Complete Works

by Plato, Cooper, John M. , Hutchinson, D. S.

  These and many other like arguments he addressed to me. For my own [b] part I felt a certain anxiety, since one never knows how young men will turn out, for their desires arise quickly and often change to their contraries; but Dion’s character, I knew, was steadfast by nature and he had already reached middle age. Consequently I weighed the question and was uncertain whether or not to yield to his urging and undertake the journey. What tipped the scales eventually was the thought that if anyone ever was to attempt to realize these principles of law and government, now was the [c] time to try, since it was only necessary to win over a single man and I should have accomplished all the good I dreamed of. This, then, was the “bold” purpose I had in setting forth from home, and not what some persons ascribed to me. Above all I was ashamed lest I appear to myself as a pure theorist, unwilling to touch any practical task—and I saw that I was in danger of betraying Dion’s hospitality and friendship at a time [d] of no little real danger to him. Suppose he should be killed or banished by Dionysius and his other enemies and should come to me in his exile and say, “Here I am, Plato, a fugitive, not because I lacked hoplites or horsemen to ward off my enemies, but only for need of the persuasive words by which, as I well know, you are always able to turn young men towards goodness and justice and make them friends and comrades of [e] one another. This weakness which you could have remedied is the cause of my being here in exile from Syracuse. But my own misfortune is a small part of your dishonor. You are always praising philosophy, and saying she is held in little esteem by the rest of mankind; but in betraying me now have you not, by neglecting this opportunity, also betrayed her? If [329] we had happened to be living in Megara you would certainly have come as a helper in answer to my call, or you would consider yourself the most trifling of men. And now do you think you can escape the charge of cowardice by pleading the length of the journey, the greatness of the voyage and its fatigue? Far from it.” To words of this sort what respectable answer could I give? None. And so from motives as rational and just as [b] is humanly possible I departed, giving up for those reasons my occupations here, which are not without dignity, to live under a tyranny seemingly unsuited both to my doctrines and to me. In so going I discharged my obligation to Zeus Xenios4 and cleared myself of reproach from philosophy, which would have been dishonored if I had incurred disgrace through softness or cowardice.

  When I arrived—to make the story short—I found the court of Dionysius full of faction and of malicious reports to the tyrant about Dion. I defended [c] him as well as I could, but I was able to do very little; and about the fourth month Dionysius, charging Dion with plotting against the tyranny, had him put aboard a small vessel and exiled in disgrace. Thereupon we friends of Dion were all afraid that one of us might be accused and punished as an accomplice in Dion’s conspiracy. About me there even went abroad in Syracuse a report that I had been put to death by Dionysius as the cause [d] of all that had happened. But Dionysius, seeing how we all felt, and apprehensive lest our fears might lead to something even graver, treated us all kindly, and me especially he reassured, telling me to have no fear and earnestly begging me to remain; for there was no honor for him in my leaving, he said, but only in my remaining. For this reason he made a great pretense of begging me, but we know that the requests of tyrants are mingled with compulsion. He devised a means for preventing my [e] departure by bringing me inside the citadel and lodging me there, whence no ship’s captain would have dared to take me away without a messenger sent from Dionysius himself commanding him to do so, still less if Dionysius had forbidden it. Nor would any merchant or guard along the roads leading out of the country have let me pass alone, but would have taken me in charge at once and brought me back to Dionysius, especially since another report had already got abroad, contrary to the earlier one, that [330] Dionysius was wonderfully fond of Plato. What in fact was the situation? With the passage of time Dionysius, I must truly say, did become more and more attached to me as he became more familiar with my manner and character; but he wanted me to praise him more than I did Dion and value his friendship more highly, and he was marvelously persistent towards this end. How this could best have come about, if at all, was through his becoming my disciple and associating with me in discourse [b] about philosophy; but he shrank from this, for the intriguers had made him fear that he would be entrapped, so that Dion would have accomplished his purposes. I put up with all this, however, holding fast to the original purpose for which I had come, hoping that he might somehow come to desire the philosophic life; but I never overcame his resistance.

  These, then, were the circumstances that account for my first visit to Sicily and occupied the time of my sojourn there. Afterwards I came home, [c] only to return again at the urgent summons of Dionysius. Why I returned and what I did, with the explanation and justification of my actions, I will go into later for the benefit of those who wonder what my purpose was in going a second time. But in order that these incidental matters may not usurp the chief place in my letter, I will first advise what is to be done in the present circumstances. This, then, is what I have to say.

