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- [00:00]
Tristan Hughes
Hi, I'm Tristan Hughes and if you.
- [00:02]
Dr. James Rom
Would like the Ancients ad free. Get early access and bonus episodes. Sign up to History Hit with the History Hit subscription. You can also watch hundreds of hours of original documentaries, including my recent documentary All About Petra and the Nabateans, and enjoy a new release every week. Sign up now by visiting historyhit.com subscribe.
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- [02:28]
Tristan Hughes
Hey guys, I hope you're doing well. Welcome to the Ancients. I am just on my way to work now today. Today's episode is all about Plato's Republic and the real life experiences that likely inspired Plato to create his masterpiece. Guys, I found this chap fascinating. It Pushes aside, this portrayal of Plato is almost kind of ethereal and divine like and reveals a much more human character. Something which I found really, really interesting and I hope you guys do too. Our guest is Professor James Rom. He's a professor of classics at Bard College and he's recently written a new book called all about this very topic. I hope you guys enjoy. And let's go.
- [03:15]
Dr. James Rom
The Republic, one of the most famous philosophical texts from ancient history. The magnum opus of the ancient Greek philosopher plato. Divided into 10 books, the Republic delves into what Plato believed was the ideal city state, exploring the central question of what is justice and key concepts like the philosopher king. To this day, Plato's Republic remains as influential as ever. But what inspired Plato to create this work at a time when Greece looked to be in political decline? The answer appears closely linked to Plato's ventures to Sicily and the tyrant ruled city of Syracuse where Plato became an influential thinker and teacher at the heart of the faction riddled royal court. This is a story that tears away the image of a divine perfect Plato innocently musing about philosophy and reveals a more human Plato who made mistakes and became actively involved in civil unrest and conflict in one of the greatest Greek cities in the 4th century BC. This is the story of the Republic and the turbulent life experiences that shaped Plato's immortalized thinking in it.
- [04:28]
Tristan Hughes
Our guest is Dr. James Rom. James, it is such a pleasure to have you back on the podcast. Welcome back. It's been too long.
- [04:38]
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Well, thank you, Tristan. It's a pleasure to be here and.
- [04:41]
Tristan Hughes
To talk about Plato's Republic, but not just the work itself, but also the context. And it's really interesting link to to Syracuse in Sicily if we focus first on the Republic. James. So it's perhaps the Greek philosopher Plato's most famous work. An attempt to dream, craft and construct an ideal state and a utopian system of government and has been at the core of Western philosophy for more than two millennia. James, why has it proved so central to Western thought and to popular imagination?
- [05:13]
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Well, it's that masterwork of Plato. Plato created over 30 dialogues that we still have today, but this one was his magnum opus. He seems to have worked on it over the course of his entire adult life, perhaps four decades. There's an ancient anecdote, probably apocryphal, but still indicative of something that on his DeathBed at age 81, he was still revising the first sentence of the Republic. A tablet was found after his death which had various versions of it that he had been toying with in his last hours. As I say, that is likely apocryphal, but it does indicate that the ancient world thought that he had put enormous effort into this one work, much more so than his other dialogues, and had revised it over the course of his entire life.
- [06:13]
Tristan Hughes
Well, let's explore it and also explore the whole figure of Plato. First of all, James, I mean, no such thing as a silly question, a big question. To begin with, who was Plato?
- [06:25]
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So Plato was an Athenian philosopher, lived in the city of Athens. He grew up in the 5th century, the time of Socrates. And in fact, he was part of the circle of young men who followed Socrates during his walks through the city and his conversations with members of the elite, the political and intellectual elite that inspired Plato's dialogues. So Plato uses Socrates as the principal spokesperson in the dialogues. It's almost always Socrates at center stage having conversations with the leading members of Athenian society. So Plato witnessed a lot of those conversations and was inspired to become a philosopher himself. Then Socrates was executed when Plato was about 30. And that was a traumatic event, of course, and spun him in an entirely new direction, especially as regards political thought. So Plato covered a huge range of territory in his dialogues, in his philosophical treatises. He dealt with cognition, with education, with metaphysics. He's especially interested in politics in the Republic and his other longest dialogue, the laws. And that's really where my account of him focuses, only really interested in that side of his thinking, his political theories and his dream of what we now call a philosopher king. The idea that philosophy was intricately connected to governance and the best sort of leader is someone who has been highly trained in philosophy in the way that Plato imagined it.
- [08:24]
Tristan Hughes
Plato's image that has come down to us today. You already mentioned right at the start, James, that probably apocryphal or that later story added of him, you know, rehearsing the first line of his republic when he's on his deathbed. But do you think, because I read in your book, that the spell of Plato, this vision that so many people have of Plato, I mean, is he viewed as almost this kind of divine philosophical figure? How accurate is this portrayal that so many of us have of him today, as you know, wandering around this very philosophical and high minded figure, or is it a bit too romanticized?
