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0852 Anc.Soc. 10 De Blois POLITICAL CONCEPTS IN PLUTARCH’S DION AND TIMOLEON This paper focuses on three important political concepts which Plutarch employs in his Dion and Timoleon. First, especially in the Dion, the wise man as opposed to the tyrant. Secondly the tension between policies guided by sound philosophical and moral principles on the one hand and wrongly materialistically oriented mobs — people or soldiers — on the other hand, and thirdly the causes of failure and success in politics. In Plutarch’s own days his parallel Lives of Dion and Brutus may have been looked upon as important works within his collection of Bioi, for both the Greek and the Roman hero belonged to a small, almost canonical group of philosophically minded exemplary politi- cians, who, fighting tyrannical leaders or emperors, had come to grief in practical politics. In his Meditations, I 14, the emperor Marcus Aurelius observes: From my brother Severus I learnt to love my relations, to love the truth and to love justice. Through him I came to know of Thrasea, Cato, Helvidius, Dion1 and Brutus, and became acquainted with the conception of a community based on equality2 and freedom of speech for all, and a monarchy concerned primarily to uphold the liberty of the subject. He showed me the need for a fair and dispassionate appre- ciation of philosophy, an addiction to good works, open-handedness, a sanguine temper, and confidence in the affection of my friends3. In short, the opposite of standard tyrannical behaviour. Besides, in his par- allel biographies of Dion and Brutus it was not just philosophy that was at 1 This Dion might be Dio Chrysostom, but in that case this string of exemplary per- sonalities would be rather odd, because Dio Chrysostom would have been the only person in this group who was not actively involved in politics and administration. Besides, in his own time Dio Chrysostom may have ranked not among tragic philosophical heroes of the past who opposed tyranny, but rather among philosophically minded sophists or rhetori- cians who had had bad luck in choosing Roman patrons for a while. See R.B. RUTHER- FORD, The Meditations of Marcus Aurelius. A Study, Oxford 1989, p. 64 n. 5, against P. DESIDERI, Dione di Prusa. Un intellettuale greco nell’ Impero romano, Florence 1978, p. 16-19. I owe this reference to J.J. Flinterman. 2 Probably îsótjv kat’ âzían, a fairly common concept in those days. See G.J.D. AALDERS, Ideas about Human Equality and Inequality in the Roman Empire: Plutarch and Some of his Contemporaries, in I. KAJANTO (ed.), Equality and Inequality of Man in Ancient Thought (Commentationes Humanarum Litterarum, 75), Helsinki 1984, p. 55-71. 3 Translated by S. MAXWELL, Marcus Aurelius, Meditations, Harmondsworth 1964, p. 39. 210 L. DE BLOIS stake, but the wisdom of the Academy, the school with which Plutarch probably most of all sympathized4. In Dion 1.1–2.2 Plutarch says: If it be true then, o Sosius Senecio, as Simonides says5, that Ilium ‘is not wroth with the Corinthians’ for coming up against her with the Achaeans, because the Trojans also had Glaucus, who sprang from Corinth, as a zealous ally, so it is likely that neither Romans nor Greeks will quarrel with the Academy, since they fare alike in this trea- tise containing the Lives of Dion and Brutus, for Dion was an immedi- ate disciple of Plato, while Brutus was nourished on the doctrines of Plato. Both therefore set out from one training-school, as it were, to engage in the greatest struggles. And we need not wonder that, in the performance of actions that were often kindred and alike, they bore witness to the doctrine of their teacher in virtue, that wisdom and jus- tice must be united with power and good fortune if public careers are to take on beauty as well as greatness. For as Hippomachus the trainer used to declare that he could recognize his pupils from afar even though they were but carrying meat from the market-place, so it is nat- ural that the principles of those who have been trained alike should permeate their actions, inducing in these a similar rhythm and harmony along with their propriety. Moreover, the fortunes of the two men, which were the same in what befell them rather than in what they elected to do, make their lives alike. For both were cut off untimely, without being able to achieve the objects to which they had determined to devote the fruits of their many and great struggles. Plutarch’s Timoleon has never been considered a key biography within Plutarch’s parallel Lives. It has always been looked upon as a fairly unoriginal treaty on the effects of túxj, sofía and âretß in prac- tical politics. In the Preface to his parallel Lives of Timoleon and Aemil- ius, 1.6-8, Plutarch observes: Among these — i.e. Plutarch’s fairest examples, see Preface 1.5 — were Timoleon the Corinthian and Aemilius Paullus, whose Lives I have now undertaken to lay before my readers; the men were alike not only in the good principles which they adopted, but also in the good fortune which they enjoyed in their conduct of affairs, and they will make it hard for my readers to decide whether the greatest of their suc- cessful achievements were due to their good fortune or their wisdom. Throughout his Dion biography Plutarch sets philosophy against tyranny and wise men, in this case Plato and Dion, against tyrannical, 4 See G.J.D. AALDERS – L. DE BLOIS, Plutarch und die politische Philosophie der Griechen, in ANRW II 36.5 (1992), p. 3389-3397. 