In the time of Plato, only the most educated could read and write. So if you could do both, I think your odds of being remembered had almost as much to do with writing good quality as it did with being lucky enough for your writing to survive centuries.
That's such a good point I've never really thought about. 🤔 Actually kind of a trip to try and imagine a world where simply knowing how to read written text was akin to sorcery.