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Original / primary: Perseus Eng2
1.309
1.309
Plato to Dionysius wishes well-doing.
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1
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After I had spent so long a time with you and was trusted above all others in my administration of your government, while you were enjoying the benefits I was enduring the slanders, grievous as they were. For I knew that men would not believe that any of your more brutal acts were done with my consent, seeing that I have for my witnesses
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all those who take a part in your government, many of whom I have helped in their times of trial and saved them from no small damage. But after I had oftentimes kept guard over your City as sole Dictator, I was dismissed with more ignominy than a beggar would deserve who had stayed with you for so long a time, were you to pack him off and order him to sail away.
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For the future, therefore, I for my part will consult my own interests in less philanthropic fashion, while you,
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gross tyrant that you are, will dwell alone.
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2
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And as for the splendid sum of gold
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which you gave for my journey home, Baccheius, the bearer of this letter, is taking it back to you. For it was neither a sufficient sum for my journey nor was it otherwise useful for my support; and since it reflects the greatest disgrace on you who offer it, and not much less on me if I accept it, I therefore refuse to accept it. But evidently neither the giving nor the accepting of such an amount makes any difference to you; take it, then, and befriend therewith some other companion of yours as you did me; for I, in sooth, have had enough of your
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befriending.
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Indeed, I may appropriately quote the verse of Euripides—that one day, when other fortunes befall you,
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Thou’lt pray for such a helper by thy side.
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Eur. Fr. 956
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And I desire to remind you that most of the other tragedians also, when they show a tyrant on the stage slaughtered by someone, represent him as crying out—
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Bereft of friends—ah! woe is me—I die.
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Trag. Gr. Frag. Adesp. 347 (Nauck).
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But not one of them has represented him as dying for lack of gold. This other poem also to men of judgement seemeth not amiss—
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In this our human life, with halting hopes,
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It is not glittering gold that rarest is:
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Not diamond nor couches silver-wrought
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Appear so brilliant in the eyes of men:
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Nor do the fertile fields of earth’s broad breast,
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Laden with crops, so all-sufficing seem
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As gallant men’s unanimous resolve.
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Lyr. Gr. Frag. Adesp. 138 (Bergk).
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Farewell; and may you learn how much you have lost in us, so that you may behave yourself better towards all others.