Philip of Opus

Some say that Philip the Opuntian transcribed his [Plato's] work, Laws, which was written in wax [wooden tablets coated with wax].

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Philip (or Philippus) of Opus, Greece

Opus, Greece

Opus , in Ancient Greece, the chief city of Opuntian or Opuntian Locris. It was located on the coast of mainland Greece opposite Euboea, perhaps at modern Atalandi....
, was a philosopher and a member of the Academy

Platonic Academy

For the Raphael painting, see The School of AthensThe Academy was founded by Plato in ca. 387 BC in Classical Athens. It persisted throughout the Hellenistic period as a philosophical skepticism school, until coming to an end after the death of Philo of Larissa in 83 BC....
 during Plato

Plato

Plato , was a Classical Greece Greeks philosopher, mathematician, writer of philosophical dialogues, and founder of the Platonic Academy in Ancient Athens, the first institution of higher learning in the western world....
's lifetime. Philip was the editor of Plato's Laws. Philip of Opus is probably identical with the Philip of Medma

Medma

Medma or Mesma , was an ancient Greek city of Southern Italy , on the west coast of the Bruttian peninsula, between Hipponium and the mouth of the Metaurus ....
 (or Mende

Mende

Mende may refer to:* Mende people* Mende language* a commune of France, Mende, Loz?re in the Loz?re d?partement in France.* a village in Pest county Hungary: Mende, Hungary...
), the astronomer, who is also described as a disciple of Plato.

Plato's Laws and Epinomis

According to Diogenes Laërtius

Diogenes Laertius

Diogenes La?rtius , the biographer of the Greece philosophers, is supposed by some to have received his surname from the town of Laerte in Cilicia, Asia Minor, and by others from the Roman Empire family of the La?rtii....
, Philip of Opus was a disciple of Plato

Plato

Plato , was a Classical Greece Greeks philosopher, mathematician, writer of philosophical dialogues, and founder of the Platonic Academy in Ancient Athens, the first institution of higher learning in the western world....
, who was responsible for transcribing Plato's Laws

Laws (dialogue)

The Laws is Plato's last and longest dialogue. The question asked at the beginning is not "What is law?" as one would expect. That is the question of the Minos ....
 into twelve books, and writing the thirteenth book (the Epinomis

Epinomis

The Epinomis is a Socratic dialogue in the style of Plato and traditionally included among Plato's works. Today it is widely considered spurious because of its contents and because already some ancient sources attributed it to Philip of Opus....
) himself:

Some say that Philip the Opuntian transcribed his [Plato's] work, Laws, which was written in wax [wooden tablets coated with wax]. They also say that the Epinomis

Epinomis

The Epinomis is a Socratic dialogue in the style of Plato and traditionally included among Plato's works. Today it is widely considered spurious because of its contents and because already some ancient sources attributed it to Philip of Opus....
 [the thirteenth book of the Laws], is his.

In the Suda

Suda

The Suda or Souda is a massive 10th century Byzantine Empire Medieval Greek historical encyclopedia of the ancient Mediterranean world. It is an Encyclopedia lexicon with 30,000 entries, many drawing from ancient sources that have since been lost, and often derived from medieval Christian compilers....
, Philip is listed anonymously under the heading of philosophos ("philosopher"), his name being lost from the beginning of the entry:

Philosopher who divided the Laws of Plato into 12 books; for he himself is said to have added the 13th. And he was a pupil of Socrates and of Plato himself, occupied with the study of the heavens. Living in the time of Philip of Macedon

Philip II of Macedon

Philip II of Macedon,...
, he wrote the following: On the distance of the sun and moon; On gods; On time; On myths; On freedom; On anger; On reciprocation; On the Opuntian Lokrians; On pleasure; On passion; On friends and friendship; On writing; On Plato; On eclipse(s) of the moon; On the size of the sun and moon and earth; On lightning; On the planets; Arithmetic; On prolific numbers; Optics; Enoptics; Kykliaka; Means; etc.

Since the entry is located under the heading philosophos, the defect presumably existed in the source from which the Suda borrowed. It was not until the 18th century when Ludolf Kuster, the editor of the Suda, identified this anonymous entry with the Philip of Opus mentioned by Diogenes Laërtius.

