LIFE OF PLA TO.

CHAPTER I.

BIRTH AND EDUCATION.

PLATO was descended from an ancient and noble stock. The celebrated Codrus, the last king of Attica, was an ancestor of his father. His mother, Perictione, derived her descent from Dropides, the brother of Solon.1 Were we to credit the fabulous reports of many ancient writers, our philosopher must have owed his existence to Apollo, who is said to have introduced himself to Perictione under the form of a serpent.2 The report that Ariston did not cohabit with his wife until she had borne Plato, and that this, according to the statement of others, was enjoined upon him in a dream, might excite the suspicion, that possibly, the whole thing was fabricated, for some special object, in the early times of Christianity, if it had not been mentioned by the older writers, as Speusippus, Clearchus and Anaxilides. These, however, are far from asserting it as an actual fact, but, they very readily admit, that it rests on mere rumors which were current at Athens. After the birth of Christ, when faith in miracles had found a number of apostles, the wonderful story in question would not have been doubted by a multitude of writers. The superstitious Plutarch speaks with much earnestness in relation to it, and affirms that Apollo could have had no reason to have been ashamed of his son.3 Olympiodorus says that Plato gave himself out to be the son of Apollo from the fact that he considered himself to be, along with the swans, a servant of that god. Here, however, Plato has reference to Socrates. Like many similar things, this

1 Apuleius, Leyden 1623, p. 265. Diogenes Laertius, III. 1. Olympiodorus (Life of Plato prefixed to Tauchn. ed. Lips. 1829,) deduces his origin on the father's side from Solon, and on the mother's from Codrus, in opposition to the express testimony of other writers. [Relative oixtios, not brother,' Boeckh].

Apul. p 265. Diog. III. 2. Plutarch, Sympos. VIII. 1. Olympiodorus. Plut. Sympos. VIII 1.

4 Phaedo, Vol. I. p. 193, B'p. Ed. of Plato.

strange report, probably, owes its origin to a mere play of the imagination, occasion for which was possibly furnished by some incidents which might have happened to his mother, but more especially from the circumstance, that he was born on the same day in which Apollo saw the light. The birth-day of Plato was the seventh of the month Thargelion, which was afterwards observed by the disciples of Plato as a festival.1

Authors are not agreed respecting the year of his birth. I will mention the different statements, and by comparing them, seek to ascertain which is the most probable. According to the testimony of Phavorinus, certain writers report that he was not born at Athens, but on the island Ægina, whither the Athenians, having expelled the inhabitants, had sent new colonists, among whom was Ariston, Plato's father. Now this event occurred in the second year of the Peloponnesian war, which began in the second year of the eightyseventh Olympiad. According to this account, Plato must have been born in the fourth year of the eighty-seventh, or in the first year of the eighty-eighth Olympiad. This is the year given by Apollodorus and Hermippus. According to Athenaeus, Plato was born in the third year of the eighty-seventh Olympiad. The Chronicon of Eusebius names the fourth year of the eighty-eighth Olympiad, when Stratocles was archon, while the Alexandrian Chronicon mentions the first year of the eighty-ninth Olympiad, in the archonship of Isarchus. Neanthes makes him eighty-four years old (at his death); hence, if we assume that he died in the first year of the one hundred and eighth Olympiad, he must have been born in the second year of the eighty-seventh. Diogenes, however, relates that the event occurred in the archonship of Amenias, which, according to Diodorus, was in the second year of the eighty-seventh Olympiad. We have a report from Hermippus, not, it is true, explicit, but from which it follows, that Plato died in the eighty-second year of his age, in the first year of the one hundred and eighth Olympiad.

