Epistles

for if this came to pass, it would be an easy task to enslave the Carthaginians far more than they had been enslaved in the time of Gelon, [*](Gelon succeeded Hippocrates as tyrant of Gela about 490 B.C., and then captured Syracuse and made it his capital. His defeat of the Carthaginians at Himera, 480 B.C., was celebrated by the poet Simonides.) whereas now, on the contrary, his father had contracted to pay tribute to the barbarians. Such was the advice and exhortation given to Dionysius by us, who were plotting against him, as statements pouring in from many quarters alleged; which statements in fact so prevailed with Dionysius that they caused Dion’s expulsion and threw us into a state of alarm. Then—to cut a long story short—Dion came from the Peloponnesus and from Athens and admonished Dionysius by deed. [*](i.e. by a military campaign (deed as opposed to word) in 357 B.C.) When, however, Dion had delivered the Syracusans and given them back their city twice, they showed the same feeling towards him as Dionysius had done. For when Dion was trying to train and rear him up to be a king worthy of the throne, that so he might share with him in all his life, Dionysius listened to the slanderers who said that Dion was plotting against the tyranny in all that he was then doing, his scheme being that Dionysius, with his mind infatuated with education, should neglect his empire and entrust it to Dion, who should then seize on it for himself and expel Dionysius from his kingship by craft. And then, for the second time, these slanderous statements triumphed with the Syracusans, and that with a triumph that was most monstrous and shameful for the authors of the triumph. Those who are urging me to address myself to the affairs of today ought to hear what then took place. I, a citizen of Athens, a companion of Dion, an ally of his own, went to the tyrant in order that I might bring about friendship instead of war; but in my struggle with the slanderers I was worsted. But when Dionysius tried to persuade me by means of honors and gifts of money to side with him so that I should bear witness, as his friend, to the propriety of his expulsion of Dion, in this design he failed utterly. And later on, while returning home from exile, Dion attached to himself two brothers from Athens, [*](Callipus and Philostratus; cf. Plutarch,Dion, cc. 54 ff.) men whose friendship was not derived from philosophy, but from the ordinary companionship out of which most friendships spring, and which comes from mutual entertaining and sharing in religion and mystic ceremonies. [*](After the Little Mysteries of Eleusis the initiated became a μυστής, after the Great Mysteries an ἐπόπτης.) So, too, in the case of these two friends who accompanied him home; it was for these reasons and because of their assistance in his homeward voyage that they became his companions.

But on their arrival in Sicily, when they perceived that Dion was slanderously charged before the Siceliots whom he had set free with plotting to become tyrant, they not only betrayed their companion and host but became themselves, so to say, the authors of his murder, since they stood beside the murderers, ready to assist, with arms in their hands. For my own part, I neither slur over the shamefulness and sinfulness of their action nor do I dwell on it, since there are many others who make it their care to recount these doings and will continue to do so in time to come. But I do take exception to what is said about the Athenians, that these men covered their city with shame; for I asselt that it was also an Athenian who refused to betray the very same man when, by doing so, he might have gained wealth and many other honors. For he had become his friend not in the bonds of a venal friendship but owing to association in liberal education; since it is in this alone that the judicious man should put his trust, rather than in kinship of soul or of body. Consequently, the two murderers of Dion are not important enough to cast a reproach upon our city, [*](Cf. Plat. L. 7.336d, Plat. Laws 961a ff.) as though they had ever yet shown themselves men of mark. All this has been said by way of counsel to Dion’s friends and relatives. And one piece of counsel I add, as I repeat now for the third time to you in the third place the same counsel as before, and the same doctrine. Neither Sicily, nor yet any other State—such is my doctrine—should be enslaved to human despots but rather to laws; for such slavery is good neither for those who enslave nor those who are enslaved— themselves, their children and their children’s children; rather is such an attempt wholly ruinous, and the dispositions that are wont to grasp gains such as these are petty and illiberal, with no knowledge of what belongs to goodness and justice, divine or human, either in the present or in the future. Of this I attempted to persuade Dion in the first place, secondly Dionysius, and now, in the third place, you. Be ye, then, persuaded for the sake of Zeus, Third Savior, [*](An allusion to the custom of offering the third (and last) cup at banquets as a libation to Zeus Soter; cf. Plat. Rep. 583b, Plat. Charm. 167b.) and considering also the case of Dionysius and of Dion, of whom the former was unpersuaded and is living now no noble life, while the latter was persuaded and has nobly died. For whatsoever suffering a man undergoes when striving after what is noblest both for himself and for his State is always right and noble.

