ARTICLES
Vyacheslav Telminov
National Research University “Higher School of Economics” (Moscow)
telminoff@gmail.com
Language: English
Issue: ΣΧΟΛΗ 15.1 (2021) 7–30
DOI:10.25205/1995-4328-2021-15-1-7-30
Keywords: Late Roman Republic, Vesuvian Archaeological Area, Roman Villas, Private and Public, Spatial Turn, Space Syntax Theory, Movement as Memory Theory.
Abstract. The article serves as a starting point for a research project dedicated to the dichotomy of private and public, and its implications and dynamics in the late Roman republic – early Empire. The primary focus is on the roman private spaces in the villas and houses of the Vesuvian archaeological area. The main methodological approach is represented by the ‘space syntax” theory of B. Hillier and the “movement as memory” theory of D. Favro developed within the logics of Spatial Turn studies, further refined by A. Russel in her works on Roman public space.
Daniil Yu. Dorofeev
Saint-Petersburg Mining University
dorofeev_dyu@pers.spmi.ru
Roman V. Svetlov
Herzen State Pedagogical University (Saint Petersburg)
spatha@mail.ru
Mikhail I. Mikeshin
Saint-Petersburg Mining University
mikeshin_mi@pers.spmi.ru
Marina A. Vasilyeva
Saint-Petersburg Mining University
vasileva_ma2@pers.spmi.ru
Language: English
Issue: ΣΧΟΛΗ 15.1 (2021) 31–52
DOI:10.25205/1995-4328-2021-15-1-31-52
Keywords: Plato's iconography, Antiquity, medieval Orthodox churches, image aesthetics, visual history of philosophy and culture.
Abstract. The article is devoted to the topic of visualization, which is relevant for the modern world in general and scientific knowledge in particular, investigated through the image of Plato in Antiquity and in medieval Orthodox painting. Using the example of Plato’s iconography as a visual message, the authors want to show the great potential for the development of the visual history of philosophy, anthropology and culture in general, as well as the new visually oriented semiotics and semantics of the image. This approach reveals expressively and meaningfully its relevance for the study of Plato’s image, together with other ancient philosophers’ images, in Orthodox medieval churches in Greece, Serbia, Romania, Bulgaria and, of course, ancient Russia in the 15th-17th cc, allowing to see the great ancient Greek philosopher from a new perspective.
Dmitry Kurdybaylo
Russian Christian Academy for the Humanities
The Herzen State Pedagogical University of Russia
theoreo@yandex.ru
Inga Kurdybaylo
The Bonch-Bruevich Saint-Petersburg State University of Telecommunications
inga.posta@mail.ru
Language: English
Issue: ΣΧΟΛΗ 15.1 (2021) 53–63
DOI:10.25205/1995-4328-2021-15-1-53-63
Keywords: Plato, Proclus Lycaeus, Neoplatonic commentary, providence, metaphysics, game, laughter, humour.
Abstract. “Socrates’ irony” is a well-known topos even for those readers who are far from ancient philosophy. Dialogues of Plato contain different modes of humour, from mild self-irony to quite sarcastic tones. Plato’s gods are ‘playful,’ they treat people as those were ‘playthings.’ The best way of mortals’ life is to play also, spending their time in “sacrificing, singing, and dancing.” However, Neoplatonic commentaries to Plato tend to avoid explicit laughter and any direct mode of humour. Proclus Lycaeus, one of the most fruitful commentators of Plato, seems to disregard anything ludicrous in Plato’s writing. The places, where Plato speaks about laughter or playing games, are explained by Proclus as signs to some kind of divine activity towards the material realm. Even smile and laughter of particular humans are interpreted in the same way as symbols (synthēmata) of gods’ providence. What Proclus discusses in minor details, is the dialectics of gods’ procession into the sensible world, causing substantiation of the universe, and retention of the internal bonds that keep it eternal and unchangeable. Similarly, temporary particular beings also benefit from divine providence, which fortifies their vital capabilities. In general, these forms of providence are depicted by “the undying laughter” of gods. In spite of this approach seeming to be superfluously ‘scholastic’ and therefore losing the dramatic perspective of Plato’s writings, we suggest that Proclean interpretation may assume laughter to be related to some theurgic practice. Therefore, reading and interpretation the game- and laughter-related passages of Plato could have been considered themself a kind of theurgic “sacred play.”
