Dion

Perseus Greek · Perseus Greek · 388 sections

1.1.1
If it be true, then, O Sossius Senecio, as Simonides says, that Ilium is not wroth with the Corinthians for coming up against her with the Achaeans, because the Trojans also had Glaucus, who sprang from Corinth, as a zealous ally, so it is likely that neither Romans nor Greeks will quarrel with the Academy, since they fare alike in this treatise containing the lives of Dion and Brutus,
1.2.1
for Dion was an immediate disciple of Plato, while Brutus was nourished on the doctrines of Plato. Both therefore set out from one training-school, as it were, to engage in the greatest struggles.
1.3.1
And we need not wonder that, in the performance of actions that were often kindred and alike, they bore witness to the doctrine of their teacher in virtue, that wisdom and justice must be united with power and good fortune if public careers are to take on beauty as well as grandeur.
1.4.1
For as Hippomachus the trainer used to declare that he could recognize his pupils from afar even though they were but carrying meat from the market-place, so it is natural that the principles of those who have been trained alike should permeate their actions; inducing in these a similar rhythm and harmony along with their propriety.
2.1.1
Moreover, the fortunes of the two men, which were the same in what befell them rather than in what they elected to do, make their lives alike.
2.2.1
For both were cut off untimely, without being able to achieve the objects to which they had determined to devote the fruits of their many and great struggles.
2.3.1
But the most wonderful thing of all was that Heaven gave to both an intimation of their approaching death, by the visible appearance to each alike of an ill-boding spectre.
2.4.1
And yet there are those who deny such things and say that no man in his right mind was ever visited by a spectre or an apparition from Heaven, but that little children and foolish women and men deranged by sickness, in some aberration of spirit or distemper of body, have indulged in empty and strange imaginings, because they had the evil genius of superstition in themselves.
2.5.1
But if Dion and Brutus, men of solid understanding and philosophic training and not easily cast down or overpowered by anything that happened to them, were so affected by a spectre that they actually told others about it, I do not know but we shall be compelled to accept that most extraordinary doctrine of the oldest times, that mean and malignant spirits,
2.6.1
in envy of good men and opposition to their noble deeds, try to confound and terrify them, causing their virtue to rock and totter, in order that they may not continue erect and inviolate in the path of honour and so attain a better portion after death than the spirits themselves.
2.7.1
But this subject must be reserved for discussion elsewhere, and in this, the twelfth book of my Parallel Lives, I shall begin with that of the elder man.
3.1.1
Dionysius the Elder, after assuming the reins of government, at once married the daughter of Hermocrates the Syracusan.
3.2.1
But she, since the tyranny was not yet securely established, was terribly and outrageously abused in her person by the seditious Syracusans, and in consequence put an end to her own life.
3.3.1
Then Dionysius, after resuming the power and making himself strong again, married two wives at once, one from Locri, whose name was Doris, the other a native of the city, Aristomache, daughter of Hipparinus, who was a leading man in Syracuse, and had been a colleague of Dionysius when he was first chosen general with full powers for the war.
3.4.1
It is said that he married both wives on one day, and that no man ever knew with which of the two he first consorted, but that ever after he continued to devote himself alike to each; it was their custom to sup with him together, and they shared his bed at night by turns.
3.5.1
And yet the people of Syracuse wished that their countrywoman should be honoured above the stranger; but Doris had the good fortune to become a mother first, and by presenting Dionysius with his eldest son she atoned for her foreign birth.
3.6.1
Aristomache, on the contrary, was for a long time a barren wife, although Dionysius was desirous to have children by her; at any rate, he accused the mother of his Locrian wife of giving Aristomache drugs to prevent conception, and put her to death.
4.1.1
Now, Dion was a brother of Aristomache, and at first was honoured because of his sister; afterwards, however, he gave proof of his wisdom, and was presently beloved by the tyrant for his own sake.
4.2.1
In addition to all his other favours, Dionysius ordered his treasurers to give Dion whatever he asked, although they were to tell Dionysius on the same day what they had given.
4.3.1
But though Dion was even before of a lofty character, magnanimous, and manly, he advanced still more in these high qualities when, by some divine good fortune, Plato came to Sicily.
4.4.1
This was not of man’s devising, but some heavenly power, as it would seem, laying far in advance of the time a foundation for the liberty of Syracuse, and devising a subversion of tyranny, brought Plato from Italy to Syracuse and made Dion his disciple.
