Note 32 — Chapter V · LIFE OF PLATO.

Plut. Aristeides, c. 1; Diog. Laert. iii. 23-24. Diogenes says that no other Athenian except Plato dared to speak publicly in defence of Chabrias; but this can hardly be correct, since Aristotle mentions another συνήγοραος named Lykoleon (Rhet. iii. 10, p. 1411, b. 6). We may fairly presume that the trial of Chabrias alluded to by Aristotle is the same as that alluded to by Diogenes, that which arose out of the wrongful occupation of Orôpus by the Thebans. If Plato appeared at the trial, I doubt whether it could have occurred in 366 B.C., as Clinton supposes; Plato must have been absent during that year in Sicily.

The anecdote given by Diogenes, in relation to Plato’s appearance at this trial, deserves notice. Krobylus, one of the accusers, said to him, “Are you come to plead on behalf of another? Are not you aware that the hemlock of Sokrates is in store for you also?” Plato replied: “I affronted dangers formerly, when I went on military expedition, for my country, and I am prepared to affront them now in discharge of my duty to a friend” (iii. 24).

This anecdote is instructive, as it exhibits the continuance of the anti-philosophical antipathies at Athens among a considerable portion of the citizens, and as it goes to attest the military service rendered personally by Plato.

Diogenes (iii. 46) gives a long list of hearers; and Athenæus (xi. 506-509) enumerates several from different cities in Greece: Euphræus of Oreus (in Eubœa), who acquired through Plato’s recommendation great influence with Perdikkas, king of Macedonia, and who is said to have excluded from the society of that king every one ignorant of philosophy and geometry; Euagon of Lampsakus, Timæus of Kyzikus, Chæron of Pellênê, all of whom tried, and the last with success, to usurp the sceptre in their respective cities; Eudêmus of Cyprus; Kallippus the Athenian, fellow-learner with Dion in the Academy, afterwards his companion in his expedition to Sicily, ultimately his murderer; Herakleides and Python from Ænus in Thrace, Chion and Leonides, also Klearchus the despot from the Pontic Herakleia (Justin, xvi. 5).

Several of these examples seem to have been cited by the orator Democharês (nephew of Demosthenes) in his speech at Athens vindicating the law proposed by Sophokles for the expulsion of the philosophers from Athens (Athenæ. xi. 508 F), a speech delivered about 306 B.C. Plutarch compliments Plato for the active political liberators and tyrannicides who came forth from the Academy: he considers Plato as the real author and planner of the expedition of Dion against Dionysius, and expatiates on the delight which Plato must have derived from it — a supposition very incorrect (Plutarch, Non Posse Suav. p. 1097 B; adv. Kolôten, p. 1126 B-C).