112 Compare the touching passage in Tacitus’s description of the death of Agricola, c. 44-45.
“Festinatæ mortis grande solatium tulit, evasisse postremum illud tempus,” &c.
Scanty information about Plato’s life.
Of Plato’s biography we can furnish nothing better than a faint outline. We are not fortunate enough to possess the work on Plato’s life,1 composed by his companion and disciple Xenokrates, like the life of Plotinus by Porphyry, or that of Proklus by Marinus. Though Plato lived eighty years, enjoying extensive celebrity — and though Diogenes Laertius employed peculiar care in collecting information about him — yet the number of facts recounted is very small, and of those facts a considerable proportion is poorly attested.2
1 This is cited by Simplikius, Schol. ad Aristot. De Cœlo, 470, a. 27; 474, a. 12, ed. Brandis.
2 Diogen. Laert. iv. 1. The person to whom Diogenes addressed his biography of Plato was a female: possibly the wife of the emperor Septimius Severus (see Philostr. Vit. Apoll. i. 3), who greatly loved and valued the Platonic philosophy (Diog. Laert. iii. 47). Ménage (in his commentary on the Proœmium) supposes the person signified to be Arria: this also is a mere conjecture, and in my judgment less probable. We know that the empress gave positive encouragement to writers on philosophy. The article devoted by Diogenes to Plato is of considerable length, including both biography and exposition of doctrine. He makes reference to numerous witnesses — Speusippus, Aristotle, Hermodôrus, Aristippus, Dikæarchus, Aristoxenus, Klearchus, Herakleides, Theopompus, Timon in his Silli or satirical poem, Pamphila, Hermippus, Neanthes, Antileon, Favorinus, Athenodôrus. Timotheus, Idomeneus, Alexander ἐν διαδοχαῖς καθ’ Ἡράκλειτον, Satyrus, Onêtor, Alkimus, Euphorion, Panætius, Myronianus, Polemon, Aristophanes of Byzantium, the Alexandrine critic, Antigonus of Karystus, Thrasyllus, &c.
Of the other biographers of Plato, Olympiodorus and the Auctor Anonymus cite no authorities. Apuleius, in his survey of the doctrine of Plato (De Habitudine doctrinarum Platonis, init. p. 567, ed. Paris), mentions only Speusippus, as having attested the early diligence and quick apprehension of Plato. “Speusippus, domesticis instructus documentis, et pueri ejus acre in percipiendo ingenium, et admirandæ verecundiæ indolem laudat, et pubescentis primitias labore atque amore studendi imbutas refert,” &c.
Speusippus had composed a funeral Discourse or Encomium on Plato (Diogen. iii. 1, 2; iv. 1, 11). Unfortunately Diogenes refers to it only once in reference to Plato. We can hardly make out whether any of the authors, whom he cites, had made the life of Plato a subject of attentive study. Hermodôrus is cited by Simplikius as having written a treatise περὶ Πλάτωνος. Aristoxenus, Dikæarchus, and Theopompus — perhaps also Hermippus, and Klearchus — had good means of information.
See K. F. Hermann, Geschichte und System der Platonischen Philosophie, p. 97, not. 45.
His birth, parentage, and early education.
Plato was born in Ægina (in which island his father enjoyed an estate as kleruch or out-settled citizen) in the month Thargelion (May) of the year B.C. 427.3 His family, belonging to the Dême Kollytus, was both ancient and noble, in the sense attached to that word at Athens. He was son of Ariston (or, according to some admirers, of the God Apollo) and Periktionê: his maternal ancestors had been intimate friends or relatives of the law-giver Solon, while his father belonged to a Gens tracing its descent from Kodrus, and even from the God Poseidon. He was also nearly related to Charmides and to Kritias — this last the well-known and violent leader among the oligarchy called the Thirty Tyrants.4 Plato was first called Aristoklês, after his grandfather; but received when he grew up the name of Plato — on account of the breadth (we are told) either of his forehead or of his shoulders. Endowed with a robust physical frame, and exercised in gymnastics, not merely in one of the palæstræ of Athens (which he describes graphically in the Charmides) but also under an Argeian trainer, he attained such force and skill as to contend (if we may credit Dikæarchus) for the prize of wrestling among boys at the Isthmian festival.5 His literary training was commenced under a schoolmaster named Dionysius, and pursued under Drakon, a celebrated teacher of music in the large sense then attached to that word. He is said to have displayed both diligence and remarkable quickness of apprehension, combined too with the utmost gravity and modesty.6 He not only acquired great familiarity with the poets, but composed poetry of his own — dithyrambic, lyric, and tragic: and he is even reported to have prepared a tragic tetralogy, with the view of competing for victory at the Dionysian festival. We are told that he burned these poems, when he attached himself to the society of Sokrates. No compositions in verse remain under his name, except a few epigrams — amatory, affectionate, and of great poetical beauty. But there is ample proof in his dialogues that the cast of his mind was essentially poetical. Many of his philosophical speculations are nearly allied to poetry, and acquire their hold upon the mind rather through imagination and sentiment than through reason or evidence.
