Page:The works of Plato, A new and literal version, (vol 6) (Burges, 1854).djvu/133



Of these Definitions, which are appended to all the complete editions of Plato, and found likewise in eleven MSS. collated by Bekker, the authorship is attributed in the Vienna MS. to Speusippus. (Φ.) But since the writing relied upon, as the authority for this statement, is more modern than the rest of the Manuscript, the remark is probably due to Sambucus, once the possessor of it ; who, says Menage, on Diogen. L. iv. 5, asserted that the "Οροι, mentioned in the Life of Speusippus, had been falsely attributed to Plato; and he might have added, that although the Definitions are attributed to Plato by Casaubon, they are distinctly assigned to Speusippus by Ficinus; whose version of them is to be found towards the end of a volume in folio, containing his translation of "Iamblichus de Mysteriis," and other Greek treatises of a similar character, printed by Aldus in 1497. Stobæus, however, found the Definitions at the end of his MS. of Plato; to whom he says they were attributed, in iii. p. 49, 35. But instead of Speusippus being the author of these Definitions, internal evidence would rather lead to the supposition of their being the production of some more recent philosopher of Alexandria. For we find δόμα twice used in the sense of a "gift," a word first met with in Holy Writ, and subsequently in Plutarch, as remarked by H. Stephens; and while its compound πρόδομα is found in Hesych. Ἁῤῥαβὼν, as duly noticed by Lobeck on Phrynichus, p. 249, the simple δόμα is reckoned amongst irregular formations by Herodian, Περὶ Μονηροῦς Λέξεως, p. 30, 5, where Lehr refers to Lobeck's Παραλειπόμενα, p. 424.

But granting even that from this fact no inference could be fairly drawn against the supposed authorship and antiquity of the Definitions, yet the matter of them is such as to disprove their being