- [09:02]
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I argue that it is romanticized and idealized. Beginning right from the day of his death. His successor as head of the academy, nephew, who took over in his place, put about a legend that he was fathered by Apollo, his human father was, was not his real father. That he was the son of Apollo, which speaks to both his high mindedness of his philosophy and also his eloquence, because he's an incredibly beautiful prose writer and his style is famously elegant and mellifluous. So for both those reasons, both literary and philosophical, he was enshrined as a semi divine figure very early on in Greek antiquity. And then in the Renaissance, that myth was augmented. His works translated into Latin went under the title Opera Omnia Divini Platonis, the Collected Works of the Divine Plato. So that tells you a lot that Renaissance and the Enlightenment considered him a divine figure. And shreds of that myth or that apotheosis are still with us today. He's still on a pedestal in academic circles with yourself.
- [10:27]
Tristan Hughes
Did you go into academia or when starting teaching in academia, was that spell of Plato there? But once again, you know, examining the text and when you delve more into the detail, does that vision start to, I don't want to use the words crumble, but can you start seeing cracks in the whole portrayal?
- [10:46]
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Very much so. And I don't mean to suggest that he should be taken off his pedestal or he should be tossed out with the rubbish or anything like that. My book doesn't portray him in a negative light. It simply tries to complicate the picture, to show that he really is a human being and has some of the flaws and quirks that all human beings have. And when we see him in a historical context, especially in his connection to the autocratic regime in Syracuse, which I'm sure we're going to talk about, one sees a very different picture than one sees in the dialogues. In the dialogues, he never portrays himself. He never puts himself into his dialogues or has anybody talk about him. He doesn't give us access to his inner life or his Persona, so we have to look elsewhere for that kind of access. And he was famously aloof as a person in the few accounts that we have of him from other sources. And he held himself apart both from his city because his academy, his institution of higher learning, was a mile outside the city walls. And in personal terms, in his relations with his fellow Athenians.
- [12:09]
Tristan Hughes
I mean, James, I think the whole fact. One of the things that really appealed to me about doing this interview was, as you say, your work highlights Plato as a human being. And I think very much the idea that he had some flaws not taking him off his pedestal, but I think that makes him an even more interesting and relatable character. So I'm very much looking forward to getting to that part of The. But let's first explore Plato's Republic. Can you give us a sense of the Republic and its structure? How was this masterpiece structured by Plato?
- [12:41]
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It seems to have been an aggregate of different segments. The first book, it's got 10 books. And the first book is very clearly a separate work that was patched on to the rest. It has different speakers and a different sort of tone than the books that follow. And I call it an overture. It introduces the theme of justice. So the alternate title of the Republic is On justice, because the central question it seeks to answer is, what is justice? How do we define it? And why would a person choose justice over injustice, even if they were assured that they would suffer no penalty? Is there something innate about justice that would lead us to choose it over its opposite? So the conversation starts with that question, what is justice? How do we define it? And it quickly moves to a very curious analogy or parallel, that the human soul, in Plato's view, is a miniature version of the city state. They both have the same structure, but the city state in much larger version. So if we want to know what justice is in the soul, and it's hard to find there because it's small, we could look to the city state and find it there. And then when we know what we're looking for, we go back to looking at the soul. So that leads to the project for which the Republic is perhaps most well known, the building of an ideal state, or a perfectly just city state. And that project occupies most of its first half.
- [14:28]
Tristan Hughes
And is this building up to the creation of this idea of an ideal city state? Is it created through the lens or through the scenes of Socrates and his followers debating those themes, such as justice, such as government? And they're kind of going to and fro, to and fro, discussing different ideas and getting more and more into the philosophical weeds of it.
- [14:51]
Fidelity Ad
Yes. And that we should make clear that the two principal interlocutors who are constructing this ideal city with Socrates are Plato's two older brothers, Glaucon and Adeimantus. Glaucon is the principal speaker, and Adeimantus is sort of his sidekick. But both were Plato's brothers, and this is the only work in which he put his brothers in such a central role. And I think that speaks to the importance of this one dialogue for him over all the others. Glaucon's a young man, perhaps in his late 20s. He's some 30 or 40 years younger than Socrates, and he's choosing whether to follow the path of justice as Socrates preaches or to become a political tyrant and seize the reins of power in an unjust way, which, as he says himself, is what people are always telling him he should do. That is, there's a general sense in Athens that this is the best path to a happy life, to have absolute power and do whatever one wants without fear of punishment. But he's looking for Socrates to dissuade him from that and show him that justice is a better path.
