As for many illustrious figures of the ancient world, Plato’s burial place has been a subject of speculation.
The quintessential Greek philosopher, his writings constitute the foundation of Western philosophy, the arts, and political science via his seminal work, The Republic. His Socratic Dialogues introduced the Western world to the intellectual giant who virtually defined ethics, civic relations and the Socratic method that modern pedagogy is founded on. Plato died at the age of approximately eighty in 347 BCE.
Now, University of Pisa expert Graziano Ranocchia said on Tuesday that the Herculaneum papyri may have identified the exact place where he was buried.
The Herculaneum papyri are a remarkable collection of more than 1,800 papyrus scrolls that were discovered in the 18th century in the Villa of the Papyri at Herculaneum. These ancient texts were carbonized by the catastrophic eruption of Mount Vesuvius in 79 CE, which famously destroyed the Roman cities of Pompeii and Herculaneum.
The villa, believed to have belonged to Julius Caesar’s father-in-law, was buried under volcanic ash, preserving the papyri in a charred state. Despite their fragile condition, these scrolls are invaluable as they constitute the only surviving library from antiquity with complete texts.
The majority of the scrolls contain Greek philosophical works, and efforts to read them have been ongoing since their discovery. Modern attempts have included sophisticated imaging techniques and artificial intelligence, which have provided new ways to decipher the texts without physically unrolling them, thus avoiding further damage.
The significance of these papyri lies not only in their content but also in their potential to reveal lost classical texts referred to by other ancient authors. Reading the scrolls is extremely difficult and carries risks of destroying them.
The location of Plato’s burial place was contained in thousands of new words and differently read words in papyrus on the history of the Academy by Philodemus of Gadara, an Epicurean philosopher and poet who lived in Herculaneum. Ranocchia said the texts suggested the burial place was in a garden reserved for Plato in a private area in the Academy, near the sacred shrine to the Muses.
The scholar made the announcement at the Naples Biblioteca Nazionale (National Library) as he presented the mid-term results of the “Greek Schools” research project conducted with the National Research Council.
The Platonic Academy was destroyed by the Roman dictator Sulla in 86 BC.
