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In 399 BC an Athenian jury sentenced the philosopher Socrates to death for impiety and corrupting the young. One of the young men in the courtroom was Plato, then in his late twenties, who offered to stand surety for a fine. Socrates had written nothing; Plato spent the next fifty years writing about him. He founded a school in the 380s BC, the Academy, where Aristotle studied, and wrote dialogues rather than treatises: conversations, mostly led by Socrates, about justice, love, death, knowledge and how a city should be run. Unlike the work of nearly all his contemporaries, his writings are believed to have survived complete, some 36 works in the ancient arrangement. Alfred North Whitehead later called the European philosophical tradition “a series of footnotes to Plato”. This guide covers his 12 key books, in order, and where to begin.
By Lisanne Swart · 12 key dialogues · c. 390 BC–c. 350 BC · Updated October 2026
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Quick answer
Plato wrote around 35 dialogues plus a set of letters, all of which survive, though scholars doubt that every one is his. The best known are the Apology (c. 390 BC), Socrates’s speech at his trial, the Symposium (c. 380 BC), on love, and the Republic (c. 375 BC), on justice and the ideal city. Start with the Apology, which is short and needs no background. Below are 12 key dialogues in their usual order, the translations most readers use, and how the dialogues fit together.
Where to Start with Plato
If you want the trial of Socrates
→ Apology (c. 390 BC) — then read on through Crito and Phaedo to his death.
If you want love, drink and argument
→ Symposium (c. 380 BC) — seven speeches at a dinner party.
If you want his big book on justice and the state
→ Republic (c. 375 BC) — the cave, the philosopher-kings, the ideal city.
If you want a short taste of the Socratic method
→ Meno (c. 385 BC) — a slave boy, a geometry problem, and whether virtue can be taught.
12 Plato Dialogues, in Order
Euthyphro
Socrates, on his way to answer the charges against him, meets Euthyphro outside the court. Euthyphro is prosecuting his own father for the death of a labourer and is sure he knows what piety is; Socrates asks him to define it, and every definition fails. It contains the question still known as the Euthyphro dilemma: is something pious because the gods love it, or do the gods love it because it is pious? It is usually printed with the Apology, Crito and Phaedo as the trial and death of Socrates.
Apology
Not an apology in the modern sense but the defence speech Socrates gave at his trial in 399 BC, against charges of impiety and corrupting the young. He tells how the Delphic oracle said no one was wiser than him, describes himself as a gadfly stinging a sluggish horse, is found guilty, and, asked to propose a penalty, suggests free meals at public expense. Sentenced to death, he says that no one knows whether death is a bad thing. Plato names himself as present in the court.
Crito
Socrates is in prison, waiting for execution, when his old friend Crito arrives before dawn with a plan to bribe the guards and smuggle him out of Athens. Socrates refuses, and argues the case by imagining the Laws of Athens speaking to him: having lived all his life under them, he cannot break them now. It is one of the shortest dialogues, and an early argument about why we should obey the law.
Gorgias
Socrates questions the famous teacher of rhetoric Gorgias, then his pupil Polus, then the Athenian politician Callicles, about what persuasion is for. Callicles argues that by nature the strong should take more than the weak and that conventional morality is a trick of the many; Socrates argues that it is better to suffer wrong than to do it. It ends with a myth of the judgment of souls after death.
Meno
Meno, a young Thessalian aristocrat, asks Socrates whether virtue can be taught. When Meno objects that you cannot search for something you do not already know, Socrates questions an uneducated slave boy and leads him to solve a geometry problem, to show that learning is a kind of recollection of what the soul already knew. Anytus, one of the men who would prosecute Socrates, appears near the end and warns him to be careful.