- [16:13]
Tristan Hughes
James, we could dedicate a whole podcast episode, indeed probably a whole series, delving into Plato's Republic book by book, but as we also want to get in this chat, to the Sicilian, Syracuse and context of its creation by Plato, if we can almost kind of, don't say skip ahead, books, but. But what does all of this dialogue with these key figures at the center, Glaucon, Socrates and so on, what does it ultimately result in? What is this utopian style of government that they ultimately decide on being the best? The ideal city state.
- [16:50]
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So the ideal city state, in their eyes, is very much less than ideal to us. To live in a free, democratic society with freedom of choice for the individual and the ability to make of one's life whatever one chooses. This is the opposite of Plato's ideal city. He comes to a definition of justice that requires the three different classes of the city, roughly speaking, the producers and consumers, the great mass of the population, the military and political class, and the ruler requires each of them to stay in their place and not try to do what the other classes do. That is, the military class has to absolutely support the ruler, but not try to overthrow him. And the producers and consumers, the economic base, has to simply do their jobs, making pots, raising food, whatever they do, and not attempt to get into government or leadership in any way, shape or form. Wow.
- [18:05]
Tristan Hughes
Sounds very authoritarian, almost kind of North Korean. Something like that.
- [18:08]
Fidelity Ad
Exactly. And I make that exact comparison in my book, that this is statist system that borders on that of modern day North Korea. And it can be criticized, has been criticized in all kinds of ways for its lack of freedom. Plato would respond, we're not interested in the happiness of any one group or individual. We're interested in the happiness of the whole. And this city is the happiest it can be because it stays stable and doesn't change. And change, in his view, would automatically mean deterioration. So it will stay stable and constant over time, and that is as happy as a city can be.
- [18:55]
Tristan Hughes
James, you mentioned this word or phrase a bit earlier. So in his mind, is it this idea of a enlightened Philosopher king at the top of this society.
- [19:05]
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That's right. So in the midst of the construction of this city, Socrates lays out the path by which its military class will be educated. Those whom he calls the guards, the guards will require very strict and highly censored education in order to become philosophical. And we can talk about what that, what that path consists of. But the best of that group, the ones who have the most capacity for philosophic learning, will become the rulers, and we call them philosopher kings. Plato never actually uses that term, but clearly that's what he has in mind, that the most philosophic member of the guard class, after having gone through decades of a rigorous education, will perceive justice in its absolute form. That is, he will glimpse justice as a pure and eternal entity, almost in a transcendent vision, and that will guide all of his decisions as ruler. And he will rule in a totally just fashion.
- [20:14]
Tristan Hughes
But does that almost feel like a different, but kind of similar style of logic to, you know, the societies which thought that their king was basically divine? You know, that giving out of justice in other societies, this portrayal of them as being a higher status, of having communications with higher entities or having that capacity that simply the rest of the population did not, and that is the justification of why they are ruling almost.
- [20:38]
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There is a religious element to the Republic and to Plato's thinking generally, in that he thinks of this alternate world, alternate realm, in which these pure essences which we call forms, exist. And it's a philosopher's task to try to reach that realm mentally and to perceive the forms and to be inspired by them, to be filled with sublime happiness in the way that one might have in a Christian vision of God. So there is some connection there. The difference, of course, is that this is a mental transcendence. There's no sense in which the spirit of divinity, some divine force, is entering into the king or the ruler. He has to reach out with his mind again over the course of decades in order to make a mental leap into this alternate realm.
- [21:35]
Tristan Hughes
And so does Plato also in his Republic, does he detail out what that decades long education looks like so that they can find out who is the right person for the top job?
- [21:46]
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Exactly. Yes, Education is a huge part of the Republic, which is why it's so often assigned, at least in American universities, I imagine in the UK also. In fact, it's the single most widely assigned text in America's top universities, according to a 2016 survey of curricula. It's astonishing how central it is, partly because it is really about education. About what a philosophic mind needs in order to develop in the right way. One starts with geometry, because learning to perceive perfect geometric forms, perfect circles and squares, and to think in abstract terms, not look at drawings on a page, but think of them as having perfect form and obeying mathematical laws. That is the first step towards training the mind to look at the eternals and not at the physical world. And one moves from there to mathematics, astronomy, which Plato says is not done by looking at the stars and planets, but by thinking theoretically about the structure of the universe, where planets move in perfect circular orbits and so on.
- [23:03]
Tristan Hughes
Okay.
- [23:06]
Fidelity Ad
And finally reaching what Plato calls dialectic, which is a kind of a back and forth conversation between two trained minds trying to reach definitions of ethical concepts and arriving at truths that answer all possible objections. And dialectic is the highest form of philosophic learning and leads after years and years to this transcendent leap into the realm of the forms.
