Digging Plato …

… Opinion | Athens in Pieces: The Stench of the Academy - The New York Times. (Hat tip, Dave Lull.)

Although the splendidly unreliable Diogenes Laertius says that Plato possessed no property other than what is mentioned in his will, he received a large sum of money from Dionysius I. Plato had a significant fund of money at his disposal (the exorbitant figure of 80 talents is mentioned). Indeed, Plato is also said to have had a banker called Andromedes. In other words, Plato was rich and had wealthy patrons and very probably wealthy students.