SYMBOLISM IN THE PLATO SCHOLIA By Robert S.

Brumbaugh
III. A FINAL SUMMARY

I
more general questions in the history of logic. In particular, at the outset, I was puzzled by Arethas's 'architecture of argument' designs, and impressed by the Gorgiasscholion in which relations of four classes were plotted out simultaneously. Had the Platonic tradition actually developed a geometrical symbolic logic? What, if anything, did the 'syllogism' diagrams show about the interaction of Aristotelian syllogistic and Platonic dialectic? And what did the persistence and diffusion of these designs through space and time show about the suggestiveness, viability, and vitality of the 'symbolism' itself? In the course of cataloguing microfilms of extant Plato manuscripts for the Plato Microfilm Project, ProfessorRulon Wells and I located and collected all the scholia that involved mathematical or geometrical-logical designs. For the first time in a long while, Professor W. C. Greene's ScholiaPlatonicahad paid some attention to these schemata in the oldest Plato manuscripts, reproducing them with line drawings. It seemed to us, however, that photographs might bring out details significant for study of symbolism, not included in Greene's schematizations. Further, there was the question of what had happened in the later stages of Platonic copying and annotation. In two preceding articles, I have classified and listed locations and all later occurrences of the scholia included in Greene, plus several late or minor items needed to complete the record.1 The present article is concerned with collection and classification of new uses of logical or mathematical symbolism in later scholia, ranging from the eleventh to the sixteenth centuries. By and large, these will be found to confirm the conclusions suggested in the two earlier articles; and perhaps a summary of these conclusions is in order as a prologue to the present, concluding, set of figures. The chequered careers of these symbolic designs suggest four general conclusions, as well as several subordinate ones. First, while there seems to have been a latent idea of true 'symbolic logic'-a mathematical formalization of argument and explanation-underlying this tradition, the idea failed to achieve clear realization. For this failure, there are both philosophical and
1 Robert S. Brumbaugh, 'Logical and in the Plato Mathematical Symbolism Scholia', this Journal, XXIV, 1961, 45-58; 'Logical and Mathematical Symbolism in the Plato Scholia; II: A Thousand Years of and Redesign,' Diffusion this Journal, XXVIII, 1965, 1-13. As before, I want to thank the Bollingen Foundation and the Yale Library Plato Microfilm Project for assistance in the work that has made the collection of symbolic scholia possible. My colleague, Professor Rulon Wells, has worked through this material with me, and offered many excellent suggestions. Mr. Frederick Ludwig, of the Yale Photographic Service, has, as for Part I, lent his technical skill to preparing legible prints enlarged from our microfilm. I also want to thank my son, Robert C. Brumbaugh, for his assistance in the task of locating, printing, classifying, and indexing the symbolic scholia.

geometrical years ago, Some designs used to schematize arguments and divisions in the Plato scholia to

I became interested in the relevance of the

b-Meno 82C. Florence, cod. Laur. Plut. 85.6, fol. 41v. [SN 13] (p. 8) a-Parmenides i143D. (Generation of types of number.) Vatican, cod. Barb. gr. 270, fol. 135r. [SN 4] (P. 7) c-Meno

fol. 9v. [SN 13] (p. 8)

82B. Rome, cod. Angel. gr.

o107,

e-Meno 82B. Vienna, B.S.B., cod. phil. gr. 39, fol. 4ov. [SN 13] (p. 8)

d- Timaeus 53C. (Synthesis of the molecular equilateral triangles). Tfibingen, cod. Tuib. gr. Mb 14, fol. 302. [SN I9] (p. 8)

f- Timaeus Locris scholion, illustrating Timaeus 53C. Florence, cod. Laur. gr. 103, fol. I168r. [SN 9ig]

(p.8)

g-

147. 80, fol. 68v. [SN 2] (p. 8)

Theaetetus

Vienna, cod. phil. gr.

h-Protagoras 33off. Bessarion's scholion; (see Pl.3b ff.) Venice, cod. Marc. gr. 186, fol. 338v. (p. 8f.).

4s,/

'at-of

j~/

~4JKKKK..........

