Complete Works (344 page)

1
. See
Letters
III, 319a, and VII, 339a, 349d.

2
. Reading
a(i)ttousi
in b7.

3
. Alternatively, ‘modernized’.

4
. A doctor.

III

P
LATO TO
D
IONYSIUS
, G
REETINGS
.

Is this the most appropriate way to address you, or should I wish you [b] welfare, as I usually do in letters to my friends? You yourself, so I am told by those who were with you on the embassy to Delphi, addressed the god with this fawning expression, writing, they say,

Greetings to you! May you continue the pleasant life of the tyrant!

[c] For my part I should not address such an exhortation even to a man, far less to a god. To God it would be enjoining something contrary to nature, since the divine has its seat far removed from pleasure and pain; and as for man, pleasure and pain more often do harm, by breeding stupidity, forgetfulness, folly, and insolence in his soul. But enough from me on the subject of salutations; read this and make whatever use you please of it.

[d] Not a few persons have reported to me that you are telling it about among the ambassadors to your court that once, when I heard you announce your intention to resettle the Greek cities in Sicily and relieve Syracuse by changing your government from a tyranny to a kingship, I dissuaded you, you say, though you were very eager; but that now I am instructing Dion [e] to do these very things, and thus we are using your own ideas to wrest your empire from you. You know best whether you gain anything by such tales; in any case you are doing me wrong in telling the exact opposite of what happened. I have been slandered enough by Philistides and numerous other persons before the mercenaries and the people of Syracuse, because I was living in the citadel; and those outside, if any mistake was made, blamed it all on me, saying that you obeyed me in all things. You yourself
[316]
know quite well that on political matters I willingly labored with you on only a few things at the beginning, when I thought I could do some good. Besides other minor matters, I did considerable work on the preambles to the laws, i.e., on those parts distinct from what you or someone else has added. For I hear that some of you have since been revising them; but which parts are mine and which yours will be obvious to anyone who is able to judge of my character.
¹
But as I have just said, I don’t need to be further misrepresented, either to the people of Syracuse or to anyone else whom these words of yours may influence; rather I need to be defended [b] against those earlier charges as well as against these graver and more malicious ones that have since appeared. Since, then, I am accused on two counts, I must make a twofold defense and show, first, that it was reasonable of me to avoid taking part in your affairs of state, and secondly, that it was not my advice that prevented you, as you say, and stood in your way when you were going to resettle the Greek cities. So now hear first [c] my defense on the former of these two points.

I came to Syracuse at the joint invitation of you and Dion. The latter was an old and well-tried friend of mine, of mature age and settled character; and these qualities, as any man with a grain of sense can see, were absolutely necessary for advising upon problems as important as yours were at that time. You, on the contrary, were quite young, with almost no experience in the affairs with which you should have been acquainted, and were quite unknown to me. Shortly after—whether it was a man, or [d] God, or chance working through you that was responsible—Dion was banished. Do you think that I could then co-operate with you in state affairs, when I had lost my wise colleague and saw the foolish one left, a ruler only in his own imagination, in reality being ruled by the crowd of unscrupulous men around him? What was my duty under those conditions? Was it not to do what I did, i.e., to let public affairs alone from that [e] time on, protecting myself against the slanders of those who envied me, and trying above all to make you [and Dion] friends again, if possible, despite the differences that had arisen to separate you? You yourself can testify that this is the end for which I never ceased to labor. Eventually, though with difficulty, we came to an agreement. Since you had a war on your hands, I was to take ship for home; but after peace had been brought
[317]
about, both Dion and I were to return to Syracuse and you were to summon us. These are the facts of my first visit to Syracuse and my safe return home.

When peace had come you sent for me a second time, not, however, in accordance with our agreement, for you invited me only, promising to recall Dion later. On this account I refused to come, much to Dion’s displeasure, for he thought it would be better for me to come as you commanded. [b] A year later a trireme arrived with letters from you, the main import of which was that if I would come, Dion’s affairs would be settled in accordance with my desires, but the contrary if I did not. I hesitate to say how many letters at that time came from you and from others in Italy and Sicily who wrote at your request, and to how many of my friends and [c] acquaintances they were sent, all urging in the strongest terms that I accede to your request and go. Thus it seemed to everyone, beginning with Dion, that I ought to take ship without hesitation. I kept protesting to them that I was old, and insisting that you would not be strong enough to resist those who were slandering me and wished to make us enemies. For I saw then as I see now that a great and swollen fortune, whether the possessor be a private person or a monarch, generally produces an equally numerous [d] and mighty progeny of talebearers and companions in shameless pleasures; this is the worst result of wealth or power of any sort. Nevertheless I dismissed all these thoughts and came to you, determined that no friend of mine should ever be able to claim that he had lost all his goods when they could have been saved by my efforts. Upon my arrival (you know, [e] of course, all that happened thereafter) I demanded, in accordance with the promises made in your letters, first that you recall Dion and make him your friend—urging that friendship which, if you had then listened to me, would probably have been better for you and for Syracuse and for the rest of Greece than what we now have, or so my inner oracle tells me. In the second place I asked that Dion’s property be held by his family, instead
[318]
of being apportioned among the executors whose names I need not mention. Furthermore, I thought that my presence with you made it more rather than less obligatory upon you to continue the annual revenues you had been sending to Dion. Failing in each of these requests, I asked permission to depart. Your next move was to urge me to remain for the year, saying that you would sell the whole of Dion’s property and send half the proceeds to Corinth, retaining the other half there in Syracuse for [b] Dion’s son. I could mention many promises that you made and did not keep, but they are numerous and I must be brief. After you had sold all his property and without Dion’s consent (though you had said you would not sell it without his consent), then, my fine friend, you put the colophon on all your broken promises. You hit upon a scheme that was neither honorable nor fitting, nor just nor advantageous, to frighten me into ignoring what was going on so that I would not even ask for the dispatch of [c] Dion’s money. After you had banished Heraclides (an act which neither I nor the people of Syracuse thought just), the fact that I had joined with Theodotes and Eurybius in begging you not to do this you took as a sufficient pretext and said that it had long been clear that I cared nothing for you, but only for Dion and his friends and followers; and that now when accusations had been made against Heraclides and Theodotes, who [d] were friends of Dion, I was doing all in my power to keep them from being punished.

