The birth of Plato is nearly coincident with that great epoch of Grecian history, the commencement of the Peloponnesian war. In the first year of that war, the Athenians, having ejected the unhappy people of Aegina, apportioned the island amongst colonists from themselves. Amongst these Athenian occupants were Aristo, and Peirictona, or Potona, as she is also called, the father and mother of Plato. Their residence, however, in the island was not permanent nor even long, as the intrusive colony was in its turn ejected by the Lacedemonians, on which occasion his parents returned to Athens. It was during this interval, and in the year 429 B.C., that the philosopher was born.

From these circumstances, it has been commonly supposed that Plato was born in Aegina. They are not, however, sufficient to establish such a conclusion. For a colonization of the kind here described did not necessarily imply residence on the part of those persons to whom the lands were allotted. Nor is the fact of the recovery of the island by the Lacedemonians from the hands of the Athenians, mentioned by the contemporary historian. Aegina was still in the occupation of the Athenians in the fifth year of the Peloponnesian war; and in the eighth year of the war we find that the poor exiles, who had meanwhile obtained a refuge at Thyrrea, were there cruelly exterminated by the Athenians. On the whole, it seems more probable, from the constant designation of Plato as "the Athenian," without any other addition, though this alone, it must be allowed, is not decisive of the fact, that Athens itself may claim the honour of having been his birthplace.

It is remarkable that his proper name was not that which his fame has immortalized, but Aristocles, after his paternal grandfather. The name of Plato is said to have been given to him by the person who was his master in the exercises of the gymnasium, as characteristic of his athletic frame in his youth. In this way, being familiarly applied to him, it gradually prevailed, to the entire disuse of his family name.

The philosopher was connected by descent with the ancient worthies of Athens; on his mother's side with Solon, and on his father's with the patriot king Codrus. And thus, according to the notions of nobility prevalent amongst the Greeks, he could trace up the honours of his parentage to a divine founder, in the person of the god Neptune.

A circumstance is related of his infancy, which, though obviously fabulous, cannot properly be omitted in his biography, as a pleasing and appropriate tribute of the imaginative genius of the Greeks to their poet-philosopher. Whilst he was sleeping when a babe, on Mount Hymettus, in a bower of myrtles, during the performance of a sacrifice by his parents to the muses and nymphs, bees, it is said, lighted on him and dropped honey on his lips, thus giving an evident augury of that peculiar sweetness of style by which his eloquence would be distinguished.

For the same reason, a similar fancy, which has thrown a poetical ornament over the account of his first devotion to philosophy, must not be passed over in silence. Socrates, it is related, was apprized beforehand, in a dream, of the first visit of the gifted pupil, who was destined to carry philosophy forth on the wings of his genius to its boldest flights. Socrates was telling his dream to some persons around him, how he seemed to see a young swan coming from an altar in the grove of Academus, and first nestling in his bosom, then soaring up on high, and singing sweetly as it rose in the air, when Aristo presented himself, leading his son Plato, whom he committed to the instruction of the

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1 Thucyd. ii. 27. 2 Digg. Laert. in Plat. Plat. 3 Thucyd. iii. 50. 4 Thucyd. v. 17. 5 As derived from ἀλαρές, broad. Laertius gives this explanation, which Seneca also adopts (Epist. Trill. 27), but says others interpreted the name as denoting a broad forehead; others, as characteristic of his style of eloquence. 6 His family also is shown to have been of rank, from its connection with some of "the Thirty," called "the Thirty Tyrants," established at Athens by the Lacedemonians. See Plat. Ep. vii. 7 See Herodot. Enarr. 143. 8 Cicero, De Divin. i. 36. Plato. Socrates, it is added, struck by the coincidence, immediately recognized the fulfillment of his dream, and welcomed Plato as the young swan from the altar, represented to him in the vision.

The accounts of his early education, to which we should naturally have looked with great interest, are extremely meagre. We only know by general notices that he passed through the usual course of education adopted amongst the higher classes of the Greeks. That education was directed to the cultivation at once of the powers of the mind and of the body, under the two great divisions of literature and gymnastics. The youth was delivered to the charge of the grammarian, the teacher of music, and the trainer. From the grammarian he learned the art of reading and writing his own language, and a knowledge of its authors, especially its poets; from the teacher of music, skill in performing on the lyre and the flute, together with the principles of the science of music; from the trainer he acquired strength and expertise in the several exercises of wrestling, and boxing, and running, by which it was intended not only to mature the powers of the body, but to qualify the youth for attaining eminence at the public games. These were the schoolmasters of the accomplished Athenian, and with these he was occupied until he had reached about his twentieth year. Accordingly, the names have been transmitted to us of those who discharged these offices for Plato; of Dionysus, as the grammarian under whom he learned the elements of that command over his own language, and its literary resources, which his matured eloquence so richly displayed; of Draco of Athens, and Metellus of Agrigentum, as his masters in music; and of Aristo the Argive, as his master in gymnastics. It is added that he also studied painting; but the name has not been given of any individual who acted as his preceptor in the art.

In evidence of his great proficiency in these early studies, it has been stated, that he gave specimens of his genius in every department of poetical composition; that in epic poetry he laboured after the highest excellence, and only abandoned the attempt on comparing his efforts with the poems of Homer, and despairing of reaching so high a standard; that in dramatic poetry, he had prepared a tetralogy, the four plays usually required of an author in order to competing for the prize at the festival of Bacchus, but changed his purpose only the day before the exhibition, in consequence of impressions received from Socrates. And even in gymnastics excellence has been claimed for him; since it has been asserted that he actually entered the lists at the Isthmian games.

Whatever credit we may give to these particulars, there can be no doubt, that so inquisitive a mind as that of Plato, and so resolute a spirit in the prosecution of its undertakings, received the full benefit of this preliminary culture; and that he was thus amply prepared for entering on the severer discipline of those pursuits which engaged him when he became a hearer of Socrates.

This preliminary education, in fact, was very imperfect as a discipline of the mind. It gave the youth a forwardness and fluency of knowledge, so that he was fain to fancy himself, when he had scarcely attained manhood, equal to undertake affairs of state, and to serve the highest offices of the government. But it did not form his mind or character. He had yet to learn the nature of man; to study the principles of ethics and politics. This task of instruction devolved on the sophist or the philosopher (as the same person was at first indifferently called), into whose hands the Greek youth was now delivered.

