[170] Plutarch, Dion, c. 17; Athenæus, xi. p. 508. Plato appears also to have received, when at Athens, pecuniary assistance remitted by Dionysius from Syracuse, towards expenses of a similar kind, as well as towards furnishing a dowry for certain poor nieces. Dion and Dionysius had both aided him (Plato, Epistol. xiii. p. 361).
An author named Onêtor affirmed that Dionysius had given to Plato the prodigious sum of eighty talents; a story obviously exaggerated (Diogenes Laert. iii. 9).
[171] Plato, Epistol. vii. p. 350 F.
[172] Plato, Epistol. vii. p. 350. This is the account which Plato gives after the death of Dion, when affairs had taken a disastrous turn, about the extent of his own interference in the enterprise. But Dionysius supposed him to have been more decided in his countenance of the expedition; and Plato’s letter addressed to Dion himself, after the victory of the latter at Syracuse, seems to bear out that supposition.
Compare Epistol. iii. p. 315 E.; iv. p. 320 A.
[173] Plutarch, Dion, c. 22. Eudemus was afterwards slain in one of the combats at Syracuse (Aristotle apud Ciceron. Tusc. Disp. i. 25, 53).
[174] Plutarch, Dion, c. 23-25.
[175] Aristotel. Politic. v. 8, 17.
[176] See Orat. adv. Leptinem, s. 179. p. 506: an oration delivered about two years afterwards; not long after the victory of Dion.
Compare Diodor. xvi. 9; Plutarch, Timoleon, c. 2.