Volume 2 / Book 11 — BOOK XI. (continued 3)

116. But Hegesander the Delphian, in his Commentaries, speaking about the universal ill-nature of Plato towards everybody, writes as follows:—"After the death of Socrates, when a great many of his friends, being present at a banquet, were very much out of spirits, Plato, being present, taking the cup, exhorted them not to despond, as he himself was well able to lead the school; and, so saying, he pledged Apollodorus: and he said, 'I would rather have taken the cup of poison from Socrates than that pledge of wine from you.' For Plato was considered to be an envious man, and to have a disposition which was far from praiseworthy; for he ridiculed Aristippus when he went to visit Dionysius, though he himself had three times sailed to Sicily,—once for the purpose of investigating the torrents of lava which flow from Mount Ætna, when he lived with the elder Dionysius, and was in danger from his displeasure; and twice he went to visit the younger Dionysius."

And again, though Æschines was a poor man, and had but one pupil, Xenocrates, he seduced him from him; and he was also detected in instigating the commencement of a prosecution against Phædo, which, if successful, would have reduced him to slavery; and altogether he displayed the feelings of a stepmother towards all the pupils of Socrates. On which account, Socrates, making a not very unreasonable conjecture respecting him, said in the presence of several persons that he had had a dream, in which he thought he had seen the following vision. "For I thought," said he, "that Plato had become a crow, and leaped on my head, and began to scratch my bald place, and to take a firm hold, and so to look about him. I think, therefore," said he, "that you, O Plato, will say a good many things which are false about my head." And Plato, besides his ill-nature, was very ambitious and vainglorious; and he said, "My last tunic, my desire of glory, I lay aside in death itself—in my will, and in my funeral procession, and in my burial;" as Dioscorides relates in his Memorabilia. And as for his desire of founding cities and making laws, who will not say that these are very ambitious feelings? And this is plain from what he says in the Timæus—"I have the same feelings towards my constitution that a painter would have towards his works; for as he would wish to see them possessed of the power of motion and action, so too do I wish to see the citizens whom I here describe."

117. But concerning the things which he has said in his Dialogues, what can any one say? For the doctrine respecting the soul, which he makes out to be immortal, even after it is separated from the body, and after the dissolution of this latter, was first mentioned by Homer; for he has said, that the soul of Patroclus—

Fled to the shades below, Lamenting its untimely fate, and leaving Its vigour and its youth.

PLATO.

If, then, any one were to say that this is also the argument of Plato, still I do not see what good we have got from him; for if any one were to agree that the souls of those who are dead do migrate into other natures, and do mount up to some higher and purer district, as partaking of its lightness, still what should we get by that theory? For, as we have neither any recollection of where we formerly were, nor any perception whether we really existed at all, what do we get by such an immortality as that?

And as to the book of the Laws composed by him, and the Polity which was written before the Laws, what good have they done us? And yet he ought (as Lycurgus did the Lacedæmonians, and as Solon did the Athenians, and Zaleucus the Thurians), if they were excellent, to have persuaded some of the Greeks to adopt them. For a law (as Aristotle says) is a form of words decided on by the common agreement of a city, pointing out how one ought to do everything. And how can we consider Plato's conduct anything but ridiculous; since, when there were already three Athenian lawgivers who had a great name,—Draco, and Plato himself, and Solon,—the citizens abide by the laws of the other two, but ridicule those of Plato? And the case of the Polity is the same. Even if his Constitution is the best of all possible constitutions, yet, if it does not persuade us to adopt it, what are we the better for it? Plato, then, appears to have written his laws, not for men who have any real existence, but rather for a set of men invented by himself; so that one has to look for people who will use them. But it would have been better for him to write such things as he could persuade men of; and not to act like people who only pray, but rather like those who seize hold of what offers itself to them.

