The exact burial place of Plato it was possible to identify, according to research by the Italian Research Foundation, which was based on papyri from the site of Hercolano, near Naples.
According to the research, led by the Italian papyrologist Graziano Ranocchia, Plato was buried in the “Academy” that bears his name in Athens, in a garden near the “temple of the Muses”.
This important discovery, according to what has become known, is due to a new reading of a papyrus of Philodemus the Epicureanwhich contains the History of the “Academy”, as broadcast by the Athenian and Macedonian News Agency.
The park of the Plato Academy in Kolonos
ARGYRO ANASTASIOU /EUROKINISSI
The papyri were “read” by a bionic eye, which, despite being charred by the eruption of Vesuvius in AD 79. which also destroyed Pompeii, was able to discover this new, useful information. The whole research started three years ago and will be completed in 2026. The bionic eye detected a thousand new words, compared to the previous one, which was done in 1991, that is 30% more text.
The Italian researchers add that from this new reading “it appears that Plato was sold as a slave as early as 404 BC, when the Spartans conquered Aegina, or, alternatively, in 399 BC, immediately after the death of Socrates.” Until now, this particular event was always referred to in 387 BC. and in the period when Plato was in Syracuse, Sicily.