Eka Avaliani
International Black Sea University (Georgia)
eavaliani@ibsu.edu.ge
Language: English
Issue: ΣΧΟΛΗ 15.1 (2021) 64–77
DOI:10.25205/1995-4328-2021-15-1-64-77
Keywords: Carthaginian statehood, Regional Ethnicity, Nationality, Self-identification.
Abstract. This paper explores the sociopolitical and state dynamics of the Carthaginian statehood, early manifestations of nationhood and nationalism and also unpacks issues such as the identity and regional ethnicity in Carthaginian discourse. This study argues there were indeed ancient nations and that Carthage represents one of the best examples. Carthaginian citizens and allies exhibited their national affiliation in a variety of ways, most notably via a willingness to fight for the Carthaginian national collective in the face of extreme duress during the Punic Wars.
Hakob Harutyunyan
Yerevan State University (Armenia)
hakobharutyunyan@ysu.am
Language: Russian
Issue: ΣΧΟΛΗ 15.1 (2021) 78–85
DOI:10.25205/1995-4328-2021-15-1-78-85
Keywords: Artemida (Artemis), Artashes I, Greek gods (Greek, Armenian, Hellenistic), paganism.
Abstract. The reign of the kings of the Artashes dynasty in ancient Armenia from the beginning of the II century B.C. E. was a turning point for the country in many spheres of life, including religion. In Armenia, as in all countries of the Near and Middle East, the cults of Greek gods were widespread. Armenian historian of the 5th century Movses Khorenatsi singles out the goddess Artemis (Artemis) among all Greek gods, who, as demonstrated in the work, not only complemented the functional characteristics of the Armenian gods, but also successfully syncretized with the Armenian pantheon.
Igor Tantlevskij, Igor Evlampiev
Saint Petersburg State University
tantigor@bk.ru, yevlampiev@mail
Language: Russian
Issue: ΣΧΟΛΗ 15.1 (2021) 86–107
DOI:10.25205/1995-4328-2021-15-1-86-107
Keywords: cosmocentrism of the ancient Greek worldview, anthropocentrism of the Hebrew worldview, concept of time as duration, Henri Bergson.
Abstract. The article deals with the basic features of ancient Greek and ancient Jewish world outlook and analyzes their role in European history down to the 20th century. Attention is drawn to the fact that the fundamental difference of the ancient Greek worldview manifests itself in the absolute prevalence of spatial concepts, while time is understood by the model of "eternal return", the repetition of the same, rather than as a history that enriches man. In the center of the ancient Jewish worldview, on the contrary, is the idea of time as a historical process, which includes an endless dialogue between man and God, leading a person to maturity. Interpretations of the key Hebrew worldview concept of hā-ʻōlām as the Universe eternity and the Universe as duration are proposed and analyzed. The article shows that the idea inherited by Christian Europe from the ancient Greeks about the perfect arrangement of the Universe (Cosmos), conforming to the laws of nature, became the deepest reason for the domination of scientific rationality in modern civilization. At the same time the newest worldview tendencies connected with philosophy of life, intuitivism, existentialism, protecting the idea of irrational incomprehensibility of human life, can be recognized as originating from the Hebrew worldview. It was Henri Bergson who has clearly shown the opposite of these two trends within the European worldview. His concept of true time, understood as duration, memory and history, reveals striking coincidences with ancient Jewish conceptions of time and history. According to Bergson, duration is the essence of man and at the same time is the absolute being from which the Universe comes; this leads to radical anthropocentrism, which can be considered as a distant consequence of biblical anthropocentrism.
Sergey Shevtsov
Odessa National University (Ukraine)
sergiishevtsov@gmail.com
Language: Russian
Issue: ΣΧΟΛΗ 15.1 (2021) 108–125
DOI:10.25205/1995-4328-2021-15-1-108-125
Keywords: law, law consciousness, legal culture, Muslim law, justice, fairy tale, picture of the world Abstract. The article raises the question of the possibility of reconstructing the legal consciousness of one culture and era in the categories and concepts of another. The subject of analysis is the plot of a medieval fairy tale from the collection Arabian Nights. Most European researchers of modern Europe perceive the plot of this story as a demonstration of the blatant injustice and corruption that reigned in Egypt during the Mamluk sultanate. At the same time this story appears completely different when correlated with the principles and norms of Muslim law. It tells how divine wisdom guides the people’s actions without them knowing, establishing order and justice in society. Fairy tales reveal the relationship between the upper world and the earth one, testify to the divine care for the daily life of people.
