260 DION. the Grecians. This Plato endeavored to effect, by keep- ing Dion with him in the Academy, and busying him in philosophical studies. Dion sojourned in the Upper Town of Athens, with Callippus, one of his acquaintance ; but for his pleasure he bought a seat in the country, which afterwards, when he went into Sicily, he gave to Speusippus,* who had been his most frequent companion while he was at Athens, Plato so arranging it, with the hoj)e that Dion's austere temper might be softened by agreeable company, with an occasional mixture of seasonable mirth. For Speusippus was of the character to afibrd him this ; we find him spoken of in Timon's Silli,f as "good at a jest." And Plato himself, as it happened, being called upon to fui'nish a chorus of boys, Dion took upon him the order- ing and management of it, and defrayed the whole expense, Plato giving him this opportunity to oblige the Athenians, which was likely to procure his friend more kindness than himself credit. Dion went also to see several other cities, visiting the noblest and most states- manhke persons in Greece, and joining in their recrea- tions and entertainments in their times of festival. In all which, no sort of vulgar ignorance, or tyrannic assump- tion, or luxuriousness was remarked in him ; but, on the contrary, a great deal of tenjperance, generosity, and courage, and a well-becoming taste for reasoning and philosophic discourses. By which means he gained the love and admiration of all men, and in many cities had public honors decreed him ; the Lacedaemonians making him a citizen of Sparta, without regard to the displeasure of Dionysius, though at that time he was aiding them in their wars against the Thebans.
- Plato's nephew and successor which a good deal of ridicule was
in the School of the Academy. thrown on the philosophers, t Satiric poems, so called, in