...y,~

a- Timaeus 35A. Double diapason ratios (8 to 36). Tfibingen, cod. Tfib. gr. Mb 14,

fol. 274 (P. 9)

iizoro

b- Timaeus 35A. (Double diapason ratios). Munich, cod. fol. 216r. Mon. gr. 237, [SN 17] (p. 9)

. 4,

c-Astronomical/astrological symbolism. Wheel for calculating date of Easter. End papers, Paris, B.N., MS. grec 18io [SN 22] (p. Io)

Republic 5 iA.

(Arbelus redesign of the 'divided line'.) Munich, cod. Mon. gr. 490, fol. 326(b)r.

(p. io)

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iiii : i : i iiiiiili'i~-_l~?--ii''ii~iiiiiiiiiii~

"o

cod. A(Classification

b-Left half of bottom marginal scholia to Republic 5IIA (divided iii:-- : -_i: line redesigned as tree) and Republic 5o4A (wheel design: soul at centre, senses around perimeter. Complete texts in footnotes). Munich, Mon. gr. 490, fol. 326(b)r.

io) (p.

7ooB. Bessarion's scholion. of kinds of song). Venice, cod. Marc. gr. 188, fol. 30r. (p. io) d-Laws 888E. Bessarion's scholion. (Triple classification of ta pragmata, as in Plato's text). Venice, cod. Marc. gr. 188, fol. ioov. (p. Io) c-Laws

e-Laws

864B.

scholion sarion's Bes- (classifying causes of wickedness). Venice,

cod. Marc. gr. i88,

$ V4

fol.

,c06

'

95v.-(p.-IO)

symf, g-Astrological/astronomical bolism. Two sequences of characters from end-paper astrological scholion in Milan, cod. Ambros. D 56. (p. Ii)

ROBERT S. BRUMBAUGH

technical reasons. But it is worth noting that the emergence of formalized geometric logic did not fail by much: some features of diagram design were noted in the first part of this article which, with proper stabilization as conventions and new combination, could have been significant components of such a logic. Second, the sub-set of 'syllogism' and 'transitive class-inclusion' figures reflected an attempt of ancient scholars to show that Plato's dialectic followed the rules and patterns of Aristotle's syllogistic logic. (It is hard to say how early this first was reflected in sign-design, but already by the second century A.D. the Plato scholars seem to have agreed in expecting and imposing syllogistic patterns on the dialogues of Plato.) The mixture was, as we can see more clearly in retrospect, a compromise both in idea and technique, and the compromise was one in which the components neutralized each other. This can be seen even on the technical level of the notation itself. While the patterns of arbelus, triangle, and arc give a Platonic emphasis to the abstract pn, t) add a natural patterns of class-relations,the abbreviated quantifiers (oud, in a set are. relations element essential to the what language specifying precise Further, the terms are written out as words, centring attention on the meaning and content relations of each particular argument, and thus diverting attention from common form. Further development of geometrical design was, it seems, blocked by the natural language elements, while rejection of the geometric designs as adventitious was equally blocked by a felt significance the figures had.2 A third conclusion, evident on inspection of the list of schemata, is the ubiquity of trees. The use of the same design for family-trees and genusspecies classifications shows, I think, that the metaphor of 'genus' as 'family' had been a living one. But this time both Aristotelian and Platonic logic combined to frustrate development in the most fruitful direction. Trees are 'in' again in contemporary science and logic. But they are 'in' because their relatedto time. branching structure is so powerful for representing alternatives in a as successive where moves are branching (For example, game represented possibilities; or where consequents in modal logic are related by branched patterns to possible antecedents, or axioms and rules to possible consistent consequents.) Somehow the Platonic tradition's 'genealogical trees of form' are trees of knowledge, but not trees of life. Particularly after their specification to genera and species by Porphyry, the pattern became atemporal and
I suggested, in the second article, that syllogistic and dialectic are related rather like (I) the logic of types and usage of contemporary linguistic analysis and (2) the logic of contemporary mathematical logic, I think this is essentially respectively. correct; and the comparison suggests two further comments. First, it seems likely that and streamlining of the simplification Aristotle's highly complex Organon to the (eminently unsatisfactory) 'Aristotelian' logic of 19th century textbooks was the result of a similar Platonic-Aristotelian interaction.
2

Second, it is worth noting that very few logicians have recognized how great the difference in level of abstraction is between a modern formal and an original Aristotelian logic. Where a matrix of two rows can represent the relevant possible types of proposition of modern propositional calculus, a matrix of 512 rows of I and o would be required to represent the many different types of proposition Aristotle's Organon takes and the into account in the De Interpretatione Analytics.