For by nature none of us is immortal, and if any man should come to be so he would not be happy, as the vulgar believe; for no evil nor good worthy of account belongs to what is soulless, but they befall the soul whether it be united with a body or separated therefrom. But we ought always truly to believe the ancient and holy doctrines which declare to us that the soul is immortal and that it has judges and pays the greatest penalties, whensoever a man is released from his body; wherefore also one should account it a lesser evil to suffer than to perform the great iniquities and injustices. [*](This theme is to be found also in the Gorgias andRepublic; cf. also Plat. Lysis 217b.) But to these doctrines the man who is fond of riches but poor in soul listens not, or if he listens he laughs them (as he thinks) to scorn, while he shamelessly plunders from all quarters everything which he thinks likely to provide himself, like a beast, with food or drink or the satiating himself with the slavish and graceless pleasure which is miscalled by the name of the Goddess of Love [*](cf. Plat. Gorg. 493e, Plat. Phaedo 81b, Plat. Phileb. 12b.); for he is blind and fails to see what a burden of sin—how grave an evil—ever accompanies each wrong-doing; which burden the wrong-doer must of necessity drag after him both while he moves about on earth and when he has gone beneath the earth again on a journey that is unhonored and in all ways utterly miserable. Of these and other like doctrines I tried to persuade Dion, and I have the best of rights to be angry with the men who slew him, very much as I have to be angry also with Dionysius; for both they and he have done the greatest of injuries both to me, and, one may say, to all the rest of mankind—they by destroying the man who purposed to practice justice, and he by utterly refusing to practice justice, when he had supreme power, throughout all his empire; although if, in that empire, philosophy and power had really been united in the same person the radiance thereof would have shone through the whole world of Greeks and barbarians, and fully imbued them with the true conviction that no State nor any individual man can ever become happy unless he passes his life in subjection to justice combined with wisdom, whether it be that he possesses these virtues within himself or as the result of being reared and trained righteously under holy rulers in their ways. Such were the injuries committed by Dionysius; and, compared to these, the rest of the injuries he did I would count but small. And the murderer of Dion is not aware that he has brought about the same result as Dionysius.

For as to Dion, I know clearly—in so far as it is possible for a man to speak with assurance about men—that, if he had gained possession of the kingdom, he would never have adopted for his rule any other principle than this when he had first brought gladness to Syracuse, his own fatherland, by delivering her from bondage, and had established her in a position of freedom, he would have endeavored next, by every possible means, to set the citizens in order by suitable laws of the best kind; and as the next step after this, he would have done his utmost to colonize the whole of Sicily and to make it free from the barbarians, by driving out some of them and subduing others more easily than did Hiero. [*](Hiero, tyrant of Syracuse (478-466) , waged succesful war against the Carthaginians.) And if all this had been done by a man who was just and courageous and temperate and wisdom-loving, the most of men would have formed the same opinion of virtue which would have prevailed, one may say, throughout the whole world, if Dionysius had been persuaded by me, and which would have saved all. But as it is, the onset of some deity or some avenging spirit, by means of lawlessness and godlessness and, above all, by the rash acts of ignorance [*](For the calamitous effects of ignorance (or folly) cf. Plat. Laws 688c ff., Plat. Laws 863c ff.)—that ignorance which is the root whence all evils for all men spring and which will bear hereafter most bitter fruit for those who have planted it—this it is which for the second time has wrecked and ruined all. But now, for the third time, let us speak good words, for the omen’s sake. Nevertheless, I counsel you, his friends, to imitate Dion in his devotion to his fatherland and in his temperate mode of life; and to endeavor to carry out his designs, though under better auspices; and what those designs were you have learnt from me clearly. But if any amongst you is unable to live in the Dorian fashion of his forefathers and follows after the Sicilian way of life and that of Dion’s murderers, him you should neither call to your aid nor imagine that he could ever perform a loyal or sound action; but all others you should call to aid you in repeopling all Sicily and giving it equal laws, calling them both from Sicily itself and from the whole of the Peloponnese, not fearing even Athens itself; for there too there are those who surpass all men in virtue, and who detest the enormities of men who slay their hosts. But—though these results may come about later,—if for the present you are beset by the constant quarrels of every kind which spring up daily between the factions, then every single man on whom the grace of Heaven has bestowed even a small measure of right opinion must surely be aware that there is no cessation of evils for the warring factions until those who have won the mastery cease from perpetuating feuds by assaults and expulsions and executions, and cease from seeking to wreak vengeance on their foes;

