Latin Equivalents Research Articles

The Name of Plato

JN THE life of Plato by Diogenes Laertius we are told that Plato learnt gymnastics under Ariston, the Argive wrestler. And from him he received the name of Plato on account of his robust figure, in place of his original name which was Aristocles, after his grandfather, as Alexander informs us in his Successions of Philosophers. But others affirm that he got the name Plato from the breadth of his style or from the breadth of his forehead, as suggested by Neanthes.I In his account Diogenes Laertius mentions three sources for the name of Plato: (1) Alexander Polyhistor, the source of the Ariston anecdote; (2) Neanthes of Cyzicus, who associates the name with the breadth of Plato's forehead; (3) unnamed sources (ivtot) which derive the name from the breadth of his style. All these three sources date from the Alexandrian period of biography which got much of its information from its Peripatetic forerunners.2 That the unnamed sources of Diogenes Laertius also date from the Alexandrian period is evident from Cicero and Pliny, who evidently were aware of the association of lX4Tcov with rXarV'4r-qs T's 'pp1nv'las. In Orat. i. 1 Cicero refers to Platonis and in Epistle I 10. 5 Pliny refers to Plato's genius as Platonicam illam sublimitatem et latitudinem. The association of amplitudo and latitudo, the Latin equivalents of wXari-rs,3 with Plato are an indication that this phase of the tradition had penetrated into Latin literature during Cicero's lifetime.4 These sources about Plato's name became a biographical rubric

Critical Notes on New and Old Genera of Plants. VIII.

Chlorophyllum. A rather unusual oversight, such in fact as one would scarcely expect in modern biological nomenclature is the case of the fungus name Chloropphyllum. Rafinesque on occasion had published a name and afterward quite unaware apparently or forgetful of his own previous publication thereof used it a second time for an altoge-Lher different plant.' In volume 9, p. I72 of the North American Flora,2 Murrill founded a new genus of fungi from Guiana on Neurophyllum viride Pat. which he called Chlorophyllurn, and in the same work, volume io, p. 643 there appears another Chlorophylum Mass.4 a plant not only in the same family but also the type from the same country. It is perfectly evident that in a work as well prepared as the North American Flora the two can not be expected to merit survival under the same name. That of Massey seems to possess priority and another designation is demanded for Murrill's Chlorophyllum. Even in mycologv where the nomenclature has not been as exactly and exhaustively systematized by anv means as in the case of the ferns and phanerogams, exemplified by the Index of Christensen and Kew, one could hardly have looked for a mistake like the above mentioned, and in the Flora at that. Such oversights are, however, easily made, and without blame to any extent on the part of either author or editor, so difficuilt a matter is the perfect editing of a work of the scope and pretensions of this Flora. The name Chiorophyllumn is a name especially for a chlorophylless plant, nor even a real leafy one is hardly a good one for either, nor is the use of a name already used in botany as the latin equivalent of the functioning photosynthetic organ of plant food elaboration to be recommended as applicable to systemat-ic entity or genus. To replace the antedated name