228 



PLATO 



birthday was celebrated on the -arm- day (at the 

 end of May) as that of Apollo himself. Bees 

 from Hymcttus are said to hare fed the infant 

 it h their honey. Plato was originally named after 

 bU grandfather, Aristocles ; but liu gymnastic 

 teacher is said to have called him ' Platon,' because 

 of his broad shoulders, though others say he got 

 this name from the breadth of his forehead. There 

 is a story that he wrestled at the Isthmian games. 

 He cannot well have escaped military service during 

 the terrible struggle of Athens in the last years of 

 the Peloponnesian war. In youth he is said to have 

 written poetry, ami this we can easily believe : a 

 few epigrams in the ' Anthology ' are ascribed to 

 him. With regard to hU philosophical education 

 we have the important testimony of Aristotle 

 ' Mi'tn/i/t. i. 6), that from his youtn he had l>een 

 familiar with Cratylus, a follower of Heraclitus, 

 and that the other philosophic influences under 

 f which he came were those of Socrates and of the 

 I ' Italic ' schools i.e. Pythagoreans and Eleatics. 

 ' Critias (afterwards one of the 'Thirty Tyrants') 

 and Channides were both maternal relatives of 

 Plato, and both belonged to the Socratic circle. 

 Possibly it was through them that Plato came 

 under tne decisive influence of Socrates. If Plato 

 was, as Diogenes says, twenty years old when 

 the first became companion of Socrates, his dis- 

 Icipleship lasted for eight years. According to his 

 own account in the I'hffdo, Plato was prevented 

 by illness from Ix-ing present at the last conversa- 

 tion and death of his master (399 B.C.). 



Plato in. uli- no attempt to enter on a political 

 career. Through family ties he was connected with 

 the anti-democratic party, who admired Sparta. His 

 youth was passed amid the disasters and failures of 

 the Athenian democracy ; and the martyrdom of 

 the teacher who had inspired him would not tend to 

 increase his sympathy with that form of govern- 

 ment After the death of Socrates he seems to 

 have stayed some time at Megara, where Euclides, 

 who had been one of the Socratic circle hut be- 

 longed also to the Eleatic school, had established 

 himself. Euclides developed the Eleatic philo- 

 sophy in the direction which Zeno ( ' the father 

 of logic') had begun he was chiefly occupied 

 with what, after Aristotle's time, came to be con- 

 sidered logical questions. HU school was known 

 I as the 'Dialectical' or 'Eristic' i.e. 'disputa- 

 tious.' This sojourn at Megara was doubtless an 

 important stage in the development of Plato's 

 thought. How long he stayed at Megara we do not 

 know; nor can we tell with certainty whether he 

 was back at Athens in :t!M i lie is said to have taken 

 part in a Corinthian campaign), or whether he did 

 not return to Athens till ten or twelve years after 

 the death of Socrates. During this period of his life 

 he is said to have undertaken extensive travels 

 to have visited Cyrene, Egypt, Italy, and Sicily. 

