Plato also was a great enemy of Aristippus; accordingly, he speaks ill of him in his book on the Soul, and says that he was not with Socrates when he died, though he was in Aegina, at no great distance. He also had a great rivalry with Aeschines, for that he had been held in great esteem by Dionysius, and afterwards came to want, and was despised by Plato, but supported by Aristippus. And Idomeneus says that the speech which Plato attributes to Crito in the prison, when he counselled Socrates to make his escape, was really delivered by Aeschines, but that Plato attributed it to Crito because of his dislike to the other. And Plato never makes the slightest mention of him in any of his books, except in the treatise on the Soul, and the Defense of Socrates.
Aristotle says that the treatises of Plato are something between poems and prose; and Phavorinus says when Plato read his treatise on the Soul, Aristotle was the only person who sat it out, and that all the rest rose up and went away. And some say that Philip the Opuntian copied out the whole of his books upon Laws, which were written on waxen tablets only. Some people also attribute the Epinomis to him. Euphorion and Panaetius have stated that the beginning of the treatise on the Republic was often altered and rewritten; and that very treatise, Aristoxenus affirms, was found almost entire in the Contradictions of Protagoras; and that the first book he wrote at all was the Phaedrus; and indeed that composition has a good many indications of a young composer. But Dicaearchus blames the whole style of that work as vulgar.
A story is told that Plato, having seen a man playing at dice, reproached him for it, and that he said he was playing for a trifle; “But the habit,” rejoined Plato, “is not a trifle.” On one occasion he was asked whether there would be any monument of him, as of his predecessors in philosophy? and he answered: “A man must first make a name, and the monument will follow.” Once, when Xenocrates came into his house, he desired him to scourge one of his slaves for him, for that he himself could not do it because he was in a passion; and that at another time he said to one of his slaves: “I should beat you if I were not in a passion.” Having got on horseback he dismounted again immediately, saying that he was afraid that he should be infected with horse-pride. He used to advise people who got drunk to look in the glass, and then they would abandon their unseemly habit; and he said that it was never decorous to drink to the degree of drunkenness, except at the festivals of the God who had given men wine. He also disapproved of much sleeping; accordingly in his Laws he says: “No one while sleeping is good for anything.” Another saying of his was: “That the pleasantest of all things to hear was the truth;” but others report this saying thus: “That the sweetest of all things was to speak truth.” And of truth he speaks thus in his Laws: “Truth, my friend, is a beautiful and a durable thing; but it is not easy to persuade men of this fact.”
He used also to wish to leave a memorial of himself behind, either in the hearts of his friends, or in his books.
He also used to travel a good deal as some authors inform us.
And he died in the manner we have already mentioned, in the thirteenth year of the reign of Philip of Macedon, as Phavorinus mentions in the third book of his Commentaries; and Theopompus relates that Philip on one occasion reproached him. But Myronianus, in his Resemblances, says that Philo mentions some proverbs that were in circulation about Plato’s lice; implying that he had died of that disease.
He was buried in the Academy, where he spent the greater part of his time in the practice of philosophy, from which his was called the Academic school; and his funeral was attended by all the pupils of that sect. And he made his will in the following terms: “Plato left these things, and has bequeathed them as follows.—The farm in the district of the Hephaestiades, bounded on the north by the road from the temple of the Cephisiades, and on the south by the temple of Hercules, which is in the district of the Hephaestiades; and on the east by the estate of Archestratus the Phrearrian, and on the west by the farm of Philip the Chollidian, shall be incapable of being sold or alienated, but shall belong to my son Adimantus as far as possible. And so likewise shall my farm in the district of the Eiresides, which I bought of Callimachus, which is bounded on the north by the property of Eurymedon the Myrrhinusian, on the south by that of Demostratus of Xypeta, on the east by that of Eurymedon the Myrrhinusian, and on the west by the Cephisus;—I also leave him three minae of silver, a silver goblet weighing a hundred and sixty-five drachms, a cup weighing forty-five drachms, a golden ring, and a golden earring, weighing together four drachms and three obols. Euclides the stonecutter owes me three minae. I leave Diana her liberty. My slaves Tychon, Bictas, Apolloniades, and Dionysius, I bequeath to my son; and I also give him all my furniture, of which Demetrius has a catalog. I owe no one anything. My executors shall be Sosthenes, Speusippus, Demetrius, Hegias, Eurymedon, Callimachus, and Thrasippus.” This was his will. And on his tomb the following epigrams were inscribed. First of all:
Here, first of all men for pure justice famed, And moral virtue, Aristocles lies; And if there e’er has lived one truly wise, This man was wiser still; too great for envy.
