Review of John Dillon, The Heirs of Plato: A Study of the Old Academy (347-274 BC)

In The Heirs of Plato John Dillon explores the development of the Academy in the seventy years after Plato's death in 347 bc, the period generally known as the ‘Old Academy’. This period of ancient philosophy has suffered much neglect, due mainly to the poverty of the surviving evidence, but also, in part, due to the perception of the Old Academy's major figures as philosophically sterile followers of Plato. Dillon argues that there is sufficient secondary evidence for a coherent reconstruction of the philosophical activities of Plato's immediate successors; and, furthermore, that their activities merit our serious attention.