attained a principal authority in their little state, and Plato recommends to them here to cultivate the friendship of Hermias their neighbour, and sovereign of Assus and Atarneus, two strong towns on the coast of the Sinus Adramyttenus near the foot of Ida. Coriscus had also been scholar to Plato, though an eunuch, and slave to Eubulus, a Bithynian and a banker. His master, having found means to erect a little principality in the places before mentioned, made Hermias his heir. He gave his niece Pythias in marriage to Aristotle, who lived with him near three years, till Ol. 107, 4, about which time Memnon, the Rhodian general to the Persian king, by a base treachery got him into his hands, and sending him to court he was there hanged. See Strabo xiii. p. 610, and Suidas. Aristotle wrote his epitaph, and a beautiful ode or hymn in honour to his memory, which are still extant.

EPISTLE VII. OL. 105, 4.

Callippus, after the treacherous murder of Dion, was attacked in Syracuse by the friends of that great man, but they were worsted by him and his party; and being driven out they fled to the Leontini, and he maintained his power in the city for thirteen months, as we learn from Diodor. Sic. xvi. 36; until Hipparinus, nephew to Dion, and half-brother to Dionysius, found means to assemble troops; and while Callippus was engaged in the siege of Catana, he, at the head of Dion's party, re-entered Syracuse, and kept possession of it for two years. At the end of which time, Hipparinus in a drunken debauch was assassinated, but by whom I do not find; and his younger brother, Nysæus, succeeded to his power, and made the most arbitrary use of it for near five years; when Dionysius, returning from Locri, as stated by Plutarch in the Life of Timoleon, became once more master of Syracuse, and, as it seems, put Nysæus to death.

Who were the friends of Dion to whom Plato writes, it is hard to enumerate. The principal were his son Hipparinus, and his sister's son, likewise called Hipparinus, and his brother, Megacles, if living, though I rather imagine he had been killed in the course of the war before the death of Dion; and Nicetas, who afterwards was tyrant of the Leontines.

Plato was about forty years of age when first he came to Syracuse. His fortieth year was Ol. 97, 4.

NOTES ON THE GREEK TEXT.

P. 324. Relations and acquaintances.] Critias, a man as remarkable for the brightness of his parts as for the depravity of his manners and for the hardness of his heart, was Plato's second cousin by the mother's side; and Charmides, the son of Glauco, was his uncle, brother to his mother Perictione. The first was one of the Thirty, the latter one of the Ten, and both were slain in the same action. Plato's family were deeply engaged in the oligarchy; for Callæschrus, as we learn from Lysias in Eratosthen. p. 215, his great-uncle, had been a principal man in the Council of Four Hundred. (Ol. 92, 1.) It is a strong proof of Plato's honesty and resolution, that his nearest relations could not seduce him to share in their power or in their crimes at that age. His uncle, though a great friend of Socrates and of a very amiable character, had not the same strength of mind.

Ib. Against one of the citizens.] The Thirty, during the short time of their magistracy, which was less than a year, put fifteen hundred persons to death, as we learn from Isocrates in Areopag. p. 153, most of whom were innocent, and they obliged about five thousand more to fly. The prisoner here meant was Leo, the Salaminian. See Apolog. p. 32.

P. 328. And not as some imagined.] Plato had been most severely reflected upon for passing his time at the court of Dionysius. Athenæus, whose book is highly valuable for the numberless fragments of excellent authors, now lost, of which it is composed, has preserved abundance of scandal on this head, in xi. p. 507. This and the third Epistle are Plato's justification of himself, and are written with a design to clear his character.

P. 342.] I know not what to say to this very uncommon opinion of Plato, that no philosopher should put either his system, or the method of attaining to a knowledge of it, into writing. The arguments he brings in support of it are obscure beyond my comprehension. All I conceive is, that he means to show how inadequate words are to express our ideas, and how poor a representation even our ideas are of the essence of things. What he says on the bad effects which a half-strained and superficial knowledge produces in ordinary minds, is certainly very just and very fine. See the Phædrus, p. 274-276, where he compares all written arts to the gardens of Adonis, which look gay and verdant, but, having no depth of earth, soon wither away. Lord Bacon, in Nov. Organ. i. 43 and 59, expresses himself strongly on this head. See Book i. App. 43 and 50, Bohn's Edition.

