Pagina 361 van 1391

But then we must remember that Plato is describing rather the

contemporary governments of the Sicilian States, which alternated

between democracy and tyranny, than the ancient history of Athens

or Corinth.

The portrait of the tyrant himself is just such as the later

Greek delighted to draw of Phalaris and Dionysius, in which, as

in the lives of mediaeval saints or mythic heroes, the conduct

and actions of one were attributed to another in order to fill up

the outline. There was no enormity which the Greek was not today

to believe of them; the tyrant was the negation of government and

law; his assassination was glorious; there was no crime, however

unnatural, which might not with probability be attributed to him.

In this, Plato was only following the common thought of his

countrymen, which he embellished and exaggerated with all the

power of his genius. There is no need to suppose that he drew

from life; or that his knowledge of tyrants is derived from a

personal acquaintance with Dionysius.