.F., ‘Relation of the Timaeus to Plato’s Later Dialogues’, 339-378 in R. E. Allen ed. Studies in Plato’s Metaphysics. London: Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1965, pp. 344-6. Let me here note that Hackforth in his 'Introduction' to the Phaedrus takes only a passing reference to stylometric arguments, among which he attaches the greatest significance to the avoidance of hiatus: ‘it is universally recognized nowadays that the Sophist is the first of a group of six late dialogues (Sophist, Statesman, Philebus, Timaeus, Critias, Laws) which all display a deliberate avoidance of hiatus, the Phaedrus stands, on this criterion, outside the group, yet near to it.’ He nevertheless warns that it would be unwise to build much upon this stylometric proximity of the Phaedrus to the late six dialogues, for ‘the relatively low figure’ of hiatus in the Phaedrus ‘may after all be due to accident’ (Hackforth p.3).
3. Thesleff, H., Studies in Platonic Chronology. Helsinki: Societas Scientiarum Fennica, 1982, pp. 96, 184.
4. Brandwood, L., The Chronology of Plato’s Dialogues, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1990, p. 190.
5. Billig L., ‘Clausulae and Platonic Chronology’, The Journal of Philology 35, 1920, pp. 240-245.
6. Cf. Brandwood 1990, op. cit. pp. 183-184.
. See G. E. L. Owen, ‘The place of the Timaeus in Plato’s dialogues’, Classical Quarterly 3, 1953, p. 80: ‘The new search for neutral criteria produced Billig’s analysis of the rhythms of Plato’s clausulae. He found that “the Timaeus has nothing to do with the rhythms of the Sophist digression, the Politicus, the Philebus and the Laws. Rhythm puts its composition earlier than all these works.” And in this he confirmed Kaluscha’s earlier study in the same field.’ [This statement of Owen is misleading, for Kaluscha had firmly maintained that the Timaeus belonged to the group of the late six dialogues.] P. 82: ‘Billig went on to ear-mark the few indexes of style other than end-rhythms ... and his suggestions tell for my thesis. That thesis (to repeat) is that, while the Timaeus and Critias undoubtedly follow the Republic and possibly follow the Phaedrus, they precede the “critical” group which begins with the Parmenides and Theaetetus.’ Pp. 94-95: ‘The ordering of the Timaeus and Phaedrus, whose affinities so far outweigh their discrepancies, cannot be determined by arguments of the sort that I have tried to find. There are, however, some pointers. For instance, it seems that an apologia for the abandoning of the Critias may be found in the Phaedrus, with its novel denial of bebaiotês to any written work and its condemnation of the man who “has nothing more valuable than his own past writings and compositions which he has spent time turning and twisting, welding and censoring” (278d8-e1). There is no hint of this revulsion in what the Timaeus and Critias have to say about types of logoi (29b-d, 107a-e); and if the Timaeus group was abandoned through dissatisfaction with some now veteran theories, the refusal to waste time “welding and censoring” gains point after the abandonment but sounds oddly if it comes between the Republic and its avowed successor.’
Following Owen, we would have to assume that when Socrates in the Phaedrus crowns his criticism of Lysias’ written piece, in which a homosexual relationship without love is extolled, by deprecating the written word, for its lack of permanence and reliability, this has nothing to do with the criticism of Lysias as a writer by the historical Socrates, who had never experienced the power that the written word could be given in the hands of Plato, but rather it is Plato criticising his own earlier work. In other words, when we read Lysias’ piece, we are invited to think of Plato’s Republic, Timaeus, and the Critias. According to Owen, when Socrates in the Phaedrus rejects the view of the art of writing as a ‘recipe for memory and wisdom’ (mnêmês te kai sophias pharmakon, 274e6), and denounces it for promoting a mere semblance of wisdom, not the true wisdom (sophias doxan, ouk alêtheian, 275a6-7), it is not the historical Socrates who speaks in defence of his life-long preoccupation with the spoken word, it is the aged Plato who gives vent to his revulsion concerning his now veteran theories expressed in the Republic and the Timaeus, and which he originally planned to further expound in the Critias, which he left incomplete after writing its introductory part.
Had Owen invested some more work into Plato’s late writings before pronouncing his thoughts – revolutionary and epoch making as they appeared to be – he would have found that Plato’s effort to restore the dignity of the written word in comparison to the spoken word, which radiates from the Timaeus passage Owen quotes, also permeates the Laws (811d-e, 823a, 858d-859a, 890e-891a, 922a, 957c-e); in between the Timaeus and the Laws, there is no place for Socrates’ Phaedran deprecation of the written word.
