Lives and Opinions of Eminent Philosophers

​Plato himself has made no mention of himself anywhere in his own writings, except in the dialogue On the Soul and the Apology. Aristotle says that the style of his arguments is halfway between poetry and prose. Favorinus somewhere states that when Plato read On the Soul, this man [Aristotle] alone remained to the end, while all the others got up and left. Some also say that Philippus of Opus transcribed his Laws, which were on wax tablets; and to him they also attribute the Epinomis. Euphorion and Panaetius have stated that the beginning of the Republic was found rearranged many times; which Republic Aristoxenus says was almost entirely written in the Antilogica of Protagoras.

​There is a report that he wrote the Phaedrus first; for indeed the subject matter has something youthful about it. Dicaearchus, however, blames the entire manner of writing as vulgar. Plato, at any rate, is said to have rebuked someone whom he saw playing at dice; and when the man said that it was for small stakes, he replied, "Yet habit is not a small thing." When asked whether there would be memorabilia of him as of those before him, he answered: "One must first gain a name, and then there will be many." Once, when Xenocrates entered, he told him to flog the slave, for he himself was unable to do so because he was angry.

​Moreover, to one of the slaves he said, "You would have been flogged, if I were not angry." Having mounted a horse, he immediately dismounted, saying that he was on his guard lest he be seized by equestrian vanity. To those who were drunk he used to advise looking in a mirror; for they would desist from such unseemliness. And he used to say that drinking to intoxication was nowhere fitting except during the festivals of the god who also gave wine. Excessive sleeping was also displeasing to him. In the Laws, at any rate, he says: "No one who is asleep is worth anything." He also held that truth is the sweetest of things to hear, though others say it was speaking the truth. And concerning truth he also says in the Laws as follows:

"Truth, stranger, is a noble thing and lasting; yet it seems not easy to persuade men of it." He also deemed it worthy that a memorial of himself should be left either in friends or in books; and he himself spent most of his time in seclusion, as some say. And he died in the manner we have mentioned, in the thirteenth year of the reign of Philip, as Favorinus also states in the third book of the Memorabilia. Theopompus says that Plato was also censured by this Philip. But Myronianus in his Parallels says that Philo mentions a proverb about Plato's lice, implying that he died in this way.

​And he was buried in the Academy, where he spent most of his time philosophizing; whence the sect derived from him was also called the Academic. And he was escorted to the grave by the whole populace of the place, having made his will in this manner: "These things Plato has left and disposed of: the estate in Iphistiadae, bounded on the north by the road from the sanctuary at Cephisia, on the south by the Heracleum in Iphistiadae, on the east by Archestratus of Phrearrhoi, and on the west by Philippus of Cholleidae; and it shall not be lawful for anyone either to sell or to exchange this, but it shall belong to the lad Adeimantus as far as possible;

​and the estate in Eiresidae, which I bought from Callimachus, bounded on the north by Eurymedon of Myrrhinus, on the south by Demostratus of Xypete, on the east by Eurymedon of Myrrhinus, and on the west by the Cephisus. Three minas of silver. A silver phiale weighing 165 drachmas, a cup weighing 45 drachmas, a gold ring and a gold earring weighing together 4 drachmas and 3 obols. Euclides the stonemason owes me three minas. I set Artemis free. As household slaves I leave Tychon, Bictas, Apollonides, and Dionysius."