Perictions

from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Periktione ( Greek Περικτιόνη Periktiónē ; * around 450 BC; † probably after 365 BC) was the mother of the philosopher Plato .

Origin and family relationships

Periktione came from a noble family in Athens . Her father was called Glaukon. Her ancestors included two politicians named Dropides, who were eponymous archons , that is to say who held the highest office in Athens for one year: Dropides "I." (term of office 645/644) and Dropides "II." (Term of office probably 593 / 592). According to Plato, Dropides II was a friend and relative of the legendary Athenian legislator Solon .

Around 432 Periktione married the probably around 470/460 BC. Born in Athens, Ariston , who also came from a noble family. He considered himself a descendant of Kodros , a mythical king of Athens. One of his ancestors was Aristocles, who lived in 605/604 BC. Was an eponymous archon.

The couple may have lived on the island of Aigina south of Attica for a few years . The historian of philosophy Diogenes Laertios , citing Favorinos , reports that Ariston was one of the Athenian clergy (settlers) who were sent to Aegina. According to this tradition, Plato was born on Aegina. However, the clergy were later expelled from there by the Spartans , and so Ariston returned to Athens. The Prolegomena on Plato's philosophy , an anonymously handed down work from late antiquity , whose unknown author belongs to the school of Olympiodoros the Younger , also report on the alleged birth on Aegina. In fact, in 431 BC, the Athenians The inhabitants of Aigina were forced to emigrate and clergy settled there. However, the Athenian settlers were only driven out by the Spartans in 411 BC. Came. The report is therefore inaccurate, at least with regard to displacement. Added to this is the fact that the family was wealthy and therefore had no reason to emigrate to Aegina, except in the case of temporary impoverishment. The credibility of the emigration report is therefore doubtful, but it cannot be ruled out that Ariston and Periktione lived temporarily on Aegina.

In Athens, the family lived in Kollytos , a centrally located district to the west and south of the Acropolis .

From Periktiones marriage to Ariston four children were born: the sons Adeimantos , Glaucon and Plato as well as the daughter Potone . Potone's son Speusippus succeeded Plato as scholarch (head) of the Platonic Academy .

Soon after Ariston died around 424, the widowed Periktione entered into a second marriage to Pyrilampes , a respected, also widowed Athenian. Pyrilampes had acted as envoy in Pericles' time and was democratically minded. He was Periktiones maternal uncle and through his new marriage became the stepfather of their four children who were still underage. They now lived with their older stepbrother Demos , a son of Pyrilampes from his first marriage. With Pyrilampes, Periktione had only one child, the son Antiphon .

As Pyrilampes around 414 BC Died, Periktione, who according to Athenian law had to be legally subordinate to either her husband or a male guardian, came under the guardianship of her eldest son Adeimantos, who had only recently come of age.

Among Periktiones relatives were prominent politicians who were involved in the serious, from 411 BC onwards. Chr. Athens engaged in violent domestic political conflicts on the side of the oligarchic camp and fought democracy. Periktiones uncle Kallaischros , the older brother of her father Glaukon, belonged to 411 BC. To the Council of Four Hundred, which briefly came to power through the coup . Her cousin Kritias , Kallaischros' son, was a member of the Oligarchical Council of Thirty ("Thirty Tyrants"), the 404/403 BC. BC Athens ruled. Under the rule of the thirty, Periktiones' younger brother Charmides, born around 445, was appointed to the committee of ten men, to which the thirty entrusted the administration of the port city of Piraeus . Kritias and Charmides fell fighting the Democrats in 403 when the oligarchs' troops were defeated at Munychia hill near Piraeus.

A clue for the dating of Periktiones death offers the false “13. Letter of Plato ”, whose unknown real author (pseudo-Plato) may have correct information. In the letter, the fictitious time of writing after Plato's return from his second trip to Sicily in 365 BC. BC, the philosopher's mother is mentioned as still alive.

