Volume 48, Number 14 · September 20, 2001
The Lure of Syracuse
By Mark Lilla
1.
When Plato set sail for Syracuse in 368 BC or so, he was, by his own report, of very mixed mind. He had visited that city once before when it was still ruled by the fearsome tyrant Dionysius the Elder, and the voluptuousness of Sicilian life did not appeal to him. How, he wondered, could young men learn to be moderate and just in a place where 'happiness was held to consist in filling oneself full twice a day and never sleeping alone at night'? Such a city could never hope to escape the endless cycle of despotism and revolution.
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