Two Commentaries on the Phaedrus Ficino's Indebtedness to Hermias Michael J.B. Allen

7/28/2019 Two Commentaries on the Phaedrus Ficino's Indebtedness to Hermias Michael J.B. Allen

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TWO COMMENTARIES ON THE PHAEDRUS: FICINO'SINDEBTEDNESS TO HERMIAS

By Michael J. B. Allen

H ermias was a minor Neoplatonistwho flourishedin the late fifth centuryin his native Alexandria. His life is familiar to us fromparagraphs 74 to76 of Damascius's biography of Isidorus and from one or two comments inSuidas; his only extant work is a commentary on Plato's Phaedrus.1Hermiashimself says that he and Proclus were fellow disciples of Syrianus;2 andDamascius gives us some interesting details about his circle. He was marriedto Aidesia, an exceptionally gifted woman who was Syrianus's grand-daughter. She had first been intended for Proclus, till Proclus made it clearthat a god wished him to remain celibate. By her Hermias had two giftedsons: Ammonius, who succeeded him as head of the Alexandrian school andbecame one of the great Neoplatonists, renowned for his extensive commen-taries on Aristotle; and Heliodorus, who opted for an austere, self-abnegatorylife. Upon their father's death both sons were entrusted to Proclus'spersonalcare. Hermias also had an accomplished, volatile brother called Gregory;and he was a close friend of Aegyptus, another devoted Neoplatonist whobecame the maternal uncle of Isidorus. Clearly, Hermias was surroundedbythe most powerful and subtle philosophical intelligences of his day. Perhapsthis is why he seemed lacklustre to Isidorus. Damascius reports that hewanted originality or sparkand could not hold his own in debate or indepen-dently come up with cogent arguments. The Suidas adds that Gregory wasbrighterand intellectually bolder. But Hermiasstudied hard, had an excellentmemory and faithfullyendeavoured to repeat the ideas of his master,Syrianus,being unwilling or unable to advance beyond them like Proclus. He alsoseems to have lived a life of exemplary virtue, simplicity and piety; and ahypertrophic sense of fair play led him to refuse to profit from local booksales.Hermias's Phaedrusommentary seems largely derivative, being more akin'to a collection of scholia', as indeed its title suggests.3 While modern Platocommentators value it chiefly for its lemmata, historians of Neoplatonism

1 HermiaeAlexandrini n Platonis PhaedrumScholia,ed. P. Couvreur, Paris 1901o; repr.Hildesheim 197i, with index verborum;heleft-hand margins give page references to theI829 edition by F. Ast (the edition quoted byZeller-Mondolfo, see below). See Pauly-Wissowa, Real-Encycl. iii, cols. 732-5; andE. Zeller-R. Mondolfo, La Filosofiadei Grecinel suo sviluppostorico,pt. iii, vol. vi, ed.Giuseppe Martano, Florence 1961, pp. 197-200, for further references; also A.-Ed.Chaignet's French translation of Damascius'sLife of Isidorus n Proclus: Commentaireur leParme'nide,ii, Frankfurt-am-Main 1962, pp.287-90, and P. A. Bielmeier, Die neu-platonische haidrosinterpretation:hr Werdegang

und ihre Eigenart, Paderborn 1930, p. 8 andpassim. Ammonius's observation, In Anal. pri.3', 24ff., that Hermias, along with Syrianusand Proclus,agreed with Boethus, Maximus,lamblichus and Porphyry in arguing thatsyllogismsof the second and third figurewereperfect (in opposition, say, to Themistius)may mean that Hermiaswrote a commentaryon the Analytics.The attribution of a treatiseon Porphyry's Isagogeto Hermias has nowbeen refuted (see Zeller-Mondolfo, p. 197n.).2 Couvreur, n. I above, p. 92 (marginaladdition to 1. 8).3John H. Dillon, Iamblichi Chalcidensis:InPlatonis Dialogos CommentariorumFragmenta,Leiden 1973, p. 63.IIO


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FICINO'S INDEBTEDNESSTO HERMIAS I Ihave found it interesting on two additional counts: for its unique theo-taxonomy, to be discussed ater; and becauseit is the sole survivorfrom a groupof ancient Phaedrus ommentaries inspired by lamblichus's 'revolutionary'interpretation, including those by Syrianusand Proclus.4 Given the dialogue'snew eminence for these major late Neoplatonists, any guide to their attitudesis clearly important; and as second-rank scholarship Hermias's commentaryprobably preserves, more accurately than an original work would do, thegeneral approach that all of them, but particularly Syrianus,5 adoptedinitially, whatever their subsequent disagreements on points of detail andindividual schemata. It utilizes the so-called 'Athenian' method of inter-pretation inaugurated by lamblichus and developed by Syrianusand Proclus,and it sharesin the principal Iamblichan innovations: the positing of the Onebeyond the Good; the division of the Plotinian intelligible world into intelli-gible and intellectual spheres; the division of the gods into ultra- and intra-mundane and the further division of the latter into angels, demons andheroes; the elaboration of the law of mean terms and of the triadic movementof rest, procession and return; and, at large, the multiplication of numeroussubcategories that marks the onset of the 'scholastic'phase of Neoplatonism.On more specific issues it repeats familiar Iamblichan and Proclan positionson the nature of the gods' intuitional knowledge and of their providential carefor the world; on the nature and functions of the demons; on the primacy ofthe soul's unity as the image in man of the transcendent One and the organof divine madness (mania); on divination and prophecy; on theosophicalknowledge, telestic magic and the occult; on the astral or etheric body; on theaddition of nature (physis)from Aristotelian and Stoic psychology to thePlatonic triad of faculties, reason (logos), spirit or courage (thymos) nd desire(epithymia); nd on the further subdivision of reason (logos) nto mind (nous),understanding (dianoia), opinion (doxa), phantasy (phantasia)and sense-perception (aisthisis).6Scholars have yet to determine Hermias'sfortunain both the Byzantineeast and the medieval west. The majority of the manuscriptsof his commen-tary date from the sixteenth century, but Couvreur derives them all from a4Iamblichus's Phaedrus commentary isreferred to by Proclus, In Plat. Theol., iv, 215,and by Hermias (Couvreur's edn., pp. 9.Io,136.I17, I43-24, I50.24, 200.29, 215.I2-13);Syrianus's commentary by Proclus, In Parm.v, 208; and Proclus'scommentary by himself,In Remp. ii, 309. 2o etc., In Tim. 329DE.lamblichus's 'revolutionary' interpretation isanalysed by Bielmeier, n. I above, p. 8ff.;Dillon, n. 3 above, p. 25I; and Bent Dals-gaard Larsen, Jambliquede Chalcis:ExiggteetPhilosophe, Aarhus I972, pp. 361-72: briefly,it consisted in treating the Phaedrusas atheologicaldialogue dealing with the pro-foundest matters, rather than merely withsensual love or rhetoric. See nn. 25 and 28below. This article was written before Icould read Dr. Anne Sheppard's 'Theinfluence of Hermias on Marsilio Ficino's

doctrine of inspiratiop', this Journal,XLIII,1980, pp. 97-Io09; though the Editors kindlygave us the opportunity to revise our argu-ments in the light of each other's discoveries., Eduard Zeller, n. i above, writes, 'vi siriscontranoper6 ben pochi pensierioriginali;il suo indirizzo filosofico e semplicementequello del suo maestro [Siriano]' (p. I97);and his editor, Martano, goes further, 'Ilcommentario al Fedrorivela chiaramente lapoca o nulla originalitatdi Ermia, diligenteripetitore delle lezioni di Siriano, e, tramitecostui, delle dottrine giamblichee . . .'(p. I98n). Cf. Bielmeier, n. i above, p. 8;Dillon, n. 3 above, p. 63; Larsen, n. 4 above,p. 362.6 See Zeller-Mondolfo, n. I above, pp.197-200.