3 It was affirmed distinctly by Hermodôrus (according to the statement of Diogenes Laertius, iii. 6) that Plato was twenty-eight years old at the time of the death of Sokrates: that is, in May, 399 B.C. (Zeller, Phil. der Griech. vol. ii. p. 39, ed. 2nd.) This would place the birth of Plato in 427 B.C. Other critics refer his birth to 428 or 429: but I agree with Zeller in thinking that the deposition of Hermodôrus is more trustworthy than any other evidence before us.
Hermodôrus was a friend and disciple of Plato, and is even said to have made money by publishing Plato’s dialogues without permission (Cic., Epist. ad Attic. xiii. 21). Suidas, Ἑρμόδωρος. He was also an author: he published a treatise Περὶ Μαθημάτων (Diog. L., Proœm. 2).
See the more recent Dissertation of Zeller, De Hermodoro Ephesio et Hermodoro Platonico, Marburg, 1859, p. 19 seq. He cites two important passages (out of the commentary of Simplikius on Aristot. Physic.) referring to the work of Hermodôrus ὁ Πλάτωνος ἕταιρος — a work Περὶ Πλάτωνος, on Plato.
4 The statements respecting Plato’s relatives are obscure and perplexing: unfortunately the domestica documenta, which were within the knowledge of his nephew Speusippus, are no longer accessible to us. It is certain that he had two brothers, Glaukon and Adeimantus: besides which, it would appear from the Parmenides (126 B) that he had a younger half-brother by the mother’s side, named Antiphon, and son of Pyrilampes (compare Charmides, p. 158 A, and Plut., De Frat. Amore, 12, p. 484 E). But the age, which this would assign to Antiphon, does not harmonise well with the chronological postulates assumed in the exordium of the Parmenides. Accordingly, K. F. Hermann and Stallbaum are led to believe, that besides the brothers of Plato named Glaukon and Adeimantus, there must also have been two uncles of Plato bearing these same names, and having Antiphon for their younger brother. (See Stallbaum’s Prolegg. ad Charm. pp. 84, 85, and Prolegg. ad Parmen., Part iii. pp. 304-307.) This is not unlikely: but we cannot certainly determine the point — more especially as we do not know what amount of chronological inaccuracy Plato might hold to be admissible in the personnel of his dialogues.
It is worth mentioning, that in the discourse of Andokides de Mysteriis, persons named Plato, Charmides, Antiphon, are named among those accused of concern in the sacrileges of 415 B.C. — the mutilation of the Hermæ and the mock celebration of the mysteries. Speusippus is also named as among the Senators of the year (Andokides de Myst. p. 13-27, seq.). Whether these persons belonged to the same family as the philosopher Plato, we cannot say. He himself was then only twelve years old.
5 Diog. L. iii. 4; Epiktêtus, i. 8-13, εἰ δὲ καλὸς ἦν Πλάτων καὶ ἰσχυρός, &c.
The statement of Sextus Empiricus — that Plato in his boyhood had his ears bored and wore ear-rings — indicates the opulent family to which he belonged. (Sex. Emp. adv. Gramm. s. 258.) Probably some of the old habits of the great Athenian families, as to ornaments worn on the head or hair, were preserved with the children after they had been discontinued with adults. See Thuc. i. 6.
6 Diog. L. iii. 26.
Early relations of Plato with Sokrates.
According to Diogenes7 (who on this point does not cite his authority), it was about the twentieth year of Plato’s age (407 B.C.) that his acquaintance with Sokrates began. It may possibly have begun earlier, but certainly not later — since at the time of the conversation (related by Xenophon) between Sokrates and Plato’s younger brother Glaukon, there was already a friendship established between Sokrates and Plato: and that time can hardly be later than 406 B.C., or the beginning of 405 B.C.8 From 406 B.C. down to 399 B.C., when Sokrates was tried and condemned, Plato seems to have remained in friendly relation and society with him: a relation perhaps interrupted during the severe political struggles between 405 B.C. and 403 B.C., but revived and strengthened after the restoration of the democracy in the last-mentioned year.
