Journal of Hellenic Studies 131 (2011) 147-163 doi:10.1017/S0075426911000103 THE ETHICO-POLITICS OF WRITING IN PLUTARCH’S LIFE OF DION ALEXEI V. ZADOROJNYI University of Liverpool* Abstract: The paper focuses on the representation of pedagogical and political communication between (and around) Plato, Dion and Dionysius II in Plutarch’s Life of Dion. Plutarch’s narrative invokes both the Platonic critique of writing as an inadequate medium for teaching philosophy, and the polarity between free oral speech and writing as a symptom of tyranny. It is argued that the Life espouses but also complicates and implicitly interrogates the opposition between writtenness and orality across the philosophical and the political domain, thus constituting a rich intertextual response, from an Imperial Platonist author, to the Platonic concerns about the written word. * avzadoro@liverpool.ac.uk. The first draft of this paper was written in spring 2008 at the Center for Hellenic Studies in Washington DC; to the people and books of that wonderful place belongs my warmest (and nostalgic) gratitude. I also thank the JHS editor and referees for their valuable comments. 1 von Scheliha (1934) 130-31; Voit (1954/1955) especially 182-83; Berve (1957) 63, 128; Wardman (1974) 213-14, 255; Aalders and de Blois (1992) 3393; Candau Morón (1999) 242, 244-45; Muccioli (1999) 84; Colonnese (2007) 19-20, 22; Sanders (2008) 179. For the debate around the historicity of Platonic influence on Dion’s politics, cf. von Scheliha (1934) 64-67, 74, 76-77 and her survey of earlier literature at 149-53; Berve (1957) 19-21, 62-66, 103-06, 108-11; von Fritz (1968) 30, 101, 105, 108-14, 132-35; Sprute (1972); Sordi (1983) 42-43; Aalders and de Blois (1992) 3394; Trampedach (1994) 116-22; Dreher (1995) 139; de Blois (1997) 214-16; (1999) 303-04; Muccioli (1999) 306, 355-57, 370-75; Sanders (2008) 227-28, 255-57. 2 See Duff (1999) 72-94. 3 Contrast the upbeat judgements in Max. cum princ. 777A and, in anti-Epicurean contexts, in Non posse 1097B, Lat. viv. 1129C, especially Adv. Col. 1126B-C with Bonazzi (2007) 274-75; Pelling (2004) 91. 4 The Life makes capital out of the Platonic Epistles (not being worried about their authenticity, it seems), especially, of course, the Seventh: Porter (1952) xxii- xxiv; Berve (1957) 14-15; Sanders (2008) 180-84. For Dion’s campaign and its aftermath, Plutarch also draws on the eye-witness account by Timonides of Leucas (22.5, 35.4), who apparently had links with the Academy: cf. D.L. 4.5; Porter (1952) xx-xxii; Berve (1957) 8-9; Sordi (1983) 7, 18; Trampedach (1994) 104; Orsi (1994) 28-29; especially Muccioli (1990); (1999) 54-55, 85; Sanders (2008) 42-66, 190-91. 5 Wardman (1974) 206; Dillon (2008); especially Pelling (2004) 91-97. Surely the complexities of Dion’s figure and career in Plutarch must not be reduced to Plutarch’s use of non-unanimous sources on Dion; contra Sanders (2008) 179-200. Among Plutarch’s Parallel Lives, the biography of Dion of Syracuse merits special attention as a test case of the philosophical themes and loyalties behind the narrative. The key claim of this Life is that its protagonist acts out a Platonic identity. 1 In the introductory chapter, