Letters

rather, if he wrote at all, it was to gratify his base love of glory, either by giving out the doctrines as his own discoveries, or else by showing, forsooth, that he shared a culture which he by no means deserved because of his lust for the fame accruing from its possession. Well, then, if such was the effect produced on Dionysius by our one conversation, perhaps it was so; but how this effect was produced God troweth, as the Theban says; for as I said, I explained my doctrine to him then on one occasion only, and never again since then. And if anyone is concerned to discover how it was that things actually happened as they did in regard to this matter, he ought to consider next the reason why we did not explain our doctrine a second time, or a third time, or still more often. Does Dionysius fancy that he possesses knowledge, and is his knowledge adequate, as a result of hearing me once only, or as the result of his own researches, or of previous instruction from other teachers? Or does he regard my doctrines as worthless? Or, thirdly, does he believe them to be beyond and above his capacity, and that he himself would be really incapable of living a life devoted to wisdom and virtue? For if he deems them worthless he will be in conflict with many witnesses who maintain the opposite, men who should be vastly more competent judges of such matters than Dionysius. While if he claims that he has found out these truths by research or by instruction, and if he admits their value for the liberal education of the soul, how could he possibly (unless he is a most extraordinary person) have treated the leading authority on this subject with such ready disrespect? And how he showed this disrespect I will now relate. It happened next, after no long interval, that whereas Dionysius had previously allowed Dion to remain in possession of his own property and to enjoy the income, he now ceased to permit Dion’s trustees to remit it to the Peloponnese, just as though he had entirely forgotten the terms of his letter, claiming that the property belonged not to Dion but to his son, his own nephew, of whom he was the legal trustee. Such were his actions during this period up to this point; and when matters had turned out thus, I perceived clearly what kind of love Dionysius had for philosophy; and, moreover, I had good reason to be annoyed, whether I wished it or not. For by then it was already summer and the season for ships to sail. Still I judged that I had no right to be more angry with Dionysius than with myself and those who had forced me to come the third time to the straits adjoining Scylla—There yet again to traverse the length of deadly Charybdis; rather I should inform Dionysius that it was impossible for me to remain now that Dion was so insultingly treated.