Plato’s Travel and Exposure to Different Philosophies

The popular idea that Plato travelled east and absorbed Persian, Egyptian or Indian philosophy is not supported by the ancient evidence. Diogenes Laertius (III.7) says Plato intended to visit the Magi, the priestly class of Persia, but was stopped by the wars in Asia, which means that the one ancient report about Persia describes a trip that did not happen. Egypt is a different case, since ancient tradition does have him going there, but it is tradition, not certainty. The philosophies that demonstrably shaped his thinking were Greek, and he met most of them at home in Athens or in Greek-speaking Italy and Sicily.

What does the ancient evidence say about Plato and the East?

Diogenes Laertius, writing more than five centuries after Plato’s death, gives the standard account of Plato’s journeys after the death of Socrates (III.6–7): Megara to see Euclides, Cyrene to see the mathematician Theodorus, Italy to see the Pythagoreans, and then Egypt, where he is said to have consulted priests. Diogenes continues that Plato wished to go on to the Magi, but that the wars in Asia prevented it.

That is all. No ancient writer places Plato in Persia, India or Mesopotamia as a pupil, and none says he studied there. The Seventh Letter, which claims to be Plato’s own account of his life and whose authenticity is disputed, mentions only Italy and Sicily. Egypt is reported by Cicero (De Finibus V.87), Strabo and Diogenes Laertius. It is plausible, because other Greek intellectuals are reported to have visited Egypt, but no source close to Plato confirms it. Our essay on how Plato’s travels influenced his philosophy sets out each leg of the itinerary and how well it is attested.

What did Plato know about Persia and Egypt, and how?

His dialogues show that he knew a good deal about both, but the evidence suggests he got it from Greek sources and conversation rather than from residence abroad.

• Persia. In the Laws (Book III, 693c–698a) he gives a short history of the Persian empire under Cyrus and Darius as a lesson about monarchy and freedom. Greek readers had already met much of the same material in Herodotus and Xenophon, so the passage does not require a visit. The Alcibiades I (121e–122a), whose authenticity is doubted, describes the education of Persian princes, including instruction in the magic of Zoroaster.
• Egypt. In the Timaeus (21e–25d) an Egyptian priest tells Solon that the Greeks are always children, and the story of Atlantis is introduced as something preserved in Egyptian temple records. In the Phaedrus (274c–275b) Socrates tells the story of the god Theuth inventing writing. These are literary devices that use Egypt as a symbol of antiquity. They show respect for Egyptian tradition but do not demonstrate first-hand knowledge.

Plato also had no need to travel to meet foreign ideas. Athens in his day was a trading port with resident foreigners, and the Greek world included Ionian cities on the Asian coast and western colonies where different religious and philosophical traditions mixed.

Where does the “Eastern influence” claim come from?

The notion that Plato borrowed from the East grew up long after his death.

1. Ancient admirers of foreign wisdom. The Platonist Numenius (2nd century AD) is reported to have asked what Plato was but Moses speaking Attic Greek (fr. 8, quoted by Clement of Alexandria, Stromateis I.150). Jewish and Christian writers of the period argued that Plato must have drawn on the Hebrew scriptures, which no evidence supports.
2. Neoplatonist curiosity. Porphyry (Life of Plotinus 3) says that Plotinus joined the emperor Gordian III’s Persian campaign in AD 242–244 hoping to learn the philosophy of the Persians and Indians. This tells us about Plotinus, not about Plato, but it shows how the idea of Eastern wisdom became attached to the Platonic tradition.
3. Modern comparison. Scholars have noticed real parallels between Plato’s picture of the soul’s reincarnation and ideas found in Indian religious thought. Parallels are not transmission. Reincarnation and soul-cleansing already existed in Greek Orphic and Pythagorean circles, and these are the sources Plato himself most plausibly used. Some historians, such as M. L. West in Early Greek Philosophy and the Orient (1971), argue that near-Eastern ideas reached early Greek thought through earlier channels, but that is a claim about Greek thought in general, not about Plato’s own journeys.

Which different philosophies did Plato actually meet?

The traditions that the evidence ties to Plato are these:

• Socrates and the Socratic circle. Plato knew him personally, and the early dialogues are shaped by his method. See how Socrates influenced Plato.
• Heraclitus, through Cratylus, whom Aristotle says Plato knew from youth (Metaphysics 987a29–b14). See Heraclitus and Plato’s theory of flux.
• Parmenides and the Eleatics. The Parmenides stages a meeting between the old Parmenides and a young Socrates, and probes the problems of Plato’s own Forms. See the Parmenides.
• The Pythagoreans, above all Archytas of Tarentum, met on Plato’s Italian trips. See Pythagorean mathematics and Plato.
• The Sophists, such as Protagoras and Gorgias, who appear as characters and targets in the dialogues.

Did Plato’s ideas travel east instead?

The better-documented cross-cultural story runs the other way. Plato’s thought spread through the Hellenistic and Roman world, and after the rise of Islam he was known in the Arabic-speaking world, mostly through summaries and paraphrases rather than full translations. Al-Farabi wrote a summary of the Laws and Ibn Rushd (Averroes) a commentary on the Republic. Neoplatonism, a later development of his ideas, influenced Jewish, Christian and Islamic thinkers. See Plato’s legacy in philosophy for more on that later history.