Page:Plutarch's Lives (Clough, v.5, 1865).djvu/262

 254 DION. 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 modera- tion, 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 great navy and standing ai'my of ten thousand hired barbarians are not, as his father had said, the adamantine chains which secure the regal power, but the love, zeal, and affection inspired by clemency and justice ; which, though they seem more pliant than the stiff and hard bonds of severity, are nevertheless the strongest and most durable ties to sustain a lasting gov- ernment. Moreover, it is mean and dishonorable that a ruler, whUe careful to be splendid in his dress, and luxu- rious and magnificent in his habitation, should, in reason and power of speech, make no better show than the com- monest of his subjects, nor have the princely palace of his mind adorned according to his royal dignity. Dion frequently entertaining the king upon this sub- ject, and, as occasion offered, repeatmg some of the phi- losopher's sayings, Dionysius grew impatiently desirous to have Plato's company, and to hear him discourse. Forthwith, therefore, he sent letter upon letter to him to Athens, to which Dion added his entreaties; also several philosophers of the Pythagorean sect from Italy sent their recommendations, urging him to come and obtain a hold upon this pliant, youthful soul, which his solid and weighty reasonings might steady, as it were, upon the seas of absolute power and authority. Plato, as he tells us himself, out of shame more than any other feeling, lest it shoidd seem that he was all mere theory, and that of