57. But altogether Plato's Banquet is mere nonsense. For when Agathon got the victory Plato was fourteen years old. For the former was crowned at the Lenæa in the archonship of Euphemus. But Plato was born in the year of the archonship of Apollodorus, who succeeded Euthydemus. And when he was eighty-two years old he died in the archonship of Theophilus, who succeeded Callimachus; for he is the eighty-second archon after Apollodorus. But from the archonship of Apollodorus and the birth of Plato, Euphemus is the fourteenth archon; and it is in his archonship that the banquet was given in honour of the victory of Agathon. And Plato himself shows that this entertainment had taken place a long time before, saying in the Banquet . . . . "'Do you think then that this entertainment has taken place but lately, so that I could have been present at it?' 'Indeed I do,' said he. 'How could that be,' said I, 'O Glaucon? Do you not know that Agathon has not been in the city for many years?'" And then a little while after he says--"'But tell me, when did this entertainment take place?' And I replied, 'When we were still children, when Agathon gained the prize in tragedy.'" But that Plato makes many blunders in his chronology is plain from many circumstances. For as the poet said--"The man has a tongue which pays no regard to seasons;" so he writes without sufficient discernment. For he never spoke at random, but always with great consideration. 58. As for instance, writing in the Gorgias, he says--"'Archelaus, then, according to your definition, is a miserable man.' 'Yes, my friend, if, at least, he is an unjust one.'" And then, after expressly stating that Archelaus was possessed of the kingdom of the Macedonians, he goes on to say, "that Pericles also was lately dead." But if Pericles had only lately died, Archelaus was not yet in the enjoyment of his dominions at all; and if Archelaus was king at the time, then Pericles had been dead a long time. Now Perdiccas was king before Archelaus, according to the statement of Nicomedes of Acanthus; and he reigned forty-one years. But Theopompus says he reigned thirty-five years; Anaximenes, forty; Hieronymus, twenty-eight. But Marsyas and Philochorus say that he reigned only twenty-three years. Now, as these all vary so much in their accounts, we will take the smallest number, and say twenty-three. But Pericles died in the third year of the Peloponnesian war, in the archonship of Epameinon, in which year also Alexander died, and Perdiccas succeeded him in the kingdom. And he reigned till the archonship of Callias, in whose year Perdiccas died, and Archelaus succeeded to the kingdom. How, then, can Pericles have died lately, as Plato phrases it? And in the same Gorgias Plato represents Socrates as saying--"And last year, when I drew the lot to be one of the council, when my tribe was the presiding tribe, and I had to put the question to the vote, I caused the people to laugh, as I did not know how to put the