Born about the year 408 B. C.,[116] Dion was twenty-one years of age in 378 B. C., when the elder Dionysius, having dismantled Rhegium and subdued Kroton, attained the maximum of his dominion, as master of the Sicilian and Italian Greeks. Standing high in the favor of his brother-in-law Dionysius, Dion doubtless took part in the wars whereby this large dominion had been acquired; as well as in the life of indulgence and luxury which prevailed generally among wealthy Greeks in Sicily and Italy, and which to the Athenian Plato appeared alike surprising and repulsive.[117] That great philosopher visited Italy and Sicily about 387 B. C., as has been already mentioned. He was in acquaintance and fellowship with the school of philosophers called Pythagoreans; the remnant of that Pythagorean brotherhood, who had once exercised so powerful a political influence over the cities of those regions—and who still enjoyed considerable reputation, even after complete political downfall, through individual ability and rank of the members, combined with habits of recluse study, mysticism, and attachment among themselves. With these Pythagoreans Dion also, a young man of open mind and ardent aspirations, was naturally thrown into communication by the proceedings of the elder Dionysius in Italy.[118] Through them he came into intercourse with Plato, whose conversation made an epoch in his life. [116] Dion was fifty-five years of age at the time of his death, in the fourth year after his departure from Peloponnesus (Cornelius Nepos, Dion, c. 10). His death took place seemingly about 354 B. C. He would thus be born about 408 B. C. [117] Plato, Epistol. vii. p. 326 D. ἐλθόντα δέ με ὁ ταύτῃ λεγόμενος αὖ βίος εὐδαίμων, Ἰταλιωτικῶν τε καὶ Συρακουσίων τραπεζῶν πλήρης, οὐδαμῆ οὐδαμῶς ἤρεσκε, δίς τε τῆς ἡμέρας ἐμπιμπλάμενον ζῇν καὶ μηδέποτε κοιμώμενον μόνον νύκτωρ, etc. [118] Cicero, De Finibus, v. 20; De Republic. i. 10. Jamblichus (Vit. Pythagoræ, c. 199) calls Dion a member of the Pythagorean brotherhood, which may be doubted; but his assertion that Dion procured for Plato, though only by means of a large price (one hundred minæ), the possession of a book composed by the Pythagorean Philolaus, seems not improbable. The ancient Pythagoreans wrote nothing. Philolaus (seemingly about contemporary with Sokrates) was the first Pythagorean who left any written memorial. That this book could only be obtained by the intervention of an influential Syracusan—and even by him only for a large price—is easy to believe. See the instructive Dissertation of Gruppe, Ueber die Fragmente des Archytas und der älteren Pythagoreer, p. 24, 26, 48, etc.