c.429-347 BC; see generally Julia Annas in OCD4 s.v. Plato(1).
[1] sigma 776; OCD4 s.v. Solon. For the material covered by this note and the next two see J.K. Davies, Athenian Propertied Families 600-300 BC (Oxford 1971) 322-326. See also web address 1 below for Plutarch's Life of Solon.
[2] RE 5, 1720, #2. Perictione of course could not have been in the sixth generation from Dropides and also his daughter. Adler notes that Hemsterhius posited a lacuna between 'being the daughter' and 'of Dropides the poet'. For a less muddled account of her descent see Diogenes Laertius 3.1 (where Plato, not Perictione, is in the sixth generation) and the scholia to Plato, Timaeus 20E, where another generation is added.
[3] Odysseus sees the shade of Neleus among the dead and gives his story: Homer, Odyssey 11.281-297; see web address 2 below.
[4] Codrus was a king of Athens known only from legend and of ambiguous date. See OCD4 s.v.
[5] Riginos (below) 9-15 discusses the story of Plato's virgin birth.
[6] 428-425 BCE. Modern scholars prefer 427. See Turolla (below) 359.
[7] 348-345 BCE. Modern scholars place his death in 347, at age 80.
[8] Diogenes Laertius assigns him a mistress, Archeanassa, but this may be an extrapolation from an epigram (Greek Anthology 7.217, cf. rho 319) assigned by Diogenes to Plato but by the Anthology itself to Asclepiades.
[9] A palaestra would normally have been a wrestling-school (and Plato was a wrestler), but the encyclopedist here seems to regard it as an upper-level academic institution. Some of Plato's dialogues, for example the Charmides, are set in palaestras, but these are not part of the formal instruction of the place. See pi 67 and OCD4 s.v. palaestra.
[10] A form of choral lyric. See delta 1030 (note) and OCD4 s.v. dithyramb.
[11] sigma 829. The story of Socrates calling him a swan is discussed by Riginos (below) 21-24.
[12] The reasons for the various interpretations of the name are given in the ancient biographers. For an analysis of them see Riginos (below) 35-38.
[13] Two Syracusan tyrants were named Dionysius; Plato ran afoul of the younger in the period 367-357, if the story is authentic. See OCD4 s.v. Dionysius(2).
[14] For Speusippus see sigma 925; for Xenocrates, xi 42; for Polemon, pi 1887. After these heads (and other luminaries) of the "Old" Academy, down to c.270/269 BCE, the list turns to the "New" (a.k.a. "Middle") Academy which succeeded it, and 'in which the school, initially under Arcesilaus, interpreted true Platonism as scepticism' (OCD4 s.v. Academy; and cf. web address 3 below). Here in the Suda the transmitted *swkrati/des, whether a vocative singular or an adjective in the feminine nominative plural, cannot stand, and the simplest emendation is to *swkrati/dhs (which produces the shortlived predecessor of Arcesilaus mentioned by Diog.Laert. 4.32).
[15] Diogenes Laertius 3.57 gives the total as 56, and this includes counting the ten books of the Republic as ten dialogues and the twelve of the Laws as twelve. The list of authors cited in LSJ counts 44 (including some doubtful works), but counts the two long dialogues as one each.