Platonis Humanistica Digitalia

A digital scholarly edition of the Platonic corpus

The complete set of twenty-seven Platonic dialogues, presented in parallel Greek and English and aligned by Stephanus sections, together with a prosopographical dictionary of c. 80 historical figures, drawing primarily on Debra Nails' The People of Plato (2002). Both the Greek text and the English translation reproduced here are in the public domain: the Greek follows John Burnet's Oxford Classical Text (Oxford, 1900–1907), and the English translation is from the Loeb Classical Library editions of Harold North Fowler, W. R. M. Lamb, R. G. Bury and Paul Shorey (1914–1935), both redistributed by the Perseus Digital Library under CC BY-SA 4.0.

Browse

• Dialogues (27)
• Persons (80)
• Timeline & chronology (dramatic dates and scholarly opinion)
• Knowledge graph (directed, 107 nodes, 197 edges)
• Places gazetteer — interactive Leaflet/OSM map linked to Pleiades for the certain identifications
• SPARQL queries (fourteen worked examples against the full RDF dump)
• Data downloads (RDF/Turtle, RDF/XML)

By period

early

• Euthyphro Εὐθύφρων (dramatic date: 399 BCE, shortly before Socrates' trial)
• Apology Ἀπολογία Σωκράτους (dramatic date: 399 BCE, the day of the trial)
• Crito Κρίτων (dramatic date: 399 BCE, the third day before the execution)
• Meno Μένων (dramatic date: 402 BCE)
• Charmides Χαρμίδης (dramatic date: 432 BCE, on Socrates' return from Potidaea)
• Ion Ἴων (dramatic date: early 4th cent. BCE)
• Laches Λάχης (dramatic date: c. 420 BCE, after the Peace of Nicias)
• Lysis Λύσις (dramatic date: c. 410 BCE)
• Euthydemus Εὐθύδημος (dramatic date: c. 404 BCE)
• Protagoras Πρωταγόρας (dramatic date: c. 433 BCE)
• Gorgias Γοργίας (dramatic date: c. 405 BCE)
• Hippias Major Ἱππίας Μείζων (dramatic date: indeterminate)
• Hippias Minor Ἱππίας Ἐλάττων (dramatic date: indeterminate)
• Menexenus Μενέξενος (dramatic date: frame: c. 386 BCE)

middle

• Phaedo Φαίδων (dramatic date: 399 BCE, the day of the execution)
• Symposium Συμπόσιον (dramatic date: 416 BCE, the second day of Agathon's victory)
• Cratylus Κρατύλος (dramatic date: c. 422 BCE)
• Phaedrus Φαῖδρος (dramatic date: c. 416 BCE, on the banks of the Ilissus)
• Republic Πολιτεία (dramatic date: c. 411 BCE)

late

• Theaetetus Θεαίτητος (dramatic date: 399 BCE, shortly before Socrates' indictment)
• Sophist Σοφιστής (dramatic date: 399 BCE, the day after the Theaetetus)
• Statesman Πολιτικός (dramatic date: 399 BCE, the same day as the Sophist)
• Parmenides Παρμενίδης (dramatic date: frame: c. 382 BCE; reported event: c. 450 BCE)
• Philebus Φίληβος (dramatic date: indeterminate)
• Timaeus Τίμαιος (dramatic date: frame: the day after a (lost) account of the ideal city)
• Critias Κριτίας (dramatic date: the day after the Timaeus)
• Laws Νόμοι (dramatic date: indeterminate; on the road from Cnossos to the cave of Zeus)

