The Berkeley Plato: From Neglected Relic to Ancient Treasure, An Archaeological Detective Story

Ribbons

is said to have expressed with self-assurance his own opinions on these same subjects.92 But I doubt that it can also be coincidence that our only source for the mention of any statue of Plato from his own lifetime is the same Favorinus: “In the first book of the Memorabilia by Favorinus it is related that Mithradates the Persian set up a statue of Plato in the Akademy and inscribed on it ‘Mithradates the Persian, son of Orontobates , dedicated to the Muses a statue of Plato that Silanion made.’”93 If it is true that the Plato Favorinus saw in the Akademy was the one that served as the prototype for the Berkeley Plato, then the ribbons of the Berkeley Plato may have been a part of the fourth-century statue, although not necessarily carved in stone, as we shall see further below. RIBBONS The ribbons on the Berkeley Plato, however, have been the major reason for discrediting the inscription, and by extension the portrait, even if the latter has hitherto been unknown. These ribbons, for which the ancient name is tainiva (pl. tainivai), have rounded ends.94 The actual ribbons were made of woven wool, the threads of which were tied or even braided together, thereby creating the rounded ends of the ribbon and a 40 / The Berkeley Plato cially since he then quotes Pausanias to show that it was open in Pausanias’s day. Indeed, as we know from older excavations in the Akademy and more recent ones in the Lykeion, the two gymnasia (technically palaistrai) were remarkably similar architecturally in the second century after Christ, and both seem to have survived into the third century after Christ. See E. Lygouri-Tolia, “Excavating an Ancient Palaistra in Athens,” in Maria Stamatopoulou and Marina Yeroulanou, eds., Excavating Classical Culture: Recent Archaeological Discoveries in Greece (Oxford 2002), 203–12 92. S.H.A., Hadrian 16.7. 93. Apud Diogenes Laertius 3.25: jende; tw¸/ prwvtw/ tw¸n j Apomhnoneumavtwn Fabwrivnou fevretai o{ti Miqradavthˇ oJ Pevrshˇ ajndriavnta Plavtwnoˇ ajnevqeto eijˇ th;n j Akadhvmeian kai; j epevgraye: “Miqradavthˇ jOrontobavtou Pevrshˇ Mouvsaiˇ eijkovna ajnevqhke Plavtwnoˇ, h}n Silanivwn ejpoivhse.” 94. Krug 1967, 136–40. tail to them. This method of securing the threads has been called practical if not particularly elegant, and it is portrayed in a variety of ways.95 Sometimes the tail that was the braided ends is shown, and sometimes not; sometimes it was probably portrayed originally but has not been preserved . Smutny’s assessment of the significance of the tainia on the Berkeley Plato has been universally accepted: “The vestiges of the taeniae are incongruous with a portrait bust of Plato. Such taeniae are customarily associated with Dionysus, Zeus-Ammon, Hermes, Heracles, Satyrs, Silenus, and with indeterminate bearded gods.” This statement is wrong.96 In the first place, a survey of vase paintings reveals that Dionysos most commonly wears an ivy crown when he wears anything at all on his head. On the relatively rare occasions when he is shown wearing a ribbon, it frequently has squared and not rounded ends.97 The round-end tainia is, however, shown first and most often in athletic scenes.98 Two Panathenaic amphoras in Athens, for example, show roundThe Berkeley Plato / 41 95. Krug 1967, 4: “praktisch und rasch anzuwenden, wenn auch nicht sehr elegant.” 96. There are no examples in Krug’s collection of Zeus-Ammon, Herakles, or indeterminate bearded gods wearing ribbons, and only a very few examples of Hermes, Satyrs, and Silenos. 97. See, for example, the red-figure stamnos showing Dionysos wearing an ivy crown and a square-end tainia: Paris, Louvre, inv. no. G 411. Also note the square-ended ribbon on the pseudo-Plato in the Capitoline (inv. no. 288), above, p. 32, and figs. 23 and 24 here. This type of tainia does fit Smutny’s (1966, 4– 5) statement about appropriateness to various divinities. Krug’s lists of her first three types of ribbon, which are round-end and therefore those relevant to our study, show a number of Dionysos portrayals, but these are far outnumbered by the portrayals of Dionysos with an ivy crown, to judge from a superficial survey of the CVA. (This is not intended to be more than a general indication.) 98. Krug 1967, 6, 7, 67 (list 1 O). Her type-2 ribbon is also shown in many athletic scenes in two variants: ribbons the threads of which have been gathered and knotted in smaller...