7 Ibid. 6.
8 Xen. Mem. iii. 6, 1. Sokrates was induced by his friendship for Plato and for Charmides the cousin of Plato, to admonish the forward youth Glaukon (Plato’s younger brother), who thrust himself forward obtrusively to speak in the public assembly before he was twenty years of age. The two discourses of Sokrates — one with the presumptuous Glaukon, the other with the diffident Charmides — are both reported by Xenophon.
These discourses must have taken place before the battle of Ægospotami: for Charmides was killed during the Anarchy, and Glaukon certainly would never have attempted such acts of presumption after the restoration of the democracy, at a time when the tide of public feeling had become vehemently hostile to Kritias, Charmides, and all the names and families connected with the oligarchical rule just overthrown.
I presume the conversation of Sokrates with Glaukon to have taken place in 406 B.C. or 405 B.C.: it was in 405 B.C. that the disastrous battle of Ægospotami occurred.
Plato’s youth — service as a citizen and soldier.
But though Plato may have commenced at the age of twenty his acquaintance with Sokrates, he cannot have been exclusively occupied in philosophical pursuits between the nineteenth and the twenty-fifth year of his age — that is, between 409-403 B.C. He was carried, partly by his own dispositions, to other matters besides philosophy; and even if such dispositions had not existed, the exigencies of the time pressed upon him imperatively as an Athenian citizen. Even under ordinary circumstances, a young Athenian of eighteen years of age, as soon as he was enrolled on the public register of citizens, was required to take the memorable military oath in the chapel of Aglaurus, and to serve on active duty, constant or nearly constant, for two years, in various posts throughout Attica, for the defence of the country.9 But the six years from 409-403 B.C. were years of an extraordinary character. They included the most strenuous public efforts, the severest suffering, and the gravest political revolution, that had ever occurred at Athens. Every Athenian citizen was of necessity put upon constant (almost daily) military service; either abroad, or in Attica against the Lacedæmonian garrison established in the permanent fortified post of Dekeleia, within sight of the Athenian Akropolis. So habitually were the citizens obliged to be on guard, that Athens, according to Thucydides,10 became a military post rather than a city. It is probable that Plato, by his family and its place on the census, belonged to the Athenian Hippeis or Horsemen, who were in constant employment for the defence of the territory. But at any rate, either on horseback, or on foot, or on shipboard, a robust young citizen like Plato, whose military age commenced in 409, must have borne his fair share in this hard but indispensable duty. In the desperate emergency, which preceded the battle of Arginusæ (406 B.C.), the Athenians put to sea in thirty days a fleet of 110 triremes for the relief of Mitylenê; all the men of military age, freemen, and slaves, embarking.11 We can hardly imagine that at such a season Plato can have wished to decline service: even if he had wished it, the Strategi would not have permitted him. Assuming that he remained at home, the garrison-duty at Athens must have been doubled on account of the number of departures. After the crushing defeat of the Athenians at Ægospotami, came the terrible apprehension at Athens, then the long blockade and famine of the city (wherein many died of hunger); next the tyranny of the Thirty, who among their other oppressions made war upon all free speech, and silenced even the voice of Sokrates: then the gallant combat of Thrasybulus followed by the intervention of the Lacedæmonians — contingencies full of uncertainty and terror, but ending in the restoration of the democracy. After such restoration, there followed all the anxieties, perils, of reaction, new enactments and provisions, required for the revived democracy, during the four years between the expulsion of the Thirty and the death of Sokrates.
9 Read the oath sworn by the Ephêbi in Pollux viii. 105. Æschines tells us that he served his two ephebic years as περίπολος τῆς χώρας, when there was no remarkable danger or foreign pressure. See Æsch. De Fals. Legat. s. 178. See the facts about the Athenian Ephêbi brought together in a Dissertation by W. Dittenberger, p. 9-12.
10 Thuc. vii. 27: ὁσημέραι ἐξελαυνόντων τῶν ἱππέων, &c. Cf., viii. 69. Antiphon, who is described in the beginning of the Parmenides, as devoted to ἱππικὴ, must have been either brother or uncle of Plato.
