system
Given the following post, respond as if you're commenting on Reddit:
human
Who was Plato's intended audience?

In our modern age, Plato's writings are widely read and studied by many people in all walks of life. Considering the literacy rates and methods of publication, who would have read Plato in the ancient world?
gpt
Since there was no easy way to print written works, they were usually read aloud to small groups of friends or acquaintances. Knowledge of a text would spread by word of mouth, so anyone learning philosophy needed a good memory. Famously, at the beginning of Plato's Parmenides, Plato writes that Antiphon recited the whole dialogue from memory after having learned it as a child. Although this is probably a fictional stylistic device, it does give us a sense of how ideas spread in the ancient world.