Plato’s Four Muses: The Phaedrus and the Poetics of

Philosophy by Andrea Capra (review)

Charles Platter

Classical World, Volume 110, Number 3, Spring 2017, pp. 430-431 (Review)

Published by Johns Hopkins University Press

DOI: https://doi.org/10.1353/clw.2017.0029

For additional information about this article

https://muse.jhu.edu/article/658995

Access provided at 8 Jan 2020 12:49 GMT from University of Toledo

430 Classical World

Antony’s campaigns in the East against the Parthians. He argues that Antony
was for the most part successful, despite a later tradition hostile to the general.
Alston goes into some detail on the Donations of Alexandria, Antony’s efforts
to legitimize his position in Egypt, and the defeat at Actium. He adds a suc-
cinct chapter explaining Octavian’s settlement of affairs in Alexandria and the
east after the suicides of Antony and Cleopatra, acknowledging that, in Roman
thinking, at least, Octavian had every right to raze Alexandria and punish the
regional monarchs who had aligned themselves with Antony, but preferred
mercy and good order.
In his discussion of the settlement of affairs after Octavian’s return from the
east, Alston eschews any suggestion that a grand strategy determined the gener-
al’s decisions. “Like most politicians, he [Augustus] muddled through, seeking
particular solutions for particular issues” (239). The revolution had broken the
power of the senate to the benefit of the military, but Augustus still needed a way
to govern. The invention of the Augustan monarchy was the practical solution
that permitted the emperor to find a new way of representing monarchical au-
thority while preserving his access to more traditional and conservative modes
of governance. The last few chapters of the work detail Augustus’ use of money,
peace, and honors to secure a prosperous Rome, as Tacitus noted in Ann. 1.2.
Alston gives considerable weight to Augustus’ efforts at moral reform through
his laws on adultery and marriage, which, by the unprecedented intrusion of the
state into the private lives and bedrooms of the people, demonstrated the lengths
to which Augustus was willing to go to secure control over the future of Rome:
not, as Alston rightly points out, without opposition.
The work ends with the death of Augustus. The bibliography is not exten-
sive, but the book informs and entertains, and should provide a stimulating read
for generalists and learned laypeople.

JOE WILSON
University of Scranton

Andrea Capra. Plato’s Four Muses: The Phaedrus and the Poetics of Philoso-
phy. Hellenic Studies Series 67. Washington, D.C.: Center for Hellenic Stud-
ies. Distributed by Harvard University Press, 2014. Pp. xvii, 234. $24.95. ISBN
978-0-674-41722-9.

The title of this book requires some explanation. At Phaedrus 259c–d Socrates
tells a story about the origin of cicadas. They were once men, he says, but died
quickly because their total devotion to the Muses caused them to neglect both
food and drink. From them the race of cicadas was born to sing and after death
to report to each of the Muses how they were honored among men. Socrates
mentions four Muses by name: Terpsichore and Erato, who are interested in
dance and love, respectively, and Calliope and Urania, who are the Muses of
philosophy. This catalogue, with its four named Muses, provides the title for
Capra’s book on the Phaedrus. In it he argues for the thematic significance
of these Muses here and within the Platonic corpus as a whole. According to
Capra, in Phaedrus Plato describes a style of philosophical discourse that has a
 Reviews 431

special connection to the Muses and “turns out to be . . . a form of provocatively
old-fashioned mousikê” (xiii).
The idea that there is an important connection between the Platonic dia-
logues and the Greek poetic tradition will surprise no one. Despite the reserva-
tions about poetry expressed in the Republic and elsewhere, Plato’s work shows
a sustained interest in poetry. Moreover, the dialogues themselves are creations
of art with many of the same characteristics we associate with poetry. Yet Capra
takes this argument in a whole new direction with a number of provocative
statements. He argues that the first part of Phaedrus is a reenactment of the
performance of the Stesichorus poem of Helen.1 Capra goes on to say that the
Helen-themed compositions of Gorgias, Isocrates, and Sappho are reflected in
the structure of the dialogue as well; that references in the dialogue to the plane
tree are meant to evoke the arboreal cult of Helen (59); that the cicada scene
mentioned above is Plato’s reworking of myths of poetic initiation, such as we
see for Hesiod at Th. 22–34 and for Archilochus on the Mnesiepes inscription
(E1 II Clay); and that the prayer to Pan (279b–c) connects the initiation of poets
to the cult of Socrates at the Academy, providing an “aition for the foundation of
Plato’s Academy” (xiv). None of these statements strikes me as intuitively obvi-
ous. This is not to say that Capra could not be correct, of course, but the sheer
complexity of the formulations would require a particularly lucid presentation in
order to persuade. Unfortunately, the argument often does not supply this sort of
analysis. As a result, I often failed to see connections where Capra did.
The lack of clarity extends to other aspects of the book as well. The pref-
ace begins with a puzzling metadiscourse about the book’s imagined audience.
This audience is said to include the general reader and students of the reception
of Greek lyric poetry. Its primary audience, however, consists of “Platonists,”
whom Capra characterizes as either “gods” or “giants,” appropriating a meta-
phor of Plato’s Eleatic Stranger (Sophist 246a–b) to distinguish idealist from
materialist thinkers. The discussion that follows the introduction of the meta-
phor is difficult to follow. The “Platonists” appear to be two types of professional
philosophers, although later both types seem to be contrasted with philologists.
The more general criticism that Capra seems to make is that Platonic studies
are excessively compartmentalized and ought to make use of a multidisciplinary
approach. I do not disagree. However, the vagueness of the controlling metaphor
makes it difficult to be certain (this probably labels me as a giant).
This is a book with many interesting ideas. Others may find them argued
more persuasively than I did. It is certainly not a book for the general reader
(pace Capra) or for undergraduates. Nevertheless, graduate students and schol-
ars in classics and philosophy may well find it stimulating. They will also be
grateful for the impressive bibliography, especially since it contains much im-
portant work written in languages other than English.

CHARLES PLATTER
University of Georgia

1 
See also R. Hunter, in P. J. Finglass and A. Kelly (eds.), Stesichorus in Context
(Cambridge 2015) 150-51, for the suggestion that Socrates’ self-veiling at 237a is a form
of temporary self-blinding in the manner of Stesichorus.