Introduction
Plato
Plato was born in Athens to an aristocratic family in 427 B.C.E. He had two brothers, Glaucon and Adeimantus, who both appear in the Republic. A few years before Plato was born, Athens began a long war with Sparta (the Peloponnesian War), when the Athenian experiment in democracy was severely put under pressure. Around age twenty he became a student of Socrates, until 399, when Socrates was found guilty of impiety and forced to commit suicide. After that, Plato travelled around the Mediterranean, before returning to Athens in 387 to found his Academy, where his most famous student was Aristotle. Plato died in 347.
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