Symposium
A dinner party in 416 BC at the house of the tragic poet Agathon, celebrating his first victory, at which the guests each give a speech in praise of Eros, love. Phaedrus, Pausanias, the doctor Eryximachus, the comic poet Aristophanes, with his story of humans split in half and searching for their other halves, and Agathon speak in turn; Socrates passes on what he learned from a wise woman, Diotima, about love rising from one beautiful body to beauty itself. Then the drunken Alcibiades bursts in and gives a speech about Socrates. Percy Bysshe Shelley translated it in 1818.
Phaedo
Phaedo, who was there, tells how Socrates spent his last day in prison with his friends, arguing that the soul is immortal and that a philosopher should not fear death. It sets out the theory of Forms as a doctrine Socrates and his friends already know. It ends with Socrates drinking the hemlock, and his last words, about owing a cock to Asclepius. Phaedo notes that Plato was absent, ill.
Republic
Ten books that begin at the house of Cephalus in the Piraeus, Athens’s port, with the question of what justice is and why anyone should be just. To answer it, Socrates, Glaucon and Adeimantus build an ideal city ruled by philosopher-kings, and compare it with the soul, in three parts. Along the way come the ring of Gyges, the noble lie, the analogies of the sun and the divided line, the allegory of the cave, the expulsion of the poets and the myth of Er. In a 2001 survey of over 1,000 academics and students it was voted the greatest philosophical text ever written. Widely read translations include Desmond Lee’s (Penguin, 1955), Allan Bloom’s (1968) and G. M. A. Grube’s, revised by C. D. C. Reeve (1992).
Phaedrus
One of the few dialogues set outside the city walls: Socrates and the young Phaedrus walk out along the river Ilissus and sit under a plane tree to read a speech about love by the orator Lysias. Socrates answers with two speeches of his own, the second picturing the soul as a charioteer with two winged horses. The second half turns to rhetoric and ends with a famous critique of writing, told through the Egyptian myth of Theuth, which says written words cannot answer back.
Theaetetus
Socrates questions the gifted young mathematician Theaetetus about what knowledge is, and they test three answers: that knowledge is perception, that it is true belief, and that it is true belief with an account. None survives, and the dialogue ends without a definition. Here Socrates calls himself a midwife who delivers other people’s ideas. It is a founding text of the theory of knowledge.
Timaeus
After a brief recap of the Republic’s ideal city, Critias tells the story of Atlantis, the island power said to have been defeated by ancient Athens and swallowed by the sea; then Timaeus gives a long account of how a divine craftsman, the demiurge, shaped the cosmos, the elements and the human body. For centuries it was the only work of Plato widely known in the Latin West. Its unfinished sequel, the Critias, breaks off mid-sentence in the story of Atlantis.
Laws
Plato’s longest work, in twelve books, and Socrates does not appear in it. An unnamed Athenian, a Cretan and a Spartan, on a walk in Crete, design the laws for a new colony, Magnesia, in great detail: education, marriage, property, crime, religion. It was still unfinished when Plato died in 348/347 BC, and was edited by a member of the Academy, Philip of Opus. Aristotle confirms that it was written after the Republic.
In What Order to Read Plato
No one knows the exact order in which Plato wrote, and he gave no instructions. Scholars usually sort the dialogues into three groups: early ones in which Socrates questions people and reaches no answer, middle ones such as the Symposium, Phaedo and Republic in which the theory of Forms appears, and a late group, identified by style, that includes the Timaeus and Laws. The dates on this page are the usual approximate ones, not certain dates.
For reading, the four dialogues about the trial and death of Socrates make the best start: Euthyphro, Apology, Crito and Phaedo, often sold together as The Last Days of Socrates (Penguin) or Five Dialogues (Hackett, with the Meno). Then read the Symposium, and then the Republic. The late dialogues are the hardest and are best left until last.
A reading path
1. Apology, with Euthyphro, Crito and Phaedo: the trial and death of Socrates
2. Meno and the Symposium
3. The Republic
4. Phaedrus and Gorgias, then the late dialogues: Theaetetus, Timaeus, Laws
More Dialogues, and the Main Translations
Beyond the 12 key dialogues: 17 more, grouped by kind.
