Ancient scroll reveals new story of Plato’s death – here’s why you should be suspicious of it

By Bert van den Berg, Leiden University

Plato of Athens (429-347BC) may be one of the most famous philosophers of all times. He was the thinker who came up with the “theory of forms” and founded the first academic institution. Yet we know little about his life, such as how he died, or where he might be buried, even.

But spectacular new recent research on papyri from Herculaneum by The Greek Philosophical Schools-project in Italy has provided new answers to those questions.

Carbonised papyrus scrolls, discovered in the 18th century in a Roman villa located near Herculaneum (between Naples and Pompeii) and known as the Villa dei Papyri, contain so much knowledge we have yet to uncover.

The library’s owner appears to have had a great interest in Greek philosophy, especially that of Epicurus, and had collected a substantial library of papyrus scrolls. But reading the 1,800 scrolls has proved quite challenging. While their carbonisation after the eruption of Vesuvius in AD79 preserved the scrolls, they are very brittle and very problematic to unroll.

Among these scrolls is a book by the Epicurean philosopher Philodemus of Gadara (1st century BC) about the history of Greek philosophy, with the title Arrangement of the Philosophers.

Over the last two centuries, various editions of Arrangement of the Philosophers have been published, though great portions of the texts remained illegible. But thanks to hyperspectral imagining it has become possible to distinguish between the black ink and the dark surface of the carbonised papyrus. We can now read approximately 30% more than we previously could.

This newly accessible portion on the history of Plato’s school, the Academy, includes information on the location of Plato’s tomb and his death around 348BC.

From other sources, we had already gathered that Plato was buried somewhere on the grounds of the Academy, a semi-public park-like area outside the city walls of ancient Athens that Plato had bought and where he had his school.

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