Dion was now both the prime minister, and the confidential monitor, of the young Dionysius. He upheld the march of the government with undiminished energy, and was of greater political importance than Dionysius himself. But success in this object was not the end for which Dion labored. He neither wished to serve a despot, nor to become a despot himself. The moment was favorable for resuming that project which he had formerly imbibed from Plato, and which, in spite of contemptuous disparagement by his former master, had ever since clung to him as the dream of his heart and life. To make Syracuse a free city, under a government, not of will, but of good laws, with himself as lawgiver in substance, if not in name—to enfranchise and replant the semi-barbarised Hellenic cities in Sicily—and to expel the Carthaginians—were schemes to which he now again devoted himself with unabated enthusiasm. But he did not look to any other means of achieving them than the consent and initiative of Dionysius himself. The man who had been sanguine enough to think of working upon the iron soul of the father, was not likely to despair of shaping anew the more malleable metal of which the son was composed. Accordingly, while lending to Dionysius his best service as minister, he also took up the Platonic profession, and tried to persuade him to reform both himself and his government. He endeavored to awaken in him a relish for a better and nobler private conduct than that which prevailed among the luxurious companions around him. He dwelt with enthusiasm on the scientific and soul-stirring conversation of Plato; specimens[136] of which he either read aloud or repeated, exalting the hearer not only to a higher intellectual range, but also to the full majesty of mind requisite for ruling others with honor and improvement. He pointed out the unrivalled glory which Dionysius would acquire in the eyes of Greece, by consenting to employ his vast power, not as a despot working on the fears of subjects, but as a king enforcing temperance and justice, by his own paternal example as well as by good laws. He tried to show that Dionysius, after having liberated Syracuse, and enrolled himself as a king limited and responsible amidst grateful citizens, would have far more real force against the barbarians than at present.[137] [136] Plutarch, Dion, c. 11. Ταῦτα πολλάκις τοῦ Δίωνος παραινοῦντος, καὶ τῶν λόγων τοῦ Πλάτωνος ἔστιν οὕστινας ὑποσπείροντος, etc. [137] Plutarch, Dion, c. 10, 11; Plato, Epist. vii. p. 327 C.