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112 MICHAELJ. B. ALLENsolitary thirteenth-century manuscript now in the Bibliotheque Nationale.Few in the past, it seems, have ever taken more than a glance at Hermias.There is one signal exception. Some time between 1474 and 1489 (Kris-teller leans towards the earlier date), Marsilio Ficino translated Hermias'scommentary into Latin;7 it was, so far as I know, the first time it had beentranslated. Ficino must have worked from either or both of the fourteenth-century manuscriptsnow in the Biblioteca Laurenziana,8since in addition toHermias they both contained, in whole or in part, Plato's Euthyphro,Crito,Apology,Phaedrusand Parmenides nd also Proclus's commentary on theParmenides,ll of which would interest Ficino for a variety of reasons.9Here I shall not explore three difficult topics: (i) the accuracy and natureof Ficino's translation;1o (2) the relationship between Ficino's translation ofthe Phaedrusfirstprinted in the PlatonisOperaOmnia f 1484 but later touchedup) and Ficino's translation of Hermias's lemmata-to study this involves amuch more developed chronology for the manuscript drafts of the Phaedrustranslation and its revision than currently exists," and also a definite date forFicino's first acquaintance with the lemmata (Ficino may have turned tothem initially simply to check them against the Plato text given him byCosimo in 1462); and (3) whether Ficino or his contemporariesknew aboutDamascius's (or the Suidas's) condescending remarkson Hermias, either atthe time he translated Hermias or subsequently (and the isolated referencetoDamascius in the OperaOmnia,p. I156, suggests that he at least did not).What I shall explore, however, is the relationship between Hermias's com-mentary in Ficino's Latin translation and Ficino's own commentary on thePhaedrus hich, given appearances, one might supposeindebted to the former.

P. O. Kristeller, Supplementum icinianum,i, Florence I937, p. cxlvi; and 'MarsilioFicino as a Beginning Student of Plato',Scriptorium, xx, 1966, p. 42n. Cf. n. 21.Raymond Marcel's assertion (Marsile Ficin,Paris 1958, p. 605) that it was around 1488is without substantiation (even from Corsi,see n. Io). Dr. Sheppard and I have agreed todiffer over when Ficino read Hermias. Sheargues for some time before 1469 in the lightof the parallels she sees between Hermias'scomments on madness and chapters 13 and14 of Ficino's Symposiumcommentary (andpossibly even the Ion argumentum). Admit-tedly, Ficino could have turned to passagessuch as those she refers to before he read thewhole, but I remain sceptical given theabsence of specific reference to Hermias orexternal evidence; certainly I do not thinkFicino read Hermias's commentary in itsentirety until the 1470s.8 See Couvreur, n. I above, p. xiii (MSS Iand 2 [Cony. Soppr. 103 and 78]): these maycontain marginalia by Ficino. The out-standing late 15th-century codex in the

Laurenziana which Couvreur describes onp. xiv (MS 3 [Laur. 86.4]) was almost cer-tainly transcribed after Ficino's translation.9 Couvreur's MS 2 also contains sixspurious Platonic dialogues which Ficinowould have wanted to look at in the courseof preparing his complete Plato translation.10 Ficino's own entry in the third catalogue(Sup. Fic., i, p. 3-see pp. cxiii-cxiv [viiib]for Kristeller's argument that Ficino himselfwrote the catalogue even though it is cast inthe third person) reads, 'Multa ex Hermia inPhaedrum'; it suggests that Ficino did notregard his translation as yet complete. Again,in his life of Ficino paragraph I2 (for anaccessible text see Marcel's first appendix toMarsile Ficin, n. 7 above, p. 685), Corsicomments that Ficino had translated severalthings, nonnulla, rom Hermias: this may meanextracts or be synonymous with Ficino'smulta.11 See Kristeller, Sup. Fic., i, n. 7 above,pp. cxlvii-clvii, and 'Beginning Student',n. 7 above, pp. 41-54.


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FICINO'S INDEBTEDNESSTO HERMIAS I13In the course of translating Plato, Ficino wrote a brief argumentumo eachdialogue, barring those he consideredspuriouslike the Clitophonnd those hehad already anticipated commenting on at length like the SymposiumndTimaeus.Some of the dialogues which ended up with extended commentaries,like the Philebus nd indeed the Phaedrus,tarted off with argumentahich wereeither retained as separateprefacesto their Latin translations,or incorporatedas prefaces to their commentaries, or both. Each argumentums usually nomore than a few paragraphs long, and each contains not only a summary ofits respective dialogue's plot and themes but also Ficino's basic orientationto them. The argumentare often of considerable interest for an understandingof Ficino and even of Plato, and had an historical impact quite out ofproportion to their size. All were issued at the head of their dialogues in the1484 Platonis Opera Omnia, then in the Venice edition of 1491, which Ficinowas pleased with but did not supervise, then again in a number of subsequentPlato editions. They thus oriented the Renaissance public to Plato and, asideal cribs for commonplace books, they frequently had more impact,particularly on the cursory reader and the dilettante, than the dialoguesthemselves. Indeed, a wayward reference to Plato in the sixteenth, seventeenthand even eighteenth centuries is as likely to be to Ficino's introductions as toPlato's actual text. According to Kristeller, the argumentaeem to have beencomposed originally pari passu with the Latinization of their respectivedialogues (and were subject to some light stylistic revision) rather thansubsequently in a block, as was once thought.12 If so, most were composedby late 1468 and belong to Ficino's early career. The argumentumo thePhaedrus eems typical in this respect.Divided into three chapters, each with a heading, this argumentumlsoappears verbatim as the opening of Ficino's Phaedrusommentary, first issuedin Florence along with five other Platonic commentaries and/or analyses in1496 under the title Commentarian Platonem.The commentary consistson theone hand of only eleven chapters, the argumentumppearing as the first three;and on the other, of a comprehensive breakdown of the dialogue into fifty-three sections which are epitomized and, intermittently, discussed. Some-where between composing the argumentumn the late 146os (when he alsocalled it-to confuse matters-'a little commentary', commentariolum13)ndpreparing the 1496 editioprincepsof the full commentary, Ficino returnedmore than once to work on his Phaedrusmaterial: firstperhaps to add chaptersfour to eleven to the argumentumnd then to add the summariesand expandedcomments (which I shall refer to as the summae).14The summae,f not the eightchapters, seem to have been added because Ficino expected that Lorenzowould finance a splendid and totally revised edition of the 1484 PlatonisOperaOmniawhich would also include commentaries for each dialogue and summarymaterial.15 Had Lorenzo and Ficino both lived to complete this project itwould be the eighth wonder of scholarship.

12Sup. Fic., i, pp. cxvi-cxvii, and 'Begin-ning Student' (n. 7 above), pp. 46-47.13 Sup. Fic., i, p. i. Note that it is so calledin the codices only; see Opera Omnia, Basle1576, pp. 933.2, 948.2 and 1389, for the use of

commentariolusor commentariolum-theyarefree variants) in other instances.14 See Kristeller, Sup. Fic., i, n. 7 above,pp. cxxi-cxxii and 79.15Sup. Fic., i, pp. cxviii-cxix.


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S114 MICHAELJ. B. ALLENThe division of the 1496 Phaedruscommentary into (i) the eleven chapterswhich in turn consist of the old argumentumnd eight additional chapters,and(2) the summae, oses a number of interpretationalproblems I shall deal within the edition of it which I am preparing. With Hermias, though, there isfirst a dating problem. Ficino is unlikely to have read Hermias when hewrote the original argumentum. e may have read him when he returnedto itsome time between 1474 and 1484 in order to add some references to his ownPlatonicTheology nd Symposiumommentary (known as the De Amore)andperhapsto revise it a little. He is likely to have read and translatedhim whenhe wrote chapters four to eleven of his own commentary. Finally, if theseeight chapters preceded composition of the summaeby several years, he hadcertainly read and translated him when he wrote the summae.In facing thequestion of Ficino's possible indebtedness to Hermias in working on thePhaedrusommentary, we must thereforebe quite clear to which part (that iscompositional stage) we are referring,if not to the whole.

