NEWIIALL. — PISISTKATUS AND HOMER. 507 



of the third century, contains the following very possible reference to 

 the dialogue under consideration and to the man whom he supposed 



to be the author (2, 122): Si'/uow 'AOrjvalos, o-KVTOTopos ' ovtos ipxopevov 

 Scok/xitous «Tt to ipyao-TTjpiov ku\ 8ui\eyopevov Tivd, a>v ipvrjpovevev vnoo-rjpeiayoeis 



(TTOKITO ' o6iV CTKVTIKOVS CIVTOV TOVS SlClKoyOVS KaXoiltJIV. 61(71 6e Tpf'lS KUl Tpid- 



Kovra fv (vl <pcp6pevoi /3i/3Ai'w, — then follows a list of thirty-one titles, 

 among which is the title nepl <pi\oicep8ovs, which is the subject under dis- 

 cussion in the pseudo-Platonic Hipparchus. In order to fix the date 

 of this Simon I must quote another passage from Diogenes Laertius' 

 life of Simon (2, 123), which reads as follows: ovtos, <pao-i, npa>Tos dieAe'^ 



tovs Xoyovs tovs SoxpaTiKovs, ena.yyeiXap.evov 8e TlepacXeovs dpetyeiv avTov km 

 KeXevovTos dirievai npos avTov, ovk. *w ((pi] ttjv Trapprfcriav dno86o-8ai. This 



then places his sphere of activity in the age of Pericles, making him a 

 little older than Plato himself. Accordingly Boeckh, connecting the 

 Hipparchus and the Minos, as works by the same author (basing his 

 decision on evidences of style, apart from the statement of Diogenes to 

 the same effect), published at Heidelberg in 1810 these two dialogues 

 and two others in a separate edition which he called " Simonis Socra- 

 tici, ut videtur, dialogi quattuor." Grote, as I have already implied 

 from my previous quotation of his opinion, considers the Hipparchus 

 one of the inferior works of Plato. Steinhart as quoted by Fritzsche 41 

 dates the composition of the Hipparchus in the Macedonian Age (say 

 from 350-320 B. c.) deducing his opinion from internal evidence. 

 First, Hipparchus is lauded, whereas the murderers fail in the common 

 meed of praise, two things which would be more in accord with the 

 spirit of the Macedonian Age than that of the Periclean, for instance ; 

 and secondly, the ratio of gold to silver is mentioned as twelve to one 

 (231 D), facts which he considers significant enough to warrant his 

 conclusion. This, of course, if true, would place its composition slightly 

 after the death of Plato. All testimony, therefore, which can be ad- 

 duced tends to show that if not by Plato himself it was composed by 

 some author almost contemporaneous with him. 



I might mention here again, for the sake of completeness, the refer- 

 ence in Aelian to the literary importation by Hipparchus, but as Aeli- 

 an's sole authority for this story is doubtless the pseudo-Plato, it really 

 has no important evidence to add. 



To summarize, then, briefly, this little excursus, the accounts of 

 Lycurgus given by Heraclides, Plutarch, and Aelian contain abso- 

 lutely nothing to influence our belief as to the activity of Pisistratus. 

 The only story about Solon which seems to concern Pisistratus at all 



« Stallbaum, Plato, ed. ii, Leip., 1885, b. II, 304. 



