ABSTRACT
Probably written some time in the first or early second centuries AD, the Tablet of Cebes is a moralising allegory of human life depicted by a fictitious tablet or plaque (pinax) chanced upon in the Temple of Cronus by the narrator and his friends. Despite the wording of the title identifying the author as Cebes,we do not know who this person was. It was not the Cebes of Socrates’ circle (see ‘Authorship and Date’ below), and it is doubtful that he was the Cebes of Cyzicus mentioned by Athenaeus. The work must have already been attributed to someone with the name Cebes by Lucian’s time, because he clearly refers to this work as having been written by a Cebes. We simply do not know whether the work was falsely ascribed to Socrates’ Cebes, innocently or through a deliberate act of misattribution, or whether it was correctly assigned to a different Cebes. But obviously the work had an author, so we have to conclude either that (1) this was another Cebes who – apart from bequeathing us his Tablet – has left no other trace (as far as we know) in the historical record, or (2) Cebes was a pseudonym, or (3) his true name has been lost (FW 5-7). We will therefore refer to Cebes as the author of the Tablet, meaning to accord him no other attribute.