8. Brandwood, L., The Dating of Plato’s Works by the Stylistic Method - A Historical and Critical Survey. PhD. University of London Thesis, 1958, p. 316.
9. Kaluscha W. ‘Zur Chronologie der platonischen Dialoge’ Wiener Studien 26, 1904, p. 200.
10. H. Thesleff, Studies in Platonic Chronology, Helsinki: Societas Scientiarum Fennica, 1982, p. 188 and n. 18 on p.189. It must be said to Thesleff’s credit that as far as his own stylometric research is concerned, the tests which he had made showed that different stylometric methods and criteria result in different groupings of dialogues, and that the only reliable grouping, on which different methods can agree, is the division into two groups, a late group that comprises the six late dialogues, that is Timaeus, Critias, Sophist, Statesman, Philebus, and Laws, and an earlier group that comprises all the other groups. Any chronological ordering of the dialogues in this latter group, that is in the group of dialogues all of which are earlier than the late six, lacks scientific justification in terms of stylometry. (Thesleff p. 82)
11. Skemp, J. B., Plato, New Surveys in the Classics 10. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1976, 1976, pp. 13-14.
12. ‘The method of stylometry is now over a century old, but the work we take to be definitive is by Leonard Brandwood’ (T. C. Brickhouse and N.D. Smith, Socrates on Trial, 1989, p. 1).
13. Brandwood, L., A Word Index to Plato, Leeds, Compendia 8, 1976, p. xvii.
14. Brandwood 1958, op. cit. 402-3. The only group in which Brandwood ordered the dialogues chronologically was the third group, that of the late six dialogues. The chronological order is Timaeus, Critias, Sophist, Politicus, Philebus, and Laws, as pointed out earlier.
15. G. R. Ledger, Re-counting Plato, Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1989, pp. 7-9.
16. P. Keyser, ‘G. R. Ledger, Recounting Plato: A Computer Analysis of Plato’s Style’ Bryn Mawr Classical Review 2, 1991, p. 427 of the computer print-out from the web, 02.07.03.
17. T. M. Robinson, ‘Plato and the Computer’ Ancient Philosophy 12, 1992, pp. 375-382.
18. H. Bruennecke, 'Kleitophon wider Sokrates', Archiv f. d. Geschichte d. Philosophie, vol. 26, 1913, p. 468, n. 43.
19. Cf. J. Tomin, 'The Protagoras in the light of The Seventh Letter', Plato's Protagoras, Proceedings of the Third Symposium Platonicum Pragense, OIKOYMENH, Prague 2003, pp. 183-5.
20. D. Wishart and S. V. Leach, 'A Multivariate Analysis of Platonic Prose Rhythm', Computer Studies in the Humanities and Verbal Behaviour 3, 1970, p. 98.
2. If Lysias was the author of the speech, then its close stylometric association with the four samples from the Symposium and with the two samples from the myth of Er in the Republic in Wishart’s and Leach’s investigation has no chronological implications whatsoever. The implications that can be drawn from it, with due caution, are very different. Dionysius of Halicarnassus, an ancient literary critic and connoisseur, says in his essay on Lysias that the persuasive powers of Lysias’ speeches are such ‘that they smuggle conviction unnoticed past the listener’s senses. It is thus difficult to find a passage that appears false and unconvincing, either in whole or in part, such is the persuasive charm of the story as he tells it’ (Dion. Halic. 1974, 58). Then, comparing Lysias to Isocrates, he says that he finds the former ‘more convincing in creating the illusion of truth’ (Dion. Halic. 1974, 132). By the time Plato wrote the Symposium and the Republic, he may have been influenced, perhaps against his will, by the persuasive power of Lysias’ speeches, by his ability to create each speech so as to appear naturally flowing from the mouth of this or that speaker.
22. Hermias, In Platonis Phaedrum Scholia, ed. P. Couvreur, Paris, Librairie Emile Bouillon, 1901, p. 35.
23. T. M. Robinson, ‘The Relative Dating of the Timaeus and Phaedrus’. Understanding the Phaedrus. Proceedings of the II Symposium Platonicum, ed. Livio Rossetti, Sanct Augustin, Academia Verlag, 1992, pp. 25-6.
Chapter 3 Stylometric Arguments
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