Phangon, a courtesan of Miletus, in Ionia.

Platæa, a daughter of Asopus king of Bœotia. Pausanias, bk. 9, ch. 1, &c.——An island on the coast of Africa in the Mediterranean. It belonged to the Cyreneans. Herodotus, bk. 4, ch. 157.

Platæa, and æ (arum), a town of Bœotia, near mount Cithæron, on the confines of Megaris and Attica, celebrated for a battle fought there between Mardonius the commander of Xerxes king of Persia, and Pausanias the Lacedæmonian, and the Athenians. The Persian army consisted of 300,000 men, 3000 of which scarce escaped with their lives by flight. The Grecian army, which was greatly inferior, lost but few men, and among these 91 Spartans, 52 Athenians, and 16 Tegeans, were the only soldiers found in the number of the slain. The plunder which the Greeks obtained in the Persian camp was immense. Pausanias received the tenth of all the spoils, on account of his uncommon valour during the engagement, and the rest were rewarded each according to their respective merit. This battle was fought on the 22nd September, the same day as the battle of Mycale, 479 B.C., and by it Greece was totally delivered for ever from the continual alarms to which she was exposed on account of the Persian invasions, and from that time none of the princes of Persia dared to appear with a hostile force beyond the Hellespont. The Platæans were naturally attached to the interest of the Athenians, and they furnished them with 1000 soldiers when Greece was attacked by Datis the general of Darius. Platæa was taken by the Thebans, after a famous siege, in the beginning of the Peloponnesian war, and destroyed by the Spartans, B.C. 427. Alexander rebuilt it, and paid great encomiums to the inhabitants, on account of their ancestors, who had so bravely fought against the Persians at the battle of Marathon, and under Pausanias. Herodotus, bk. 8, ch. 50.—Pausanias, bk. 9, ch. 1.—Plutarch, Alexander, &c.—Cornelius Nepos, &c.—Cicero, de Officiis, bk. 1, ch. 18.—Strabo.—Justin.

Platanius, a river of Bœotia. Pausanias, bk. 9, ch. 24.