A second is:
Here in her bosom does the tender earth Embrace great Plato’s corpse.—His soul aloft Has ta’en its place among the immortal Gods. Ariston’s glorious son—whom all good men, Though in far countries, held in love and honor, Remembering his pure and godlike life.
There is another which is more modern:
A: Eagle, why fly you o’er this holy tomb? Or are you on your way, with lofty wing, To some bright starry domicile of the Gods?
B: I am the image of the soul of Plato, And to Olympus now am borne on high; His body lies in his own native Attica.
We ourselves also have written one epigram on him, which is as follows:
If fav’ring Phoebus had not Plato given To Grecian lands, how would the learned God Have e’er instructed mortal minds in learning? But he did send him, that as Aesculapius His son’s the best physician of the body, So Plato should be of the immortal soul.
And others, alluding to his death:
Phoebus, to bless mankind, became the father Of Aesculapius, and of godlike Plato; That one to heal the body, this the mind. Now, from a marriage feast he’s gone to heaven, To realize the happy city there, Which he has planned fit for the realms of Jove.
These then are the epigrams on him.
His disciples were, Speusippus the Athenian, Zenocrates of Chalcedon, Aristotle the Stagirite, Philip of Opus, Histiaeus of Perinthus, Dion of Syracuse, Amyclus of Heraclea, Erastus and Coriscus of Sceptos, Timolaus of Cyzicus, Eudon of Lampsacus, Pithon and Heraclides of Aemus, Hippothales and Callippus, Athenians, Demetrius of Amphipolis, Heraclides of Pontus, and numbers of others, among whom there were also two women, Lasthenea of Mantinea, and Axiothea of Phlius, who used even to wear man’s clothes, as we are told by Dicaearchus. Some say that Theophrastus also was a pupil of his; and Chamaelion says that Hyperides the orator, and Lycurgus, were so likewise. Polemo also asserts that Demosthenes was. Sabinus adds Mnesistratus of Thasos to the number, quoting authority for the statement in the fourth book of his Meditative Matter; and it is not improbable.
But as you, O lady, are rightly very much attached to Plato, and as you are very fond of hunting out in every quarter all the doctrines of the philosopher with great eagerness, I have thought it necessary to subjoin an account of the general character of his lectures, and of the arrangement of his dialogues, and of the method of his inductive argument; going back to their elements and first principles as far as I could, so that the collection of anecdotes concerning his life which I have been able to make, may not be curtailed by the omission of any statement as to his doctrines. For it would be like sending owls to Athens, as the proverb is, if I were to descend to particular details.
They say now, that Zeno, the Eleatic, was the first person who composed essays in the form of dialogue. But Aristotle, in the first book of his treatise on Poets, says that Alexamenus, a native of Styra, or Teos, did so before him, as Phavorinus also says in his Commentaries. But it seems to me that Plato gave this kind of writing the last polish, and that he has therefore a just right to the first honor, not only as the improver, but also as inventor of that kind of writing. Now, the dialogue is a discourse carried on by way of question and answer on some one of the subjects with which philosophy is conversant, or with which statesmanship is concerned, with a becoming attention to the characters of the persons who are introduced as speakers, and with a careful selection of language governed by the same consideration. And dialectics is the art of conversing, by means of which we either overturn or establish the proposition contended for, by means of the questions and answers which are put in the mouths of the parties conversing. Now, of the Platonic discourse there are two characteristics discernible on the very surface: one fitted for guiding, the other for investigating.
The first of these has two subordinate species: one speculative, the other practical; and of these two again, the speculative is divided into the natural and the logical, and the practical into the ethical and the political. Again, the kind fitted for investigating has also two primary divisions with their separate characteristics: one object of which is simply practice, the other being also disputatious; and the first of these two is again subdivided into two: one of which may be compared to the art of the midwife, and the other is as it were tentative; the disputatious one is also divided into the demonstrative and the distinctive.