PLATO SCHOLIA

inflexible, so that any genealogical notion weakened to a fruitless taxonomic one. A further conclusion evident from inspection of the space-time career of this collection is that there is some kind of magic in symbolic design, even where the symbolism is not adequate. This seems to me the most likely explanation of the extraordinary persistence of the traditional trees, arcs, and arbeli. For the student of symbolic form, if my explanation of this persistence is correct, this is probably the most interesting result of the present study. (However, this suggestion must be qualified by noting another feature of the tradition of symbolism, as shown by the very low collection. This is an isolated in the total set of scholia studies of symbolic elements of occurrence frequency from other logical, astronomical, or magical sources.) A subordinate, but interesting, point explored in the first part of this article was the modification by Arethas of purely geometrical symbolism to architectural re-design. I can now add that this, with the notions of logic and symbolism which it represented, finds no later imitators in the scholarly tradition. II SN I. Phaedo7IE. First-figure syllogism, arbelus design, proving that the soul, since it returns cyclically, is immortal. -Tiibingen cod. gr. Mb 14. SN 2. Theaetetus I47 Two small geometrical figures, illustrating the 'roots and surds' classification. -Vienna phil. gr. 8o. SN 3. Sophist 222A-23 C. Six new division diagrams (Bessarion's)representing the six opening definitions of the Sophist by dichotomous divisions. -Venice Marc. gr. 186. SN 4. Parmenides I43D ff. Complex arbelus, with conventional signs used as variables for terms, illustrating the generation of the number series. -Vatican cod. Barberinus gr. 270. SN 5. Symposium 187A. Syllogism triangle. -Vienna phil. gr. 2I; Venice Marc. gr. 590. SN 6. Phaedrus 244A ff. Two line-divisions, representing kinds of madness. -Vienna phil. gr. I56. SN 7. Phaedrus 245C. A pair of class-inclusion sorites arbeli schematizing the proof for the immortality of the soul. -Florence Laur. c.s. gr. 78; variant, with order of terms from left to right reversed, Vienna phil. gr. I56. andLogicalScholia New Mathematical

ROBERT S. BRUMBAUGH

SN 8.

SN 9.

SN Io.

SN I1.

SN 12.

SN 13.

SN 14. SN 15. SN I6.

SN 17.

Alcibiades i IIIa. A two-stage tree, formed by adding geometrical elements to the scholion of T (Greene, p. 91). Occurs in codd: -Paris B.N. grec 18o8; same, 1809; Florence, Laur. pl. 59.1; same, 85.9; Venice Marc gr. 590; same, 186. Alcibiades iII 5A. An arbelus syllogism diagram, with slight variant text from that of Greene's scholion (Greene, p. 44). -Vat. gr. 1030; another variant, Venice Marc. gr. 186. Protagoras 33oA ff. A new figure (presumably Bessarion's): a chi with side arcs, illustrating Socrates's argument identifying piety and justice. -Venice Marc. gr. I86. Gorgias 456A, 498A, 502C. Variations on the scholia vetera. 456A: The standard matrix and arc scholion, but with three added geometrical elements. -Vat. gr. 1297. 498A: A pair of arbeli representing syllogisms in the first figure, a modified and transformed version of the class-inclusion arcs of the traditional scholion (Greene, Gorgias 498A, schema 2). -Vat. gr. 933. 502C: Arbeli: a variation on the SV version in which the argument is extended to four terms. -Florence Laur. gr. Plut. 85-9. Gorgias 45oA. An arbelus representation of a syllogism in the first figure proving that medicine is an art that uses words. -Tiibingen gr. Mb I4; Munich gr. 514. Meno 82B ff. A distinctive geometrical figure, unlettered, to demonstrate the double area theorem. -Vienna sup. phil. gr. 39; Florence Laur. Plut. 85.6; Rome Angel. gr. o107. Republic 504C. A wheel figure representing the soul and its five peripheral senses. -Munich gr. 490. Republic 514A. Redesign of the 'divided line' as a complex tree and as two arbeli. -Munich gr. 490. Same. The divided line (Bessarion's version, presumably) illustrating a peculiar compromise between the 'equal segments' and 'unequal segments' directions for construction. -Venice Marc. gr. 186. Timaeus 35A. Complex arbelus with intervals indicated, illustrating scale and construction of the world-soul. -Tiibingen gr. Mb 14; Munich gr. 237.

