[Footnote 15: "The great interest is not in the present city of Syracuse" (writes a traveller, Feb. 9, 1869), "but in its vicinity, where we inspect the doings of Greeks twenty-five to three thousand years ago, and of the Romans at a later date. Their works are constructed out of the solid rock, and have withstood the terrible earthquakes which have completely destroyed all traces of other works. Among the interesting objects in the city is the cathedral, formerly the temple of Minerva, which is a magnificent specimen of Doric architecture, and has continued to be a place of worship through all the changes of idolatry and Christianity, for twenty-five hundred years; the church of St. Marcian here puts in its claim to have been the first church in Europe in which Christian worship was celebrated. Full of interest are the catacombs and the ancient prisons in the quarries from which the materials of Syracuse were taken; here is the Ear of Dionysius, the tyrant of Syracuse, a prison so arranged that every word spoken within it was re-echoed into his chamber, where it is said he passed entire days listening to the complaints of his victims. Here, too, is the famous fountain of Arethusa, one of the Nereads, and whom Virgil reckons among the Sicilian nymphs, as the divinity who inspired pastoral poetry. Syracuse was at different periods the residence of Plato, Simonides, Zeno, and Cicero; it was the place where Hicetus first propounded the true revolution of the earth; it was the birthplace of the poets Theocritus and Moschus, and the philosopher Archimedes, who lost his life at the capture of the city by the Romans."] One sees the noble spirit of Plato in these passages, and feels how the death of his friend and pupil, Dion, at the moment when he had won the freedom of his country, and a sphere for proving his master's ideas in its rule, must have affected Plato, and the friends of Dion. If doubts have been entertained as to the genuineness of these letters, it is plain they were written by some intimate friend of his, or of Dion, and have the merit, at least, of historical accuracy and evidence. PLATO.[16] [Footnote 16: Born B.C. 429; died 348.] It was a common speech among the Athenians, that Apollo begat Æsculapius and Plato,--the one to cure bodies, the other, souls. Certainly the last was of divine extraction; his life and thoughts fruitful in genius and immortality. Like other superior persons, his birth is traced to a divine ancestry, and dignified with fables. His mother, Perictione, was a descendant of Solon, and a woman of extraordinary beauty. Aristo, his father, was of an eminent family. To him Apollo appeared in a dream, enjoining upon him respect for his wife's maternity; and, in accordance with the vision, it was affirmed,-- "He did not issue from a mortal bed; A god his sire, a godlike life he led."