Commentaries on Plato refers to the great mass of literature produced, especially in the ancient and medieval world, to explain and clarify the works ofPlato. ManyPlatonist philosophers in the centuries following Plato sought to clarify and summarise his thoughts, but it was during theRoman era, that theNeoplatonists, in particular, wrote many commentaries on individual dialogues of Plato, many of which survive to the present day.

Many of the scholars in thePlatonic Academy sought to clarify and explain Plato's ideas. Already in the 3rd century BC, we hear of a commentary to Plato'sTimaeus being written byCrantor of Soli;^[1] and in the 1st century AD a commentary on Plato'sRepublic was written byOnasander.^[2] The earliest surviving commentary is ananonymous work on the Theaetetus that was written between the 1st century BC and the 2nd century AD. By the 2nd century theMiddle Platonists were producing paraphrases and summaries of Plato's thought. Thus we haveAlbinus, who wrote an introduction to Plato's works, andAlcinous andApuleius who both wrote manuals of Platonism.^[3] From the physicianGalen we have fragments of a commentary on theTimaeus.^[4] Already though the influence ofAristotle was being felt on the popular Platonism of the day, and we have the figure ofAtticus (c. 175) who opposed the eclecticism which had invaded the school and contested the theories of Aristotle as an aberration from Plato.^[3]

TheNeoplatonists though sought to exhibit the philosophical ideas of Plato and Aristotle as a unity.Porphyry (3rd century) attempted in a special work to show the agreement ofAristotelian andPlatonist philosophy and wrote a number of commentaries on Plato, Aristotle, andTheophrastus.^[5] Porphyry's studentIamblichus, who established a new curriculum of study of the Platonic dialogues that would go on to influence Platonism for the rest ofLate antiquity wrote commentaries on theFirst Alcibiades,Phaedo,Sophist,Phaedrus,Philebus,Timaeus, andParmenides, of which fragments survive in later commentaries.^[6] Additional commentaries on Plato were written byPlutarch of Athens, andSyrianus, andHermias.^[7] The best commentaries date from this era; most of the works ofProclus are commentaries on single dialogues of Plato and similar subjects.^[8] The commentaries on Plato were either given in lectures or written; and many have come down to us. Later Neoplatonist commentators on Plato whose works partially survive includeDamascius andOlympiodorus.

In theByzantine era, Aristotle was read more often than Plato, because of the importance placed on Aristotle's logical treatises.^[9] A key figure wasArethas, the 10th centuryArchbishop of Caesarea, who concerned himself with the preservation of the manuscripts of Plato and other ancient writers, and wrotescholia to the texts of Plato in his own hand.^[10] By the 11th century enthusiastic admirers of Platonism could be found in figures such asMichael Psellos andJohn Italus.^[11] The only surviving commentary from the late empire is a commentary on theParmenides byGeorge Pachymeres.^[11]

Compared to Aristotle, Plato figured far less prominently inIslamic philosophy. He was seen more as a symbol and as an inspiration rather than a source of practical philosophy.^[12] Islamic Platonism, when it came, was a development within Aristotelian philosophy.^[13] Far fewer of his works were known to the Islamic world than those of Aristotle. It seems that only theLaws, theSophist, theTimaeus, and theRepublic, were available in Arabic translation.^[12]Averroes, who wrote many commentaries on Aristotle, was probably motivated to write his one Platonic commentary, on theRepublic, only because he could not find a copy of Aristotle'sPolitics.^[14]

A partial translation and commentary inLatin of Plato'sTimaeus byCalcidius was the only substantial work of Plato known to scholars in the Latin west until the translation of theMeno andPhaedo byHenricus Aristippus in 1156.^[15]

• Commentaries on Aristotle
• Platonism
• Scholia

• Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel (1896),Lectures on the History of Philosophy, Part One. Greek Philosophy.
• Eduard Zeller (1895),Outlines of the History of Greek Philosophy.
• Dimiter Angelov (2007),Imperial Ideology and Political Thought in Byzantium, 1204-1330. Cambridge University Press
• Hugh H. Benson (2006),A Companion to Plato. Blackwell
• Antony Black (2001),The History of Islamic Political Thought. Routledge
• Eleanor Dickey (2007),Ancient Greek Scholarship. Oxford University Press
• Albrecht Dihle (1994),Greek and Latin Literature of the Roman Empire: From Augustus to Justinian. Routledge
• Edward Grant (2004),Science and Religion, 400 B.C. to A.D. 1550, pages 93–4. Greenwood Publishing Group
• George Alexander Kennedy (1999),Classical Rhetoric & Its Christian & Secular Tradition from Ancient to Modern Times. UNC Press

• Roy K. Gibson, Christina Shuttleworth Kraus, (eds.) (2002),The Classical Commentary: Histories, Practices, Theory. Brill
• Richard Sorabji (2005),The Philosophy of the Commentators 200-600 AD. A Sourcebook. Cornell University Press
• Miira Tuominen (2009),The Ancient Commentators on Plato and Aristotle. University of California Press

• Platonism
• Commentators on Plato

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