  When one is advising a sick man who is living in a way injurious to his health, must one not first of all tell him to change his way of life and give [d] him further counsel only if he is willing to obey? If he is not, I think any manly and self-respecting physician would break off counseling such a man, whereas anyone who would put up with him is without spirit or skill. So too with respect to a city: whether it be governed by one man or many, if its constitution is properly ordered and rightly directed, it would be sensible to give advice to its citizens concerning what would be to the [e] city’s advantage. But if it is a people who have wandered completely away from right government and resolutely refuse to come back upon its track and instruct their counselor to leave the constitution strictly alone, threatening [331] him with death if he changes it, and order him instead to serve their interests and desires and show them how they can henceforth satisfy them in the quickest and easiest way—any man, I think, who would accept such a role as adviser is without spirit, and he who refuses is the true man. These are my principles; and whenever anyone consults me on a question of importance in his life, such as the making of money, or the care of his [b] body or soul, if it appears to me that he follows some plan in his daily life or is willing to listen to reason on the matters he lays before me, I advise him gladly and don’t stop with merely discharging my duty. But a man who does not consult me at all, or makes it clear that he will not follow advice that is given him—to such a man I do not take it upon myself to offer counsel; nor would I use constraint upon him, not even if he were my own son. Upon a slave I might force my advice, compelling him to follow it against his will; but to use compulsion upon a father or mother is to me an impious act, unless their judgment has been impaired [c] by disease. If they are fixed in a way of life that pleases them, though it may not please me, I should not antagonize them by useless admonitions, nor yet by flattery and complaisance encourage them in the satisfaction of desires that I would die rather than embrace. This is the principle which a wise man must follow in his relations towards his own city. Let him [d] warn her, if he thinks her constitution is corrupt and there is a prospect that his words will be listened to and not put him in danger of his life; but let him not use violence upon his fatherland to bring about a change of constitution. If what he thinks is best can only be accomplished by the exile and slaughter of men, let him keep his peace and pray for the welfare of himself and his city.

  In this way, then, I venture to advise you, as Dion and I used to advise Dionysius, first of all to make his daily life such as to give him the greatest [e] possible mastery over himself and win him loyal friends and followers. In so doing, we said, he might avoid his father’s experience when, after taking over many great cities in Sicily that had been laid waste by the barbarians, he was unable at their resettlement to establish loyal governments in them. For he had no comrades to head these governments, neither a
mong foreigners, nor among his own brothers whom he had trained in [332] their youth (since they were younger than himself) and raised from private to royal station and from poverty to great wealth. None of these was he able, either by persuasion or by teaching, by benefits conferred or by ties of kinship, to make an associate in his empire. In this respect he was seven times weaker than Darius, who had neither brothers to rely upon, nor persons trained by himself, but only those who helped him to overthrow [b] the Mede and the Eunuch. He distributed among them seven provinces, each one greater than all Sicily, and he found them to be loyal, for they did not attack him or one another; and in so doing he set an example of what a good lawgiver and king should be, for he established laws that have kept the Persian empire to this day. We have another example in the Athenians, who took over the protection of a number of Hellenic cities threatened by barbarians. Though the Athenians had not themselves settled these cities but took them over already established, yet they maintained [c] their power over them for seventy years because of the friends they made in each of them. But Dionysius, though he united all Sicily into a single city (for he knew that he could trust no one), was scarcely able to survive, for he was poor in friends and loyal followers, and the possession or lack of these is the best indication of a man’s virtue or vice.

  This is the advice that Dion and I gave to Dionysius, since his father’s [d] neglect had resulted in his being without culture and unused to associations appropriate to his position. We said that once embarked upon the course just mentioned5 he should induce others among his relatives and companions to become friends and partners in the pursuit of virtue; but above all to become a friend to himself, for in this respect he was incredibly deficient. We did not say it thus openly, for that would not have been safe, but made veiled references to his weakness, striving by our words to show him that everyone must do this who would save himself and the people over whom he rules, whereas any other course will accomplish his ruin [e] and theirs. Let him take the path we pointed out and perfect himself in wisdom and self-control; then if he should resettle the deserted cities of Sicily, and bind them together with such laws and constitutions as would make them friendly to himself and to one another and a mutual help against the barbarians, he would have an empire not twice but actually many times as powerful as his father’s had been; he would be ready to [333] inflict upon the Carthaginians a far heavier defeat than they had suffered in the days of Gelon, instead of paying tribute to these barbarians as he was doing at present under the agreement his father had made.

