Question from an ignoramus (me): What were the sources/manuscripts from which we know of Socrates/Plato/Aristotle? Were they ever lost and 'rediscovered'? Were their commentaries on them throughout the ages continually?
Plato we would know “about” even from Latin sources but the dialogues were all preserved in Byzantium and copied/translated after council of florence
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Aristotle had a copy of his corpus in Alexandria that was basis for many long quotes/plagiarism in other books but this was accidentally burnt by Caesar’s troops
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The modern corpus comes mainly from a copy kept by Aristotle’s kin in a basement in Anatolia for 200yrs
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It was brought back to Athens by a plutocrat just before Rome conquered, looted it, it was in Pompey’s palace iirc and his librarian embezzled it and put out the modern edition
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Boethius translates the logical parts (organon) and those were in use continuously thru middle ages; various new translations from Greek post-1200, modern edition of whole corpus printed in latin 1496
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Wow that's fascinating. Thank you!.
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