New Essays on Plato

BOOKREVIEWS/COMPTES RENDUS 179 a more comprehensible historical context the Greek burning of the Kybebe sanctuary in Sardis during the Ionian Revolt. The introduction of Alcibiades into the story, however, is one of the least convincing elements of the book. Although Munn does not discuss the archaeological evidence, a date of 408 b.c for the building of the New Bouleuterion is possible, but there is nothing in the preserved literary sources that actually connects Alcibiades with the introduction of theMother Goddess. Not every scholar will agree with these conclusions and some parts of the presented theory are more convincing than others, but this is the most fascinating part of the book, asMunn uses new methods of dealing with both historical and religious issues, providing a refreshing and very promising approach for the study of ancient religion and history. The book will prove useful for scholars of history and ancient religion because it succeeds in displaying the interaction between religion and power and between west and east during the archaic and classical periods. It covers a substantial amount of material and includes many illuminating discussions that shed light on interesting new aspects of cult and history inAsia Minor. Stockholm University Susanne Berndt-Ersoz New Essays on Plato: Language and Thought in Fourth-Century Greek Philosophy. Edited by Fritz-Gregor Herrmann. Swansea: The Classical Press of Wales. 2006. Pp. viii, 227. This book derives from a Celtic conference in classics, held in Glasgow in 2002. Five of the Contibutors work in Celtic countries. All nine write in English. The first eight essays are squarely on Plato. None is about Plato's philosophy of language; and although some are about Plato's philosophy of thought, that seems to be coincidental. Most of the essays are, in one way or another, about the fine details of how Plato used language; the one not squarely about Plato is about the fine details of language that Aristotle used about Plato. Each, directly or indirectly, examines some aspect of what Plato thought. Collectively, they show that Celtic classics flourishes. Richard Stalley's "Law and Justice in Plato" makes the interesting claim that the arguments in the Euthyphro about holiness and what the gods like could be adapted to justice and what legislators require. It then uses other dialogues, the Gorgias above all, to construct a Socratic argument for obedience to the requirements of legislators, including even some requirements of legislators who have only an imperfect understanding of justice. Verity Harte's "Beware of Imitations: Image Recognition in Plato" focusses on themistake that one would make in taking a statue of Simmias to be Simmias himself. A similar mistake, suggests Harte, is what Phaedo 72-77 has in mindwhen ittalksof those who see equal things without recollectingtheform Equality itself.Inmistaking thevisible equals for the form, they are already, in a way, thinking of the form; but they recollect the form only when they come, as so few do, to distinguish the form from the visible equals. Fritz-Gregor Herrmann's "ooai'a in Plato's Phaedo' gives a scrupulous and exact account of how theword for an estate got transferred from economics to metaphysics. On the way it covers various other words and other texts, not all Platonic, but without meandering. Stefan Biittner's "The Tripartition of the Soul inPlato's Republic' says "It is predominantly thefollowingquestion Iwould liketopursue:Does his [Plato's] theory[ofthe tripartite soul] have its origins merely in Plato's observational talents which induced him to classify thus certain phenomena, or can it also be justified on systematic grounds?" (76). In spite 180 PHOENIX of thealarmingsuggestion of the"merely," theessayexpounds lucidly both thedifficulties that itmeans to solve, and its solution: the parts of the soul are different parts of a single thing because each has a different way of performing the one cognitive activity of "distinguishing" (icpi'veiv). Antony Hatzistavrou's "Happiness and the Nature of the Philosopher-Kings" takes some old chestnuts and gives some novel and interlocking solutions. On his interpretation, philosopher-kings meet ordinary standards for justice, as well as Plato's standard of psychic harmony; they are as happy as anyone can possibly be; their happiness is not compromised

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