Diogene di Babilonia lettore delle Leggi di Platone: Etica, politica, filosofia del diritto

This paper analyzes in depth the use that Diogenes of Babylon made of Plato’s Laws in his treatise devoted to musical subjects, of whose content we are informed thanks to one of the best preserved Herculaneum texts: Book 4 of Philodemus’ On Music. The Platonic legacy in Diogenes is examined from three points of view: a) the ethical-pedagogical effects of music (Leg. 2); b) the educational role of gymnastics and the classification of dances (Leg. 7); c) the problem of nomos and its relationship to the Stoic concept of justice (Leg. 6 and 9). The paper attempts to demonstrate that, if it is true that Diogenes refers to Plato sometimes even with literal quotations, he emancipates himself from the political project of the Laws (only apparently less radical than that of the Republic) in the name of a principle of adaptation to social reality that represents one of the most important ethical claims in the last stage of early Stoa.