11 Xen. Hell. i. 6, 24. Οἱ δὲ Ἀθηναῖοι, τὰ γεγενημένα καὶ τὴν πολιορκίαν ἐπεὶ ἤκουσαν, ἐψηφίσαντο βοηθεῖν ναυσὶν ἑκατὸν καὶ δέκα, εἰσβιβάζοντες τοὺς ἐν ἡλικίᾳ ὄντας ἅπαντας, καὶ δούλους καὶ ἐλευθέρους· καὶ πληρώσαντες τὰς δέκα καὶ ἑκατὸν ἐν τριάκοντα ἡμέραις, ἀπῆραν· εἰσέβησαν δὲ καὶ τῶν ἱππέων πολλοί. In one of the anecdotes given by Diogenes (iii. 24) Plato alludes to his own military service. Aristoxenus (Diog. L. iii. 8) said that Plato had been engaged thrice in military expeditions out of Attica: once to Tanagra, a second time to Corinth, a third time to Delium, where he distinguished himself. Aristoxenus must have had fair means of information, yet I do not know what to make of this statement. All the three places named are notorious for battles fought by Athens; nevertheless chronology utterly forbids the supposition that Plato could have been present either at the battle of Tanagra or at the battle of Delium. At the battle of Delium Sokrates was present, and is said to have distinguished himself: hence there is ground for suspecting some confusion between his name and that of Plato. It is however possible that there may have been, during the interval between 410-405 B.C., partial invasions of the frontiers of Bœotia by Athenian detachments: both Tanagra and Delium were on the Bœotian frontier. The great battle of Corinth took place in 394 B.C. Plato left Athens immediately after the death of Sokrates in 399 B.C., and visited several foreign countries during the years immediately following; but he may have been at Athens in 394 B.C., and may have served in the Athenian force at Corinth. See Mr. Clinton, Fast. Hell. ad ann. 395 B.C. I do not see how Plato could have been engaged in any battle of Delium after the battle of Corinth, for Athens was not then at war with the Bœotians.
At the same time I confess that the account given by or ascribed to Aristoxenus appears to me to have been founded on little positive information, when we compare it with the military duty which Plato must have done between 410-405 B.C.
It is curious that Antisthenes also is mentioned as having distinguished himself at the battle of Tanagra (Diog. vi. 1). The same remarks are applicable to him as have just been made upon Plato.
From the dangers, fatigues, and sufferings of such an historical decad, no Athenian citizen could escape, whatever might be his feeling towards the existing democracy, or however averse he might be to public employment by natural temper. But Plato was not thus averse, during the earlier years of his adult life. We know, from his own letters, that he then felt strongly the impulse of political ambition usual with young Athenians of good family;12 though probably not with any such premature vehemence as his younger brother Glaukon, whose impatience Sokrates is reported to have so judiciously moderated.13 Whether Plato ever spoke with success in the public assembly, we do not know: he is said to have been shy by nature, and his voice was thin and feeble, ill adapted for the Pnyx.14 However, when the oligarchy of Thirty was established, after the capture and subjugation of Athens, Plato was not only relieved from the necessity of addressing the assembled people, but also obtained additional facilities for rising into political influence, through Kritias (his near relative) and Charmides, leading men among the new oligarchy. Plato affirms that he had always disapproved the antecedent democracy, and that he entered on the new scheme of government with full hope of seeing justice and wisdom predominant. He was soon undeceived. The government of the Thirty proved a sanguinary and rapacious tyranny,15 filling him with disappointment and disgust. He was especially revolted by their treatment of Sokrates, whom they not only interdicted from continuing his habitual colloquy with young men,16 but even tried to implicate in nefarious murders, by ordering him along with others to arrest Leon the Salaminian, one of their intended victims: an order which Sokrates, at the peril of his life, disobeyed.
12 Plato, Epistol. vii. p. 324-325.
13 Xen., Mem. iii. 6.
14 Diogen. Laert. iii. 5: Ἰσχνόφωνός τε ἦν, &c. iii. 26: αἰδήμων καὶ κόσμιος.
15 History of Greece, vol. viii. ch. 65.
16 Xen. Mem. i. 2, 36; Plato, Apol. Sokrat. c. 20, p. 32.
He becomes disgusted with politics.
