would be criticized by his student and follower. While it was thought that the confusion of Clitophon's authorship began with the Aldine Press editions of Plato's works, the 1491 Ficino translations say that this work was not Plato's. This indication was from Greek manuscripts, which did not clearly state the author of Clitophon. Schleiermacher was one of the first to lead people to characterize Clitophon as spurious; while he acknowledges its listing in the Platonic corpus, he could not reconcile the non-Socratic sensitivity. It seems improbable for the author to not be Plato, for he is not intending to criticize the historical Socrates, but to create an example of a person not understanding Socrates through the reproach of literary Socrates. If Clitophon is indeed spurious, then who would have written this dialogue? Slings had originally noted that due to the similarity of writing to that of Plato's, it must have been written by a student of Plato. Schleiermacher believed it to have been written by a contemporary school of rhetoric, which wrote this dialogue as an attack against Socrates. It is difficult to attribute a work so similar in style to Plato's to another person. Slings in his later work admittedly changed his thesis on the authorship and claimed that it is easier to accept as a work of Plato than to postulate an anonymous author similar to Plato's skill. Genuine work of Plato It seems more acceptable to classify Clitophon as a work of Plato. Yxem was the first to question the Aldine editions' of 1513 placement of Clitophon as a mistake. As already mentioned, there are ancient writers who have cited Clitophon and indicated no suspicions of its authenticity. Grote mentions it safer to accept this work as one of Plato rather than ascribe it to another. Plato's attack on Antisthenes Brunnecke, Kester and Souilhe believe this dialogue to be an attack on Antisthenes. Based upon Diogenes Laërtius crediting Antisthenes with three books of protreptic works in his Lives and Opinions of Eminent Philosophers vi 16, Clitophon may well be a criticism of Antisthenes. The author of Clitophon uses one of Antisthenes' protreptic works and summarizes its content. Throughout Clitophon, Plato disparages the use of protreptic speeches. This could easily be an answer to why Plato seems to be anti-Socratic; he wishes to indirectly denounce Antisthenes via Socrates. However this seems to far-fetched to connect a symbolic attack