the intellect of the teacher himself, but it cannot suit all his pupils. Hence, in order to be consistent with his own educational ideals, Plato makes his works inconsistent: they are not a body of rigid dogmas. Also, he provides in them just that discussion which he notes as lacking in most books; it is possible to ask his books a certain number of questions, for he anticipates and answers them himself in the dialogue. In this way he makes his words pass through the alembic[600] of each pupil’s brain, and come out according to the type of mind through which they have passed. There is no enforcement of authority in true Platonism. Plato refused to publish any philosophy in his own name. By speaking through the mouth of others, he could vary his attitudes just as he wished. The written word, he declares, must necessarily contain much trifling. Its composition is a good amusement for leisure hours.[601] Its one use is that it serves to remind the writer of what he knows already, when the forgetfulness of old age comes upon him. But the writer is quite worthless if he possesses nothing better in his mind than what he has written on paper,[602] “twisting words up and down, glueing them together and pulling them apart.”[603] Books, however, were already serious rivals to personal intercourse, as a means of education. The libraries founded by Peisistratos at Athens and by Polukrates at Samos were, it is true, almost certainly fabulous; for Euripides was satirised for possessing a collection of books, so it must have been a novelty in his time. Books were probably very rare before the Periclean age, but then they multiplied with great rapidity. The children used them in the schools. Schoolmasters were expected to possess them: Alkibiades beat one for not having a copy of Homer. The comic poet Alexis makes Herakles’ master, Linos, possess copies of Orpheus, Hesiod, the tragedians, Choirilos, Homer, Epicharmos, and all sorts of prose works, including a cookery-book. A cargo of books was wrecked at Salmudessos,[604] a fact which points to a large book-trade in Hellenic waters. Euthudemos, the companion of Sokrates, possessed a fine collection of the best-known poets and Sophists, including the works of Homer.[605] Sokrates suggests that he may be collecting his books in order to learn Medicine, on which subject there were many treatises, or Architecture or Geometry or Astronomy. This shows how handbooks dealing with all manner of subjects were multiplying.