I'm going Adamson, and you're listening to the History of Philosophy podcast, brought to

you with the support of King's College London and the Lever Hume Trust, online at

www. History of Philosophy.net.

Today's episode, Not Written in Stone, Alexander of Aphrodisias.

People like me tend to complain about how much of the culture of antiquity has been lost,

but really we should be thankful that so many ancient Greek

and Latin writings still exist. After all, ancient texts reach us only through

centuries of copying by later scholars. Only rarely can we read the actual documents

the ancients themselves produced. There are exceptions, though.

Papyrus roles have been preserved by the dry sands of Egypt and the odd volcanic explosion.

And when the ancients really wanted their words to last, they quite literally wrote them in stone.

Inscriptions on stone tablets were erected already by the ancient Greeks to announce new

laws or agreements between cities as part of funeral rights or in religious contexts. The Romans followed suit, as in the

so-called res guestai or things accomplished, which detailed the achievements of Augustus Caesar, and which survives in copies in far-flung parts of the Empire.

Surviving inscriptions are among the richest sources exploited by classical historians.

Normally they don't play such a big role in the study of ancient philosophy.

Although we did see Epicurean philosophy being preserved in an inscription of the second century

AD, in general the cut and thrust of philosophical argument seems badly suited to the cut and

thrust of chisel in stone. Yet occasionally an ancient

inscription will provide us with a vivid glimpse into the lives of philosophers, if not their

ideas. It happened in 2001 when they unearthed a tablet from the

ancient city of Aphrodizias in modern day Turkey. Standing a bit more

...