Alcinous Quotes on Knowledge
Alcinous (2nd century CE) is the conventional author of the Handbook of Platonism (Didaskalikos), the most extensive surviving systematic textbook of Middle Platonist doctrine. The framework presents the structure of the Platonic curriculum — logic, physics, ethics — under a school-form arrangement that incorporates the Stoic and Aristotelian developments of the intervening centuries while preserving the Platonic doctrine of the Forms as the proper objects of genuine knowledge (epistēmē) as opposed to the opinion (doxa) of which perceptible things alone admit. The Handbook supplies the principal direct evidence for the Middle Platonist synthesis on which the subsequent Plotinian Neoplatonism would build.
Quotes
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“De numero uatum si quis seponat Homerum, proximus a primo tunc Maro primus erit. at si post primum Maro seponatur Homerum, longe erit a primo, quisque secundus erit.”
??? | A.L. 740. De Vergilio ('Of Virgil') -
“A.L. 740. De Vergilio ('Of Virgil')”
De numero uatum si quis seponat Homerum, proximus a primo tunc Maro primus erit. at si post primum Maro seponatur Homerum, longe erit a primo, quisque secundus erit. -
“Maeonio uati qui par aut proximus esset, consultus Paean risit et haec cecinit; si potuit nasci, quem tu sequereris, Homere, nascetur, qui te possit, Homere, sequi.”
??? | A.L. 713. De Vergilio et Homero ('Of Virgil and Homer') -
“A.L. 713. De Vergilio et Homero ('Of Virgil and Homer')”
Maeonio uati qui par aut proximus esset, consultus Paean risit et haec cecinit; si potuit nasci, quem tu sequereris, Homere, nascetur, qui te possit, Homere, sequi. -
“Lux mea puniceum misit mihi Lesbia malum: iam sordent animo cetera poma meo. sordent uelleribus uestita cydonia canis, sordent hirsutae munera castaneae; nolo nuces, Amarylli, tuas nec cerea pruna: rusticus haec Corydon munera magna putet. horreo sanguineo male mora rubentia suco: heu graue funesti crimen amoris habent! missa et dente leui paulo libata placenta: nectarea e labris dulcia liba suis: nescio quid plus melle sapit, quod contigit ipsa spirans Cecropium dulcis ab ore thymum.”
??? | A.L. 715 -
“O blandos oculos et o facetos et quadam propria nota loquacis! illic et Venus et leues Amores atque ipsa in medio sedet Voluptas.”
??? | A.L. 714 | Compare: O blandos oculos et inquietos et quadam propria nota loquaces! illic et Venus et leves Amores atque ipsa in medio sedet Voluptas. O lovely restless eyes, that speak In language's despite! For there sits Beauty, and the little Loves: Between them dwells Delight. — Helen Waddell , Mediaeval Latin Lyrics (1929), p. 23 O sweet and pretty speaking eyes, Where Venus, love, and