Letter Six
Plato to Hermias, and Erastus, and Coriscus:1 Do well!
To me some one of the gods appears to be kindly and sufficiently preparing good fortune for you [pl], if you [pl] should accept it well. For you [pl] both dwell as neighbors and have such need2 as to benefit
322d each other in the greatest things. For to Hermias, neither from a multitude of horses, nor from another military alliance, nor even from the further accrual of gold could a greater power come to be in all things than from friends who are steadfast and who have healthy character. As for Erastus and Coriscus, in addition to this beautiful wisdom of the Forms,3 I claim, “even though [I am] old,”4 that they have further
322e need—of a wisdom that guards against the wicked and unjust, and of a certain defensive power. For they are inexperienced on account of having been occupied with us, who are measured and not bad, for a long part of their life. This is why I said they have need of these things in addition,5 lest they be compelled to be careless of the true wisdom in order to take care over the human and compulsory [wisdom] more than they need to.
323a But Hermias appears to me (so far as is possible without my yet having met him)6 to have acquired this very power both by nature and, through experience, by art.
What, then, am I saying? To you, Hermias, I—having made trial7 of Erastus and Coriscus more than you have—claim, declare,8 and bear witness that you will not easily find more trustworthy characters than these neighbors. I counsel you to hold fast to these men in every just way, holding this to be no peripheral issue. To Coriscus and Erastus, I am counseling that you hold fast to Hermias in turn and that you
323b attempt by this mutual holding of one another to arrive at a single braid of friendship. But if anyone among you should at some point resolve to dissolve this—for the human is not altogether steadfast—send [pl] to me and mine here a letter of accusation. For I suppose that, both by justice and by awe,9 the speeches coming from us here, unless the dissolution happens to have been great, would, more than any incantation whatsoever, naturally implant,10 and bind [you] together again in, the preexist
323c ing friendship and community; and with respect to this, whenever we all—both we and you [pl]—shall philosophize insofar as we are capable and as is appropriate to each of us, the oracles just now delivered will come to be authoritative.11 But if we should not do these things—I will not speak to this. For I deliver a good prophecy, and I claim that we will do all these good things, if a god should be willing.
This letter all of you, being three, ought to read—most of all as a group, but otherwise in twos—in common12 as often as, within your
323d power, you are able; and use13 it as a compact and sovereign law, which is just, swearing with seriousness that is not unmusical,14 and at the same time, with the playfulness that is a sister of seriousness, and swearing by the god who is leader of all the things that are and the things that will be, sovereign father of the leader and cause, whom, if we really phi losophize, we all shall know as clearly as is within the power of happy human beings.
1. Hermias ruled the Ionian city of Atarneus in the mid-fourth century BCE. He is often said first to have been the eunuch or the slave of Eubulus, a banker who came to rule Atarneus and left the throne to him. Contrary to the testimony of this letter (322e6–323a1), Strabo (64/3 BCE–24 CE) records the story that Hermias was a pupil of both Plato and Aristotle in Athens before inheriting the rule of Atarneus around 351 BCE (Geographica 13.1.57). His relationship to Aristotle, who spent time in his court after Plato died, appears to have been the more extensive: Aristotle is said to have married Hermias’s daughter, and it was through Aristotle that Hermias developed his political ties to Philip II of Macedon (Diogenes Laertius 5.1.3). The collapse of this alliance with Philip precipitated Hermias’s ultimate downfall. Very little is known about Erastus and Coriscus outside of the Letters. They are said to have been from Scepsis, not far from Atarneus; Diogenes Laertius lists them among Plato’s students (3.46), and Strabo calls them “Socratics” (13.1.54). Coriscus happens to have been the father of Neleus, the improvident inheritor of Aristotle’s literary estate from Theophrastus (Strabo 13.1.54). Erastus is mentioned again in Letter Thirteen (362b2).
2. “Need” translates the Greek word chreian. Generally, I have reserved words related to “need” for the translations of words related to the Greek dei, whereas the word chrē (related to chreia) is translated “ought.”
3. A reference to Plato’s famous metaphysical, ontological, and epistemological doctrine. The word for “Form” appears only once more in the Letters, but in that case it is not obviously a reference to the doctrine of the Forms as it is here (354c5). The long “philosophic digression” in Letter Seven, however, is usually taken to be a summary and explanation of this doctrine despite Plato’s never using the word in that passage (341b3–345c3).
4. Post (1930a) has proposed that this is a quotation from Sophocles’s lost Thyestes, of which the relevant fragment (Nauck fr. 239) has been preserved by Stobaeus. The full fragment reads “even though [I am] old; but wont to accompany old age are mind and deliberation as to what is needed.”
5. This reading appears in the text of some manuscripts, and as a marginal correction in the best ones. The main text of the best manuscripts has instead only “This is why I spoke.”
6. The word for “having met” (suggegonoti) is literally “having come to be together with.” It might mean instead something like “having spent time in conversation with.”
7. The word translated “having made trial of” is pepeiramenos, the same verb I have elsewhere translated “attempt.” The connection should also be noted to words like empeiros (“experienced”) and apeiria (“inexperience”) appearing elsewhere, including in this letter.
8. Or “reveal,” as of a secret (mēnuō).
9. “Justice” (dikē) could also be “just penalty.” “Awe” translates aidōs, “that feeling of reverence or shame which restrains men from wrong” (Evelyn-White 1914, 17n2). Both Dikē and Aidōs were often deified as goddesses; in Plato’s Laws, the Athenian Stranger claims that Dikē is rightly said to be the virgin daughter of Aidōs (943e1–2). This seems to have been a deliberate twist on a line from Hesiod: “Dikē was born the virgin daughter of Zeus, who is renowned and reverenced (aidoiē) by the gods who hold Olympus” (Works and Days 256–57).
10. The main text in all the manuscripts, which I follow, has emphusai, “would naturally implant.” Most editors and translators, however, have followed the suggestion of scribes who indicate that the word should be sumphusai, “would naturally unite” or “would naturally heal [as a wound].” On this reading, the line would run something like, “would, more than any incantation, naturally unite [you] and bind [you] together again” or perhaps “would, more than any incantation, naturally heal [your wound] and bind [you] together again.” Cf. n. 44 to Letter Two on my translation of words related to phusis, “nature.”
11. Or “sovereign” (kuria); see n. 19 to Letter Two.
12. The word for “in common” (koinēi) is related to the word for “partnership” above (323c1).
13. Or perhaps “consult,” in the sense of consulting an oracle (chrēsthai).
14. “Unmusical” translates amousōi, literally “without the Muses,” and so can mean more generally “tasteless,” “uncultured,” or “unrefined.”