ABSTRACT
Plato, Socrates' disciple, presented a complete contrast. By birth he was an aristocrat, in appearance dignified and handsome, brilliant and polished in speech, a man careful of his associates, a stately visionary and a visionary statesman. The fact that Plato put almost all his ideas into the mouth of Socrates, mentioning himself by name only a few times, does not necessarily imply that his thought is not original. There are several possible explanations for his unique method of exposition. Plato, unlike Dion, soon quarrelled with the elder Dionysius and is said by some historians to have been sold into slavery by him. The disciples of Plato at this time were almost all persons of distinction. There was his nephew Speusippus, a keen student of philosophy who was to accompany him on his third journey to Syracuse. There was Xenocrates of Chalcedon, also a philosopher of some merit who, like Speusippus, later became president of the Academy.
