Complete Works (349 page)

Having come to this decision, I told Dionysius the next day that I had decided to remain. “But,” I said, “you must not think that I can bind Dion. [c] Let us send him a joint letter explaining the agreement we have just made and ask whether its terms satisfy him, telling him that if he is not satisfied and wishes to modify them in any way to write us at once; and in the meantime I ask that you take no new steps affecting him.” These were my words and these were the terms we agreed upon, almost exactly as I have stated them. Now the boats had set sail and it was no longer possible for [d] me to leave, when Dionysius mentioned to me that half the property should be Dion’s and half his son’s. He said he was going to sell it and give me half the proceeds to take to Dion; the other half he would keep here for the son, for this was clearly the most equitable procedure. I was stunned by this statement, but thought it foolish to make any further protest; yet I did say that we should await the letter from Dion and advise him of these new conditions. Immediately thereafter he sold the whole of Dion’s [e] property in the most audacious manner, selling it on whatever terms and to whomever he pleased, and said not a word to me about it. And likewise I refrained from saying anything more to him about Dion’s affairs, for I thought any further effort would be useless.

This then was the result of my efforts in aid of philosophy and my friends. From this time on Dionysius and I lived, I like a bird looking out
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of its cage and longing to fly away, he scheming how to frighten me
¹⁴
without turning over any of Dion’s property; yet before all Sicily we professed to be friends.

Now Dionysius, contrary to the practice of his father, tried to reduce the pay of his older mercenaries. The soldiers, infuriated, gathered in a [b] mob and declared they would not permit it. He tried to hold out against them by closing the gates of the citadel, but they straightway moved against the walls, chanting a barbarian war cry; and this so frightened Dionysius that he yielded and granted even more than they demanded to the peltasts assembled there. Now a rumor quickly got about that Heraclides had been the cause of all this disturbance. Upon hearing it, Heraclides took flight and concealed himself; and Dionysius, being at a loss how to apprehend [c] him, summoned Theodotes to the palace garden, where I happened to be walking at the time. I do not know what else they talked about, for I could not hear them; but I know and recall what Theodotes said to Dionysius in my presence. “Plato,” he said, “I am trying to persuade Dionysius here that if I can bring Heraclides before us to answer the charges that have just been made against him, and if in consequence it seems necessary for him to leave Sicily, to let
¹⁵
him take his wife and child and sail to the [d] Peloponnesus and live there, enjoying the revenue from his property so long as he does no harm to Dionysius. I have already summoned him and will do so now again, and one or the other of these messages should bring him. And I ask and beseech Dionysius, if he should happen upon Heraclides anywhere, either here or in the country, to do nothing more [e] than banish him from the land during his present displeasure. Do you consent to this?” he asked, turning to Dionysius. “I consent,” he said; “even if he should be found in your own house he will suffer nothing beyond what you have said.” The evening of the following day Eurybius and Theodotes came to me in haste, greatly troubled. Theodotes spoke for them. “Plato,” he said, “you were a witness yesterday to the promise Dionysius made to you and me about Heraclides?” “Indeed I was,” I replied. “But now,” he continued, “there are peltasts running all about trying to take Heraclides, and it is likely that he is somewhere near here. You must with all speed go with us to Dionysius,” he said. So we set out,
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and when we came into his presence the two men stood weeping silently, and I said: “They are afraid that you have changed your mind regarding Heraclides and are acting contrary to what was agreed upon yesterday. For it appears that he has taken refuge nearby.” At this he became angry and turned various colors, as is the way with an angry man. Falling before him, Theodotes seized his hand and implored him, with tears in his eyes, [b] not to do such a thing. “Cheer up, Theodotes,” I interrupted, trying to encourage him; “Dionysius will not presume to do anything contrary to the promise he made yesterday.” And Dionysius looked at me and, like a true tyrant, “To you,” he said, “I made no promise whatever.” “By the gods,” I replied, “you at least made a promise, not to do what Theodotes is now imploring you not to do.” With these words I turned and went out. After this Dionysius continued to hunt for Heraclides, while Theodotes sent messengers warning him to flee; and though Tisias and a band of [c] peltasts were sent in pursuit, Heraclides, it was reported, having a few hours the start of them, got safely into Carthaginian territory.

