THE LIFE OF PLATO. BY OLYMPIODORUS.
Let us now speak of the race of the philosopher, not for the sake of relating many particulars concerning him, but rather with a view to the advantage and instrudtion of his readers ; since he was by no means an obscure man, but one who attracted the attention of many. For it is said that the father of Plato was Aristo, the Ion of Aristocles, from whom he refers his origin to Solon the legislator. Hence with primitive zeal he wrote twelve book of Laws, and eleven books on a Republic. But his mother was Perisione, who descended from Neleus the son of Codrus.
They say then that an Apolloniacal spectre 1 had connexion with his mother Perisione, and that, appearing in the night to Aristo, it commanded him 1 The like account of the divine origin of Plato is also given by Hesychius, Apuleius on the dogmas of Plato, and Plutarch in the eighth book of his Symposiacs.
But however extraordinary this circumstanee may appear, it is nothing more than one of those mythological relations in which heroes are said to have Gods for their fathers, or Goddesses for their mothers; and the true meaning of it is as follows :—According to the ancient theology, between those perpetual attendants of a divine nature called essential heroes, who are impassive and pure, and the bulk of human fouls who descend to earth with passivity and impurity, it is necessary there should be an order of human souls who descend with impassivity and purity.
For, as there is no vacuum either in incorporeal or corporeal natures, it is necessary that the last link of a superior order vol. i.
should
