Note 13 — Chapter VIII · PLATONIC COMPOSITIONS GENERALLY.

Of the thirteen Platonic Epistles, Ep. 2, 3, 13, are addressed to the second or younger Dionysius; Ep. 4 to Dion; Ep. 7, 8, to the friends and relatives of Dion after Dion’s death. The 13th Epistle appears to be the earliest of all, being seemingly written after the first voyage of Plato to visit Dionysius II. at Syracuse, in 367-366 B.C., and before his second visit to the same place and person, about 363-362 B.C. Epistles 2 and 3 were written after his return from that second visit, in 360 B.C., and prior to the expedition of Dion against Dionysius in 357 B.C. Epistle 4 was written to Dion shortly after Dion’s victorious career at Syracuse, about 355 B.C. Epistles 7 and 8 were written not long after the murder of Dion in 354 B.C. The first in order, among the Platonic Epistles, is not written by Plato, but by Dion, addressed to Dionysius, shortly after the latter had sent Dion away from Syracuse. The fifth is addressed by Plato to the Macedonian prince Perdikkas. The sixth, to Hermeias of Atarneus, Erastus, and Koriskus. The ninth and twelfth, to Archytas of Tarentum. The tenth, to Aristodôrus. The eleventh, to Laodamas. I confess that I see nothing in these letters which compels me to depart from the judgment of the ancient critics, who unanimously acknowledged them as genuine. I do not think myself competent to determine à priori what the style of Plato’s letters must have been; what topics he must have touched upon, and what topics he could not have touched upon. I have no difficulty in believing that Plato, writing a letter on philosophy, may have expressed himself with as much mysticism and obscurity as we now read in Epist. 2 and 7. Nor does it surprise me to find Plato (in Epist. 13) alluding to details which critics, who look upon him altogether as a spiritual person, disallow as mean and unworthy. His recommendation of the geometer, Helikon of Kyzikus, to Dionysius and Archytas, is to me interesting: to make known the theorems of Eudoxus, through the medium of Helikon, to Archytas, was no small service to geometry in those days. I have an interest in learning how Plato employed the money given to him by Dionysius and other friends: that he sent to Dionysius a statue of Apollo by a good Athenian sculptor named Leochares (this sculptor executed a bust of Isokrates also, Plut. Vit. x. Orat. p. 838); and another statue by the same sculptor for the wife of Dionysius, in gratitude for the care which she had taken of him (Plato) when sick at Syracuse; that he spent the money of Dionysius partly in discharging his own public taxes and liturgies at Athens, partly in providing dowries for poor maidens among his friends; that he was so beset by applications, which he could not refuse, for letters of recommendation to Dionysius, as to compel him to signify, by a private mark, to Dionysius, which among the letters he wished to be most attended to. “These latter” (he says) “I shall begin with θεὸς (sing. number), the others I shall begin with θεοὶ (plural).” (Epist. xiii. 361, 362, 363.)