Was Plato sold into slavery?
score:23
One source of the story of Plato being sold into slavery is Lives and Opinions of Eminent Philosophers by Diogenes Laërtius. An English translation is available online on Project Perseus. You can find the full story in Book 3 that discusses the life of Plato.
According to Laërtius, Plato angered Dionysius, the tyrant of Sicily, when he suggested that "the interest of the ruler alone was not the best end". Dionysius was going to execute the philosopher but was convinced to spare his life and sell him into slavery instead by Dion, his brother in law and a student of Plato.
The philosopher was then taken to the island of Aegina to be sold. There, he was recognised by someone called Anniceris and was ransomed for twenty minas. We don't know for sure who this Anniceris was, one possibility is the Cyrenaic philosopher. Laërtius also mentions that Dion may have provided the money for the ransom to Anniceris.
Plutarch (Life of Dion, 5) and Diodorus Siculus (Library, 15) also mention the story.
Upvote:3
Ancient world slavery was pretty well equal opportunity. People of any age/gender could get sold as war captives, as victims of piracy, for punitive reasons and in many cases for debt. Various societies legislated against the sale of their own citizens within their society, but that didn't protect citizens when they strayed abroad. Plato was an Athenian. In Syracuse, his Athenians citizenship wouldn't protect him from the anger of the tyrant, whose word was law.
More post
- 📝 Who should be the king/queen of England?
- 📝 What was Gandhi's post-factum view of the Partition?
- 📝 Why is Baja California often shown as an island on maps between 1500 and 1700?
- 📝 American Sniper book vs real life
- 📝 Explaining differences in settler-first peoples mating
- 📝 Identify the caricatured countries in an illustration about the XYZ affair
- 📝 Why is Jewish God so Popular?
- 📝 What describes the average pre-colonial NA Native American lifestyle (across several tribes)?
- 📝 Evidence of Aztecs using Quetzal feathers as commodity money?
- 📝 Were the (early 17th C) arrivers/colonists to North America (USA) outcasts from European societies?
- 📝 What was at the start of Early Roman codices?
- 📝 Was the enclosure responsible for the supply of factory workers in 18th and 19th Century England?
- 📝 What aspects of Primo Levi's works are considered historically inaccurate?
- 📝 Was there a Spanish plan to retake Malta, had the siege of 1565 been succesful?
- 📝 Has US ever unpegged USD from another country?
- 📝 Is Kemal Atatürk responsible for Armenian Genocide?
- 📝 Why was Abane Ramdane killed?
- 📝 Can anybody identify this piece of pottery?
- 📝 What kind of music was played at European, High Middle Age (c. 1100-1400 A.D.) universities' ceremonies?
- 📝 Timing of Trotsky's Assassination
- 📝 How common was it for un-documented ships to bring settlers to the American colonies 1700-1750
- 📝 Percentage of the draft pool that were conscripted during WW2 and Vietnam
- 📝 How could the USS Maine explosion have been investigated?
- 📝 Do medieval historic references to "Semites" refer to Jews or to speakers of Semitic in general?
- 📝 Did the Babylonian priesthood flee to Pergamum?
- 📝 What does the prefix in dates mean?
- 📝 Was the Roman Empire based on a 'plunder economy'?
- 📝 What is the earliest written date?
- 📝 Where can I find maps and other historical resources / references of Calcutta / Kolkata in the Victorian era?
- 📝 Where can I find high-resolution images of these Sumerian tablets
Source: stackoverflow.com
Search Posts
Related post
- 📝 Was Plato sold into slavery?
- 📝 Is there any evidence to support the claim that the United States was "suckered into WW1" by Zionists, made by Benjamin Freedman in his 1961 speech?
- 📝 Is it true that slavery was endemic in Sub-Saharan Africa previous to the establishment of the trans-Atlantic slave trade?
- 📝 Why was "leaping into the river" a valid trial outcome to prove one's innocence?
- 📝 Was slavery really on the way out in the antebellum USA?
- 📝 Was slavery in the United States legally limited to blacks?
- 📝 How could Jews integrate into Western modern society back when Saturday was a normal working day?
- 📝 How difficult was to escape from a naval battle after engaging into one during the Age of Sail?
- 📝 Was Hiroshima targeted because its mountains would "rebound the explosion back into the city for more damage"?
- 📝 When was slavery abolished in Russia?
- 📝 Was the "natural born citizen" requirement for the President inserted into the US Constitution by Alexander Hamilton's enemies?
- 📝 Was the Battle of Tours really the turning point for the Umayyad expansion into Europe?
- 📝 Why was slavery profitable in the Southern colonies and not New England?
- 📝 Is it true that slavery was banned from discussion on the Senate and/or House floor before the American Civil War?
- 📝 Was slavery abolished in the Kingdom of Hungary, and if so, when?
- 📝 How did slavery become permissible in the French West Indies when it was forbidden in France?
- 📝 When was the last time someone was condemned to slavery as a punishment in the United States?
- 📝 What was the significance of the BEF moving into the gap between German forces in First Battle of the Marne?
- 📝 Was Queen Henrietta Maria (of England) known for scratching her initials into things?
- 📝 Was the Social War the only war fought to integrate into an empire?
- 📝 How far into the past was significance ascribed to the Golden Ratio?
- 📝 Was there a serious effort by the Muslims of East Africa to spread Islam into the Central Regions of Africa?
- 📝 What was the Soviet reasoning for developing their Airborne Forces (VDV) into a powerful military branch?
- 📝 Were there actually slaves in Georgia while slavery was banned there?
- 📝 Was Plato present at Socrates' trial?
- 📝 Does any evidence exist that suggests Hitler’s primary reason for declaring war on America was an attempt to draw Japan into his war with Russia?
- 📝 Was American slavery economically advantageous primarily due to being able to also sell offspring?
- 📝 Why was agriculture more conducive to slavery in U.S. South than the North?
- 📝 Was the Abolition of Slavery in the United States perceived and advertised as an effort to improve race relations or as an improvement to labour laws?
- 📝 In 2018 US Dollars, how much was Picasso's painting sold for in 1912?