Dialogues

• Euthyphro Εὐθύφρων early
• Apology Ἀπολογία Σωκράτους early
• Crito Κρίτων early
• Phaedo Φαίδων middle
• Symposium Συμπόσιον middle
• Meno Μένων early
• Charmides Χαρμίδης early
• Ion Ἴων early
• Cratylus Κρατύλος middle
• Theaetetus Θεαίτητος late
• Sophist Σοφιστής late
• Statesman Πολιτικός late
• Parmenides Παρμενίδης late
• Philebus Φίληβος late
• Phaedrus Φαῖδρος middle
• Laches Λάχης early
• Lysis Λύσις early
• Euthydemus Εὐθύδημος early
• Protagoras Πρωταγόρας early
• Gorgias Γοργίας early
• Hippias Major Ἱππίας Μείζων early
• Hippias Minor Ἱππίας Ἐλάττων early
• Menexenus Μενέξενος early
• Republic Πολιτεία middle
• Timaeus Τίμαιος late
• Critias Κριτίας late
• Laws Νόμοι late

Persons (80)

• Adeimantus son of Ariston
• Agathon
• Alcibiades son of Cleinias, of Scambonidae 451 BCE – 404 BCE
• Anaxagoras of Clazomenae 500 BCE – 428 BCE
• Antiphon Plato's half-brother
• Anytus son of Anthemion
• Apollodorus of Phalerum
• Aristides the Younger, of Alopece 445 BCE – 411 BCE
• Aristodemus of Cydathenaeum
• Ariston
• Aristophanes 446 BCE – 386 BCE
• Aspasia of Miletus
• Athenian Stranger
• Callias son of Hipponicus
• Callicles of Acharnae 448 BCE – 403 BCE
• Cebes of Thebes
• Cephalus of Syracuse
• Chaerephon of Sphettus
• Charmides son of Glaucon 446 BCE – 403 BCE
• Cleinias son of Axiochus
• Cleinias the Cretan of Cnossos
• Cleitophon son of Aristonymus
• Cratylus of Athens, son of Smicrion 445 BCE – ?
• Critias son of Callaeschrus 460 BCE – 403 BCE
• Crito of Alopece
• Ctesippus of Paeania 425 BCE – ?
• Dionysodorus of Chios and Thurii
• Diotima of Mantinea
• Eleatic Stranger
• Eryximachus
• Euclides of Megara 435 BCE – 365 BCE
• Eudicus son of Apemantus
• Euthydemus the Sophist of Chios, then Thurii
• Euthyphro
• Glaucon son of Ariston
• Gorgias of Leontini 485 BCE – 380 BCE
• Hermocrates of Syracuse 460 BCE – 407 BCE
• Hermogenes of Alopece, son of Hipponicus II 450 BCE – 392 BCE
• Hippias of Elis
• Hippocrates of Athens, son of Apollodorus 455 BCE – 410 BCE
• Hippothales of Athens, son of Hieronymus 425 BCE – ?
• Homer
• Ion of Ephesus
• Laches ? – 418 BCE
• Lycon
• Lysias 445 BCE – 380 BCE
• Lysimachus of Alopece, son of Aristides I 485 BCE – 422 BCE
• Lysis of Aexone, son of Democrates I 422 BCE – 350 BCE
• Megillus of Sparta fl. 390 BCE
• Melesias of Alopece, son of Thucydides I 475 BCE – 403 BCE
• Meletus
• Menexenus
• Meno of Pharsalus
• Nicias son of Niceratus 470 BCE – 413 BCE
• Parmenides of Elea 515 BCE – ?
• Pausanias of Kerameis
• Pericles son of Xanthippus 495 BCE – 429 BCE
• Perictione
• Phaedo of Elis
• Phaedrus of Myrrhinus
• Philebus
• Plato of Collytus 428 BCE – 348 BCE
• Polemarchus ? – 404 BCE
• Polus of Acragas (Sicily) 445 BCE – ?
• Potone
• Prodicus of Ceos
• Protagoras of Abdera 490 BCE – 420 BCE
• Protarchus of Athens, son of Callias
• Pythodorus of Athens, son of Isolochus 479 BCE – 413 BCE
• Simmias of Thebes
• Socrates of Alopece 469 BCE – 399 BCE
• Socrates the Younger
• Speusippus 407 BCE – 339 BCE
• Terpsion of Megara fl. 390 BCE
• Theaetetus of Sunium 415 BCE – 369 BCE
• Theodorus of Cyrene
• Thrasymachus of Chalcedon
• Timaeus of Locri
• Xanthippe
• Zeno of Elea 490 BCE – ?

