When he had finished his travels, Plato retired to the groves of Academus, in the neighborhood of Athens, and established a school there; his lectures were soon attended by a crowd of learned, noble, and illustrious pupils; and the philosopher, by refusing to have a share in the administration of political affairs, rendered his name more famous and his school more frequented. During forty years he presided at the head of the academy, and there he devoted his time to the instruction of his pupils, and composed those dialogues which have been the admiration of every succeeding age. His studies, however, were interrupted for a while, as he felt it proper to comply with the pressing invitations of Dionysius, of Syracuse, to visit him. The philosopher earnestly but vainly endeavored to persuade the tyrant to become the father of his people, and the friend of liberty. In his dress, Plato was not ostentatious; his manners were elegant, but modest, simple, and without affectation. The great honors which were bestowed upon him, were not paid to his appearance, but to his wisdom and virtue. In attending the Olympian games, he once took lodgings with a family who were totally strangers to him. He ate and drank with them, and partook of their innocent pleasures and amusements; but though he told them his name was Plato, he did not speak of the employment he pursued at Athens, and never introduced the name of that great philosopher, whose doctrines he followed, and whose death and virtues were favorite topics of conversation in every part of Greece. When he returned to Athens, he was attended by the family which had so kindly entertained him; and, being familiar with the city, he was desired to show them the celebrated philosopher whose name he bore. Their surprise may be imagined, when he told them that he was the Plato whom they wished to behold. In his diet he was moderate; and, indeed, to sobriety and temperance in the use of food, and abstinence from those indulgences which enfeeble the body and enervate the mind, some have attributed his preservation during a terrible pestilence which raged in Athens at the beginning of the Peloponnesian war. Plato was never subject to any long or lingering indisposition; and, though change of climate had enfeebled a constitution naturally strong and healthy, the philosopher lived to an advanced age, and was often heard to say, when his physicians advised him to leave his residence at Athens, where the air was impregnated by the pestilence, that he would not advance one single step to gain the top of Mount Athos, were he assured of attaining the longevity which the inhabitants of that mountain were said to enjoy. Plato died on his birth-day, in the eighty-first year of his age, about the year 348 B. C. His last moments were easy, and without pain; and, according to some authors, he expired in the midst of an entertainment; but Cicero tells us that he died while in the act of writing.