His servant having displeased him for some offence, he said to him, "Were I not angry, I should chastise you for it." At another time, his servant being found faulty, he had him lay off his coat; and, while he stood with his hand raised, a friend coming in asked him what he was doing. "Punishing an angry man," said he. It was a saying of his, that "no wise man punishes in respect of past faults, but for preventing future ones." On being told that some one spoke ill of him, he answered, "No matter: I will live so that none shall believe him." When asked whether there should be any record left to posterity of his actions or sayings,--"First," said he, "we must get a name, then many things follow." Continuing a single life to his end, and not having any heirs of his own, he bequeathed his estate to his nephew, young Adimantus, the son of Adimantus, his second brother. Besides his orchard and grounds inherited or added by purchase, he left to him "three mina of silver, a golden cup, and a finger and ear-rings of gold. The gold ear-ring was one he wore when a boy, as a badge of his nobility; and the golden cup was one of sacrifice. He left to his servants, Ticho, Bictus, and Apolloniades, Dionysius' goods." He "owed no man anything." He died on his eighty-first birthday, for which reason the Magi at Athens sacrificed to him, as conceiving him to have been more than man, and as having fulfilled the most perfect number, nine multiplied into itself. He died of old age; which Seneca ascribes to his temperance and diligence. This, among other epitaphs, was inscribed on his tombstone:-- "Earth in her bosom Plato's body hides: His soul amongst the deathless gods resides. Aristo's son, whose fame to strangers spread, Made them admire the sacred life he led." Plutarch tells that Solon began the story of the Atlantides, which he had learned of the priests of Sais, but gave it over on account of his old age and the largeness of the work. He adds that "Plato, taking the same argument as a waste piece of fertile ground fallen to him by hereditary right, manured, refined, and inclosed it with large walls, porches, and galleries, such as never any fable had before; but he too, undertaking it late, died before completing it. 'The more things written delight us, the more they disappoint us,' he remarks, 'when not finished.' For as the Athenian city left the temple of Jupiter, so Plato's wisdom, amongst many writings, left the Atlantides alone imperfect." The order in which his dialogues were written is yet a question of dispute with scholars. It is conceded, however, that the "Republic" and the "Laws" were completed, if not wholly written, in his old age. Nor is the number of his dialogues accurately determined. Some attributed to him are supposed to be spurious, as are some of the letters. All are contained in Bohn's edition of the works of Plato, and accessible in scholarly translations to the English reader.[18]