Philip the astronomer

Because he is indentified in the Suda as an astronomer

Astronomer

An astronomer is a scientist who studies Celestial body such as planets, stars, and Galaxy.Historically, astronomy was more concerned with the classification and description of phenomena in the sky, while astrophysics attempted to explain these phenomena and the differences between them using physical laws....
, it is generally assumed that Philip of Opus is the same person as Philip of Medma

Medma

Medma or Mesma , was an ancient Greek city of Southern Italy , on the west coast of the Bruttian peninsula, between Hipponium and the mouth of the Metaurus ....
, (also called Philip of Mende

Mende

Mende may refer to:* Mende people* Mende language* a commune of France, Mende, Loz?re in the Loz?re d?partement in France.* a village in Pest county Hungary: Mende, Hungary...
) who was an astronomer and mathematician

Mathematician

A mathematician is a person whose primary area of study and/or research is the field of mathematics....
 and a disciple of Plato. Philip of Medma is mentioned by several ancient writers, such as Vitruvius

Vitruvius

File:Vitruvius.jpgMarcus Vitruvius Pollio was a Ancient Rome writer, architect and engineer , active in the 1st century BC. By his own description Vitruvius served as a Ballista , the third class of arms in the military offices....
, Pliny the Elder

Pliny the Elder

Gaius Plinius Secundus , better known as Pliny the Elder, was an ancient author, naturalist or natural philosopher and naval and military commander of some importance who wrote Natural History ....
, Plutarch

Plutarch

Lucius Mestrius Plutarchus , c. AD 46 ? 120 ? commonly known in English as Plutarch ? was a Ancient Rome historian , biographer, essayist, and Middle Platonism....
, (who states that he demonstrated the figure of the Moon

Moon

The Moon is Earth's only natural satellite and the List of natural satellites by diameter satellite in the Solar System. The average centre-to-centre distance from the Earth to the Moon is km, about thirty times the diameter of the Earth....
), Proclus

Proclus

Proclus Lycaeus , called "The Successor" or "Diadochos" , was a Greek philosophy Neoplatonist philosophy, one of the last major Classical philosophers ....
, and Alexander of Aphrodisias

Alexander of Aphrodisias

Alexander of Aphrodisias was the most celebrated of the Ancient Greek commentators on the writings of Aristotle. He was styled, by way of pre-eminence, "the expositor" ....
. His astronomical observations were made in the Peloponnese

Peloponnese

The Peloponnese or Peloponnesus is a large peninsula and Regions of Greece in southern Greece, forming the part of the country south of the Gulf of Corinth....
 and in Locris

Locris

Locris was a region of ancient Greece, the homeland of the Locrians, made up of two districts. Opuntian Locris or Eastern Locris was on the mainland coast stretching from Thermopylae to Larymna, opposite Euboea, while Ozolian Locris or Western Locris was on the northern coast of the Corinthian Gulf between Naupactus and Crisa, going inland...
 (where Opus

Opus, Greece

Opus , in Ancient Greece, the chief city of Opuntian or Opuntian Locris. It was located on the coast of mainland Greece opposite Euboea, perhaps at modern Atalandi....
 was a principal city), and were used by the astronomers Hipparchus

Hipparchus

Hipparchus, the common Latinization of the Greek Hipparkhos, can mean:* Hipparchus, the ancient Greek astronomer** Hipparchic cycle, an astronomical cycle he created...
, Geminus of Rhodes, and Ptolemy

Ptolemy

Claudius Ptolemaeus , known in English as Ptolemy , was a Roman Greek mathematics, Greek astronomy, geographer and astrologer. He lived in History of Roman Egypt, and was probably born there in a town in the Thebaid called Ptolemais Hermiou; he died in Alexandria around 168 AD....
. He is said by Stephanus of Byzantium

Stephanus of Byzantium

Stephanus of Byzantium, also known as Stephanus Byzantinus was the author of an important Gazetteer entitled Ethnica . Of the dictionary itself only meagre fragments survive, but we possess an epitome compiled by one Hermolaus....
 to have written a treatise on the winds.

Further reading

• Tarán, Leonardo. Academica: Plato, Philip of Opus, and the pseudo-Platonic Epinomis. Philadelphia: American Philosophical Society, 1975.