- [23:35]
Tristan Hughes
James, it is absolutely fascinating, and as mentioned earlier, we could do a whole episode exploring each of the various chapters of the Republic. And I did not realize that it was the most studied work, classical work, at American universities. I will ask quickly about one event in the work before we move on, because it's so well known, which is this idea of Plato's cave. I hope you don't mind briefly explaining what exactly Plato's cave is and how it fits into the wider republic that we've already talked about.
- [24:06]
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So the cave is an allegorical image of our benighted existence as inhabitants of the physical world. We base our judgments on our sense perceptions of the world around us. But for Plato, that's equivalent to living inside a cave and making judgments about one's path in life by watching shadows projected on the walls of the cave from the light of a fire. Illusory, meaningless, providing no guide to what would really make us happy. Reality, for Plato, stands outside the cave in a sunlit realm, and the sun, in his allegory, represents the form of the good. So there are forms in this transcendent realm of concepts like justice, beauty, courage, and the form that informs them all, that gives them all their goodness, is the form of the good, which really looks a lot like God in our scheme, in a Judeo Christian scheme. It's the sovereign form, and it imparts goodness to everything around it. And if one could get outside the cave and perceive that sunlit realm, one would see that everything else, whatever one had lived by up to that point, was insubstantial and illusory.
- [25:36]
Tristan Hughes
But only if you get out of it kind of thing, and see the world you're not chained to.
- [25:40]
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Yes. And what's fascinating is that the philosopher who reaches that sunlit realm has to then turn back and go into the cave and live in darkness again in order to lead that society, the society of benighted people who don't have philosophy. Because he will be the most just ruler. I say he because we're mostly talking about males in the Greek world. He will be the most just ruler and create the most just society. And so that is a good segue to the main theme of my book, which is Plato's involvement in an actual regime in Syracuse.
- [26:24]
Tristan Hughes
Yes. Well, let's now move on to that, because you've perfectly sum that up to us, James, because does it feel like as we move towards Sicily and the city of Syracuse, that there is real life authoritarianism in certain Greek city states, There are real political events and the state of the Greek world at that time, with the world of the city state and so on, that are central to the inspiration of Plato's Republic. And Sicily feels like one of the key places for that.
- [27:00]
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Exactly. So Plato lived in the 4th century. Most of his adult life was in the 4th century BC, past the time that most of us think of as the Classical age. So the great tragedians, Aeschylus, Sophocles, Euripides, were already off the scene, had already died, and Athens had lost the Peloponnesian War against Sparta, and it suffered enormous damage and it made terrible mistakes in its governance. And Plato perceived a Greek world in decline. Democracies were failing and oligarchies like Sparta were failing. He thought politics had to be put on an entirely different path if the Hellenic world was to be saved. He really saw his mission, both in the Republic and in his voyage to Syracuse, as saving the entire Greek world and perhaps the entire human race from this decline, which would lead at the bottom. He lays out a kind of downward chain of transformations that would lead inevitably to tyranny at the bottom. And once one reaches that point, humankind becomes miserable and there's really no solution.
- [28:20]
Tristan Hughes
And I guess if he had been in Athens at the time of the end of the Peloponnesian War, I guess also seeing the death of Socrates sentenced to death, you've seen the democracy be toppled, then the oligarchy and tyranny all happening in Athens in quite a short space of time. We've just finished doing a series on the fall of Rome, James, and it's so interesting that you had so many Roman commentators even up to the 5th century in the western Roman Empire, who couldn't perceive of like Rome ending or Roman civilization ending. But there are only a few philosophical figures who could imagine a world where it had ended. And almost feels like Plato's similar in his vision with ancient Greek culture. He's doing something which I'm presuming many others couldn't even have fathomed, that ancient Greek culture could actually completely fall at this stage.
- [29:07]
Fidelity Ad
Yes. And he's especially concerned about Sicily, which I call the Greek West. So Sicily at this time was partly settled by Greeks in its eastern half and partly by Carthaginians in its western half. And those two peoples had been at war for over a century by Plato's time for domination of the entire island and therefore of the central Mediterranean. And Plato saw that the Greeks were losing that war and were in danger of losing their holds on both Sicily and southern Italy and losing a huge frontier of their civilization. And his efforts in Syracuse were a determined push to try to stop that slide.
- [30:00]
Tristan Hughes
Well, let's explore then Syracuse now. So as you say, the western Greeks, Magna Graecia, lots parts of the coastline of southern Italy and Sicily, as you've highlighted there, James, And Syracuse seems to be one of the most powerful Greek cities at the time. Do we know much? First of all, if we talk about the sources for this, how do we know about Plato's visits to Syracuse?
