For with these habits
formed early in life, no man under heaven could possibly attain to
wisdom-human nature is not capable of such an extraordinary
combination. Temperance also is out of the question for such a man;
and the same applies to virtue generally. No city could remain in a
state of tranquillity under any laws whatsoever, when men think it
right to squander all their property in extravagant, and consider it a
duty to be idle in everything else except eating and drinking and
the laborious prosecution of debauchery. It follows necessarily that
the constitutions of such cities must be constantly changing,
tyrannies, oligarchies and democracies succeeding one another, while
those who hold the power cannot so much as endure the name of any form
of government which maintains justice and equality of rights.
With a mind full of these thoughts, on the top of my previous
convictions, I crossed over to Syracuse-led there perhaps by
chance-but it really looks as if some higher power was even then
planning to lay a foundation for all that has now come to pass with
regard to Dion and Syracuse-and for further troubles too, I fear,
unless you listen to the advice which is now for the second time
offered by me. What do I mean by saying that my arrival in Sicily at
that movement proved to be the foundation on which all the sequel
rests? I was brought into close intercourse with Dion who was then a
young man, and explained to him my views as to the ideals at which men
should aim, advising him to carry them out in practice.
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