Some further caveats. Ficino's sourcesare difficult to pin down with anydegree of certainty except-and even this is sometimes misleading-in placeswhere they are specifically mentioned.16 Ficino's habit of quoting cavalierlyfrom memory, and of occasionally disguising his sources deliberately in orderto be more persuasive as an apologist and to prevent offence on religiousgrounds from his attribution of an otherwise cogent argument to an un-acceptable pagan source,17eads in itself to complex indebtedness. But whenwe also take into account the pleasurehe took as a syncretistin the variety ofsources he could harness to a particular proposition, and his willingness toadapt or mutate observations and theses alike in the interests of a greatertruth, then the indebtedness becomes more complex still. An original ideaof Plato's may reach him through a Proclan commentary utilizing one ofPlotinus'sdigressions.Evenifhe recalls the ultimate source,he maysuppress hereference to Proclus and then modify the idea to suit the exigencies of his ownargument. Naturally, he was not the only distinguishedscholar-commentatorto play ducks and drakes with his authorities; it was characteristic of his ageand credo. But for us the task of recognizing, let alone attributing, particularquotations, adaptations or allusions often becomes impossible even when theauthorities are familiar-barely half the time!This is especially true of his debts to Hermias'speers, the lesserNeoplaton-ists. He was well acquainted with Porphyry, Synesius, Simplicius and others,and he seems to have anticipated making more of their work available in Latinthan he actually did: a few difficult pieces conclude his OperaOmnia. ButOlympiodorusis an interestingcase since he is aprimaacie parallel to Hermias.Ficino refers to what he took to be Olympiodorus's commentary on thePhilebus(its real author was Damascius'8), and one might suppose that hewould consult it carefully before working on his own Philebuscommentary,since it was the only Philebuscommentary extant from antiquity and he wouldneed all the help he could get, particularly near the beginning of his scholarly16 Michael J. B. Allen, Marsilio Ficino: The'Philebus' Commentary, Berkeley and LosAngeles 1975, pp. 23-24.17 A suggestion first made by Raymond

Marcel, Marsile Ficin: The'ologiePlatonicienne,Paris I964 and I970, i (1964), p. 29.18L. G. Westerink, Damascius: Lecturesonthe Philebus, Amsterdam 1959, introd.


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FICINO'S INDEBTEDNESSTO HERMIAS I15career. But Professor Westerink has proved this supposition false. Ficinoseems to have deliberately avoided not only almost all mention but allrecollection of the earlier commentator when he set about his own long andimportant commentary. If he did borrow from Olympiodorus (Damascius),he did it so obliquely, surreptitiouslyor unconsciously that a straightforwardcomparison between the two Philebus ommentaries suggests, bar one or twonugae,no indebtedness whatsoever.'9The situation with Hermias'sPhaedrusommentary is somewhat different.Though it is the only ancient Neoplatonic commentary Ficino translated infull, it neither appeared in his OperaOmniaalong with other Neoplatonicpieces and extracts, nor was it ever subsequently printed. Today it exists intwo manuscripts only: a seventeenth-century manuscript in Hamburg fromthe library of Lucas Holstenius; and the famous fifteenth-century Vaticanmanuscript (Vat. lat. 5953), which is contemporarywith Ficino and containsa number of his early minor pieces, including the first version of the Philebuscommentary. Kristellerpresumes,reasonably, that the Hamburg manuscriptwas copied from the Vatican manuscriptand has no independentsignificance.20In effect we are dealing with one copy of a work which Ficino never revisedand never considered finished; for in a pale red postscript to the unfinishedPhilebus ommentary in the Vatican manuscript, which follows, incidentally,directly on the Hermias translation,he notes, 'Commentariahec ego Marsiliusnondum absolvi nec emendavi; similiter neque lamblici et Hermie trans-lationem.'21 Given the number of other Neoplatonic texts from antiquity thatFicino credited with special insights into the Platonic mysteries, it is curioushe should spend so much time and effort on a translation he never correctedor published, nor, conversely, totally suppressed or destroyed like the com-mentaries on Lucretius, written in his youth and later disavowed and burnt.He did take the trouble to include it in the second and third catalogues of hiscompositions, and at one point it obviously figured in his general translationplans.22

What then is the relationship between the two Phaedrus ommentaries-Ficino's own commentary and his rendering of Hermias? Since the relation-ship of Ficino's Latin Hermias to the Greek original is still undetermined,and since the dating suggests that, for most of his own commentary exceptthe argumentum,icino would have had his Latin draft to work from if heworked from Hermias at all, all my referenceswill be to the foliation in theVatican MS, with the equivalent in Couvreur's Greek edition following inbrackets. For Ficino's Phaedrus ommentary I shall refer to the 1496 editioprinceps in the Basle 1576 edition of the OperaOmnia,pp. 1363-86).First, some general characteristics. Ficino's commentary is perhaps a19L. G. Westerink, 'Ficino's MarginalNotes on Olympiodorus in Riccardi GreekMS 37', Traditio, xxiv, 1968, pp. 351-78.20 Kristeller, Sup. Fic., i, n. 7 above, p.cxlvi. See pp. xli-xlii for a description of theVatican MS, and p. xxx for one of theHamburg MS.

21 Allen, n. I6 above, p. 425. This post-script never appears in later versions of thecommentary-another indication of an earlierdating.22 Sup. Fic., i, n. 7 above, pp. 2, 3. See alson. io above.


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i16 MICHAELJ. B. ALLENtenth of Hermias's, which runs in the Vatican MS from I34r-316v. Thediscrepancyindicates that he was not concernedwith such detailed expositionof the text as his predecessor. Two other features of his text confirm this.First, in the eight chapters of pure commentary (that is, iv-xi) he deals withmajorproblemsin a brief though crucial section of Plato's text (245A to 247Eor thereabouts), whereas Hermias deals with the whole dialogue. Second,while Hermias proceeds methodically lemma by lemma-and the length ofhis commentary directly results from the comparative finenessof his lemmatabreakdown,23 Ficino proceeds paragraph by paragraph or proposition byproposition with only occasional use of lemmata. Surprisingly,the lemmatabreakdowns of the two commentators do not correspond consistently, andwhen they do it is because of the obvious demands of the Plato text. It seemshighly improbable therefore that Ficino turned to Hermiasfor methodologicalguidance: the two commentariesproceedindependently in their own directionand at their own pace, incorporating the Platonic text in different ways andlooking physically very different from each other.Another telltale indication of Ficino's superficial independence is hissummaor chapter divisions. Each of the fifty-three summaebegins with theopening words from varioussentencesin the Phaedrus.These are not lemmatabut chapter incipits, and they clearly indicate that Ficino carved up thedialogue without Hermias's 'chapter' divisions in mind-'chapters' inciden-tally which, on the basis of lemmata groups, he had himself perceived in orimposed on the Hermias translation (and which do not appear as chapters inCouvreur nor correspond necessarily to Couvreur's paragraphs). Naturallythere are transitions in the Plato text on which ancient and modern editorsand commentators have always agreed, but the majority are optional.Ficino usually runs several Hermias 'chapters' together as one would expect,given the disproportionof the two works: summa for instance covers eightfolio pages of Hermias and several 'chapters'. But sometimes Ficino makeshis break a sentence or two before Hermias's: for instance Ficino begins hissumma Io (- Phaedrus241DE) with Phaedrus's question, 'Why do you stop?',while Hermias begins with Socrates's reply, 'Did you not notice' etc. (I76r1p. 64]-Couvreur and Ficino differ over the lemmata choice, Couvreurbeginning still later with 'and finding fault?'). At other times Ficino estab-lishes summadivisions where none occurs in the Hermias, as at 6-7 (1I68r[p. 53]-ironically Couvreur'sbreak correspondsto Ficino's summabreak butnot to the break in the Hermias translation!); io-II (i 8or0-v[pp. 67-69]);21-22 (235r-238r [pp. 152-5]); 22-23 (238r-24or [pp. I56-9]); etc. This isrevealing since, however innovative he might have wished to be as a commen-tator, Ficino could easily have adopted his Hermias breakdown and savedhimselfsome drudgery. Obviously, though, he chose to subdivide the dialogueon his own, either because he had prepared the breakdown long before heopened Hermias (which is extremely unlikely on chronological grounds sincethe summaewere all written in the I490S in anticipation of the expanded

3 Dillon (n. 3 above) observes, '[Hermias]takes consecutive passages of the original, butmore loosely than Proclus, quoting only theinitial sentence or phrase of the passage to be

commented on, the length of which varieswidely according to the subject matter . .(p. 63).


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FICINO'S INDEBTEDNESS TO HERMIAS 117Plato edition that never saw the light-and I know of no exceptions), orbecause he had perceived or 'invented' the Hermias 'chapters'previously, buthad now forgotten about them or found them inadequate for pedagogical oranalytical purposes.Given Ficino's independence at the formal level, what is the evidence forindebtednessat the level of content? Again we must bear in mind the contrastbetween Ficino's wayward, highly speculative, fragmentary commentary andthe academically organized, comprehensive, derivative commentary ofHermias. I shall deal in turn with the argumentum,he commentary properand then the summae.