EPISTLE VIII. OL. 105, 4.

From this Epistle, p. 364, it appears that Plato and Herodotus make Lycurgus the author of the institution of the Ephori, and not Theopompus, as later writers do. See Aristot. Politic. v. c. 11.

名

NOTES ON THE GREEK TEXT.

P. 353. Opici.] The ancient inhabitants of Campania, particularly that country which lies round the Bay of Naples. See Aristot. Politic. viii. 10. In a passage cited from Aristotle by Dionys. Halic. i. p. 57, he seems to extend the name to all the inhabitants of that coast to the south of the Tuscans. Aristotle mentions the Opici as the same people with the Ausones. But Polybius judged them to be a distinct people. See Strabo, v. p. 242. The Siculi probably might speak the same tongue, having been driven out of Italy, as we learn from Thucyd. vi., by these Opici some years after the Trojan war, and settling in a part of this island. This name grew into a term of reproach, which the more polished Greeks bestowed upon the Romans, as Cato the censor complains in Pliny, xxix. 1, "Nos quoque dictant barbaros, et spurciùs nos quam alios Opicos appellatione fœdant;" and in time it became a Latin word to signify barbarous and illiterate.

P. 355. My own son.] This directly contradicts both Plutarch and Cornelius Nepos, who particularly describe the tragical end of Hipparinus, Dion's son, when just arrived at man's estate. All that story, and the apparition which preceded it, must be false, if this epistle be genuine, which I see no reason, but this, for doubting. The only way to reconcile the matter is, by supposing that Plato might here mean the infant son of Dion, who was born after his father's death; and who was not yet destroyed by Hicetas, for Plutarch intimates, that he continued to treat both the child and its mother well for a considerable time after the expulsion of Callippus. What makes against this supposition is, that in the end of this letter, p. 357, he speaks of Dion's son, as of a person fit to judge of, and to approve, the scheme of government which he has proposed to all parties.

EPISTLE IX.

NOTE ON THE GREEK TEXT.

P. 358. Each of us is born not for himself alone, &c.] This fine sentiment is quoted by Cicero De Officiis, i. 7, and again, De Finibus, ii. 14, so that the 7th, the 4th, and this epistle, are of an authority not to be called in question.

EPISTLE XII.

This epistle is marked in the first editions of Plato as spurious: and so it is in a Vatican MS. Serranus sees mysteries here, where there are none. The same is said also of the 13th Epistle: but there seems no reason for it.

EPISTLE XIII. OL. 303, 3 or 4.

In order of time this is the second epistle in the collection. It is marked in the MSS. as spurious, and, I must own, it does little honour to Plato's memory; yet it is sure that Plutarch esteemed it genuine. He cites T. i. p. 966, E., a passage from it relating to Areté, the wife of Dion; and in T. ii. p. 474, D., he mentions the character of Helico the Cyzicenian, which is to be found here. I know not what to determine; unless we suppose some parts of it to be inserted afterwards by some idle sophist who was an enemy to Plato's character. It is observable, that Plutarch, in the place last mentioned, says it was written at the end of the epistle, whereas the words alluded to are here not far from the beginning. Possibly some fragments of the true epistle might remain, which were patched together and supplied by some trifler.

NOTE ON THE GREEK TEXT.

P. 362. The expensive linen of Amorgus.] The fine linen of Amorgos, of which they made tunics for women, was transparent. See Aristoph. Lysist. vss. 46, 150, and 736, where the Scholia call the plant of which the thread was made, ǹ λivokaλáμŋ, and say, that it was in fineness ὑπὲρ τὴν βύσσον, ἢ τὴν κάρπασον : they were dyed of a bright red colour.

INDEX.

Adimantus, a friend of Socrates, i. Agricultural laws for the model