Note 64 — Chapter I · LIFE OF ARISTOTLE.

That Aristotle had a school at Athens before the death of Plato we may see by what Strabo (xiii. 610) says about Hermeias: γενόμενος δ’ Ἀθήνῃσιν ἠκροάσατο καὶ Πλάτωνος καὶ Ἀριστοτέλους. Compare Cicero, Orator. 46; also Michelet, Essai sur la Métaphys. d’Aristote, p. 227. The statement that Aristotle during Plato’s lifetime tried to set up a rival school against him, is repeated by all the biographers, who do not however believe it to be true, though they cite Aristoxenus as its warrant. I conceive that they have mistaken what Aristoxenus said; and that they have confounded the school which Aristotle first set up as a rhetor, against Isokrates, with that which he afterwards set up as a philosopher, against Xenokrates.