118. However, to say no more on this point, if any one were to go through his Timæus and his Gorgias, and his other dialogues of the same character, in which he discusses the different subjects of education, and subjects of natural philosophy, and several other circumstances,—even when considered in this light, he is not to be admired on this account; for one may find these same topics handled by others, either better than by him, or at all events not worse. For Theopompus the Chian, in his book Against the School of Plato, says— "We shall find the greater part of his Dialogues useless and false, and a still greater number borrowed from other people; as some of them come from the school of Aristippus, and some from that of Antisthenes, and a great many from that of Bryson of Heraclea." And as to the disquisitions which he enters into about man, we also seek in his arguments for what we do not find. But what we do find are banquets, and conversations about love, and other very unseemly harangues, which he composed with great contempt for those who were to read them, as the greater part of his pupils were of a tyrannical and calumnious disposition.

119. For Euphræus, when he was sojourning with king Perdiccas in Macedonia, was not less a king than the other, being a man of a depraved and calumnious disposition, who managed all the companionship of the king in so cold a manner, that no one was allowed to partake of his entertainments unless he knew something about geometry or philosophy; on which account, after Philip obtained the government, Parmenio, having caught him in Oreum, put him to death; as Carystius relates in his Historical Commentaries. And Callippus the Athenian, who was himself a pupil of Plato, having been a companion and fellow-pupil of Dion, and having travelled with him to Syracuse, when he saw that Dion was attempting to make himself master of the kingdom, slew him; and afterwards, attempting to usurp the supreme power himself, was slain too. And Euagon of Lampsacus (as Eurypylus says, and Dicæocles of Cnidus, in the ninety-first book of his Commentaries, and also Demochares the orator, in his argument in defence of Sophocles, against Philo), having lent his native city money on the security of its Acropolis, and being afterwards unable to recover it, endeavoured to seize on the tyranny, until the Lampsacenes attacked him, and repaid him the money, and drove him out of the city. And Timæus of Cyzicus (as the same Demochares relates), having given largesses of money and corn to his fellow-citizens, and being on this account believed by the Cyzicenes to be an excellent man, after having waited a little time, attempted to overturn the constitution with the assistance of Aridæus; and being brought to trial and convicted, and branded with infamy, he remained in the city to an extreme old age, being always, however, considered dishonoured and infamous.

PLATO.

And such now are some of the Academicians, who live in a scandalous and infamous manner. For they, having by impious and unnatural means acquired vast wealth by trickery, are at present highly thought of; as Chæron of Pellene, who was not only a pupil of Plato, but of Xenocrates also. And he too, having usurped the supreme power in his country, and having exercised it with great severity, not only banished the most virtuous men in the city, but also gave the property of the masters to their slaves, and gave their wives also to them, compelling them to receive them as their husbands; having got all these admirable ideas from that excellent Polity and those illegal Laws of Plato.

120. On which account Ephippus the comic poet, in his Shipwrecked Man, has turned into ridicule Plato himself, and some of his acquaintances, as being sycophants for money, showing that they used to dress in a most costly manner, and that they paid more attention to the elegance of their persons than even the most extravagant people among us. And he speaks as follows—

Then some ingenious young man rising up, Some pupil of the New Academy, Brought up at Plato's feet and those of Bryso, That bold, contentious, covetous philosopher,— And urged by strong necessity, and able, By means of his small-wages-seeking art, To speak before th' assembly, in a manner Not altogether bad; having his hair Carefully trimm'd with a new-sharpen'd razor, And letting down his beard in graceful fall, Putting his well-shod foot in his neat slipper, Binding his ancles in the equal folds Of his well-fitting hose, and well protected Across the chest with the breastplate of his cloak, And leaning, in a posture dignified, Upon his staff; said, as it seems to me, With mouthing emphasis, the following speech, More like a stranger than a citizen,— "Men of the land of wise Athenians."

And here let us put an end to this part of the discussion, my friend Timocrates. And we will next proceed to speak of those who have been notorious for their luxury.

LONDON: R. CLAY, PRINTER, BREAD STREET HILL.