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 sincere admiration and regard for him, but at the same time to have found the Platonic discipline too severe a trial for his own weak and luxurious nature. At last he was allowed to depart, after giving a conditional promise to return, in the event of Dion being recalled from exile. It is said that, as he was embarking, Dionysius said to him—"When thou art in the Academy with thy philosophers, thou wilt speak ill of me." "God forbid," was Plato's answer, "that we should have so much time to waste in the Academy as to speak of Dionysius at all."

Ten years later Plato is induced—for the third and last time—by the earnest appeal of Dionysius to revisit Syracuse; and a condition of his coming was to be the recall of Dion. As before, he is affectionately welcomed, and is treated as an honoured guest; but so far from Dion being recalled, his property is confiscated by Dionysius, and his wife given in marriage to another man; and Plato (who only obtains leave to depart through the intercession of Archytas) is himself the bearer of the unwelcome news to Dion, whom he meets at the Olympic games on his way home. Dion (as we may easily imagine) is bitterly incensed at this last insult, and immediately sets about levying an army to assert his rights and procure his return by force. At the Olympia he parts company from Plato, and the two friends never meet again. The remainder of Dion's eventful career (more romantic, perhaps, than that of any other hero of antiquity) has been well sketched by Mr Grote, who records his triumphant entry into Syracuse, his short-lived popularity, the intrigues and