Greek Texts & Translations

Further, Molon, being his enemy, said, "It is not wonderful that Dionysius should be in Corinth, but rather that Plato should be in Sicily." And it seems that Xenophon was not on good terms with him. At any rate, they have written similar narratives as if out of rivalry with each other, a Symposium, a Defence of Socrates, and their moral treatises or Memorabilia. ^note Next, the one wrote a Republic, the other a Cyropaedia. And in the Laws ^note Plato declares the story of the education of Cyrus to be a fiction, for that Cyrus did not answer to the description of him. And although both make mention of Socrates, neither of them refers to the other, except that Xenophon mentions Plato in the third book of his Memorabilia. 3.1.35 It is said also that Antisthenes, being about to read publicly something that he had composed, invited Plato to be present. And on his inquiring what he was about to read, Antisthenes replied that it was something about the impossibility of contradiction. "How then," said Plato, "can you write on this subject?" thus showing him that the argument refutes itself. Thereupon he wrote a dialogue against Plato and entitled it Sathon. After this they continued to be estranged from one another. They say that, on hearing Plato read the Lysis, Socrates exclaimed, "By Heracles, what a number of lies this young man is telling about me!" For he has included in the dialogue much that Socrates never said.

Plato was also on bad terms with Aristippus. At least in the dialogue Of the Soul ^note he disparages him by saying that he was not present at the death of Socrates, though he was no farther off than Aegina. Again, they say that he showed a certain jealousy of Aeschines, because of his reputation with Dionysius, and that, when he arrived at the court, he was despised by Plato because of his poverty, but supported by Aristippus. And Idomeneus asserts that the arguments used by Crito, when in the prison he urges Socrates to escape, are really due to Aeschines, and that Plato transferred them to Crito because of his enmity to Aeschines.

Nowhere in his writings does Plato mention himself by name, except in the dialogue On the Soul ^note and the Apology. ^note Aristotle remarks that the style of the dialogues is half-way between poetry and prose. And according to Favorinus, when Plato read the dialogue On the Soul, Aristotle alone stayed to the end; the rest of the audience got up and went away. Some say that Philippus of Opus copied out the Laws, which were left upon waxen tablets, and it is said that he was the author of the Epinomis. Euphorion and Panaetius relate that the beginning of the Republic was found several times revised and rewritten, and the Republic itself Aristoxenus declares to have been nearly all of it included in the Controversies of Protagoras. 3.1.38 There is a story that the Phaedrus was his first dialogue. For the subject has about it something of the freshness of youth. Dicaearchus, however, censures its whole style as vulgar.

A story is told that Plato once saw some one playing at dice and rebuked him. And, upon his protesting that he played for a trifle only, "But the habit," rejoined Plato, "is not a trifle." Being asked whether there would be any memoirs of him as of his predecessors, he replied, "A man must first make a name, and he will have no lack of memoirs." One day, when Xenocrates had come in, Plato asked him to chastise his slave, since he was unable to do it himself because he was in a passion. 3.1.39 Further, it is alleged that he said to one of his slaves, "I would have given you a flogging, had I not been in a passion." Being mounted on horseback, he quickly got down again, declaring that he was afraid he would be infected with horse-pride. He advised those who got drunk to view themselves in a mirror; for they would then abandon the habit which so disfigured them. To drink to excess was nowhere becoming, he used to say, save at the feasts of the god who was the giver of wine. He also disapproved of over - sleeping. At any rate in the Laws ^note he declares that 3.1.40 "no one when asleep is good for anything." He also said that the truth is the pleasantest of sounds. Another version of this saying is that the pleasantest of all things is to speak the truth. Again, of truth he speaks thus in the Laws ^note: "Truth, O stranger, is a fair and durable thing. But it is a thing of which it is hard to persuade men." His wish always was to leave a memorial of himself behind, either in the hearts of his friends or in his books. He was himself fond of seclusion according to some authorities.

His death, the circumstances of which have already been related, took place in the thirteenth year of the reign of King Philip, as stated by Favorinus in the third book of his Memorabilia, and according to Theopompus ^note honours were paid to him at his death by Philip. ^note But Myronianus in his Parallels says that Philo mentions some proverbs that were in circulation about Plato's lice, implying that this was the mode of his death.