Ariston of Collytus, was the father of the Greek philosopher Plato

Plato

Plato , was a Classical Greek philosopher, mathematician, student of Socrates, writer of philosophical dialogues, and founder of the Academy in Athens, the first institution of higher learning in the Western world. Along with his mentor, Socrates, and his student, Aristotle, Plato helped to lay the...

 (originally named Aristocles). Legend holds that he was descended from Codrus

Codrus

Codrus was the last of the semi-mythical Kings of Athens . He was an ancient exemplar of patriotism and self-sacrifice. He was succeeded by his son Medon, who ruled not as king but as the first Archon of Athens....

 the ancient king of Athens. Diogenes Laërtius

Diogenes Laertius

Diogenes Laertius was a biographer of the Greek philosophers. Nothing is known about his life, but his surviving Lives and Opinions of Eminent Philosophers is one of the principal surviving sources for the history of Greek philosophy.-Life:Nothing is definitively known about his life...

 on the authority of Speusippus

Speusippus

Speusippus was an ancient Greek philosopher. Speusippus was Plato's nephew by his sister Potone. After Plato's death, Speusippus inherited the Academy and remained its head for the next eight years. However, following a stroke, he passed the chair to Xenocrates. Although the successor to Plato...

 and others, relates a story that "Ariston made violent love to Perictione, then in her bloom, and failed to win her; and that, when he ceased to offer violence, Apollo

Apollo

Apollo is one of the most important and complex of the Olympian deities in Greek and Roman mythology...

 appeared to him in a dream, whereupon he left her unmolested until her child was born." Ariston died when Plato was still a boy, and his mother Perictione

Perictione

Perictione or Periktione 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...

 remarried Pyrilampes

Pyrilampes

Pyrilampes was an ancient Athenian politician and stepfather of the philosopher Plato. His dates of birth and death are unknown; according to estimations of Debra Nails he must have been born after 480 BC, and he must have died before 413 BC....

, a friend of the Athenian politician Pericles

Pericles

Pericles was a prominent and influential statesman, orator, and general of Athens during the city's Golden Age—specifically, the time between the Persian and Peloponnesian wars...

.

Ariston had three other children by Perictione: Glaucon

Glaucon

Glaucon son of Ariston, was the philosopher Plato's older brother. He is primarily known as a major conversant with Socrates in Republic, and the interlocutor during the Allegory of the Cave...

, Adeimantus

Adeimantus of Collytus

Adeimantus of Collytus, son of Ariston of Athens, was the name of Plato's eldest brother. Adeimantus plays an important part in The Republic and is briefly mentioned in The Apology and the Parmenides...

, and Potone

Potone

Potone daughter of Ariston and Perictione, was Plato's older sister. Her mother was Perictione and she was born in Collytus, just outside of Athens. She married Eurymedon of Myrrhinus, by whom she bore Speusippus and a daughter....

.