Page:History of Greece Vol X.djvu/457

 VIEWS OF DIONYSIUS. 435 the generals, and to name in their places Dionysius, Hipparinus, and others. 1 This latter statement is, in my opinion, the more probable. 1 Plato, Epistol. viii, p. 354. Ol yap npb Aiovvaiov nai 'iTTirapivov upl;uv- TUV SiKehiuTdi TOTS uf (jovTO ev6aifj.6vuf EUV, TpvtivTE TE teal u/ia apgov- TUV upovTeq oi nal Tovf 6sKa oTpaTrjjoi)^ Karehevaav paKkovres Toi)f TTpd Aiovvaiov, KOTU vo/nov ovdsva Kpivavref, Iva 6ij tiovTisvotEv nrjdsvi //^re avv diKij [ifjTe vofiu (JfCTTrorT/, ehev&epoi 6' elev nuvrri Ttavruf d'&ev al rvpavvidff LJEVOVTO aiiToig. Diodor. xiii, 9-2. KapavriKa roif JJ.EV el.vae rrjq up%f/(, erepove 6s e'ifaro arpaTjjyoiic, iv olr ical rbv kiovvaiov. Some little time afterwards, Diodorus farther mentions that Dionysius accused before the public assembly, ani caused to be put to death, Daphnaeus and Demarchus (xiii, 96) ; now Daphna;us was one of the generals (xiii, 86-88). If we assume the fact to have occurred as Plato affirms it, we cannot easily explain how something so impressive and terror-striking came to be transformed into the more commonplace statement of Diodorus, by Epho- rus, Theopompus, Hermeias, Timajus, or Philistus, from one of whom pro- bably his narrative is borrowed. But if we assume Diodorus to be correct, we can easily account for the erroneous belief in the mind of Plato. A very short time before this scene at Syracuse, an analogous circumstance had really occurred at Agrigentum. The assembled Agrigentines, being inflamed against their generals for what they believed to be slackness or treachery in the recent fight with the Carthaginians, had stoned four of them on the spot, and only spared the fifth on the score of his youth (Diodor. xiii, 87). 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 writ- ten 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 pur- ports 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 Platen's Le- ben 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 consid- ering the presumption hence arising as conclusive, I think it requires to bfl