Introduction: The Old Academy to Cicero

The first and fourth chapters in this section represent a period before the riseof the Hellenistic philosophies, when Plato’s heritage was still alive and well,and a time when Plato was once again becoming a central figure in philosophicthinking. In between we have essays on the reception of Plato by the Stoics andby the Academic Sceptics, who may still have been preserving glimmers of theschool’s Platonic heritage, but whose arguments and influence are intimatelybound up with their need to counter their Hellenistic, and principally Stoic,opponents