PLATO SCHOLIA

SN 18. Timaeus35A. Simpler arbelus, illustrating intervals of the tetrachord. -Tiibingen gr. Mb 14; Munich gr. 237.3 SN 19. Timaeus53C A drawingff. to show the synthesis of the equilateral plane triangles out of six elementary triangles. -Tiibingen gr. Mb 14. (Compare no. 85 in the list in Part II of the previous articles.) A similar scholion to Tim. Locrisin Florence Laur. gr. 103. SN 20. Lawspassim. Bessarion's seven new figures with geometrical elements; divisions, trees and chi rather than triangles or arbeli. -Venice Marc. gr. 188. SN 2 I. Astronomical/astrological symbolism. A pair of astrological matrices, with, apparently, a mixture of cipher and standard numerical keys. End papers of cod. Milan Ambros. gr. D56 sup. (See Notes on the Plates, p. I1; description of this is not based on a microfilm, but on my own notes from 1953 examination). SN 22. Astronomical/astrological symbolism. Pair of wheels designed for the calculation of the date of Easter. End papers of Paris B.N. MS gr. 18io. III A further conclusion follows from the examination of this source-material, which I had occasion to emphasize in Part I. That is, that there is some sense of magic in the felt effectiveness of these symbolic designs, despite the fact that the symbolism is far from adequate to its ideal function. This, it seems, is the inference to be drawn from the persistence over seven centuries of the trees, chi figures, linking arcs, triangles, and arbeli. On reflection, one can see several points of relevance between the philosophical ideas of this tradition and the persistence of symbolic form in its annotations. In the first place, the Platonic tradition has always used a metaphor of 'intellectual vision', or 'seeing things synoptically'. From the outset, therefore, a geometrical representation of formal relations matches this key metaphor in vii suggested that ten years of pure epistemology. Second, ever since Republic mathematical study would help rulers to solve more concrete problems, there has been a drive towards 'formalization' in Platonism. By 'formalization', I mean the creation of some ideal, abstract calculus, algebra, language, or schematization which isolates very general patterns of form: those, for example, common to valid argument, or to musical and astronomical concords and periods, or to indirect proofs in the many specific subdivisions of mathematical science. The ideal of a 'universal algebra' or 'universal geometry'
3 Professor Rulon Wells suggests that the fact that all linking arcs are functional in the musical-mathematical diagrams using arbelus designs, and are still retained where they are not functional in Arethas's sorites diagrams, may reflect an origin of the arbelus in mathematics, its transfer to syllogistic logic coming later.

