It does what it says on the tin.
The Medici's invented Plato, to promote Democracy, which they could control using money/bribery/intimidation/blackmail.
As far as 'inventing Plato', there was a guy by the name of Georgius Gemistus, later named Plethon (Plethon = Plato). It seems he either wrote or translated someone else's work and that became known as 'Plato's work':
"1360 – 1452/1454, later called Plethon, was one of the most renowned philosophers of the late Byzantine era.[4] He was a chief pioneer of the revival of Greek scholarship in Western Europe.[5] As revealed in his last literary work, the Nomoi or Book of Laws, which he only circulated among close friends, he rejected Christianity in favour of a return to the worship of ancient Hellenic Gods as well as ancient wisdom based on Zoroaster and the Magi.[6]
He re-introduced Plato's ideas to Western Europe during the 1438–1439 Council of Florence, a failed attempt to reconcile the East-West schism. Here, it was believed until recently, Plethon met and influenced Cosimo de' Medici to found a new Platonic Academy, which, under Marsilio Ficino, would proceed to translate into Latin all Plato's works, the Enneads of Plotinus, and various other Neoplatonist works. "
As for Cosimo De Medici:
"Cosimo's power over Florence stemmed from his wealth, which he used to control the votes of office holders in the municipal councils, most importantly the Signoria of Florence. As Florence was proud of its "democracy", he pretended to have little political ambition and did not often hold public office. Enea Piccolomini, Bishop of Siena and later Pope Pius II, said of him:
"Political questions are settled in [Cosimo's] house. The man he chooses holds office... He it is who decides peace and war... He is king in all but name"
"The arrival of notable Byzantine figures from the Eastern Roman Empire, including Emperor John VIII Palaiologos himself, started a boom in interest for Greek culture and arts in the city"
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[–] TheSeer [S] ago
I'm saying the ancient world as we know it, didn't happen when (or necessarily where) we think it did. So if Plato is Plethon, then Plotinus is just one of his students or acquaintances. Augustine of Hippo, look at when HIS ORDER was founded? 1254.
"Many Protestants, especially Calvinists and Lutherans, consider him to be one of the theological fathers of the Protestant Reformation due to his teachings on salvation and divine grace."
So what makes more sense, for this Augustine of Hippo to have done his work in the period 1440-1500, just before the Protestant Reformation, or hundreds of years earlier?
If you like Plato's work, you can STILL like Plato's work (or in this case Plethon's work). What changes is WHEN it was written, and widely distributed.
In the 1200-1300s almost no one had read the Bible. It didn't even exist in entirety, but some had read the Gospels, Proverbs, Psalms, etc. When do you think countries started adopting the BC/AD dating method?
Here's a good one. When was cement/concrete developed? It was used to build the Pantheon, right? So surely concrete was widely used thereafter?
[–] TrialsAndTribulation ago
Here's a useful rule of thumb: If a person's new theory or system completely repudiates everything that preceded it and replaces it all with a sweeping new conception of how things work, tends to be all-encompassing, and is a self-contained paradigm the requires multiple new but unproven concepts to reinforce the whole, that person is probably a crank. Such a person has too much imagination and not enough understanding or knowledge, and often too much ego and self-importance.
[–] TheSeer [S] ago
So the idea that Plato lived and wrote 1800 years later than you previously thought he did, is just too much for your small mind to handle, therefore I am a crank. OK... Did you ever get around to figuring out when the AD/BC system became widely used? Cement/concrete? Crossbows?
How about the trace amounts of cocaine and nicotine that has been found in Egyptian mummies? "In 1992, German toxicologist Svetlana Balabanova discovered traces of cocaine, hashish and nicotine on Henut Taui's hair as well as on the hair of several others mummies of the museum[5] which is significant,[2] in that the only source for cocaine and nicotine had been considered to be the coca and tobacco plants native to the Americas, and were not thought to have been present in Africa until after Columbus voyaged to America" https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Henut_Taui
Now, whereas most would say "The Egyptians must have gone to the New World before Columbus!" the other conclusion is that the chronology of the Egyptian mummies is simply mistaken! As is the chronology of the crossbow, cement, 'ancient Greece', 'ancient Rome', and so on. Just about everything that is a 'mystery' of history is due to wrong assumptions.
How did the work of Homer survive as an oral tradition for thousands of years? It is clearly ludicrous. Some tales would have survived, sure, elaborated on, yep, written down, edited, further elaborated on, but is anything more than the rough outline of the story Homer's? Of course not.
Karamzin questioned accepted Chronology.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nikolay_Karamzin
Jean Hardouin questioned accepted Chronology.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jean_Hardouin "It is, however, as the originator of a variety of eccentric theories that Hardouin is now best remembered. The most remarkable, contained in his Chronologiae ex nummis antiquis restitutae (1696) and Prolegomena ad censuram veterum scriptorum, was to the effect that, with the exception of the works of Homer, Herodotus and Cicero, the Natural History of Pliny, the Georgics of Virgil, and the Satires and Epistles of Horace, all the ancient classics of Greece and Rome were spurious, having been manufactured by monks of the 13th century, under the direction of a certain Severus Archontius by whom he might have meant Frederick II.[2] He denied the genuineness of most ancient works of art, coins and inscriptions, and declared that the New Testament was originally written in Latin, as he underlined with good reasoning in his short work Prolegomena which appeared in the year he died, 1729"
Isaac Newton questioned accepted Chronology.
All crackpots, I guess! They should have asked Trials and Tribulations how much can be acceptably repudiated. Your rule of thumb is just a guideline for mediocrity of thought.
[–] TrialsAndTribulation ago
"So what makes more sense, for this Augustine of Hippo to have done his work in the period 1440-1500, just before the Protestant Reformation, or hundreds of years earlier?"
Augustine did not form the order named after him. He died in the fifth century in North Africa and there's abundant proof for that. It's clear you have no idea what you're talking about.
Plus you didn't address my point on this imaginary fraudulent and hoaxed history you claim Plethon wrote.
[–] TheSeer [S] ago
Even Isaac Newton thought the accepted Chronology of his day was erroneous.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Chronology_of_Ancient_Kingdoms_Amended
"The book attempts to revise the accepted ancient chronology of Newton's day, in order to prove that Solomon was the earliest king in the world, and that his Temple the first ever built, with all others being copies, beginning with Sesostris, King of Egypt, followed by others. Newton's results, therefore, diverge widely from presently accepted dates, often more widely than the system that he attempted to displace.
Newton attempted to identify various mythological figures as historical or Biblical individuals, such as arguing that the Titan Saturn was Noah, the god Jupiter was Shem, and Osiris and Dionysus were Sesostris.[2] The work treats figures from Greek mythology, such as the centaur Chiron and the Argonauts, as historical fact"
You didn't answer my question when BC/AD dating was adopted, nor when cement/concrete was developed, (plus when it became widely used).
I don't even know what your question is. When was history made fraudulent? Over decades, possibly more than a century, between 1550-1700 roughly. When was 'ancient Egypt's chronology widely known by scholars? That is what you have to realize, this was all done for a purpose. The more ancient, the more prestigious.
That is why you are so against the idea that Plethon wrote what we today call Plato's work, because then it is 'merely' 600 years old, not 2400. For me, it just provides context into who financed and funded the work, and what their motives may have been (which is pretty clear, given the context).