Legend

Soon after Plato's death, the legend was told that he was only apparently Ariston's son; in reality, the god Apollo became the father of him. According to the different versions of the legend, Apollon temporarily prevented Ariston from sexual intercourse with perictions and expressly forbade him to do so for the period in question, or Ariston drew a corresponding conclusion from an apparition of the god. Diogenes Laertios names three authors, including Speusippus, who mentioned the legend in their now-lost works. He does not claim, however, that these authors vouched for the literal truth of the claim; Especially the well-informed Speusippus, the oldest source, is to assume an allegorical understanding of the legend (emphasis on a lifelong special relationship between Plato and Apollo).

This legend gained considerable circulation in ancient times. In religious studies , they are counted among the type of birth myths common in many cultures, which contain the claim that an extraordinary person was not conceived through sexual intercourse, but was born after conceiving directly through divine intervention and thus a son of God. This often includes the assumption that his mother was a virgin and, as such, was not tainted by previous sexual intercourse. In the case of Plato, however, the idea of ​​a virgin birth stood in the way of the fact that he was younger than his brothers and therefore perictions could no longer have been a virgin at the time of conception. Although the legend in its oldest surviving version does not expressly claim that Periktione was a virgin at the time of Plato's conception, but only that Apollo was his real father, the virginity of the mother is evidently assumed. The express statement that Plato was born of a virgin has only come down to us from the late antique church father Jerome . Jerome reports that there are three authors (those already mentioned by Diogenes Laertios), according to whose opinion the “prince of wisdom” could only have emerged from a virgin birth.

Alleged writing

A Pythagorean woman named Periktione was ascribed two philosophical treatises in antiquity, only fragments of which have survived: On the Harmony of Women and On Wisdom . Most research assumes that the alleged name of the author is a pseudonym. Presumably - as Richard Bentley said in 1699 - Plato's mother should be passed off as the author; in the milieu in which the two writings originated, she may have been considered a Pythagorean, or one wanted to present her as such in order to emphasize the connection between Platonic and Pythagorean philosophy.

literature

  • Debra Nails: The People of Plato. A Prosopography of Plato and Other Socratics . Hackett, Indianapolis 2002, ISBN 0-87220-564-9 , pp. 228f. (and family tree p. 244)
  • John S. Traill: Persons of Ancient Athens , Volume 14: P- to Proposis . Athenians, Toronto 2005, ISBN 0-9685232-6-9 , p. 188 (No. 772675; compilation of the documents)

