“Letter Five” in “PLATO’S LETTERS”
Letter Five
Plato to Perdiccas:1 Do well!
I counseled Euphraeus, just as you sent a letter instructing me to, to take care over your affairs and to occupy himself with them. But it is just of me2 also to counsel you with what is called the guest-friend’s and
321d sacred counsel—concerning both the other things you would point out3 and how you should make use of Euphraeus now. For the man is useful in many respects, but the greatest is that of which you too are now in need, both because of your age and because there are not many counselors for the young concerning the matter.
For there is a certain voice of each of the regimes just as of certain animals:4 one of democracy, another of oligarchy, and yet another of
321e monarchy. Very many would claim to know5 them, but for the most part they fall short of understanding them, except for a very few. Whichever of the regimes, then, makes utterance in its own voice, both to gods and to human beings, and makes its actions follow its voice, always flourishes and is saved, but by imitating another is ruined. Not least of all with respect to these things, then, Euphraeus could come to be useful to you, and indeed with respect to other things as well, since he is cou
322a rageous; for I hope6 that he, not least of those who are concerned with your occupation, will assist in finding out the speeches befitting monarchy. Using him for these things, then, you yourself will profit and you will benefit him most.
But if someone, having heard these things, should say, “Plato, it seems, pretends to know what things are advantageous to a democracy, but when it was possible to speak to the demos and to counsel the things best for it, he never went up to utter a sound,” say in response to these things that Plato was born late in [the life of] the fatherland and came
322b upon the demos already elderly and habituated by those who came before to do many things unlike to his own counsel—since, of all things, it would be most pleasant for him to give it counsel as to a father, if he didn’t suppose that he would be taking risks in vain and doing nothing more. “So I suppose,” [you’ll say,] “he would have done the same thing also with his counsel to me. For if we should have seemed to be in an
322c incurable state, he would have bid us a great farewell and distanced himself from counsel concerning me and my things.” Good luck.7
1. Perdiccas III was the king of Macedon from 365 to 360 BCE, some three decades before the ascension of his nephew, Alexander the Great. It seems Perdiccas was still young enough to be under the regency of his brother-in-law, Ptolemy of Alorus, for three years before the latter’s assassination initiated Perdiccas’s own reign (cf. Diodorus Siculus 15.60.3, 71.1–2, and 77.5 with Aeschines, On the Embassy 26–27). The historicity of Euphraeus’s relationship to the Macedonian court is attested by Demosthenes’s Third Philippic (59–65), which provides information that neither confirms nor contradicts anything in this letter. More relevant are the details presented in the Deipnosophistae of Athenaeus (fl. c. 300 CE), who professes to quote from Carystius (fl. late second century BCE). There we learn that, under the influence of Plato’s student Euphraeus, Perdiccas became so enamored of philosophic pursuits that “participation at [Perdiccas’s] common meals was not allowed unless one knew how to do geometry or philosophy,” and that Euphraeus himself rose to considerable power and prominence as a result of their relationship (Deipnosophistae 11.119). Moreover, the story is reported that it was Euphraeus who first persuaded Perdiccas to give Philip II (father of Alexander the Great) his political start in Macedon, resulting in the widespread opinion that “Philip first obtained the kingship through Plato” (11.115). But even Athenaeus, who is hardly one to shy away from gossip-mongering, is quick to cast doubt on the truth of those rumors.
2. Lit. “I am just.”
3. “Point out” translates phrazēis, which I have usually rendered “explain.”
4. Scholars have seen here a reference to Republic 493a6–c8.
5. “Know” here translates epistasthai. In contrast to eidenai (the word I have otherwise consistently translated “to know”) epistasthai refers to a rigorous, even “scientific” form of knowing—that is, to the possession of epistēmē, scientific knowledge. This is the only instance of any form of epistamai or epistēmē in the Letters outside of Letter Seven; see n. 108 to Letter Seven.
6. Or “I expect.”
7. On the valediction “good luck” (eutuchē), see n. 12 to Letter Four.
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