But enough of our partnership in political affairs. If you noted in me any other evidences of estrangement from you, you may rightly explain them in the same way. What would you expect? Any reasonable man would properly think me a knave if I had been seduced by the greatness of your power to desert an old comrade and guest-friend in the distress that you had brought him to (and a man in no way inferior to you, if I [e] may say so) and had chosen you who were the cause of his wrongs, and had fallen in with all your plans, evidently for the sake of money; for no one would have thought there was any other reason for such a change in me, if I had so changed. It is these events, brought about by you as I have described, that are responsible for the estrangement and wolf-friendship between us.

And now comes, almost as an immediate consequence of the foregoing, my statement on the second point on which I said I should have to defend
[319]
myself. Attend carefully and see if you can detect any falsehood or untruth in what I say. I declare that about twenty days before my departure from Syracuse for home, when Archedemus and Aristocritus were with us in the garden, you brought against me the same reproach that you now make, that I cared more for Heraclides and all the rest than I did for you. In their presence you asked me whether I remembered advising you, when I first arrived, to resettle the Greek cities. I admitted that I remembered it, and [b] said I still thought that was the best policy. And I must remind you, Dionysius, of what was said immediately afterwards. I asked, as you remember, whether this was all my advice, or whether there was something more; and you replied, with considerable anger and derision, as you thought (whence it has come about that what you then derided is no longer a dream but a reality),
²
and said, with a very forced laugh, “I remember well,
³
you told me to get an education, or leave all these projects alone.” [c] I replied that your memory was excellent. “And this education,” you said, “was to be in geometry, was it not?” I refrained from giving the reply that occurred to me, fearing lest a little word might narrow my prospect of sailing home, to which I was then looking forward with confidence.

Now the reason for all I have said is this: don’t slander me by saying that I would not allow you to resettle the Greek cities destroyed by barbarians, or [d] to relieve the people of Syracuse by changing your tyranny into a kingship. No lie you could possibly tell about me would be less appropriate; and there is more and even clearer evidence that I could submit for examination, if ever there should be a competent inquiry into the matter, that it was I who urged you to these projects and you who refused to undertake them. And it is not hard to show that they were the best things that could have been done for you and the people of Syracuse and all Sicily.

And now, my friend, if you deny that you have said any of these things [e] that you said, that is all the justice I ask; but if you agree that you said them, then follow the wise example of Stesichorus, imitate his recantation, and change your lies to truth.

1
. Alternatively, “to recognize my style.”

2
. Dionysius’ contempt for the ideal of a philosophical ruler, it is implied, brought about the victory of Dion and the triumph (or so it seemed at the time) of Plato’s political ideals.

3
. Accepting the emendation
eu memn
ē
mai
in c1, and taking it as a part of the tyrant’s reply.

IV

P
LATO TO
D
ION OF
S
YRACUSE
, W
ELFARE
.

I think my good will towards your enterprise has been evident from
[320]
the beginning, as well as my earnest desire to see it brought to completion, for no other reason than admiration for noble deeds. For I deem it right [b] that the men who really possess virtue and exemplify it in their conduct should receive the glory that is due them. All has gone well so far, thank God, but the greatest contest lies ahead. Strength, courage, and cleverness are qualities in which others also may win distinction; but to be preeminent above others in truthfulness, justice, high-mindedness, and [c] the grace of conduct which these virtues express—this is what would by general consent be expected of those who profess to honor these traits of character. What I say is obvious; nevertheless we must keep reminding ourselves that these men (you know whom I mean) ought to stand out so that the rest of mankind will be as children in comparison. We must make it manifest that we are really the sort of men we say we are, particularly [d] since, by God’s help, it can easily be done. Other men have to travel far and wide if they are to become known; but the events of which you are the center are such that the whole world, to speak somewhat boastfully, has its eyes upon one place, and upon you especially in that place. You are the object of universal interest; make ready, then, to eclipse Lycurgus and Cyrus and anyone else deemed preeminent in character and statesmanship, especially since many people (indeed most people) here are saying [e] that with Dionysius out of the way your cause will in all likelihood come to ruin through your ambitions and those of Heraclides, Theodotes, and the other notables. May no such dissension arise; but if it does, you must
[321]
show that you can heal it and all will be well. You will no doubt smile at my saying this, for you are yourself aware of the danger. But I have noticed that competitors in the games are spurred on by the shouts of the children, and still more by those of their friends, when they think that the cheering springs from sincerity and good will. Be you then the contestants, and write us when we can help you.

[b] Matters here are almost the same as when you were with us. Write us also what you have done or are doing, since we hear many reports but know nothing surely. Letters have just now come to Lacedaemon and Aegina from Theodotes and Heraclides, but as I said, though we hear many rumors from the people here,
¹
we know nothing. Remember that some persons think you are not sufficiently obliging; don’t forget that one [c] must please men if one would do anything with them, whereas self-will is fit only for solitude. Good luck!