Thus mortified and disappointed, Plato withdrew from public functions. What part he took in the struggle between the oligarchy and its democratical assailants under Thrasybulus, we are not informed. But when the democracy was re-established, his political ambition revived, and he again sought to acquire some active influence on public affairs. Now however the circumstances had become highly unfavourable to him. The name of his deceased relative Kritias was generally abhorred, and he had no powerful partisans among the popular leaders. With such disadvantages, with anti-democratical sentiments, and with a thin voice, we cannot wonder that Plato soon found public life repulsive;17 though he admits the remarkable moderation displayed by the restored Demos. His repugnance was aggravated to the highest pitch of grief and indignation by the trial and condemnation of Sokrates (399 B.C.), four years after the renewal of the democracy. At that moment doubtless the Sokratic men or companions were unpopular in a body. Plato, after having yielded his best sympathy and aid at the trial of Sokrates, retired along with several others of them to Megara. He made up his mind that for a man of his views and opinions, it was not only unprofitable, but also unsafe, to embark in active public life, either at Athens or in any other Grecian city. He resolved to devote himself to philosophical speculation, and to abstain from practical politics; unless fortune should present to him some exceptional case, of a city prepared to welcome and obey a renovator upon exalted principles.18
17 Ælian (V. H. iii. 27) had read a story to the effect, that Plato, in consequence of poverty, was about to seek military service abroad, and was buying arms for the purpose, when he was induced to stay by the exhortation of Sokrates, who prevailed upon him to devote himself to philosophy at home.
If there be any truth in this story, it must refer to some time in the interval between the restoration of the democracy (403 B.C.) and the death of Sokrates (399 B.C.). The military service of Plato, prior to the battle of Ægospotami (405 B.C.), must have been obligatory, in defence of his country, not depending on his own free choice. It is possible also that Plato may have been for the time impoverished, like many other citizens, by the intestine troubles in Attica, and may have contemplated military service abroad, like Xenophon.
But I am inclined to think that the story is unfounded, and that it arises from some confusion between Plato and Xenophon.
18 The above account of Plato’s proceedings, perfectly natural and interesting, but unfortunately brief, is to be found in his seventh Epistle, p. 325-326.
He retires from Athens after the death of Sokrates — his travels.
At Megara Plato passed some time with the Megarian Eukleides, his fellow-disciple in the society of Sokrates, and the founder of what is termed the Megaric school of philosophers. He next visited Kyrênê, where he is said to have become acquainted with the geometrician Theodôrus, and to have studied geometry under him. From Kyrênê he proceeded to Egypt, interesting himself much in the antiquities of the country as well as in the conversation of the priests. In or about 394 B.C. — if we may trust the statement of Aristoxenus about the military service of Plato at Corinth, he was again at Athens. He afterwards went to Italy and Sicily, seeking the society of the Pythagorean philosophers, Archytas, Echekrates, Timæus, &c., at Tarentum and Lokri, and visiting the volcanic manifestations of Ætna. It appears that his first visit to Sicily was made when he was about forty years of age, which would be 387 B.C. Here he made acquaintance with the youthful Dion, over whom he acquired great intellectual ascendancy. By Dion Plato was prevailed upon to visit the elder Dionysius at Syracuse:19 but that despot, offended by the free spirit of his conversation and admonitions, dismissed him with displeasure, and even caused him to be sold into slavery at Ægina in his voyage home. Though really sold, however, Plato was speedily ransomed by friends. After farther incurring some risk of his life as an Athenian citizen, in consequence of the hostile feelings of the Æginetans, he was conveyed away safely to Athens, about 386 B.C.20
19 Plato. Epistol. vii. p. 324 A, 327 A.
20 Plut. Dion. c. 5: Corn. Nep., Dion, ii. 3; Diog. Laert. iii. 19-20; Aristides, Or. xlvi., Ὑπὲρ τῶν Τεττάρων, p. 305-306, ed. Dindorf.
Cicero (De Fin. v. 29; Tusc. Disp. i. 17), and others, had contracted a lofty idea of Plato’s Travels, more than the reality seems to warrant. Val. Max. viii. 7, 3; Plin. Hist. Nat. xxx. 2.
The Sophist Himerius repeats the same general statements about Plato’s early education, and extensive subsequent travels, but without adding any new particulars (Orat. xiv. 21-25).
If we can trust a passage of Tzetzes, cited by Mr. Clinton (F. H. ad B.C. 366) and by Welcker (Trag. Gr. p. 1236), Dionysius the elder of Syracuse had composed (among his various dramas) a tragi-comedy directed against Plato.
