Some time around 387, Plato set sail for Magna Graecia. Presumably his trip was not a sightseeing expedition, but an attempt to meet with the leading minds of the area. Southern Italy had a flourishing intellectual community, steeped in the religious traditions of Pythagoreanism, but open to the philosophical ideas of the Greek world. Plato had mentioned with admiration some of the teachings of the Italian Greeks in his long dialogue Gorgias (featuring the sophist from Leontini in Sicily), including the notion that the world was a cosmos, an ordered community.[5]
One of the most distinguished of Italian philosophers was Philolaus, originally from Croton, where Pythagoras had settled, but born long after the master’s death. He is said to have fled persecution, spending the latter part of his life in Thebes. Plato knew some of Philolaus’ students, who became part of Socrates’ circle. Plato seems to have traveled to Taras (in Roman times called Tarentum, modern Taranto), an important Greek city-state where the Pythagorean philosopher Archytas was not only a leading thinker but a general of the army and a government leader. The two thinkers formed a strong bond and evidently learned a great deal from each other.
Plato continued on to Syracuse. In the Seventh Letter he does not tell us why he traveled there. On one account, he went to Sicily to Mt. Etna, which dominates the east coast of the island.[6] Plato certainly has a good deal to say about volcanoes in his dialogue Phaedo, which he wrote soon after his voyage. He may have come with a letter of introduction to Dionysius. He says, however, almost nothing about the ruler. But he is enthusiastic about his meeting with Dion, who was, through dynastic marriages, both brother-in-law and son-in-law to the ruler. The young man was eager to hear of Plato’s ideas, and Plato evidently felt in Dion a kindred spirit. “Dion was in all things quick to learn, especially in matters upon which I talked with him; and he listened with a zeal and attentiveness I had never encountered n any young man, and he resolved to spend the rest of his life differently from most Italians and Sicilians.”[7]
Plato tells us that he was appalled at the lifestyle of the Greeks living in southern Italy and Sicily. What they called the “happy life” consisted of attending banquets, “gorging themselves twice a day and never sleeping alone at night,” a continual round of overeating, drunkenness, and debauchery.[8] What the Greeks needed was a healthy and productive lifestyle and good government—which would be impossible in their present state of luxurious indulgence.
Yet in Dion there was hope for a better future. The young man was inspired by Plato’s teachings to devote himself to virtue and self-improvement. He was not the ruler, but he was close to the throne, and he had the ear of his father-in-law. Evidently the two men stayed in correspondence after Plato left Syracuse, and their association would lead to further connections in Plato’s later life.
In the Seventh Letter Plato says nothing about the aftermath of the trip. But in later histories, we get a lurid story of the events. According to one account, Plato spoke sharply to Dionysius about his tyrannical behavior; Dionysius took offense was about to put Plato to death when Dion intervened. The tyrant relented and delivered Plato into the hands of a Spartan visitor named Pollis, who, on his return voyage, sold him into slavery on the island of Aegina, near Athens. In another version, Plato was captured by pirates from Aegina and enslaved. Plato was ransomed by Anniceris of Cyrene for either twenty or thirty pounds.[9]
The stories of Plato’s enslavement come from later and not necessarily reliable sources. It is possible, given the hostility between the inhabitants of Aegina and those of Athens, that Plato was captured in a raid by privateers fighting against Athens in the wars of the time. But that must remain a speculation. In any case Plato returned to Athens after having made some important friends in Magna Graecia and Sicily. He had seen more of the world than what he had known in mainland Greece. And he had been exposed to new ideas and theories about the cosmos, the soul, and about government. Indeed, his new friend Archytas was to become a model of the philosopher-ruler. He was in his career—though we do not know when exactly—elected general for seven consecutive years, much as Pericles had been general in Athens in the previous century.[10] Archytas combined philosophical wisdom with practical experience in leading a major Greek city-state, Taras for at least a decade, and perhaps more, given his prestige and influence.
[5] Plato Gorgias 507e-508a; on another topic, see ibid. 493a-c.
[6] Diogenes Laertius 3.18.
[7] Plato Letter VII 327a-b, tr. Morrow.*
[8] Plato Letter VII 326b, tr. Morrow.*
[9] Diogenes Laertius 3.19-20. Diodorus Siculus 15.7 has Dionysius personally selling him into slavery, presumably in Syracuse.
[10] Diogenes Laertius 8.79; Aelian 7.14 has him serving six terms.