Authority Beyond Doctrines in the First Century BC: Antiochus' Model for Plato's Authority

In this paper I show that Antiochus of Ascalon provided some crucial material for Platonism in the qualified sense that he coined a model of Plato’s authority, in a dogmatic perspective, that preceded and had priority over the various doctrines which were to be embedded into it. I will then briefly turn to Eudorus in order to confirm my point. If my view is correct, it is bound to have significant consequences with respect to our conception of the history of Platonism. On the one hand, one should backdate the theoretical construction of a conception of Plato as a dogmatic authority after the sceptical period of the Academy to the 1st century BC. On the other, however, we are in a better position to detect in what sense Middle Platonism only emerged in the 1st century AD, namely in terms of the application of shared exegetical methods and a commitment to a set of crucial (yet very general) philosophical tenets.