- [30:22]
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There's some historical record in the work of Diodorus Siculus, the historian who chronicled the whole Greek world from start to finish, really, who happened to himself have been a Sicilian. His epithet Siculus means Sicilian. And there's bits and pieces in other authors, including Plutarch. But my primary source in this book are the letters of Plato. And that's a rather controversial move because some scholars believe that these letters are spurious, that they were not written by Plato. I take five letters to be authentic and I can go into more detail about my choice there. But these are extremely detailed and personal and concern the episode of Syracuse very closely, especially the seventh letter, which is accepted by most scholars, but not all as Plato's genuine writing. And the seventh letter start to finish. It's a very long work that is longer than some of the dialogues. And from start to finish, it concerns the episode in Syracuse and who are.
- [31:32]
Tristan Hughes
The people that are running Syracuse at this time, because it feels like these are characters that we need to introduce in this story.
- [31:40]
Fidelity Ad
So Syracuse had become an autocracy in about 400 BC, when Plato was about 30 years old. It had been A democracy up to that time. But a charismatic demagogue by the name of Dionysius came to power and quickly established a very repressive, very powerful regime, and then handed that down to his son some 38 years later, who he also named Dionysius. We can call them Dionysius the Elder in Dionysius the Younger. And together their reigns spanned about 50 or 60 years. And that's the time span of my book. And they made Syracuse the most powerful state in the Greek world.
- [32:26]
Tristan Hughes
But, James, it also sounds like these two rulers, I mean, they are tyrants. It almost feels like that's the thing that Plato doesn't want. So why does he go to them in Syracuse? Does he think that they're the people who can fix what he sees as the decline of Greek power in Sicily and places at that time?
- [32:44]
Fidelity Ad
Exactly. So even though they themselves were not philosopher kings by any stretch of the imagination, they had enough power and control over their societies that they could institute a more philosophic regime if they chose to do so. So Plato says in his last work, the laws give me a city ruled by a tyrant, because that's the path to making a just society. That person, with his total control, can institute reforms in a way that pluralistic societies cannot.
- [33:23]
Tristan Hughes
So this idea that you need a tyrant, but then you need to almost fix that tyrant to make them in the mould of what he envisages for the best city state.
- [33:32]
Fidelity Ad
Exactly. And again, in the laws, he says that such a tyrant would need the advice of a wise lawgiver. And if the two of them got together, they might save the whole human race. And that's very much a description of what he was attempting to do by going to Syracuse three different times and dealing with these two autocrats.
- [34:04]
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- [35:56]
Tristan Hughes
Talk us through these visits. I mean, how does it go at the start when he arrives in Syracuse, as you know, a philosopher from Athens, is he able to get the ear of the powerful king Dionysius or the tyrant Dionysius?
- [36:11]
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So we have to distinguish the elder and the younger Dionysius. And the visit to the elder, which occurred when Plato was about 40, does not seem to have made much of a difference in the governance of Syracuse. We have very scant information about what happened between Plato and Dionysius in their conversation, assuming that it even happened. We don't know for sure. I give various versions of it, but they're all very anecdotal. But what did occur at that moment is that Plato formed a very firm bond with a man named Dion, who was Dionysius brother in law, not a member of the ruling family, but a member by marriage and someone who had a lot of influence at court because he was kind of the principal minister in the cabinet, if you will, of the ruler. And Plato and Dion became close. I present evidence that they were in fact lovers and Dion was devoted to Plato's ideas about governance. And that bond endured for decades, really over the course of both men's lives, and would have enormous impact on events in Syracuse when Plato returned 20 years later. In the time of Dionysius the Younger, it was by Dion's invitation, at Dion's insistence, and the relationship was renewed between Plato and Dion and caused a factional split in the court of Dionysius the Younger that widened over time and became a civil war that really destroyed most of the city. So Plato's arrival and his connection to Dion created this gap or this Schism in the royal family that nearly destroyed the city.
- [38:12]
Tristan Hughes
And why does it break out into civil war ultimately? James, you highlighted there, you know, the factional court politics. Does Plato play an active role in the politics when he comes back? I mean, yes, okay, he's teaching someone like Dion, but does that have the effect that actually Plato thinks, okay, if I can't teach Dionysius the Younger or either the Dionysius to become a philosopher king, do I actually need to encourage Dion to launch a revolt and to usurp the ruling family of Syracuse? Can't believe I'm saying this. Was Plato actually involved in a bit of a coup?
