Speusippus had composed a funeral Discourse or Encomium on Plato (Diogen. iii. 1, 2; iv. 1, 11). Unfortunately Diogenes refers to it only once in reference to Plato. We can hardly make out whether any of the authors, whom he cites, had made the life of Plato a subject of attentive study. Hermodôrus is cited by Simplikius as having written a treatise περὶ Πλάτωνος. Aristoxenus, Dikæarchus, and Theopompus — perhaps also Hermippus, and Klearchus — had good means of information.
See K. F. Hermann, Geschichte und System der Platonischen Philosophie, p. 97, not. 45.
His birth, parentage, and early education.
Plato was born in Ægina (in which island his father enjoyed an estate as kleruch or out-settled citizen) in the month Thargelion (May) of the year B.C. 427.[3] His family, belonging to the Dême Kollytus, was both ancient and noble, in the sense attached to that word at Athens. He was son of Ariston (or, according to some admirers, of the God Apollo) and Periktionê: his maternal ancestors had been intimate friends or relatives of the law-giver Solon, while his father belonged to a Gens tracing its descent from Kodrus, and even from the God Poseidon. He was also nearly related to Charmides and to Kritias — this last the well-known and violent leader among the oligarchy called the Thirty Tyrants.[4] Plato was first called Aristoklês, after his grandfather; but received when he grew up the name of Plato — on account of the breadth (we are told) either of his forehead or of his shoulders. Endowed with a robust physical frame, and exercised in gymnastics, not merely in one of the palæstræ of Athens (which he describes graphically in the Charmides) but also under an Argeian trainer, he attained such force and skill as to contend (if we may credit Dikæarchus) for the prize of wrestling among boys at the Isthmian festival.[5] His literary training was commenced under a schoolmaster named Dionysius, and pursued under Drakon, a celebrated teacher of music in the large sense then attached to that word. He is said to have displayed both diligence and remarkable quickness of apprehension, combined too with the utmost gravity and modesty.[6] He not only acquired great familiarity with the poets, but composed poetry of his own — dithyrambic, lyric, and tragic: and he is even reported to have prepared a tragic tetralogy, with the view of competing for victory at the Dionysian festival. We are told that he burned these poems, when he attached himself to the society of Sokrates. No compositions in verse remain under his name, except a few epigrams — amatory, affectionate, and of great poetical beauty. But there is ample proof in his dialogues that the cast of his mind was essentially poetical. Many of his philosophical speculations are nearly allied to poetry, and acquire their hold upon the mind rather through imagination and sentiment than through reason or evidence.
[3] It was affirmed distinctly by Hermodôrus (according to the statement of Diogenes Laertius, iii. 6) that Plato was twenty-eight years old at the time of the death of Sokrates: that is, in May, 399 B.C. (Zeller, Phil. der Griech. vol. ii. p. 39, ed. 2nd.) This would place the birth of Plato in 427 B.C. Other critics refer his birth to 428 or 429: but I agree with Zeller in thinking that the deposition of Hermodôrus is more trustworthy than any other evidence before us.
Hermodôrus was a friend and disciple of Plato, and is even said to have made money by publishing Plato’s dialogues without permission (Cic., Epist. ad Attic. xiii. 21). Suidas, Ἑρμόδωρος. He was also an author: he published a treatise Περὶ Μαθημάτων (Diog. L., Proœm. 2).
See the more recent Dissertation of Zeller, De Hermodoro Ephesio et Hermodoro Platonico, Marburg, 1859, p. 19 seq. He cites two important passages (out of the commentary of Simplikius on Aristot. Physic.) referring to the work of Hermodôrus ὁ Πλάτωνος ἕταιρος — a work Περὶ Πλάτωνος, on Plato.
[4] The statements respecting Plato’s relatives are obscure and perplexing: unfortunately the domestica documenta, which were within the knowledge of his nephew Speusippus, are no longer accessible to us. It is certain that he had two brothers, Glaukon and Adeimantus: besides which, it would appear from the Parmenides (126 B) that he had a younger half-brother by the mother’s side, named Antiphon, and son of Pyrilampes (compare Charmides, p. 158 A, and Plut., De Frat. Amore, 12, p. 484 E). But the age, which this would assign to Antiphon, does not harmonise well with the chronological postulates assumed in the exordium of the Parmenides. Accordingly, K. F. Hermann and Stallbaum are led to believe, that besides the brothers of Plato named Glaukon and Adeimantus, there must also have been two uncles of Plato bearing these same names, and having Antiphon for their younger brother. (See Stallbaum’s Prolegg. ad Charm. pp. 84, 85, and Prolegg. ad Parmen., Part iii. pp. 304-307.) This is not unlikely: but we cannot certainly determine the point — more especially as we do not know what amount of chronological inaccuracy Plato might hold to be admissible in the personnel of his dialogues.
It is worth mentioning, that in the discourse of Andokides de Mysteriis, persons named Plato, Charmides, Antiphon, are named among those accused of concern in the sacrileges of 415 B.C. — the mutilation of the Hermæ and the mock celebration of the mysteries. Speusippus is also named as among the Senators of the year (Andokides de Myst. p. 13-27, seq.). Whether these persons belonged to the same family as the philosopher Plato, we cannot say. He himself was then only twelve years old.