But we are not unaware that some writers distinguish the various dialogues in a different manner from what we do. For they say that some of them are dramatic, and others narrative, and others of a mixed nature. But they, in this division, are classifying the dialogues in a theatrical rather than in a philosophical manner. Some of the dialogues also refer to subjects of natural philosophy, such as the Timaeus. Of the logical class, there are the Politics, the Cratylus, the Parmenides, and the Sophist. Of the ethical kind there is the Defense of Socrates, the Crito, the Phaedo, the Phaedrus, the Banquet, the Menexenus, the Clitophon, the Epistles, the Philebus, the Hipparchus, and the Rival Lovers. Of the political class there is the Republic, the Laws, the Minos, the Epinomis, and the Atlanticus. Of the midwife description we have the two Alcibiadeses, the Theages, the Lysis, the Laches. Of the tentative kind, there is the Euthyphro, the Meno, the Ion, the Charmides, and the Theaetetus. Of the demonstrative description, we have the Protagoras, and of the distinctive class the Euthydemus, the two Hippiases, and the Gorgias. And this is enough to say about the dialogues as to what they are, and what their different kinds are.
But since there is also a great division of opinion respecting them, from some people asserting that in them Plato dogmatizes in a positive manner, while others deny this, we had better also touch upon this part of the question. Now, dogmatizing is laying down dogmas, just as legislating is making laws. But the word dogma is used in two senses: to mean both that which we think, and opinion itself. Now of these, that which we think is the proposition, and opinion is the conception by which we entertain it in our minds. Plato then explains the opinions which he entertains himself, and refutes false ones, and about doubtful matters he suspends his judgment. His opinions of matters as they appear to him he puts into the mouth of four persons: Socrates, Timaeus, an Athenian poet, and an Eleatic stranger. But the strangers are not, as some people have supposed, Plato and Parmenides, but certain nameless imaginary characters. Since Plato asserts as undeniable axioms all the opinions which he puts into the mouth of Socrates or Timaeus. But when he is refuting false propositions, he introduces such characters as Thrasymachus, and Callicles, and Polus, and Gorgias, and Protagoras, Hippias too, and Euthydemus, and men of that stamp. But when he is demonstrating anything, then he chiefly uses the inductive form of argument, and that too not of one kind only, but of two. For induction is an argument which by means of some admitted truths establishes naturally other truths which resemble them. But there are two kinds of induction: the one proceeding from contraries, the other from consequents. Now, the one which proceeds from contraries is one in which from the answer given, whatever that answer may be, the contrary of the principle indicated in the question must follow. As for instance. My father is either a different person from your father, or he is the same person. If now your father is a different person from my father, then as he is a different person from a father, he cannot be a father. If, on the other hand, he is the same person as my father, then, since he is the same person as my father, he must be my father. And again, if man be not an animal, he must be either a stone or a piece of wood; but he is not a stone or a piece of wood, for he is a living animal, and capable of independent motion. Therefore, he is an animal. But, if he is an animal, and a dog or an ox is likewise an animal, then man must be an animal, and a dog, and an ox.—This then is the method of induction in contradiction and contention, which Plato was accustomed to employ, not for the purpose of establishing principles of his own, but with the object of refuting the arguments of others.
Now, the inductive kind of argument drawn from consequents is of a twofold character: The one proving a particular opinion by an admitted fact of an equally particular nature, or else going from particulars to generals. And the first of these two divisions is the oratorical one, the second the dialectic one. As for instance, in the former kind the question is whether this person has committed a murder; the proof is that he was found at the time covered with blood. But this is the oratorical method of employing the induction, since oratory is conversant about particulars, and does not concern itself about generals. For its object is not to ascertain abstract justice, but only particular justice. The other is the dialectic kind, the general proposition having been established by particular ones. As for instance, the question is whether the soul is immortal, and whether the living consist of those who have once been dead; and this proposition Plato establishes in his book on the Soul, by a certain general proposition, that contraries arise out of contraries; and this identical general proposition is established by certain particular ones. As, for instance, that sleep follows on waking, and waking from sleeping, and the greater from the less, and reversely the less from the greater. And this kind of induction he used to employ for the establishment of his own opinions.