During this long and irksome detention, which probably made him fully sensible of the comparative comforts of Athenian liberty, Plato obtained from Dionysius one practical benefit. He prevailed upon him to establish friendly and hospitable relations with Archytas and the Tarentines, which to these latter was a real increase of security and convenience.[160] But in the point which he strove most earnestly to accomplish, he failed. Dionysius resisted all entreaties for the recall of Dion. Finding himself at length occupied with a war (whether the war with Carthage previously mentioned, or some other, we do not know), he consented to let Plato depart; agreeing to send for him again as soon as peace and leisure should return, and promising to recall Dion at the same time; upon which covenant, Plato, on his side, agreed to come back. After a certain interval, peace arrived, and Dionysius re-invited Plato; yet without recalling Dion—whom he required still to wait another year. But Plato, appealing to the terms of the covenant, refused to go without Dion. To himself personally, in spite of the celebrity which his known influence with Dionysius tended to confer, the voyage was nothing less than repugnant, for he had had sufficient experience of Syracuse and its despotism. Nor would he even listen to the request of Dion himself; who, partly in the view of promoting his own future restoration, earnestly exhorted him to go. Dionysius besieged Plato with solicitations to come,[161] promising that all which he might insist upon in favor of Dion should be granted, and putting in motion a second time Archytas and the Tarentines to prevail upon him. These men, through their companion and friend Archedemus, who came to Athens in a Syracusan trireme, assured Plato that Dionysius was now ardent in the study of philosophy, and had even made considerable progress in it. By their earnest entreaties, coupled with those of Dion, Plato was at length induced to go to Syracuse. He was received, as before, with signal tokens of honor. He was complimented with the privilege, enjoyed by no one else, of approaching the despot without having his person searched; and was affectionately welcomed by the female relatives of Dion. Yet this visit, prolonged much beyond what he himself wished, proved nothing but a second splendid captivity, as the companion of Dionysius in the acropolis at Ortygia.[162] [160] Plato, Epist. vii. p. 338 C. [161] Plato, Epistol. iii. p. 317 B. C. [162] Plato, Epist. vii. p. 338-346; Plutarch, Dion, c. 19. Æschines, the companion of Sokrates along with Plato, is said to have passed a long time at Syracuse with Dionysius, until the expulsion of that despot (Diogen. Laert. ii. 63).