[2] His father was distinguished as a pleader in the courts of justice, by which he acquired considerable property, but he died at an age when his son was too young to care for himself.
[3] When he had attained the age of manhood, the town of Seleucia, for some reason now unknown, sent Alexander as ambassador to the emperor Antoninus Pius, who is said to have ridiculed the young man for the extravagant care he bestowed on his outward appearance.
He had a rhetorical contest with him in which he not only conquered his famous adversary, but gained his esteem and admiration to such a degree that Herodes honored him with an extremely expensive gift.
One Corinthian, however, of the name of Sceptes, when asked what he thought of Alexander, expressed his disappointment by saying that he had found "the clay (Greek: pelos), but not Plato."
[2][4][5] Marcus Aurelius refers to him in his Meditations, as Alexander the Platonic, in a passage recounting good practices the emperor learned from friends: From Alexander the Platonic, not frequently nor without necessity to say to any one, or to write in a letter, that I have no leisure; nor continually to excuse the neglect of duties required by our relation to those with whom we live, by alleging urgent occupations.