Plato, _Phileb._ 16 c sqq. Now Plato had many enemies and detractors, and this literary device enabled them to bring against him the charge of plagiarism. Aristoxenos was one of these enemies, and we know he made the extraordinary statement that most of the _Republic_ was to be found in a work by Protagoras.[745] He seems also to be the original source of the story that Plato bought “three Pythagorean books” from Philolaos and copied the _Timaeus_ out of them. According to this, the “three books” had come into the possession of Philolaos; and, as he had fallen into great poverty, Dion was able to buy them from him, or from his relatives, at Plato’s request, for a hundred _minae_.[746] It is certain, at any rate, that this story was already current in the third century; for the sillographer Timon of Phleious addresses Plato thus: “And of thee too, Plato, did the desire of discipleship lay hold. For many pieces of silver thou didst get in exchange a small book, and starting from it didst learn to write _Timaeus_.”[747] Hermippos, the pupil of Kallimachos, said that “some writer” said that Plato himself bought the books from the relatives of Philolaos for forty Alexandrian _minae_ and copied the _Timaeus_ out of it; while Satyros, the Aristarchean, says he got it through Dion for a hundred _minae_.[748] There is no suggestion in any of these accounts that the book was by Philolaos himself; they imply rather that what Plato bought was either a book by Pythagoras, or at any rate authentic notes of his teaching, which had come into the hands of Philolaos. In later times, it was generally supposed that the work entitled _The Soul of the World_, by Timaios the Lokrian, was meant;[749] but it has now been proved beyond a doubt that this cannot have existed earlier than the first century A.D. We know nothing of Timaios except what Plato tells us himself, and he may even be a fictitious character like the Eleatic Stranger. His name does not occur among the Lokrians in the Catalogue of Pythagoreans preserved by Iamblichos.[750] Besides this, the work does not fulfil the most important requirement, that of being in three books, which is always an essential feature of the story.[751] Footnote 745: Diog. iii. 37. For similar charges, cf. Zeller, _Plato_, p. 429, n. 7. Footnote 746: Iambl. _V. Pyth._ 199. Diels is clearly right in ascribing the story to Aristoxenos (_Arch._ iii. p. 461, n. 26). Footnote 747: Timon _ap._ Gell. iii. 17 (R. P. 60 a). Footnote 748: For Hermippos and Satyros, see Diog. iii. 9; viii. 84, 85. Footnote 749: So Iambl. _in Nicom._ p. 105, 11; Proclus, _in Tim._ p. 1, Diehl. Footnote 750: Diels, _Vors._ p. 269. Footnote 751: They are τὰ θρυλούμενα τρία βιβλία (Iambl. _V. Pyth._ 199), τὰ διαβόητα τρία βιβλία (Diog. viii. 15).