Uri Gershowitz, Denis Kuzyutin
Saint-Petersburg State University
gershovichuri@gmail.com; d.kuzyutin@yandex.ru
Language: Russian
Issue: ΣΧΟΛΗ 15.1 (2021) 126–160
DOI:10.25205/1995-4328-2021-15-1-126-160
Abstract. The Maimonidean Controversy at the beginning of the 13th century was one of the most significant conflicts in the midst of the Jewish diasporas in the Middle Ages. The conflict followed a vivid discussion on the treatises of Maimonides and the interpretation of Judaism in the light of Aristotelian philosophy. Almost all of major Jewish communities in Europe were drawn in this conflict. Moreover, at some point the conflict expanded outside of the Jewish world, so that some works of Maimonides were burnt by the Christian Inquisition as heretical books. Despite the significance of these events and the trace left in the memory of the Jewish people, there is not much reliable evidence about them. The authors aim to discuss the history of this conflict, focusing on the problematic aspects of the Maimonides’ teaching, and to make a reconstruction of the events occurred, to provide a specification of main characteristics of the conflict interaction (the players, their strategies and preferences, possible outcomes of the conflict, conflict dynamics, etc.), to design a game-theoretical model of the social conflict under consideration and to explore this model using the methods of mathematical game theory. It turns out that the majority of the players' actions correspond to optimal behavior concepts employed in game theory (bargaining solutions, Pareto efficiency, Nash equilibria). However, some actions obviously contradict the concept of rational behavior (one of the fundamental assumptions in mathematical game theory), and namely these actions induced the conflict escalation and such a tragic outcome.
Yaroslav Slinin
St. Petersburg State University (Russia)
slinin@mail.ru
Language: Russian
Issue: ΣΧΟΛΗ 15.1 (2021) 161–178
DOI:10.25205/1995-4328-2021-15-1-161-178
Keywords: The One, the Many, Being, Good, Plato, Eleatics, Plotionus.
Abstract. The article gives a comparative study of the way the category of the one is interpreted by the Eleatic philosophers, Plato and Plotinus. The Eleatics believe that the one is absolute and it does not permit the many of any kind. Plato in the Parmenides proves that if it is the case, then the one cannot have parts and may not be considered as the unity. As for Plotinus, he believes that the one is not an eidos like Plato believes, nor it is an absolute that excludes the many as the Eleatic philosophers claim. He agrees that the one does not exist as it is shown in the Parmenides, but he goes further. He identifies the one with the good of Plato’s Republic. This identification is Plotinus innovation; it allows him to create his doctrine of the One that does not exist in the usual sense of the word, but does exist supernaturally and mystically and gives birth of everything that is. The one of the Eleatic philosophers excludes the many, but the One of Plotinus, on the contrary, gives rise to the many. Virtually the One is the element of the great set, which embraces the One itself, as well as eidoi and objects that are created by the One.
Solovyeva Alexandra Sergeevna
St. Petersburg State University
alek-soloviova@mail.ru
Language: Russian
Issue: ΣΧΟΛΗ 15.1 (2021) 179–190
DOI:10.25205/1995-4328-2021-15-1-179–190
Keywords: Lydia, Archaic Greece, culture, Lydians, Hellenes
Abstract: The article is devoted to the study of the relationship between the ancient Greeks and the Middle Eastern tribe of the Lydians in the 7–5th centuries BCE. The evidence of ancient authors analyzed in the article helps to understand the evolution of the Greeks' ideas about the Lydians and highlights the changes in the Hellenes' relationship to the Middle Eastern neighbors. The central question of the work is the analysis of the period in which the Hellenes begin to perceive the Lydians as barbarians, and what was associated with this attitude to the people. The article raises the question of what role Greco-Persian wars have played in the relationship between the Greeks and the Lydians.
Maya Petrova
RAS Institute for World History (Moscow)
beionyt@mail.ru
Language: Russian
Issue: ΣΧΟΛΗ 15.1 (2021) 191–213
DOI:10.25205/1995-4328-2021-15-1-191-213
Keywords: source, way of reading, interpretation, reconstruction, biography, Praetextatatus.
Abstract. The paper shows how with the help of epigraphic sources (CIL VI, 1779, 1779a, 1778, 2145, 1777) it is possible to reconstruct individual events in the private and public life of Vettius Agorius Praetextatus (310/320 – 384), the prominent statesman, scientist, representative of the Pagan party in Rome of the Late Antiquity. This article also seeks to recreate his personal qualities, as well as to reveal the attitude towards him of his closest circle (both Pagan and Christian).