Plato, accordingly, at the age of twenty years, began to be a regular attendant on the lessons of Socrates. The reputation of Socrates as a teacher in this higher walk of education, now eclipsed that of all other professors of philosophy. He had at once exposed the incompetence of the sophists who preceded him, and superseded them in their office. Plato would be conducted to him by his father, as the account states he was, very much in the way which is depicted under caricature by the comic poet, as to the most distinguished master of the day, to be qualified for taking on him those public duties to which every citizen of Athens might be called; to enable him to distinguish himself in counsel and argument, and obtain influence and importance in society. From the numbers that resorted to Socrates, as well as to the sophists before him, it is plain that, to obtain instruction in philosophy for its own sake, or to become philosophers themselves, was not the object with which he was sought by the generality. Here and there the spark fell on a kindred genius, and lighted up a flame of philosophy in the breast of a disciple. Thus from the school of Socrates came the founders of several other schools; and, on the whole, a greater impulse was given by his teaching to the study of philosophy than had ever been felt before in Greece. Still, as Socrates himself did not profess to teach his hearers wisdom, so neither did they in general come to him as learners of wisdom, or as actuated by the pure love of wisdom, but to acquire practical information which their previous studies had not given them. We may imagine such a disciple as Plato first presenting himself amongst the multitude of hearers; how he would be struck by the first observation of the extraordinary manner of Socrates, especially at finding the very person to whom he came to be taught professing that "he knew nothing;" and that he was only wiser than other men on this account, that, whilst others knew not and presumed they knew, he neither knew nor presumed that he knew. The interest of such a mind as Plato's could not but be powerfully called forth by so strange an avowal on the part of a man whom he had been led to look up to as the wisest of men. To him it must naturally have prompted the questions, what philosophy might be; what the nature and condition of man; what the criteria of truth and falsehood; and thus have firmly laid hold of those tendencies to speculation which we see fully developed in the mature fruits of his genius. Again and again he is present at the searching investigations carried on in the discussions of which Socrates is the leader; soon he is himself interrogated by Socrates; and we cannot doubt that he is thenceforward irrevocably become, not the disciple of Socrates only, but the disciple and votary of philosophy.

That Plato was thus won over to philosophy from an early period of his life, is evident from the statement of Aristotle respecting him, that "from his youth he had been conversant with Cratylos, and the opinions of Heraclitus," and from the indications in two at least of his dialogues (and these supposed to be the earliest in the date of their composition, as written indeed during the lifetime of Socrates), the Phaedrus and the Lysis, of his early acquaintance with Pythagorean notions.

There seems, too, but little room to doubt that he had begun at the same time to study the doctrines of the Ionic school under Hermogenes, as well as those of Parmenides and Zeno. For what he puts into the mouth of Socrates in the Phaedo respecting Anaxagoras, is probably (as Socrates himself was known to have had a strong aversion to physical science) the expression of his own disappointment and dissatisfaction at the outset of his studies, in the conclusions of the school, of which Anaxagoras was then the chief authority. Of Parmenides, again, he more than once speaks in terms of enthusiasm, as of a name with which he had very early associations of reverence; here, as in the instance of Anaxagoras, we are disposed to think, depicting, in the person of Socrates, a portion of the history of his own mind.

Judging indeed from the tenor of his writings, we should conclude that his curiosity was excited, from a very early period, to explore the whole field of philosophy; and that, so far from resting on what he learned from Socrates himself, he applied the lessons of Socrates to the extending and perfecting those researches which he was carrying on at the same time, by means of books, or oral instruction from others. Socrates was to him the interpreter, and commentator, and critic, of the various philosophical studies in which he was engaged. For this is the view which he has given us of Socrates in his Dialogues. Socrates there seldom or never appears as a didactic expositor of truth. He is presented as the critic of opinions and doctrines and systems, and the judge to whom everything is to be submitted for approval, or rejection, or modification, as the case may be.

Indeed, so exuberant and energetic a mind could not have been satisfied with being simply a learner in any school. It would eagerly seek the means of comparing system with system, and of examining into points of agreement or disagreement in the theories proposed. The doubts raised by Socrates, the hints thrown out by him, the conclusions to which he pointed, but which he yet left unconnected, would to such a mind seem as so many points of departure for its own excursions. They naturally suggest that much more must be done than merely to take up what has been said by Socrates, in order to work out, or even rightly to conceive, what had fallen from his lips. For the conversations of Socrates were not framed to convey positive instruction, so much as to set the mind of the hearer a-thinking, and to provoke further inquiry. In the living pictures of them which Plato has drawn, they leave off just at the point where we expect the teacher would proceed to speak out more distinctly, and tell us precisely what his view of the subject is. If these pictures represent (as we may reasonably believe they do) the impressions received by Plato from the conversations of Socrates, what stimulants to inquiry must lie not have felt in the several particulars which he has so forcibly touched,—in the mingled lights and shadows of the scenes in which the great master occupies the foreground. Well therefore may we conceive that, at the time when he enjoyed the guidance, and control, and encouragement of Socrates, he was laying a broad foundation of erudition for that vast and richly-ornamented fabric of philosophy which the existing monuments of his genius exhibit.

From Socrates himself this demand of the inquisitive hearer could evidently not be supplied. Socrates was deficient in erudition properly so called. He had studied men rather than books. His wisdom consisted of deep and extensive observation accurately generalized, drawn from passing things, and capable accordingly of ready application to the same course of things; forcibly convincing his hearers by the point and propriety with which it met each occasion, and giving experimental proof of its soundness and truth. Erudition, accordingly, was to be sought elsewhere; and Plato therefore supplied this need from other sources, infusing it into, and blending it with his own speculations, whilst the Socratic spirit mellows the whole mass, and gives unity to the composition.

The death of Socrates—over which how his disciples mourned, appears in that affecting account of the last moments of their loved master, consecrated to his memory by the genius of Plato, the Dialogue of the Phaedo—naturally excited alarms for their own safety amongst those who had been conspicuous among his associates. They saw, by the violent extremity to which the spirit of intolerance had proceeded, unchecked by any feeling of humanity or regard for truth, that no wisdom, or gentleness, or benevolence of character could be a security against the deadly hatred of jealousy. They found that priestcraft could stoop to employ any instruments, however mean, for the accomplishment of its vengeance; that it could instigate the actor on the scene of civil affairs to do its work of destruction, whilst the prompter of the mischief wore the mask of concern for the public good, and arrogated the merit of upholding the cause of religious truth. Persecution has ever been the same. Its essential features are vices of the human heart, not of any particular system of religion. We find it, accordingly, in several recorded instances in the heathen world, displaying itself very nearly as in the dark times of anti-Christian corruption. Athens itself had already furnished examples of its operation. In particular, the case of Anaxagoras had been a striking illustration. When not even the power and the eloquence of Pericles could save Anaxagoras from a prison, and expulsion from Athens, on account of his physical speculations,—the very philosopher whose system of physics raised an insuperable barrier against atheism, by demonstrating the supremacy of mind,—it was but too evident that there was a mysterious agency working in the heart of society, like secret fires in the depths of the earth, capable of awing and paralyzing every other power that might rise up against it.

