Why Did Travel Shape Plato’s Philosophical Views?

Travel shaped Plato’s philosophy chiefly because it took him to two places: southern Italy, where he met Pythagorean mathematics and philosophy, and Syracuse in Sicily, where he spent time at the court of Dionysius I and later twice tried, and failed, to turn the young Dionysius II towards philosophy. Those effects can be traced in the sources. Other claims often made about his travels, such as study in Asia Minor, Persia, India or among North African “mystics”, have no ancient support and are set aside below. Because the dialogues say almost nothing about Plato’s life, the itinerary rests on the Seventh Letter (whose authenticity is disputed) and on Diogenes Laertius, who wrote more than five centuries later.

Did Plato study in Asia Minor or the East?

No evidence says he did. Diogenes Laertius (III.7) states that Plato wanted to visit the Magi of Persia but was prevented by the wars in Asia. No ancient source has him studying in Asia Minor, Persia or India, so the idea that he blended “Eastern and Western” philosophy on a trip there cannot be sustained. What Plato knew about Persia, such as the history of Cyrus and Darius in the Laws, was available in Greek writers like Herodotus and Xenophon. The longer discussion is in Plato’s travel and exposure to different philosophies.

Cyrene and Egypt: what is reported

Diogenes (III.6) says Plato went to Cyrene, in North Africa, to learn from the mathematician Theodorus, and then to Egypt. The Cyrene visit is reported by late sources only. Theodorus appears in the Theaetetus, where he is said to prove the irrationality of certain square roots (147d), so Plato clearly knew and learned from Theodorus of Cyrene whether or not he went to Cyrene himself. Egypt is also part of ancient tradition, which Cicero and others repeat, but it is not mentioned by Plato. In his dialogues Egypt is a symbol of antiquity (Timaeus 21e–25d) and a model of stable tradition in art and music (Laws 656d–657a). The reports are plausible but unconfirmed, and no Egyptian doctrine can be shown to underlie any of Plato’s ideas.

Italy and Sicily: where the evidence is strong

Plato’s visits to Italy and Sicily are the best attested part of the record. The Seventh Letter (324a–326d) places the first trip when he was about forty, around 388/387 BC. Two influences follow.

Pythagorean thought. In Italy Plato was on friendly terms with Archytas of Tarentum, a Pythagorean mathematician and statesman (Seventh Letter 338c–d), who later helped to secure Plato’s safe departure from Syracuse (350a–b). Aristotle says in the Metaphysics (987a29–b14) that Plato’s philosophy followed the Pythagoreans in many respects. The influence is usually seen in the importance Plato gives to mathematics, his teaching on the soul and its rebirth, and the geometric account of the cosmos in the Timaeus. See the influence of Pythagorean mathematics.

Politics. Plato visited the court of Dionysius I of Syracuse and returned around 367 and 361 BC to the court of his son Dionysius II (Seventh Letter; Diogenes Laertius III.18–23). According to the letter, he hoped with his friend Dion to educate a ruler into a philosopher and thereby to demonstrate that his political ideas could work. The attempt failed, and Dion was later murdered. Plato’s own account of the earlier belief that cities need philosophers as rulers (Seventh Letter 326a–b) dates from before the first journey, so the Sicilian trips did not originate the idea, but they tested it painfully. Later tradition adds that Dionysius I had Plato sold into slavery on Aegina. This is a late anecdote that the Seventh Letter does not mention. See why Plato was enslaved.

What about Crete and the wider Mediterranean?

Some retellings give Plato a spell on Crete because the Laws is set there, with an Athenian visitor, a Cretan and a Spartan walking from Cnossos to the cave of Zeus. That setting is a literary choice. Nothing in the ancient record says Plato visited Crete, and the dialogue’s characters are not self-portraits. Plato certainly knew Athenian democracy and the oligarchic regime of the Thirty Tyrants at home, which shaped his political philosophy at least as much as his travels. See Plato’s views on higher education and politics.

Why not overstate the influence of travel?

The sources suggest that Plato’s most decisive influences came before he went abroad. The trial and death of Socrates in 399 BC changed his life, according to the Seventh Letter (324d–326b), and the philosophical questions he pursued came from Socrates, Heraclitus through Cratylus, and Parmenides. The travels refined and tested what he already thought. For the details, see how Plato’s travels influenced his philosophy and our list of sourced Plato facts.