I. Hermias's argumentums about the same length as Ficino's andoccupies I34-I4o0v [pp. 1-13], but differs from it in most other respects.Ancient commentators in the Neoplatonic tradition felt bound to define theskopos, he primary over-riding theme or intention of each dialogue, on theauthority of the first Plato skopologist, Thrasyllus. Having spent six pagessummarizing the Phaedrus(134r-I37v [pp. I-8])-and this summary hasnothing in common with Ficino's diminutive third chapter-Hermiasimmediately turns to consider the skopos24without mentioning the chronolo-gical position of the Phaedrusn the Plato canon, a point of great interest andmoment to Ficino, who accepted the traditional Neoplatonic view of itsyouthfulness (which Hermias himself must have accepted). Hermias carefullylists the various skopological possibilities: love, rhetoric, a variety of themes(our 'modern' approach), theology ('nonnulli dialogum hunc theologicumferunt propter illa quae in medio dialogo dicta sunt'), the good ('alii de bonoquoniam [Plato] dixerit supercelestem locum') and finally prime beauty(139v [pp. io-ii]). But so far everybody has erred, Hermias continues,because they mistake incidental themes for the major theme, 'omnes hi aquadam dialogi parte de toto propositoiudicarunt' (I39v [p. Ii]). According-ly, since he has already argued that there must be one theme for whose sakeall the other themes are introduced, 'unum autem ubique oportet essepropositum, et illius gratia assumi reliqua ut velut in animali cuncta ad unumconvertantur' (I38v [p. 9]), and that till now the closest to the truth havebeen the championsof love, 'non procul aberrarunt... qui de amore dixeruntesse dialogum' (140r [p. Ii]), he enunciates the view that the skoposs notprime nor absolute beauty alone but beauty in all its forms, 'est autem hoc,ut summatim dicam, de omnimoda pulchritudine loqui' (I39v [p. Ii]). Lovehas to be the subordinate theme, he concludes (I4o0r[pp. I I - I2]), because thedialogue does not deal with its essence, power and operation as it would haveto were it the primary theme, as in the SymposiumI40 V [p. 12]); and hedistinguishes between the roles of love in the two works, 'Quamobrem inSymposio, quoniam principaliter erat sermo de ipso [amore], medietatemipsius et ordinem tradens, demonem magnum ipsum vocavit, tanquamindigeant secunda primis. Hic vero, quoniam precedit de pulchro sermo, inquod amor omnia reducit, deus appellatur' (I40V [p. I2]). Iamblichus is thecited authority for this entire interpretation (I38V [p. 9]), but it was almost

24 He considers it twice in fact; see Larsen, n. 4 above, p. 363n.


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118 MICHAELJ. B. ALLENcertainly the accepted interpretation for all post-Iamblichan Neoplatonistsas well, including Hermias's master, Syrianus.25Ficino agrees that beauty 'in all its forms' is the skopos nd that love is theprincipal subsidiary theme. He also agrees that the situation reverses theSymposium'snd that the two dialogues therefore complement each otherperfectly (something many scholars have averred), though he avoids the issueas to why love is a god in one dialogue and a demon in the other. But thesepoints of accord do not prove indebtedness in themselves, since most Neo-platonists came to see the situation in the same way-and their view iseminently tenable given the notion of a skopos. More revealing is Ficino'sdecision not to review the alternative theories and, in practice, not to begoverned by his own and Hermias's theory. The latter does not inform hissubsequent analyses of Socrates's'mythical hymn'. One suspectsthat he wasattracted to it initially on historical grounds, and because it explained theotherwise elusive connexions between the oratorical concerns of the dialogue'sbeginning and end and the charioteer myth which constitutes its massifcentral.26 Since Ficino never dealt with the oratorical concerns in anythingmore than a summary fashion anyway, he never had to focus sharply on theskopos.On the contrary, to judge from the Phaedrusommentary and noticeselsewhere in his work,27he seems to have treated the dialogue, despite hisopening protestations, as if its primary theme were theological in the specificancient sense, that is, concerned with the soul's nature, ascent and relationshipwith the gods.28Ficino's own argumentumays great stress on the rural setting and thebiographical context of the Phaedrus, n its reflecting Plato's youth, beautyand enthusiasm and its being Plato's most poetic piece, and on the exegeticaldifficulties it presents to an interpreter, as well as difficulties of genre. Thissyndrome of concerns receives little or no mention in Hermias. At 1I38v-139r[pp. 9-1o], however, Hermiastakesup a problemthat Ficino does not mentionhere, namely the objections voiced from the beginning to the Phaedrus'style.While Ficino writes as if this dialogue contained Plato's most sustainedimaginative flight, radiant and daedal in its imagery and moods, Hermiaspartially concurswith the ancient criticismthat the style is 'tanquamtumidumet inflatum' (1I39r[p. 9]), or, more positively but still guardedly, 'usum fuissedictione ambitiosa et superfluo compta, onerosa et loquaci et poetica magis'(138v [p. 9]); and he proceeds to defend Plato on the grounds that he had toemploy different styles because the dialogue touched on so many different25 Both Dillon, n. 3 above, p. 248, andLarsen, n. 4 above, pp. 363-6, particularlythe latter, stress the significance of Hermias'Sreview of all the skopic alternatives and oflamblichus's emphasis upon the need todetermine the skoposcorrectly.26 Bielmeier, n. I above, pp. 22-23, Dillon,n. 3 above, pp. 248-9 and Larsen, n. 4 above,pp. 367-8, draw our attention to the logicalconnexion between the Iamblichan concep-tion of the Phaedrus's koposand of its structure.Ficino was interested in this connexion whilerefusing to go along with it entirely.

27 For example, OperaOmnia, pp. 962, 987,I282, 1387.28 Iamblichus had been the first, or one ofthe first, to argue that the genre of thePhaedrus was theological, while rejecting theview that the soul was its skopos. As Larsen,n. 4 above, notes, (p. 367), there is an affinitybetween defining the genre and defining theskopos (and structure). Both Ficino, andIamblichus and his followers, agreed that themythical hymn was the climax of thedialogue, but Ficino seems less concernedthan they to examine it in context.


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FICINO'S INDEBTEDNESS TO HERMIAS I19subjects (though its theme was beauty) and particularly on love and thereligious mysteries, 'de occultis et incognitis rebus', subjects intrinsicallyresistantto uniform treatment. By contrast, Ficino is at pains to insist not onthe dialogue's stylistic diversity but on its omnipresent inspiration, its par-takingin varyingdegreesof rapture (furor):indeed, he is alwayssensitiveto theneed to alert his readers to the correct allegorical 'tone', the degree anddirection of Socrates'sseriousnessor jocosity at any given juncture. Not thatFicino was insensitive to, or uninterested in, the many variations in Plato'sstyle, broadly conceived. In his famous preface to Lorenzo de' Medici whichserved as a proem to the 1484 PlatonisOperaOmnia,he writes with some elo-quence on the problem: 'Stylum inquam non tam humano eloquio quamdivino oraculo similem, saepe quidem tonantem altius, saepe vero nectareasuavitate manantem, semper autem arcana coelestia complectentem . . .Stylus Platonicuscontinensuniversum,tribuspotissimumabundat muneribus,philosophica sententiarum utilitate, oratorio dispositionis elocutionisqueordine, florum ornamento poeticorum . . .' (OperaOmnia,p. I 129). But in hiscommentary Ficino never saw fit to raise the stylistic issue nor the spectre ofancient objections to the rhetoric of the Phaedrus, ven though Hermias hadfelt it necessaryto confront these objections at the very outset of his commen-tary.To conclude, the two argumenta ave little in common beyond theiragreement on the nominal skoposof the Phaedrus.No evidence suggests thatFicino had Hermias's introduction in the back of his mind when he composedhis own introduction: the approaches, the phraseology, the emphases andthe questions raised all differ. This is not surprising if the argumentums itfinally appears-both in the Commentarian Platonem nd at the head of thetranslated Phaedrusn the PlatonisOperaOmnia-is basically the same as thefirst draft Ficino wrote in the 146os, a draft which would not have includedthe referencesto the Theologia latonica nd the De Amore for nothing suggestsFicino had read, let alone translated, Hermias by the I46os). If, conversely,the later version of the argumentumiffers from the earlier, then the caseagainst Ficino's indebtedness to Hermias's argumentums still stronger, sincehe would be neglecting to refer to the latter even though he was taking thetrouble to revise.

