THE LIFE OF PLATO BY MARSILIO FICINO.

original: "PLATONIS VITA AVCTORE MARSILIO"

...sold him. At that time, Charmander also accused him of a crime deserving of death. Indeed, according to a law promulgated among them, it was a capital offense if any Athenian set foot on that island. However, when it was alleged by someone that the philosopher had landed there for the sake of learning, and that the law spoke of men and not of philosophers—who are above men—they released him acquitted. They decreed he should not be killed, but sold. By chance, Anniceris of Cyrene was present, who ransomed him for twenty minasA unit of currency in ancient Greece; 20 minas was a substantial sum, roughly the price of several skilled slaves. and sent him back to Athens to his friends.
The death of Pollis

The story goes that Pollis The Spartan admiral who originally took Plato captive. was defeated by Chabrias and afterwards drowned in Helice, with a daemonA guiding spirit or divine sign, often associated with Socrates. announcing to him that he suffered such things because of the philosopher. Nevertheless, Dionysius Dionysius I, the Tyrant of Syracuse. did not rest; but when he learned what had happened to him, he wrote to Plato, begging him not to hurl insults at him. To whom Plato wrote back, saying that he did not have so much leisure time left from philosophy that he would even remember Dionysius. To certain detractors who objected that Plato had been abandoned by Dionysius, he replied that, on the contrary, Dionysius had been abandoned by Plato.
2nd journey to Dionysius

He set out a second time to Dionysius the Younger, having been summoned by him and by Dion for the sake of philosophizing. He was led also by this hope: that by his counsels he might bring it about that the state there would change from a tyranny into either a republic or a kingdom, and that he would see what he had long and vehemently desired: namely, a certain most philosophical government, in which either philosophers rule, or rulers philosophize. For he thought that cities could not otherwise avoid misery. He desired all this to be done not by force or deceit, but by persuading Dionysius through philosophical reasons. But about the fourth month after Plato's arrival, Dionysius, driven by false slanders, expelled Dion on the pretext that he was plotting against the tyranny. Yet he embraced Plato gladly. But Plato returned to his fatherland.
3rd journey

He went a third time to reconcile Dion with Dionysius, having been entreated again and again by both, and also requested by Archytas. Then Dionysius sent a triremeAn ancient galley with three banks of oars. adorned with ribbons to meet him, and sent Archidemus the Pythagorean orator and many nobles; he himself received him, coming out in a chariot drawn by four white horses. Plato demanded the promised restoration of Dion, and moreover a city and men who would live according to the republic he had established. Although Dionysius had promised this, he refused to fulfill it. When Plato openly rebuked Dionysius for breaking his word—both regarding the restoration of Dion and the promise made to his friend Theodotes regarding the safety of Heraclides—Dionysius then became hostile toward him. From then on, Plato lived in the greatest danger of being killed by the soldiers. But Archytas of Tarentum sent Lamiscus as an envoy to Dionysius along with a ship, asking that he release Plato. He released him and provided provisions; Plato returned to his fatherland. Shortly after, Dionysius was driven from his tyranny by Dion and the citizens, thus paying the penalty for the crime committed against the philosopher. Plato was received in his fatherland with wonderful honor. When he was called there to take part in the republic, he refused to go, because the common people had become accustomed to evil morals.

TO WHOM PLATO GAVE LAWS.

The city of Magnesia; Laws given

It is said that the Arcadians and Thebans, having founded a city of honorable size, asked him to establish its republic. But when he understood that they were unwilling to follow equality, he did not go. However, he gave laws to the Syracusans after the tyrant was expelled. And for the Cretans, in the newly founded or restored city of Magnesia, he wrote the Laws, arranged into twelve books. He sent from among his associates Aristonymus to the Arcadians to establish laws, Phormio to the people of Elis, and Menedemus to the Pyrrhans.

THE RESTRAINT, GRAVITY, AND COURTESY OF PLATO.

He lived celibate and very sober, and as Aurelius Augustine asserts, chaste. For which reason it is said that in his old age he performed sacred rites to Nature, so that he might clear himself before the common people of the charge of sterility. As a youth he was so modest, so composed, that he was never found laughing, except moderately. No one ever saw him angry. Hence a boy educated at Plato's house, when he returned to his parents and saw his father shouting, said: "I never saw this at Plato's." Only once was he secretly a little angry at a boy who had committed a grave fault. But he said to Xenocrates: "You beat this boy. For I cannot, because I am angry." He ate every day either only once, or if twice, most sparingly. He slept alone. He greatly criticized the opposite way of life. Toward loving youths, just as his teacher Socrates, he seemed a little more prone; yet both were as restrained by reason as they were inclined by sense. How divinely those men loved, and in what way the things they spoke concerning love should be explained, we have sufficiently treated in the book On Love Ficino refers here to his own famous work, De Amore, a commentary on Plato's Symposium.. He desired to leave a memory of himself either in books or in friends. And although he was of a melancholic temperament and of the most profound genius, as Aristotle writes, he nevertheless used many jests, and very often advised the more severe Xenocrates and Dion to "make sacrifice to the Graces," so that they might be rendered more pleasant and agreeable. For to Plato's gravity, courtesy was joined.