4.5.1
Dion was then quite young, but of all the companions of Plato he was by far the quickest to learn and the readiest to answer the call of virtue,
4.6.1
as Plato himself has written, and as events testify. For though he had been reared in habits of submission under a tyrant, and though he was fully accustomed to a life that was subservient and timorous, as well as to ostentatious service at court and vulgar luxury and a regimen that counts pleasures and excesses as the highest good,
4.7.1
nevertheless, as soon as he got a taste of a rational philosophy which led the way to virtue, his soul was speedily on fire; and since he very artlessly and impulsively expected, from his own ready obedience to the call of higher things, that the same arguments would have a like persuasive force with Dionysius, he earnestly set to work and at last brought it to pass that the tyrant, in a leisure hour, should meet Plato and hear him discourse.
5.1.1
At this meeting the general subject was human virtue, and most of the discussion turned upon manliness. And when Plato set forth that tyrants least of all men had this quality, and then, treating of justice, maintained that the life of the just was blessed,
5.2.1
while that of the unjust was wretched, the tyrant, as if convicted by his arguments, would not listen to them, and was vexed with the audience because they admired the speaker and were charmed by his utterances.
5.3.1
At last he got exceedingly angry and asked the philosopher why he had come to Sicily.
5.4.1
And when Plato said that he was come to seek a virtuous man, the tyrant answered and said: Well, by the gods, it appears that you have not yet found such an one.
5.5.1
Dion thought that this was the end of his anger, and as Plato was eager for it, sent him away upon a trireme, which was conveying Pollis the Spartan to Greece.
5.6.1
But Dionysius privily requested Pollis to kill Plato on the voyage, if it were in any way possible, but if not, at all events to sell him into slavery; for he would take no harm, but would be quite as happy, being a just man, even if he should become a slave.
5.7.1
Pollis, therefore, as we are told, carried Plato to Aegina and there sold him; for the Aeginetans were at war with the Athenians and had made a decree that any Athenian taken on the island should be put up for sale.
5.8.1
In spite of all this, Dion stood in no less honour and credit with Dionysius than before, but had the management of the most important embassies, as, for instance, when he was Bent to Carthage and won great admiration.
5.9.1
The tyrant also bore with his freedom of speech, and Dion was almost the only one who spoke his mind fearlessly, as, for example, when he rebuked Dionysius for what he said about Gelon. The tyrant was ridiculing the government of Gelon, and when he said that Gelon himself, true to his name, became the laughing-stock (gelos) of Sicily, the rest of his hearers pretended to admire the joke, but Dion was disgusted and said: Indeed, thou art now tyrant because men trusted thee for Gelon’s sake; but no man hereafter will be trusted for thy sake.
5.10.1
For, as a matter of fact, Gelon seems to have made a city under absolute rule a very fair thing to look upon, but Dionysius a very shameful thing.
6.1.1
Dionysius had three children by his Locrian wife, and four by Aristomache, two of whom were daughters, Sophrosyne and Arete. Sophrosyne became the wife of his son Dionysius, and Arete of his brother Thearides, but after the death of Thearides, Arete became the wife of Dion, her uncle.
6.2.1
Now, when Dionysius was sick and seemed likely to die, Dion tried to confer with him in the interests of his children by Aristomache, but the physicians, who wished to ingratiate themselves with the heir apparent, would not permit it;
6.3.1
moreover, according to Timaeus, when the sick man asked for a sleeping potion, they gave him one that robbed him of his senses and made death follow sleep.
6.4.1
However, in the first conference held between the young Dionysius and his friends, Dion discoursed upon the needs of the situation in such a manner that his wisdom made all the rest appear children, and his boldness of speech made them seem mere slaves of tyranny, who were wont to give their counsels timorously and ignobly to gratify the young man.
6.5.1
But what most amazed them in their fear of the peril that threatened the realm from Carthage, was Dion’s promise that, if Dionysius wanted peace, he would sail at once to Africa and put a stop to the war on the best terms possible; but if war was the king’s desire, he himself would furnish him with fifty swift triremes for the war, and maintain them at his own costs.
7.1.1
Dionysius, then, was greatly astonished at his magnanimity and delighted with his ardour;
7.2.1
but the other courtiers, thinking themselves put out of countenance by Dion’s generosity and humbled by his power, began hostilities forthwith, and said everything they could to embitter the young king against him, accusing him of stealing into the position of tyrant by means of his power on the sea, and of using his ships to divert the power into the hands of the children of Aristomache, who were his nephews and nieces.