II. The situation with the commentary proper, chapters iv to xi, is lessclear. Ficino had almost certainly read (and even translated) Hermias beforehe wrote these eight chapters, and it is theoretically possible that he intendedthem to stand beside the Hermias commentary as amplificationsof key points;though he nowhere says this, and the possibility can be dismissed on othergrounds (see below p. 123). Chapter iv covers 245A-the equivalent foliosin Hermias are I99r to 200r [pp. 97-99] with a section on maniaprecedingthem I89r-I99r [pp. 84-97]. Ficino says the poetic madness compels men tosing of God and the divine mysteries; but Hermias follows Plato and brieflyinsists that poetry's duty is to sing of one's forebears(priscorum)nd their greatdeeds. Again, Hermias proceeds systematically to comment on severallemmata, 'tertia vero, lenem, insuperabilem, exsuscitans, excogitans etbacchans'etc.; while Ficino talks of the four divine madnesses,of their natures,


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120 MICHAEL J. B. ALLENinterrelationshipsand common origins, without adverting to the lemmata inany order, but supplying sporadic references to his own previous 'scholarship'and to other analyses of alternative ways of ordering the divine madnesses.Finally, Hermias has nothing correspondingto Ficino's last paragraph, whichjustifies the obliquity with which Socrates approaches the twin themes ofbeauty and love.Chaptersv and vi both deal with the syllogistic section 245C-246A on thesoul's self-motion and its position as prime mover in the universal hierarchy.The corresponding folios in Hermias are 2o2r~-215r [pp. 102-20]. Again,Hermias adopts a different methodological tack to Ficino's, treating initiallyof the animaomnis rux (245C) which Ficino confrontsin chapter vi, and thendiscussing some of the problems which preoccupy Ficino in chapter v.Hermias and Ficino take up many of the same points in much the same way:they both warn us to note that the Phaedruss pre-eminently concerned withthe rational soul, not with soul in all its sundry manifestations, 'ut summatimdicam de omni rationali anima est sermo' (203r [p. o104]). But Ficino takesa firm, if polemical, stand, while Hermias lists the conflicting interpretations:some, he observes, resemble Posidonius in maintaining that Plato treats hereof the world-soul, others resemble Harpocration in asseveratingthat it is ofevery soul, even the souls of ants and flies, 'simpliciter et formice et musce'(2o2r [p. 102]). But he lacks the economy of argumentation with whichFicino adroitly explores and untangles the proofs and their ramifications.Interestingly, however, both commentators appeal to logic to justify re-arranging the order of the two motion syllogisms.Since Hermias and Ficino faced a dialectical passage in Socrates'smono-logue which was conspicuouslydifferent from lateral passages as well as fromthe dialogue as a whole, and since both demonstrably knew of other motionsyllogisms in Plato's work, and in Aristotle, Plotinus and their epigones, it isnot surprisingthat at first glance their two responsesshould look alike: bothhandle the exegetical problems by employing traditional imagery and diction,and traditional divisions, subdivisions and definitions. The subject matteritself, moreover, leaves little room for highly personal or idiosyncraticmanoeuvres. An obviouspoint of differenceis that Hermiasrefers o Aristotle'ssolutions and tries to explain how the soul's motions are paradigmatic of theeight motions of the body,29while Ficino refersto his own solutions, particu-larly to those in the TheologiaPlatonica.Ficino's chapter vii (= Phaedrus 46AB) correspondsto Hermias's 215r-22Ir [pp. 120-9]. It begins by emphasizing the view that Plato, in referringto the 'idea' of the soul, means here 'its intimate form' and the arrangementof its powers, rather than its supernal model, the transcendent Idea in thespecial Platonic sense. Hermias makes the identical point at much greaterlength and with a detailed description of the soul's 'union of powers' withno counterpart in Ficino. This theoretical coincidence might indicateindebtedness,were it not that Hermias then proceeds to expound lamblichus's,and presumably Syrianus's,interpretationof Zeus at 246E as the 'supramun-dane Timaean demiurge' (225v-228v [pp. 136-40]), whereas for Ficino he is

29 See Dillon, n. 3 above, pp. 94-95, 249-250.


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FICINO'S INDEBTEDNESSTO HERMIAS 121the cosmic world-soul, as he had been for Plotinus.30 This is a major dis-agreement over the ontological level at which Plato intended us to read theentire allegory of the charioteer; for it means too a disagreement over thePhaedrus's rain of souls: are they in their supramundane condition aslamblichus believed, or still struggling to master their corporeal and aerialbodies as Ficino preferredto hold? This divergence extends further. Thoughdwelling more extensively on the soul's powers and individually referringtothe divine poets, Homer, Orpheus and Parmenides,who had used the chariotimage before Plato (216r [p. 122]), Hermias does not introduce concepts (inparticular the six genera of being) that occupy a major role in Ficino'sanalysis. And, as a matter of detail, in commenting on Plato's choice betweenbeing actually 'on the wing' and being merely 'fledged', Hermiasobservesthatwe as humans are 'fledged' because 'non semperalas expeditashabeamus, sedaliquando quidem inquinatas et torpentes' (219 [pp. 126-7]). Ficino merelynotes that it is because we have the ability to raise ourselves even if we failactually to do so.Three further random but typical examples. In commenting on Phaedrus246B-D, Hermias formally categorizes Plato's treatment of the soul underthree traditionally Aristotelian heads (22 Iv-223v [pp. 129-32]). In theimmortality section at 245C-246A Plato, he says, was talking of the soul'sessence: in the section of the soul's idea at 246A-B, of the soul's power: and inthe section on all soul at 246B-D, of the soul's operation. That is, he readsthesections in the light of Plato's own headnote at 245C, 'Now our first steptowards attaining the truth of the matter is to discern the divine and thehuman soul's nature [= essence], experiences [= powers], and activities[- operations].' Ficino's correspondingchapter viii does not present us withthis Aristotelian schema at all but with other comments which conclude witha mathematical analogy not in Hermias. In chapter xi, on Phaedrus247C,Ficino chooses to ignore Hermias's laudatory page on 'the earthly poets',Homer, Orpheus, Hesiod and Musaeus (232v-233r [p. 146]). Finally, havingfollowed Hermias in the previous two chapters in recalling the good's threeattributes as they appear in the Philebus22B (a dialogue he knew intimatelylong before he encountered Hermias and which he would have automaticallyreferred to here), and in marking the abruptness of the transition at 246E,'Now Zeus, the great leader in heaven'-an abruptness marked by mostcommentators31-he completely ignores Hermias's many glosses on 247A-Cand proceeds to develop his own classificatorysystem for the ancient gods.Now the one aspect of Hermias's commentary which Zeller and Martanodeemed original was just such a classificatory system, a theotaxonomy ratherthan a theogony-what Ficino was to call in chapter x 'the four ways ofenumerating or multiplying the gods'. From lamblichus on, theotaxonomywas to become a central concern of the Neoplatonists, and it reached itsultimate stage of complexity with Proclus. Although Jamblichus's successorsinherited certain key distinctions from him (such as those already noted) and his

30Plotinus, Enneads v. 8. 10, I2, 13. SeeDillon, n. 3 above, pp. 94, 95, 251; Larsen,n. 4 above, p. 371.31 For example R. Hackforth, Plato's9

Phaedrus, Cambridge, rpt. 1972, P. 7on., andG. J. De Vries, A Commentaryn the Phaedrusof Plato, Amsterdam 1969, p. 130.


