Olympiad, in the reign of Dionysius the Elder. According to the statement of all the writers who make mention of this tour, his only object was to see the volcano,2 but from the seventh letter of Plato, it is very evident, that a different object engaged his attention. His observations were directed particularly to the inhabitants, their character, morals and mode of life, their political regulations and constitutions. These were probably the points to which he gave special attention in the other countries over which he travelled. The inhabitants of Syracuse led, at that time, an extremely luxurious and sensual life, in which they were followed by the other Sicilians and by the people of Lower Italy. The predominant passion for enjoyment and pleasure had supplanted all other considerations and objects of effort from their minds, and allowed no place for noble and great ideas. The loss of their freedom, and the oppression of a king who had subdued them and who ruled arbitrarily, they endured with all possible quietness, because their mind, in its single pursuit after pleasure, had lost all its elasticity. Such was the situation of Sicily when Plato arrived. Unintentionally, a revolution was brought about, which, in a short time, overthrew the power of a king who was regarded as invincible. Plato was acquainted with Dion a near kinsman of Dionysius, and an opulent young man. Into him he infused an abhorrence of the prevailing excesses, awakened a sense of freedom, and formed his heart and understanding by means of noble principles and sentiments. Dion being yet very young and his heart uncorrupted, these ideas found an easy entrance; they strengthened and fortified him, and became the rules of his conduct. Consequently, he began to place a higher estimate on virtue and morality than upon all the pleasures and all the luxurious living of the Syracusans. Hence his hatred of those who acted in accordance with despotic principles. Thenceforward, a friendship was developed in both Plato and Dion, which ever after brought them into close communion, and which stood the proof of the hardest trials. Dion, who was held in very high esteem by king Dionysius, contrived that the latter should form an acquaintance with Plato, and express a wish to hear some philosophical remarks from him. Dion probably thought that the conversation of Plato would produce in the understanding and heart of Dionysius the same effects which himself had experien1 Epist. 7. 93. 3 Epist. 7. 97. 4 Epist. 7. 98, 99. Plut. Dion, 959. Cic. De Oratore III. 34.

Epist. 7. 97 seq.

ced. But the attempt failed, and had nearly cost Plato his life. The remarks, or the conversation between the two-for writers are not agreed in respect to this point, perhaps it was both intermingled -were on the subjects of despotic government, the higher laws of freedom of action, and that morality, and not selfishness, was the supreme rule.1 Olympiodorus preserves a fragment of the conversation. Whether it is genuine, I cannot say.

Dionysius, who would gladly listen to some flattery, asked, “ Who, in your opinion, is the happiest man ?”

Plato. "Socrates."

Dionysius. "In what consists the duty of a king?"

Plato. "To make better the citizens."

Dionysius. "But does it appear a small matter to you when one decides a law-suit according to the rules of equity?" (Here was a fit of ambition, for he would have gladly heard himself commended, as a just judge.)

Plato. "This is one of the smaller duties of a king, for good judges are like the clothes-menders who repair torn garments."

Dionysius. "Dost thou not believe, that a king, (a tyrant who has placed himself arbitrarily on the throne), is a bold and courageous

man ?"

Plato. "The most timid of all, for he is afraid of a barber's knife."2

These and similar declarations, which were in direct opposition to the principles of a tyrant, made a strong impression on Dionysius, and he trembled on his throne, while he observed the effects which Plato had produced on the many individuals present. To this is to be added his vexation, that he had been worsted in the dispute. In the first heat of passion, he would almost have punished the boldness of the philosopher with death, unless Dion and Aristomenes had together restrained him from it. They conceived therefore that Plato could no longer stay at Syracuse without hazard. They according ly secured a passage for him in a ship, which was about to carry home Polis, a Lacedaemonian ambassador.3 Dionysius heard of it, and bribed Polis either to throw Plato overboard, or if his conscience would not allow him to do that, to sell him as a slave. He was accordingly sold by the treacherous Polis on the island Ægina which

1 Plut. Dion, 959. Diog. III. 19,

2 Olympiod.

3 According to Olympiodorus, he was a merchant of Ægina.

was then involved in a war with Athens. According to other writers, he was sold by the Æginetans. A certain Anniceris from Cyrene redeemed him for twenty or thirty minae. Plato's friends and scholars according to some Dion alone-collected this sum in order to indemnify Anniceris, who however was so noble-minded, that with the money he purchased a garden in the academy and presented it to the philosopher. Although the particular circumstances are not related in the same manner by all the writers, yet it seems to be definitely settled, that Plato once lost his liberty. Plato, indeed, makes no mention whatever of these events, (which must certainly awaken some suspicion), not even when he alludes, though obscurely, to the misfortunes which happened to him on his first tour. In his seventh letter, he says that he had been thrice delivered from great peril which had impended over him in Sicily. The first can be no other than that which occurred in his earliest travels.3-Before I proceed further, I must adduce one or two examples of the negligence with which some of the late writers have compiled their accounts. Olympiodorus relates, that Plato was sold by Polis, at the instigation of Dionysius the Younger. And the wretched compiler Tzetzes, makes out that he was sold three times in the same journey.

