Darby and I have been emailing back and forth about a collaborative project on the topic of hero cult in Plato. This project takes as its starting points a preliminary cut at the subject that I presented as a political science conference paper back in 2006, Darby’s prior research on lamentation, Darby’s NEH presentation on katabasis in Plato, and my NEH presentation contrasting immortality and eternity as responses to the challenges of political life. We hope to reconsider conventional readings of Plato’s hostility toward politics by investigating the relationships in his work and life between hero cult, poetry, and philosophic notions of eternity.

Robert Pirro is Professor of Political Science at Georgia Southern University.