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Born in Ægina of aristocratic parents about 427 B.C.; died in Athens in 347; originally called Aristocles and surnamed Plato because of his broad shoulders; a disciple of Socrates and a teacher of Aristotle; was the founder of the Academic school; in his youth a successful gymnast, soldier, and poet; traveled in Egypt, Sicily, and Magna Græcia; arrested in Syracuse by Dionysius, the tyrant, and sold as a slave in Ægina, where he was released and returned to Athens; revisited Syracuse in 367 and 361; lived afterward in Athens until his death, which occurred at a marriage feast.
Agis, afraid of his left being surrounded, and thinking that the Mantineans outflanked it too far, ordered the Sciritae and Brasideans to move out from their place in the ranks and make the line even with the Mantineans, and told the Polemarchs Hipponoidas and Aristocles to fill up the gap thus formed, by throwing themselves into it with two companies taken from the right wing; thinking that his right would still be strong enough and to spare, and that the line fronting the Mantineans would gain in solidity.
Socrates was a theist, who lost his life in his attack on polytheism; his disciple Aristocles, or Plato, as he was afterwards called from his large shoulders, embellished the theism of his master, with the mystical colours which he borrowed from the Egyptian and Chaldean priests, which he modified in his own poetical brain, and preserved a remnant of polytheism.
"You told us that your name was Aristocles," returned Pterilaues; "and we always called you so. Once I heard that Athenian lady call you Plato; and I could not understand why she did so." "I was named Aristocles for my grandfather," answered the philosopher; "and when I grew older, men called me Plato."
In his early youth Plato applied himself to poetry and painting, both of which pursuits he relinquished to become the disciple and follower of Socrates. It is said that his name was originally Aristocles, but that it was changed to Plato on account of the breadth of his shoulders and forehead. He is also said to have been an expert wrestler and to have taken part in several important battles.
Pleistoanax, again, was assailed by his enemies for his restoration, and regularly held up by them to the prejudice of his countrymen, upon every reverse that befell them, as though his unjust restoration were the cause; the accusation being that he and his brother Aristocles had bribed the prophetess of Delphi to tell the Lacedaemonian deputations which successively arrived at the temple to bring home the seed of the demigod son of Zeus from abroad, else they would have to plough with a silver share.
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