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122 MICHAELJ. B. ALLENmethodological principle of proceeding via triads in multiples of twelve, theynevertheless enjoyed engineering their own variations within the basiccoordinates. Accordingly the systems of lamblichus, Syrianus, Proclus andothers deviate from each other in sundry ways. Zeller and Martano outlineHermias's as follows. He refers the Orphic Night (Nux) to the intelligiblegods; the Heaven's (that is, Uranus's) back at Phaedrus 247B to the intellec-tual gods; and the subcelestial arch also at 247B to the intra-mundane gods(that is, to the Cyclops and hundred-handed Giants). In analysing thedemiurgic Zeus, he subdivides to form the demiurgic triad, Zeus, Poseidon,Pluto, followed by three more triads: the zoogonic (the generative or life-bringing) which is feminine, the phrouretic (the preserving or guarding)which is masculine, and the epistreptic (the returning or converting) whichis feminine. Hestia is the only other divinity specificallynamed here [p. 137],but the arrangementresembles those of Proclus and lamblichus (who replacePluto with Hephaestus): we should thereforeprobably assign Demeter, Heraand Artemis to the zoogonic triad, Hestia, Athena and Ares to the phrouretic,and Hermes, Aphrodite and Apollo to the epistreptic. Iamblichus'sdefinitionof the various divine functions is markedly different, though, from bothProclus'sand Hermias's, which are themselves not identical.In an alternative schema, Zeller and Martano continue, Hermias sub-ordinates four different gods to each member of the demiurgic triad, stillmaking twelve: the first member is responsiblefor being, the second for life,the third forpreservationand the fourthfor conversion to one's own principles.They then add that 'to complete the confusion' Hermias advises us not toapproach the Olympian dodecade too arithmetically but always with theunderstandingthat twelve is a symbol of perfection.Zeller and Martano's fretfulness stems from a commitment to consistencyin an area where the Neoplatonistsfelt no need for it and where they projectedalternate theotaxonomies on the assumption that a philosopher would finddifferentarrangementssuitable for differentoccasions. Indeed, they created atheistic algebra precisely because it enabled them to incorporate a largenumber of Greek or pseudo-Greek deities and subdeities; to accommodatethe perennial controversies over who constituted the Olympian dodecade:and to experimentwith a variety of divine relationships,and thus elaborate onthe basic Plotinian conception of the gods mediating the emanatory flowfrom the One down through the intellectual to the material world.

Quite possibly Ficino was first attracted to Hermias on account of histheotaxonomy (though he may not have viewed the two schemata as eitheralternateor unique given the affinitieswith Proclus). After all, he was fascina-ted throughout his life with theistic algebra, and produced an entire set ofvariations for analysing the nature and status of individual gods. But weneed not explore the intricacies of either his or Hermias'sschemata since theydiffer in basic design: not only, given his Plotinian interpretation of Zeus,does he not accept the demiurgic triad here, he does not postulate an equiva-lent for the zoogonic, phrouretic and epistreptic triads, nor use Hermias'salternative schema of the three tetrads. More, he seems to be independent ofother ancient theotaxonomists besides Hermias in all but his methodologicalcommitment to threes, fours and twelves, and his admission of the fundamental


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FICINO'S INDEBTEDNESSTO HERMIAS 123Iamblichan categories of intelligible, intellectual and mundane gods (so faras I can judge from a preliminary survey of the possibilities). A few reasonsfor this independence can be mentioned briefly.First, Ficino was obsessed on both theological and philosophical groundswith the particular set of Greek deities one can equate with the ChristianGod; that is with Uranus, Saturn and Zeus (and their trinitarian inter-relationships), rather than with the demiurgic triad, Zeus, Poseidon andPluto. He was equally obsessed with the three stages of contemplationpredicatable of God (in His immanence) and so of all contingent things,looking upwards, looking selfwardsand looking downwards, stages which heconsistently identified with Uranus, Saturn and Zeus. In concentrating onthe mythological calculus of God's essence rather than of His attributes,Ficino also virtually ignored the feminine deities, except Venus whom heequated with God's Beauty (which has pre-eminence as a divine attributealong with Truth and Goodness and can almost be considered part of God'sessence). Second, Ficino worked in the belief that man was made in God'simage and that the mythological modelsfor God could thereforebe transferredanalogically to man and in particular to his psychic faculties. Given hisunique account of the soul, he developed its mythology predictably in thedirection of heightening our sense of its correspondencewith the divine. Anymodel which could not be employed to describe both the godhead and thesoul simultaneously was therefore of limited use and had to be replaced.Third, and perhaps most tellingly, Ficino's attitude to the pagan deities waspatently ambiguous. He felt free to modify or change their natures andrelationshipsfor his own syncretic or apologetic reasons since he viewed themas the stuff of poetic theology; hence he was far less committed to the articula-tion of details here than the ancient Neoplatonist for whom the gods stillembodied a higher reality however abstractly conceived. One pointer is theway he outlined the methods for 'multiplying' the gods on the model offourfold Christian allegoresis, and then collapsed the four ways into two inactual practice.Whatever the reasons for Ficino's radically individual orientation to thescience of theotaxonomy, the specific situation is clear: he either forgot orignored Hermias'sschemata when he came to articulate his own in chaptersxand xi of the Phaedruscommentary. Since the schemata are probablyHermias's most important claim to originality, Ficino's ignoring of them, evenif he did not fully appreciate their originality, is doubly decisive. The generalsituation for the commentary proper is likewise clear: in composing its eightchapters, Ficino did not refer in any systematic, sustained or candid way tohis predecessor'swork.

III. The matter of the summaes simpler since, though they are inter-mittently interpretative and not merely epitomical, they are briefer than thecommentary chapters and at the same time cover all the text. Ficino's summadivisions do not consistently correspond to Hermias's chapters or paragraphsand this alone is enough to demonstrate Ficino's independence in establishingthem. A sampling indicates unmistakably that there are few if any real linksbetween the two commentators. In the section that should be covered by


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124 MICHAELJ. B. ALLENsumma7 Hermias has notes on Ulysses and Calypso (i69r [p. 54]) and onSemele (i69v [p. 55]) which have no counterpart in Ficino (but at I7o in thetranslation [= p. 56] Ficino inserts parenthetically a characteristic fable ofhis own on the birth of Bacchus). In summa9 Ficino proffers a completelydifferent exposition of the ways the demons operate upon us than Hermias(i72v-I73r [pp. 58-59]); and his uncertainties about the demonic role inhearing contrast with Hermias's convictions (18or [pp. 67-68]). In thesection covered by summa23, that is Phaedrus 48A-C, Hermias sticks veryclosely to the lemmata, concentrating on the horses' kicking and confusion,which Ficino ignores (24orv [pp- 159-60]). Even in summa25 where Ficinoapplauds Hermias's (and Proclus's) anti-Plotinian thesis that the human soulcannot submit to radical metempsychosis and is always distinct from thebestial soul (246r_248v [pp. I69-7I]),32 Ficino's argument and documentationare quite different.Only in a handful of cases have I been able to detect some obviousindebtedness. In summa 1, having just referredexplicitly to Hermias, Ficinoeither garbles Hermias's gloss of Phaedrus 65C, 'Per pueros enim indicavitpuritatem animarum' (292r [p. 233]), or attempts both here and in theHermias translationto pun on the Latinpuerandpuritas using as his paradigmPlato's supposedplay on Phaedrusndpais). In summa 7 Ficino's introductionof the wolf proverb (Phaedrus272C) begins like Hermias's note: Hermiasreads, 'Illud lupi proverbium est quando lupus videns pastores, ut canes(et erased)vorantespecudes, inquit, Si ego id fecisse[m], quantus rumor factusesset?' (304, [p. 249]); and Ficino's summareads, 'Fabula fingit lupum, cumvideret oves tum a pastoribustum a canibus devorari, exclamavisse, O, si egoid fecissem, quantus rumor.' Both commentators are glossing Plato's 'Eventhe wolf has a right to an advocate', and Ficino is amplifying the proverb inHermias with the possible help of Plutarch's Cony.Sept.Sap. 156a. However,it is the sort of conundrum that Ficino would need help to explicate in thefirst place; and, having discovered the reference, it would surely stick in hismind in a 'devil's advocate' context. Finally in summa 9 in the descriptionofthe ibis (Phaedrus274C), there seem to be references to Hermias 307v [p. 254],though the correspondence is not consistent and there are curious omissions.Hermias reads, 'Avem [a lemma]habet enim proprietatem proprii dei: diienim proprias eorum operationes extendunt usque ad ultimas imagines.Habet enim cordis figuram. Cor autem principium animalis. Deinde habetextrema alarum nigra, reliqua vero alba. Et ex hoc sermo demonstrat etc.'Ficino borrows the phrase 'figuram cordis habet' while introducing the re-semblance with a stork; he also borrows the fascinating notions that the ibishas an absolutely regular gait ('passibus incedit equalibus') and uses itsmouth to lay eggs ('ova parit gutture'), but omits both the all white plumagetipped at the wings with black and Hermias's allegorizationsof this. In short,Ficino's comments are more succinct and less scholastically allegorized thanHermias's, and the material on either side of the ibis reference does not mirrorHermias's. The only exact verbal parallel is the phrase, 'figuram cordishabet', and even here the words are transposed from their order in Hermias.In the summae hen three bits of evidence (and there may of course be more)32 See Plotinus, Enneads I. i. I I; III. iv. 2; Proclus, In Tim. iii, 329D-E (Diehl).


