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XENOCRATES of Chalcedon attached himself to Plato, whom he accompanied in his journey to Dionysus, in Sicily. The greater part of his life was spent in the Academy, over which he presided after the death of Plato's pupil, Speusippus, for twenty-five years--B.C. 339-314. He was noted for gravity of demeanour, for temperance, veracity, and integrity, and is frequently praised and cited by Cicero. When sent as a member of the Athenian embassy to Philip of Macedon, he stood alone in inflexible refusal to receive bribe or favour; and he maintained the same character in his embassy to Antipator. He was a voluminous writer, but nothing except the catalogue of his works has come down to us. He died at the age of 82. His position in philosophy is that of an immediate successor to Plato, who developed the Platonic system, especially in its tendency to Monotheism as the basis of a purer and stronger moral life.
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| This biography is
reprinted from The New Calendar of Great Men. Ed. Frederic
Harrison. London: Macmillan and Co., 1920. |
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