His permanent establishment at Athens — 386 B.C.
It was at this period, about 386 B.C., that the continuous and formal public teaching of Plato, constituting as it does so great an epoch in philosophy, commenced. But I see no ground for believing, as many authors assume, that he was absent from Athens during the entire interval between 399-386 B.C. I regard such long-continued absence as extremely improbable. Plato had not been sentenced to banishment, nor was he under any compulsion to stay away from his native city. He was not born “of an oak-tree or a rock” (to use an Homeric phrase, strikingly applied by Sokrates in his Apology to the Dikasts21), but of a noble family at Athens, where he had brothers and other connections. A temporary retirement, immediately after the death of Sokrates, might be congenial to his feelings and interesting in many ways; but an absence of moderate length would suffice for such exigencies, and there were surely reasonable motives to induce him to revisit his friends at home. I conceive Plato as having visited Kyrênê, Egypt, and Italy during these thirteen years, yet as having also spent part of this long time at Athens. Had he been continuously absent from that city he would have been almost forgotten, and would scarcely have acquired reputation enough to set up with success as a teacher.22
21 Plato, Apol. p. 34 D.
22 Stallbaum insists upon it as “certum et indubium” that Plato was absent from Athens continuously, without ever returning to it, for the thirteen years immediately succeeding the death of Sokrates. But I see no good evidence of this, and I think it highly improbable. See Stallbaum, Prolegg. ad Platon. Politicum, p. 38, 39. The statement of Strabo (xvii. 806), that Plato and Eudoxus passed thirteen years in Egypt, is not admissible.
Ueberweg examines and criticises the statements about Plato’s travels. He considers it probable that Plato passed some part of these thirteen years at Athens (Ueber die Aechtheit und Zeitfolge der Platon. Schrift. p. 126, 127). Mr Fynes Clinton thinks the same. F. H. B.C. 394; Append. c. 21, p. 366.
He commences his teaching at the Academy.
The spot selected by Plato for his lectures or teaching was a garden adjoining the precinct sacred to the Hero Hekadêmus or Akadêmus, distant from the gate of Athens called Dipylon somewhat less than a mile, on the road to Eleusis, towards the north. In this precinct there were both walks, shaded by trees, and a gymnasium for bodily exercise; close adjoining, Plato either inherited or acquired a small dwelling-house and garden, his own private property.23 Here, under the name of the Academy, was founded the earliest of those schools of philosophy, which continued for centuries forward to guide and stimulate the speculative minds of Greece and Rome.
23 Diog. Laert. iii. 7, 8; Cic. De Fin. v. 1; C. G. Zumpt, Ueber den Bestand der philosophischen Schulen in Athen, p. 8 (Berlin, 1843). The Academy was consecrated to Athênê; there was, however, a statue of Eros there, to whom sacrifice was offered, in conjunction with Athênê. Athenæus, xiii. 561.
At the time when Aristophanes assailed Sokrates in the comedy of the Nubes (423 B.C.), the Academy was known and familiar as a place for gymnastic exercise; and Aristophanes (Nub. 995) singles it out as the proper scene of action for the honest and muscular youth, who despises rhetoric and philosophy. Aristophanes did not anticipate that within a short time after the representation of his last comedy, the most illustrious disciple of Sokrates would select the Academy as the spot for his residence and philosophical lectures, and would confer upon the name a permanent intellectual meaning, as designating the earliest and most memorable of the Hellenic schools.
In 369 B.C., when the school of Plato was in existence, the Athenian hoplites, marching to aid the Lacedæmonians in Peloponnesus, were ordered by Iphikrates to make their evening meal in the Academy (Xen. Hell. vi. 5, 49).
The garden, afterwards established by Epikurus, was situated between the gate of Athens and the Academy: so that a person passed by it, when he walked forth from Athens to the Academy (Cic. De Fin. i. 1).
Plato as a teacher — pupils numerous and wealthy, from different cities.
