Perictione or Periktione was the mother 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...

.

She was a descendant of Solon

Solon

Solon was an Athenian statesman, lawmaker, and poet. He is remembered particularly for his efforts to legislate against political, economic and moral decline in archaic Athens...

, the Athenian lawgiver. She was married to Ariston, and had three sons — 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 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...

 — and a daughter, 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....

. After Ariston's death, she 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....

, an Athenian statesman and her uncle. She had her fifth child, Antiphon, with Pyrilampes. Antiphon appears in Plato's Parmenides.

Two spurious works attributed to Perictione have survived in fragments. These are On the Harmony of Women and On Wisdom. The works do not date from the same time, and are usually assigned to a Perictione I and a Perictione II. Both works belong to the pseudonym

Pseudonym

A pseudonym is a name that a person assumes for a particular purpose and that differs from his or her original orthonym...

ous Pythagorean

Pythagoreanism

Pythagoreanism was the system of esoteric and metaphysical beliefs held by Pythagoras and his followers, the Pythagoreans, who were considerably influenced by mathematics. Pythagoreanism originated in the 5th century BCE and greatly influenced Platonism...

 literature. On the Harmony of Women, concerns the duties of a woman to her husband

Husband

A husband is a male participant in a marriage. The rights and obligations of the husband regarding his spouse and others, and his status in the community and in law, vary between cultures and has varied over time...

, her marriage

Marriage

Marriage is a social union or legal contract between people that creates kinship. It is an institution in which interpersonal relationships, usually intimate and sexual, are acknowledged in a variety of ways, depending on the culture or subculture in which it is found...

, and to her parent

Parent

A parent is a caretaker of the offspring in their own species. In humans, a parent is of a child . Children can have one or more parents, but they must have two biological parents. Biological parents consist of the male who sired the child and the female who gave birth to the child...

s; it is written in Ionic Greek

Ionic Greek

Ionic Greek was a subdialect of the Attic–Ionic dialect group of Ancient Greek .-History:Ionic dialect appears to have spread originally from the Greek mainland across the Aegean at the time of the Dorian invasions, around the 11th Century B.C.By the end of the Greek Dark Ages in the 5th Century...

, and probably dates to the late 4th or 3rd century BC. On Wisdom offers a philosophical definition of wisdom; it is written in Doric Greek

Doric Greek

Doric or Dorian was a dialect of ancient Greek. Its variants were spoken in the southern and eastern Peloponnese, Crete, Rhodes, some islands in the southern Aegean Sea, some cities on the coasts of Asia Minor, Southern Italy, Sicily, Epirus and Macedon. Together with Northwest Greek, it forms the...

, and probably dates to the 3rd or 2nd century BC.