Life of Plato
His father contributed everything necessary to give to his son a good education, and Plato therefore must have been instructed in grammar, music, gymnastics and philosophy by some of the most distinguished teachers of his era.
According to Favorinus, Ariston and his family were sent by Athens to settle as cleruchs (colonists retaining their Athenian citizenship), on the island of Aegina, from which they were expelled by the Spartans after Plato's birth there.
[12] On the other hand, at the Peace of Nicias, Aegina was silently left under Athens control, and it was not until the summer of 411 that the Spartans overran the island.
[16] Plato's mother was Perictione, whose family boasted of a relationship with the famous Athenian lawmaker and lyric poet Solon.
Perictione was sister of Charmides and cousin of Critias, both prominent figures of the Thirty Tyrants, the brief oligarchic regime, which followed on the collapse of Athens at the end of the Peloponnesian war (404–403 BC).
[20] When Ariston died, Athenian law forbade the legal independence of women, and, therefore Perictione was given in marriage to Pyrilampes, her mother's brother[a] (Plato himself calls him the uncle of Charmides),[21] who had served many times as an ambassador to the Persian court and was a friend of Pericles, the leader of the democratic faction in Athens.
[23] Perictione gave birth to Pyrilampes' second son, Antiphon, the half-brother of Plato, who appears in Parmenides, where he is said to have given up philosophy, in order to devote most of his time to horses.
[29] According to Diogenes, the philosopher was named after his grandfather Aristocles, but his wrestling coach, Ariston of Argos, dubbed him "Platon", meaning "broad" on account of his robust figure.
[32] Another legend related that, while he was sleeping as an infant on Mount Hymettus in a bower of myrtles (his parents were sacrificing to the Muses and Nymphs), bees settled on the lips of Plato; an augury of the sweetness with which he would discourse philosophy.
[33] Apuleius informs us that Speusippus praised Plato's quickness of mind and modesty as a boy, and the "first fruits of his youth infused with hard work and love of study".
[34] Later Plato himself would characterize as gifts of nature the facility in learning, the memory, the sagacity, the quickness of apprehension and their accompaniments, the youthful spirit and the magnificence in soul.
[35] According to Diogenes, Plato's education, like any other Athenian boy's, was physical as well as mental; he was instructed in grammar (that is, reading and writing), music,[b] painting, and gymnastics by the most distinguished teachers of his time.
[34] Plato had also attended courses of philosophy; before meeting Socrates, he first became acquainted with Cratylus (a disciple of Heraclitus, a prominent pre-Socratic Greek philosopher) and the Heraclitean doctrines.
[43] He was particularly disappointed, when the Thirty attempted to implicate Socrates in their seizure of the democratic general Leon of Salamis for summary execution.
[44] In 403 BC, the democracy was restored after the regrouping of the democrats in exile, who entered the city through the Piraeus and met the forces of the Thirty at the Battle of Munychia, where both Critias and Charmides were killed.
[45] In 401 BC the restored democrats raided Eleusis and killed the remaining oligarchic supporters, suspecting them of hiring mercenaries.
[46] After the overthrow of the Thirty, Plato's desire to become politically active was rekindled, but Socrates' condemnation to death put an end to his plans.
[47] In 399 BC, Plato and other Socratic men took temporary refuge at Megara with Euclid, founder of the Megarian school of philosophy.
Dion would return to overthrow Dionysius and ruled Syracuse for a short time before being usurped by Calippus, a fellow disciple of Plato.
[55][48] According to Philodemus, on the last evening of his life, Plato suffered under a heavy fever and was entertained by the Thracian slave girl playing the flute.
