He was one of the youngest of the Senate at the time of Socrates' arraignment. The judges being much displeased with Socrates, Plato took the orator's chair, intending to plead in his master's defence, beginning, "Though I, Athenians, am the youngest of those that come to this place,"--but, as all the Senate were against his speaking, he was constrained to leave the chair. Socrates being condemned, Plato offered to obtain the money for purchasing his liberty, which Socrates refused. Upon the death of Socrates, Plato,--whose excessive grief is mentioned by Plutarch,--with others of his disciples, fearing the tyranny of those who put their master to death, fled to Euclid at Megara, who befriended and entertained them till the storm was blown over. He afterwards travelled in Italy, where he addicted himself to the discipline of Pythagoras, which, though he saw it replenished with curious and high reason, yet he chiefly affected the continence and chastity, along with the knowledge of nature, possessed by that school. Desiring to add to the knowledge of the Pythagoreans the benefits of other disciplines, he went to Cyrene to learn geometry of Theodorus, the mathematician; thence into Egypt, under pretence of selling oil,--the scope of his journey thither being to bring the knowledge of astrology from thence, and to be instructed in the rites of the prophets and the mysteries. Having taken a full survey of the country, he settled himself at Sais, learning of the school of wise men there the doctrines of the universe, the immortality of the soul, and its transmigrations. From Egypt he returned to Tarentum in Italy, where he conversed with Archytas the elder, and other Pythagoreans, adding to the learning of Socrates that of Pythagoras. He would have gone also to India to study with the Magi; but the wars then raging in Asia prevented. While in Egypt he probably became familiar with the opinions of Hermes Trismegistus. That he also received some light from Moses is probable, since his laws were translated into Greek before Alexander's time, and Josephus, the Jew, affirms, "that he chiefly followed our Lawgiver." And Numenius asks, "Of philosophers, what is Plato but Moses speaking Greek?" It is known that he brought from Sicily, where he went thrice, at the invitation of Dionysius the younger, the three books of Philolaus, the Pythagorean, on natural philosophy, the first that were published out of that school. These he appears to have woven into his dialogue entitled "Timeus." Timeon accuses him of this appropriation. "You Plato with the same affection caught With a great sum, a little treatise bought, Where all the knowledge which you own was taught,"-- alluding to his having received of Dionysius above eighty talents, and being flush with his money.