ROBERT S. BRUMBAUGH

which reflects this dialectical drive toward form remains operative and attractive from Plato to the twentieth century. A geometrical logic, even a very rudimentary one, is a step towards bringing out relational patterns in this formal way. Third, the Platonic scientist has always held to a belief in the isomorphism of the parts of reality: in a sense, this is an analytic necessity of his position, since, in a convergent hierarchy, there will be someforms shared by any sets of phenomena. However, the belief is much stronger than that: it is a conviction that there is a transferability of quantitative relations between subject-matters, so that a single set of ratios ought to be equally illuminating in ethics and astronomy, in music and cosmology. Now, this belief is both reinforced and beautifully projected by the recurrence, in the geometrical scholia, of the same designs of pattern and relation in all the diverse contexts of the Platonic writings. The arbelus, transferring from mathematical ratio theory to logical transitive class-inclusion, then specialized within this latter role to the schematization of any first-figuresyllogisms, illustrates the point. So, too, do the identical taxonomic trees as they trace out the genera and genealogies of things, thoughts, and words alike. In this transferability, the symbolism has a positive and functional suggestiveness. Fourth, and perhaps as a resultant of the other three characteristics mentioned (though I must confess I do not see any logical necessity for such connection) Platonism has in its outlines and classifications: whenalways had a preference for symmetry ever possible, for example, a classification will be set up as a dichotomous division, a hierarchy will be represented as an isosceles triangle, a symmetrical triadic matrix will order types of soul and state. If symmetry and seems to insist that they do), then beauty go together (as Plato, in the Philebus, symmetrical geometric forms are exactly what one expects a priori to be the 'right' patterns of classification and relational connection. Finally, this tradition has always (or almost always) avoided a 'univocal' vocabulary in favour of an analogical contextual definition of key terms. This means, of rather than any univocal relataare the keys to 'meancourse, that the relations ing'. And the symbolic effectiveness of geometry is exactly the way that it makes the relational patterns stand out against a logical space as background. All of these ideas are effectively projected by the symbolic scholia. (The 'mathematical' scholia have similar symbolic overtones as well, as I tried to indicate in my Plato's Mathematical Imagination, Bloomington (Indiana) 1954, particularly Appendix B.) On the other hand, the dependence on natural language for the logical peculiarities and concrete contours of classification and argument, natural to Aristotelian logic, became fused with these motifs of Platonic dialectic, with the hybrid mutual dependence of verbal and geometrical elements that we have already seen embodied in the sign-designs of these scholia. And so, with the present plates and notes on later designs, a first survey is
completed of the geometrical logic that has left its record in the margins of the manuscripts of Plato. The survey has found no consistent innovations here that compare with, say, the anticipation of modern propositional calculus in

Stoic logic. Even if that were all that one could say, it would still remain true
that any such body of primary source material as these scholia are for the history of logic is worth collection, classification, and study.

PLATO SCHOLIA

My own conclusion, however, is rather more general and more constructive. Ideas, such as the idea of a 'universal formal system', 'universal algebra', or 'geometry of thought', do not appear in history fully definite and clear. Rather, they occur first as guiding ideals, often latent, flickering into overt awareness then fading again. Sometimes, as with Plato's ideal of a 'systematic solid geometry', fifteen years is enough for their mature realization. At other times, as with the great ideal of a symbolism adequate to express a general form for all laws of nature and of thought, fifteen hundred years is not enough for precise technical implementation and fully conscious appreciation. And the idea of a 'symbolic universal logic' is of this latter kind: Eudoxus, Lull, Leibniz, Euler, and Boole are names that mark important moments in its path. At last, in the twentieth century, the implementation and technical precision seemed to have been attained by Whitehead and Russell in Principia Mathematica.But the paradoxes discovered by Kurt Goedel, and by Russell himself, show that there still remains some distance to go. Meanwhile, there has been the continuing suggestiveness of the geometrical logic of the Plato scholia (transferred, as we have noted, to Aristotelian scholia in about 1500), transmitting and suggesting, if not refining, this latent ideal. The scholia thus play their part in the history of ideas that constitutes a long-term writing of a crucial footnote to Plato. It is a history of vicissitudes and frustrating lapses. Arethas, for example, with his redesign of arbeli as architecture of argument figures, would, had he been followed, completely have changed the suggestive effectiveness of the whole notation. The thirteenth century, when one might hope for an effective interaction of these designs with other traditions of symbolism-astrological or alchemical-and the fourteenth, where the calculi of Lull could have interacted, show only two examples of such an interaction. The obvious notion of using conventional diacritical marks (already on hand in the second century A.D.) as variables in argument pattern was not hit upon until the sixteenth century, and then in a single isolated case. Conventions of shading and different line-design that could have become standardized to produce a true geometric logic appeared fitfully, but were never generally adopted. The fourteenth century, for reasons I do not at present understand, saw a sudden abrupt erosion and decline in these designs. Even Cardinal Bessarion, who appreciated geometrical patterns, invented thirteen new ones, and had a keen eye for places where they would illuminate an outline or a logical puzzle in the text, was extremely conservative in the designs he chose for these innovations. But for all its lapses and missed opportunities, this is the history of a great idea, latent in the symbolism we have seen. It is my conviction that this modest symbolism preserved itself through space and time so durably because what it symbolized was a philosophically significant intellectual vision. NOTES ON THE PLATES4 variablesin the logicaldesign,with an attachedkey giving the particular valuesthey
4 In the present plates, unlike those of Part I, no definite convention has been followed in using black-on-white or white-onblack reproductions. We have in each case chosen the form which gave best legibility.