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FICINO'S INDEBTEDNESSTO HERMIAS 125do suggest Ficino's prior reading of Hermias. But they are precisely thosememories of strange cruces and their stranger explanations that would stickin the mind.For Ficino's argumentum,ight chapters of commentary and fifty-threesummae,he conclusion therefore must be that, apart from some few entirelyexplicable recollections of individual glosses, no significant points of contactwith Hermias's commentary exist which cannot be accounted for in termseither of a shared Neoplatonic approach, or of independent decisions to agreeon certain key theoreticalor definitional alternatives. Though I have selectedonly a handful of positive and negative instances, and though an exhaustivestudy will be sure to find many, perhaps more arresting, examples, I do notanticipate a fundamental modification to this picture of Ficino's independenceof his predecessor, an independence he had already demonstrated in thePhilebus commentary with regard to Olympiodorus (Damascius). Thesituation with Hermias is the more striking, however, given Ficino's decisionactually to translatehim, a decision he never seemsto have even contemplatedin the case of the other, more notable commentator on the Philebus.

What do Ficino's explicit references to Hermias,33both in the Phaedruscommentary and throughout his work, tell us about his attitudes towardshim?In the Phaedrus ommentary there are five referencesin all. In chapterviii, paragraph four, Hermias is quoted as saying that Socrates means thesubcelestial world when he talks of 'solid' body at 246C (= 222v [p. 130]) -a technical point. In summa24 Hermias and Plotinus are cited as twoauthorities for the view that we perceive the image of ideal beauty throughthe sight and hearing alone (- 245r [p. i166]). In summa 25 Hermias andProclus are commended for their anti-Plotinian thesis that the rational souldoes not transmigrate into a beast's soul (= 248r'v [p. 170]). In summa35Hermias and lamblichus appear as the authorities for equating the cicadasat Phaedrus258E with demons (- 277v-279r [pp. 213-I15]).3* And in summa41Hermias'sargument that the Venus of Phaedrus 65B representsbeauty ratherthan love (= 292r-v [p. 233]) is noted with approval. Significantly, in threeof these five instances Ficino links Hermias with one of the greater Neo-platonists, Plotinus, lamblichus or Proclus, and the other two instances aregeared to specific lemmata; also, four of the five instances occur in the summaewhich we know Ficino wrote towards the end of his life. Given that Hermias'sentire extant work is focused on the Phaedrus,he paucity of explicit referencesis remarkable. Modern commentators on the Phaedruswith no Neoplatonicleaningswhatsoever have found it useful to include more referencesto Hermiasthan this. It suggestsa policy of virtual silence on Ficino's part.Elsewhere in Ficino there are eleven other references to Hermias. He ismentioned in the second and third catalogues as an author Ficino has

33We must be wary of confusing our Neo-platonic Hermias with the Hermias whom,along with Erastos and Coriscos, Platoaddressed in his sixth letter, a letter Ficinoalways refers to as the Letterto Hermias (Opera

Omnia,p. I533.4 etc.).34Bielmeier, n. I above, p. 28; Dillon, n. 3above, pp. 98, 99, 255-6; Larsen, n. 4 above,p. 372.


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126 MICHAELJ. B. ALLENtranslated. At the close of his epitome to the TheagesOperaOmnia,p. I132.1)Ficino merely remarks that Maximus of Tyre, Hermias and Apuleius havedealt fully with the problem of Socrates'sdemon. In his Parmenidesommen-tary (Opera Omnia, p. I 156. i) he mentions Hermias along with Damasciusand Olympiodorus as one of the principal late [Neo]Platonists. And in hisepitome to the Laws Book x (OperaOmnia,p. 1519) he yokes Hermias toPlotinus as authorities for the theory that the stars can both see and hear( i79v-i8or [pp. 68-69]).The remaining six referencesall occur in the last three books of Ficino'sTheologiaPlatonican Marcel's edition (see n. i7), vol. iii, pp. i139, i64 twice,i68, 199, and 221 (Opera Omnia,pp. 382, 392 twice, 394, 406 and 416). Thereferences at pp. 139 and 199 both note that among the ancient NeoplatonistsHermias specializes in describing the demons' responsibilities for the body(and Ficino specifically cross-refers o Phaedrus 40B), in particular nurturingthe soul's love for the body, and guiding 'generation' both positively andnegatively viewed (- 242v [p. I63]). The first referenceon p. 164 and thatat p. 168 commend Hermias among others (and this shared commendationis important-at p. 168 Syrianus and Proclus are mentioned by name) for theanti-Plotinian thesis already noted in summa25 of the Phaedrus ommentary(- 248r-- [p. 170]). In the second reference at p. 164 Ficino agrees withHermias that Plato uses the various millennia in the Phaedrusfiguratively(246v-247r [p. 169]). And finally at p. 221 Hermias and Plotinus are againcited for their claim that the starsand demons can see, hear and speak, thoughdifferently from us (cf. summa24 and the Lawsx epitome).The record is meagre. Apart from one or two specific interpretationalpoints, for instance the cicadas or the identification of the Venus at Phaedrus265B with beauty, Ficino refers to Hermias on three counts only: (i) as aspecialist on demonological problems, including that of Socrates's demon;(2) as one who followed Plotinus in attributing the two higher senses, sightand hearing, to demons and celestial souls since they also perceive beauty;and (3) as one who joined Proclus (and we recall they were co-disciples ofSyrianus)in attackingPlotinus's radical views on metempsychosis. To varyingdegrees all three counts reflect Ficino's commitment to emphasizingthe soul'skinship with the higher orders of being (a kinship that implies analogousmodes of perception). But this commitment also underlies the one outrightcondemnation of Hermias. Having lauded lamblichus, Porphyry, Proclus,Syrianusand Hermias for their anti-Plotinian stand in chapteriv of the seven-teenth book of the Theologia latonica,35 icino then rejects their premise thatthe soul must exist from eternity in order to be immortal, a premise leadingin turn to the erroneous reincarnational views associatedwith Pythagoras.

There is no obvious answer to the inevitable question: Why did Ficinolabour so hard on Hermias only to abandon him? On the one hand are theinitial expectations which led him to translate much or most of Hermias intoLatin; on the other, the passing debts on minor points and the rejecting orignoring of all but a few specialized glosses on the Phaedrus. Two independent35 Ed. Marcel, iii, pp. 167-8.


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FICINO'S INDEBTEDNESSTO HERMIAS 127but not incompatible scenarios will suggest the diversity of interpretation towhich Ficino, here as so often, is necessarily subject, given the fragmentarystate of our knowledge of him and his milieu. Both are speculative.

