Volume 4

The works of Plato. A new and literal version, chiefly from the text of Stallbaum ... By Henry Cary [vol. II, Henry Davis, vols. III-VI, George Burges] / [Plato].

Plato

Date:: 1848-1854

Credit: The works of Plato. A new and literal version, chiefly from the text of Stallbaum ... By Henry Cary [vol. II, Henry Davis, vols. III-VI, George Burges] / [Plato]. Source: Wellcome Collection.

521/570 (page 513)

$from paying the rites of hospitality, and from being ^ Mystse and Epoptas.^ Moreover these two, by having brought Dion back, had become his friends, and, from such causes, and the assisting him in his return from exile, his companions. But when, on their arrival in Sicily, they understood that Dion had been exposed by those Siceliotes, who had become free through him, to the calumny of plotting to become a tyrant, they not only betrayed their associate and guest, but became, as it were, the perpetrators of a murder, in that, with weapons in their hands, they stood by to assist the murderers. However, I neither pass by this base and unholy deed, nor do I detail it; for to many others it (has been) ^ a care to hymn it, and it will be so at some future time. But the charge, which has been alleged respecting the Athe¬ nians, how that it was they, who bound this disgrace around the city, I will take away. For I say that he too was an Athenian, who did not betray this very person, when it was in his power to obtain wealth and many other honours. For he did not become a friend through a shop-mate friendship, but through the communion of a liberal education; to which alone he, who is endued with mind, ought to trust, rather than to the alliance of souls ^ and bodies; so that those two were not fit to bring disgrace on the city through having murdered Dion, as being persons of no account at any time. All this has been said for the sake of the advice given to the friends and kindred of Dion. 1 give you besides the same counsel, and for the third time address you three in the same words. Do not place Sicily, or any other city, as a slave under persons with despotic power, but under laws; such^ at least is my dictum. For this is not the better either for the enslaving or the enslaved, or for their paring oi [xiij TrXaarCjg dXX’ ovnog (piXocrotpoi in Sophist, p. 216, E., and dXr]9h)g Kai ov ti TrXaaTojg in Legg. i. p. 642. D. ^^ On the Mystee and Epoptae see at the Banquet, § 34, n. 46. 2 Ficinus has “ narraverunt atque narrabunt,” as if he had found in his MS. ETTifiEXeg ijv—fxeX^asi. But who are the parties alluded to as having hymned these events, is not, I believe, mentioned elsewhere. ® This disparagement of a friendship formed by kindred souls seems rather strange in the mouth of Plato. There is an error here, which it would be not difficult to correct by the aid of the proverb in Suidas, ZeT ;\;vrpa, ^iXia, i. e. “Where boils the pot. There friendship's hot.” Ficinus has “ animorum conjunctioni et corporum consanguinitati.” * Instead of 6 y—Stephens suggested oif y—similar to “ ut—” in Fi¬ cinus. 2 L$