Letter Ten
Plato to Aristodorus: Do well!
358c I hear from Dion that you are now, and have come to be through everything, a special comrade of his, exhibiting a character that is the wisest one with a view to philosophy;1 for it is the steadfast, and faithful, and healthy2 that I myself claim is the true philosophy, and as for the other wisdoms and clevernesses, which extend to other things, I suppose that I name them correctly by calling them “niceties.”3 But be strong and remain in the very character traits in which you now remain.
1. The first two words of this sentence seem to read “I hear from Dion” (akouō Diōnos). However, the whole sentence could also be read “I hear that you are now, and have come to be through everything, a special comrade of Dion’s.”
2. Or “sound” (hugies).
3. Plato here employs an unusual noun, kompsotētas. Isocrates uses the word to refer to refined or ornate literary and rhetorical style (Panathenaicus 12.1). The word is formed from the adjective kompsos, for which LSJ suggests “nice,” “refined,” “subtle,” “clever,” etc., and which appears twice in the Letters (318b6, 361a4).