A more recent experience of the same truth, within the memory of the youngest disciple of Socrates, was in the dark proceedings consequent on the mutilation of the Hermæ, the rude images of Mercury erected in the vestibules of private houses as well as in the sacred places of Athens, and on the discovery of the profanation of the Eleusinian mysteries by the mock representation of them in private houses. The secret information on which those proceedings were carried on; the indifference shewn at the period of alarm to everything else, even on an occasion of great public interest, but the vindication of the popular superstition; the effect which the charge of being implicated in these outrages had in checking the career of Alcibiades at the moment of his triumph over his political opponents; all showed, that it was a vain hope to resist the secret arbiters of public opinion on questions of religion. Then came the fearful consummation of this vengeance in the death of Socrates by the poisoned cup; leaving no doubt in the minds of any, that they who would follow his example in boldly and honestly inquiring into current opinions, and declaring their convictions of the truth on matters affecting the conduct of men, must either prepare themselves for exile (which alone was a great punishment in the ancient world), or drink the hemlock. Socrates himself had the courage to take the latter part of the alternative. To him it was the natural termination of that energetic course which he had from the first adopted. He would have unsaid all his teaching; he would have practically recanted the strong language in which he had, through all his life, been discoursing of the worthlessness of the body and of the present life, and of the immortality and perfection of the soul. His philosophy, and the sense of the dignity of his character and position, kept him immured in his prison, and riveted the chains on his limbs, far more than the condemnation of his judges or the strength of the iron with which he was bound. For, as he says of himself, in the words in which Plato has expressed his sentiments, "these sinews and bones would long ago have been either about Megara or the Boeotians, had I not thought it more just and more honourable, instead of flight, to submit to the judgment of the state."

But this was not the case with the hearers of Socrates. They were not, like him, placed in a commanding post, from which they could not retreat without being stigmatized as deserters of their profession, and betrayers of the truth. They might with honour and propriety consult for their safety. Whilst, therefore, as is probable, the bulk of those who had attended on the teaching of Socrates simply withdrew from public notice, and sought their homes at Athens or elsewhere, the principal disciples of the school—those who were most known as followers and admirers of Socrates—left Athens, and sought an asylum for themselves and for philosophy at Megara.

Amongst these whom Socrates drew around him were several individuals of mature age, already trained in some sect of philosophy, and eminent in their own walk of science, yet desirous of availing themselves of the far-famed wisdom of the sage of Athens. Of this class was Euclid of Megara, from whom the Megarian school derives its existence and celebrity. As a disciple, he belonged to the Eleatic school, and, trained by Zeno, the great master of dialectic before him, had made that science his especial study. He had shown a singular zeal in attending on the teaching of Socrates; for he continued to resort to him even after the passing of the Athenian decree by which Megarians were excluded, under the penalty of death, from the harbours in the Athenian empire, and from the agora of Athens itself. For this purpose, he would set out from his home at nightfall, a journey of more than twenty miles,—such was the distance from Megara to Athens,—assuming the disguise of female attire that he might enter the city unnoticed. His conduct on the occasion of the dispersion of the school of Socrates corresponded with this zeal. He received the members of the school with open arms, and gave them a home with him at Megara. There, for a time at least, they gathered themselves, in shelter from the storm which had driven them from Athens. But the school, in fact, was broken up. It had subsisted and been held together by the personal influence of Socrates himself, and with him its principle of vitality, as a body, was gone. He had not laboured to establish a sect or a theory; and he left, therefore, no particular symbol of union around which a party might be formed. He was himself the principle and bond of union to his disciples; bringing together around him the professors and disciples of every different sect. There was yet to arise out of his society one who, richly imbued with his teaching and method, should rekindle the extinct school with his own spirit, and bid it live again in its genuine offspring; and that individual was Plato. But the times were not yet ripe for this.

In the meantime, Plato was destined to spend several years in journeying from place to place, at a distance from the past and the future scene of his philosophical labours. These were doubtless years of great importance to him, for the perfect formation of the peculiar character of his philosophy. In the course of them, we find him visiting Megara, Cyrene, the Greek settlements on the coasts of Italy, Sicily, Egypt, "exploring (as Cicero says of him in oratorical language) the remotest lands," after the manner of Solon and Pythagoras, and other wise men before him, who had enlarged their minds by contemplations pursued in foreign travel. Thus did he singularly combine in his studies the more ancient with the Socratic mode of philosophizing. The method of Socrates was exclusively domestic. He studied mankind within a small compass (the circle of Athens itself), only with a more accurate and searching eye than any one had ever done before him; and therefore drew sound general conclusions from his observations within that range of view. He evidently judged it better thus to restrict the attention, and require men to investigate closely what lay before them, than to encourage them to indulge the prevailing habit of more diffusive and vague observation. This is told us in other words by Plato himself; where he introduces Socrates as a stranger even to the beautiful scenery in the immediate neighbourhood of Athens, and as one who appeared never to have been out of the walls of the city; and as owning that, in his fondness for moral study, he was content to learn of the men in the city, who could teach him what the fields and the trees could not. But this method, good as a foundation, and necessary as a corrective of desultory and superficial habits of thought and study, was not sufficient for the requirements of Plato's mind. He observes in one of his works, that there is much to be gained from contemplation rightly directed in foreign travel both by land and sea; that we are not only to look to our own country for examples, but seek in the world at large for specimens of the highest order of men, who, though rare, might from time to time be found under every form of government; and that no perfect civilization can be attained without this means of observation and improvement. He describes, in fact, the course which he had himself pursued, and the benefit which he had found resulting from it.

