Sulla lettura del Fedone nella ‘Quarta Accademia’ (con riflessioni sulla composizione dell’Assioco pseudoplatonico)

Few years ago, William Stull has persuasively examined Cicero’s peculiar reading of Plato’s Phaedo in Tusculans i (Reading the Phaedo in Tusculan Disputations 1, «Classical Philology», cvii, pp. 38-52). This article aims to show that Stull’s results can be interpreted not as Cicero’s personal reading of Plato’s Phaedo, but as his personal reinterpretation of a certain ‘hermeneutic approach’ to the Phaedo, which had been probably developed in the Academy led by Philo of Larissa, Cicero’s Academic master. Besides other reasons, this hypothesis is supported by the impressive intertextual play existing between the pseudo-platonic Axiochus and Tusculans i, as well as between these two dialogues and the Phaedo. In the ‘Appendix’ the author discusses the recent article by Francesco Verde (Filone di Larissa e l’Assioco, «Elenchos», xlii.1, 2021, pp. 199-208) dealing with A. Beghini, [Platone], Assioco, saggio introduttivo, edizione critica, traduzione e commento, Baden-Baden, Academia Verlag, 2020.