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Peripatos: The Athenian Philosophical Scene—I

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  05 January 2009

R. E. Wycherley
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Extract

One day in 79 b.c., when he was studying at Athens, Cicero and a group of friends took a walk along the same road as Lucian's Philosophia, but in the opposite direction. They had listened, as usual, to a lecture by Antiochos, who was then head of the Academy, delivered in the gymnasium called Ptolemaion, which was in the middle of the city; and they resolved to take an ambulatio postmeridiana (Latin for Περίπατος δειλινός) in the Academy, which at that time of day would be quiet (and comparatively cool). Forgathering at Piso's, they traversed the six stadia from the Dipylon, and reached the justly famous walks (non sine causa nobilitata spatia) of the Academy. There Piso remarks, ‘Whether by a sound instinct or by an illusion (natura an errore) when we set eyes on the very places frequented by great men, we are more deeply moved than when we merely hear of their deeds or read their writings. Plato used to hold discussions here; I can almost see him walking in those little gardens near by (illi propinqui hortuli). Here taught Speusippos and Xenokrates and Polemon, who used to sit on the very seat which we can see over there. The power of suggestion which places possess is indeed great (tanta uis admonitionis inest in locis).’ Quintus Cicero is more attracted to the Kolonos near by, with its Sophoklean associations.

Type
Research Article
Information
Greece & Rome , Volume 8 , Issue 2 , October 1961 , pp. 152 - 163
Copyright
Copyright © The Classical Association 1961

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References

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page 155 note 1 This constant walking about remained characteristic of the philosophers, and not only of the Peripatetics proper. It could be carried too far and become disorderly—in Menedemos' school (Diog. Laert. ii. 17. 130) there was no order, no benches in a circle; teacher and pupils wandered around as they fancied. Krantor (ibid. iv. 5. 24) was once merely taking a walk for health's sake in the Asklepieion, when people flocked to him expecting a discourse. Note that according to Diogenes (ix. 8. 54) Protagoras gave a reading of his work On the Gods at Athens in the house of Euripides; Diogenes adds that some say he read it in the house of Megakleides, others that Archagoras read it for him in the Lyceum.

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page 161 note 1 In Diogenes Laertios, iii, 5, Plato himself listens to Sokrates ‘in front of the theatre of Dionysos’.

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