Having sojourned for a time at Megara, together with the other disciples of Socrates, and probably there, with the assistance of Euclid, increased his acquaintance with the writings of Parmenides and Zeno, as well as studied more intimately the dialectic of their school, he appears to have proceeded to Cyrene. Cyrene was the home, not only of Aristippus, to whose school it afterwards gave its name, but of the venerable Theodorus, the most eminent geometrician of his day. Theodorus had been occasionally a resident at Athens, and an attendant on the teaching of Socrates, whilst he was himself resorted to by the Athenian youth for instruction in the science of geometry. Plato no doubt had been amongst those who had thus availed themselves of the presence of Theodorus at Athens. His predilection for mathematical studies is conspicuous throughout his writings. His skill in geometry, in particular, requires no other evidence than the fact of his ready solution, in that state of the science, of the problem of the Delphic Oracle, which required the doubling of the cubic altar at Delos. He has described Theodorus as present at Athens at the time when the prosecution was instituted

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1 See Plutarch, p. 224; also Crito, throughout. 2 Thucyd. i. 139; Aul. Gell. Noct. Att. vi. 10. 3 Ultimas terras Iustissim Pythagoram, Democritum, Platonem, accipimus: ubi enim quid esset quod disci posset, eo veniendum judicaverunt. (Tusc. Qu. iv. 19.) 4 Plat. Theatet. p. 51, 52; Xenoph. Mem. iv. 2, 10. 5 Plat. Phaedr., p. 287; Crito, p. 122. 6 De Leg. xii., p. 195, 197. 7 Platarch. De Socr. Genio, p. 288, tom. 3, Reiske. The inscription said to have been over the portal of the Academia, "Let no one enter who is not a geometer," seems to belong rather to Pythagoras, or perhaps was imitated from the Pythagoreans. against Socrates. He now went to Cyrene, probably with the view of following up that course of geometrical study which had been so abruptly terminated; whilst he regained also the society of a friend for whom he evidently felt respect and admiration.

The course of his travels conducted him to the Greek settlements on the coast of Italy and Sicily, where the colleges of the Pythagoreans were established. It may readily be imagined with what eager curiosity Plato undertook this voyage, what delight he promised himself in seeing the place itself where Pythagoras had taught, and in personal conference with the living successors of the mystic sage, and in obtaining a greater insight into the doctrines of a school which had such charms for him. He had much to observe also in the peculiar discipline by which the Pythagoreans were formed into a distinct fraternity amongst themselves. Greece Proper had nothing to exhibit like this. For though the different sects of philosophy were distinguished there by the names of founders and places, they were not held together by any rules of discipline. But the Pythagoreans at Tarentum, Crotona, and elsewhere in Magna Graecia, had incorporated themselves into synedria, or colleges; each individual giving his property in common, and regarding the bond of connection with his brethren of the sect as closer than the ties of kindred. Associations of this kind must have appeared, at the first, as anomalies even to the philosophical Athenian, accustomed as he was to regard the free intercourse of social life as indispensable to his very existence.

It has been said that Plato was admitted to the secret discipline of the Pythagoreans. Probably he was only received by them with great cordiality, and had access to writings and information respecting their doctrines, which might have been denied to one, who came less recommended to them by the sincere enthusiasm of philosophy, and approximation to their views. There are no traces certainly in his writings, or elsewhere of his having been a professed Pythagorean; although he undoubtedly was greatly captivated by the Pythagorean doctrines, and has introduced them largely into his own speculations.

Archytas, the greatest name of the Pythagorean school after that of Pythagoras himself, was then flourishing at Tarentum. It must have been an interesting occasion when there were assembled together at Tarentum, as Cicero relates, Pontius the Samnite, the father of that Pontius who defeated the Roman consul at the Fauces Claudiae; Archytas the Pythagorean, discoursing against pleasure; and Plato the Athenian traveller. The very place where they met,—a point of contact between the old empires of the world, and the rising power destined to break them in pieces,—in itself adds to the interest. Then the characters of the two philosophers who thus met, further arrest our attention.—Archytas, the representative of the old traditional theological systems now moulded into a scheme of philosophy and a discipline of life; and Plato, the accomplished artist, who was soon to take up the scheme of philosophy where the Pythagoreans left it, and consecrate it by the inspirations of his own genius to an eternal empire on the throne of literature.—Archytas, nurtured in the reserve and mysticism of the Pythagorean discipline; Plato, formed to busy and importunate discussion by the ever-colloquial Socrates—two philosophers so contrasted with each other in many respects, and yet so concordant in their love of ancient wisdom and indefatigable research after truth.

From the Pythagoreans Plato proceeded to Egypt to converse with the priests of that ancient land, from which Greece had derived her original civilization and science. Since the settlement of the Greek colony in Egypt by Psammetichus, there had existed a regular channel of intercourse between Greece and Egypt, and accurate means of information to the Greeks respecting Egypt. The history of Herodotus must in itself have awakened the curiosity of those who had any taste for such inquiries, to know still more of a people from whom Greece had already learned so much, and from whom evidently so much was to be learned; and must have stimulated them to avail themselves of the existing facilities of gratifying that taste. To Plato, indeed, if according to Herodotus, the Greeks derived the notion of the immortality of the soul from the Egyptians, who were the first, he thinks, to teach it in connection with that of the transmigration of souls, a visit to Egypt must have been most attractive. Herodotus has given a most instructive and interesting view of the impression which such a visit produced on his mind. What an animated picture must the still more philosophical mind of Plato have presented, of the result of his conversation with the priests of Egypt. Though the account of his having had the mysterious wisdom of the inscriptions on the Hermetic Columns unfolded to him by the priests, and of his being instructed in magic, on this occasion, seems without sufficient authority, there are evident traces of information collected in Egypt, throughout his writings, and, so far, it cannot be doubted that this visit was not without its influence on the character of his philosophy.

Indeed it has been further asserted, that, whilst in Egypt, he had access to an existing Greek version of the Old Testament, and that to this circumstance we must attribute that purer and more elevated theology which his works exhibit, in comparison with those of other heathen philosophers. A strange oversight in chronology has also attributed to him a personal intercourse with the prophet Jeremiah. These statements are obviously mere suppositions, by which Christians, over-zealous for Plato's philosophy, vindicated their admiration of it, whilst they asserted also the originality and supremacy of Scripture truth. At the same time, it is indisputable that Judaism diffused much religious and moral truth beyond its own pale; and that not only Plato, but the Egyptian priests, his instructors, unconsciously derived much from the inspired sources, in collecting, under the form of fable, or allegory, or maxim, portions of truth which the sacred oracles had scattered around them in their transmission.

