I cannot but think that Plato confounded in his memory the scene and proceedings at Syracuse with the other events, so recently antecedent, at Agrigentum. His letter (from which the above citation is made) was written in his old age,—fifty years after the event.
This is one inaccuracy as to matter-of-fact, which might be produced in support of the views of those who reject the letters of Plato as spurious, though Ast does not notice it, while going through the letters seriatim, and condemning them not only as un-Platonic but as despicable compositions. After attentively studying both the letters themselves, and his reasoning, I dissent entirely from Ast’s conclusion. The first letter, that which purports to come not from Plato, but from Dion, is the only one against which he seems to me to have made out a good case (see Ast, Ueber Platon’s Leben und Schriften, p. 504-530). Against the others, I cannot think that he has shown any sufficient ground for pronouncing them to be spurious and I therefore continue to treat them as genuine, following the opinion of Cicero and Plutarch. It is admitted by Ast that their authenticity was not suspected in antiquity, as far as our knowledge extends. Without considering the presumption hence arising as conclusive, I think it requires to be countervailed by stronger substantive grounds than those which Ast has urged.
Among the total number of thirteen letters, those relating to Dion and Dionysius (always setting aside the first letter)—that is the second, third, fourth, seventh, eighth, and thirteenth,—are the most full of allusions to fact and details. Some of them go very much into detail. Now had they been the work of a forger, it is fair to contend that he could hardly avoid laying himself more open to contradiction than he has done, on the score of inaccuracy and inconsistency with the supposed situation. I have already mentioned one inaccuracy which I take to be a fault of memory, both conceivable and pardonable. Ast mentions another, to disprove the authenticity of the eighth letter, respecting the son of Dion. Plato, in this eighth letter, speaking in the name of the deceased Dion, recommends the Syracusans to name Dion’s son as one of the members of a tripartite kingship, along with Hipparinus (son of the elder Dionysius) and the younger Dionysius. This (contends Ast, p. 523) cannot be correct, because Dion’s son died before his father. To make the argument of Ast complete, we ought to be sure that Dion had only one son; for which there is doubtless the evidence of Plutarch, who after having stated that the son of Dion, a youth nearly grown up, threw himself from the roof of the house and was killed, goes on to say that Kallippus, the political enemy of Dion, founded upon this misfortune a false rumor which he circulated,—ὡς ὁ Δίων ἄπαις γεγονὼς ἔγνωκε τὸν Διονυσίου καλεῖν Ἀπολλοκράτην καὶ ποιεῖσθαι διάδοχον (Plutarch, Dion. c. 55, 56: compare also c. 21,—τοῦ παιδίου). But since the rumor was altogether false, we may surely imagine that Kallippus, taking advantage of a notorious accident which had just proved fatal to the eldest son of Dion, may have fabricated a false statement about the family of Dion, though there might be a younger boy at home. It is not certain that the number of Dion’s children was familiarly known among the population of Syracuse; nor was Dion himself in the situation of an assured king, able to transfer his succession at once to a boy not yet adult. And when we find in another chapter of Plutarch’s Life of Dion (c. 31), that the son of Dion was called by Timæus, Aretæus,—and by Timonides, Hipparinus,—this surely affords some presumption that there were two sons, and not one son called by two different names.
I cannot therefore admit that Ast has proved the eighth Platonic letter to be inaccurate in respect to matter of fact. I will add that the letter does not mention the name of Dion’s son (though Ast says that it calls him Hipparinus); and that it does specify the three partners in the tripartite kingship suggested (though Ast says that it only mentioned two).
Most of Ast’s arguments against the authenticity of the letters, however, are founded, not upon alleged inaccuracies of fact, but upon what he maintains to be impropriety and meanness of thought, childish intrusion of philosophy, unseasonable mysticism and pedantry, etc. In some of his criticisms I coincide, though by no means in all. But I cannot accept them as evidence to prove the point for which he contends,—the spuriousness of the letters. The proper conclusion from his premises appears to me to be, that Plato wrote letters which, when tried by our canons about letter-writing, seem awkward, pedantic, and in bad taste. Dionysius of Halikarnassus (De adm. vi dicend. in Demosth. p. 1025-1044), while emphatically extolling the admirable composition of Plato’s dialogues, does not scruple to pass an unfavorable criticism upon him as a speech-writer; referring to the speeches in the Symposion as well as to the funeral harangue in the Menexenus. Still less need we be afraid to admit, that Plato was not a graceful letter-writer.
That Plato would feel intensely interested, and even personally involved, in the quarrel between Dionysius II. and Dion, cannot be doubted. That he would write letters to Dionysius on the subject,—that he would anxiously seek to maintain influence over him, on all grounds,—that he would manifest a lofty opinion of himself and his own philosophy,—is perfectly natural and credible. And when we consider both the character and the station of Dionysius, it is difficult to lay down beforehand any assured canon as to the epistolary tone which Plato would think most suitable to address him.
[949] Plutarch, Dion. c. 3.
[950] Diodor. xiii, 93.
[951] Diodor. xiii, 93.
[952] Diodor. xiii, 94.