Opening The Dissertations — Maximus of Tyre in Plato Scroll…
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Maximus of Tyre · Thomas Taylor
Forty-one philosophical orations (διαλέξεις) by Maximus of Tyre, an itinerant Platonic lecturer of the second century — eloquent popular discourses on God, love, the soul, prayer, fate, and the philosophic life, everywhere steeped in Homer and Plato. This is Thomas Taylor’s translation of 1804, the first ever made into English, with his own copious notes. Public domain. In disputing concerning daemons, I can bear the opposition of arguments, I can endure the contention, and do not think that the conduct of him who doubts, with himself or with another, concerning the existence, essence, and magnitude of a daemoniacal nature, is in any respect dire, erroneous, and absurd. For here indeed the name is uncertain; the essence of that which is investigated is unapparent, and its power is the subject of doubt. But now, in speaking of divinity, how shall I act? By what beauty of words, by what …
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