by Plato

Plato was born in 427 B.C.E. to an influential, politically active aristocratic family and received the fine education typical for a boy of his background in fifth-century Athens. His various interests included wrestling (he was a champion), politics (his aspirations included running for office), and writing. According to ancient tradition, Plato began his career as a writer anxious to become the next Sophocles, and started composing dramas that supposedly showed some promise. These he promptly sent home and burned upon hearing a lecture by a man destined to become not only Plato’s, but the world’s teacher: Socrates. Plato studied with Socrates for just under a decade, until the teacher was tried and condemned to death (399 B.C.E.). A young man of 28 at the time, Plato was so disillusioned by the death of Socrates that he left Athens and began to...