Plato wrote nothing in the modern sense. The dialogues are scripts for thinking, and the five on this site run from a courtroom speech to a 212,000-word blueprint for a city. Arranging them in order is less about plot than about difficulty.
The dates are approximate and still argued over. The order below follows the conventional grouping: the trial and the death of Socrates first, then the middle dialogues, with the Republic at the centre and Phaedrus after it. Every date is the one given on the book page itself.
Word counts are for the editions here, in Benjamin Jowett’s 1871 translation. They explain why the Republic is a project and the Apology is an evening: the difference is nearly two hundred thousand words.
The dates are the dramatic ones: the Apology and the Phaedo are set in 399 BC, the year of Socrates’ trial and death, the Republic around 375 BC, and the Symposium and Phaedrus fall between. The files are Jowett’s 1871 translation, which is why the word counts match Victorian sentences rather than modern ones; his Plato is plainer than the academic translations that followed.
The Republic is 212,446 words, more than the other four together at 141,612. That imbalance is the practical fact about Plato on a shelf: the Apology, Symposium, Phaedrus and Phaedo are afternoon books, the Republic is a fortnight, and most readers who open it never leave the first book.
Where to start
Apology — It is the shortest of the five, it needs no background, and it is the scene every other dialogue keeps referring back to. Read it first and the rest has a face attached.
Plato in publication order
Numbered by the date on each book page. Word counts and reading times are for the text on this site.
| # | Year | Title | Form | Words | Reading time | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | c. 399 BC | Apology | Defence speech | 19,000 | 1 h | Socrates’ speech at his trial, 399 BC. |
| 2 | c. 385 BC | Symposium | Dialogue | 35,600 | 2 h | Seven speeches on love at a banquet. |
| 3 | c. 380 BC | Phaedo | Dialogue | 45,812 | 3 h | Socrates’ last day; the arguments for the soul’s immortality. |
| 4 | c. 375 BC | The Republic | Dialogue | 212,446 | 12 h | The longest dialogue; justice, the city, the cave. |
| 5 | c. 370 BC | Phaedrus | Dialogue | 41,200 | 2 h | On love, rhetoric and the invention of writing. |
| All five | 354,058 | 20 h |
How to read Plato
- Shortest first. Apology runs 19,000 words, Symposium 35,600, Phaedrus 41,200, Phaedo 45,812 and the Republic 212,446. If you are testing whether Plato suits you, the first four fit in an afternoon each.
- By subject. Ethics and politics: Apology and Phaedo, then the Republic. Love and writing: Symposium, then Phaedrus. The two pairs can be read in either order.
- The Republic last. It is the longest, it assumes the method of the shorter dialogues, and its argument about justice is the one the others keep circling.
Every title above has a page here with chapter summaries, the word count, reading time and free EPUB, AZW3 and KEPUB files.
Plato’s shelf · Classic fiction · All authors · Books by decade.