Letter Four
Plato to Dion the Syracusan: Do well!
320a I suppose that during the whole time my eagerness has been manifest concerning the actions that have occurred, and that I was very serious about their being resolved, for the sake of love of honor for the noble
320b things more than anything else. For I believe it to be just that those who are in truth decent and who do such things hit upon the proper reputation. Now, things up to the present, to speak with god,1 are in a noble condition; but the greatest contest concerns things yet to come. For to be distinguished in courage, and speed, and strength would seem to belong also to certain others, but in truthfulness,2 and justice, and
320c magnificence, as well as decorum concerning all these things—anyone would grant that those who claim to honor such things would appropriately be distinguished above the rest.
What I now mean to say, then, is clear, but we need nonetheless to remind ourselves that it is proper for the you-know-who [pl]3 to be distinguished among the other human beings more than among children.4 It needs therefore to become manifest that we are the very sorts we claim to be, especially since, to speak with god,5 it will be easily done.
320d For it has turned out to be necessary for others to wander far and wide if they were going to become recognized; but the situation around you now is such that people from every inhabited region (even if this is to speak rather exaggeratedly6) are looking toward one place, and in this place, upon you most of all. Since, then, you are being watched by all, be prepared to show up Lycurgus himself as outdated,7 as well as Cyrus,8 and anyone else who ever seemed to be distinguished for his character
320e and regime, especially since many, and almost all those here, are saying that there is a great expectation9 that, Dionysius having been done away with, your affairs will come to ruin on account of your love of honor as well as that of Heraclides, Theodotes, and the other notables.10 Above all, then, may no one of you be of this sort. But if indeed someone comes to be this way, manifestly provide a doctor’s treatment and you [pl] would proceed toward what is best.
321a Perhaps my saying these things appears ridiculous to you, since indeed you yourself are not ignorant; but even in the theaters, I see that those competing [for the actors’ prizes] are spurred on by the children—to say nothing of their friends—if one should suppose that they shout their encouragements in seriousness and with goodwill. So be yourselves competitors now,11 and if there is need of anything, send us a letter. Things here are in much the same state as they were when you
321b were here. But send a letter also relaying anything that has been done by you or that you happen to be doing, as we hear many things but know nothing; even now, letters from Theodotes and Heraclides have come to Lacedaemon and Aegina, but we, as I have said, hear many things about things here, but we know nothing.
But take to heart also that you seem to some to be rather lacking in the proper courtesy. Let it not escape your notice that it is through being
321c agreeable to human beings that dwells with loneliness. Good luck. it is possible to act, but stubbornness dwells with loneliness. Good luck.12
1. See n. 20 to Letter Two.
2. Or simply “truth.”
3. An unusual phrase generally thought to refer either to philosopher-kings or to members of Plato’s Academy, but this is necessarily speculative. It is hard to understand, for example, how Post claims to know that “Plato expects those who have been initiated by him into the mysteries of the true philosophy to be a tribe of supermen” (1925, 144n1).
4. A proverbial phrase. The general meaning is clear enough, but there is some disagreement among scholars over the exact sense of the wording. Plato’s Socrates employs the same idiom in describing Isocrates’s superiority to his rivals at Phaedrus 279a6–7.
5. See n. 20 to Letter Two.
6. Or “impetuously” (neanikōteron) as at 318b5 and 347d8.
7. Lit. “ancient” or “old,” though archaios can have the pejorative sense of “outdated” or “worn out” as it does here and at Hippias Minor 371d4.
8. Lycurgus was credited with founding Sparta’s renowned militaristic and austere political institutions, probably in the late ninth century BCE. For Cyrus, see n. 12 to Letter two.
9. Or “a great hope.”
10. On Heraclides and Theodotes, see n. 28 to Letter Three.
11. From here until the end of the paragraph, every appearance of the second person is plural, including the imperatives “be competitors” (agōnizesthe) and “send a letter” (epistellete). Beginning in the next paragraph, with the imperative “take to heart,” Plato returns to the second-person singular.
12. I render the one-word valediction eutuchei (lit. “be fortunate”) into English as “good luck” here and throughout, but it should be noted that I have consistently translated the root word tuchē as “fortune” in hope of reminding the English reader that tuchē for the Greeks was more likely to evoke the idea of divine fortune (or the goddess Tuchē, i.e., Fortuna) than mere “dumb luck” (even if the latter falls within the word’s scope of meaning). Note also that the verb tugchanein, which I translate “to happen to be” or “to hit upon,” shares the same root.