Plato and the Tyrant

Many people know something of Platos 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 Platos 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. Platos 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 Platos experiment in enlightened autocracy spiralled into catastrophe and gives us a new account of the origins of Western political philosophy.