Part III

Recording Lectures of Philosophers

In the following chapters I concentrate on extant notes taken down by students during the lectures of three different teachers of philosophy. These have been preserved and are of great significance. They provide a “window” into ancient philosophical classrooms by giving us more direct access than before. One of the fundamental subjects that chapter 7 considers is how fluid ancient education was, especially in late antiquity, when levels and materials to study did not embrace circumscribed and exclusive areas. After the second century CE, philosophical instruction became essentially exegetical. Texts had acquired a fundamental importance at the expense of discussions on current events and issues, which especially Didymus and Olympiodorus avoided completely.

The collections of notes that I examine include annotations that the first-century BCE philosopher Philodemus of Gadara wrote in Athens when he took down the lectures of his Epicurean teacher Zeno (chapter 8). When Philodemus went to Naples, he lectured in school about these notes, certainly adding some commentary. Philodemus is here the notetaker, but we don’t know about the note-taking of his students. In chapter 9 I study Didymus the Blind, teaching in Alexandria in the fourth century CE, and the lectures on the Sacred Scriptures, transmitted by the Tura papyri, that he delivered to his pupils. I shall argue that some of his students wrote them down. In chapter 10 I look at philosophical lectures taken down apo phones by students in Alexandria in the sixth century. I consider in particular the students’ annotations on Plato’s First Alcibiades, recorded from the lectures of the philosopher Olympiodorus.