Steinhart's " Erst lange " is vague : I do not
know whether he remembers the well-known
epigram ^ of Callimachus whose last line is : —
sv TO Jtegt ipvxiji; yQafi/x dvake^d/ievo? ■

(11) If we accept the credibility of a av/zPoAor
at all — and I think it a very natural device if
Plato was pestered with applicants for letters of
introduction — ^this would quite naturally have

I. Anth. Pal., vii, 471.
EPISTLE XIII 179

occurred to one wKo, while a nLoaotlieist at bottom,
did not definitely reject tlie gods of Olympus.
(12) The general argument cannot of course be
definitely refuted, though it has, I think, been
largely met in dealing with particular instances.
I may, however, sum up my impression of the
letter by saying that I find it harder to believe
that a forger, clever enough to produce the effect
of naturalness that he does produce, would not
have drawn his character of Plato true to life,
than to regard the letter as genuine.
There is not very much to be said as to the
language. It cannot, I think, be held that the
general style is distinctively Platonic, but of
course the writer does not aim at being " literary."
There is, however, nothing, so far as I can see,
that Plato might not liave written, though I have
not found any parallel in Plato or elsewhere to
the curious expression ofunQov ngbg tqwIv ersaiv
in 361 D.