Having traversed Egypt, where he is said to have assumed the disguise of an olive-merchant, in order to journey more securely in a country not naturally tolerant of strangers, he purposed penetrating into Persia and India. But the disturbed state of those parts of Asia prevented his fulfilling his intentions. He returned accordingly to Magna Graecia, once more to enjoy the society of the Py-

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1 Theaet. ad fin. 2 See Theaet. throughout. 3 See Plato, Rep. x. p. 263; Polys. ii. 30; Aul. Gell. i. 9; Origen. C. Cel. ii. p. 67, iii. p. 142, ed Spenc.; Jamblich. Phil. Vit. c. 17, p. 154. 4 De Sect. c. 12. Cicero says Plato was at Tarentum in the consulship of L. Camillus and Appius Claudius. There appears some inaccuracy in the tradition, but we may believe its substantial truth. 5 About n. c. 650. Herodot. Bk. iv. 154. 6 Herodot. Bk. iv. 123. 7 Pliny says that Plato went to Egypt for the purpose of learning magic. Hist. Nat. xxiii. c. 1. 8 Quaestiones in illa peragrinatione sua, Plato, see Hieroclem. videbatur potius tantae defunctum, nec easdem scripturas legere, quam nondum fuerant in Graecam linguam traducer. (Augustin. De Civ. Dei, viii. 11.) Clement of Alexandria, however, asserts that there existed a version of the Law prior to that of the Septuagint. Strom. i.; Euseb. Prep. Evang. ix. 6. 9 Hence it was said by Numenius the Pythagorean, ἐν παραλίᾳ Ἀιδώνειος, εἰ Μωϋσῆς ἀπὸ Ἀττικῆς ἐλάμβανεν, "What is Plato, but Moses speaking in Attic idiom." thagoreans. At length, having spent several years in these travels, he turned his steps homeward. We have no means of ascertaining the exact time which these travels occupied, or at what period of his life precisely he undertook the office of teacher of philosophy at Athens. From the epistle addressed to the friends of Dion, it appears that he was scarcely forty years of age when he first went to Syracuse; so that probably not more than about ten years were taken up in his wanderings.

The visit to Sicily here referred to, had for its object to explore the crater of Mount Etna, and therefore properly belongs to that part of his history which we have just been tracing. But it had also very important bearings upon the future fortunes, both of himself and many others; so important, indeed, that Plutarch, following out a remark which occurs in the supposed epistles of Plato, attributes it to a providential arrangement, in order to the restoration of liberty to the Syracusans. For it was at this time that he became acquainted with the elder Dionysius, tyrant of Syracuse, and Dion, whose sister Dionysius had married. He reclaimed Dion, who was then quite a youth, from a life of vicious indulgence, to habits of sobriety, and inspired him with an ardent love of philosophy. Thus began an intimate friendship between the philosopher and Dion, which subsisted unimpaired until the tragic death of the latter.

Through the influence of Dion, the tyrant Dionysius, who was himself a literary man and a patron of literature, was induced to receive Plato into the circle of his court. The result, however, whether it was owing to the jealousy of other philosophers who were then at the court of Syracuse, or to an excess of freedom of speech in Plato, and an ebullition of temper and disappointed literary vanity on the part of Dionysius, was unfortunate. Dionysius was affronted at some words that passed at an interview with him, and was only prevented by the interposition of Dion from slaying the philosopher in the moment of exasperation. But still he did not remit his displeasure; for on suffering him to depart, he instructed the Lacedemonian ambassador, Pollis, in whose vessel he was to be conveyed from Sicily, either to slay him on the voyage or to sell him as a slave; observing sarcastically, "that being a just man, he would be equally happy though reduced to slavery." Pollis is said to have so far lent himself to this cruel treachery, that he actually caused the philosopher to be sold as a slave, by landing him at Aegina at a time when a decree was in force there, sentencing to death every Athenian who should set foot in the island. From this shameful indignity, however, Plato was immediately relieved by the generous kindness of Anicceris, a philosopher of Cyrene, who happened to be at Aegina at the time, and paid the twenty minae, the price of his redemption. And such, it is added, was the noble concern which Anicceris felt for him, that he could not be prevailed on to receive back the money from the friends of Plato at Athens, but refused it, saying, "that they were not the only persons interested in the welfare of Plato."

The story is related with circumstantial particularity, and so far bears the aspect of truth. Still it has been questioned, as inconsistent with the character of Dionysius, who, though despotic in the power which he possessed, and often cruel in his use of it, was a man of education and courtesy, and the patron of literary men. And the treachery of Pollis, as thus exhibited, has been regarded as altogether unlikely in the high-minded Spartan. Nor again do we find any allusion in the writings of the philosopher himself to so affecting an incident in his life. The story may be thought still more improbable, if the account be true that Dionysius presented him with a considerable sum of money, with which he was enabled, during his residence in Sicily, to purchase a treasure inestimable to him, the books of Philolaus the Pythagorean. These arguments, however, may be pressed too far. Individuals possessed of absolute power have often been found capable of deeds from which their own feelings, apart from that great temptation, would have shrunk: and sudden and most unreasonable and absurd outbreaks of violence, inconsistent with their general behaviour, are characteristics of such power. And as for the Lacedemonians, we know that at the height of their civilization they were guilty of the acts of barbarians. Their extreme cruelty to the poor debased Helots is well known; and in the Peloponnesian war they slaughtered indiscriminately all whom they met with at sea, even neutrals, and persons inoffensively engaged in the business of commerce. Further, there are repeated instances of Greeks selling as slaves the free inhabitants of captured cities in their wars with each other. There is no reason, at any rate, to question the general truth of the story, whatever may be thought of the particulars. There can be little doubt that the visit of Plato at Syracuse ended unsatisfactorily; that offence arose between the tyrant and himself; that he was treated with great indignity, and that he returned to Athens in disgust.

