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] 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".^[2] Ariston died when Plato was still a boy, and his mother Perictione remarried Pyrilampes, a friend of the Athenian politician Pericles.^[3]

Ariston had three other children by Perictione: Glaucon, Adeimantus, and Potone.^[4]

Notes

1. Laërtius 1925, § 1.
2. Laërtius 1925, § 2.
3. Plato, The Republic, Trans. G.M.A. Grube, Cambridge: Hackett, 1992. viii
4. 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.