Philosopher and mathematician A N Whitehead once claimed that “the safest general characterization of European philosophical tradition is that it consists of a series of footnotes to Plato.” It is difficult to disagree with him. Plato wrote seminal works on ethics, political theory, morality, epistemology, and metaphysics. His concept of forms went on to have a great influence on Christian theology in the post-Apostolic period and many of the ideas that form the basis for Western democracy come from his Republic.