From this time we may contemplate him as pursuing, with little interruption, the course of philosophical labour for which his whole previous life had prepared him. The term "Academy" is now familiar to every one as synonymous with a place of learning. How strongly does this mark the celebrity of a school, which has thus immortalized in vernacular language the grove of the hero Academus or Hecademos, the ground on which Plato walked, and, as he walked, imparted to the throng around him the riches of his genius, and taste, and learning! Here, in the most beautiful suburb of Athens, the Ceraunicus, Plato possessed a small patrimony, a garden, where he fixed his abode, in the immediate vicinity of the grove, his daily resort. Here, amongst the tall plane-trees which shaded the walks, were assembled, year after year, the master-spirits of the age, whether in pursuit of knowledge for its own sake, or for counsel in the direction of public or private life,—the philosopher, the statesman, and the man of the world,—to converse with the Athenian sage, and imbibe the wisdom which fell from his lips. What an interesting assemblage must that have been which comprised in it, amongst other influential persons, and young men who afterwards rose to importance in their respective states, Demosthenes, Hypereides, Aristotle, Speusippus, Xenocrates, Polemo, Dion! At once you might see in the throng the young and the gay by the side of the old and the sedate; the stranger from some distant town of Asia Minor, or Thrace, or Magna Graecia, and the citizen of Athens; the tyrant of some little state learning theories of government and laws from the philosopher of the republic; and the haughty Lacedemonian paying deference to the superior wisdom of an individual of a country which his own had humbled in arms. Nor was the audience exclusively of the male sex. The wives and daughters of Athenian citizens, indeed, were not

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1. n. c. 389. Ep. vii. p. 93, Bipont ed. 2. Lact. in Vit. Plat. 3. Thucyd. iv. 80. 4. Ibid. 5. Ibid. 6. See Diodorus Siculus, xv. 6, who also, in xv. 7, confirms the account of this treatment of Plato. 7. In the Dialogue "on Laws," it is the Athenian stranger who instructs the Lacedemonian and Cretan in the theory of legislation. Here we have probably a representation of what actually was seen in the Academia itself. Socrates is away; Plato speaks; Cretans and Lacedemonians, among others, are the auditors. in that assembly; for custom excluded these. But the accomplished courtezian, whom the unnatural exclusion of the chaste matron from social intercourse had raised to importance in Grecian society, was there, seeking the improvement of her mind by joining in the discussions and listening to the instructions of the philosopher, and thus qualifying herself for that part which she had to sustain as an intimate with the men of the highest rank and most intellectual cultivation in Greece. The celebrated Aspasia had been at once the intimate of Pericles, and a hearer of Socrates; and Plato himself pays her the compliment of saying, that both Pericles and Socrates had taken lessons in rhetoric from her, as a most accomplished mistress of the art; to whom, indeed, Pericles had been chiefly indebted for his eloquence. So now in Plato's own school of the Academia were found, amongst others of the same class, the beautiful Mantinea Lathenca, and Axiothea of Phlius.

Socrates attracted persons around him from all parts of the Grecian world, by the charm of his engaging conversation, and thus became in himself a great object of interest. Plato made Athens itself also, even more than his own person, an object of interest to the civilized world of his day; converting it, from being only the centre of political intrigue and agitation to the cities of Greece, into a common university and common home for all. Compare what was said of Athens about half a century before, "that it was the nature of Athenians neither to keep quiet themselves, nor to suffer other people to do so," and its well-known character at that time of a "tyrant state," with the respect which Plato had won for it, when it became, not through the versatility of its citizens, and its inexhaustible resources, but by a truer title, through the lessons of virtue and wisdom, which it freely imparted to all, pre-eminently the School of Greece; and what an exalted opinion does the change now operated give us of the influence of Plato!

Isocrates had, at the same time, his school of rhetoric overflowing with pupils. Aristippus, also trained in the school of Socrates, was inculcating his scheme of ethics, which maintained the theory of Pleasure as the Chief Good. But esteemed as Isocrates was for the gentleness of his life, and his skill as a master of rhetoric; and acceptable as the doctrines of Aristippus must naturally have been to a corrupt society; neither of these great names sufficed to obscure the greater name of Plato, or could rival the pretensions of the Academia to be the great school of philosophy, and literature, and civilization.

A mind so intensely occupied as that of Plato, would scarcely find leisure for taking part in the political affairs of his country. The profession of philosophy was not as yet indeed become entirely distinct; but the teaching of Socrates had greatly tended to render it so. His rigorous method of interrogation which called forth the latent difficulties on other subjects, could not but produce great distrust in those who laid themselves fully open to it, as to their own ability to manage the complex matters of public concern, as well as impress them with despair of success in that walk of exertion. Socrates himself avoided as far as possible all interference in the politics of Athens. Plato strictly followed his example. Accordingly, we find, in several places of his writings, a contrast drawn between the philosopher and the man of public life; and an indirect apology for himself, as one who kept aloof from the public assemblies and the courts. He betrays indeed strong disgust, not unmixed with contemptuous feeling, at the state of misrule into which the democracy of Athens had degenerated in his day, and he was evidently glad to avail himself of the plea of philosophy to absent himself from scenes so uncongenial to his taste. Doubtless, independently of any political bias, he was glad to escape from the sycophancy and tumult of the popular assemblies at Athens, and to enjoy the calm shades of his beloved retreat. This was the sphere of action for which nature and his whole previous life had peculiarly fitted him. Here he could effectually diffuse the salutary influence of his philosophy, in counteracting, in some measure at least, the selfishness of the world. Here he could maintain an undisputed supremacy over minds, which (such was the impatience of all authority in those times) no mere external power could have controled or so entirely subjected to the direction of an individual.

Through the influence, however, of his Pythagorean friends, with whom he appears to have held constant intercourse, Plato was prevailed upon, at the age of sixty-five years, to quit the retirement of his garden for a time, and pay a second visit to Sicily. It was the policy indeed of the Pythagoreans, like that of the Jesuits in modern times, to keep up an active intercourse with society, whilst in their internal system they cultivated philosophy with the ardour of exclusive devotees. Socrates wished to govern the conduct of men by an appeal to their reason; convincing them of their errors and follies, and leading them to seek the means of informing themselves aright. The Pythagoreans, like the Jesuits, aspired to carry out their views by a moral hold over men in society; by taking part accordingly in the management of states, and by a secret influence over those in power. The accession of the younger Dionysius to the throne of Syracuse, and the opening presented for producing an effect on him through Plato's influence with Dion, the next in power to the tyrant, were opportunities which would not be lost by their watchful zeal. Such seems, if we may proceed on the authority of the Epistles, to have been the occasion of this invitation of Plato to Syracuse. We see, at the same time, that there was a struggle of factions at Syracuse at this period. The party opposed to Dion, in order to counteract his influence, obtained the recall of Philistus, a man distinguished alike as a statesman, a commander, and an historian, and a strenuous supporter of the existing government, but then in banishment through the ingratitude and caprice of the elder Dionysius. The result was, that though the reception of Plato at Syracuse was most flattering, for he was welcomed with the royal pomp of a decorated chariot, and the celebration of a public sacrifice, his mission was ultimately fruitless.

