Over at Grasping Reality: Lunchtime Must-Read: Plato in Syracuse
Trying to construct the Just City in the Sewer of Dionysios II:
Plato’s Seventh Letter: Live from the Fortress of Ortygia in Syracuse (Brad DeLong’s Grasping Reality…):
“You write to me that I must consider your views the same as those of Dion…
…and you urge me to aid your cause so far as I can in word and deed. My answer is that, if you have the same opinion and desire as he had, I consent to aid your cause; but if not, I shall think more than once about it.
Now what his purpose and desire was, I can inform you from no mere conjecture but from positive knowledge. For when I made my first visit to Sicily, being then about forty years old, Dion was of the same age as Hipparinos is now, and the opinion which he then formed was that which he always retained, I mean the belief that the Syracusans ought to be free and governed by the best laws. So it is no matter for surprise if some God should make Hipparinos adopt the same opinion as Dion about forms of government. But it is well worth while that you should all, old as well as young, hear the way in which this opinion was formed, and I will attempt to give you an account of it from the beginning. For the present is a suitable opportunity… READ MOAR