Plato, Letters

[347a] that he has no wish for me to sail away in comfort—in this case would any of them consent to convey me as a passenger,¹ starting off from the residence of Dionysius?” For, in addition to my other misfortunes, I was lodging in the garden adjoining his residence, and out of this not even the doorkeeper would have allowed me to pass without a permit sent him from Dionysius. “On the other hand, if I stay on for the year I shall be able to write and tell Dion the position in which I am placed and what I am doing; and if Dionysius should actually perform any of his promises, I shall have accomplished something [347b] not altogether contemptible—for Dion's property, if it is rightly valued, amounts probably to as much as a hundred talents; whereas if the events now dimly threatening come to pass in the way that seems likely, I am at a loss to know what I shall do with myself. Notwithstanding, I am obliged, it appears, to endure another year of toil and endeavor to test by actual experience the devices of Dionysius.”

When I had come to this decision, I said to Dionysius on the following day— “I have decided to remain. I request you, however,” [347c] I said, “not to regard me as Dion's master, but to join with me yourself in sending him a letter explaining what we have now decided, and asking him whether it satisfies him; and if not, and if he desires and claims other conditions, let him write them to us immediately; and do you refrain till then from taking any new step in regard to his affairs.” This is what was said, and this is what we agreed; pretty nearly in the terms I have now stated.²

After this the vessels had put to sea and it was no longer possible for me to sail; and then it was that Dionysius [347d] remembered to tell me that one half of the property ought to belong to Dion, the other half to his son; and he said that he would sell it, and when sold he would give me the one half to convey to Dion, and leave the half intended for his son where it was; for that was the most equitable arrangement. I, then, although I was dumbfounded at his statement, deemed that it would be utterly ridiculous to gainsay him any more; I replied, however, that we ought to wait for the letter from Dion, and then send him back this proposal by letter. But immediately after this he proceeded to sell the whole of Dion's property in a very high-handed fashion, [347e] where and how and to what purchasers he chose, without ever saying a single word to me about the matter; and verily I, in like manner, forbore to talk to him at all any longer about Dion's affairs; for I thought that there was no longer any profit in so doing.

Now up to this time I had been assisting in this way philosophy and my friends but after this, the kind of life