7.3.1
But the strongest and most apparent grounds for their envy and hatred of him lay in the difference between his way of life and theirs, and in his refusal to mingle with others.
7.4.1
For from the very outset they obtained converse and intimacy with a tyrant who was young and had been badly reared by means of pleasures and flatteries, and were ever contriving for him sundry amours, idle amusements with wine and women, and other unseemly pastimes.
7.5.1
In this way the tyranny, being softened, like iron in the fire, appeared to its subjects to be kindly, and gradually remitted its excessive cruelty, though its edge was blunted not so much by any clemency in the sovereign as by his love of ease.
7.6.1
As a consequence, the laxity of the young king gained ground little by little, until at last those adamantine bonds with which the elder Dionysius said he had left the monarchy fastened, were melted and destroyed.
7.7.1
For it is said that the young king once kept up a drinking bout for ninety consecutive days from its beginning, and that during this time his court gave no access or admission to men or matters of consequence, but drunkenness and raillery and music and dancing and buffoonery held full sway.
8.1.1
Dion, then, as was natural, was obnoxious to these men, since he indulged in no pleasure or youthful folly. And so they tried to calumniate him by actually giving to his virtues plausible names of vices; for instance, they called his dignity haughtiness, and his boldness of speech self-will.
8.2.1
Even when he admonished, he was thought to denounce, and when he would not share men’s sins, to despise.
8.3.1
And in very truth his character had naturally a certain majesty, together with a harshness that repelled intercourse and was hard to deal with. For not only to a man who was young and whose ears had been corrupted by flattery was he an unpleasant and irksome associate, but many also who were intimate with him and who loved the simplicity and nobility of his disposition, were apt to find fault with the manner of his intercourse with men, on the ground that he dealt with those who sought his aid more rudely and harshly than was needful in public life.
8.4.1
On this head Plato also afterwards wrote to him, in a tone almost prophetic, that he should be on his guard against self-will, which was a companion of solitude.
8.5.1
However, at this time, though circumstances led men to think him of more value than any one else, and the only or the chief supporter and guardian of the storm-tossed tyranny, he knew that it was not out of goodwill, but against the wishes of the tyrant and owing to his needs, that he was first and greatest.
9.1.1
Considering, then, that a reason for this lay in the tyrant’s want of education, he sought to engage him in liberal studies, and to give him a taste of such literature and science as formed the character, in order that he might cease to be afraid of virtue, and become accustomed to take delight in what was high and noble.
9.2.1
For by nature Dionysius did not belong to the worst class of tyrants, but his father, fearing that if he should get wisdom and associate with men of sense, he would plot against him and rob him of his power, used to keep him closely shut up at home, where, through lack of association with others and in ignorance of affairs, as we are told, he made little waggons and lampstands and wooden chairs and tables.
9.3.1
For the elder Dionysius was so distrustful and suspicious towards every body, and his fear led him to be so much on his guard, that he would not even have his hair cut with barbers’ scissors, but a hairdresser would come and singe his locks with a live coal.
9.4.1
Neither his brother nor his son could visit him in his apartment wearing any clothes they pleased, but every one had to take off his own apparel before entering and put on another, after the guards had seen him stripped.
9.5.1
And once, when his brother Leptines was describing to him the nature of a place, and drew the plan of it on the ground with a spear which he took from one of his body-guards, he was extremely angry with him, and had the man who gave him the spear put to death.
9.6.1
He used to say, too, that he was on his guard against his friends who were men of sense, because he knew that they would rather be tyrants than subjects of a tyrant.
9.7.1
And he slew Marsyas, one of those whom he had advanced to positions of high command, for having dreamed that he killed him, declaring that this vision must have visited his sleep because in his waking hours he had purposed and planned such a deed.
9.8.1
Yes, the man who was angry with Plato because he would not pronounce him the most valiant man alive, had a spirit as timorous as this, and so full of all the evils induced by cowardice.
10.1.1
This tyrant’s son, as I have said, Dion saw to be dwarfed and deformed in character from his lack of education, and therefore exhorted him to apply himself to study, and to use every entreaty with the first of philosophers to come to Sicily,
10.2.1
and, when he came, to become his disciple, in order that his character might be regulated by the principles of virtue, and that he might be conformed to that divinest and most beautiful model of all being, in obedience to whose direction the universe issues from disorder into order;
10.3.1
in this way he would procure great happiness for himself, and great happiness for his people, and that obedience which they now rendered dejectedly and under the compulsion of his authority, this his moderation and justice would base upon goodwill and a filial spirit, and he would become a king instead of a tyrant.
