Outraged thus in all the tenderest points, Dion took up with passionate resolution the design of avenging himself on Dionysius, and of emancipating Syracuse from despotism into liberty. During the greater part of his exile he had resided at Athens, in the house of his friend Kallippus, enjoying the society of Speusippus and other philosophers of the Academy, and the teaching of Plato himself when returned from Syracuse. Well supplied with money, and strict as to his own personal wants, he was able largely to indulge his liberal spirit towards many persons, and among the rest towards Plato, whom he assisted towards the expense of a choric exhibition at Athens.[170] Dion also visited Sparta and various other cities; enjoying a high reputation, and doing himself credit everywhere; a fact not unknown to Dionysius, and aggravating his displeasure. Yet Dion was long not without hope that that displeasure would mitigate, so as to allow of his return to Syracuse on friendly terms. Nor did he cherish any purposes of hostility, until the last proceedings with respect to his property and his wife at once cut off all hope and awakened vindictive sentiments.[171] He began therefore to lay a train for attacking Dionysius and enfranchising Syracuse by arms, invoking the countenance of Plato; who gave his approbation, yet not without mournful reserves; saying that he was now seventy years of age—that though he admitted the just wrongs of Dion and the bad conduct of Dionysius, armed conflict was nevertheless repugnant to his feelings, and he could anticipate little good from it—that he had labored long in vain to reconcile the two exasperated kinsmen, and could not now labor for any opposite end.[172] [170] Plutarch, Dion, c. 17; Athenæus, xi. p. 508. Plato appears also to have received, when at Athens, pecuniary assistance remitted by Dionysius from Syracuse, towards expenses of a similar kind, as well as towards furnishing a dowry for certain poor nieces. Dion and Dionysius had both aided him (Plato, Epistol. xiii. p. 361). An author named Onêtor affirmed that Dionysius had given to Plato the prodigious sum of eighty talents; a story obviously exaggerated (Diogenes Laert. iii. 9). [171] Plato, Epistol. vii. p. 350 F. [172] Plato, Epistol. vii. p. 350. This is the account which Plato gives _after_ the death of Dion, when affairs had taken a disastrous turn, about the extent of his own interference in the enterprise. But Dionysius supposed him to have been more decided in his countenance of the expedition; and Plato’s letter addressed to Dion himself, after the victory of the latter at Syracuse, seems to bear out that supposition. Compare Epistol. iii. p. 315 E.; iv. p. 320 A.