XI. As Dion frequently urged these considerations, and quoted several of Plato's discourses, Dionysius became passionately desirous of seeing and conversing with Plato. Many letters were at once sent to Athens by Dionysius, while Plato also received many injunctions from Dion and from several of the Pythagorean philosophers in Italy, bidding him go to Syracuse, undertake the guidance of the mind of this young and powerful ruler, and fill it with serious thoughts. Plato obeyed their invitation, chiefly, he tells us, because he feared to appear a mere man of words, unwilling to take in hand any real work, and also because he hoped that if he could purify the mind of the chief, he might through him influence for good the whole of the corrupt people of Sicily. The opponents of Dion, who feared the results of any change in the character of Dionysius, prevailed upon him to recall from exile Philistus, a man of intellectual culture and an experienced courtier, in order to make use of him as a counterpoise to Plato and his philosophy. Indeed, Philistus had zealously assisted in the establishment of the despotism, and for a long time had acted as chief of the garrison of the citadel. There was also a report that he had been the favoured lover of the mother of the elder Dionysius, and that, too, not altogether without the knowledge of the despot; for when Leptines, without telling Dionysius of it, gave Philistus for his wife one of the two daughters which had been born to him by a woman whom he had seduced while she was married to another man, and who afterwards lived with him, Dionysius was very angry, caused the wife of Leptines to be imprisoned in chains, and forced Philistus to leave Sicily and take refuge with some friends of his at Adria, where he is thought to have found leisure to write the greater part of his history; for he never returned to Syracuse during the life of the elder Dionysius, but it was after that prince's death, as has been told, that the opposition to Dion brought him back as being a person more likely to agree with their views and more likely to support the monarchy. XII. Philistus on his return at once became closely connected with the monarchy; while Dion was assailed by misrepresentations and slanders reported by others to the despot, charging him with having discussed the extinction of despotism with Theodotes and Herakleides. Dion appears to have hoped by the influence of Plato to remove from Dionysius all the arbitrary harshness of a despot, and to make him into an orderly constitutional ruler. If he resisted, and refused to be thus softened and refined, Dion had determined to set him aside, and to restore to the Syracusans their free constitution; not that he was an admirer of democracy, but because he thought that at any rate it was better than a despotism for states which were not ruled by a wise and stable oligarchy.