Perictione
Mother of Plato

Perictione

The basics
Quick facts
Intro
Mother of Plato
Gender:
Female
Work field:
Birth:
500(Athens, Athens Municipality, Central Athens Regional Unit, Attica Region)
Death:
400
Residences
Classical Athens
Family:
Father:
Glaucon
Spouse(s):
Ariston of Athens
Pyrilampes
Children:
Adeimantus of Collytus
Plato
Glaucon
Potone
Antiphon
The details
Biography

Perictione (Greek: Περικτιόνη, Periktione; fl. 5th century BC) was the mother of the Greek philosopher Plato.

She was a descendant of Solon, the Athenian lawgiver. She was married to Ariston, and had three sons (Glaucon, Adeimantus, and Plato) and a daughter (Potone). After Ariston's death, she remarried Pyrilampes, an Athenian statesman and her uncle. She had her fifth child, Antiphon, with Pyrilampes. Antiphon appears in Plato's Parmenides.

Two spurious works attributed to Perictione have survived in fragments, On the Harmony of Women and On Wisdom. The works do not date from the same time and are usually assigned to a Perictione I and a Perictione II. Both works are pseudonymous Pythagorean literature. On the Harmony of Women, concerns the duties of a woman to her husband, her marriage, and to her parents; it is written in Ionic Greek and probably dates to the late 4th or 3rd century BC. On Wisdom offers a philosophical definition of wisdom; it is written in Doric Greek and probably dates to the 3rd or 2nd century BC.