tre, and about the laws of music. Some thought that
Dionysius acted thus from folly, and indolent love of pleasure, but
others considered that it was in order that he might be looked down
upon, and not be an object of terror or suspicion to the Corinthians, as
he would have been if they thought that he ill brooked his reverse of
fortune, and still nourished ambitious designs, and that his foolish and
licentious mode of life was thus to be accounted for.

XV. But for all that, certain of his sayings are remembered, which
sufficiently prove that he showed real greatness of mind in adapting
himself to his altered circumstances. When he arrived at Leukas, which,
like Syracuse, was a Corinthian colony, he said that he was like a young
man who has got into disgrace. They associate gaily with their brothers,
but are ashamed to meet their fathers, and avoid them: and so he was
ashamed to go to the parent city, but would gladly live there with them.
Another time in Corinth, when some stranger coarsely jeered at the
philosophic studies in which he used to delight when in power, and at
last asked him what good he had obtained from the wisdom of Plato, "Do
you think," answered he, "that I have gained nothing from Plato, when I
bear my reverse of fortune as I do." When Aristoxenus, the musician, and
some others asked him what fault he had found with Plato, and why, he
answered that absolute power, amongst its many evils, was especially
unfortunate in this, that none of a despot's so-called friends dare to
speak their mind openly. And he himself, he said, had been by such men
deprived of the friendship of Plato. A man, who thought himself witty,
once tried to make a joke of Dionysius by shaking out his cloak, when he
came into his presence, as is the custom before despots, to show that
one has no concealed weapons; but he repaid the jest by begging him to
do it when he left him, that he might be sure that he had not stolen any
of his property.

Philip of Macedon once, when they were drinking together, made some
sneering remark about the poetry and tragedies which Dionysius the elder
had written, pretending to be at a loss to know how he found time for
such pursuits; but Dionysius cleverly answered, "He wrote them during
the time which you and I, and all who are thought such lucky fellows,
spend over our wine."

Plato never saw Dionysius at Corinth, for he was dead at that time; but
Diogenes of Sinope, when he first met him, said, "