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The MouseionPlato

Plato

37 works in the library, 36 with an English translation.

Greek philosopher, born at Athens. From Wikidata; Wikipedia.

Lived
5th–4th c. BC
Wrote in
5th–3rd c. BC
Kinds of writing
Philosophic Dialogue (34), Philosophy (2), Epistolography
Dialect
Attic
Analysed
665,706 words

The 37 works

First the work Plato is best known for; then the works here with a translation and the most familiar vocabulary: the fewest rare words to look up. That is vocabulary only; grammar, dialect and ideas may still be demanding.

The road of the text

Follow the text from Plato's own day to the book in your hands. The gaps are the long silences between one mark and the next.

Before you read. Little numbers like 1 are footnotes. Tap one and it jumps to the source at the bottom of the page, so you can check us. Debated among scholars The evidence allows more than one reading, and specialists disagree. No label? Then the sources simply state it as fact.

  • The author
  • Copies
  • Print and editions
  1. c. 428 BCThe authorBorn at Athens, in 428/7 BC by Apollodorus' chronology4,5 Debated among scholars
  2. about 40 years laterc. 388 BCThe authorReaches Syracuse “being about forty”, by the Seventh Letter, whose authorship is disputed5,6 Debated among scholars
  3. about 3 years laterc. 385 BCThe authorFounds the Academy, in the 380s BC5
  4. about 18 years later367 BCThe authorAristotle arrives at the Academy, shortly before Plato leaves again for Syracuse5
  5. about 19 years laterc. 348 BCThe authorDies at Athens in 348/7 BC, at a wedding feast according to Hermippus4 Debated among scholars
  6. about 400 years laterc. AD 50CopiesThrasyllus arranges the dialogues in nine tetralogies (the first century AD)5,13
  7. about 850 years laterAD 895CopiesThe Clarke Plato is written for Arethas of Caesarea: the oldest surviving manuscript for about half the dialogues14
  8. about 590 years later1484Print and editionsFicino's Latin translation is printed at Florence5
  9. 29 years later1513Print and editionsAldus Manutius prints the Greek text at Venice, edited by Marcus Musurus16
  10. 65 years later1578Print and editionsHenri Estienne (Stephanus) prints Plato at Geneva; its page numbers become the standard way to cite him15
  11. about 330 years laterc. 1905Print and editionsBurnet's Oxford Classical Text appears in five volumes (1900–07)19,21
  12. about 90 years later1995Print and editionsA new Oxford text of volume 1 (Euthyphro to Politicus) replaces Burnet's17,18
  13. 8 years later2003Print and editionsSlings' Oxford text of the Republic appears20

Life and work

Checked against sources · 30 September 2026

Plato hardly ever appears in his own books. Diogenes Laertius noticed: he names himself only in the Phaedo and the Apology.1 In the Phaedo it is a throwaway line, when the narrator lists who was with Socrates on his last day and adds that Plato was ill.2 In the Apology he is one of the friends standing by at the trial.3

Debated among scholars Apollodorus' chronology puts his birth in 428/7 BC, and Hermippus says he died at a wedding feast in 348/7, in his eighty-first year.4 Some modern books give c. 428–347.5 He came from an aristocratic and influential Athenian family, and two relatives were leaders of the oligarchy that seized Athens in 404 BC: Critias was one of the Thirty, and Charmides one of the Ten who ruled in Piraeus. Xenophon tells how both died in the same battle.5

Debated among scholars A letter that bears his name, the Seventh, says that he first reached Syracuse “being about forty years old”.6 It also gives his most famous political verdict: humankind “will have no cessation from evils until either the class of those who are right and true philosophers attains political supremacy”, or rulers become true philosophers.7 Whether Plato wrote the letter is itself disputed.5