and, exercising mastery over themselves, lay down impartial laws which are framed to satisfy the vanquished no less than themselves; and compel the vanquished to make use of these laws by means of two compelling forces, namely, Reverence and Fear [*](cf. Plat. Laws 646e ff., Plat. Laws 671d.)—Fear, inasmuch as they make it plain that they are superior to them in force; and Reverence, because they show themselves superior both in their attitude to pleasures and in their greater readiness and ability to subject themselves to the laws. In no other way is it possible for a city at strife within itself to cease from evils, but strife and enmity and hatred and suspicion are wont to keep for ever recurring in cities when their inner state is of this kind. [*](cf. Plat. Laws 715a ff.) Now those who have gained the mastery, whenever they become desirous of safety, ought always to choose out among themselves such men of Greek origin as they know by inquiry to be most excellent—men who are, in the first place, old, and who have wives and children at home, and forefathers as numerous and good and famous as possible, and who are all in the possession of ample property; and for a city of ten thousand citizens, fifty such men would be a sufficient number [*](For this scheme cf. Plat. Laws 752d ff; and for the qualifications of the law-givers cf. Plat. Laws 765d.) These men they should fetch from their homes by means of entreaties and the greatest possible honors; and when they have fetched them they should entreat and enjoin them to frame laws, under oath that they will give no advantage either to conquerors or conquered, but equal rights in common to the whole city. And when the laws have been laid down, then everything depends on the following condition. On the one hand, if the victors prove themselves subservient to the laws more than the vanquished, then all things will abound in safety and happiness, and all evils will be avoided; but should it prove otherwise, neither I nor anyone else should be called in to take part in helping the man who refuses to obey our present injunctions. For this course of action is closely akin to that which Dion and I together, in our plans for the welfare of Syracuse, attempted to carry out, although it is but the second-best [*](For the Law-governed State as the second-best, after the Ideal Republic, cf. Plat. Stat. 297d ff.); for the first was that which we first attempted to carry out with the aid of Dionysius himself—a plan which would have benefited all alike, had it not been that some Chance, mightier than men, scattered it to the winds. Now, however, it is for you to endeavor to carry out our policy with happier results by the aid of Heaven’s blessing and divine good-fortune. [*](Alluding to the attempt then being made by Dion’s party at Leontini, under Hipparinus (his nephew) , to overthrow Callipus.) Let this, then, suffice as my counsel and my charge, and the story of my former visit to the court of Dionysius. In the next place, he that cares to listen may hear the story of my later journey by sea, and how naturally and reasonably it came about.

For (as I said) I had completed my account of the first period of my stay in Sicily [*](This refers back to Plat. L. 7.330c, Plat. L. 7.330d, just before he begins his counsel to Dion’s friends.) before I gave my counsel to the intimates and companions of Dion. What happened next was this: I urged Dionysius by all means possible to let me go, and we both made a compact that when peace was concluded (for at that time there was war in Sicily [*](cf. Plat. L. 3.317a.)) Dionysius, for his part, should invite Dion and me back again, as soon as he had made his own power more secure; and he asked Dion to regard the position he was now in not as a form of exile but rather as a change of abode; and I gave a promise that upon these conditions I would return. When peace was made he kept sending for me; but he asked Dion to wait still another year, although he kept demanding most insistently that I should come. Dion, then, kept urging and entreating me to make the voyage; for in truth constant accounts were pouring in from Sicily how Dionysius was now once more marvellously enamored of philosophy; and for this reason Dion was strenuously urging me not to disobey his summons. I was of course well aware that such things often happen to the young in regard to philosophy; but none the less I deemed it safer, at least for the time, to give a wide berth both to Dion and Dionysius, and I angered them both by replying that I was an old man and that none of the steps which were now being taken were in accordance with our compact. Now it seems that after this Archytas [*](A famous scientist and statesman of Tarentum; cf. Plat. L. 7.350a infra,Plat. L. 13.360c.) arrived at the court of Dionysius; for when I sailed away, I had, before my departure, effected a friendly alliance between Archytas and the Tarentines and Dionysius; and there were certain others in Syracuse who had had some teaching from Dion, and others again who had been taught by these, men who were stuffed with some borrowed philosophical doctrines. These men, I believe, tried to discuss these subjects with Dionysius, on the assumption that Dionysius was thoroughly instructed in all my system of thought. Now besides being naturally gifted otherwise with a capacity for learning Dionysius has an extraordinary love of glory. Probably, then, he was pleased with what was said and was ashamed of having it known that he had no lessons while I was in the country; and in consequence of this he was seized with a desire to hear my doctrines more explicitly, while at the same time he was spurred on by his love of glory: and we have already explained, in the account we gave a moment ago, [*](Cf. Plat. L. 7.330b.) the reasons why he had not been a hearer of mine during my previous sojourn.

