Plato's Name

You could argue that Plato is a topic for a Classics blog not Medieval but Plato's philosophy exerted a huge influence on the development of Christianity through people like Boethius and Augustine. As well, everybody in the Middle Ages read Timaeus.

Plato was born into old money. I always knew he came from a privileged family but I had not paid much attention to his biography. There is little information about him but he could be likened in status to Cato the Younger (without the big pickle jammed up his backside). In the Middle Ages, 'Plato' was said to not be his birth name, but was a nickname that he acquired from his wrestling instructor Ariston due to his broad physique or broad face. He had been named after his grandfather, Aristocles, according to Diogenes.

Most introductions to Plato's works will not mention the controversy about his name. There are several issues wrong with the story. First, Plato is a common Greek name and second his father's name is also Ariston. None of Diogenes' sources survive. Diogenes is the only early source for this anecdote. There are also many who still tell the story of Plato's name as though it were a proven fact. I found a nice article in "Classical Philology" by James A Notopoulos called The Name of Plato. I suppose it is best that he remain Plato since, if his name really was Aristocles, people might confuse him with his pupil, Aristotle.

Seriously. Especially people who are up late at night speed reading for an exam. Not me, of course. I would never do that.

Beorn

I was reading Gesta Herwardi, or The Deeds of Hereward the Wake, last night when the name of Beorn appeared on the page. Since I just mentioned him in my last post, it was interesting to be handed a reason for Tolkien choosing Beorn as the name of the shapeshifter.

After being banished by his father, Hereward went north to Northumberland and spent Christmas watching people wrestle bears for fun. He decided to test his strength against the biggest, baddest bear there. "This was the offspring of a famous Norwegian bear which had the head and feet of a man and human intelligence, which understood the speech of men and was cunning in battle. Its father, so the stories and legends told, was said to have raped a girl in the woods and through her to have engendered Beorn, King of Norway."(M. Swanton trans.)

All the bees are easily explained. 'Beo' is Anglo-Saxon for 'bee'.

It is a curious little tale and is probably taken from the same story that this Norwegian legend was taken from. Whether Tolkien chose the name for the story in Gesta Herewardi or the Norwegian story, I do not know. Either one is likely.