2. The Deliverance of Syracuse.

Two very illustrious men were engaged in restoring liberty to Syracuse, Dion and Timoleon. The first laid the foundations, and the second entirely finished that great work.

I. DION.

I question whether among the lives of illustrious men left us by Plutarch, there is one more beautiful and curious than that of Dion; but there is certainly none which shews more the value of a good education, and of what great advantage the conversation of men of learning and virtue may be. I shall confine myself chiefly to this point, by making some reflectons on such circumstances in the life of Dion as relate to it.

REFLECTION THE FIRST.

The Conversation of Men of Learning and Probity very useful to Princes.

Dion was brother to Aristomache, the wife of the elder Dionysius. A kind of chance, or rather, says Plutarch, a peculiar providence, which laid the foundations of the liberty of Syracuse at a distance, led Plato thither, the prince of philosophers. Dion became his friend and disciple, and improved very much by his lectures. For, though educated in slavish principles under a tyrant, and habituated to a cowardly and servile subjection; though bred up in pomp and pleasures, and accustomed to a kind of life, which made

all happiness consist in voluptuousness and magnificence; he had no sooner heard the discourses of this philosophy, and tasted of that philosophy which leads to virtue, than he found his soul enflamed with the love of it.

The second Dionysius succeeded his father at an age, when, as [k] Livy says of another king of Sỳracuse, he was so far from being able to govern with wisdom, that he was scarce capable of using his liberty with moderation. He was no sooner upon the throne, than the courtiers took pains to get the ascendant of him, and beset the young prince with continual flatteries. Their whole employment was to find out every vain amusement for him, to engage him continually in feasting, the company of women, and all other shameful pleasures. Dion, being fully of opinion that all the vices of the young Dionysius proceeded only from his bad education, endeavoured to introduce him into good conversation, and gave him a taste of discourse capable of improving his manners. To this end he prevailed upon him to send for Plato to his court. And though the philosopher had no great inclination for the journey, as expecting no great benefit from it, he could not resist the earnest solicitations which were made him from all parts. He therefore came to Syracuse, and was received with extraordinary marks of honour and distinction.

Plato found the most happy dispositions in the world in the young Dionysius, who gave himself up without reserve to his lectures and advice. But as he had very much improved himself by the instructions and example of his master Socrates, the most skilful man that ever the Pagan world produced for instilling a taste for truth, he was careful to manage the young tyrant with wonderful address, declining to oppose his passions directly, labouring to gain his confidence by kindness and insinuation, and studying to make

[4] Puerum, vix dum libertatem, nedum dominationem, modicè laturum. Lætè ad ingenium tutores

atque amici ad præcipitandum in omnia vitia acceperunt. Liv. lib.

24. n. 4.

virtue

sensuality, and the consequential ignorance of every duty, awaking as it were from a lethargy, began to open his eyes, to discern the beauty of virtue, to have a taste for the pleasures and joys of a solid and agreeable conversation, and gave himself up as eagerly to the desire of being taught and instructed, as before he was averse to it, and abhorred it. The court, which is the ape of princes, and conforms universally to their inclinations, entered into the same sentiments. All the rooms of the palace were like so many schools of geometry, covered with the dust the geometricians used in tracing their lines; and in a little time the study of philosophy, and the most sublime sciences, became the general and prevailing taste.

The great advantage of these studies, with reference to a prince, is not only the storing his mind with an infinity of very curious, useful, and often necessary branches of knowledge, but also the withdrawing him from a state of idleness and insolence, and the vain amusements of a court; the inuring him to a life of seriousness and application; the raising a desire in him of being instructed in the duties of royalty, and becoming acquainted with such as have excelled in the art of reigning; in a word, the enabling him to govern by himself, and see every thing with his own eyes, that is, to be truly a king. But this will be always opposed by courtiers and flatterers, as was now the case of Dionysius the younger,

REFLECTION THE SECOND.

Flatterers, the fatal Pest of Courts, and Ruin of

Princes.

What Tully says of flattery with relation to friend

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princes, that it is a most mortal poison. [1] Sic haben dumest, nullam in amicitiâ pestem esse majorem, quàm adulationem. [m] By flatterers he means false and double-minded men, of an easy and pliable disposition, who like Proteus put on a thousand different forms as occasion offers, attentive only to please the prince, constantly employed in studying his taste and inclinations, and reading his desires in his countenance, never laying before him an offensive truth, contradicting him in nothing, and talking always the same language with him. Guards, says an ancient writer, are set round the palaces of kings, to keep off enemies less dangerous than flattery. [n] It deceives the centinels, enters not only into the cabinet, but the heart of a prince, and is industrious to deprive him of what is most precious and essential to his happiness; I mean a wise and equitable spirit, the discernment of truth and falshood, the love of justice and the public good,

[o] It is not surprising that a young prince like Dionysius, who would have found it difficult to have stood his ground with the most excellent disposition, and amidst the best examples, should at last give way to so great a temptation in a court that had long been infected, where there was no emulation but in vice, and surrounded with a multitude of flatterers, who were continually praising and commending him. They began with ridiculing the retired life he was made to lead, and the studies to which he applied himself, as if calculated to make a philosopher of him. They went farther, and took pains to render the zeal of Dio and Plato suspected and even odious to him, by representing them as [p] troublesome reformers and haughty pedagogues, who assumed an authority over him, which was neither fit for his age or condition.

[] De Amicit. n. 91. [m] Ibid. n. 91, 93.

[n] Sola quippe hæc (adulatio) equicquam vigilantibus satellitibus imperium deprædatur; regumque nobilissimam partem, animam nimirum, aggreditur. Synes, de Regno.

[o] Vix artibus honestis pudor retinetur, nedum inter certamina vitiorum pudicitia, aut modestia, aut quidquam probi moris servaretur. Tacit. annal. l. 14. c. 15.

[p] Tristes & superciliosos alienæ vitæ censores, publicos padagogos. Senec. Ep. 123. At

currence of a small number of persons, in the first places or employments about him, and interested to favour each other, to conceal from him part of what he ought to know, and to agree upon certain points, notwithstanding their separate interests, jealousies, and secret hatred, that they alone may be sole masters of affairs, may engross the prince's confidence, and keep him a kind of prisoner, within the narrow circle they have drawn around him. * Claudentes principem senem, agentes ante omnia ne quid sciat.

REFLECTION THE THIRD.

The great Qualities of Dion intermixed with some slight Faults.

It is difficult to find so many excellent qualities in one single person, as in the prince we are speaking of. Greatness of soul, noble sentiments, generosity in distributing his fortune, heroic courage in the field, joined with uncommon temper and prudence, and a vastness of mind, capable of the largest views, a resolution unshaken in the greatest dangers and most sudden changes of fortune, a love for his country and the public good, carried almost to an excess, were part of the virtues of Dion. He imbibed the precepts of philosophy with an ardour, of which Plato says he had seen but few instances; and he studied it, not out of curiosity or vanity, but to know his duty, and make it the rule of conduct.

Though passionately addicted to philosophy, the study of it never diverted him from his duty, [4] as he knew how to contain his passion for it within due * Lamp. in Vitâ Alex. cillimum, ex sapientiâ modum.