• DOI:10.1086/362227
• Corpus ID: 161505593

The Name of Plato

@article{Notopoulos1939TheNO,
  title={The Name of Plato},
  author={James A. Notopoulos},
  journal={Classical Philology},
  year={1939},
  volume={34},
  pages={135 - 145}
}

• J. A. Notopoulos
• Published 1 April 1939
• History
• Classical Philology

JN THE life of Plato by Diogenes Laertius we are told that Plato "learnt gymnastics under Ariston, the Argive wrestler. And from him he received the name of Plato on account of his robust figure, in place of his original name which was Aristocles, after his grandfather, as Alexander informs us in his Successions of Philosophers. But others affirm that he got the name Plato from the breadth of his style or from the breadth of his forehead, as suggested by Neanthes."I In his account Diogenes Laertius mentions three sources for the name of Plato: (1) Alexander Polyhistor, the source of the Ariston anecdote; (2) Neanthes of Cyzicus, who associates the name with the breadth of Plato's forehead; (3) unnamed sources (ivtot) which derive the name from the breadth of his style. All these three sources date from the Alexandrian period of biography which got much of its information from its Peripatetic forerunners.2 That the unnamed sources of Diogenes Laertius also date from the Alexandrian period is evident from Cicero and Pliny, who evidently were aware of the association of lX4Tcov with rXarV'4r-qs T's 'pp1nv'las. In Orat. i. 1 Cicero refers to "amplitudo Platonis" and in Epistle I 10. 5 Pliny refers to Plato's genius as "Platonicam illam sublimitatem et latitudinem." The association of amplitudo and latitudo, the Latin equivalents of wXari-rs,3 with Plato are an indication that this phase of the tradition had penetrated into Latin literature during Cicero's lifetime.4 These sources about Plato's name became a biographical rubric