We were Eretrians, of Eubœan race? And now we lie near Susa, here entomb’d, Far from my native land. And this one also:— Thus Venus to the muses spoke: Damsels submit to Venus’ yoke, Or dread my Cupid’s arms. Those threats, the Virgins nine replied, May weigh with Mars, but we deride Love’s wrongs, or darts, or charms. Another is:— A certain person found some gold, Carried it off, and in its stead Left a strong halter neatly roll’d. The owner found his treasure fled; And powerless to endure his fortune’s wreck, Fitted the halter to his hapless neck. XXIV. But Molon, who had a great dislike to Plato, says “There is not so much to wonder at in Dionysius being at Corinth, as in Plato’s being in Sicily.” Xenophon, too, does not appear to have been very friendlily disposed towards him: and accordingly they have, as if in rivalry of one another, both written books with the same title, the Banquet, the Defence of Socrates, Moral Reminiscences. Then, too, the one wrote the Cyropædia and the other a book on Politics; and Plato in his Laws says, that the Cyropædia is a mere romance, for that Cyrus was not such a person as he is described in that book. And though they both speak so much of Socrates, neither of them ever mentions the other, except that Xenophon once speaks of Plato in the third book of his Reminiscences. It is said also, that Antisthenes, being about to recite something that he had written, invited him to be present; and that Plato having asked what he was going to recite, he said it was an essay on the impropriety of contradicting. “How then,” said Plato, “can you write on this subject?” and then he showed him that he was arguing in a circle. But Antisthenes was annoyed, and composed a dialogue against Plato, which he entitled Sathon; after which they were always enemies to one another; and they say that Socrates having heard Plato read the Lysis, said, “O Hercules! what a number of lies the young man has told about me.” For he had set down a great many things as sayings of Socrates which he never said. Plato also was a great enemy of Aristippus; accordingly, he speaks ill of him in his book on the Soul, and says that he was not with Socrates when he died, though he was in Ægina, at no great distance. He also had a great rivalry with Æschines, for that he had been held in great esteem by Dionysius, and afterwards came to want, and was despised by Plato, but supported by Aristippus. And Idomeneus says, that the speech which Plato attributes to Crito in the prison, when he counselled Socrates to make his escape, was really delivered by Æschines, but that Plato attributed it to Crito because of his dislike to the other. And Plato never makes the slightest mention of him in any of his books, except in the treatise on the Soul, and the Defence of Socrates.