10.4.1
For the adamantine bonds of sovereignty were not, as his father used to say, fear and force and a multitude of ships and numberless barbarian body-guards, but goodwill and ardour and favour engendered by virtue and justice; these, though they were more flexible than the bonds of severity and harshness, were stronger to maintain a lasting leadership.
10.5.1
And besides all this, it was mean and spiritless in a ruler, while his body was magnificently clothed and his habitation resplendent with luxurious furnishings, to be no more majestic in his intercourse and conversation than an ordinary man, and not to insist that the royal palace of his soul should be adorned in meet and royal fashion.
11.1.1
Since Dion frequently gave him such advice, and artfully mingled with it some of Plato’s doctrines, Dionysius was seized with a keen and even frenzied passion for the teachings and companionship of Plato.
11.2.1
At once, then, many letters began to come to Athens from Dionysius, and many injunctions from Dion, as well as others from the Pythagorean philosophers of Italy, all of whom urged Plato to come and get control of a youthful soul now tossed about on a sea of great authority and power, and steady it by his weighty reasonings.
11.3.1
Plato, accordingly, as he tells us himself, out of shame more than any thing else, lest men should think him nothing but theory and unwilling to take any action; and further, because he expected that by the purification of one man, who was, as it were, a controlling factor, he would cure all Sicily of her distempers, yielded to these requests.
11.4.1
But the enemies of Dion, afraid of the alteration in Dionysius, persuaded him to recall from exile Philistus, a man versed in letters and acquainted with the ways of tyrants, that they might have in him a counterpoise to Plato and philosophy.
11.5.1
For Philistus at the outset had most zealously assisted in establishing the tyranny, and for a long time was commander of the garrison that guarded the citadel. There was a story, too, that he was very intimate with the mother of the elder Dionysius, and that the tyrant was not wholly ignorant of the fact.
11.6.1
But when Leptines, who had two daughters by a woman whom he had corrupted when she was living with another man and then taken to wife, gave one of them to Philistus without so much as telling Dionysius, the tyrant was wroth, put the wife of Leptines into fetters and prison, and banished Philistus from Sicily.
11.7.1
Philistus took refuge with some friends in Adria, and there, it would seem, in his leisure, composed the greater part of his history. For he did not return to Syracuse while the elder Dionysius was alive, but after his death, as I have said, the envy which the other courtiers felt towards Dion brought about his recall; they thought him a more suitable man for their purposes, and a stauncher friend of the tyranny.
12.1.1
Philistus, then, as soon as he had returned, was in close touch with the tyranny; and there were others also who brought slanders and accusations against Dion to the tyrant, alleging that he had been in conference with Theodotes and Heracleides concerning a subversion of the government.
12.2.1
For Dion had hopes, as it seems likely, that by means of the visit of Plato he could mitigate the arrogance and excessive severity of the tyranny, and convert Dionysius into a fit and lawful ruler;
12.3.1
but if Dionysius should oppose his efforts and refuse to be softened, he had determined to depose him and restore the civil power to the Syracusan people; not that he approved of a democracy, but he thought it altogether better than a tyranny in lack of a sound and healthy aristocracy.
13.1.1
Such was the condition of affairs when Plato came to Sicily, and in the first instances he met with astonishing friendliness and honour.
13.2.1
For a royal chariot, magnificently adorned, awaited him as he left his trireme, and the tyrant offered a sacrifice of thanksgiving for the great blessing that had been bestowed upon his government.
13.3.1
Moreover, the modesty that characterized his banquets, the decorum of the courtiers, and the mildness of the tyrant himself in all his dealings with the public, inspired the citizens with marvellous hopes of his reformation.
13.4.1
There was also something like a general rush for letters and philosophy, and the palace was filled with dust, as they say, owing to the multitude of geometricians there.
13.5.1
After a few days had passed, there was one of the customary sacrifices of the country in the palace grounds; and when the herald, as was the custom, prayed that the tyranny might abide unshaken for many generations, it is said that Dionysius, who was standing near, cried: Stop cursing us!
13.6.1
This quite vexed Philistus and his party, who thought that time and familiarity would render Plato’s influence almost irresistible, if now, after a brief intimacy, he had so altered and transformed the sentiments of the youthful prince.