Plato, a celebrated philosopher at Athens, son of Ariston and Parectonia. His original name was Aristocles, and he received that of Plato from the largeness of his shoulders. As one of the descendants of Codrus, and as the offspring of a noble, illustrious, and opulent family, Plato was educated with care, his body was formed and invigorated with gymnastic exercises, and his mind was cultivated and enlightened by the study of poetry and of geometry, from which he derived that acuteness of judgment and warmth of imagination which have stamped his character as the most subtle and flowery writer of antiquity. He first began his literary career by writing poems and tragedies; but he was soon disgusted with his own productions, when, at the age of 20, he was introduced into the presence of Socrates, and when he was enabled to compare and examine, with critical accuracy, the merit of his compositions with those of his poetical predecessors. He therefore committed to the flames these productions of his early years, which could not command the attention or gain the applause of a maturer age. During eight years he continued to be one of the pupils of Socrates; and if he was prevented by a momentary indisposition from attending the philosopher’s last moments, yet he collected from the conversation of those that were present, and from his own accurate observations, the minutest and most circumstantial accounts, which can exhibit, in its truest colours, the concern and sensibility of the pupil, and the firmness, virtues, and moral sentiments of the dying philosopher. After the death of Socrates, Plato retired from Athens, and to acquire that information which the accurate observer can derive in foreign countries, he began to travel over Greece. He visited Megara, Thebes, and Elis, where he met with the kindest reception from his fellow-disciples, whom the violent death of their master had likewise removed from Attica. He afterwards visited Magna Græcia, attracted by the fame of the Pythagorean philosophy, and by the learning, abilities, and reputation of its professors, Philolaus, Archytas, and Eurytus. He afterwards passed into Sicily, and examined the eruptions and fires of the volcano of that island. He also visited Egypt, where then the mathematician Theodorus flourished, and where he knew that the tenets of the Pythagorean philosophy and metempsychosis had been fostered and cherished. When he had finished his travels, Plato retired to the groves of Academus, in the neighbourhood of Athens, where his lectures were soon attended by a crowd of learned, noble, and illustrious pupils; and the philosopher, by refusing to have a share in the administration of affairs, rendered his name more famous, and his school more frequented. During forty years he presided at the head of the academy, and there he devoted his time to the instruction of his pupils, and composed those dialogues which have been the admiration of every age and country. His studies, however, were interrupted for a while, whilst he obeyed the pressing calls and invitations of Dionysius, and whilst he persuaded the tyrant to become a man, the father of his people, and the friend of liberty. See: [Dionysius II.] In his dress the philosopher was not ostentatious; his manners were elegant but modest, simple without affectation; and the great honours which his learning deserved were not paid to his appearance. When he came to the Olympian games, Plato resided, during the celebration, in a family who were totally strangers to him. He ate and drank with them, he partook of their innocent pleasures and amusements; but though he told them his name was Plato, yet he never spoke of the employment which he pursued at Athens, and never introduced the name of that philosopher whose doctrines he followed, and whose death and virtues were favourite topics of conversation in every part of Greece. When he returned home, he was attended by the family which had so kindly entertained him; and, as being a native of Athens, he was desired to show them the great philosopher whose name he bore: their surprise was great when he told them that he himself was the Plato whom they wished to behold. In his diet he was moderate, and, indeed, to sobriety and temperance in the use of food, and to the want of those pleasures which enfeeble the body and enervate the mind, some have attributed his preservation during the tremendous pestilence which raged at Athens with so much fury at the beginning of the Peloponnesian war. Plato was never subject to any long or lingering indisposition, and though change of climate had enfeebled a constitution naturally strong and healthy, the philosopher lived to an advanced age, and was often heard to say, when his physicians advised him to leave his residence at Athens, where the air was impregnated by the pestilence, that he would not advance one single step to gain the top of mount Athos, were he assured to attain the great longevity which the inhabitants of that mountain were said to enjoy above the rest of mankind. Plato died on his birthday, in the 81st year of his age, about 348 years before the christian era. His last moments were easy and without pain, and, according to some, he expired in the midst of an entertainment, or, according to Cicero, as he was writing. The works of Plato are numerous; they are all written in the form of a dialogue, except 12 letters. He speaks always by the mouth of others, and the philosopher has nowhere made mention of himself except once in his dialogue intituled Phædon, and another time in his apology for Socrates. His writings were so celebrated, and, his opinion so respected, that he was called divine; and for the elegance, melody, and sweetness of his expressions, he was distinguished by the appellation of the Athenian bee. Cicero had such an esteem for him, that in the warmth of panegyric, he exclaimed, Errare meherculè malo cum Platone quàm cum istis vera sentire; and Quintilian said that, when he read Plato, he seemed to hear not a man, but a divinity speaking. His style, however, though admired and commended by the best and most refined of critics among the ancients, has not escaped the censure of some of the moderns; and the philosopher has been blamed, who supports that fire is a pyramid tied to the earth by numbers, that the world is a figure consisting of 12 pentagons, and who, to prove the metempsychosis and the immortality of the soul, asserts that the dead are born from the living, and the living from the dead. The speculative mind of Plato was employed in examining things divine and human, and he attempted to fix and ascertain, not only the practical doctrine of morals and politics, but the more subtle and abstruse theory of mystical theogony. His philosophy was universally received and adopted, and it has not only governed the opinions of the speculative part of mankind, but it continues still to influence the reasoning, and to divide the sentiments, of the moderns. In his system of philosophy he followed the physics of Heraclitus, the metaphysical opinions of Pythagoras, and the morals of Socrates. He maintained the existence of two beings, one self-existent, and the other formed by the hand of a pre-existent creature, god and man. The world was created by that self-existent cause, from the rude undigested mass of matter which had existed from all eternity, and which had even been animated by an irregular principle of motion. The origin of evil could not be traced under the government of a deity, without admitting a stubborn intractability and wildness congenial to matter, and from these, consequently, could be demonstrated the deviations from the laws of nature, and from thence the extravagant passions and appetites of men. From materials like these were formed the four elements, and the beautiful structure of the heavens and the earth; and into the active but irrational principle of matter, the divinity infused a rational soul. The souls of men were formed from the remainder of the rational soul of the world, which had previously given existence to the invisible gods and demons. The philosopher, therefore, supported the doctrine of ideal forms, and the pre-existence of the human mind, which he considered as emanations of the Deity, which can never remain satisfied with objects or things unworthy of their divine original. Men could perceive, with their corporeal senses, the types of immutable things and the fluctuating objects of the material world; but the sudden changes to which these are continually obnoxious, create innumerable disorders, and hence arise deception, and, in short, all the errors and miseries of human life. Yet, in whatever situation man may be, he is still an object of divine concern; and, to recommend himself to the favour of the pre-existent cause, he must comply with the purposes of his creation, and, by proper care and diligence, he can recover those immaculate powers with which he was naturally endowed. All science the philosopher made to consist in reminiscence, and in recalling the nature, forms, and proportions of those perfect and immutable essences with which the human mind had been conversant. From observations like these, the summit of felicity might be attained by removing from the material, and approaching nearer to the intellectual world, by curbing and governing the passions which were ever agitated and inflamed by real and imaginary objects. The passions were divided into two classes: the first consisted of the irascible passions, which originated in pride or resentment, and were seated in the breast; the other, founded on the love of pleasure, was the concupiscible part of the soul seated in the belly, and inferior parts of the body. These different orders induced the philosopher to compare the soul to a small republic, of which the reasoning and judging powers were stationed in the head, as in a firm citadel, and of which the senses were its guards and servants. By the irascible part of the soul men asserted their dignity, repelled injuries, and scorned danger; and the concupiscible part provided for the support and the necessities of the body, and when governed with propriety, it gave rise to temperance. Justice was produced by the regular dominion of reason, and by the submission of the passions; and prudence arose from the strength, acuteness, and perfection of the soul, without which all other virtues could not exist. But, amidst all this, wisdom was not easily attained; at their creation all minds were not endowed with the same excellence, the bodies which they animated on earth were not always in harmony with the divine emanation; some might be too weak, others too strong, and on the first years of a man’s life depended his future consequence; as an effeminate and licentious education seemed calculated to destroy the purposes of the divinity, while the contrary produced different effects, and tended to cultivate and improve the reasoning and judging faculty, and to produce wisdom and virtue. Plato was the first who supported the immortality of the soul upon arguments solid and permanent, deduced from truth and experience. He did not imagine that the diseases, and the death of the body, could injure the principle of life and destroy the soul, which, of itself, was of divine origin, and of an uncorrupted and immutable essence, which, though inherent for a while in matter, could not lose that power which was the emanation of God. From doctrines like these, the great founder of Platonism concluded that there might exist in the world a community of men, whose passions could be governed with moderation, and who, from knowing the evils and miseries which arise from ill conduct, might aspire to excellence, and attain that perfection which can be derived from the proper exercise of the rational and moral powers. To illustrate this more fully, the philosopher wrote a book, well known by the name of the republic of Plato, in which he explains with acuteness, judgment, and elegance the rise and revolution of civil society; and so respected was his opinion as a legislator, that his scholars were employed in regulating the republics of Arcadia, Elis, and Cnidus, at the desire of those states, and Xenocrates gave political rules for good and impartial government to the conqueror of the east. The best editions of Plato are those of Frankfurt, folio, 1602; and Bipontium, 12 vols. 8vo, 1718. Plato, Dialogues, &c.—Cicero, de Officiis, bk. 1; de Divinatione, bk. 1, ch. 36; de Natura Deorum, bk. 2, ch. 12; Tusculanæ Disputationes, bk. 1, ch. 17.—Plutarch, Solon, &c.—Seneca, Epistulæ.—Quintilian, bk. 10, ch. 1, &c.—Ælian, Varia Historia, bks. 2 & 4.—Pausanias, bk. 1, ch. 30.—Diogenes Laërtius.——A son of Lycaon king of Arcadia.——A Greek poet, called the prince of the middle comedy, who flourished B.C. 445. Some fragments remain of his pieces.

