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PLATO AND THE TYRANT

James Romm

The Fall of Greece's Greatest Dynasty and the Making of a Philosophic Masterpiece

A rare biographical portrait of the philosopher Plato, showing how the ideas in his masterwork, Republic, were tested amid a bloody civil war.

Many people know something of Plato's works, yet few are familiar with his life outside of his writings. In Plato and the Tyrant, acclaimed classicist James Romm uses a little-known set of Plato's personal letters to introduce the man behind the ethereal image, and to explore the formation of his most famous work, Republic. In the second half of his life, an already famous Plato involved himself in the affairs of the two Dionysii, a father and son who ruled Syracuse, at that time the greatest power in the Greek world. Plato's interventions in the violent contest between Dionysius the Younger and his brother-in-law, Dionwith whom Plato may have had a long love affairwere the backdrop and perhaps the motivation for his masterwork. In a thrilling narrative, Romm captures how Plato's experiment in enlightened autocracy spiraled into catastrophe and gives us a new account of the origins of Western political philosophy. James Romm is the James H. Ottaway Jr. Professor of Classics at Bard College and editor of the Ancient Lives biography series from Yale University Press. He is the author of several other studies of Greek history, and his reviews and essays appear regularly in the Wall Street Journal and the New York Review of Books.

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Book Published 2025-05-13 by W.W. Norton & Company, Inc. - New York (USA)

Comments

Plato's vision of a just society has inspired the world for centuries, yet his own attempt to put his ideas into practice ended in failure and disgrace. With this learned yet accessible account of the philosopher's misadventures in politics, James Romm asks a question that remains all too relevant today: Is it possible for thought to prevail over tyranny?

High ideals for a debauched despot, political theory for a paranoid abuser of power. James Romm guides us brilliantly through the weird world in which Plato's Republic was born. On the one side the idealism of the West's founding work of politics, on the other Plato's collaboration at the court of a crazed Sicilian tyrant. A gripping account of why the reality of Plato should matter to us today.

James Romm has taken a little-known episode from ancient Greek historythe somewhat shady-sounding relationship between Plato and the Tyrants of Syracuseand developed it into a fascinating, richly detailed narrative. I may yet have to read the Republic.

In his new book, James Romm, who has a Mary Beard-like gift for making the classics accessible, tells the little-known story of how Plato, while working on his Republic, experimented with some of his ideas in real lifeby trying to create a philosopher-king in the city-state of Syracuse. He failed dramatically, and in ways that ought to give pause to anyone who still thinks autocracy is a good idea.

James Romm brings the classical world to life in this dramatic and entertaining account of Plato's attempt to tutor one of the era's most notorious tyrants. Written with sparkling wit and intelligence, this book will change the way you think about the ancient world's greatest philosopher.

With incisive historical expertise and a bold new perspective on long-disputed Platonic correspondence, James Romm elucidates Plato's notorious leap of faith from the realm of theory into the real world of politics. Engrossing and timely, Plato and the Tyrant traces the fluctuating, hot and cold relationship between the philosopher obsessed with justice and the vindictive despot Dionysius of Syracuse.