"When I reached Athens,[45] I passed six months with Antiochus, by far the best known and most erudite of the teachers of the old Academy, and with him, as my great authority and master, I renewed that study of philosophy which I had never abandoned--which from my boyhood I had followed with always increasing success.

At the same time I practised oratory laboriously with Demetrius Syrus, also at Athens, a well-known and by no means incapable master of the art of speaking.

After that I wandered over all Asia, and came across the best orators there, with whom I practised, enjoying their willing assistance." There is more of it, which need not be repeated verbatim, giving the names of those who aided him in Asia: Menippus of Stratonice--who, he says, was sweet enough to have belonged himself to Athens--with Dionysius of Magnesia, with [OE]schilus of Cnidos, and with Xenocles of Adramyttium.

Then at Rhodes he came across his old friend Molo, and applied himself again to the teaching of his former master.

Quintilian explains to us how this was done with a purpose, so that the young orator, when he had made a first attempt with his half-fledged wings in the courts, might go back to his masters for awhile[46].
He was twenty-eight when he started on this tour.