Plato lived at the time of the golden age of historiography in Ancient Greece, in general, and Attica, in particular. In the 5th and 4th centuries BC, Athens was abundant in many authors of ‘histories’ and ‘genealogies’. Plato was a younger contemporary of the Athenian historian Thucydides; Xenophon, a philosopher, general and author of several historical and biographic works, belonged to the same milieu. Both Xenophon and Plato were more interested in the actual present than in the past, same went for Thucydides, who recorded the history of the great war he had participated in.
     The report does not purport to examine the Plato historiography or his views on the history of the state forms of government, but poses a question of the attitude assumed by the founder of the Academy to the trade of the historian, the subject and the purpose of his research, that is, what constitutes the purport of studying history. Drawing upon Plato’s dialogues, researchers discuss historical tales written by the Athenian neo-mythologist on Atlantis, on the ideal politia (city-state), the myth of ‘perpetual return’, etc.; they speak about a specific conception Plato had, on the relation between history and Plato’s educational programme. Yet, the founder of the Academy cannot be called rerum scriptor, neither was he a ‘devotee of history’; his philosophic views belittle the past and the present for the sake of the future.
     In his works, Plato uses the words ἱστορία, ἱστορικός to mean ‘knowledge, science’. The report analyses a well-known passage from “Hippias major”, where the famous Sophist Hippias, who had come to Athens from Elis to converse with Socrates, owned to his ability to afford pleasure to crude and tough Lacedaemonians, who enjoyed listening to all sorts of ancient stories (πάσης τῆς ἀρχαιολογίας ἥδιστα ἀκροῶνται, Plato Hipp. major 285d–e). Plato’s hero, Socrates, scoffs at Hippias’ making a display of his mnemonics (τὸ μνημονικόν), his ability to immediately memorize and retain information. The philosopher compares the historic accounts to a childish wish to listen to ‘old wives’ tales’ (286a).

Plato, history, historians, Plato Hippias major 285d–e, philosophy, mythology, Thucydides, Xenophon, Hippias, Hecataeus, Pherecydes, Hellanicus, “genealogies”

*Исследование выполнено при финансовой поддержке Российского фонда фундаментальных исследований в рамках научного проекта № 19-09-00022а «“Праотцы истории”: древнейшие представители античной исторической науки».
The research was carried out thanks to funding of Russian Foundation for Basic Research, project 19-09-00022а “‘Forefathers of history’: The oldest representatives of ancient historical science”.