Ia. Parmenides I43D. This scholion is unique in its use of arbitrary symbols as

ROBERT S. BRUMBAUGH

represent as terms in the present construction of the number series. The distinction of single and double arcs indicates two successive stages in the construction; first, even times even numbers are generated, then odd times odd; then as a second stage, odd times even. (How the primes are accounted for is a much discussed question. Probably, however, they are derived by addition as a final step to fill out the series. See my Plato on the One, New Haven 1962.) As early as Thrasyllus, various conventional signs were used by editors to indicate characteristics of the text. And in the oldest manuscripts, we find sets of such arbitrary symbols used as indexes to indicate where marginal glosses and insertions are to go. The notation was thus on hand for the present use of variables in logical schemata; unfortunately, it was not appreciated earlier. The text of the key, above the figure, written with compendia, is: artia artiakis, perittaperittakis, artia perittakis. ib, c, e. Meno 82B. A rather crude simplification of the 'final figure' design of the standard scholia. It is interesting primarily because of its bearing on the adventures of cod. Vienna F. Its awkward marginal location in F suggests that it is a later addition (from our photographs, hands or inks are impossible to determine here). The identity of the F design and Florence Laur. i suggests that the figure originated with i, then was copied at some later date by someone comparing i with F. On the other hand, it may well be that the version in u is the oldest; correction ofi from u is a definite possibility. This confirms the reciprocal comparison and correction of F and i: it is helpful in working out the exact and complex detail of the sub-family of manuscripts deriving from Paris B plus other components. Schneider had already called attention to the agreement of u and F in the Republic;Dodds has studied the relations, for the text of the Gorgias,in detail for corrections from F via a second hand in Paris B; the present figure suggests that u or i may prove a source of later corrections in F. Id. Timaeus 53C. The unexpected use of six elementary triangles, joined kata diametronto form the isosceles triangular faces of the elements, led to the present clarifying sketches, which also appear (in a later hand, presumably) in Paris A. The construction is discussed, and the most plausible explanation put forward to date is given in F. M. Cornford, Plato's Cosmology. if. Same. A routine illustration of the combination of four isosceles triangular faces to form the tetrahedral 'molecule' of fire. Its occurrence along with the much more puzzling plane synthesis of the equilateral triangle suggests that scholars had lost their familiarity with solid geometry at this point in the Platonic tradition. Ig. Theaetetus 147. A diagram to illustrate the achievement of Theaetetus and Socrates in their work with 'roots' and 'surds' (cf. Euclid xi, 9; my discussion, PMI, p. 38, fig. I7, and Taliaferro in New Scholasticism, I957, 261). Clearly, one of these figures is a squarenumber, with integral roots as its sides, while the other is a productof unequalfactors that has an irrational square root. The numerals along the sides are therefore probably meant to be nu (50) for the square and long side of the rectangle, and iota (I o) for the shorter side of the latter. (Iota, perhaps with a light top stroke representing a prime mark, to indicate a numeral, rather than gamma, for two reasons. First, gammawould involve a mixing of uncial and minuscule letters, which is not found in other mathematical figures (see PMI). An exception is SN 22 above, the 'cipher' from cod. Ambros. r.) Second, with iota the rectangle is drawn approximately to scale, whereas a gamma would make it represent a rectangle with sides in ratio of 3:50 by a figure with sides whose measured lengths are about Why these are the numbers chosen is a question. I:5. Probably the reference to 'squares on diagonals of the pempad' in the 'Nuptial Number' (Rep. 546A) inspired the 50 x 50 square. Perhaps Theodorus's separate proofs for the roots 'from 3 to 17' suggested three as the short side of the rectangle. Ih. Protagoras330Aff. This scholion, from one of Bessarion's manuscripts, is particu-

