Such appeals, in themselves emphatic and touching, reached Athens reinforced by solicitations, hardly less strenuous, from Archytas of Tarentum and the other Pythagorean philosophers in the south of Italy; to whose personal well-being, over and above the interests of philosophy, the character of the future Syracusan government was of capital importance. Plato was deeply agitated and embarrassed. He was now sixty-one years of age. He enjoyed preëminent estimation, in the grove of Akadêmus near Athens, amidst admiring hearers from all parts of Greece. The Athenian democracy, if it accorded to him no influence on public affairs, neither molested him nor dimmed his intellectual glory. The proposed voyage to Syracuse carried him out of his enviable position into a new field of hazard and speculation; brilliant indeed and flattering, beyond anything which had ever been approached by philosophy, if it succeeded; but fraught with disgrace, and even with danger to all concerned, if it failed. Plato had already seen the elder Dionysius surrounded by his walls and mercenaries in Ortygia, and had learnt by cruel experience the painful consequences of propounding philosophy to an intractable hearer, whose displeasure passed so readily into act. The sight of contemporary despots nearer home, such as Euphron of Sikyon and Alexander of Pheræ, was by no means reassuring; nor could he reasonably stake his person and reputation on the chance, that the younger Dionysius might prove a glorious exception to the general rule. To outweigh such scruples, he had indeed the positive and respectful invitation of Dionysius himself; which however would have passed for a transitory, though vehement caprice on the part of a young prince, had it not been backed by the strong assurances of a mature man and valued friend like Dion. To these assurances, and to the shame which would be incurred by leaving Dion to fight the battle and incur the danger alone, Plato sacrificed his own grounds for hesitation. He went to Syracuse, less with the hope of succeeding in the intended conversion of Dionysius, than from the fear of hearing both himself and his philosophy taunted with confessed impotence—as fit only for the discussions of the school, shrinking from all application to practice, betraying the interest of his Pythagorean friends, and basely deserting that devoted champion who had half opened the door to him for triumphant admission.[143] [143] Plato, Epistol. vii. p. 328. Ταύτῃ μὲν τῇ διανοίᾳ καὶ τόλμῃ ἀπῇρα ~οἴκοθεν, οὐχ ᾗ τινὲς ἐδόξαζον, ἀλλ᾽ αἰσχυνόμενος μὲν ἐμαυτὸν τὸ μέγιστον~, μὴ δόξαιμί ποτε ἐμαυτῷ παντάπασι λόγος μόνον ἀτεχνῶς εἶναί τις, ἔργου δὲ οὐδενὸς ἄν ποτε ἑκὼν ἀνθάψασθαι, κινδυνεύσειν δὲ προδοῦναι πρῶτον μὲν τὴν Δίωνος ξενίαν ἐν κινδύνοις ὄντως γεγονότος οὐ σμικροῖς· εἴτ᾽ οὖν πάθοι τι, εἴτ᾽ ἐκπεσὼν ὑπὸ Διονυσίου καὶ τῶν ἄλλων ἐχθρῶν ἔλθοι παρ᾽ ἡμᾶς φεύγων, καὶ ἀνέροιτο, εἰπών, etc.