Timeline & chronology

Two distinct chronologies bear on the Platonic corpus: the dramatic date (when each conversation is depicted as taking place) and the compositional date (when the dialogue itself was written). The first is recoverable from internal evidence and prosopography; the second is the subject of two centuries of scholarly debate. Both are presented below as data, not assertion.

Timeline

20 of the 27 dialogues carry an internally datable setting, ranging from 433 BCE to 382 BCE. The remainder are marked “indeterminate”.

Compositional chronology: eleven scholarly opinions

Period assignments by eleven representative scholars across two centuries of Platonic chronology, from Schleiermacher's 1817 edition to the Oxford Handbook of 2008. Each row shows where every scholar placed the dialogue. Where the initials cluster in one column, scholarly consensus is strong; where they spread across columns, the dating is genuinely contested. The four-period mapping is itself a normalization — Schleiermacher and Thesleff did not use the early/middle/late scheme, and Kahn rejects it as developmental — so the columns translate each scholar's substantive position into a comparable grid rather than reproducing their own vocabulary.

◆ marks dialogues where scholars place the work in two or more different periods.

References

1. Brandwood, L. (1990). The chronology of Plato's dialogues. Cambridge University Press.
2. Campbell, L. (1867). The Sophistes and Politicus of Plato. Clarendon Press.
3. Cherniss, H. F. (1957). The relation of the Timaeus to Plato's later dialogues. American Journal of Philology, 78(3), 225–266.
4. Cooper, J. M. (Ed.). (1997). Plato: Complete works (D. S. Hutchinson, Assoc. Ed.). Hackett Publishing.
5. Fine, G. (Ed.). (2008). The Oxford handbook of Plato. Oxford University Press.
6. Guthrie, W. K. C. (1975–1978). A history of Greek philosophy (Vols. IV–V). Cambridge University Press.
7. Kahn, C. H. (1996). Plato and the Socratic dialogue: The philosophical use of a literary form. Cambridge University Press.
8. Ledger, G. R. (1989). Re-counting Plato: A computer analysis of Plato's style. Oxford University Press.
9. Lutosławski, W. (1897). The origin and growth of Plato's logic: With an account of Plato's style and of the chronology of his writings. Longmans, Green & Co.
10. Owen, G. E. L. (1953). The place of the Timaeus in Plato's dialogues. Classical Quarterly, 3(1–2), 79–95.
11. Schleiermacher, F. D. E. (1817–1828). Platons Werke (Vols. 1–6). G. Reimer.
12. Thesleff, H. (1982). Studies in Platonic chronology (Commentationes Humanarum Litterarum 70). Societas Scientiarum Fennica.
13. Vlastos, G. (1991). Socrates: Ironist and moral philosopher. Cornell University Press.

Methodological note

No serial ordering of the dialogues commands universal assent. The early/middle/late grouping itself is a 19th-century construct, refined by the stylometric tradition (Campbell, Lutosławski, Brandwood), challenged by unitarian readings (Shorey, Kahn), and complicated by the proleptic and dramatic features of Plato's writing. The compositional dates of the Cratylus, Gorgias, Meno, Parmenides and Timaeus are particularly contested. We present the consensus assignments above without endorsing any single chronology; the underlying period field in our database follows Cooper (1997).

Knowledge graph

A directed network of 107 named nodes and 197 edges. Dark nodes are dialogues; olive nodes are persons. Edges from dialogues to persons are hasSpeaker relations; edges between persons carry the prosopographic relation type (father, teacher, friend, etc.). Hover a node to highlight its incident edges; click to open its page.

Data downloads

Every piece of data in this edition is published as machine-readable RDF, in both Turtle (text/turtle) and RDF/XML (application/rdf+xml) serializations. The dump includes 80 persons · 27 dialogues · 7763 sections · 113 speaker assignments · 84 prosopographic relations.

Full dataset

platonis.ttl (9.47 MB)