  Nevertheless, just as Socrates’ initial remark that Zeno’s  arguments were all designed to show that there are not in fact many  things remains basically plausible, so there are elements in Zeno’s  account of his own purposes that have the ring of historical truth  and that square well with other evidence. Plato has Zeno continue his second response to Socrates (quoted above) by saying, “It was  written by me in such a contentious spirit when I was still young.  … You are mistaken in this regard, then, Socrates, that you suppose it was written, not under the influence of youthful contentiousness,  but under that of a more mature ambition” (Pl. Prm.  128d6–e3). The point is repeatedly made that Zeno’s book was written  in a spirit of youthful contentiousness or “love of  victory” (philonikia, Prm. 128d7, e2). The  more mature Zeno seems a little embarrassed by the combative manner  evident in the arguments of his younger days, as well he might since  that spirit would have come to be seen as typical of the eristic  controversialists who sprang up in the sophistic era. Plato gives yet another nod to the idea that Zeno was a forerunner of eristic  contentiousness when he has him say that his book “contradicts  (antilegei) those who say the many are” (Prm. 128d2–3). This suggestion that Zeno was a practitioner of what came  to be known as “antilogic,” or the art of contradiction,  is consistent with Plato’s representation of him in other dialogues  as something of a sophist. In the Alcibiades, Socrates  reports that Pythodorus and Callias each paid Zeno a hundred minae to become clever and skilled in argument (Alc. 119a3–6; cf.  Prm. 126b–c). Teaching for payment is of course one hallmark of the professional educators who styled themselves experts in  wisdom. That Plato saw Zeno as a practitioner of the specific brand  of argument known as antilogic is evidenced by the  Phaedrus’s famous description of him as the  “Eleatic Palamedes” for his ability to make the same  things appear to his audience both like and unlike, one and many,  moving and at rest (Phdr. 261d6–8). Again, at the beginning  of the Sophist, when Theodorus introduces the Eleatic  Visitor as an associate of Parmenides and Zeno and their followers,  Socrates expresses concern that the Visitor may be “some god of refutation” until Theodorus reassures him that the Visitor is  more moderate than those who spend their time in eristic and  competitive disputation (Sph. 216a–b). Plato’s references  thus consistently connect Zeno with the rise of eristic disputation,  and it is perfectly plausible that his arguments against plurality  and motion would have been well-known examples of making the weaker  case seem the stronger. 