Days like these give dignity and loveliness to the landscape; the scene
enhanced by imperial tints of gold and purple, the orchards bending
with their ruddy burdens. It is the season of nectar and ambrosia, and
suggests the Platonic bees, the literature and conversation of the
Academy and Lyceum.
Very interesting reading these letters of Plato, and a goodly volume
to hold in one's hand, in antique type and binding. Whether a reprint
would reward the publisher, I cannot say. His seventh letter is an
affecting piece of autobiography, and, taken with Plutarch's Dion,
gives the best picture of his journeys to Syracuse that history affords.
* * * * *
"For it is a thing," he writes to the Kindred and Friends of Dion,
"altogether correct and honorable for him who aspires after things the
most honorable, both to himself and his country, to suffer whatever
he may suffer; for not one of us is naturally immortal; nor if this
should happen to any one would he become happy, as it seems he would
to the multitude. For in things inanimate there is nothing either good
or evil worthy of mention, but good or ill will happen to each soul,
either existing with the body, or separated from it. But it is ever
requisite to trust really to the sacred accounts of the olden times,
which inform us that the soul is immortal, and has judges of its
conduct, and suffers the greatest punishments when liberated from the
body. Hence, it is requisite to think it is a lesser evil to suffer,
than to commit the greatest sins and injuries."
· · · · ·
"And I should have felt more justly against those who murdered Dion,
an anger, in a certain manner, almost as great as against Dionysius;
for both had injured myself and all the rest, so to say, in the highest
degree. For the former had destroyed a man who was willing to make use
of justice; while the latter was unwilling to make use of it through
the whole of his dominions, although possessing the highest power. In
which dominions had philosophy and power existed really, as it were,
in the same dwelling, they would have set up amongst men, both Greeks
and barbarians, an opinion not vainly shining, and in every respect
the true one, that neither a state nor a man can ever be happy unless
by leading a life with prudence in subjection to justice, whether
possessing those things themselves, or by being brought up in the
habits of holy persons, their rulers, or instructed in justice."
"This injury did Dionysius inflict. But the rest would have been a
trifling wrong as compared to these. But he who murdered Dion did not
know that he had done the same deed as Dionysius. For I clearly know,
as far as possible for one man to speak confidently of another, that if
Dion had attained power, he would never have changed it to any other
form of government than to that by which he first caused Syracuse, his
own country, after he had delivered it from slavery, to look joyous,
and had put it into the garb of freedom; and after all this, he would
by every contrivance have adorned the citizens with laws both befitting
and best; and he would have been ready to do what followed in due order
after this, and have colonized the whole of Sicily, and have freed it
from the barbarians, by expelling some and subduing others, more easily
than Hiero did. But if these things had taken place through a man just,
brave, and temperate, and who was a philosopher, the same opinion of
virtue would have been produced amongst the multitude, as would have
been amongst all men, so to say, and have saved Dionysius, had he been
persuaded by me. But now some dæmon, surely, or some evil spirit,
falling upon with iniquity and impiety, and what is the greatest
matter, with the audacity of ignorance, in which all evils are rooted,
and from which they spring up, and afterwards produce fruit the most
bitter to those who have begotten it,--this has a second time subverted
and destroyed everything. However, let us, for the sake of a good
augury, keep for the third time a well-omened silence."[15]
[Footnote 15: "The great interest is not in the present city of
Syracuse" (writes a traveller, Feb. 9, 1869), "but in its vicinity,
where we inspect the doings of Greeks twenty-five to three thousand
years ago, and of the Romans at a later date. Their works are
constructed out of the solid rock, and have withstood the terrible
earthquakes which have completely destroyed all traces of other works.
Among the interesting objects in the city is the cathedral, formerly
the temple of Minerva, which is a magnificent specimen of Doric
architecture, and has continued to be a place of worship through all
the changes of idolatry and Christianity, for twenty-five hundred
years; the church of St. Marcian here puts in its claim to have been
the first church in Europe in which Christian worship was celebrated.
Full of interest are the catacombs and the ancient prisons in the
quarries from which the materials of Syracuse were taken; here is the
Ear of Dionysius, the tyrant of Syracuse, a prison so arranged that
every word spoken within it was re-echoed into his chamber, where it is
said he passed entire days listening to the complaints of his victims.
Here, too, is the famous fountain of Arethusa, one of the Nereads,
and whom Virgil reckons among the Sicilian nymphs, as the divinity
who inspired pastoral poetry. Syracuse was at different periods the
residence of Plato, Simonides, Zeno, and Cicero; it was the place where
Hicetus first propounded the true revolution of the earth; it was the
birthplace of the poets Theocritus and Moschus, and the philosopher
Archimedes, who lost his life at the capture of the city by the
Romans."]
One sees the noble spirit of Plato in these passages, and feels how the
death of his friend and pupil, Dion, at the moment when he had won the
freedom of his country, and a sphere for proving his master's ideas in
its rule, must have affected Plato, and the friends of Dion. If doubts
have been entertained as to the genuineness of these letters, it is
plain they were written by some intimate friend of his, or of Dion, and
have the merit, at least, of historical accuracy and evidence.