Plator, a man of Dyrrhachium, put to death by Piso. Cicero, Against Piso, ch. 34.

Plavis, a river of Venetia, in Italy.

Plautia lex, was enacted by Marcus Plautius the tribune, A.U.C. 664. It required every tribe annually to choose 15 persons of their body, to serve as judges, making the honour common to all the three orders, according to the majority of votes in every tribe.——Another, called also Plotia, A.U.C. 675. It punished with the interdictio ignis & aquæ, all persons who were found guilty of attempts upon the state, or the senators or magistrates, or such as appeared in public, armed with an evil design, or such as forcibly expelled any person from his legal [♦]possessions.

[♦] ‘possesions’ replaced with ‘possessions’

Plautiānus Fulvius, an African of mean birth, who was banished for his seditious behaviour in the years of his obscurity. In his banishment, Plautianus formed an acquaintance with Severus, who, some years after, ascended the imperial throne. This was the beginning of his prosperity; Severus paid the greatest attention to him, and, if we believe some authors, their familiarity and intercourse were carried beyond the bounds of modesty and propriety. Plautianus shared the favours of Severus on the throne as well as in obscurity. He was invested with as much power as his patron at Rome, and in the provinces; and, indeed, he wanted but the name of emperor to be his equal. His table was served with more delicate meats than that of the emperor; when he walked in the public streets he received the most distinguishing honours, and a number of criers ordered the most noble citizens, as well as the meanest beggars, to make way for the favourite of the emperor, and not to fix their eyes upon him. He was concerned in all the rapine and destruction which were committed through the empire, and he enriched himself with the possessions of those who had been sacrificed to the emperor’s cruelty or avarice. To complete his triumph, and to make himself still greater, Plautianus married his favourite daughter Plautilla to Caracalla the son of the emperor, and so eager was the emperor to indulge his inclinations in this and in every other respect, that he declared he loved Plautianus so much that he would even wish to die before him. The marriage of Caracalla with Plautilla was attended with serious consequences. The son of Severus had complied with great reluctance, and, though Plautilla was amiable in her manners, commanding in aspect, and of a beautiful countenance, yet the young prince often threatened to punish her haughty and imperious behaviour as soon as he succeeded to the throne. Plautilla reported the whole to her father, and to save his daughter from the vengeance of Caracalla, Plautianus conspired against the emperor and his son. The conspiracy was discovered, and Severus forgot his attachment to Plautianus, and the favours he had heaped upon him, when he heard of his perfidy. The wicked minister was immediately put to death, and Plautilla banished to the island of Lipari, with her brother Plautius, where, seven years after, she was put to death by order of Caracalla, A.D. 211. Plautilla had two children, a son who died in his childhood, and a daughter, whom Caracalla murdered in the arms of her mother. Dio Cassius.