Thus it is that Plato apparently decided that he had had enough of politics. He resolved to spend his time in the study of philosophy, like his teacher, Socrates, because Plato believed that a just and uncorrupted state (as a political reality) could not be formed until citizens arrived at an understanding of what constitutes justice and the good life as concepts. Plato resolved to dedicate his life to the study of philosophy.
After the death of Socrates, Plato left Athens and, according to Hermodorus, one of Plato's students, he spent the next few years traveling in Greece, Egypt, and Italy. Again, the letter that Plato wrote when he was 60 (The Seventh Letter) tells us that he went to Italy and Sicily when he was 40, but the gluttony and sexual debauchery he found there disgusted him. He did make a new friend there, Dion, the brother-in-law of Dionysius I of Syracuse (in Sicily).
