Some Online Resources

A History from the Presocratic Period through the Period of Schools

This is an attempt to bring together the most important online resources for the study of the Ancient philosophy.

Ancient Greek Texts

⊕ Plato's dialogues were arranged in nine tetralogies by the grammarian Thrasyllus of Mendes in the reign of Tiberius (14 CE to 37 CE). Later the tetralogies appeared in two volumes, tetralogies I-VII and tetralogies VIII-IX. The manuscript authority for these volumes are different.

A is the oldest representative of the second volume of tetralogies. It dates to the 9th century CE and is now preserved in the Bibliothèque nationale de France (the national library of France, located in Paris).

August Immanuel Bekker (1785-1871) gave the siglum A to the manuscript. His Platonis Diologi (in eight volumes, 1816-1823) helped lay the foundation for the modern attempt to reconstruct what Plato wrote.

B is the oldest representative of the first volume of tetralogies. It was copied in 895 CE for Arethas of Patrea and is now preserved in the Bodleian Library (the main research library in the University of Oxford).

In 1801, E. D. Clarke purchased it from the monastery of St. John the Theologian (on Patmos in the Aegean) and sold it to the University.

Martin Schanz (1842-1914) gave it the siglum B. His unfinished edition of Plato's dialogues helped provide the basis for the Oxford Classical Text edition of Plato, which is the now standard critical edition.

The transmission of Plato and Aristotle to the West is complicated, but some of the main points are these. Greek philosophy was for the most part inaccessible to the Latin-speaking West. Boethius (475-526 CE) was born into the Roman aristocracy and so was taught Greek. He translated and commented on some of Aristotle. In the Italian Renaissance, before the fall of Constantinople in 1453, Petrarch (1305-1374) and others brought back manuscripts to Italy from the Byzantine Empire. Marsilio Ficino (1433–1499) translated Plato's works into Latin. English, German and French translations did not exist until the Nineteenth Century. Thomas Taylor published the The Works of Plato in English in 1804. Thesaurus Linguae Graecae
PhiloLogic4
Attic Inscriptions Online (AIO)
Suda On Line: Byzantine Lexicography

Die Fragmente der Vorsokratiker,
volume 1
volume 3

Stoicorum Veterum Fragmenta,
Volume 1: Fragments of Zeno and his Followers
Volume 2: Logical and physical fragments of Chrysippus
Volume 3: Ethical fragments of Chrysippus
Volume 4: Indices of words, proper names and sources

Searchable Greek Inscriptions
Library of Ancient Texts Online

Parisinus gr. 1807 (A)
MS. E.D. Clarke 39 (B)

Stephanus' Plato edition from 1578, volume 1
Stephanus' Plato edition from 1578, volume 2
Stephanus' Plato edition from 1578, volume 3

Aristotelis Opera, Immanuelis Bekkeri

Platonis Opera, volume 1. John Burnet. Oxford Classical Texts
Platonis Opera, volume 2. John Burnet. Oxford Classical Texts
Platonis Opera, volume 3. John Burnet. Oxford Classical Texts
Platonis Opera, volume 4. John Burnet. Oxford Classical Texts

Translations in the Digital Humanities

Perseus Digital Library
Loeb Classical Library
MIT Classics Library

Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy

"Presocratic Philosophy," Patricia Curd
"Ancient Theories of Soul," Hendrik Lorenz

Michael Frede

⊕ Michael Frede—A Bibliography

Essays in Ancient Philosophy, Michael Frede

Michael Johannes Frede. 1940–2007, John Cooper
Michael Frede (1940–2007), Pavel Gregorić

Videos and Podcasts

video, Miles Burnyeat. Plato: section 1
video, Miles Burnyeat. Plato: section 2
video, Miles Burnyeat. Plato: section 3
video, Miles Burnyeat. Plato: section 4
video, Miles Burnyeat. Plato: section 5

History of Philosophy without any gaps:
Podcast 64 - David Sedley on Stoicism
Podcast 74 - Anthony Long on the Self in Hellenistic Philosophy