An overview of the Corpus Protagoreum: A Bibliographical Note on Laks and Most’s Early Greek Philosophy

The recent nine-volume edition of the Early Greek Philosophy by Andre Laks and Glenn W. Most for the “Loeb Classical Library” collection (Harvard University Press) is announced as the new reference work. This work aims to replace the canonical edition of Diels and Kranz (1952). For this reason it includes new historiographical and doxographic perspectives. Due to the importance of the work, in this short bibliographical note I would like to review the edition of the fragments of Protagoras in comparison with previous editions of the sophist of Abdera. First, I make a historical overview of the construction of the corpus protagoreum . Then, I will concentrate on the novelties presented by the new edition of Laks and Most with respect to that of Diels and Kranz. Finally, I will make some ending remarks regarding this new collection.


Introduction
writing fragments of the early Greek philosophers; it is described as an update to the canonical edition of Diels and Kranz (1952) [abbreviation: DK] and incorporates new historiographical and philosophical perspectives.
Laks and Most's edition requires a detailed analysis. For this reason, in this bibliographical note, I only propose a revision of the chapter dedicated to the sophist Protagoras from Abdera. First, I provide a historical overview of the construction of the Corpus Protagoreum. Then, I concentrate on the novelties presented by Laks and Most's new edition with respect to that of Diels and Kranz. Finally, I make some concluding remarks regarding this new collection.

The edition of Protagoras' texts: An overview
Modern philological works have tended to constitute the literary corpus that brings together the conserved texts of ancient authors, which serves as a fundamental tool for historical work. The modern Corpus Sophisticorum has been established canonically from the edition of Herman Diels' Die Fragmente der Vorsokratiker, later enlarged and corrected by Walter Kranz. This corpus includes the Corpus Protagoreum as a "special corpus". In this case, since I am dealing with an author whose work is not preserved, but we know about it through testimonies and quotations from ancient authors, the corpus' conformation is of vital importance because it defines the universe from which the author would have given meaning to the world in which his work is inscribed.

The edition of Protagoras' fragments and testimonies
At the beginning of the 19th century, Jacobi Geelin's Historia Critica Sophistarum Qui Socratis Aeatate Athenis Floruerunt (1823) presented the first "collection of fragments and testimonies" of Protagoras. As part of his attempt to reconstruct the life and work of the sophists from a work on the sources, Geel's work would serve as a basis for subsequent editions. However, the first edition of Protagoras' fragments and testimonies conceived as such was the one compiled by Ioannes Frei in Quaestiones Protagoreae (1845). Otto Weber's Quaestiones Protagoreae (1850), resulted from work on the commentaries of Aristotle and expands the collected texts, which were philosophically reorganized by Anne Joan Vitringa in Disquisitio of Protagorae Vita et Philosophia (1853). These books constitute the most significant contributions to the study of this sophist during the nineteenth century.
In 1903, at the dawn of the twentieth century, the German philologist Herman Diels published Die Fragmente der Vorsokratiker in 2 volumes, which constitutes the first corpus of philosophical fragments of authors prior to Socrates; this work includes as an annex a corpus of texts of the old sophistic. It was corrected and enlarged by his assistant Walter Kranz, whose definitive edition (1952)  The historical development of the Corpus Protagoreum allows us to have an overview of some of the problems presented by its construction. First, we can observe a qualitative difference in the criteria of the collection and organization of texts. During the 19 th century, in the first collection sophist texts, Geel's edition organized the texts of Protagoras using four criteria: (1) vita et mortis, (2) placitis, (3) dicendi scribendique and genere and (3) dicendi ratione. In this book, Geel collects a considerable number of testimonies and quotations of Protagoras in a scholarly manner. Although many of the texts collected by him were subjected to critical revision by subsequent studies, his work on the sources was an unavoidable starting point in the constitution of the corpus. This work establishes the criteria from which the texts about Protagoras were organized in that century. However, Johann Frei's edition is considered as the first modern work dedicated exclusively to Protagoras. This study benefits from contributions made in previous works by Geist (1827) andHerbst (1832). In this book, Frei proposes a compilation, classification, and interpretation of the material around four aspects: (a) vita, (b) placita, (c) ars sophistica, and (d) scholis, discipulis, and scriptis. 4 Although Otto Weber's book is based mainly on the works of Geel and Frei, the study of the commentaries on Aristotle allowed him to make significant contributions to these collections. This book is a product of his doctoral dissertation; for this reason, his objectives are much more restricted than those of Geel (1823) or later, those of Vitringa (1853). Finally, the study of Vitringa (1853), based on critical work on the texts previously collected mainly by Geel (1823), Frei (1845), and Weber (1850), made a systematic work which organizes the texts in two parts: about Protagoras (Pars I) and his philosophy (Pars II). In the first part, he distinguishes between (1) vitae and (2) ingenio, moribus, and studiis; in the second, he distinguishes (1) de sensum perceptione, unico fonte cognitionis humanae, (2) de homine membro societatis humana, and (3) de disciplinis. He concludes with an epilogue on the sources of protagorean philosophy. In this book, he intends to carry out a philosophically systematic organization of the texts preserved on Protagoras. For this reason, his work is not only a critical review of the texts but also a proposal for a philosophical interpretation of its contents. Additionally, in the twentieth century, the collection by Diels (1903) plays a similar role as Geel's (1823). The classification of testimonies and fragments established by him endured for a long time during the twentieth century. Although the work was discussed and extensively revised, discussions focused on which texts to include in each section but not on the classification criteria. It was only at the end of the twentieth century that the criteria began to be reviewed in depth (see below §3.1).
Furthermore, qualitative differences in the criteria allow quantitative differences to be established. Laks and Most's (2016) new edition presents a total of 108 texts. Most of the texts have already been edited by Diels and Kranz but are presented differently and organized or divided into several 349 texts (see below §3.2). Diels and Kranz's edition collects a total of 46 texts for Protagoras, including testimonies (A: 30 texts), fragments (B: 12 texts), and imitations (B: 4 texts). However, in many cases, each text is composed by more than one source; they constitute a total of 63 passages. This work, in turn, critically reviews the previous collections (the nineteenth-century editions mainly), using modern philogical criteria to critically analyze and discard the different types of preserved texts, which modifies the quantity. A large part of the texts used in previous editions but eliminated by Diels and Kranz (1952) have been recovered in Capizzi's (1956) edition.

