This page is part of the "tools" section of a site, Plato and his dialogues, dedicated to developing a new interpretation of Plato's dialogues. The "tools" section provides historical and geographical context (chronology, maps, entries on characters and locations) for Socrates, Plato and their time. For more information on the structure of entries and links available from them, read the notice at the beginning of the index of persons and locations.

Charmides, son of Glaucon, was an uncle of Plato, the brother of his mother Perictione. Based on Plato's Charmides, supposed to take place upon Socrates' return from the siege of Potidæa (Charmides, 153a), which lasted from 432 till 429, in which Charmides is presented as a teenager who couldn't have been noticed by Socrates before his departure to the war (Charmides, 154a), he might have been born sometime between 445 and 440. He was also a cousin of Critias, whose father Callæschrus was a brother of his own father Glaucon. Owing to these family ties, he became a member of the aristocratic party, which led him in 404 to become one of the Thirty Tyrants along with his cousin Critias, who was their leader. He died the next year in the civil war that led to the restoration of the democracy, during riots in Munychia, in the suburbs of Athens (Xenophon, Hellenica, II, 4, 19).