 Apart from the surviving fragments of his writings, our knowledge of Archytas’ life and work depends heavily on authors who wrote in the second half of the fourth century, in the fifty years after Archytas’ death. Archytas’ importance both as an intellectual and as a political leader is reflected in the number of writings about him in this period, although only fragments of these works have been preserved. Aristotle wrote a work in three volumes on the philosophy of Archytas, more than on any other of his predecessors, as well as a second work, consisting of a summary of Plato’s Timaeus and the writings of Archytas (A13). Unfortunately almost nothing of these works has survived. Scholars have generally regarded them as authentic (Huffman 2005: 583–94) but Schofield has recently raised some doubts (2014: 81–2). Aristotle’s pupil Eudemus discussed Archytas prominently in his history of geometry (A6 and A14) and in his work on physics (A23 and A24). Another pupil of Aristotle’s, Aristoxenus, wrote a Life of Archytas, which is the basis for much of the biographical tradition about him (A1, A7, A9). Aristoxenus (375-ca. 300) was in a good position to have accurate information about Archytas. He was born in Tarentum and grew up during the height of Archytas’ prominence in the city. In addition to whatever personal knowledge he had of Archytas, he draws on his own father Spintharus, who was a younger contemporary of Archytas, as a source (e.g., A7). Aristoxenus began his philosophical career as a Pythagorean and studied with the Pythagorean Xenophilus at Athens, so that it is not surprising that his portrayal of Archytas is largely positive. Nonetheless, Archytas’ opponents are given a fair hearing (e.g., Polyarchus in A9), and Archytas himself is represented as not without small flaws of character (A7). Other fourth-century sources such as the Seventh Letter in the Platonic corpus and Demosthenes’ (?) Erotic Oration focus on the connection between Archytas and Plato (see below).