The new edition by Laks and Most (2016a)
Among the change introduced by Laks and Most (2016) the most significant is the replacement of the category of "presocratics" with "early Greek philosophers", which allows them to include Socrates in this collection. This change in the collection criteria introduces a new long-term perspective to address the development of Greek thought. The grouping according to geographical criteria allows a greater understanding of its development, as well as the historical and thematic displacement of the first philosophers. This new edition also presents several differences with respect to the canonical edition of Diels and Kranz. The new criteria in the organization of the material lead them to multiply the number of texts listed; however, this also implies the exclusion of others. In this section, I will present the applied criteria and analyze some of the differences regarding the Diels and Kranz edition. 5

The new criteria
The canonical edition of Diels and Kranz (1952) established the distinction between testimonies (A), fragments (B), and Imitations (C) as the criteria for the organization of texts. This criterion was maintained during the 20th century. Recently, the new edition of The Milesian School by G. Wöhrle  included in the collection Traditio Praesocratica: Zeugnisse Fruhgriechischer Philosophie und Ihres Fortlebens has reviewed the criteria. Since this collection is intended to document the transmission of early Greek philosophers as preserved in the tradition of several classical philosophical schools and late antiquity, Diels and Kranz's criteria is insufficient. Wöhrle's edition, however, focuses on the reception of doctrines by tradition; although there are no Milesian fragments, the organization of the material presents no greater difficulty. The same happens with the edition of Heraclitus by Serge Mouraviev (1999)(2000)(2001)(2002)(2003)(2004)(2005)(2006)(2007)(2008)(2009)(2010)(2011), who devotes several volumes to the tradition. 6 To some extent, Laks and Most (2016) share some points with the edition of Mouraviev for Heraclitus. One of the constants in the renewal of studies about early philosophers is the importance given to the reception of philosophical texts, as can be seen in De Gruyter's new collection (Traditio Praesocratica: Wöhrle 2009-11) and in Mouraviev's (1999Mouraviev's ( -2011 edition. This perspective is enriched mostly by the work around the history of reading practices. This perspective is mobilized from works carried out on the doxographic tradition (Osborne 1987), and received great impetus and renewal from the studies of cultural history around the history of reading practices (Svenbro 1988;Cavallo and Chartier, eds., 1997

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The chapter dedicated to Protagoras, which is the general criterion for chapters dedicated to authors, is divided into Person (= P), which collects information about his person (physical or imagined) as well as about his life, character, or what is said about him; Doctrine (= D) incorporates testimonies about his thought along with the preserved fragments; and Reception (= R), where the change is provided about how his doctrine was received in antiquity. This type of organization of the texts presents some advantages with respect to the classification of Diels and Kranz. It avoids the problem of discussing the inclusion of a text as a fragment or testimony, even though textual quotations are indicated in boldface typography. D includes as many quotations as the testimonies about the statements attributed to them, while R allows him to group not only its reception by the doxographic tradition but also its reception by authors who were to some extent contemporary. However, it allows solving the question around the Platonic tradition. This shows to what extent the Platonic testimony may or may not be considered a reproduction of sophistic thinking. The inclusion of many Platonic texts considered 'B' by Diels and Kranz (1952) in the category R by Laks and Most (2016a) allows them to solve the question of their inclusion in the Corpus Protagoreum. Although they cannot be affirmed as protagorean texts, they are considered later receptions of doctrines of this sophist and, therefore, as allusions to his thought.