CHAPTER IV.

SCHOOL OF PLATO AT ATHENS.

When Plato had completed his travels and had reached the end of their various dangers and calamities, he returned to Athens and began publicly to teach philosophy in the academy. He had here a garden from his paternal inheritance, which was purchased for five hundred drachmae. If now the story about Anniceris be

1 Diog. B. III. 19. Plut.Dion. De Tranquillitat, Animi, B. II. 417.

2 To the writers already quoted, we may add Seneca Epist. 74. Macrob. Saturn. 1. 11. Diodor. Sicul. XV. 461. ed. Steph.

3 Epist. 7. 115, καί μοι πείθεσθε Διὸς τρίτου σωτῆρος χάριν.

4 Apul. 367. Plut. de Exilio, 603, says it was bought for 3000 drachmae. But I conjecture that the transcriber read y, instead of t. [The drachma is reckoned at 8 cents.]

true, Plato must have had two gardens in this place, which also a passage from Diogenes allows us to conjecture. This writer remarks that Plato taught philosophy first in the academy, but afterwards in a garden at Colonus. His academy very soon became celebrated and was quite numerously attended by high-born and able young men, for he had before, by means of his travels, and probably by some publications, acquired a distinguished name. He might indeed have taught some persons in philosophy before he founded his academy, for he says in a letter to Dionysius, which might have been written about the one hundred and fourth Olympiad, that some persons for thirty years had reflected on his philosophy. As Plato came to Syracuse about the ninety-eighth Olympiad, he could not have commenced teaching in the academy till about the ninetyninth Olympiad. The names of his most celebrated disciples are known, so that I need not stop to mention them. The regulation of his school and his mode of teaching were regarded by ancient writers as circumstances so unimportant, that they passed them by almost in silence. By a diligent investigation, I have been able to bring together nothing more than some disconnected accounts, which I here communicate in the hope that intelligent men may employ their talents in uniting these detached fragments into one whole.

Plato in teaching pursued a method altogether different from Socrates, inasmuch as his philosophy, in its contents, extent, form and ob-, ject was very far removed from the Socratic. Socrates wished to quicken and develop the moral feeling. This object he could accomplish in no better manner than by his own ability to exert a direct influence on the hearts of his disciples by means of conversations. Plato, on the contrary, rather labored to give his philosophy a systematic form, since he considered it proved that all knowledge and action must rest on certain grounds which philosophy only could establish. The doctrines of Socrates were of common practical utility, and designed for universal application; to them was fitted a popular delivery. Plato's philosophy, for the most part, was not intended for the public, inasmuch as it contained the scientific grounds of theoretical and practical philosophy, whose results Socrates communicated in the way of conversation. Hence Socrates was a teacher of the people; while Plato founded a school for those who would educate themselves as philosophers. Consequently he could not, as

1 Diog. III. 5.

2 Epist. 2. 72.

his teacher had done, go round to the public resorts, but he taught in a fixed place.1 Ought he not, however, at least to have made the attempt to bring publicly before the great mass of the people some results of his philosophizing, which he regarded as truths generally necessary and fitted to the dignity of man? I find in Themistius a few notices that he actually did something of this sort, and that he lectured in the Pyraeus on goodness, but that he found no adequate encouragement in the mass of people who ran together, and who left him also as rapidly as they had collected. Whether this statement is authentic I cannot say. Plato's establishment very much resembled the Pythagorean school; it had, however, its peculiarities. He required of his pupils no oath of secrecy, and he taught before no fixed circle, not even in a closed chamber.3 Every body had access. In the mean time, whenever he felt obliged to animadvert on various errors in the religion of the people, and to lay down many positions which were contrary to the orthodox system, he was compelled, in order to avoid the perils with which freedom of thought had then so often to contend, either to expound at certain hours his esoteric philosophy to his own pupils only, or to communicate it simply in a written form. We learn from Aristotle, that he gave such a sketch of his esoteric philosophy.4

In respect to the method which he pursued in his philosophical statements, I find two contrary opinions. Brucker believes that it was not different from the one which we find in his writings. Meiners, on the contrary, maintains that he adopted the manner of the sophists.5 But we here want definite information, so that we cannot decide positively respecting it. In the mean time, though Plato did not expound his system by means of conversations, but in connected discourses, still it is not probable that he would declaim exactly in the manner of the sophists, inasmuch as his design was not to excite astonishment, or to make use of persuasion, but to convince by arguments. Hence it is to me at least evident, that his method was the dialogistic, if not universally, still in certain cases, especially in the presence of recently admitted scholars. It was customary then to teach philosophy by means of questions and answers, and no other mode of instruction was fitted so well to his doctrines re

1 Olymp.

4 Aristot. Physic. IV. 2

2 Orat. XXI. edit. Harduini, 245.
Epist. 2. 70, 72.

3 Olymp.

Epist. 2. 70.