Olympiodorus: Life of Plato and On Plato First Alcibiades 1-9

Olympiodorus (c. 500-570 CE), possibly the last non-Christian teacher of pagan philosophy in Alexandria, follows earlier Neoplatonists in locating the First Alcibiades at the start of the curriculum on Plato, because it is about knowing oneself. On the Neoplatonist view, Michael Griffin argues, Socrates tells the aristocratic playboy Alcibiades that he needs to know himself before he can get beyond virtues born of nature or habit and reach the first level of the philosopher's hierarchy of virtues, the virtues of ordinary civic interaction. The self he is to know also has a hierarchy of levels, and at the lowest civic level, it is the individual self with its particular actions. Readers of the dialogue are beginners like Alcibiades, able to benefit in virtue from conversation with Socrates. The full hierarchy of virtues, to be revealed as other dialogues of Plato are studied, is anticipated by including a Life of Plato, because Plato displays all the levels of virtue. As Olympiodorus delivers these introductory lectures to a mainly Christian audience, he takes great pains to tell his Christian students that the different words they use are symbols very often of shared truths, which they too accept. This English translation of Olympiodorus' work is the latest volume in the Ancient Commentators on Aristotle series and makes this philosophical work accessible to a modern readership. The translation is accompanied by an introduction, comprehensive commentary notes, bibliography, glossary of translated terms and a subject index.