ABSTRACT
Early in the imperial age, some two centuries before Plotinus arrived on the Roman scene, the issue of an appropriate Platonic curriculum began to be hotly debated. Philosophical texts were now becoming more widely circulated, and there was more expectation that one would be able to access large bodies of philosophical work. Philosophers who claimed to teach in a given tradition of philosophy were expected to have wide familiarity with its founder’s works, and the ability to communicate the meaning of those works to those who sought either a creed by which to manage their daily lives, or at least a su ciently broad perspective on the ideas of the philosophers to impress their peers. But the more widely the texts of a given author became available the more it became necessary to develop some guidelines regarding the order in which one might encounter them. For the busier pupils it might also be necessary to identify which were the “core” works that anybody should read, and which were so insubstantial, esoteric or enigmatic that all but the devotee could leave them aside. In these circumstances arranging some of the larger philosophical corpora was regarded as worthwhile scholarly activity.