  These were the words of exhortation we addressed to Dionysius—we who were conspiring against him, according to the reports that were current on all sides. These reports finally prevailed with Dionysius, as you know, bringing exile to Dion and fear to us his friends. But—to jump to the end [b] of the many events of this short time—when Dion returned from the Peloponnesus and Athens he indeed taught Dionysius a lesson. And then when he had delivered the people of Syracuse and twice restored their city to them, they felt towards Dion exactly as Dionysius had. For at the time when Dion was endeavoring to educate Dionysius and form him into a king worthy of the office, making himself thus a partner in all Dionysius’ life, Dionysius was giving ear to the slanderers who said that Dion was conspiring against the tyrant in all that he was doing. The studies he [c] enjoined were obviously intended, they said, to bewitch the mind of Dionysius so that he would neglect his kingdom and entrust it to Dion, who would then make it his own and treacherously banish Dionysius from power. These suspicions against Dion prevailed then as they did later when circulated among the Syracusans; but their triumph was an unnatural one and puts to shame those who were the cause of it. What sort of triumph it was you ought to hear, you who have asked for my help in the present crisis. I, an Athenian citizen, a friend of Dion and his ally, came to the [d] tyrant in order to bring about friendship, not war, between them; but the slanderers worsted me in this contest. And when Dionysius tried by honors and gifts to persuade me to take his side and affirm that his banishment of Dion had been proper, he failed utterly, as you know. Later Dion came home bringing with him two brothers from Athens, friends whom he had [e] acquired not through philosophy, but by way of that facile comradeship which is the basis of most friendship, and which is cultivated by hospitality and mystic rites and initiation into secrets; because of these associations and the service they had rendered Dion in returning to Syracuse, these two men who came with him had become his comrades. But when they [334] arrived in Sicily and saw how Dion was being slandered among the people of Syracuse whom he had liberated, and was being accused of plotting to become a tyrant, not only did they betray their comrade and host, but they became as it were his murderers, since they stood by with arms in their hands to assist his assassins. The shame and impiety of their action I mention only, without dwelling upon it; many others will make it their [b] theme both now and in time to come. But I cannot pass over what is said about Athens, that these men brought dishonor on their city. Remember that he also was an Athenian who refused to betray this same Dion when by doing so he could have had money and honors in abundance. He had become Dion’s friend not through vulgar fellowship, but through common liberal culture; and this alone should a sensible man trust, rather than kinship of soul or body. Therefore I say that these two who murdered [c] Dion were not worthy of bringing their city into discredit, for they were never men of any consequence.

  I have said all this for the purpose of advising Dion’s friends and relatives; and to all that has been said I add the same advice and the same doctrine that I have given twice before. Do not subject Sicily nor any other state to the despotism of men, but to the rule of laws; this at least is my doctrine. For despotic power benefits neither rulers nor subjects, but is [d] an altogether deadly experience for themselves, their children, and their children’s children; and no one grasps at the prizes it offers except petty and illiberal souls who know nothing of the divine and human goods that are now and for all time good and just. This is the doctrine that I endeavored to bring home, first to Dion, next to Dionysius, and now for the third time do so to you. Listen to me then, in the name of Zeus the Savior, to whom this third libation belongs. Consider Dionysius and Dion, of whom one [e] was deaf to my teachings and now lives ignobly, and the other listened to me and died nobly; for it is altogether noble and right to suffer whatever may come while aiming at the highest for oneself or one’s city. None of us can avoid death, nor if any man could would he be happy, as people think; for there is nothing worth mentioning that is either good or bad to [335] creatures without souls, but good and evil exist only for a soul, either joined with a body or separated from it. And we must always firmly believe the sacred and ancient words declaring to us that the soul is immortal, and when it has separated from the body will go before its judges and pay the utmost penalties. Therefore we must count it a lesser evil to suffer great wrongs and injustices than to do them, though this is [b] a saying that the avaricious man, who is poor in the goods of the soul, will not give ear to; or if he does, laughs it into silence, as he thinks, and goes about like a wild beast snatching from every quarter whatever he thinks will furnish him meat or drink or the satisfaction of that slavish and graceless pleasure incorrectly called after Aphrodite. He is blind and does not see what defilement his plunderings involve, nor how great an evil attaches to each wicked act—a defilement which the evildoer necessarily drags with him as he goes up and down the earth and follows his [c] drags with him as he goes up and down the earth and follows dishonorable and utterly wretched path to the world below.