Plato’s Life
Plato was first a student of Socrates, and possibly the most influential thing that his teacher passed to his student was not necessarily his way of thinking, but his unfair death. Knowledge is something to pursue, true, but just is a passion most men have already had burning inside them; possibly one of the most pressing needs and desires of men throughout their existence is that for vengeance, or uncorrupted justice. No one is certain exactly when Plato was born, but most researchers and scholars claim it was somewhere between 423 and 424 BC, in the ancient Greek city of Athens. According to a much debated tradition, Plato’s father, Ariston, could trace his line of descendants all the way back to kings of Athens and Messenia. The mother of Plato, was a woman named Perictione; her family was related in some way to the famous poet and lawmaker Solon. She was also related to the men Charmides and Critias, who were prominently featured in Thirty Tyrants, –the name for the brief regime following the collapse of Athens in which people were obviously extremely unhappy enough to have given it that kind of name.
Plato’s father is said to have died in his childhood, however much that is disputed among scholar. Plato was not actually named Plato at birth. He was born and named Aristocles; his wrestling coach named him “Platon” the name’s Greek meaning “broad”, because of Plato’s muscular figure. Other sources say that his name came from the breadth of his eloquence, or the width of his forehead –which wasn’t actually a bad sign, more or less it meant intelligence to have a big head. This theory came from Diogenes of the Alexandrian period, but many scholars in the 21st century highly doubt it, and it is much debated. Apuleius and Dicaearchus praised Plato for both his love of learning and hard work as a growing boy, as well as his wrestling and athletic ability. Before he ever became a student of Socrates, he had studied philosophy before under other teachers, such as his acquaintance Cratylus, from whom he learned the Heraclitean doctrines.
Later on, Plato traveled throughout the world, some believe, because he didn’t return to Athens until he was near or at forty years old. Some researchers and scholars claim that he traveled through Italy, or Cyrene in Africa, Egypt, or Sicily. When he finally returned to Athens, he founded his famous Academy, where several of the most influential students and philosophers of all time studied. Possibly the most prominent of Plato’s students at the Academy, was Aristotle.