In order that we may draw a consistent conclusion from these contradictory statements, we must attend to other facts which have been related with more definiteness. Here belongs the year of his death. Dionysius of Halicarnassus, Plutarch, Diogenes and Athenaeus all state the year of his death to have been the first of the one hundred and eighth Olympiad. This reckoning is on the authority 1 Diog. II. 2. Plut. Sympos. VIII. 1. 2 Diog. III. 3.

of Hermotimus, who wrote the lives of celebrated philosophers, and of the well-known chronologist, Apollodorus, whose testimony is of still greater weight. With these we must always count Neanthes, who composed the lives of distinguished men with much industry. If Neanthes had deviated from other writers in respect to the year of Plato's death, Diogenes would not certainly have forgotten to mention it. Eusebius deserves no attention, when in opposition to the definite statement of these old and somewhat reputable writers, he names the fourth year of the same Olympiad. If now there was as much certainty in relation to the length of his life, then we could have the adequate data to fix upon the year of his birth. Here, however, there are three varying opinions. According to Neanthes, Plato was eighty-four years old; according to Hermotimus, Cicero, Seneca, Lucian and Censorinus, eighty-one years; and, finally, according to Valerius Maximus and Athenaeus, eighty-two years.3 Though the last statement cannot be maintained against the conclusions of the other writers, still it rests, perhaps, on common grounds with them. Since Plato is said to have died on the very anniversary day of his birth, his death may be set down as well in the departing as in the commencing year, and we have the right equally to say that he died in the eighty-first, or in the eighty-second year of his age. We have now only to consider the two reports respecting the years eighty-one and eighty-four.

According to the testimony of Plutarch and Dionysius of Halicarnassus, Isocrates was born in the second year of the eighty-sixth Olympiad, seven years earlier than Plato, and five years before the Pelopennesian war.4 Diogenes Laertius fixes the intermediate time between Isocrates and Plato at only six years, probably in accordance with the reckoning of Neanthes.5 Were we to follow his arrangement, Plato would have been born in the second year of the Pelopennesian war, or in the fourth year of the eighty-seventh Olympiad. Now when we reckon backwards from this year to the

1 Diog. III. 3.

Diog. III. 2. Cic. De Senect, c 5. Seneca Epist. 58. Lucianus de Longaevis, Censorinus de Die Natali, c. 15.

3 Val. Maxim. VIII. 7. Athenaeus, V. 18.

Plat. Vit., Isocrates, Dionysius Judicio de Isocrate.

⚫ Diog. III. 3.

second year of the eighty-sixth Olympiad, we have only six years; and from the beginning of the Pelopennesian war only four years, consequently we must include both the year preceding these, and the year following. Herein, indeed, lies the only doubt, which has not as yet been removed. This reckoning leads us back to the fourth year of the eighty-seventh, or to the first of the eighty-eighth Olympiad as the year of Plato's birth, which I have the best reason to regard as the most probable, inasmuch as we always return to the same point, though we go out on different paths.

To the preceding grounds, on which we form a conclusion, we we will add a new one. Plato lived as a pupil with Socrates eight years, namely, from his twentieth to his twenty-eighth year.1 Brucker here finds a singular difficulty. Plato,' says he, could have been only eight and twenty in the first year of the ninety-fifth Olympiad, in which Socrates drank the poisoned cup, but he must have been at least thirty years old, for he was at that time senator, to which office no one was eligible before his thirtieth year." I cannot say from what source Brucker learned that Plato was a senator, for I do not find the least proof of it. If we now go back from the year of the death of Socrates twenty-eight years, the fourth year of the eighty-seventh or the first year of the eighty-eighth Olym piad will be fixed upon as the year of the birth of Plato. In the mean time we adopt this reckoning, until learned men, from better grounds, shall have decided upon another.3

Of his father and mother but a few circumstances are known. His father died very early, before Plato had commenced his philosophical course, probably before the 28th year of his age. But his mother was living even after he had come into the court of Dionysius the younger.5 His brothers were Adimantus and Glauco; he

1 Diogenes III. 5, 6. Suidas Platone, άñoуvos de toitan ¿yıhooogǹjoe παρὰ Σωκράτει ἐπὶ ἔτη κ. A more correct reading is probably inì ëtu z. 2 Historia Critica Philosophiae, Lips. 1745, I. 632, Note.

3 [Professor Boeckh of Berlin, as we learn from MS. Notes of his Lectures on Plato, loaned us by a friend, places his birth 429 B. C., on the 7th of Thargelion, 21st or 22d of March. According to Ritter, Geschichte der Phil. 11. 152, Berlin, 1830, Plato was born at Ægina or Athens, in the 87th or 88th Olympiad, at the time of the death of Pericles.-TR.] Plut. neqi pilonvoqyias II. Frankf. 1620, 496. Plat. Epist. XI. 174.