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Plato, the best known of Socrates' followers, was born in 427 BCE in the city of Athens. He was still a young man when his teacher died. The son of Ariston and Perictione, Plato was born in the year after the death of the great Athenian statesman Pericles. His brothers Glaucon and Adeimantus are portrayed as interlocutors in Plato’s masterpiece the Republic, and his half brother Antiphon figures in the Parmenides. Plato’s family was aristocratic and distinguished. -
At around 20 years old, Plato met Socrates. He took a strong interest in politics at this time. The works of Plato commonly referred to as “Socratic” represent the sort of thing the historical Socrates was doing. Coming from a distinguished family – on his father’s side descending from Codrus, one of the early kings of Athens, and on his mother’s side from Solon, the prominent reformer of the Athenian constitution – he was naturally destined to take an active role in political life. -
Plato, having already given up playwriting, abandoned his interest in politics for an interest in Socratic philosophy. The excesses of Athenian political life seem to have persuaded him to give up political ambitions. In particular, the execution of Socrates in 399 BC had a profound effect on him and he decided that he would have nothing further to do with politics in Athens. Plato formed his idea from
the disciples of Pythagoras. -
After the trial, Socrates was condemned to die by poison. At trial, the majority of the dikasts (male-citizen jurors chosen by lot) voted to convict him of the two charges; then, consistent with common legal practice voted to determine his punishment and agreed to a sentence of death to be executed by Socrates’s drinking a poisonous beverage of hemlock. -
Plato and others in Socrates' close circle fled to the city of Megara following Socrates' death to avoid potential prosecution in Athens. Plato, after having yielded his best sympathy and aid at the trial of Socrates, retired along with several others of them to Megara. He made up his mind that for a man of his views and opinions it was not only unprofitable, but also unsafe, to embark in active public life, either at Athens or in any other Grecian city. -
For nearly 20 years, Plato travelled through much of the ancient Greek world, including Egypt, Italy, Syracuse and Sicily. Socrates was executed by the leaders of Athens for corrupting the youth and for not acknowledging the gods of Athens. Plato left Athens and traveled around the Mediterranean region for the next twelve years. During that time, he visited places like Italy, Egypt, and North Africa. He studied all sorts of subjects including science, math, and philosophy. -
In 380 BCE, Plato founded the Academy outside of Athens to teach philosophy. It was on land which had belonged to a man called Academos, and this is where the name "Academy" came from. His reasons for setting up the Academy were connected with his earlier ventures into politics. He had been bitterly disappointed with the standards displayed by those in public office and he hoped to train young men who would become statesmen. -
Plato made his second trip to Syracuse. Plato met a powerful and philosophically-minded young man named Dion, the brother-in-law of Syracuse’s decadent and paranoid tyrant, Dionysius I. Dion would become a lifelong friend and correspondent. This connection brought Plato to the inner court of Syracuse’s politics, and it was here that he decided to test his theory that if kings could be made into philosophers or philosophers into kings then justice and happiness could flourish at last. -
Aristotle began his studies at Plato's Academy. When Aristotle turned 17, Proxenus sent him to Athens to pursue a higher education. At the time, Athens was considered the academic center of the universe. In Athens, Aristotle enrolled in Plato’s Academy, Greek’s premier learning institution, and proved an exemplary scholar. Aristotle maintained a relationship with Greek philosopher Plato, himself a student of Socrates, and his academy for two decades. -
In 361 BCE, Plato made his final trip to Syracuse. He had been, for some time, attempting to turn the king of Syracuse into a philosopher-king. He was not successful. Plato returned to Athens, but visited Syracuse again in 361 BC hoping to be able to bring the rivals together. He remained in Syracuse for part of 360 BC but did not achieve a political solution to the rivalry. Dion attacked Syracuse in a coup in 357, gained control, but was murdered in 354. -
Plato died in 347 BCE at the Academy where he lived and worked. Plato died around the year 347 BC in Athens. Not much is known about this death, but he was 80 years old and likely died in his sleep. Plato's legacy lives on in modern Western philosophy. His writings have been studied for the last 2000 years and are still studied in universities today. -
After Plato's death, Aristotle left the Academy, moving on to found his own philosophical academy. He left with his Academy colleague Xenocrates to spend some time with a former fellow-student named Hermeias, who had risen from the status of a slave to become the ruler of Atarneus and Assos. -
Plato's Academy functioned for nearly 1000 years, until it was closed by the Byzantine Emperor Justinian. Though the Roman general Sulla’s destruction of the Academy’s grove and gymnasium in 86 B.C.E. marks the end of the particular institution begun by Plato, philosophers who identified as Platonists and Academics persisted in Athens until at least the sixth century C.E.
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