John Dillon is Regius Professor of Greek (Emeritus) in Trinity College Dublin, having returned there in 1980 from a period in the University of California, Berkeley, where he was a member of the Classics Department from 1969 onwards. His chief area of interest is the philosophy of Plato and the tradition deriving from him, on which he has written a number of books. This is his debut novel.

Explores the process by which the intellectual speculations pursued by Plato assumed the nature of a philosophical system.

1. The origins of Platonist dogmatism; 2. Monist and dualist tendencies in Platonism before Plotinus; 3. The ideas as thoughts of God; 4. The hierarchy of being as a framework for Platonist ethical theory; 5. Carneades the Socratic; 6. Tradition.