the seventh letter   

depose Dionysios. These slanders were victorious on that occasion;
they were so once more when circulated among the Syracusans, winning a
victory which took an extraordinary course and proved disgraceful to
its authors. The story of what then took place is one which deserves
careful attention on the part of those who are inviting me to deal
with the present situation.
I, an Athenian and friend of Dion, came as his ally to the court
of Dionysios, in order that I might create good will in place of a
state war; in my conflict with the authors of these slanders I was
worsted. When Dionysios tried to persuade me by offers of honours
and wealth to attach myself to him, and with a view to giving a decent
colour to Dion's expulsion a witness and friend on his side, he failed
completely in his attempt. Later on, when Dion returned from exile, he
took with him from Athens two brothers, who had been his friends,
not from community in philosophic study, but with the ordinary
companionship common among most friends, which they form as the result
of relations of hospitality and the intercourse which occurs when
one man initiates the other in the mysteries. It was from this kind of
intercourse and from services connected with his return that these two
helpers in his restoration became his companions. Having come to
Sicily, when they perceived that Dion had been misrepresented to the
Sicilian Greeks, whom he had liberated, as one that plotted to
become monarch, they not only betrayed their companion and friend, but
shared personally in the guilt of his murder, standing by his
murderers as supporters with weapons in their hands. The guilt and
impiety of their conduct I neither excuse nor do I dwell upon it.
For many others make it their business to harp upon it, and will
make it their business in the future. But I do take exception to the
statement that, because they were Athenians, they have brought shame
upon this city. For I say that he too is an Athenian who refused to
betray this same Dion, when he had the offer of riches and many
other honours. For his was no common or vulgar friendship, but
rested on community in liberal education, and this is the one thing in
which a wise man will put his trust, far more than in ties of personal
and bodily kinship. So the two murderers of Dion were not of
sufficient importance to be causes of disgrace to this city, as though
they had been men of any note.
All this has been said with a view to counselling the friends and
family of Dion. And in addition to this I give for the third time to
you 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