Book 3
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Household furniture, as set down in the inventory of which Demetrius has the duplicate. I owe no one anything. My executors are Leosthenes, Speusippus, Demetrius, Hegias, Eurymedon, Callimachus and Thrasippus.
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Such were the terms of his will. The following epitaphs were inscribed upon his tombAnth. Pal. vii. 60.: Here lies the god-like man Aristocles, eminent among men for temperance and the justice of his character. And he, if ever anyone, had the fullest meed of praise for wisdom, and was too great for envy.
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NextAnth. Pal. vii. 61.: Earth in her bosom here hides Plato’s body, but his soul hath its immortal station with the blest, Ariston’s son, whom every good man, even if he dwell afar off, honours because he discerned the divine life. And a third of later dateAnth. Pal. vii. 62.: A. Eagle, why fly you o’er this tomb? Say, is your gaze fixed upon the starry house of one of the immortals? B. I am the image of the soul of Plato, which has soared to Olympus, while his earth-born body rests in Attic soil.
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There is also an epitaph of my own which runs thusAnth. Pal. vii. 108.: If Phoebus did not cause Plato to be born in Greece, how came it that he healed the minds of men by letters? As the god’s son Asclepius is a healer of the body, so is Plato of the immortal soul. And another on the manner of his deathAnth. Pal. vii. 109.: Phoebus gave to mortals Asclepius and Plato, the one to save their souls, the other to save their bodies. From a wedding banquet he has passed to that city which he had founded for himself and planted in the sky. Such then are his epitaphs.