I. The two references to Hermias in the seventeenth book of theTheologiaPlatonicaappear in the course of Ficino's attack on certain Pythago-rean views. Despite the research of Heninger and others,36the concept ofRenaissance Pythagoreanism begs many questions; and we are still entitled todoubt whether it can be usefully distinguished from Renaissance Neo-platonism. Certainly throughout his career Ficino referredto Pythagorasandto Pythagoreans, among whom he specifically named Timaeus of Locris,Parmenides the Eleatic and Zeno, though a full length study of the natureand development of his attitudes to them remains to be written. He inheritedPlato's and Plotinus's high esteem for Pythagoras, and gave him a privilegedposition in the history of philosophy as one of the most luminous of the priscitheologi nd as either Plato's or Philolaus'simmediate predecessor n the goldenchain of the six sages. He translated Pythagoras'sAureaDicta and Symbola,3and continually quoted and praised them as second only to Orpheus'sversesin pre-Platonic authority. Like Plato he revered Pythagoras's dedication tosilence and his contempt for written (that is externalized) as opposed to oral(that is internalized) knowledge; and, again like Plato, he elaborated atliterate length on this anti-literate theme. As one of the earliest and mosteloquent proponents of the soul's survival after death, Pythagoras, he felt,incontrovertiblymerited his place of honour among the true philosopherswhohad waged war againstinfidelpositions subsequently dentified with Averroism.Nevertheless particular theories received a measure of censure. In thesecond chapter of the Phaedrus ommentary Ficino remarks that Socratesemploys 'Pythagorean notions rather than his own' in describing the soul'sfall from heaven through nine degrees, and is therefore guilty of 'poeticlicence'. The problem of this same fall occupies books sixteen, seventeen andeighteen of the TheologiaPlatonicaand here the Pythagorean errors areidentified. They comprise both the doctrine of the soul's eternity as opposedto the Christian (and, Ficino takes care to argue, the authentically Platonic)doctrine of its sempiternity, a distinction which is frequently ignored butwhich entails basically different conceptions of time and creation; and thedoctrine of the soul's reincarnation in either its conservative, moderate orradical forms as being reborn in one's children, in another person, or in ananimal or plant (traducianism, reincarnationproper, and metempsychosisortransmigration). Christianity has never wholly countenanced these re-incarnational theories, in part as they are predicated on the existence of thesoul's etheric or astral vehicle (ochima), he mysteriousmedium between souland body posited by theosophy rather than theology or philosophy.But the position with Hermias is clear: though not an ultra-Pythagorean

36 S. K. Heninger, TouchesfSweetHarmony,San Marino 1974.37 OperaOmnia,pp. I978-79; additionallyhe wrote a small commentary on the Symbola,extant only in MS Vat. lat. 5953, fols. 316v-

31 8v (but reprinted in Kristeller, Sup. Fic.ii, n. 7 above, pp. Ioo-io3); this is the MSwhich also contains the Hermias translation(see Sup.Fic. i, p. cxlvii).


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128 MICHAELJ. B. ALLENlike Plotinus,38he is still an unreliable interpreterof the Phaedrus.He can bepraised for rejecting metempsychosis,but his views on the soul's eternity andetheric vehicle are tarred with the Pythagorean brush in that they lead to'endlesswanderings and distractions for souls, and to absurd confoundingsofthe various species' (infinitis animarum ambagibusque et absurdisspecierumconfusionibus). His analysesof the later sectionsof Socrates's charioteermyth,those dealing with the allegory of the soul's fall into the etheric and then thecorporealbody, cannot therefore be trusted. Significantly, these are the verysections Ficino does not get to in his own commentary which treats almostexclusivelyof the soul's ascent. If we recollect what Ficino correctly perceivedas Hermias's special interest in demonology, we can glimpse the dangers.Given Hermias's indebtedness to Pythagorean notions of the soul's existencefrom eternity, its reincarnation (if not transmigration)and its possessionof anetheric vehicle, the demons in the cicadas assume an ominous role as thesoul'sguardiansand overseers,and the road is open to full-blooded lamblichantheurgy and demonic magic. Though Ficino was temperamentally disposedtowards magic and occult lore, he always refrainedfrom committing himselfto them, cognizant of their ambiguous status in Christianity; interestinglytoo, he seems to have steered clear of lamblichus while paying him lip-serviceas one of the ancient masters.39In short, since Socrates's mythical hymn attracted reincarnational anddemonological theorizing and could well become an explosive text in theheads of the unwary, Ficino had to handle Hermias with great care: inpresentingthe hymn to the world, he would make sure that his own orthodoxversion held the day and a deviant and potentially heretical version wassuppressed. Without wishing or needing to go so far as to destroy his transla-tion, therefore,he thought best to deflect attention from the ancient commen-tary by neither over-quoting-nor equally importantly under-quoting-it,calculating that readers would gain the impressionhe had taken it into accountand they need delve no further in order to understandthe Phaedrus.

II. The second scenario is less dramatic. Either because he had notyet read Hermias or because he did not think it worth while to turn to himat a preliminary stage, Ficino drafted his argumentum in the 146os indepen-dently. However, in approaching the formidable task of commenting in fullon one of Plato's most inspired but polyhedric dialogues, Ficino took stock ofthe resources available to him. Not that he anticipated help on fundamentalprinciples from the commentator: he was busily absorbing these from other,much richerauthorities, Plotinus, Proclusand the Areopagite, and integratingthem already into his own original and complex metaphysical system. Still,he would be interested in seeing some of these principles applied to thePhaedrus,particularly since he lacked the kind of help which Aristotle,Augustine and Aquinas would give him in explicating the central concernsof the Philebus,and which would make Hermias's counterpart, Olympiodorus,for all intents and purposes redundant. He therefore delayed further work38According to Couvreur's ndex, Hermiasonly mentions the Pythagoreans six times,and their master not at all.

39He did, however, write a translation/adaptation of the De Mysteriis, Opera Omnia,pp. 1873-1908.


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FICINO'S INDEBTEDNESSTO HERMIAS 129on his Phaedrus ommentary till he could find time to examine Hermias indetail, the most convenient and efficient way of doing so being translation.With the Phaedrus ommentary laid aside, Ficino settled down first to hisgreat commentarieson the Symposiumnd Philebus, nd then to his magnum pus,the TheologiaPlatonica. Towards the end of composing the latter he alsotranslated Hermias-hence the sprinklingof references n the last three books-though he did not finish this until after 1474.40Then, instead of returningtothe Phaedrus ommentary, Ficino was sidetracked onto other work, notablycompiling the De ChristianaReligioneand polishing the Plato translations.When he took up the Phaedrusgain in the I490Sto augment it with commen-tary and summaryfor the projected de luxeedition of the PlatonisOperaOmnia,he had forgotten all but a few vivid details from Hermias and the vague sensethat he contained much demonological lore. Since the eight chapters ofFicino's commentary proper deal with the 'theological' problems of the soul'sascent and deification in Phaedrus 45A-247E, problems which he had spenta lifetime pondering himself, he felt no pressure to refer back to Hermiasautomatically; and it is open to question, since he never went on to commenton other sections of the dialogue more than superficially, whether he wouldever have felt that pressure (and the summaeuggest not).Thus Hermias ended up being of little or no use to Ficino, and the progressand results of Ficino's Phaedrusommentary would have remained much thesame had he never read or translated him.4' He may have intuited this him-self as he neglected to revise, publish or extract the translation, or to supplymore than a handful of passing, if generally positive, referencesto Hermiasin the rest of his work.42 Certainly he would not have been receptive to thenotion that the Phaedrus ould be interpreted from at least three distinctviewpoints, the Platonic, the Neoplatonic and the Christian,and that Hermiasrepresented the quintessentially Neoplatonic: his orientation was alwaysChristian and he would have opened Hermias initially to see if he had any-thing to contribute to a Christian-Neoplatonic understanding of ancientthought. Having discovered he had virtually nothing to offer that was notbetter said elsewhere, he lost interest in him.Even if this scenario of neglect is hybridized with elements of the firstscenario, the finale stays the same. Eventually, Ficino abandoned any notionthat Hermias held the key to Socrates's enraptured singing of the mysterieson the banksof the distant Ilissus and relegatedhim to that scholarlyobscuritywhere he has since remained. The reasons for this disengagement, however,constitute the most intriguing of several problems that the relationshipbetween the two commentators must continue to pose.University of California at Los Angeles

40 Hence the silence of the first catalogue,Kristeller, Sup. Fic. i, n. 7 above, p. i.41 For all its tentativeness, Arnaldo DellaTorre'sremark'aiutandosiforsefin d'allora diquel commento, a questo stesso dialogo [ilFedro], di Ermia, che indi egli tradusse'(Storia dell'Accademia Platonica di Firenze,Florence 1902, p. 605), can therefore no

longer stand.42 Cf. Pico's passing mention in the Oration,'Proclus... and those who flowed from him,Hermias, Damascius, Olympiodorus, andmany others, in all of whom shines alwaysthat to theion, hat divine something, which isthe peculiar mark of Platonists', OperaOmnia,Basle 1572, i, p. 118.

Two Commentaries on the Phaedrus Ficino's Indebtedness to Hermias Michael J.B. Allen

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