“_B._ I can tell you clearly. For at the Panathenaia I saw a herd (ἀγέλη [agelê]: note the Spartan word) of lads in the gymnasium of the Akademeia, and listened to strange, portentous arguments. They were drawing up definitions about natural history. They separated the life of animals and the nature of trees and the tribes of vegetables: then, among these last, they inquired to what tribe the cucumber belonged.… First of all they stood speechless, and, putting their heads down, thought for a long time. Then suddenly, while the lads still had their heads down, and were thinking, one of them said it was a circular vegetable, another declared that it was a herb, another suggested a tree. A Sicilian Doctor who was present ridiculed them most rudely. But the lads took no notice; and Plato, very gently and without losing his temper at all, told them to try again to define the species to which it belonged. So they began their divisions again.” In the _Sophist_ the mysterious stranger divides Art into (1) creative or productive, (2) acquisitive. Then acquisitive art into (1) acquisition by exchange, (2) acquisition by capture. Then the art which acquires its object by capture is divided into public or competitive and secret or hunting. Then, when hunting has been duly divided and subdivided, a definition of angling is obtained. In the parody by Epikrates, the same process is employed in order to define “cucumber,” although the stages are, of course, confused. A cucumber is a form of life. Life is divided into animals and vegetation: vegetation into trees and vegetables. Then the doubt arises, to which half does the cucumber belong. Some of the pupils say it is a vegetable, some a tree. So the lesson begins again. Plato’s pupils seem to have been expected to take great care of their personal appearance: their neatness is a common butt of contemporary comedians[580]:―― Then rose a smart young man from the Akademeia Of Plato.… His hair was neatly smoothed, his foot was neatly Laced in the sandal, bound with even lengths Of shoe-lace curved about his ankle-bones: And neat the corselet of his weighty cloak. And again: _A._ Who’s that old fellow yonder, do you know? _B._ He looks a Hellene, wears a mantle white, A fair grey tunic, little soft felt hat, A well-tuned[581] staff, in fact, to put it short, ’Tis like a glimpse of the “Academy.”[582] Of Plato himself, as he walked up and down among his pupils, wrestling with intellectual difficulties, several pictures survive in literature. A character in Alexis[583] remarks to a friend who has come to visit him: You’ve come in the nick of time. I’m in a fix. Though walking up and down, like Plato, I’ve Found nothing clever: but my legs are tired.[584] Amphis, in his _Dexidemides_, said: