III

Plutarch did not, however, escape criticism, at least in a later generation. The situation in Athenian Platonism during the rest of the second century A.D. is in fact interestingly complex. We know of no Platonist in Athens, after Ammonius's death, during Plutarch's lifetime (unless perhaps Gaius or the shadowy figure of Nicostratus was based there), but in the decades after his death the dominant Platonist in Athens, Calvenus Taurus, regards Plutarch with affection and likes to quote him (cf. Aulus Gellius NA 1.26). Taurus's position in ethics accords with Plutarch's (NA 1.26) and so does his propensity for attacking the Stoics (he wrote, like Plutarch, a work exposing their inconsistencies [NA 12.5]), but on the question of the temporal creation of the world (which resolves itself into the question of the true meaning of Plato's gegonen , at Tim . 28B), he reverts to the more traditional line that it is not to be taken literally, and he indeed produces an elaborate list of four possible nonliteral meanings (ap . Philoponus De aet. mundi , p. 145, lines 13ff. Rabe). He refers to "certain others" who have held that the world according to Plato is created, but without any particular rancor or any suggestion that they should be excommunicated. He is simply Concerned to defend the opposite point of view.

[19] At De facie 943A, he criticizes "the many" for wrongly believing man to be composed of just two parts, but these need not be regarded as any set of philosophers, let alone Platonist philosophers.