Remarks

  1. ^ Plato, Timaeus 20e and Charmides 155a. The late antique Neo-Platonist Proklos explained this passage in his commentary on Plato's dialogue Timaeus and discussed Periktiones ancestry and relationships (Proklos, In Platonis Timaeum 1,81–83). See John K. Davies: Athenian Properties Families, 600-300 BC , Oxford 1971, pp. 322-326; Debra Nails: The People of Plato , Indianapolis 2002, pp. 106-108, 228, 244.
  2. ↑ Debra Nails: The People of Plato , Indianapolis 2002, pp. 53, 229.
  3. ↑ Diogenes Laertios 3.1.
  4. ↑ Diogenes Laertios 3,3 (= Favorinos fragment 69 Amato = fragment 32 Mensching = fragment 64 Barigazzi).
  5. ↑ Prolegomena to Plato's philosophy from 2.10 to 13 Westerink (Leendert G. Westerink (ed). Prolégomènes à la Philosophie de Platon , Paris 1990, p 3).
  6. ↑ Debra Nails: The People of Plato , Indianapolis 2002, p. 54.
  7. ↑ Eckart Mensching (ed.): Favorin von Arelate: The first part of the fragments. Memorabilia and Omnigena Historia , Berlin 1963, pp. 118f. and note 38.
  8. ↑ Adelmo BARIGAZZI (ed.): Favorino di Arelate: Opere , Firenze 1966, p 226; Debra Nails: The People of Plato , Indianapolis 2002, p. 54. Cf. Eugenio Amato (ed.): Favorinos d'Arles: Œuvres , Vol. 3, Paris 2010, p. 314.Skeptic are Alice Swift Riginos: Platonica , Leiden 1976, p. 33f. and Luc Brisson : Diogène Laërce, 'Vies et doctrines des philosophes illustres', Livre III: Structure et contenu . In: Rise and Fall of the Roman World , Part II, Volume 36.5, Berlin 1992, pp. 3619–3760, here: 3633f.
  9. ↑ Debra Nails: The People of Plato , Indianapolis 2002, pp. 244, 254.
  10. ↑ Debra Nails: The People of Plato , Indianapolis 2002, pp. 31, 229, 258; Michael Erler : Platon , Munich 2006, p. 15.
  11. ^ Debra Nails: The People of Plato , Indianapolis 2002, p. 229.
  12. ↑ Xenophon, Hellenika 2,4,19. See György Németh: Kritias und die thirty tyrants , Stuttgart 2006, p. 115f .; Debra Nails: The People of Plato , Indianapolis 2002, p. 92.
  13. ↑ Xenophon, Hellenika 2,4,19.
  14. ^ Pseudo-Plato, Letter 13 361e.
  15. ↑ Diogenes Laertios 3.2. For the background, see Heinrich Dörrie , Matthias Baltes : Der Platonismus in der Antike , Vol. 2, Stuttgart-Bad Cannstatt 1990, pp. 150–157 (compilation of the evidence) and pp. 404–414 (commentary); Leonardo Tarán: Speusippus of Athens , Leiden 1981, pp. 228-235; Christina Schefer: Platon and Apollon , Sankt Augustin 1996, pp. 269–286, 289–292; Michael Erler: Platon (= Hellmut Flashar (Hrsg.): Outline of the history of philosophy . The philosophy of antiquity , Volume 2/2), Basel 2007, p. 43f .; Alice Swift Riginos: Platonica , Leiden 1976, pp. 9-15; Luc Brisson: Diogène Laërce, 'Vies et doctrines des philosophes illustres', Livre III: Structure et contenu . In: Rise and Fall of the Roman World , Part II, Volume 36.5, Berlin 1992, pp. 3619–3760, here: 3629–3631.
  16. ↑ See Christina Schefer: Platon and Apollon , Sankt Augustin 1996, pp. 282f., 287; Alice Swift Riginos: Platonica , Leiden 1976, pp. 13-15; Eugen Fehrle : The cultic chastity in antiquity , Berlin 1966 (reprint of the Gießen 1910 edition), pp. 3–42.
  17. ↑ Leonardo Tarán: Speusippus of Athens , Leiden 1981, p. 228f .; Alice Swift Riginos: Platonica , Leiden 1976, p. 10 and note 8; Luc Brisson: Diogène Laërce, 'Vies et doctrines des philosophes illustres', Livre III: Structure et contenu . In: Rise and Fall of the Roman World , Part II, Volume 36.5, Berlin 1992, pp. 3619–3760, here: pp. 3629f. and note 27.
  18. ↑ Hieronymus, Adversus Iovinianum 1.42. See Heinrich Dörrie, Matthias Baltes: Der Platonismus in der Antike , Vol. 2, Stuttgart-Bad Cannstatt 1990, p. 413; Leonardo Tarán: Speusippus of Athens , Leiden 1981, p. 233f.
  19. ↑ Mary Ellen Waithe and Vicki Lynn Harper take a different view in: Mary Ellen Waithe (eds.): A History of Women Philosophers , Vol. 1, Dordrecht 1987, pp. 59-74. According to their hypothesis, About Woman's Harmony actually came from a woman named Periktione, who may be identified with Plato's mother. This hypothesis has not caught on in research. See Ian Michael Plant: Women Writers of Ancient Greece and Rome , Norman 2004, p. 76 (English translation of the fragments, pp. 76-78).
  20. ↑ The fragments are critically edited by Holger Thesleff : The Pythagorean Texts of the Hellenistic Period , Åbo 1965, pp. 142–146. Compare Kurt von Fritz : Periktione 2 . In: Pauly-Wissowa RE 19/1, Stuttgart 1937, Sp. 794f .; Holger Thesleff: An Introduction to the Pythagorean Writings of the Hellenistic Period , Åbo 1961, pp. 17, 111; Constantinos Macris: Périctionè (d'Athènes?) . In: Richard Goulet (ed.): Dictionnaire des philosophes antiques , Vol. 5, Part 1, Paris 2012, pp. 231–234.
personal data
SURNAME Perictions
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Mother of Plato
DATE OF BIRTH around 450 BC Chr.
DATE OF DEATH after 365 BC Chr.