“Letter One” in “PLATO’S LETTERS”
Letter One
309a Plato to Dionysius: 1 Do well!2
After I had been occupied3 for such a long time with you4 and had become most trusted of all in managing your rule,5 you were receiving the benefits while I was enduring the slanders, which were vexatious.6 For I knew that it would not seem as though I had gone along with you in any of the more brutal things that were done; for all those
309b taking part in the regime with you are my witnesses, many of whom I fought alongside, relieving them of no small losses. But, having often kept guard over your city as a ruler with full powers,7 I was sent away more dishonorably than would be proper if you were dispatching a vagrant and directing him to sail away after having been occupied for so long a time with you. I, therefore, will henceforth deliberate in a less humane8 way concerning myself, whereas you,9 “being such a tyrant, will dwell alone.”10
309c As for the shining gold, which you gave in dispatching me, Bacchius,11 the bearer of this letter, is bringing it to you; for it wasn’t even sufficient as a travel allowance, nor was it advantageous as any other means of livelihood, since it would occasion the greatest disrepute for you, the giver, and not much less for me, too, the receiver—wherefore I do not accept it. But it is clear that to receive or to give such an amount makes no difference to you, so take it back and tend to some other one of your comrades
309d as you did to me; for I myself have been sufficiently tended to by you.
And it is a propitious moment for me to quote the saying of Euripides, that when other problems someday converge upon you,
You will pray to have such a man standing by you.12
And I wish to remind you why the majority of the other tragedians, too, whenever they bring forward a tyrant being put to death by someone, make him shout:
310a Bereft of friends, O woeful me, I perish!
Not one has made him perish for a scarcity of gold. And this poem doesn’t seem bad to those who have intellect:
It is not glittering gold that is scarcest in the life of mortals, hard of hope;
Nor does adamant, nor do couches of silver, set before a human being, upon inspection, dazzle the sight;
Nor are the fertile fields of the broad earth, when laden with crops adequate
As is the intellect of good, like-minded men.
310b Be strong,13 and recognize how greatly you have erred with us, so that you may bear yourself better toward others.
1. Plato writes to Dionysius the Younger (c. 397–343 BCE), who took over the tyranny of Syracuse upon his father’s death in 367 and ruled for ten years until being ousted by Plato’s zealous disciple Dion. Letters One, Two, Three, and Thirteen are all addressed to this Dionysius, and the whole Letters revolves around the events arising out of Plato’s relationships with Dionysius and Dion. Letter Seven in particular famously provides a long and detailed account of Plato’s activities in Syracuse, and may be consulted for the sake of giving context to many of the other letters. For a brief summary, see the last section of the introduction, above.
2. This greeting, which appears to have been peculiar to Plato (see Lucian, Pro lapsu inter salutandem 4; Diogenes Laertius 3.61), opens each of the thirteen letters except the third, which instead begins with a discussion of the greeting (see also 339b8–c2, 352b1–4, 360a1–4). (To Dornseiff [1934, 223], this is a sign of the Letters’ artful composition.) No English translation captures the ambiguity of the Greek eu prattein : it is unclear whether Plato bids his addressees to “do good,” i.e., to “act well” in a moral sense, or rather to “fare well” in the sense of “to prosper.” Harward suggests the salutation “covers the two meanings” (1932, 163n1; cf. Morrow 1962, 191n2; Post 1925, 139n1). A kind of reflection on this ambiguity is contained in Plato’s Alcibiades (116b2–d6); see also Charmides 171e7–172a3; Gorgias 507b8–c7; Republic 353e1–9 and 621d2–3; Xenophon , Oeconomicus 11.8; Aristotle, Nicomachean Ethics 1095a14–22; Politics 1325a34–b21.
3. The first word of the Letters following the salutation is diatripsas, the aorist participle of diatribein, “to be occupied.” It refers to one’s spending time in something, but can range in meaning from the negative sense “to waste time” or “to lose time” to the more neutral “to be busy” with something, and even the more specific “to be engaged in teaching” (see Burnyeat and Frede 2015, 147–49). Plato marks the significance of this word by making it begin the Letters: the question of Plato’s habitual “occupation” or “pastime,” and of why he “spent so much time” in Syracuse, is thematic. I have generally used some form of the word “occupy” to translate forms of this word, indicating exceptions in footnotes.
4. Plato employs the second-person plural for the first several lines of the letter, up to and including “spent so much time with you” at 309b5. It should be noted that this is not a sign of formality or deference in Greek, but a true plural: “The Greek address system contains no trace of any type of T/V distinction. There is only one 2sg. pronoun, sú; its plural, humeîs, is never used for a singular addressee in ordinary language” (Dickey 1997, 7). See Morrow 1962, 162; Souilhé 1931, n. 3 ad loc.; Bury 1929, 395n2.
5. “Rule” translates archēn, which can range in meaning from “office” to “empire,” or, in other contexts, “origin” or “beginning.”
6. Or “disgusting,” “hard to take” (duschereis). The word is not related to aganaktō, which is the word I have elsewhere translated with forms of the verb “to be vexed,” but rather to duscherainō, which I have consistently translated by the verb “to be disgusted.”
7. “Ruler with full powers,” here and throughout the Letters, translates the single word autokratōr; see the introduction for the significance of the claim Plato makes here.
8. “Less humane” is an attempt to split the difference between the possible readings of apanthrōpoteron—literally “further from human,” but this could mean “more inhuman” as in “crueler” or “more misanthropic,” “more unsocial.” The line appears to be the source of a tradition that held Plato to have been misanthropic and solitary (Harward 1932, 163n3; Brisson 2004, 79n6).
9. Here and for the rest of the letter, Plato switches to the second-person singular.
10. “Apparently a ‘tag’ from some tragedy” (Bury 1929, 395n2). Harward suggests the lost drama from which this line appears to be quoted may also have been the source of the phrase “in a less humane way” (apanthrōpoteron tropos) (1932, 163n3).
11. We know nothing of this Bacchius. His name is reminiscent of the name “Dionysius,” in that Bacchus was another name for the god Dionysus.
12. The verse and all the others to follow are unattested outside of this letter.
13. This is the literal translation of a valediction so common it is often translated simply “farewell.” It also occurs at the end of Letter Ten (358c7) and near the end of Letters Two (314c4) and Thirteen (363c9).
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