“It becomes a terrible, terrible story of a war of all against all,” says James Romm on this week’s episode of The World in Time. “There are three or four different factions, each with their own military wing, competing for control of Syracuse. Plato is watching all this from Athens in what must have been a state of horror, because he understands he was partly to blame, or at least that some people were blaming him for what was taking place. And the Seventh Letter—by far the longest, most detailed, the richest source of evidence for my story—is extremely defensive in an effort to extricate Plato from this morass.”

 

This week on the podcast, Donovan Hohn speaks with James Romm, historian and classicist, about his new book, Plato and the Tyrant: The Fall of Greece’s Greatest Dynasty and the Making of a Philosophic Masterpiece. The conversation follows Plato on three journeys the philosopher made to Syracuse, the Greek city on the island of Sicily. There, during the reign of Dionysius I and then again during the reign of Dionysius II, Plato attempted to put philosophy into practice. Although his efforts to turn tyrants into philosopher kings ultimately failed, although Syracuse fell catastrophically into political terror and civil war, the history of Plato’s involvement in the city’s politics can, Romm argues, complicate and deepen our understanding of The Republic.

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WORKS CITED

(In order of mention.)

 

James Romm. Ghost on the Throne: The Death of Alexander the Great and the Bloody Fight for His Empire. New York: Vintage Books, 2012.

 

James Romm. Herodotus. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1998.

 

James Romm. Demosthenes: Democracy’s Defender. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 2025.

 

James Romm. Plato and the Tyrant: The Fall of Greece’s Greatest Dynasty and the Making of a Philosophic Masterpiece. New York: W.W. Norton & Company, 2025.

 

Karl R. Popper. Open Society and Its Enemies, Volume 1: The Spell of Plato. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1971.

 

Plato. Republic. Translated by G.M.A. Grube and revised by C.D.C. Reeve. In Plato: Complete Works. Edited by John M. Cooper. Indianapolis: Hackett Publishing Company, 1997.

 

William Shakespeare. The Norton Shakespeare: Essential Plays / The Sonnets. Edited by Stephen Greenblatt et al. New York: W.W. Norton & Company, 2015.

 

Plato. Letters. Translated by G.R. Morrow. In Plato: Complete Works. Edited by John M. Cooper. Indianapolis: Hackett Publishing Company, 1997.

 

Herodotus. The Histories. Translated by Aubrey de Sélincourt and revised by John M. Marincola. New York: Penguin Classics, 2003.

 

Plato. Laws. Translated by T. Saunders. In Plato: Complete Works. Edited by John M. Cooper. Indianapolis: Hackett Publishing Company, 1997.

 

Paul Shorey. What Plato Said. Chicago: The University of Chicago Press, 1934.

 

Plato. Symposium, Phaedrus. Translated by A. Nehamas and P. Woodruff. In Plato: Complete Works. Edited by John M. Cooper. Indianapolis: Hackett Publishing Company, 1997.

 

Plutarch. “Dion.” In Lives, Volume II. Translated by John Dryden, edited by Arthur Hugh Clough, and introduced by James Atlas. New York: The Modern Library, 2001.

 

Francis Ford Coppola, director. The Godfather. Written by Mario Puzo and Francis Ford Coppola. Paramount Pictures, 1972.

 

Joel Coen and Ethan Coen, directors. Fargo. Gramercy Pictures, 1996.

 

Jacob Grimm and Wilhelm Grimm. Grimm’s Complete Fairy Tales. Introduced by Ken Mondschein. San Diego: Canterbury Classics, 2011.

 

Plutarch. “Timoleon.” In Lives, Volume I. Translated by John Dryden, edited by Arthur Hugh Clough, and introduced by James Atlas. New York: The Modern Library, 2001.

 

Dante Alighieri. The Divine Comedy. Translated by Allen Mandelbaum and introduced by Eugenio Montale. New York: Everyman’s Library, 1995.

 

Plato. Timaeus. Translated by D.J. Zeyl. In Plato: Complete Works. Edited by John M. Cooper. Indianapolis: Hackett Publishing Company, 1997.

 

Plato. Critias. Translated by D. Clay. In Plato: Complete Works. Edited by John M. Cooper. Indianapolis: Hackett Publishing Company, 1997.