- [38:53]
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I raised that possibility in my book. And it's a question that can't really be answered because our principal testimony comes from Plato, from Plato's seventh letter. And he makes the case there that he was really just trying to educate Dionysius and helping Dion to do that, that he and Dion were working in league to make Dionysius a better ruler, a king instead of a tyrant. That can't be taken at face value because the seventh letter is an open letter to the whole Greek world. It's addressed to the followers of Dion, but it's meant to be read widely and circulated. And clearly it's an effort at spin control because by that time Syracuse had spun out of control and was really a disaster for Plato and his academy. So there's a lot of defensiveness and self protection in the seventh letter and his motives are obscured or at least are put in the best possible light. But it's entirely possible that he was thinking Dion would make a much better ruler and be much closer to a philosopher king than this drunken sot, Dionysius, who was famous for his alcoholism. So maybe I could swap one ruler for the other. We can't say more, but that really is a possibility.
- [40:23]
Tristan Hughes
Do we then get a sense, either in Plato's letters or in other sources, as you're saying there, so Dida or Siculus or so on, that Dionysius ii, does he just come across completely as someone who could not have understood the values, or at least in Plato's mind, of being a philosopher king, even though there are attempts that it's just not possible in his mindset? Is that what comes across?
- [40:45]
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It's not that simple. Dionysius the second or Dinah is the younger, is a complicated man and I really get into his character in some depth. He came to the throne or came to power at age 30 and apparently his father had kept him in a kind of seclusion as a young man and prevented him from getting an education for fear that he would become a rival. And he arrives at power under the shadow of his great patriarchal father, who was a towering figure by that time. And there are many at court who want to prop him up and want to steer him one way or another. He seems to have had a real interest in philosophy and to have seen Plato as the path to a more legitimate form of rule and a more secure base of power. But at the same time, he was also a libertine who was addicted to wine, feasting, promiscuous sex, the pleasures of what the Greeks called syracusan tables. Syracuse was proverbial for partying and good times, and Dionysius was at the center of that and, you know, very much addicted to it. So he was a complicated man. Plato says that he had a real passion for learning and later in life actually composed a philosophical treatise and published it under his own name, which gives rise to one of the most curious parts of Plato's Seventh Letter, in which he says, you can't put these things into words. My philosophy is such that you can't write it down. A statement that greatly puzzles students of Plato's dialogues, because what are all those dialogues about if you can't write things down? Well, he's talking directly to Dionysius, who at that time had been publishing under his own name some of Plato's philosophical ideas. You can't tar him with the brush of a simple despot. He was something more than that, but also deeply flawed and compromised by his strange upbringing.
- [43:08]
Tristan Hughes
James, to get a sense of how destructive this civil war ultimately proves and Plato's potential role in it, can you first of all, then give us a sense? We've mentioned in the past already how strong Syracuse is as a city in Magna Glacier with the western Greeks. But exactly how strong was Syracuse at this time in the mid 4th century BC, a time when Sparta, Athens and Thebes further Easter at each other's throats. And before the rise of Macedon, just how powerful is Syracuse in this theater of the Greek world that is often not looked at as much as on the mainland?
- [43:45]
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Turning the clock back to Dionysius the Elder and the establishment of this autocracy, Dionysius the Elder was pioneering some of the techniques and the strategies that later would be used by the great rulers who came to dominate the whole ancient world. Philip of Macedon and his son Alexander. This was really the first effort by a Greek ruler to adopt the magnificence of a Persian King or a barbarian king, to wear purple and to portray oneself as superhuman and also to amass an enormous standing army. So most Greek cities, as your listeners no doubt know, were citizen militias. They formed their armies from ordinary citizens who were not professional soldiers, but were called into service as needed and then went back to their farms or, or businesses. Dionysius used his enormous wealth to hire mercenary soldiers and especially foreign soldiers, non Greeks, and keep them in constant service year round. So what we think of as a professional army, a standing army, and he amassed a force of perhaps a hundred thousand, mostly from non Greek peoples, peoples of southern Italy and of North Africa and Iberia.
- [45:19]
Tristan Hughes
That's something to say, isn't it, James, that yes, we mentioned earlier, like Carthaginians and Greeks on Sicily, but there are their native Sicilians as well, further inland and same in Italy. You've got the Greek cities on the coast, but you've got Lucanians, Samnites, all those native Italian peoples as well, that they do enlist in their army sometimes.