Anna Stepanova
The Herzen State Pedagogical University (Russia)
A-Step@mail.ru
Language: Russian
Issue: ΣΧΟΛΗ 15.1 (2021) 214–227
DOI:10.25205/1995-4328-2021-15-1-214-227
Keywords: dialectic, philosophy, rhetoric, stoics, skeptics, Antioch of Ascalon, Aristotle, Cicero, Chrysippus, Plato.
Abstract. The article discusses the evolution of the relationship between philosophy and rhetoric in Helenistic and Roman periods. In addition to discussing the value of such factors as eloquence and usefulness for rhetoric, the Hellenistic epoch drew attention to the problem of developing the foundations of rhetoric. These ideas were developed in schools of Stoics and Skeptics. Following the Aristotelian line, Chrysippus objectively contributed to the formalization of rhetorical knowledge. Cicero, who considered this approach narrow, actualized another Platonic line aimed at the "idea," while he translated the understanding of rhetoric as this kind of dialectical knowledge, which, being experience-oriented (in theory and practice), resembles art and corresponds to the spiritual ideal as the highest value. Ciceronian project is a variant of an expansive interpretation of rhetoric as the most complete generalization of reality.
Svetlana Demina
Vladimir State University named after Alexander and Nikolay Stoletovs
ist-drev@yandex.ru
Language: Russian
Issue: ΣΧΟΛΗ 15.1 (2021) 228–237
DOI:10.25205/1995-4328-2021-15-1-228-237
Keywords: Ancient Rome, Seneca, Stoicism, ancient philosophy of education
Abstract. Seneca pays serious attention to the problems of education of children, because he regards it as an important, but difficult affair. He examines aims, methods, difficulties of upbringing and ways of overcoming them, as well as foundations of the mutual relations between parents and children. Seneca’s system of views in education is a synthesis of Roman traditional thoughts about models of behavior of father and son in the family and his own philosophical ideas about virtue and vice, love, anger, joy, tranquility, and beneficences.
Denis Maslov
Institute of Philosophy and Law, SB RAS (Novosibirsk)
denn.maslov@gmail.com
Language: Russian
Issue: ΣΧΟΛΗ 15.1 (2021) 238–264
DOI:10.25205/1995-4328-2021-15-1-238-264
Keywords: the good by nature, Eudaimonia, happiness, Pyrrhonian ethics, ethics without theory, skeptical way of life.
Abstract. The paper discusses two interrelated problems pertaining to the Pyrrhonian way of life. We try to rise to the challenge and play devil’s advocate, arguing from the skeptical point of view. The first part portrays a reconstruction of central skeptical arguments against the dogmatic ethics that attack some epistemological, metaphysical and ethical issues of the central dogmatic concept “the good by nature”. The second part considers the arguments suggested by G. Striker and R. Bett who claim that the sceptic cannot have ethics nor be an ethical agent. Against it, we try to formulate minimal conditions for ethics without theory, namely, the conceptual ability to distinguish between “right” and “wrong” actions grounded upon the notion of “private good” and the skeptical criteria for actions. This is made possible by relativizing the criteria of the ethical and connecting it with the customs and traditions of a given community. Though Pyrrhonism is quite different from ethical relativism or ethical realism, a striking comparison to H. Putnam’s ethical approach is drawn at the end of the paper.
Leonid Zhmud
Saint Petersburg Branch of the Institute for the History of Science and Technology RAS (Russia)
l.zhmud@spbu.ru
Language: Russian
Issue: ΣΧΟΛΗ 15.1 (2021) 265–288
DOI:10.25205/1995-4328-2021-15-1-265-288
Keywords: ancient Greek science, division of cognitive space, Aristotle, Geminus, mathematics and physics, differentiation of the sciences in Antiquity.
Abstract. The paper examines the division of cognitive space in Antiquity as exemplified by the two most influential classifications of sciences, by Aristotle and Geminus, which underlie all sub-sequent classifications of scientific disciplines until the 18th century. Aristotle, considering the mathēmata in their comparison with the “first” and especially with the “second”, physical philosophy, proceeds from the independence of all three kinds of epistēmai and strives to draw the most rigid boundaries possible both between them and within the field of mathēmata. Geminus’ classification reflects the far-reaching differentiation of sciences at the end of Hellenism, when almost all of them acquired several auxiliary disciplines, theoretical or applied, and when “mathematics” became synonymous with “science.”