After this, Dionysius conceived that my resistance to his long-standing plot not to restore Dion’s money could now be plausibly made the ground for enmity toward me. His first step was to send me out of the citadel on the pretext that the women were to hold a ten-day sacrifice in the garden [d] where I dwelt, and directed me to live outside during this period at the home of Archedemus. While I was there Theodotes sent for me and poured out his complaints and his anger against Dionysius for what he had done. When Dionysius heard that I had visited Theodotes he used this as another pretext, similar to the earlier one, for quarreling with me. He sent to inquire [e] whether I had in fact visited Theodotes at his invitation. “Certainly,” I replied. “Then he bade me say,” said the messenger, “that you are not doing right in always preferring Dion and Dion’s friends to himself.” After this message he never again summoned me back to the palace, it being now clear that I was the friend of Heraclides and Theodotes, and consequently his enemy, and he knew also that I was not pleased at the complete dissipation of Dion’s goods. From that time on, then, I lived outside the
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acropolis among the mercenaries. Some of the rowers in the fleet were from Athens and fellow citizens of mine; they and others came to me with the report that I had an evil name among the peltasts and that some of them were threatening to kill me if they ever got hold of me. I began then to plan the following means of escape. I sent letters to Archytas and my other friends in Tarentum telling them of my plight, and they found some pretext for an embassy from their city, dispatching Lamiscus, one of their [b] number, with a thirty-oared vessel. When he arrived he besought Dionysius on my behalf, saying that I wished to depart and begging him not to prevent it. Dionysius complied and released me, giving me travel money; but for Dion’s property I made no further demand, nor did anyone deliver it to me.

Upon my return to the Peloponnesus I encountered Dion among the spectators at Olympia and recounted to him what had occurred. Calling upon Zeus to witness, he straightway summoned me and my relatives [c] and friends to prepare for vengeance against Dionysius, demanding satisfaction to me for breach of hospitality (these were his words and this is what he thought), and to himself for his unjust dismissal and exile. When I heard this I told him to call upon my friends, if they wished to help him. “But as for me,” I said, “you and the others compelled me, in a way, to become a guest at the table and hearth of Dionysius and a participant in his sacrifices; and he perhaps believed, from the many reports circulated against me, that I was plotting with you against him and the tyranny—[d] yet he did not put me to death, but respected my person. Nor am I any longer at the age for helping anyone carry on war, though I am with you if ever you desire one another’s friendship and wish to accomplish something good. But as long as you are intent on harm, look elsewhere for your allies.” I said this in disgust at my Sicilian “adventure” and its lack of success. But they did not listen to me; and in failing to heed my attempts at reconciliation they are themselves responsible for all the misfortunes that have come upon them. None of them would ever have [e] occurred, humanly speaking, if Dionysius had restored his property to Dion or become fully reconciled with him, for I would have been willing and easily able to restrain Dion; but as it is they have attacked one another and brought about universal disaster.

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Dion’s purpose, however, with respect to his native city and to the power he sought for himself and his friends, was exactly what I should say any moderate man, myself or anyone else, ought to have; such a man would think of enjoying great power and honor only because he is conferring great benefits. I do not mean such benefits as are conferred by an impecunious agitator, lacking in self-control, the weak victim of his passions, who enriches himself and his partisans and his city by organizing plots and [b] conspiracies, and puts to death the men of wealth on the pretext that they are enemies, and distributes their property, and charges his fellow conspirators and followers not to blame him if they are poor; nor do I mean the honors enjoyed by a man who “benefits” his city in this way, by dividing the goods of the few among the many by public decree, or who, as head of a great city ruling over many lesser ones, unjustly assigns [c] the wealth of the smaller ones to his own city. Neither Dion nor anyone else in his right mind would seek power for these ends, power that would be a plague to himself and his family for all time; but rather would seek it for the purpose of creating, without murder or bloodshed, the best and most just constitution and system of laws. This is what Dion was aiming at, preferring to be the victim of wickedness rather than the agent of it, though he endeavored to protect himself. In spite of all this he fell, just as he had come to the summit of triumph over his enemies. There is nothing surprising in what he experienced. For although a good man who [d] is also prudent and sagacious cannot be altogether deceived about the character of wicked men, it would not be surprising if he should suffer the misfortune of the skilled captain who, though not unaware of the approach of a storm, may not foresee its extraordinary and unexpected violence, and be swamped by its force. This is the mistake that Dion made. Those who caused him to fall were men whom he well knew to be villains, but he did not suspect the depths of their ignorance and villainy and greed. [e] By this error he is fallen, and Sicily is overwhelmed with grief.