So when I had got safely home and had refused his second summons, as I said just now, Dionysius was greatly afraid, I believe, because of his love of glory, lest any should suppose that it was owing to my contempt for his nature and disposition, together with my experience of his mode of life, that I was ungracious and was no longer willing to come to his court. Now I am bound to tell the truth, and to put up with it should anyone, after hearing what took place, come to despise, after all, my philosophy and consider that the tyrant showed intelligence. For, in fact, Dionysius, on this third occasion, [*](Plato had refused a second time; see Plat. L. 7.338e.) sent a trireme to fetch me, in order to secure my comfort on the voyage; and he sent Archedemus, one of the associates of Archytas, believing that I esteemed him above all others in Sicily, and other Sicilians of my acquaintance; and all these were giving me the same account, how that Dionysius had made marvellous progress in philosophy. And he sent an exceedingly long letter, since he knew how I was disposed towards Dion and also Dion’s eagerness that I should make the voyage [*](cf. Plat. L. 3.317.) and come to Syracuse; for his letter was framed to deal with all these circumstances, having its commencement couched in some such terms as these—Dionysius to Plato, followed by the customary greetings; after which, without further preliminary—If you are persuaded by us and come now to Sicily, in the first place you will find Dion’s affairs proceeding in whatever way you yourself may desire—and you will desire, as I know, what is reasonable, and I will consent thereto; but otherwise none of Dion’s affairs, whether they concern himself or anything else, will proceed to your satisfaction. Such were his words on this subject, but the rest it were tedious and inopportune to repeat. And other letters kept coming both from Archytas and from the men in Tarentum, eulogizing the philosophy of Dionysius, and saying that unless I come now I should utterly dissolve their friendship with Dionysius which I had brought about, and which was of no small political importance. Such then being the nature of the summons which I then received,—when on the one hand the Sicilians and Italians were pulling me in and the Athenians, on the other, were literally pushing me out, so to say, by their entreaties,— once again the same argument recurred, namely, that it was my duty not to betray Dion, nor yet my hosts and comrades in Tarentum.

And I felt also myself that there would be nothing surprising in a young man, who was apt at learning, attaining to a love of the best life through hearing lectures on subjects of importance. So it seemed to be my duty to determine clearly in which way the matter really stood, and in no wise to prove false to this duty, nor to leave myself open to a reproach that would be truly serious, if so be that any of these reports were true. So having blindfolded myself with this argumentation I made the journey, although, naturally, with many fears and none too happy forebodings. However, when I arrived the third time, I certainly did find it really a case of the Third to the Saviour [*](Cf. Plat. L. 7.334d.): for happily I did get safely back again; and for this I ought to give thanks, after God, to Dionysius, seeing that, when many had planned to destroy me, he prevented them and paid some regard to reverence in his dealings with me. And when I arrived, I deemed that I ought first of all to gain proof of this point,—whether Dionysius was really inflamed by philosophy, as it were by fire, or all this persistent account which had come to Athens was empty rumor. Now there is a method of testing such matters which is not ignoble but really suitable in the case of tyrants, and especially such as are crammed with borrowed doctrines; and this was certainly what had happened to Dionysius, as I perceived as soon as I arrived. To such persons one must point out what the subject is as a whole, and what its character, and how many preliminary subjects it entails and how much labor. For on hearing this, if the pupil be truly philosophic, in sympathy with the subject and worthy of it, because divinely gifted, he believes that he has been shown a marvellous pathway and that he must brace himself at once to follow it, and that life will not be worth living if he does otherwise. After this he braces both himself and him who is guiding him on the path, nor does he desist until either he has reached the goal of all his studies, or else has gained such power as to be capable of directing his own steps without the aid of the instructor. It is thus, and in this mind, that such a student lives, occupied indeed in whatever occupations he may find himself, but always beyond all else cleaving fast to philosophy and to that mode of daily life which will best make him apt to learn and of retentive mind and able to reason within himself soberly; but the mode of life which is opposite to this he continually abhors. Those, on the other hand, who are in reality not philosophic, but superficially tinged by opinions,—like men whose bodies are sunburnt on the surface —when they see how many studies are required and how great labor, [*](cf. Plat. Rep. 531d.) and how the orderly mode of daily life is that which befits the subject, they deem it difficult or impossible for themselves, and thus they become in fact incapable of pursuing it;

