All this has been said with a view to counselling the friends and
family of Dion. And in addition to this I give for the third time to
you the same advice and counsel which I have given twice before to
others-not to enslave Sicily or any other State to despots-this my
counsel but-to put it under the rule of laws-for the other course is
better neither for the enslavers nor for the enslaved, for themselves,
their children's children and descendants; the attempt is in every way
fraught with disaster. It is only small and mean natures that are bent
upon seizing such gains for themselves, natures that know nothing of
goodness and justice, divine as well as human, in this life and in the
next.
These are the lessons which I tried to teach, first to Dion,
secondly to Dionysios, and now for the third time to you. Do you
obey me thinking of Zeus the Preserver, the patron of third
ventures, and looking at the lot of Dionysios and Dion, of whom the
one who disobeyed me is living in dishonour, while he who obeyed me
has died honourably. For the one thing which is wholly right and noble
is to strive for that which is most honourable for a man's self and
for his country, and to face the consequences whatever they may be.
For none of us can escape death, nor, if a man could do so, would
it, as the vulgar suppose, make him happy. For nothing evil or good,
which is worth mentioning at all, belongs to things soulless; but good
or evil will be the portion of every soul, either while attached to
the body or when separated from it.
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