Maria Varlamova
Saint Petersburg State University of Aerospace Instrumentation
RAS Institute of Philosophy (Moscow)
Boat.mary@gmail.com
Language: Russian
Issue: ΣΧΟΛΗ 15.1 (2021) 289–306
DOI:10.25205/1995-4328-2021-15-1-289-306
Keywords: Alexander of Aphrodisias, Aristotle, soul, body, generation.
Abstract. The discussion about the soul in ancient philosophy is connected not only with consideration of the soul’s relation to the body, its capacities and functions of the living organism, but also with the question of generation, formation and animation of organic body, that has life potentially, in the womb. Considering the generation among the capacities of the nourishing soul, Alexander in De Anima Liber discusses the causes of embryogenesis. Among the causes of embryo’s development, he indicates the nourishing capacity, which is transmitted from the parent through the seed, and the soul as a form of the parent, which acts in the embryo, since it is part of the mother, that is, before birth. The paper explicates Alexander's notion of the causes of animal’s generation in the context of his idea of the soul as capacity (δύναμις) and disposition (ἕξις) from the perspective of the Alexander's treatise "On the Soul" and Simplicius's commentary on the Aristotle's "Physics".
Svetlana Mesyats
RAS Institute of Philosophy (Moscow)
messiast@mail.ru
Language: Russian
Issue: ΣΧΟΛΗ 15.1 (2021) 307–325
DOI:10.25205/1995-4328-2021-15-1-307-325
Keywords: ancient philosophy, Aristotle, soul, perception, potentiality and actuality, to act and being acted upon, change, motion, activity.
Abstract. One of the principles underlying Aristotle’s theory of sense perception is that the sense faculty is potentially such as the sensible object is actually. On closer examination, this statement turns out to be a modernization of the ancient rule "like is known by like", shared by most of the early Greek philosophers, including Empedocles and Plato. The paper shows that though Aristotle criticizes this principle in his treatise On the Soul, he doesn’t really abandon it. On the contrary, he retains it for his own theory of sense perception while using the notions of the possible and the actual. The paper is written in the form of a line-by-line commentary to De anima II 5 416b 32–417a 20, where Aristotle reproaches his predecessors for the inconsistency and contradictions of their theories; shows that the “like is known by like” principle entails certain difficulties, and solves these difficulties by introducing his own theory of being moved and acted upon, according to which the patient is in a sense unlike the agent and in a sense like it.
Mikhail Vedeshkin
Institute of World History, Russian Academy of Sciences; School of Public Policy – RANEPA
Balatar@mail.ru
Language: Russian
Issue: ΣΧΟΛΗ 15.1 (2021) 326–341
DOI:10.25205/1995-4328-2021-15-1-326-341
Key words: Late Antiquity, Late Roman Empire, Late Antique education, historiography, Eunapius of Sardis, "The Lives of Philosophers and Sophists", early Christian monasticism, the cult of holy relics, the cult of Sts. Cyrus and John.
Abstract: This article examines the problem of the dating of Eunapius’ "Lives of Philosophers and Sophists" - one of the main sources of information on the history of Late Antique education, intellectual tradition and school culture. Arguments are put forward in favor of the fact that Eunapius’ story about the necrolatry of Christian monks who settled in the Egyptian Canopus, reflects the assertion of the cult of relics of St. Cyrus and John, dating back to the time of the Archbishopric of Cyril of Alexandria (412 – 444). These conclusions make it possible to correct the well-established historiographic tradition, according to which "Lives of Philosophers and Sophists" was published around 399–400, and enhance F. Paschoud's hypothesis, that the text of this work was composed no earlier than 412.
Irina Protopopova
Russian State University for the Humanities (Moscow)
plotinus70@gmail.com
Language: Russian
Issue: ΣΧΟΛΗ 15.1 (2021) 342–353
DOI:10.25205/1995-4328-2021-15-1-342-353
Keywords: Plato, the “Phaedo”, metaphysics, phenomenology, arguments for the immortality of the soul.