Open a group with the + to see every book in it.
Other dialogues
12
12 books · Early–Disputed
- EarlyIona reciter of Homer: is poetry knowledge or inspiration?
- EarlyLacheswhat is courage?
- EarlyCharmideswhat is temperance?
- EarlyLysiswhat is friendship?
- EarlyProtagorasSocrates against the most famous sophist: can virtue be taught?
- MiddleCratylusare names natural or conventional?
- LateParmenidesthe young Socrates’s theory of Forms under attack
- LateSophistwhat is a sophist, and what is not-being?
- LateStatesmanwhat is the art of ruling?
- LatePhilebuspleasure, knowledge and the good life
- LateCritiasthe unfinished story of Atlantis
- DisputedLetters13 letters; most are thought to be forgeries, and the authenticity of the Seventh Letter is disputed
Collected and selected translations
5
5 books · 1871–1997
- 1871The Dialogues of Platothe classic Victorian translation of the complete dialogues, now free online
- 1954The Last Days of SocratesEuthyphro, Apology, Crito and Phaedo in Penguin Classics
- 1961The Collected Dialogues of Platothe complete dialogues and letters by various translators, from Princeton’s Bollingen series
- 1981Five DialoguesEuthyphro, Apology, Crito, Meno and Phaedo, from Hackett
- 1997Complete Worksevery work in the ancient corpus, including the doubtful ones, by many translators
The years · 1484–1997
Quick facts about Plato
- Known for
- Writing the dialogues, led by his teacher Socrates, that founded much of Western philosophy, and founding the Academy, the school where Aristotle studied.
- 1484
- Ficino’s Latin translation of the complete works printed in Florence
- 1578
- Stephanus edition, Geneva; its page numbers, such as Republic 514a, are still used
- 1804
- Schleiermacher’s German translation begins
- 1871
- Jowett’s Dialogues of Plato in English
- 1997
- Cooper’s Complete Works, Hackett
- Born
- c. 428/427 BC, Athens, into an aristocratic family; his parents were Ariston and Perictione
- Died
- 348/347 BC, Athens, aged about 80; buried at the Academy
- Teacher
- Socrates, executed in 399 BC, who wrote nothing and is the main speaker in most of the dialogues
- Founded
- The Academy, a school outside Athens, in the 380s BC; Aristotle studied there
- Works
- 36 works in the ancient arrangement by Thrasyllus: 35 dialogues and the Letters; some are thought not to be his
- Travels
- Three visits to Syracuse in Sicily, the last two trying to make the young tyrant Dionysius II a philosopher; both failed
The red mark is 1578, when Henri Estienne (Stephanus) printed the complete works in Geneva; his page numbers are still how every passage of Plato is cited.
How Plato Wrote: Dialogue, Questioning and Myth
Plato never speaks in his own voice in the dialogues. He wrote drama: named people, usually real Athenians, meet in a specific place — a prison cell, a dinner party, a riverbank, a house in the port — and argue. Some are told directly, others are reported at second or third hand, like the Symposium, which reaches us through a man who heard it from someone who was there. This makes it hard to say which views are Plato’s own.
The early dialogues follow a pattern: Socrates asks someone who thinks they know what courage, piety or virtue is to define it, then tests each answer with questions until it collapses, and the conversation ends in aporia, puzzlement. In the middle dialogues Socrates starts giving long positive accounts, and the theory of Forms appears; in the late dialogues the drama thins out, Socrates often steps aside, and the arguments become technical.
At key points Plato turns from argument to story: the cave in the Republic, the charioteer in the Phaedrus, Aristophanes’s split humans in the Symposium, Atlantis in the Timaeus, the journeys of souls after death that close the Gorgias, Phaedo and Republic. Yet the same Republic banishes most poets from the ideal city, a tension Iris Murdoch explored in The Fire and the Sun: Why Plato Banished the Artists (1977).
Frequently asked questions about Plato’s books
How many books has Plato written?