He founded the Academy in the 380s BC, and Aristotle arrived there in 367.5

His best-known picture is a cave. “Picture men dwelling in a sort of subterranean cavern”, says Socrates in the Republic, “fettered from childhood”, able to look only at shadows.8 The same book imagines a city that exists only “in the ideal”.9 And the Euthyphro shows the method on a smaller scale: Socrates asks what holiness is, and the two of them tangle over whether the gods love the holy because it is holy, or whether it is holy because they love it.10

You can hear the conversation in the replies. Socrates' partners keep agreeing with πάνυ μὲν οὖν and πάνυ γε, roughly “quite certainly” and “very much so” (our translation). They fill the first book of the Republic.11 LSJ glosses πάνυ as “altogether”, and in use “perfectly” or “very”.12

Things readers still argue about

Which works are really Plato's? Plato's complete works are believed to have survived, which is rare for an ancient author, but the collection also holds works by others.5 Scholars broadly doubt Alcibiades II, Epinomis, Hipparchus, Minos, Lovers and Theages, and are more divided over Alcibiades I, Clitophon, the Letters and Menexenus. Nine more, among them the Definitions and the Axiochus, were already counted as spurious in the first century AD.5

Can the dialogues be put in order? The usual early, middle and late groups are a modern reconstruction. Writers are increasingly sceptical that the order of Plato's writings can be fixed with any precision.5

Who finished the Laws, and did the Republic change? Some said that Philip of Opus copied out the Laws, which Plato left on waxen tablets, and that he wrote the Epinomis. Euphorion and Panaetius reported that the beginning of the Republic was found several times revised and rewritten.1

How the words reached us

Manuscripts & transmission

Passed from hand to hand

Nine groups of four. Thrasyllus says Plato published his dialogues in tetralogies, like the tragic poets; he counts fifty-six genuine dialogues (the Republic as ten, the Laws as twelve) in nine tetralogies.13 The text we have rests on that arrangement from the first century AD, by Thrasyllus of Mendes.5

Manuscripts. Some 250 Byzantine manuscripts of Plato survive.5 The oldest for about half the dialogues is the “Clarke Plato” in Oxford's Bodleian Library (MS. E. D. Clarke 39), written in 895 by a professional calligrapher for Arethas of Caesarea, who paid 21 gold coins for it and added notes in the margin. It holds the first six tetralogies: twenty-four works, from the Euthyphro and Apology to the Meno.14

The page numbers. References such as Republic 514a come from a three-volume edition of Plato's complete works printed in Geneva in 1578 by Henri Estienne (Henricus Stephanus), with a Latin translation by Joannes Serranus; each page is split into sections lettered a to e.15

Print. Ficino's Latin translation was printed in Florence in 1484, in 1025 copies.5 The first Greek edition, edited by Marcus Musurus, was printed by Aldus Manutius at Venice in 1513.16

Textual variants

Where the copies disagree

Works in doubt. Most of the open questions about Plato's text are about whole works, not single words: which dialogues and letters are his, and which belong to his school.5

Tablets and drafts. The Laws was said to have been left on wax tablets and copied out by Philip of Opus; the opening of the Republic was said to have been found in several versions.1

Books to read it in

  • J. Burnet, Platonis Opera, 5 vols (Oxford Classical Texts, 1900–07).19 The Greek Republic in the reader is Burnet's text, in Perseus's copy.21
  • E. A. Duke and others, Platonis Opera, vol. 1 (Oxford Classical Texts, 1995).1718 It replaces Burnet's first volume, from the Euthyphro to the Politicus.
  • S. R. Slings, Platonis Respublica (Oxford Classical Texts, 2003).20
  • Paul Shorey's translation of the Republic (Loeb Classical Library; the reader's copy is the printing of 1935–37).21 The English Republic in the reader.
  • J. M. Cooper (ed.), Plato: Complete Works (Hackett, 1997).22 Modern translations of everything attributed to Plato in antiquity, in one volume.

