ensive and
showy functions of Choregus with funds supplied by Dion. Out of Athens
also his reputation was very great. When he went to the Olympic
festival of B.C. 360 he was an object of conspicuous attention and
respect; he was visited by hearers, young men of rank and ambition,
from the most distant Hellenic cities.

Such is the sum of our information respecting Plato. Scanty as it is
we have not even the advantage of contemporary authority for any
portion of it. We have no description of Plato from any contemporary
author, friendly or adverse. It will be seen that after the death of
Socrates we know nothing about Plato as a man and a citizen, except
the little which can be learned from his few epistles, all written
when he was very old and relating almost entirely to his peculiar
relations with Dion and Dionysius. His dialogues, when we try to
interpret them collectively, and gather from them general results as
to the character and purposes of the author, suggest valuable
arguments and perplexing doubts, but yield few solutions. In no one of
the dialogues does Plato address us in his own person. In the Apology
alone (which is not a dialogue) is he alluded to even as present; in
the Phaedon he is mentioned as absent from illness. Each of the
dialogues, direct or indirect, is conducted from beginning to end by
the persons whom he introduces. Not one of the dialogues affords any
positive internal evidence showing the date of its composition. In a
few there are allusions to prove that they must have been composed at
a period later than others, or later than some given event of known
date; but nothing more can be positively established. Nor is there any
good extraneous testimony to determine the date of any one among them;
for the remark ascribed to Socrates about the dialogue called Lysis
(which remark, if authentic, would prove the dialogue to have been
composed during the lifetime of Socrates) appears altogether
untrustworthy. And the statement of some critics, that the Phaedrus was
Plato's earliest composition, is clearly nothing more than an
inference (doubtful at best, and in my judgment erroneous) from its
dithyrambic style and erotic subject.

VIRGIL

(70-19 B.C.)

[Illustration: Virgil.]

Next to Homer on the roll of the world's epic poets stands the name of
Virgil. Acknowledged by all as the greatest of Roman poets, he
entered, as no other Roman writer did, into Christian history and
mediaeval le