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A NEW MAN. 59 erties of so many other Greeks in Italy and Sicily had been trod- den down also. He was made to remark, that Sicily had been half-barbarized through the foreign mercenaries imported as the despot's instruments. He conceived the sublime idea or dream of rectifying all this accumulation of wrong and suffering. It wag his wish first to cleanse Syracuse from the blot of slavery, and tc elothe her anew in the brightness and dignity of freedom ; yet not with the view of restoring the popular government as it had stood prior to the usurpation, but of establishing an improved constitu- tional policy, originated by himself, with laws which should not only secure individual rights, but also educate and moralize the citizens. 1 The function which he imagined to himself, and which the conversation of Plato suggested, was not that of a despot like Dionysius, but that of a despotic legislator like Lykurgus, 2 taking advantage of a momentary omnipotence, conferred upon him by grateful citizens in a state of public confusion, to originate a good system ; which, when once put in motion, would keep itself alive by fashioning the minds of the citizens to its own intrinsic excel- lence. After having thus both liberated and reformed Syracuse, Dion promised to himself that he would employ Syracusan force, not in annihilating, but in recreating, other free Hellenic commu- nities throughout the island ; expelling from thence all the bar- barians both the imported mercenaries and the Carthaginians. Such were the hopes and projects which arose in the mind of the youthful Dion as he listened to Plato ; hopes pregnant with future results which neither of them contemplated and not un- worthy of being compared with those enthusiastic aspirations 1 Plato, Epistol. vii. p. 335 F. Auva yap yw cra^aif oWa, (if oldv re Kepi av&puTcuv UV&PUKOV dua%vple(T&ai, OTL TTJV up^r/v el KuTeaxev, uf OVK uv TTOTE TT' uA/lo -ye ff^yua Ttjt; upxT/f erpaTrero, q enl TO ZvpaKovaaf pli> v, Tijv irarpida TTJV tavTov, kitel TTJV Soiiheiav avTfjt; uTrijTJia^e Kal f ehevdepitfi ev a^fiaTi KartarTjae, TO fiera TOVT' uv Trudy H7]%uvr/ vcifj.oi^ rolg irpoar/Kovai re nal upicrroif roiif Tro/Uraf TO TE E<t>e^?/f -ovTotf Trpovdv/j.EiT 1 uv Trpdfai, Kuaav 2e/Uav KaToiKifriv Kal eTiEvQepav and TIJV j3(ip{3apuv rcotelv, rotlf fj.ev iKpaS.huv, Toi>f 6e ^eipovfievof pg.ov lepuvof, etc. Compare the '"beginning of the same epistle, p. 324 A. ' Plato, Epist. iv. p. 320 F. (addressed to Dion) cif ovv vxb narTuv dpufisvof irapaaKevu^ov TOV TE AvKoiipyov knelvov upxal~v utrodei^uv, KOI r^t Kiipov KOI eiTif aAAof Trwrore loo&v r/#et /cat KohiTeip dieveynelv, etc.