 The visit to Sicily is almost certain ; visits to the 

 Magi and the Persians, the Hal>\ lonians. and the 

 Hebrews are undoubtedly fictions of a later age, 

 which supposed that wisdom could only conn- out 

 of the East. The despotism of the rider Dionysius 

 in Syracuse probably helped to suggest the pirtnn - 

 of tne tyrant in the Itrnublif and Gorguu. On his 

 way back from Sicily Plato is said to have been 

 seized by order of Dionysius and sold as a slave in 

 .Kgina, but to have been ransomed by a certain 

 Anuiceru of Cyrene. The return to Athens has 

 \ been variously assigned to the years 389 and 

 r387. Plato now began to teach in the Academy 

 (q.v. ), a place of exercise in the western suburb 

 of Athens, planted like a grove, and named 

 from the hero Arodemus. There and in his own 

 garden, which was adjacent, he gathered round 

 him a band of disciples, teaching them prob- 

 ably, like hi* master Socrates, mainly by con- 



versations, and emliodying the results of his thinking 

 and teaching in his written Dialogues. Two more 

 visits to Sicily interrupted the quiet of these later 

 years. Soon after the death of the elder Dionysius 

 (308) his friend Dion summoned him to come 

 to Syracuse, in the hope that he might convert the 

 younger Dionysius to philosophy, and so realise the 

 dream of a philosopher-king. The young despot 

 welcomed him warmly, but soon became weary of 

 serious discussions, quarrelled with Dion, and 

 banished him ; and Plato had to give up his fruit- 

 less task. A third journey to Sicily (about 361) 

 was undertaken in tne vain attempt to reconcile 

 Dionysius to Dion. Plato's own life, it is said, 

 was only saved from the tyrant by the intercession 

 of the Pythagorean Archytas. On his return to 

 Athens (360) lie again resumed his teaching and 

 writing, till, after a peaceful old age, he died 'in 

 his eighty -first year ' at a wedding-feast ( 347 ). He 

 was succeeded in the Academy by his sister's son, 

 Speusippus ; but his greatest disciple was Aristotle, 

 who must have come under his influence after the 

 return from the second Sicilian voyage. 



Of Plato's philosophical writings none appar- 

 ently have been lost ; but along with undoubtedly 

 genuine works there have come down to us others 

 whine authenticity is open to question. Thrasyllus, 

 a scholar of the time of Augustus and Tiberius, 

 considered thirty six of the works ascribed to 

 Plato to In- genuine, rejecting a few quite unim- 

 portant writings as spurious. This 'canon of 

 Thrasyllns ' probably represents the tradition of 

 the Alexandrian library. Aristophanes, one of the 

 Alexandrian librarians (about 264 B.C.), bad ar- 

 ranged several of Plato's dialogues in ' trilogies ' 

 (groups of three), following the analogy of Attic 

 dramas. Plato himself suggests at least two 

 such trilogies viz. l!'/nililir,Timceus, Critias (un- 

 finished); Sophist, Statesman, Philosopher (nevet 

 written). Thrasyllus adopted an arrangement in 

 tetralogies, making nine groups of four, only one 

 of which groii|is (viz. Kiithypliro, Apoloijy, Crito, 

 Phtedo, which give a connected picture of the trial, 

 last days, and death of Socrates) is anything but 

 extremely artificial. Grote accepts all the works 

 in the 'canon of Thrasyllus,' believing that the 

 Alexandrian library hod every means of obtaining 

 a genuine collection of Plato's writings from his 

 successors in the Academy ; hut almost all other 

 modern scholars reject the Ejristlcjs, some of which 

 may, however, l>e very early forgeries. And the 

 authenticity of some ten or mcnc.il the dialogues has 

 been very much disputed. Fortunately, the mote 

 important works are the least open to question. 

 We have Aristotle's statement that the Lutes were 

 written by Plato after the Itf/nililii: Iteyond that 

 we can only conjecture the order in which the 

 dialogues were written ; and the hypotheses of 

 ditl'ereiit scholars have varied greatly. \Ve may 

 safely put aside the theory of Scnleiermacher ( \viili 

 whom the modern critical study of Plato begins), 

 that Plato quite early in life had formed a com- 

 plete system of philosophy in his mind, and that 

 the dialogues were published by him in an ordci 

 intended to unfold this system gradually to the 

 world. It would lie more true to say that Plato 

 never had any completely formed system, and 

 liming a long life of stimulation his opinions must 

 have undergone modification. We cannot, indeed, 

 with complete certainty arrange his dialogues in a 

 series representing exactly his mental development 

 (as K. !. Hermann and others have attempted); 

 but the student may most profitably consider them 

 in groups, suggested by the different influences 

 that acted on him, and especially by his changing 

 attitude towards the teaching of Socrates. I iist 

 of all would come those short dialogues in which, 

 so far as we can judge by comparing him with 



