This volume contains papers and commentaries presented in the thirteenth annual Boston Area Colloquium during the academic year 1990-1991. Contents: Along with a preface and introduction by the editor, it features the following major contributions: Harold Attridge, Gnostic Platonism; Richard Kraut, Return to the Cave: Republic 519-521; Elizabeth Asmis, Epicurean Poetics;Jaap Mansfield, The Concept of Will in Posidonius and Galen; Christopher Rowe, Philosophy and Literature: The Arguments of Plato's Phaedo; Richard Patterson, The Ascent in Plato's Symposium; and Richard Janko, Philodemus Restatus. Co-published with the Boston Area Colloquium in Ancient Philosophy.