Plato’s allegory of the cave by Jan Saenredam, according to Cornelis van Haarlem, 1604, Albertina, Vienna. Public Domain.

Prologue

I learned a few things about Plato in high school and in my university classes on ancient and medieval Greek history. I improved that meager understanding of this great philosopher on my own: reading his dialogues in the original Greek and English translations.

The decisive influence of the Peloponnesian War on Plato

Plato, 428-348 BCE, grew up in Athens during the catastrophic civil war between the Greeks, the so-called Peloponnesian War, 431-404 BCE. This war marked the Greeks forever, seeding the ground with fear, antagonism and conflict. Eris, goddess of strife, rose from obscurity to prominence. The warnings of Homer, Aeschylos, Euripides and other poets, never to fight civil wars were set aside.

The other tragedy of the Peloponnesian War terminated half a century of unprecedented prosperity and scientific and artistic achievements, primarily in Athens, after the decisive victories of the Greeks of the invading Persian armies in the battles of 490 in Marathon, 480 in Salamis and Plataea in 479 BCE. Thucydides, who described the Peloponnesian War, was convinced that the fear of Sparta of the growing Athenian political power and civilization, triggered the conflict. Persia funded Sparta.

Alcibiades and Socrates

Plato grew up in the chaos of a democratic Athens fighting the Greek military superpower Sparta for 27 years. His teacher, Socrates, c. 470-399 BCE, was a soldier in the war. Socrates’ student Alcibiades, c. 450-404 BCE, like Plato, was a member of the upper class related to Pericles. But unlike Plato who remained faithful to Athens, Alcibiades was more than a rich, spoiled, handsome, but courageous young man with great political ambitions. He was elected a general in the Athenian army. He turned out to be a strategist of import. But his enemies in Athens charged him with impiety to the gods that forced Alcibiades to defect from the Athenian naval forces in Syracuse to Sparta, where he sought protection. He became a traitor. He gave state secrets to both Sparta and Persia. Plato even wrote Alcibiades, a dialogue, in which Socrates quizzed Alcibiades about the politics of war and peace, justice and the soul. They agreed on the virtue of the Delphic injunction on all Greeks: of knowing who they were (γνῶθι σ᾽αυτόν).

The birth of Plato’s dream

Plato wrote his dialogues after the end of the Peloponnesian War and the death of Alcibiades at the hands of Persians and Socrates at the hands of Democratic Athens. Certainly, the........

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