PLATO SCHOLIA

larly interesting because it singles out one of the logically most peculiar arguments in

the dialogue. When Socrates and Protagoras agree (I) that 'justice itself is just, if anything is', (2) that this also holds for piety, (3) that justice is pious, then (4) that piety is just, the stage is set for a refutation of Protagoras and for a standing logical puzzle for Western scholarship. Bessarion (the scholion seems to be his) seems to or superimpose the three steps of argument with arcs and lines indicating inclusion identical extension. The text is: dikaiosyne hosiotes di<kai>a hosios

The problem raised by Socrates is: whether piety and justice are distinct parts of virtue, or rather identical. The former is Protagoras'sopinion. (I) 'justice is surelyjust'-agreed (top line in figure) (2) 'and piety is pious'-agreed (bottom line) (3) 'justice, furthermore,is pious'--eventually admitted (left-right diagonal) (4) 'and piety is just'-eventually admitted (right-leftdiagonal) (5) 'so these are notdistinct parts of virtue'-(arcs at sides of figure) Protagoras evades this by a series of digressive responses; but when discussion is as against 'the rest' as a distinctive part of 'virtue'. resumed, he chooses courage The self-predicability of the forms has been discussed at great length by recent scholars: Vlastos, Sellars, and Wedberg, for example. It is thereforeinteresting to find Bessarion fastening on this 'logically odd' inference, and trying to elucidate it with simple geometry. 245C. Extension of class-inclusionarcs and arbelus design to schematize Ii. Phaedrus Plato's argument for the immortality of the soul. The text runs: psyche athanaton aphthartonaeikineton autokineton In some versions, the asymmetrical transitive inclusion relation is to be read from right to left, in others from left to right. (This again representsa failure to standardize geometrical conventions, because the use of terms from natural language makes it possible to interpret without such standardization.) For the argument itself, see Hackforth'scomments in his translationof the Phaedrus. 2 a, b. Timaeus35. Complex use of arbelus design to indicate ratios of the scale used in the construction of the world-soul. (This use of the arbelus in ratio theory occurs in the older scholia in a Gorgias scholion, transposed [in a later hand] to the in Paris A.) Interesting as showing the independence of the Tiibingen scholia Timaeus from those of A, B, W, F, and Y, and the copying of Tiibingen (for these seem to be in the original hand) by cod. Mon. gr. 237The larger version is evidently based on the Timaeus Locris(since, (i) it extends the total compass of the scale from I to 36, instead of I to 32; and (2) it introduces the leimma as the Timaeus Locrisdoes). An exact and detailed account of the 'scales' of the Timaeusand TimaeusLocrisis given in A. E. Taylor's A Commentary on Plato's Timaeus.
The numbers are: 32 24
18 12

i6

Ic

LOxcrtoC~v

I~--

1o

ROBERT S. BRUMBAUGH

tradition are of two types: in the Laws, where there are multiple and complex distinctions set out from time to time as 'topical outlines' he sets up tree and division schemata in the margin. In two other cases, where the text is peculiarly puzzling, either for logical or mathematical reasons (the Protagoraspassage, cited above, and the Republic 'divided line') he tries to clarify them by geometrical schemata. In the Sophist, where the six initial inadequate definitions are set up in the text, he puts all six, in tree form, in his margins. From the structure of the Sophistone might well guess that he did this both because the text clearly described such classification figures and because he was

