School of Economic Science - Study Forums

[John Boonham]

A list of the dialogues of Plato - Updated July 17th, 2007

I have found the Sacred Texts website quite useful (see below) for its extensive collection of Plato texts. Unfortunately the Stephanus numbers do not appear. The attached two page PDF file (which has been extracted from this website) has a short introduction and then a good list of Plato texts arranged as Early, Middle and Late dialogues. While reading the PDF file on your computer you may click on the names of the dialogues to be taken to the text on this website http://www.sacred-texts.com/cla/plato/ .

Updated July 17th, 2007
The Stephanus numbers have been aded to each dialogue in the attached PDF file. Note that Stephanus numbering is only unique within a dialogue. Sometimes a number is prepended to indicate book number or letter number. In these cases the number that follows is still unique within that dialogue.

[Peter Blumsom]

The magnificent three volume Stephanus edition of Plato

The magnificent three volume Stephanus edition of Plato was published in Geneva in 1578. The family business had started in Paris, and continued there after the death of its patron King Francis I in 1547. The founder, Richard Etienne, was a Calvinist, and fearing religious persecution fled to Vienna and started another branch of the business. His son, Henri Etienne later specialized in Greek Classics, while his Paris based cousin, Robert, devoted himself to the Latin.

Adopting the stylised Latin name of Henricus Stephanus, Henri published many of the classics, and certainly for Plato his edition is the standard of reference, and its page numbers are almost invariably cited in all subsequent versions of Plato, whether in Greek or in translation. Incidentally the Plato is usually cited as published in Paris, not Geneva.

The above from a recomended book by the Plato author John Bremer.

Ben Jonson, the playwright, is known to have owned all three volumes of Stephanus, and one can speculate that the edition must have been close to hand for the Bard himself.

For those who are curious I'm trying (but with little success so far!) to attach the title page of the Stephanus Plato,

Pete

[John Boonham]

Perseus was the son of Zeus and Danae. He slew the Medusa and later founded Mycenae.
The Magnificent Perseus Project
The standard version ( http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/ ) or latest version 4.0 ( http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper )

The United States of America has some 124 "National Universities" including the prestigious 8, so called, Ivy League Universities. Tufts University based in Medford, Massachusetts ranks 27 (US News and Wold Report 2007) and in 1985 they commenced to build a huge database of texts and visual material based on the Archaic and Classical Greek world. This "Classics" collection now contains 489 primary texts mainly in Greek, Latin and English. (The English portion contains some 39 million words alone.) The "Classics" collection also contains 112 secondary sources which are mainly commentaries. In recent years eight further collections have been added to their database and plans are in hand to add Sanskrit texts amongst others. This magnificent effort goes under the name of The Perseus Project.

Plato's works are fully covered in the "Classics" collection and carefully broken into "sections" by the Stephanus numbering scheme. Try the link below which will take you to the Apology [17a], right at the beginning. The layout may seem a little difficult at first but note that you are looking at English text (click on "Greek" to see it in Greek) of section 17a only (chunk is set to "section" on LHS). To move to the next "section" chunk, click on the RH blue arrow. Note that below the Plato text you see on the screen are comments and cross references to commentaries which you can investigate by clicking on the hyperlinks. Right at the bottom are credits and details of the translator and publisher of the text. If you would like to view a list of the whole Classics Collection then click on "Classics" at the top of the page.

http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/cgi-bin/ptext?lookup=Plat.+Apol.+17a

The attached short PDF give some further background information on the Perseus Project.

[Peter Blumsom]

John, I am in awe! I'm gonna tell all my Plato friends about this. I hope I can get Timaeus up on this site, because this very day I'm 'having a controversy' on the topic of 'light' (Tim. 46 and 67) which if this works, I will put be in a position of such superiority that they will have to wash and iron my shirts for a fortnight. All I can say is, I am not worthy!
Pete

[John Boonham]

Peter, regarding your research into Timaeus [46] & [67]

If you had followed the link from the Perseus Project posting above and clicked "Classics" to see the collection listing and then clicked on Timaeus in the English version you would have been taken to section 17a (the first section). If you carefully replace the 17 with 46 in the goto textbox (so it reads [Tim. 46a]) and hit carriage return you will now see [46a] only. Click "page" chunk on the LHS and you will see [46a]-[46e] ie the page and arrive at http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/cgi-bin/ptext?doc=Perseus%3Atext%3A1999.01.0180&query=Tim.%3A46a&chunk=page .

Using a similar approach for your reference to page 67 you will arrive at http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/cgi-bin/ptext?doc=Perseus%3Atext%3A1999.01.0180&query=Tim.%3A67a&chunk=page .

The interface is a little clunky but with patience results can be obtained quite quickly. I hope everyone finds it useful (you too Pete).

PS. This article from Stanford University on the Timaeus may also interest you, Pete. http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/plato-timaeus/#5

PPS. There is a newer version 4.0 of the Perseus Project which looks a little less clunky and seems to be quicked. Try this Timaeus link http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text.jsp?doc=Perseus:text:1999.01.0180:text=Tim.&default.scheme=text:section&default.type=section

[Peter Blumsom]

John, I've been hard at work on the Perseus Project for the past hour and a half. It is, as you say, a little clunky and some times gets irritated at my constant requests for translation. The key seems to be, DON'T RUSH IT! It has its own time, which, though hardly 'musical', seems to get there in the end.

It has great potential.

Pete

[John Boonham]

The Calliope Venture has produced (1st August 2007) a document in PDF format containing the full original Greek text and three English translations of Plato's The Apology of Socrates. Also included are the English translator's Introduction produced by two of the translators.

All this has been formatted in a neat manner with a full table of contents to assist the comparison of the texts. Stephanus number references are shown. There are full references to the source of the content which was found on the Internet. The texts are: -

• The original Greek text by Plato (429-347BC)
  
• Translated English text by Thomas Taylor (1758-1835)
  
• Translated English text by Benjamin Jowett (1817-1893)
  
• Translated English text by Harold North Fowler (1859-1955)

Should it be wished to print this 54 page document then please note that it has been optimised for double sided printing in A4 landscape mode with (say) comb binding. Following the download of the file below then the document may be studied and searched (or printed) with Adobe Reader software.