Ariston of Athens

Ariston of Collytus (Greek: Ἀρίστων; died c. 424 BC), was the father of the Greek philosopher Plato (originally named Aristocles). Legend holds that he was descended from Codrus, the ancient king of Athens.[1] He supposedly could trace his ancestry to the God of the sea Poseidon through Codrus and Melanthus.[2][3] Diogenes Laërtius on the authority of Speusippus and others, relates a story that "Ariston made violent love to Perictione, then in her bloom, and failed to win her; and that, when he ceased to offer violence, Apollo appeared to him in a dream, whereupon he left her unmolested until her child was born".[4] Ariston died when Plato was still a boy, and his mother Perictione remarried Pyrilampes, a friend of the Athenian politician Pericles.[5]

Ariston had three other children by Perictione: Glaucon, Adeimantus, and Potone.[6]

Notes
  1. Laërtius 1925, § 1.
  2. The Great Books of the Western World. Dialogues of Plato, Biographical Note
  3. Diogenes Laertius Plato 1
  4. Laërtius 1925, § 2.
  5. Plato, The Republic, Trans. G.M.A. Grube, Cambridge: Hackett, 1992. viii
  6. Laërtius 1925, § 4.

References
  •  Laërtius, Diogenes (1925). "Plato" . Lives of the Eminent Philosophers. 1:3. Translated by Hicks, Robert Drew (Two volume ed.). Loeb Classical Library.CS1 maint: ref=harv (link)
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