[Footnote 55: This is what lies at the bottom of the charges advanced by Eubulides, probably derived from the Platonists, [Greek: kai\ Eu)bouli/dês prodê/lôs e)n tô=| kat' au)tou= bibli/ô| pseu/detai, pha/skôn, teleutô=nti Pla/tôni mê\ paragene/sphai, ta/ te bi/blia au)tou= diaphthei=rai] (Aristokles ap. Euseb. Præp. Ev. xv. 2). There can be no possible basis for this last charge--destroying or corrupting the books of Plato--except that Aristotle had sharply criticized them, and was supposed to have mis-stated or unfairly discredited them. The frequently recurring protest of Aristotle against the Platonic doctrine of Ideas may be read now in the Analytica, Topica, Metaphysica, and Ethica Nikomachea, but was introduced even in the lost Dialogues. See Plutarch adv. Kolôten, c. 14; and Proklus adv. Joann. Philoponum ap. Bernays, Die Dialoge des Aristoteles, not. 22, p. 151.] Such allegations moreover would find easy credence from other men of letters, whose enmity Aristotle had incurred, and to a certain extent even provoked--Isokrates and his numerous disciples. This celebrated rhetor was an elderly man at the zenith of his glory and influence, during those earlier years which Aristotle passed at Athens before the decease of Plato. The Isokratean school was then the first in Greece, frequented by the most promising pupils from cities near and far, perhaps even by Aristotle himself. The political views and handling, as well as the rhetorical style of which the master set the example, found many imitators. Illustrious statesmen, speakers, and writers traced their improvement to this teaching. So many of the pupils, indeed, acquired celebrity--among them Theodektês, Theopompus, Ephorus, Naukrates, Philiskus, Kephisodôrus, and others--that Hermippus[56] thought it worth his while to draw up a catalogue of them: many must have been persons of opulent family, highly valuing the benefit received from Isokrates, since each of them was required to pay to him a fee of 1000 drachmæ.[57] During the first sojourn of Aristotle in Athens (362-347 B.C.), while he was still attached to and receiving instruction from Plato, he appears to have devoted himself more to rhetoric than to philosophy, and even to have given public lessons or lectures on rhetoric. He thus entered into rivalry with Isokrates, for whom, as a teacher and author, he contracted dislike or contempt.