Abstract. The article considers the correlation between the ‘metaphysical’ and ‘phenomenological’ approaches in Plato’s “Phaedo”. Here, the ‘metaphysics’ refers to philosophical judgments that are considered as certain external principles that are not directly related to the philosopher’s ‘work of consciousness’. The ‘phenomenology’, on the other hand, refers to the specific philosophical experience of observing one’s own ways of grasping things in the immediate reality of awareness. At the beginning of the dialogue, in the so-called ‘defense of Socrates’, he first offers several premises that are accepted as axioms by his interlocutors and, secondly, he describes a philosophical purification as the ‘gathering of the soul’, which results in a confusion of ideas about the soul as either separated and existing after death or ‘being collected in itself’ in the process of philosophical, metaphorical ‘dying’. The first and the third arguments for the immortality of the soul can be considered as ‘metaphysical’, based on analogies, and the second and the forth, as ‘phenomenological’, based on the practice of contemplation of ‘eide in themselves’ by the soul ‘in itself’. It is concluded that Plato’s eide do not appear due to induction or deduction and are not a doubling of general concepts, as Aristotle believed, but are revealed as a result of some effort to realize one’s own awareness of one’s own grasping of being. This is what is outlined here as the difference between ‘metaphysics’ and ‘phenomenology’.
Anastasia Zolotukhina
National Research University “Higher School of Economics” (Moscow)
a.auriauris@gmail.com
Language: Russian
Issue: ΣΧΟΛΗ 15.1 (2021) 354–374
DOI:10.25205/1995-4328-2021-15-1-354-374
Keywords: natural philosophy, Komensky, Aristotle, Mosaic physics
Abstract. At the beginning of the 17th century there have been many attempts to overcome Aristotelian physics. One of the trends was the so-called "Mosaic physics" based on Scripture, not on the texts of Aristotle. The “Physicae Synopsis” by J.A. Komensky shows one of the options for such overcoming, with all its difficulties and successes.
TRANSLATIONS
Timothey Myakin
Novosibirsk State University
miackin.timof@yandex.ru
Language: Russian
Issue: ΣΧΟΛΗ 15.1 (2021) 328–338
DOI:10.25205/1995-4328-2021-15-1-328-338
Keywords: Mimiambi of Herodas; erotic poetry of Herodas, the cult of Artemis in the Ancient Greece.
Abstract. The present publication contains the first translation of VI Herodas’s mimiambus into Russian. The Herodas was a Hellenistic poet of the third century BCE, whose eight mimiambos have been preserved on a papyrus of the first century CE. The commented translation is based on the authoritative editions of O. Crusius (1914) and J. Cunningham (1971).
Eugene Afonasin
Institute of Philosophy and Law SB RAS
Novosibirsk State University
afonasin@post.nsu.ru
Language: Russian
Issue: ΣΧΟΛΗ 15.1 (2021) 339–421
DOI:10.25205/1995-4328-2021-15-1-339-421
Keywords: sophistic, doxography, sources of ancient philosophy.
Abstract. Antiphon (c. 480–411 BCE) was famous in antiquity for his forensic speeches as well as more theoretical works, such as The Truth and On concord. He is also credited with the invention of logography as a profession. The majority of his heritage is now lost. The present publication contains a collection of scant doxographic evidence about Antiphon’s life and writings. The evidences are based on A. Lask and G. Most’ Early Greek Philosophy (2016).
Alexei Garadja
The Russian State University for the Humanities (Moscow) agaradja@yandex.ru
Language: Russian
Issue: ΣΧΟΛΗ 15.1 (2021) 422–435
DOI:10.25205/1995-4328-2021-15-1-422-435
Keywords: Maximus of Tyre, Socrates, Plato, love.
Abstract. Maximus of Tyre (fl. late 2nd century ad) is most poorly and confusedly attested by ancient sources. The best testimony to be found is his extant collection of 41 Orationes, or Dissertationes, addressing a wide range of topics, including the issue of ‘Socratic love’ (Or. 18–21), i.e. of Plato’s theory of eros dealt with by the latter, imprimis, in his dialogues Symposium and Phaedrus. Maximus of Tyre may be dubbed a ‘Platonist’, though not in a scholastic vein (as, e.g., his contemporary and sometime neighbour in the manuscripts Albinus), but rather as an author who strived to mould his own writings in the spirit and style of Plato’s works. The author closest to Maximus may have been Favorinus of Arelate (ca. 80 – ca. 160). As a widely educated person, Maximus shows a good knowledge of Plato as well as of other ancient authors, whose many fragments (e.g., of Sappho and Anacreon) are extant solely thanks to his quotations. Maximus is scarcely known in the Russian language: a few translations of the last century are based on an obsolescent edition. As an appendix, a new Russian translation of Or. 20–21 based on seriously corrected editions of Maximus’ text is provided.