End papersof ParisD. One of a pair of fixed wheels, 2c. Astronomy/astrology. used to computethe date of Easter. One of the few casesof interaction betweenour from anothertradition. (For the text of ParisD, and symbolism Plato manuscripts and Labowsky, PlatoLatinus see Klibansky III.) 'divided line' redesigned as a tree. The 3a. Republic 511A. This is a redesignwhich quite evidentlyfanciesitselfan improvement on Plato's can missthe construction for 'a line divided... directions originalfigure(no scholiast In one respect,it is a new use of the tree design,in into four parts'in the Republic). at the top to purebecoming at the bottom. branchesrun from being which progressive or either for successive standard uses have been generations genus-species(variety) (So far, subdivisions.)The present tree looks enough like some of Raymond Lull's trees XVII, I954, pls. 15, 16, 17a; Yates, 'The Art of Ramon Lull', this Journal, (Frances 'RamonLull andJohn ScotusErigena',thisJournal, XXIII, I960, pl. 4), to suggesta directinfluence. 504A. 'Wheel'scholion. 3b. Same. centre:psyche border:aphe, akouon, osmosis, geusis opsis, is a new central The soul, surrounded This, too, design. by its senses,suggests cherubwith head and wings. like the traditional something 3c, e, d. Laws 7ooB, 864B, 888E. A sampleof the new scholiafrom Cardinal Bessarion's manuscript. Marciana in Venice,includeda Bessarion's Cardinal library,now in the Biblioteca Theseare cod. Ven. Marc.gr. 590 (Schanz's numberof Platomanuscripts. M; a copy and of ViennaY); I84 (Bekker's Xi, copiedby Rhosusfor Bessarion); I86 (corrected annotatedby Bessarion);187 (copiedby Bessarion);188 (also copied by him); and scholia Sigma). Somenotionof the renewedattentionto the geometric 189 (Bekker's list of both new and old scholiaof this type in these can be had froma comparative are from our list in the previousarticle, vetera for the scholia manuscripts. (Numbers PartII.) ViennaY: 9, 9a, 85, 64, 65Venice 590: 5, 6, 7, 9, 21, 30, 85. Venice I86: 2, 3, 7, 8, 9, I0, 25, 30, 35, 85; plus 6 new Sophist figures. Venice 187: 48, 49a. Venice 184: 25, 26, 27, 28, 29, 30. Venice I88: 57, 57a, 57b, 58, 60o,61, 62, 63; plus 7 new Lawsfigures. fact for our presentpurposes,however,is the new scholia. The most significant In additionto the Protagoras figureillustratedabove, and a Rep.511 'dividedline' there are thirteenothersall of which seem the workof Bessarion.The construction, as appreciative of Bessarion thatmy generalcharacterization smallchartabovesuggests he held can be madesharper.Althoughhistorically of the 'geometrical logic'tradition to compatibilitybetween Plato and Aristotle,he was not willing to superimpose arethe chiandtree. (Notice on his Platonictexts. His owndesigns diagrams 'syllogism' to the that we do not find schol.vet. 6 or 21 repeatedin Ven. I86.) His supplements

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puzzled by their dialectical function. (In fact, this has not yet been satisfactorily explained.) 5 3f, g. Astrological/astronomical symbolism. Drawings, from my notes, of two sequences of digits that form part of the astrological material on the end papers of cod. Ambros D 56 sup. (The last two symbols in the first sequence are not given here; the second sequence is complete.) This scholion needs further study by someone expert in astrology; it clearly represents a second case (see 2c, p. 9) of an intersection of Platonic symbolism with that of the astronomical-astrological tradition. The originator seems to be using archaic numeral designs as a kind of cipher for his key series. (For example, the design of five in the first sequence comes later than its stabilization in printed books; the seven next to it is in the style of the thirteenth century; the second character of the second sequence resembles a very early Arabic numeral four; while the sixth character of the first sequence is an alternativefour of standard thirteenthcentury design.) I have not identified the first, third, or sixth symbols in the second sequence.

5 Mr. Frederick Oscanyan has suggested, in an unpublished paper, that the six divisions are sarcastically applying epithets to individual Sophists whom Plato's readers could recognize. In that case, the genusgenealogy resemblance of tree designs becomes highly relevant background. Since

we do not usually, today, insult someone by commenting on his own inferior occupational status nor that of his paternal ancestors (though 'son of a sea-cook' remains one instance of this type), we have missed the humour that Plato intended to build into his logic lesson.