Much of our little information on Zeno's life comes from the prologue of Plato's Parmenides. Most scholars accept Plato's statement that when Socrates was “very young” (though old enough to engage in philosophical debate) Zeno was forty and Parmenides was sixty-five (Parm. 127a-b). The setting of the Parmenides is the quadrennial Great Athenaia, and the best guesses for its dramatic date are 454 B.C. when Socrates was 15 and 450 B.C. when he was 19. Also, Plato's statement that “Zeno was of a good height and handsome to see; the story goes that he had been Parmenides' young lover” (127b) is perfectly possible, though not otherwise attested. Even if the setting of the Parmenides is historically plausible, the notorious unreliability of Plato's reports on earlier philosophers makes it unwise to take much else of what he says on trust. The conversation in the Parmenides certainly did not take place, and we may fairly doubt that Socrates met the philosophers from Elea. Further, Plato indicates that Zeno's treatise was unknown in Athens prior to the dramatic date of the Parmenides (127c), but he also implies that it was written many years earlier, and he says it had been circulated (apparently soon after its writing) without Zeno's authorization (I28d) – claims that although not actually contradictory are hard to reconcile.