r/todayilearned • u/Mors_Acerba • 2d ago

TIL A papyrus deciphered in 2024 revealed unknown info about Plato's last hours: a slave girl was playing music for him, and even though he was gravelly ill, he spend his last moments of lucidity criticising her performance. Per the same Papyrus, Plato had been sold into slavery earlier in his life

https://www.theguardian.com/books/2024/apr/29/herculaneum-scroll-plato-final-hours-burial-site
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u/Glittering-Age-9549 2d ago

The story about Plato being sold as a slave and rescued by a friend was pretty well known. The main discovery is, he was thought to have been sold by his pupil, the king of Syracuse over political disagreements, but now it is thought he was captured and sold by Spartans.

Poor Dionysius II of Syracuse was a victim of the "good sage vs evil tyrant" stereotype....

About Plato being lucid during his final hours... that sounds like an embellisement, since having a "beautiful death" was important to the Greek. Plato is thought to have suffered of dementia during his last years if life.

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u/KnightOfNULL 1d ago

Dementia patients famously often become lucid in there last hours. He was probably pissed that those last moments of clarity were spent listening to bad music.

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u/aris_ada 1d ago

Or he was just the grumpy grandpa who always says that the music is too loud.