14.1.1
They therefore no longer abused Dion one by one and secretly, but all together and openly, saying that he was manifestly enchanting and bewitching Dionysius with Plato’s doctrines, in order that the tyrant might of his own accord relinquish and give up the power, which Dion would then assume and devolve upon the children of Aristomache, whose uncle he was.
14.2.1
And some pretended to be indignant that the Athenians, who in former times had sailed to Sicily with large land and sea forces, but had perished utterly without taking Syracuse,
14.3.1
should now, by means of one sophist, overthrow the tyranny of Dionysius, by persuading him to dismiss his ten thousand body-guards, and abandon his four hundred triremes and his ten thousand horsemen and his many times that number of men-at-arms, in order to seek in Academic philosophy for a mysterious good, and make geometry his guide to happiness, surrendering the happiness that was based on dominion and wealth and luxury to Dion and Dion’s nephews and nieces.
14.4.1
As a consequence of all this, Dionysius became at first suspicious, and afterwards more openly angry and hostile, and just then a certain letter was secretly brought to him, which Dion had written to the Carthaginian officials, urging them, whenever they should treat with Dionysius for peace, not to hold their interview without including him, since he would help them to arrange everything securely.
14.5.1
This letter Dionysius read to Philistus, and after consulting with him, according to Timaeus, he beguiled Dion by a feigned reconciliation.
14.6.1
That is, after moderate protestations and a declaration that their quarrel was at an end, he led him off alone beneath the acropolis down to the sea, and then showed him the letter and accused him of conspiring with the Carthaginians against him.
14.7.1
And when Dion wished to defend himself, he would not suffer it, but at once placed him, just as he was, on board a small boat, and commanded the sailors in it to set him ashore in Italy.
15.1.1
At this proceeding, which seemed to men a cruel one, the women in the household of the tyrant put on mourning, but the citizens of Syracuse were cheered by the expectation of a revolution and a speedy change in the government, since Dion’s treatment caused such a commotion and the rest of the courtiers distrusted the tyrant.
15.2.1
Dionysius saw this and was afraid, and sought to console the friends of Dion and the women by saying that he had not sent Dion into exile, but upon a journey, in order that his wrath at the man’s self-will when at home might not drive him to do him some worse wrong.
15.3.1
He also handed over two ships to the kinsmen of Dion and bade them to put on board whatever property and servants of Dion’s they pleased and convey them to him in Peloponnesus.
15.4.1
Now, Dion had great riches and an almost princely splendour of appointment in his way of living, and this his friends got together and conveyed to him.
15.5.1
Besides, many other things were sent to him from the women of the court and from his adherents, so that, as far as wealth and riches went, he was a brilliant figure among the Greeks, to whom the affluence of the exile gave some idea of the power of the tyrant.
16.1.1
As for Plato, Dionysius at once removed him to the acropolis, where he contrived to give him a guard of honour under pretence of hospitable kindness, in order that he might not accompany Dion and bear witness to his wrongs.
16.2.1
But after time and intercourse had accustomed Dionysius to tolerate his society and discourse, just as a wild beast learns to have dealings with men, he conceived a passion for him that was worthy of a tyrant, demanding that he alone should have his love returned by Plato and be admired beyond all others, and he was ready to entrust Plato with the administration of the tyranny if only he would not set his friendship for Dion above that which he had for him.
16.3.1
Now, this passion of his was a calamity for Plato, for the tyrant was mad with jealousy, as desperate lovers are, and in a short space of time would often be angry with him and as often beg to be reconciled; for he was extravagantly eager to hear his doctrines and share in his philosophical pursuits, but he dreaded the censure of those who tried to divert him from this course as likely to corrupt him.
16.4.1
At this juncture, however, a war broke out, and he sent Plato away, promising him that in the summer he would summon Dion home.
16.5.1
This promise, indeed, he immediately broke, but he kept sending to Dion the revenues from his property, and asked Plato to pardon his postponement of the time of Dion’s recall, because of the war;
16.6.1
as soon as peace was made he would summon Dion home, and he asked him to be quiet, and to attempt no revolution, and to say no evil of him to the Greeks.
17.1.1
This Plato tried to effect, and kept Dion with him in the Academy, where he turned his attention to philosophy.
17.2.1
Dion dwelt in the upper city of Athens with Callippus, one of his acquaintances, but for diversion he bought a country-place, and afterwards, when he sailed to Sicily, he gave this to Speusippus,

Perseus Greek. CTS URN tlg0007.tlg060.perseus-eng2. Via the Perseus Digital Library / Open Greek and Latin TEI corpora. Licence: Available under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International License. Source.