- [45:36]
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Exactly. Yes. This was a true melting pot army. There were Celts, there were peoples of Iberia, as you say, Lucanians and Oscans and the tribes of Italy. It was something the Greeks had never seen before. And of course, these are enormously powerful forces because they're totally devoted to their paymaster. They're much more tractable and reliable than a citizen militia that has its own ideas about how the city should be run. And, you know, there are all kinds of political cross currents. These men are only interested in pay and Dinesh has had enough money that he could keep them all happy. And actually, we have a lot of very amusing stories about how Dionysius amassed his wealth and kept the revenue stream flowing so that he could pay these troops. He was shaking down his city right and left and coining money out of bronze and forcing the legislature to declare that it had the same value as silver. So there's your first fiat currency in Western financial history. So the army was enormously powerful, the navy. He built perhaps 300 ships and controlled the seas of the central Mediterranean and established his own base, his fortress, if you like, on an incredibly strong position, a peninsula off of the mainland of Sicily that was only attached by a tiny isthmus, a place that the Syracusans called the island because it was originally an island when was then connected by a causeway. And this became built up and fortified by Dionysius into a base from which he could not be starved out or forced out, or it could not be taken by storm. It was almost impregnable this is a.
- [47:33]
Tristan Hughes
Syracuse and empire, isn't it, which endures with his son Dionysius ii. And I think I remember reading a long time ago, think back at university, how it might stretch as far as northwest Greece and Epirus, and like the Syracusans wanting to get a friendly monarch on one of the thrones there very briefly, just because I thought this was just a really cool fact that I had no idea about. Is it true that one of those monarchs tries to build almost a Hadrian's Wall equivalent across the southern part of Italy?
- [48:02]
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Yes. Dionysius the Elder attempted that wall, the place where the foot of the Italian boot is narrower. There's a bit of a pinch in the middle, about 22 miles across, and Dionysius attempted to build a wall there such that the entire toe half of the boot would be attached more or less to his Sicilian holdings. And even though they were politically attached, they were part of his empire. He wanted a firm boundary there that couldn't be broached. He didn't succeed in that wall, but still the scope of his ambitions are astounding.
- [48:53]
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- [49:24]
Holly Fry
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- [50:13]
Tristan Hughes
James so you've given us a sense of just how powerful Syracuse was and that power first established by Dionysius I and endures with his son Dionysius ii. So how does it all end up with civil war? And how destructive is this civil war with Plato's role in it?
- [50:31]
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So I talked of Plato's relationship to Dion, which seems to have been both a very close philosophical bond, a shared set of ideals, and a romantic relationship, because there's evidence which I discuss is not fully accepted, but I think convincing that Plato and Dion were lovers. That bond created mistrust in the ruler Dionysius the younger, and the hardliners who wanted him to preserve an absolute rule and who benefited from his power. So the court was driven by faction, and the hardliners began whispering in the ruler's ear that Plato and Dion were out to overthrow him. And as we discussed, there may have been a kernel of truth to that, or at least it was easy to make it look that way. Dionysius threw Dion out of Syracuse, found a pretext to banish him, and that left Plato stranded by himself in what was now a hostile court, a very uncomfortable position from which he managed to extricate himself, but only after giving a promise that he would return to Syracuse, provided that Dion was also allowed to return. So he's forced to take Dion's side and to try to protect Dion's interest, because he felt responsible for Dion's banishment, which he really was, in part. So this all happened in about 365. Five years later, Plato is called back, but without a summons to Dion, without a recall of Dion, and decides to go in case he can help advance Dayon's cause by being present by appeasing the ruler and coming at his call. That created another factional split in which Plato and those who were part of Dion's faction were perceived as enemies of the regiment. And Plato got into even more difficulties and really was in danger of losing his life, had to be rescued in a kind of emergency operation to extricate him. And at the same time, Dion's entire estate was sold off by the tyrant and its proceeds were seized. Dion, at this point realizes he's lost everything, unless he does something to retake his position and reclaim his family and his estate. And he launches an invasion of Sicily in the early 350s. And that leads to an ouster of Dionysius and Dion's takeover of the city, but without being able to take the island. So I spoke of the island as an impregnable fortress where the tyrant had established a secure base of power, had stocked it with soldiers, weapons, food, water, all the supplies needed to last out a siege. And that place could not be taken by Dayon's forces. So you get a split city with the mainland portion in Dion's hands and the island in the hands of the forces of the tyrant. And those two positions were neither was able to overcome the other. And eventually they ended up fighting a Civil war.
- [54:19]
Tristan Hughes
Wow. And Plato's watching on and what happens? I mean, who ultimately emerges the victor of this civil war and how? Because I'm guessing whoever wins that will affect Plato and, you know, whether he stays in Syracuse in Sicily any longer.
- [54:34]
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Exactly. So Plato is clearly horrified by these developments because he is very much at the center and could really be held to blame. And it's clear from the seventh letter that some people did blame him and he's at pains to exculpate himself. The battle goes on for years, and I don't want to give too much away, because part of the pleasure of this story is that very few people will know its outcome. And it gets very suspenseful. And there's back and forth for years, and total of five different rulers take power one after another. And finally Dionysius comes back to power. Just when he seemed to be on the ropes, he manages to get back in. But even that is not the end of the story because he has a final chapter in which. And again, I won't give too much away, but let's just say he becomes a music teacher in Corinth. And how that happens is really a very curious story.