The advice I have to offer you in the present state of affairs has mostly
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been given, and let that suffice. Why I undertook the second voyage to Sicily I thought I ought to explain, because of the strange and improbable nature of these events. If then they appear more plausible as I have described them, and if it has been made evident that there were sufficient motives for what happened, this account will have properly accomplished its purpose.

1
. Leon of Salamis. See
Apology
32c–d.

2
. Alternatively, “from those evil men.”

3
. Supporters of the democracy.

4
. Zeus the protector of strangers, the guardian of the obligations of hospitality.

5
. Accepting the emendation
epi tauta
at d3, with no lacuna in d2.

6
. Accepting the emendation
ē
epi tode. Surakousas
in a1.

7
. Banishment did not involve the confiscation of the condemned person’s property.

8
. See 334d above.

9
. Lynceus, one of the Argonauts, was proverbial for his keenness of vision.

10
. Accepting the emendation
sunteinont
ō
n
at b7.

11
.
Iliad
vii.360.

12
.
Odyssey
xii.428.

13
. Reading
apemphainonta
in b3.

14
. See
Letter
III, 318b.

15
. Reading
axioun
in c9.

VIII

P
LATO TO THE
R
ELATIVES AND
F
RIENDS OF
D
ION
, W
ELFARE
. [b]

What principles you must follow if you are really to fare well I will do my best to explain to you. And I hope that my advice will be of advantage not only to you (though to you, of course, first of all), but secondly to [c] everyone in Syracuse, and thirdly even to your enemies and adversaries—except anyone of them who has done an unholy deed;
¹
for such acts are irremediable and a man can never wash away their stain. Give your thought, then, to what I say.

Since the fall of the tyranny you have had nothing but dissension throughout all Sicily, one party desiring to get its power back, the other to make final the suppression of the tyranny. In such circumstances the [d] multitude always think the right counsel is to recommend those measures that will do their enemies the most harm and their friends the most good. But it is by no means easy to do great harm to others without bringing many other evils upon oneself. We have a clear example of this close at hand. Only look at what has happened right here in Sicily, with one party attempting to act upon that principle and the other defending itself against their actions; the story of these events, if you should tell it to others, would [e] give them many useful lessons, though of such instruction there is hardly any need. On the other hand, a policy that would benefit all concerned, friends and foes alike, or do as little harm as possible to both—this is not easy to see, nor to carry out when it is seen; and to counsel such a policy, or attempt to explain it, seems like making a prayer. By all means, then
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let it be a prayer—for the gods should be first in every man’s words and thoughts—and may it be fulfillled when it declares unto us some such word as follows.

Now you and your enemies have been ruled almost continuously from the beginning of the war by a single family, a family that your ancestors put in power at a time when they were in the direst peril and there was imminent danger that all of Hellenic Sicily would be overrun by the Carthaginians and become barbarian territory. For then it was that to save Sicily they chose Dionysius, a young and brilliant warrior, to take charge [b] of the military actions for which he had an aptitude, and Hipparinus as his elder and counselor, making them, as they say, “generals with full power.”
²
Was it God and divine chance that saved the city? Or the valor of these leaders? Or both luck and leadership together with the efforts of the citizens? Think what you will; in any case, the city was saved for that [c] generation. It is right that everyone should feel gratitude to these saviors for the qualities they displayed; and if in later times the tyrants misused in any way the gift the city had bestowed upon them, for these misdeeds they have in part paid the penalty and should make even further atonement. But what penalties would it necessarily be right to impose in the present state of their affairs? If you were able to get rid of them easily, and without great toil and danger, or if they could easily regain their power, there would be no occasion for offering the advice that I am going [d] to give. As it is, however, both of your factions ought to reflect and call to mind how often each party has been in high hopes, and has thought almost always that it lacked only a little of being able to do what it liked, and that this little has repeatedly turned out to be the cause of great and innumerable disasters. The limit is never reached; but what seems to be the end of an old difficulty always involves the beginning of a new one, and in this endless round there is danger that both the tyrannical party [e] and the democratic party will be completely destroyed; and eventually, if things take their natural course (which God forbid!), the whole of Sicily will have practically lost the Greek language and will have come under the empire and dominion of the Phoenicians or the Opici.