THE SEVENTH LETTER [7]
the same advice and counsel which I have given twice before to
others-not to enslave Sicily or any other State to despots-this my
counsel but-to put it under the rule of laws-for the other course is
better neither for the enslavers nor for the enslaved, for themselves,
their children's children and descendants; the attempt is in every way
fraught with disaster. It is only small and mean natures that are bent
upon seizing such gains for themselves, natures that know nothing of
goodness and justice, divine as well as human, in this life and in the
next.
These are the lessons which I tried to teach, first to Dion,
secondly to Dionysios, and now for the third time to you. Do you
obey me thinking of Zeus the Preserver, the patron of third
ventures, and looking at the lot of Dionysios and Dion, of whom the
one who disobeyed me is living in dishonour, while he who obeyed me
has died honourably. For the one thing which is wholly right and noble
is to strive for that which is most honourable for a man's self and
for his country, and to face the consequences whatever they may be.
For none of us can escape death, nor, if a man could do so, would
it, as the vulgar suppose, make him happy. For nothing evil or good,
which is worth mentioning at all, belongs to things soulless; but good
or evil will be the portion of every soul, either while attached to
the body or when separated from it.
And we should in very truth always believe those ancient and
sacred teachings, which declare that the soul is immortal, that it has
judges, and suffers the greatest penalties when it has been
separated from the body. Therefore also we should consider it a lesser
evil to suffer great wrongs and outrages than to do them. The covetous
man, impoverished as he is in the soul, turns a deaf ear to this
teaching; or if he hears it, he laughs it to scorn with fancied
superiority, and shamelessly snatches for himself from every source
whatever his bestial fancy supposes will provide for him the means
of eating or drinking or glutting himself with that slavish and
gross pleasure which is falsely called after the goddess of love. He
is blind and cannot see in those acts of plunder which are accompanied
by impiety what heinous guilt is attached to each wrongful deed, and
that the offender must drag with him the burden of this impiety
while he moves about on earth, and when he has travelled beneath the
earth on a journey which has every circumstance of shame and misery.
It was by urging these and other like truths that I convinced
Dion, and it is I who have the best right to be angered with his
murderers in much the same way as I have with Dionysios. For both they
and he have done the greatest injury to me, and I might almost say
to all mankind, they by slaying the man that was willing to act
righteously, and he by refusing to act righteously during the whole of
his rule, when he held supreme power, in which rule if philosophy
and power had really met together, it would have sent forth a light to
all men, Greeks and barbarians, establishing fully for all the true
belief that there can be no happiness either for the community or
for the individual man, unless he passes his life under the rule of
righteousness with the guidance of wisdom, either possessing these
virtues in himself, or living under the rule of godly men and having
received a right training and education in morals. These were the aims
which Dionysios injured, and for me everything else is a trifling
injury compared with this.
The murderer of Dion has, without knowing it, done the same as
Dionysios. For as regards Dion, I know right well, so far as it is
possible for a man to say anything positively about other men, that,
if he had got the supreme power, he would never have turned his mind
to any other form of rule, but that, dealing first with Syracuse,
his own native land, when he had made an end of her slavery, clothed
her in bright apparel, and given her the garb of freedom,
others-not to enslave Sicily or any other State to despots-this my
counsel but-to put it under the rule of laws-for the other course is
better neither for the enslavers nor for the enslaved, for themselves,
their children's children and descendants; the attempt is in every way
fraught with disaster. It is only small and mean natures that are bent
upon seizing such gains for themselves, natures that know nothing of
goodness and justice, divine as well as human, in this life and in the
next.
These are the lessons which I tried to teach, first to Dion,
secondly to Dionysios, and now for the third time to you. Do you
obey me thinking of Zeus the Preserver, the patron of third
ventures, and looking at the lot of Dionysios and Dion, of whom the
one who disobeyed me is living in dishonour, while he who obeyed me
has died honourably. For the one thing which is wholly right and noble
is to strive for that which is most honourable for a man's self and
for his country, and to face the consequences whatever they may be.
For none of us can escape death, nor, if a man could do so, would
it, as the vulgar suppose, make him happy. For nothing evil or good,
which is worth mentioning at all, belongs to things soulless; but good
or evil will be the portion of every soul, either while attached to
the body or when separated from it.
And we should in very truth always believe those ancient and
sacred teachings, which declare that the soul is immortal, that it has
judges, and suffers the greatest penalties when it has been
separated from the body. Therefore also we should consider it a lesser
evil to suffer great wrongs and outrages than to do them. The covetous
man, impoverished as he is in the soul, turns a deaf ear to this
teaching; or if he hears it, he laughs it to scorn with fancied
superiority, and shamelessly snatches for himself from every source
whatever his bestial fancy supposes will provide for him the means
of eating or drinking or glutting himself with that slavish and
gross pleasure which is falsely called after the goddess of love. He
is blind and cannot see in those acts of plunder which are accompanied
by impiety what heinous guilt is attached to each wrongful deed, and
that the offender must drag with him the burden of this impiety
while he moves about on earth, and when he has travelled beneath the
earth on a journey which has every circumstance of shame and misery.
It was by urging these and other like truths that I convinced
Dion, and it is I who have the best right to be angered with his
murderers in much the same way as I have with Dionysios. For both they
and he have done the greatest injury to me, and I might almost say
to all mankind, they by slaying the man that was willing to act
righteously, and he by refusing to act righteously during the whole of
his rule, when he held supreme power, in which rule if philosophy
and power had really met together, it would have sent forth a light to
all men, Greeks and barbarians, establishing fully for all the true
belief that there can be no happiness either for the community or
for the individual man, unless he passes his life under the rule of
righteousness with the guidance of wisdom, either possessing these
virtues in himself, or living under the rule of godly men and having
received a right training and education in morals. These were the aims
which Dionysios injured, and for me everything else is a trifling
injury compared with this.
The murderer of Dion has, without knowing it, done the same as
Dionysios. For as regards Dion, I know right well, so far as it is
possible for a man to say anything positively about other men, that,
if he had got the supreme power, he would never have turned his mind
to any other form of rule, but that, dealing first with Syracuse,
his own native land, when he had made an end of her slavery, clothed
her in bright apparel, and given her the garb of freedom,