Alcinous

, a Platonic philosopher, is supposed to have lived about the beginning of the second century. We have no account of his life, nor is he known but by his “Introduction to the doctrine of Plato,” with which he appears to have been very well acquainted. Marsilius Ficinus translated it into Latin, and it was published, for the first time, with various pieces by Jamblicus, Proclus, Porphyry, Synesius, and other Platonists, Venice, by Aldus, 1497, fol. It has often been reprinted, and Charpentier wrote a commentary on it, which was published at Paris, 1575, 4to. Dennis Lambin gave an edition in Gr. and Lat. with scholia, Paris, 1567, 4to; and Michael Vascosan another, ibid. 1532, 8vo. Daniel Heinsius has inserted it in his editions of Maximus Tyrius, Leyden, 1608, 1617, and Oxford, 1667, 8vo. It is also, in Latin, in the first editions of Apuleius, Rome, 1469, and 1472; Venice, 1521, &c.; and our countryman, Stanley, printed it in his “History of Philosophy.” It was very recently translated into French, and published by M. Combes Dounous, Paris, 1800, 12mo. There is another Alcinous, mentioned by Philostratus in his lives of the Greek sophists. ²