- [55:41]
Tristan Hughes
We won't give too much away, as you say, because your book explains all of that, but you have set the scene brilliantly to Plato's involvement and how it ultimately leads to this catastrophic civil war for what was the most powerful Greek city state of the time, one we don't usually think of because it was not on the mainland, but Syracuse was incredibly powerful. I can also imagine the Carthaginians rubbing their hands on the sideline or freaking out a bit if their trade partner is going through all this crisis. So who knows there? That's another discussion entirely. James, this has been brilliant. I said I don't want to ask too many questions because all of those things will be in the book. But I will ask to bring us back to the Republic at the end. How much of an influence do you think this extraordinary chapter in Plato's life does have, especially if he was originally going to Syracuse with this idea of trying to fix a tyrant to become a philosophical king? How much of an impact do you think this whole Syracuse episode has on Plato and his creating of his most famous work, the Republic?
- [56:44]
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I think it has huge impact, Tristan, more than has really been acknowledged. He has Socrates say in the Republic at one point, he's discussing different kinds of regime, and one that's really portrayed in the most depth is tyranny. And the figure he calls the tyrant sort of generic tyrant. And when he's starting this description of the tyrant, he has Socrates say, well, shouldn't we all really listen to someone who's lived with a tyrant and who's seen him in his private capacity and understands what that kind of personality is all about? And everyone who's listening says, yes, that's the person we should listen to. And it's clear that that is a winking reference to Plato's own experience. He doesn't represent himself in the dialogue, but this is as though he's speaking to us from off stage. And I think the description of the tyrant that follows is very much based on on his experience of the Dionysius regime. Its strategies are foremost there among the ways that the tyrant governs. His effort to portray the tyrant as the least happy man of all human types. He's literally 729 times less happy. And there's a mathematical formula by which this figure is arrived at than the philosopher. His effort to thrust this tyrant into the very lowest depths of the human condition is in a way his revenge or his answer to what he had experienced at the hands of the Dionysi.
- [58:34]
Tristan Hughes
Revenge. But could you also then say redemption is the Republic almost Plato's redemption arc? You mentioned earlier how you know, this reveals Plato more as a person, not as this divine figure so often portrayed as, but you know, someone who has flaws and has made missteps in the past. And the republic at the end is ultimately, you know, his redemption arc.
- [58:54]
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Yes, redemption is a good word and also self protection because as I say, he was under a cloud of disreputed for his involvement in Syracuse. And both this work, the Republic and the laws, show him trying to put his involvement in the best possible light.
- [59:15]
Tristan Hughes
James, this has been such a fascinating interview into their lives. I must admit I haven't done much work on Plato at all. So it's been fascinating to learn more about his republic, but also of course, his links to the western Greeks, in particular the tyrants of Syracuse. James, last but certainly not least, your book about all of this in so much more exciting detail.
- [59:37]
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It is called Plato and the Tyrant. The Fall of Greece's Greatest Dynasty and the Making of a Philosophic Masterpiece.
- [59:45]
Tristan Hughes
Well, there we go. James, it just goes to me to say thank you so much for taking the time to come back on the podcast.
- [59:51]
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Well, thank you, Tristan. It's been a pleasure.
- [59:58]
Tristan Hughes
Well, there you go.
- [59:59]
Dr. James Rom
There was Dr. James Rom talking through the story of Plato's Republic and how his creation is very much linked to Plato's real life experiences in Sicily in the great Greek city state of Syracuse. I hope you enjoy the episode.
- [60:12]
Tristan Hughes
I found it so interesting a topic.
- [60:15]
Dr. James Rom
I knew next to nothing about before doing the recording. Thank you for listening to the episode. Please follow the Ancients on Spotify or.
- [60:22]
Tristan Hughes
Wherever you get your podcasts.
- [60:23]
Dr. James Rom
If you'd also be kind enough to leave us a comment and a rating.
- [60:26]
Tristan Hughes
Well, we'd really appreciate that.
- [60:28]
Dr. James Rom
Don't forget, you can also listen to us and all of History Hit's podcasts ad free and also watch hundreds of TV documentaries when you subscribe@historyhit.com subscribe that's all from me.
- [60:39]
Tristan Hughes
I'll see you in the next episode. Packages by Expedia.
- [60:55]
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Huh, that sounds easier than I thought.
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Holly Fry
Investing involves risk, including risk of loss. Fidelity Brokerage Services, LLC Member nyse, SIPC.