At first everything seemed prosperous. The change wrought in the manners of the court is described as marvellous. Philosophy became the fashion; and the very palace was filled with the dust stirred up by the number of geometricians. Even the expulsion of Dion, which soon followed, through the successful intrigues of his enemies, did not at once estrange Dionysius from the philoso-

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1 Plato, Menex., p. 277. 2 During the representation of "the Clouds," he stood up in a conspicuous part of the theatre to gratify the curiosity of the audience, many of them strangers visiting Athens at the festival, to see the philosopher who had attracted so much notice as to be personated on the stage. Athen. Var. Hist. ii. 13. 3 Thucyd. i. 70. 4 Ibid. i. 124. 5 Ibid. ii. 41. 6 Phaedr. p. 145; Theat. p. 115, et seq.; Gorg. p. 82, et seq.; Repub. vi. p. 79; Euplit. vii. 7 Diogenes Laertius says, he went to Sicily on this occasion, in order to found a city according to the principles of his Republic, but that Dionysius failed in his promise of land and men for the purpose. But others, he adds, stated that the object of his visit was the liberation of the island from tyranny. In Vit. Plat. 8 Cicero speaks of Philistus as a writer in the following manner: Philistus doctum hominem et diligentem. (De Divin. i. 20.) Cato nem cum Philisto et Thucydide comparares? quos enim me e Graecis quisquam imitari potest. (De Clar. Orat.) Plato. He would not indeed allow Plato to leave Sicily with Dion; but, using a gentle constraint over him, detained him within the precincts of the citadel; shewing him at the same time all respect, and hoping at last, as it seems, to bring him over to his interest. At length the attention of Dionysius was called to preparations for war; and Plato, released from his embarrassing situation, was enabled to return to Athens.

He was not, however, deterred from once more making the trial, how far an impression could be made on the mind of Dionysius, and the restoration of Dion to his country effected; and, as on the former occasion, so now, he was chiefly induced to undertake the enterprise, by the earnest intercession of his Pythagorean friends. Dion himself was living at Athens, waiting the opportunity of returning to his country; and his relatives at Syracuse sent letters to Plato, urging him to use his exertions in behalf of Dion. Even Dionysius himself wrote a letter to him, entreating him to come, and promising satisfaction at the same time in regard to Dion. He also sent a trinome for him, with Archidamus, a disciple of Archytas, and others with whom the philosopher was acquainted, to render the voyage more agreeable to him. For a while Plato persisted in declining the invitation, pleading his advanced age, for he was now sixty-eight years old; but at length he gave way to these united solicitations. Dionysius, indeed, like his father, was fond of drawing around him men of eminence for literature and philosophy. At this time, amongst others of the same class at his court, were the philosophers Diogenes, Arcesines, Aristippus, and some Pythagoreans. Plato might have not unreasonably hoped, therefore, that a mind delighting in such society, or at least ambitious of the reputation of being a patron of literature, might yet be influenced to sound philosophy. He was, besides, desirous of making an attempt to produce a reconciliation between Dionysius and Dion. Thus did he pass the Straits of Sicily a third time, to be a third time disappointed in the object of his voyage. Though he was welcomed, as before, with great splendour and demonstrations of respect, not only were his endeavours for the restoration of Dion unsuccessful, but he increased the tyrant by venturing to intercede in behalf of Heraclides, a member of the liberal party at Syracuse, who was under suspicion of having tampered with the mercenaries. Still Dionysius was desirous of retaining the friendship of the philosopher. Plato was removed, indeed, from the garden in which he lived, under the pretence of a sacrifice about to be performed there by women, and placed in the quarter of the mercenaries. Such a situation was most unpleasant to him; as he could not but feel himself in danger amongst that lawless class, who naturally disliked him, as an enemy of the power which gave them employment and pay. But this indignity was probably more the effect of the hostility of the opposite party against Dion, than an act of the weak tyrant himself. Plato, in his perplexity, applied to Arclytus and the Pythagoreans at Tarentum, to extricate him from these difficult circumstances. At their instance, accordingly, Dionysius consented to the departure of Plato, and dismissed him with kindness, furnishing him with supplies for his voyage.

Thus did Plato once more return to Athens, heartily disgusted with the untoward result of his visits to Sicily.

Though the friend of Dion, the head of one great party at Syracuse, he had acted in Sicily consistently with his conduct at Athens, in not taking any active part in political affairs. Even Dionysius himself seems, throughout his conduct towards him, to have been jealous rather of his personal regard for Dion, than suspicious of any exertion on his part in the cause of Dion against him, and to have sought to detain him at Syracuse, not out of fear or ill will, but for the honour of the presence of the philosopher at his court. This is further evinced by the subsequent conduct of Plato. For, in the expedition which Dion planned and executed against Dionysius, he took no part; making answer to the invitation to join in it, "that if invited to assist in doing any good, he would readily concur; but as for doing evil to any one, they must invite others, not him."

The remaining years of his life were gently worn away amidst the labours of the Academia. These labours were unintermitted to the very close of a long life; for he died, according to Cicero's account, in the act of writing; his death happening on the day in which he completed his eighty-first year. "Such," adds Cicero, "was the placid and gentle old age of a life spent in quietness, and purity, and elegance." Another account, however, of his death states that he died during his presence at a marriage-feast. And another account besides (evidently the invention of some enemy to his fame), attributes his death to a loathsome disease. On his first residence in the garden of the Academia, his health had been impaired by a lingering fever, in consequence of the marshiness of the ground. He was urged to remove his residence to the Lyceum, the grove afterwards frequented by the school of Aristotle; but such was his attachment to the place, that he preferred it, he said, even to the proverbial salubrity of Mount Athos; and he continued struggling against the disorder for eighteen months, until at length his constitution successfully resisted it. Adopting habits of strict temperance, he thus preserved his health during the remainder of his life, amidst the harassings of foreign travel, and the undermining assiduities of days and nights of study.

Plato was never married. He had two brothers, Glauco and Adimantus, and a sister, Potona, whose son, Speusippos, he appears to have regarded with peculiar affection and interest, as the destined successor to his school of philosophy. He inherited a very small patrimony, and he died poor, leaving but three mines of silver, two pieces of land, and four slaves, and a few articles of gold and silver to the young Adimantus, the son, as it would seem, of his brother of that name.

In person he is described as graceful in his youth, and, if the etymology of his name be correct, as remarkable for the manly frame of his body. One circumstance, however, is mentioned, which detracts in some measure from his bodily accomplishments; the imperfection of his voice, which has been characterized as wanting in strength of tone.