We have scarce any particulars respecting the growth of the Academy from this time to the death of Plato, in 347 B.C. We only know generally that his fame as a lecturer became eminent and widely diffused: that among his numerous pupils were included Speusippus, Xenokrates, Aristotle, Demosthenes, Hyperides, Lykurgus, &c.: that he was admired and consulted by Perdikkas in Macedonia and Dionysius at Syracuse: that he was also visited by listeners and pupils from all parts of Greece. Among them was Eudoxus of Knidus, who afterwards became illustrious both in geometry and astronomy. At the age of twenty-three, and in poor circumstances, Eudoxus was tempted by the reputation of the Sokratic men, and enabled by the aid of friends, to visit Athens: where, however, he was coldly received by Plato. Besides preparing an octennial period or octaetêris, and a descriptive map of the Heavens, Eudoxus also devised the astronomical hypothesis of Concentric Spheres — the earliest theory proposed to show that the apparent irregularity in the motion of the Sun and the Planets might be explained, and proved to result from a multiplicity of co-operating spheres or agencies, each in itself regular.24 This theory of Eudoxus is said to have originated in a challenge of Plato, who propounded to astronomers, in his oral discourse, the problem which they ought to try to solve.25
24 For an account of Eudoxus himself, of his theory of concentric spheres, and the subsequent extensions of it, see the instructive volume of the late lamented Sir George Cornewall Lewis, — Historical Survey of the Ancient Astronomy, ch. iii. sect. 3, p. 146 seq.
M. Boeckh also (in his recent publication, Ueber die vierjährigen Sonnenkreise der Alten, vorzüglich den Eudoxischen, Berlin, 1863) has given an account of the life and career of Eudoxus, not with reference to his theory of concentric spheres, but to his Calendar and Lunisolar Cycles or Periods, quadrennial and octennial. I think Boeckh is right in placing the voyage of Eudoxus to Egypt at an earlier period of the life of Eudoxus; that is, about 378 B.C.; and not in 362 B.C., where it is placed by Letronne and others. Boeckh shows that the letters of recommendation from Agesilaus to Nektanebos, which Eudoxus took with him, do not necessarily coincide in time with the military expedition of Agesilaus to Egypt, but were more probably of earlier date. (Boeckh, p. 140-148.)
Eudoxus lived 53 years (406-353 B.C., about); being born when Plato was 21, and dying when Plato was 75. He was one of the most illustrious men of the age. He was born in poor circumstances; but so marked was his early promise, that some of the medical school at Knidus assisted him to prosecute his studies — to visit Athens and hear the Sophists, Plato among them — to visit Egypt, Tarentum (where he studied geometry with Archytas), and Sicily (where he studied τὰ ἰατρικὰ with Philistion). These facts depend upon the Πίνακες of Kallimachus, which are good authority. (Diog. L. viii. 86.)
After thus preparing himself by travelling and varied study, Eudoxus took up the profession of a Sophist, at Kyzikus and the neighbouring cities in the Propontis. He obtained great celebrity, and a large number of pupils. M. Boeckh says, “Dort lebte er als Sophist, sagt Sotion: das heisst, er lehrte, und hielt Vortrage. Dasselbe bezeugt Philostratos.”
I wish to call particular attention to the way in which M. Boeckh here describes a Sophist of the fourth century B.C. Nothing can be more correct. Every man who taught and gave lectures to audiences more or less numerous, was so called. The Platonic critics altogether darken the history of philosophy, by using the word Sophist with its modern associations (and the unmeaning abstract Sophistic which they derive from it), to represent a supposed school of speculative and deceptive corruptors.
Eudoxus, having been coldly received when young and poor by Plato, had satisfaction in revisiting Athens at the height of his reputation, accompanied by numerous pupils — and in showing himself again to Plato. The two then became friends. Menæchmus and Helikon, geometrical pupils of Eudoxus, received instruction from Plato also; and Helikon accompanied Plato on his third voyage to Sicily (Plato, Epist. xiii. p. 360 D; Plut. Dion, c. 19). Whether Eudoxus accompanied him there also, as Boeckh supposes, is doubtful: I think it improbable.
Eudoxus ultimately returned to his native city of Knidus, where he was received with every demonstration of honour: a public vote of esteem and recognition being passed to welcome him. He is said to have been solicited to give laws to the city, and to have actually done so: how far this may be true, we cannot say. He also visited the neighbouring prince Mausôlus of Karia, by whom he was much honoured.
We know from Aristotle, that Eudoxus was not only illustrious as an astronomer and geometer, but that he also proposed a theory of Ethics, similar in its general formula to that which was afterwards laid down by Epikurus. Aristotle dissents from the theory, but he bears express testimony, in a manner very unusual with him, to the distinguished personal merit and virtue of Eudoxus (Ethic. Nikom. x. 3, p. 1172, b. 16).