Dion   

gave was all construed into reprimand, and he was censured for
neglecting and scorning those in whose misdemeanours he declined to
participate. And to say the truth, there was in his natural
character something stately, austere, reserved, and unsociable in
conversation, which made his company unpleasant and disagreeable not
only to the young tyrant, whose ears had been corrupted by flatteries;
many also of Dion's own intimate friends, though they loved the
integrity and generosity of his temper, yet blamed his manner, and
thought he treated those with whom he had to do less courteously and
affably than became a man engaged in civil business. Of which Plato
also afterwards wrote to him; and, as it were, prophetically advised
him carefully to avoid an arbitrary temper, whose proper helpmate
was a solitary life. And, indeed, at this very time, though
circumstances made him so important, and in the danger of the
tottering government he was recognized as the only or the ablest
support of it, yet he well understood that he owed not his high
position to any good-will or kindness, but to the mere necessities
of the usurper.
And, supposing the cause of this to be ignorance and want of
education, he endeavoured to induce the young man into a course of
liberal studies, and to give him some knowledge of moral truths and
reasonings, hoping he might thus lose his fear of virtuous living, and
learn to take pleasure in laudable actions. Dionysius, in his own
nature, was not one of the worst kind of tyrants, but his father,
fearing that if he should come to understand himself better, and
converse with wise and reasonable men, he might enter into some design
against him, and dispossess him of his power, kept him closely shut up
at home; where, for want of other company, and ignorant how to spend
his time better, he busied himself in making little chariots,
candlesticks, stools, tables, and other things of wood. For the
elder Dionysius was so diffident and suspicious, and so continually on
his guard against all men, that he would not so much as let his hair
be trimmed with any barber's or haircutter's instruments, but made one
of his artificers singe him with a live coal. Neither were his brother
or his son allowed to come into his apartment in the dress they
wore, but they, as all others, were stript to their skins by some of
the guard, and, after being seen naked, put on other clothes before
they were admitted into the presence. When his brother Leptines was
once describing the situation of a place, and took a javelin from
one of the guard to draw the plan of it, he was extremely angry with
him, and had the soldier who gave him the weapon put to death. He
declared the more judicious his friends were the more he suspected
them; because he knew that, were it in their choice, they would rather
be tyrants themselves than the subjects of a tyrant. He slew
Marsyas, one of his captains whom he had preferred to a considerable
command, for dreaming that he killed him: without some previous waking
thought and purpose of the kind, he could not, he supposed, have had
that fancy in his sleep. So timorous was he, and so miserable a
slave to his fears, yet very angry with Plato, because he would not
allow him to be the valiantest man alive.
Dion, as we said before, seeing the son thus deformed and spoilt
in character for want of teaching, exhorted him to study, and to use
all his entreaties to persuade Plato, the first of philosophers, to
visit him in Sicily, and when he came, to submit himself to his
direction and advice; by whose instructions he might conform his
nature to the truths of virtue, and, living after the likeness of
the Divine and glorious Model of Being, out of obedience to whose
control the general confusion is changed into the beautiful order of
the universe, so he in like manner might be the cause of great
happiness to himself and to all his subjects, who, obliged by his
justice and moderation, would then willingly pay him obedience as
their father, which now grudgingly, and upon necessity, they are
forced to yield him as their master. Their usurping tyrant he would
then no longer be, but their lawful king. For fear and force, a