In regard to moral qualities, he was distinguished by the gravity, and modesty, and gentleness of his demeanour. He had never been observed from his youth to indulge in excessive laughter. Several anecdotes are told of his self-command under provocation; as, for example, his declining to inflict the due punishment on a slave when he found himself under the excitement of anger. A pleasing instance is given of his amiableness and modesty, at a time... when his fame was at its height. Some strangers, into whose company he had been thrown at Olympus, coming afterwards to Athens, were received by him there with the greatest courtesy. All the while, however, they were ignorant who their host was. They merely knew that his name was Plato. On their requesting him to conduct them to the Academy, and show them his namesake, the associate of Socrates, they were astonished to find, by his smile and avowal of himself, that they had experienced so much unpretending kindness from the great philosopher himself? Again, being asked by some one if there would be any saying recorded of him, he answered with the like modesty, "One must first obtain a name, and then there will be several."

The gravity of his manner was by some interpreted as severity and gloom. The comic poet Amphipus complained of him, that "he knew nothing but to look sad, and solemnly raise the brow." Aristippus charged him with arrogance. It is no wonder, indeed, that, in contrast with the coarse freedom of Diogenes, and the excessive affability of Aristippus, he should appear haughty and reserved. But that this character did not really belong to him, we may judge from the social humour which mingles even with the sarcastic touches of his Dialogues, and from the anxiety which he shewed to correct such a disposition as a fault in Dion. His favourite pupil Speusippus was distinguished by the opposite quality of a lively temper; and to his especial direction we find Plato sending Dion, that he might learn, by the conversation and example of Speusippus, a more conciliatory and agreeable mode of address.

The instance given of his vanity in putting himself forward at the death of Socrates, as competent to retrieve the great loss in his own person alone, bears evident marks of a calumny. It may be so far true, as it represents a desire upon his part to console his brother disciples under their common affliction. But as an evidence of an assumption of superiority over them at such a moment, it accords little with that feeling of dismay for themselves, under which he, in common with the rest, fled to Megara as an asylum; or with his indisputable affection for the person of Socrates, and veneration for his wisdom and talents.

Again, the strictness of Plato's philosophical profession, amidst the general dissoluteness of manners at Athens, was construed by some who had an envious eye on his reputation, as only an affected austerity. It was complained of him, that his life did not answer to the high requisitions of his moral teaching. Two of his brother disciples in the school of Socrates, Antisthenes and Aristippus, imputed to him the grossest licentiousness. The former taking offence at Plato for objecting to a treatise, which he proposed to read, on the Impossibility of Contradiction, vented his spleen in a most abusive dialogue, which he entitled Satha, intending at once by that term a satirical play on the name, and a stigma on the character, of the philosopher. These calumnies are in some measure supported by the tenor of certain epigrams attributed to Plato, and by passages of his Dialogues, which display a license of impure allusion, shocking to the feelings of the reader, in these days at least. His calumniators then found occasion for their scandal, in observing amongst those by whom he was surrounded, the young and the handsome. But though we may see much to reprobate in such passages, and painful as the impression is which they leave on the mind, as evidences of the deep corruption of human nature, we are not warranted in regarding them as conclusive of corresponding immorality of conduct in a writer of his age and country. They would show, indeed, that the writer has not escaped the contagion of the vicious atmosphere which he breathed; and they are of course a great drawback in our estimate of the purity of his sentiments and character. But we ought to set off against them the high tone of religious and moral feeling which is the general characteristic of his philosophy; the beacon which it holds up to warn men of the debasing allurements of pleasure, and of the misery consequent on the indulgence of passion; and its glowing exhortation to seek for true happiness, not in externals, or by aiming at a mere human standard of virtue, but by internal purification, and by imitation of the perfections of the Deity.

Much has been said on the absence of any reference to Xenophon in the Dialogues of Plato. Xenophon, in his Memorabilia, has spoken of Plato, and alluded to the affection with which Plato was regarded by Socrates. But Plato has not availed himself of any opportunity of paying the like compliment to Xenophon. This silence cannot, perhaps, be entirely accounted for, without supposing that there was a feeling of literary jealousy on the part of Plato. But there are some considerations which may partly account for Xenophon's not appearing as an interlocutor in the Dialogues. Xenophon, though a man of philosophical mind, evidently attended the teaching of Socrates, not to learn the art of disputation, or for the indulgence of a speculative curiosity. When he philosophized, it was as a man of the world, acquainting himself with human nature, with the manners and opinions of men, in order to his own conduct in life. He was not one of those eager and flippant sciolists, whom Plato takes delight in submitting as apt experiments to the interrogatories of Socrates. Nor was he, again, a devotee of science, like the wise Thetetus, the interesting person who gives occasion to the dialogue of that name, and whom in some points he resembled. He would not therefore naturally be selected by Plato, in order to the carrying on of discussions intended for the development of his philosophy. It is remarkable, that Plato has only in two places even alluded to himself; in the Phaedo, to explain his absence from the death-scene in the prison, and in the Apology, as amongst those present at the trial of Socrates, and capable of giving evidence as to the nature of those instructions which Socrates addressed to the young.

Such was the character of this eminent man. His distinguished career exposed him to the shafts of envy and detraction; and the high aspirations of his mind were clogged and weighed down by that corrupt heathenism with which he was surrounded. Still his reputation for wisdom and virtue stands above all these attacks and circumstances of disparagement. The more we converse with him in his writings, the more we are charmed by the deep feeling of natural piety which pervades his philosophy as its master-thought, and by the sound practical wisdom which shines forth from them as the real character of the man, rechiming and subduing the wild aberrations of his speculative fancy.

His remains were buried in the place which he had ennobled whilst living. Nor were they unattended by the customary tributes of honour and affection. Aristotle, who had been his constant disciple during the last twenty years preceding his death, displayed his veneration for his preceptor by consecrating an altar to him. A festival, called after him Platoena, was instituted in honour of him, and celebrated annually by his disciples. A statue, dedicated to the Muses, was afterwards erected in the Academia by Mithridates the Persian. He had not, indeed, been dead but a very few years, when the great celebrity of his name called forth from his nephew and successor, Speusippus, an express work in his praise. Seneca further tells us of a singular mark of honour which was paid to him on the very day of his decease. There were some Magi, he relates, at Athens at the time, who, struck by the singular circumstance of his having exactly completed the perfect number of nine times nine years, performed a sacrifice to him, esteeming him on that account to have been more than man. The story is evidently the invention of his later admirers. It is referred to here, as a testimony of the enthusiastic admiration with which his name has been ever attended. To the same feeling must be ascribed the fiction of the discovery of his body in the time of Constantine the Great, with a golden tablet on the breast, recording his prediction of the birth of Christ, and his own belief in the Saviour.