Socrates and Phaedrus, an interlocutor in multiple dialogues, engage in a conversation in Plato's work The Phaedrus. Like Plato's Republic and Symposium, The Phaedrus was probably written around 370 BCE. Although the dialogue is apparently about the subject of love, it actually focuses on the art of rhetoric and how it should be used, as well as topics as varied as metempsychosis (the Greek belief in reincarnation) and sensual love. The classic Chariot Allegory, which depicts the human soul as consisting of a charioteer, a good horse heading upward to the divine, and a bad horse tending downhill to a material incarnation, is one of the dialogue's key passages. Unusually, the dialogue doesn't establish itself as a recounting of the day's events. The dialogue is presented in the straight, unmediated words of Socrates and Phaedrus; there are no intermediaries to set up the discussion or provide background information; it is delivered firsthand, as though we are present for the actual occurrences. This contrasts with dialogues like the Symposium, in which Plato openly provides us with a partial, fifth-hand account of the day's events by creating a number of layers between them and what we hear about them.
During the Classical era of ancient Greece, the philosopher Plato was born in Athens. He established the Academy, the first university on the European continent, as well as the Platonist school of philosophy. His interpretation of Plotinus had a significant impact on both Islam and Christianity. His theory of Forms, sometimes known as Platonism, is his most well-known contribution. He is also the inspiration for the Platonic solids and Platonic love. Plato was one of the most important figures in the ancient world, and his body of work is said to have persisted unaltered for more than 2,400 years. Even though little of his predecessors' writings have survived, it is believed that he had a significant impact on the works of Socrates, Heraclitus, Pythagoras, and Parmenides. On a tract of land in the Grove of Hecademus or Academus, a mythical Attic figure, Plato built it. The Academy remained in operation until Lucius Cornelius Sulla demolished it in 84 BC. Seneca claims that Plato passed away on the day of his birth at the age of 81. The Suda reports that he lived to be 82 years old, but Neanthes states that he was 84 years old. Tertullian said that Plato merely passed away while sleeping. By will, Plato bequeathed his Iphistiadae land to a younger relative.
