PLATO (c. 428 B.c.–c. 348 B.c.), Greek philosopher, son of Ariston and Perictione, was born in the year 428-427 B.C. and died in 348-347 at the age of over 80. His family was, on both sides, one of the most distinguished of Athens. Ariston is said to have traced his descent through Codrus to the god Poseidon; on the mother's side, the family, that was related to Solon, goes back to Dropides, archon of the year 644 B.C. Perictione apparently mar ried as her second husband her uncle Pyrilampes (Parm. 526 C) a prominent supporter of Pericles, and Plato was probably chiefly brought up in his house : Critias and Charmides,leading men among the extremists of the reactionary Terror of 404, were respectively cousin and brother of Perictione; both were old friends of Socrates, and through them Plato must have known the philo sopher from boyhood.
His own early ambitions as he tells us in the seventh Epistle (324 b.-326 b.) were political. The reactionaries urged him to enter public life under their auspices—at the age of 24—but he wisely held back till their policy should declare itself. He was soon repelled by their violences, particularly by their attempt to implicate Socrates in the illegal execution of their victim Leon. He hoped better things from the restored democracy, but its con demnation of Socrates finally convinced him that there was no place for a man of conscience in active politics. Hermodorus, an immediate disciple, is the authority for the statement that, on the execution of Socrates in 399 B.C., Plato and other Socratic men took temporary refuge with Eucleides at Megara. The later Lives represent the next few years as spent in extensive travels in Greece, Egypt, Italy. Plato's own statement is only that he visited Italy and Sicily at the age of 4o and was disgusted by the gross sensuality of life there, but found a kindred spirit in Dion, brother-in-law of Dionysius I. of Syracuse.
we gather that Plato lectured without manuscript, and we know that "problems" were propounded for solution by the joint re searches of students. On the political side there are traces of tension between the Academy and the rival school of Isocrates.
The one outstanding event in Plato's later life is his interven tion in Syracusan politics. On the death of Dionysius I. in 367, Dion conceived the idea of bringing Plato to Syracuse as tutor to his successor, whose education had been neglected. Plato him self was not sanguine of results, but as both Dion and the philo sopher-statesman Archytas of Tarentum thought the prospect promising, he felt bound in honour to risk the adventure. The proj ect was by training Dionysius II. in severe science to fit him for the position of a constitutional king who might hold Carthaginian encroachment in Sicily at bay. The scheme was crushed by his natural jealousy of the stronger Dion, whom he drove into virtual banishment. Plato paid a second and longer visit to Syracuse in the year 361-360, in the hope of still effecting an accommodation, but failed, not without some personal danger. When Dion captured Syracuse by a coup-de-main in 357, Plato wrote him a short letter of congratulation and warning against his own lack of tact and graciousness. After the murder of Dion in 354 the philosopher drew up the important seventh and eighth Epistles, reviewing and justifying the policy of Dion and himself and making proposals, unsuccessfully, for a conciliation of Sicilian parties.
The prejudice which led students in the 19th century to dis credit the Epistles, in spite of the favourable opinion of scholars such as Bentley, Cobet, Grote, Blass, E. Meyer, worked havoc with their accounts of Plato's life. It is safe to say that at present the authenticity of the two letters of chief biographical importance, VII. and VIII., is established. I. and perhaps XII. are admittedly unauthentic ; on the rest opinion is divided. It seems to be inclin ing (rightly, as the present writer thinks), in favour of acceptance. The best recent account of the events in Sicily is in E. Meyer, Geschichte des Altertums, vol. 5.