A. You’re a man, clearly, and have got a soul.
B. Like Plato, I don’t know but I suspect it.[585]
Of discipline in the Akademeia under Plato nothing is known: the following story[586] belongs to the school a little after his death. A certain Polemon agreed with some young friends of his, who attended the school, that he would rush into the room during the lesson, drunk and garlanded. This he carried out. But the teacher, Xenokrates, went calmly on with his lecture, which happened to deal with Sobriety. This conduct quite overcame Polemon, and he became a most diligent pupil, and finally succeeded Xenokrates as teacher.
Of Plato’s affection for his pupils, his own poems afford sufficient proof. One of them was named Aster, or Star. One day, as the lad was studying the heavens, his master wrote the following epigram about him:—
Star of my soul, thou gazest
Upon the starry skies;
I envy Heaven, that watches
Thy face with countless eyes.
And when he died, Plato wrote his epitaph:
Thou wert the morning Star among the living,