[324a]
both by deed and word. Now if you really hold the same views and aims as he, I consent to support them, but if not, I will ponder the matter many times over. And what was his policy and his aim I will tell you, and that, as I may say, not from mere conjecture but from certain knowledge. For when I originally arrived at Syracuse, being about forty years old, Dion was of the age which Hipparinus has now reached,1 and the views which he had then come to hold
1 Dion was about twenty in 388-387 B.C., the date of Plato's first visit to Syracuse; so if this letter was written in 353 B.C. the birth of Hipparinus (probably Dion's son, not his nephew) should be put at about 373 B.C. cf. Plat. L. 8. Prefatory Note and Plat. L. 8.355e.
Plato. Plato in Twelve Volumes, Vol. 7 translated by R.G. Bury. Cambridge, MA, Harvard University Press; London, William Heinemann Ltd. 1966.
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