Where this comes from

Sources (22)
  1. Diogenes Laertius 3.37, in the reader (Plato names himself only in two dialogues; the Laws and the Epinomis; the Republic revised)
  2. Plato, Phaedo 59b, in the reader
  3. Plato, Apology 34a, in the reader
  4. Diogenes Laertius 3.2, in the reader (Apollodorus on his birth, Hermippus on his death)
  5. Wikipedia, Plato (his family, the Academy, Aristotle, survival of the works, doubtful works, Thrasyllus, manuscripts, Ficino, the Seventh Letter)
  6. Plato (attributed), Letter 7, 324a, in the reader
  7. Plato (attributed), Letter 7, 326a–b, in the reader
  8. Plato, Republic 514a, in the reader (the cave)
  9. Plato, Republic 592b, in the reader
  10. Plato, Euthyphro 11b, in the reader
  11. Plato, Republic 330d–331d, in the reader
  12. Liddell–Scott–Jones, Greek–English Lexicon: the entry πάνυ (Perseus Digital Library)
  13. Diogenes Laertius 3.56–57, in the reader (Thrasyllus and the tetralogies)
  14. Biblissima, Oxford, Bodleian Library, MS. E. D. Clarke 39 (the Clarke Plato, 895)
  15. Wikipedia, Stephanus pagination
  16. Wikipedia, List of editiones principes in Greek (Plato, Aldus Manutius, Venice, 1513)
  17. Oxford University Press, Plato, Opera, vol. 1 (Duke, Hicken, Nicoll, Robinson and Strachan, Oxford Classical Texts, 1995)
  18. Bryn Mawr Classical Review 1997.01.08 on Plato, Opera, vol. 1 (Oxford Classical Texts, 1995)
  19. PhilPapers, J. Burnet (ed.), Plato Opera (Oxford Classical Texts, 1900–07)
  20. Oxford University Press, Platonis Respublica (S. R. Slings, Oxford Classical Texts, 2003)
  21. Perseus's copies of Plato's Republic shown in the reader: each file's header names its edition (Burnet, Clarendon Press, 1905; Shorey, Loeb, 1935–37)
  22. PhilPapers, J. M. Cooper (ed.), Plato: Complete Works (Hackett, 1997)

We checked every statement above against these sources on 30 September 2026. Where they disagree, we say so. What we could not confirm, we left out.

In The Painted Stoa

Entries that quote or point to Plato's Greek.

The helots and the krypteiaSparta's citizens could spend their lives training for war because someone else grew their food.Greek statues were paintedThe gleaming white marble of Greek sculpture, admired for centuries as the image of classical purity, is a modern accident.PericlesFor about thirty years in the middle of the fifth century BC, the most powerful man in Athens held only an office the Assembly filled by vote every year: general.Going to school in AthensThere were no state schools in classical Athens.
All 12 entries
The symposiumA symposion means "drinking together".The Olympic GamesEvery four years for more than a thousand years, Greeks from all over the Mediterranean travelled to the sanctuary of Zeus at Olympia to watch naked men run, wrestle, box and race chariots.The trial of SocratesIn the spring of 399 BC, a jury of about five hundred Athenian citizens found the philosopher Socrates, aged about seventy, guilty of not believing in the city's gods, of bringing in new divine beings, and of corrupting the young.Asclepius and the healing sleepA sick Greek who could afford the journey might go to a sanctuary of Asclepius, the god of healing, wash, make an offering, and lie down for the night in a special hall, hoping the god would come in a dream and cure him.Knossos and the labyrinthHomer knew Knossos as "a great city" where Minos was king, and later Greeks told of the labyrinth that Daedalus built there for the Minotaur.Drugs and poisonsThe Greeks had one word for a medicine, a poison and a magic spell: pharmakon.Love, sex and marriageA Greek marriage was a deal between two households, made so that a man would have legitimate children to inherit his house.Women's livesAlmost everything we read about Greek women was written by men.

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