Re:Are there more surviving ancient writings in Greek or Latin?
by Causality1 on Sunday September 26, 2021 @11:36PM
(#28666815)
Plato wasn't translated into Latin until the middle ages?
Re:Are there more surviving ancient writings in Greek or Latin?
by dr_dshiv on Monday September 27, 2021 @02:27AM
(#28667674)
Until c.1450, the only Plato was the Timeaus and some scattered partial translations.
Re:Are there more surviving ancient writings in Greek or Latin?
by hihihihi1234 on Monday September 27, 2021 @02:53AM
(#28667824)
Modern philosophy courses tend to give equal weight to Aristotle and Plato (with a side order of Socrates), but for most of Western history the only pre-Christian philosopher that anyone cared about was Aristotle, who was often simply referred to as "The Philosopher". Plato was largely ignored and forgotten until there was a burst of scholarly interest in him in the 19th century.
Source: some random thing I read online somewhere; I might be wrong in the details.
Re:Are there more surviving ancient writings in Greek or Latin?
by dr_dshiv on Monday September 27, 2021 @07:43AM
(#28669492)
This is really not true, sorry. Plato was huge in the Renaissance and his academy ran in Athens (not continuously) from about 400BC-550AD. Platonism had a major influence on the formation and reception of Christianity and Islam, as well.
Re:Are there more surviving ancient writings in Greek or Latin?
by hihihihi1234 on Tuesday September 28, 2021 @06:10PM
(#28688096)
You may be right, I'm very far from
being an expert. Was just repeating something I read somewhere.
I'm currently working on a Neo Latin translation from Marsilio Ficino. He is famous for catalyzing the Italian Renaissance by translating Plato (and many other Greek works) into Latin, making it available in the west after about 1000 years. He also restarted "the Academy." He was a prolific philosopher himself.
The book I'm helping to translate is "De Voluptate", or "On Pleasure." In it, he integrates Epicurean hedonism and Platonic virtue. I mean, after translating all those works himself, I feel like Ficino deserves having his works available to scholars today.