Plato's last night revealed in Herculaneum scroll?

TECHNOLOGY WATCH: Plato’s final hours recounted in scroll found in Vesuvius ash. Newly deciphered passages outline Greek philosopher’s burial place and describe critique of slave musician (Lorenzo Tondo, The Guardian).

In a groundbreaking discovery, the ancient scroll was found to contain a previously unknown narrative detailing how the Greek philosopher spent his last evening, describing how he listened to music played on a flute by a Thracian slave girl.

Despite battling a fever and being on the brink of death, Plato – who was known as a disciple of Socrates and a mentor to Aristotle, and who died in Athens around 348BC – retained enough lucidity to critique the musician for her lack of rhythm, the account suggests.

This announcement is so remarkable that at first I thought it was a joke. But it is real. Prof Graziano Ranocchia of the University of Pisa has reported that his team has recovered material from a carbonized Herculaneum scroll which gives new information about the life and death of Plato, including an account of the last evening of his life and a more precise indication of his burial place. It also tells a story of his enslavement somewhat different from the one already known.

How much does this new scroll tell us about the actual life of Plato? Hard to say. Philodemus lived in the first century BCE, a few centuries after the death of Plato. But we don't know what contemporary sources he had that are now lost.

I would take the account of Plato's last night with a grain of salt. If no one knew what happened, someone would surely made up a story like the one Philodemus gives us. But at worst we now have an additional piece of comparatively early Plato apocrypha.

Comparatively early? For comparison, there is the Life of Plato written by Diogenes Laërtius in his Lives of the Eminent Philosophers. (The 1925 LCL translation by R. D. Hicks is reprinted at the link at the Livius site.) Diogenes lived no earlier than the first half of the third century CE, so perhaps a few centuries farther from Plato's time than Philodemus.

Diogenes says that Plato died at a wedding feast (or possibly from lice infestation!), that there are conflicting reports of the date, and that he was buried in the Academy (2-3, 40-41, 45). He gives no more information about the night of his death. He also reports that Plato was sentenced to be sold into slavery by Dionysius I of Syracuse, but an admirer ransomed him and sent him back to Athens (18-20).

One cautionary note. Let's remember that none of the new information has been published yet. I want to see what it looks like when it's published and how persuaded specialists are of the reconstruction and decipherment. But it sounds promising.

I know this story has nothing to do with ancient Judaism, but it's of interest to anyone following the decipherment of the Heculaneum scrolls, as I have been. Maybe the next big discovery will be more relevant.

For many PaleoJudaica posts on the eruption of Mount Vesuvius in 79 CE and its destruction of Pompeii and Herculaneum, and on the efforts to reconstruct and decipher the carbonized library at Herculaneum, start here and follow the links.

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