The ancient edition by Thrasyllus, followed by every modern complete edition, contains 36 works: 35 dialogues and a collection of 13 letters. Unlike the work of almost all his contemporaries, all of it is believed to survive, but scholars think several dialogues and most of the letters were written by others. This page lists 12 key dialogues and the main translations.
What are Plato’s books in order?
The exact order is unknown. The usual approximate order of the 12 on this page is: Euthyphro, Apology and Crito (c. 390 BC); Gorgias and Meno (c. 385 BC); Symposium and Phaedo (c. 380 BC); Republic (c. 375 BC); Phaedrus (c. 370 BC); Theaetetus (c. 368 BC); Timaeus (c. 360 BC); and Laws, unfinished at his death in 348/347 BC.
Where should I start with Plato?
With the Apology, Socrates’s speech at his trial. It is short, needs no background, and introduces the man at the centre of almost every dialogue. Then read Crito and Phaedo, which follow him to his death, and the Symposium.
What is Plato’s most famous book?
The Republic (c. 375 BC), with its philosopher-kings and its allegory of the cave. In a 2001 survey of over 1,000 academics and students it was voted the greatest philosophical text ever written.
Did Plato write down what Socrates really said?
Not word for word. Socrates wrote nothing, and Plato’s dialogues are literary works, written years after the conversations they depict, if those took place at all. How much of Plato’s Socrates is the historical man is known as the Socratic problem. Many scholars think the early dialogues are closer to Socrates’s own way of questioning, while doctrines such as the theory of Forms are Plato’s own.
Was Plato against democracy?
He was a critic of it. The Republic ranks democracy near the bottom of its list of constitutions, above only tyranny, and proposes a city ruled by philosophers. In The Open Society and Its Enemies (1945), Karl Popper argued that the Republic was a political manifesto for a closed, authoritarian society. Others reply that Popper read a philosophical thought experiment too literally. The debate continues.
What is the allegory of the cave?
A story in Book VII of the Republic (514a in the Stephanus numbering). Prisoners chained in a cave since birth see only shadows cast on a wall and take them for reality; one is freed, climbs into the sunlight and at last sees things as they are, but when he returns, the others do not believe him. It pictures the philosopher’s move from appearances to the Forms.
Was Atlantis real?
There is no evidence that it existed. The story appears only in Plato’s Timaeus and the unfinished Critias, where it is said to come from Egyptian priests by way of the Athenian lawgiver Solon. Most scholars treat it as Plato’s own invention, a myth told to make a philosophical point.
Did Plato write the Seventh Letter?
It is disputed. Thirteen letters have come down under Plato’s name, and most are thought to be later forgeries. The Seventh, a long account of his dealings with the rulers of Syracuse, is the one most often defended as genuine, but its authenticity has been argued over for well over a century without agreement.
Which translation of Plato should I read?
Many readers start with a selection: The Last Days of Socrates (Penguin) or Grube’s Five Dialogues (Hackett) for the trial and death of Socrates. For the Republic, widely used versions include Desmond Lee’s (Penguin), Allan Bloom’s and Grube’s revised by Reeve. John M. Cooper’s Complete Works (1997) collects everything, and Benjamin Jowett’s Victorian translation is free online.
Footnotes
- Plato — Wikipedia
- Republic (Plato) — Wikipedia
- Symposium (Plato) — Wikipedia
- Stephanus pagination — Wikipedia
- Plato — Encyclopædia Britannica (course reading copy, University of Massachusetts Boston)
Bibliography last verified 9 October 2026. Where sources give different first-publication years, this page uses the year in library catalogues or the publisher’s own record.
This list was not put together by a machine.
The notes are all mine,
and the books are all his.
Lisanne x
Written by Lisanne Swart, who has curated reading lists and author guides at lisanneswart.com since 2021.
See more on her personal bookshelf.
“The unexamined life is not worth living.”
— Socrates in Plato, Apology 38a, in Benjamin Jowett’s translation
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