5 Fr. 50 Bergk. POLITICAL CONCEPTS IN PLUTARCH’S DION AND TIMOLEON 211 militarily based power. In chapter 4.4 he says about Plato’s first visit to Syracuse, in 388 BC: This was not of men’s devising, but some heavenly power, as it would seem, laying far in advance of the time a foundation for the liberty of Syracuse, and devising a subversion of tyranny, brought Plato from Italy to Syracuse and made Dion his disciple. In 7.4 ff. Plutarch tells us that after the death of Dionysius I, the tyrant par excellence, the tyranny of his successor Dionysius II was softened by Dion’s influence, although the new tyrant gave in to a love for laxity and drinking bouts, thus melting and destroying the ‘adamantine bonds’ with which the elder tyrant had left the monarchy fastened. Plutarch ascribes this unseemly behaviour to the new tyrant’s want of education (9.1). In chapter 10 Plutarch has Dion persuade the tyrant to invite Plato, in his view the first of philosophers, to come to Syracuse. Dion exhorted Diony- sius to apply himself to study and become a disciple of Plato in order that his character might be regulated by the principles of virtue, and that he might be conformed to that divinest and most beautiful model of all being, in obedience to whose direction the universe issues from disorder into order; in this way he would procure great happiness for his people, and that obedience which they now rendered dejectedly and under the com- pulsion of his authority, this his moderation and justice would base upon goodwill and a filial spirit, and he would become a king instead of a tyrant. For the ‘adamantine bonds’ of sovereignty were not, as his father used to say, fear and force and a multitude of ships and numberless bar- barian bodyguards, but goodwill and ardour and favour engendered by virtue and justice. In this chapter Plutarch has Dion use a combination of common fourth-century BC Greek arguments about the difference between the good king and the tyrant that had become traditional6, the age-old order–disorder opposition that looms large in many Greek myths7, and the comparison of the good king with the heavenly father, which was quite old, but became popular again in the second and third centuries AD8. 6 See for example Xenophon, Agesilaus, passim; Cyrop. VIII 1.2 ff.; Mem. IV 6.12; Oecon. 21 and Hiero 11.7 ff.; Isocrates, Evagoras and the letters Ad Nicoclem, esp. the preface to II Ad Nicoclem; the Platonic Seventh Epistle 351AB and Aristotle, Pol. V 8-9, 1310b1-1316a1. 7 See H.S. VERSNEL, Greek Myth and Ritual: the Case of Kronos, in J.N. BREMMER (ed.), Interpretations of Greek Mythology, London 1987, p. 121-152. 8 See L.J. SWIFT, The Anonymous Encomium of Philip the Arab, GRBS 7 (1966), p. 287, on ps.-Aelius, Eis basilea 22. 212 L. DE BLOIS In chapter 11 (cp. ch. 18.5) Plutarch introduces the Pythagorean philosophers in Italy, who had come to power in several Greek city- states there. They urge Plato to go to Sicily and obtain control over the youthful soul of Dionysius II, which was now tossed about on a sea of great authority and power, in order to steady it by his weighty reason- ings9. In chapter 12 Plutarch says: For Dion had hopes, as it seems likely, that by means of the visit of Plato he could mitigate the arrogance and excessive severity of the tyranny, and convert Dionysius into a fit and lawful ruler. Plato came to Sicily and after his first conversations with the tyrant success seemed to be near at hand. This greatly annoyed and terrified the supporters of the former régime. Plutarch has them oppose the influence of the wise man, Plato, to military power in chapter 14: And some pretended to be indignant that the Athenians, who in former times had sailed to Sicily with large land and sea forces, but had per- ished utterly without taking Syracuse, should now, by means of one sophist, overthrow the tyranny of Dionysius, by persuading him to dismiss his 10,000 bodyguards, and abandon his 400 triremes and his 10,000 horsemen and his many times that number of men-at-arms, in order to seek in Academic philosophy for a mysterious good, and make geometry his guide to happiness, surrendering the happiness that was based on dominion and wealth and luxury to Dion and Dion’s nephews and nieces.
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