And Speusippus, in his book which is entitled the Funeral Banquet of Plato, and Clearchus in his Panegyric on Plato, and Anaxilides in the second book of his History of Philosophers, say that the report at Athens was that Perictione was very beautiful, and that Ariston endeavoured to violate her and did not succeed; and that he, after he had desisted from his violence saw a vision of Apollo in a dream, in consequence of which he abstained from approaching his wife till after her confinement. II. And Plato was born, as Apollodorus says in his Chronicles, in the eighty-eighth Olympiad, on the seventh day of the month Thargelion, on which day the people of Delos say that Apollo also was born. [...] VII. [...] And it is said that Socrates in a dream saw a cygnet on his knees, who immediately put forth feathers, and flew up on high, uttering a sweet note, and that the next day Plato came to him, and that he pronounced him the bird which he had seen. VIII. [...] after he had heard the discourse of Socrates, he learnt his poems, saying:— / Vulcan, come here; for Plato wants your aid. — Diogenes Laertius, *Lives of Eminent Philosophers*, Book III, Sections I–II, VII, VIII, trans. C. D. Yonge (1853). **Surface Gloss:** Early Academic biographers claim Plato was conceived under Apollo's protection, born on Apollo's birthday, foretold to Socrates in a dream as a singing swan, and converted to philosophy by burning his tragic poems. [Note: Yonge prints "learnt" where the Greek *katephlexe* means "burnt," a known 1853 typesetting error for "burnt" confirmed by the invocation of Vulcan/fire.] **The Founder's Conversion Pyre:** Legitimate authority in a new intellectual lineage requires a visible, irreversible burning of the founder's previous high-status craft. You establish the gravity of a new discipline not merely by praising it, but by publicly sacrificing your best work in the old medium on the day you cross the threshold.
— In our words · Source: Lives of Eminent Philosophers (Diogenes Laertius)