The redistribution of some texts
The increase in the number of texts that compose this new collection compared to that of Diels and Kranz (see above §2.2) is due in large part to the redistribution of texts rather than the incorporation of new texts (see below §3.3). Diels and Kranz included some texts as testimonies or fragments, while in the Laks and Most's edition, they are divided into several texts on the person of Protagoras (such as Athenaeus, V.218b = DK80A11, that is included as P9a, P9b), on its doctrine (this is the case of the testimonies of Stephanus of Bysantium, s.v. Ἄβδηρα = DK80A21, included as D28, R18, and Plato, Cratylus 391b-c = DK80A24, separated in D5b, D21; as well as the fragment in Cicero, Brutus 12.46 and Quintilian, Training in Oratory 3.1.12 = DK80B6, divided into D18, D19respectly), or the reception of his thought (this happens with the testimonies of Sextus Empiricus, Against the Logicians 7.389-90 = DK80A15, divided into R22, R9b; and Plato, Euthydemus 286b-c = DK80A19, separated as R10, R14a, R17; as well as with the fragment in Diogenes Laertius III.37 = DK80B5, included as R1a, R1b).
Other texts are not divided into such homogeneous parts but are divided into different sections. This is the case, for example, of the extensive testimony of Diogenes Laertius IX.50-56 (= DK80A1), from which twenty-one texts are derived (

The new texts
This edition includes fifteen texts not included in Diels and Kranz's edition: two texts in P, four texts in D, and nine in R. The texts included in P correspond to Plato, Protagoras 310a-b, 310e-311a (P10) ,and Richter (1965: I, 108) (P24); the first was included as testimony of the arrival of Protagoras in Athens, and the second as iconographic testimony. While the four texts included in D corresponds to P.Berol. Inv 9782, Col. 2.3-8 (D5c), Plato, Phaedrus 267bc (D22b), Protagoras 320c (D39), and 322d-323a (D41), the first text (D5c) had already been edited as a complement in Decleva Caizzi (1999 = CPF88 1T) and is a passage in which the title of his treatise On Truth is complemented by Plato, Theaetetus 161 (D5a = DK B1), and Cratylus 391c (D5b = DK A24). The second (D22b) is included as a testimony to the Protagoras' orthoepeia ('correctness of language'). While texts D39 and D41 are included as references to the doctrine expressed by the "Protagoras' myth" included in Plato's Protagoras, the first (D39) is a testimony of his position regarding the fictional character of the opposition logos-muthos, and the second (D41) is an explanation of the Protagoras' myth. Finally, of the nine texts added in R, four refer to the Platonic reception of protagorean doctrines of "Man-Measure" in Theaetetus 152c-e (R6), 162c (R7b), 163e-164a (R8), 170a3-c5 (R9a), and in

Excluded texts
Laks and Most's edition relocates some of the texts included by Diels and Kranz in their section on Protagoras (80). In this case, the passage of Plato (Hippias Major 282d-e = DK 80A9) is included as testimony about the person of Hippias (LM 36P4). While the passages of Aristophanes (Clouds 112-115 and 658-679 = DK 80C2) included as "Imitation" (C) in Diels and Kranz are included in section 42 ("'Sophist' and 'Sophistic': Collective Representations and General Characterizations") as T19 a and c, respectively.
Likewise, the testimonies DK80A4 and A23, as well as the imitation C1, were partially included. First, the DK80A4 testimony was composed of two sources; Eusebius of Cesarea (Jerome's Chronicles) is included in LM 31P4 as a testimony to the chronology, while Apuleyus (Florida 18)  Animals IV 10, 687a23), however, was excluded. The new edition also excludes some of the texts included by Diels and Kranz. The testimonies DK80A13 (Plato, Cratylus 385e), A18 (Tertullianus, On the Soul 15), and A22 (Plato, Protagoras 333d) were rejected as such by Laks and Most (2016).

Ending remarks
Laks and Most's (2016a) new edition is not only a reordering of the texts collected by Diels and Kranz (1952) but also a reorganization of texts based on new criteria, allowing them to recover the importance of many fragments and testimonies from this new perspective. Many texts that received little attention from scholars due to the limitations imposed by the criteria of Diels and Kranz are revalued and placed in a central place. Such is the case, for example, of the testimonies conserved in the Athenian comedy 7 or the reception of protagorean thought in antiquity. It also allows the evaluation of the texts from a new perspective, which does not stand on the discussion about whether to include them in the "fragment" category but rather highlight the ways in which they were read by tradition. Therefore, this new edition promises to renew studies on the early philosophers in general and on sophistry and Protagoras in particular. It proposes to both incorporate new texts and establish a new way of reading and thinking about ancient fragmentary texts.