Early Life of Plato - Family

Family

Plato's father was Ariston, of the deme of Colytus. According to a tradition, reported by Diogenes Laërtius but disputed by Wilamowitz-Moellendorff, Ariston traced his descent from the king of Athens, Codrus, and the king of Messenia, Melanthus. That claim is not however exploited in the philosopher's dialogues. 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 niece 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).

Besides Plato himself, Ariston and Perictione had three other children; these were two sons, Adeimantus and Glaucon, and a daughter, Potone, the mother of Speusippus (the nephew and successor of Plato as head of his philosophical Academy). According to the Republic, Adeimantus and Glaucon were older than Plato; the two brothers distinguished themselves in the Battle of Megara, when Plato could not have been more than 5 years old. Nevertheless, in his Memorabilia, Xenophon presents Glaucon as younger than Plato.

Ariston appears to have died in Plato's childhood, although the precise dating of his death is difficult. When Ariston died, Athenian law forbade the legal independence of women, and, therefore Perictione was given to marriage to Pyrilampes, her mother's brothera (Plato himself calls him the uncle of Charmides), 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. Pyrilampes had a son from a previous marriage, Demus, who was famous for his beauty. 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. Thus Plato was reared in a household of at least six children, where he was number five: a stepbrother, a sister, two brothers and a half-brother.

In contrast to his reticence about himself, Plato used to introduce his distinguished relatives into his dialogues, or to mention them with some precision: Charmides has one named after him; Critias speaks in both Charmides and Protagoras; Adeimantus and Glaucon take prominent parts in the Republic. From these and other references one can reconstruct his family tree, and this suggests a considerable amount of family pride. According to Burnet, "the opening scene of the Charmides is a glorification of the whole connection ... Plato's dialogues are not only a memorial to Socrates, but also the happier days of his own family".