while some of them persuade themselves that they have been sufficiently instructed in the whole subject and no longer require any further effort. Now this test proves the clearest and most infallible in dealing with those who are luxurious and incapable of enduring labor, since it prevents any of them from ever casting the blame on his instructor instead of on himself and his own inability to pursue all the studies which are accessory to his subject. This, then, was the purport of what I said to Dionysius on that occasion. I did not, however, expound the matter fully, nor did Dionysius ask me to do so; for he claimed that he himself knew many of the most important doctrines and was sufficiently informed owing to the versions he had heard from his other teachers. And I am even told that later on he himself wrote a treatise on the subjects in which I then instructed him, composing it as though it were something of his own invention and quite different from what he had heard; but of all this I know nothing. I know indeed that certain others have written about these same subjects; but what manner of men they are not even themselves know. [*](Probably an allusion to the proverbial maxim Know thyself.) But thus much I can certainly declare concerning all these writers, or prospective writers, who claim to know the subjects which I seriously study, whether as hearers of mine or of other teachers, or from their own discoveries; it is impossible, in my judgement at least, that these men should understand anything about this subject. There does not exist, nor will there ever exist, any treatise of mine dealing therewith. For it does not at all admit of verbal expression like other studies, but, as a result of continued application to the subject itself and communion therewith, it is brought to birth in the soul on a sudden, [*](cf. Plat. Sym. 210e for the suddenness of the mystic vision of the Idea.) as light that is kindled by a leaping spark, and thereafter it nourishes itself. Notwithstanding, of thus much I am certain, that the best statement of these doctrines in writing or in speech would be my own statement; and further, that if they should be badly stated in writing, it is I who would be the person most deeply pained. And if I had thought that these subjects ought to be fully stated in writing or in speech to the public, [*](On the danger of writing such doctrines cf. Plat. L. 2.314c ff.; and for philosophy as possible only for the few cf. Plat. Rep. 494a.) what nobler action could I have performed in my life than that of writing what is of great benefit to mankind and bringing forth to the light for all men the nature of reality?

But were I to undertake this task it would not, as I think, prove a good thing for men, save for some few who are able to discover the truth themselves with but little instruction; for as to the rest, some it would most unseasonably fill with a mistaken contempt, and others with an overweening and empty aspiration, as though they had learnt some sublime mysteries. But concerning these studies I am minded to speak still more at length; since the subject with which I am dealing [*](Cf. Plat. L. 7.341c.) will perhaps be clearer when I have thus spoken. For there is a certain true argument which confronts the man who ventures to write anything at all of these matters, an argument which, although I have frequently stated it in the past, seems to require statement also at the present time. Every existing object has three things [*](cf. Plat. Laws 895d, where Essence, Definition, and Name are enumerated; also Plat. Parm. 142a.) which are the necessary means by which knowledge of that object is acquired; and the knowledge itself is a fourth thing; and as a fifth one must postulate the object itself which is cognizable and true. First of these comes the name; secondly the definition; thirdly the image; fourthly the knowledge. If you wish, then, to understand what I am now saying, take a single example and learn from it what applies to all. There is an object called a circle, which has for its name the word we have just mentioned and, secondly, it has a definition, composed of names and verbs; for that which is everywhere equidistant from the extremities to the center will be the definition of that object which has for its name round and spherical and circle. [*](For the definition of circle cf. Plat. Tim. 33b, Plat. Parm. 137e.) And in the third place there is that object which is in course of being portrayed and obliterated, or of being shaped with a lathe, and falling into decay; but none of these affections is suffered by the circle itself, whereto all these others are related inasmuch as it is distinct therefrom. Fourth comes knowledge and intelligence and true opinion regarding these objects; and these we must assume to form a single whole, which does not exist in vocal utterance or in bodily forms but in souls; whereby it is plain that it differs both from the nature of the circle itself and from the three previously mentioned. And of those four intelligence approaches most nearly in kinship and similarity to the fifth, [*](This echoes the language of Plat. Rep. 490b.) and the rest are further removed. The same is true alike of the straight and of the spherical form, and of color, and of the good and the fair and the just, and of all bodies whether manufactured or naturally produced (such as fire and water and all such substances), and of all living creatures, and of all moral actions or passions in souls. For unless a man somehow or other grasps the four of these, he will never perfectly acquire knowledge of the fifth.