The tradition of the Delian problem and its origins in the Platonic corpus
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Theokritos Kouremenos
Abstract
As a famous story has it, the various ingenious solutions Greek mathematicians put forth in the fourth century BC to the problem of cube-duplication had been ultimately motivated by a Delphic oracle the inhabitants of the island Delos had received and its interpretation by Plato. Scholars have argued that this story must be a biographical fiction, for some of its elements can be shown to have arisen from passages in Plato's own works, but others continue to defend its historical plausibility. All of its elements, however, including the crucial relation between Apollo and mathematics, as well as the equally crucial role of his oracles in the progress of mathematics in Greece, can be convincingly traced back to a number of passages in the Platonic corpus. A key detail in the story, moreover, cannot be backed by archaeological evidence that, if available, could render the delivery of the supposed Delphic oracle to the Delians in principle possible. Thus we must conclude that the story is a biographical anecdote that (re)constructs an episode in Plato's life from the Platonic corpus.
© Walter de Gruyter 2011
Articles in the same Issue
- Homer and His Peers: Neoanalysis, Oral Theory, and the Status of Homer
- Towards an Oral, Intertextual Neoanalysis
- Sappho 27 V., Alcaeus 308 Lib., and the Homeric Hymn to Hermes
- Ironic Genre Demarcation: Bacchylides 17 and the Epic Tradition
- Euripides post-modern: “The Alcestis”
- The tradition of the Delian problem and its origins in the Platonic corpus
- Show or Tell? Seneca's and Sarah Kane's Phaedra Plays
- List of Contributors
Articles in the same Issue
- Homer and His Peers: Neoanalysis, Oral Theory, and the Status of Homer
- Towards an Oral, Intertextual Neoanalysis
- Sappho 27 V., Alcaeus 308 Lib., and the Homeric Hymn to Hermes
- Ironic Genre Demarcation: Bacchylides 17 and the Epic Tradition
- Euripides post-modern: “The Alcestis”
- The tradition of the Delian problem and its origins in the Platonic corpus
- Show or Tell? Seneca's and Sarah Kane's Phaedra Plays
- List of Contributors
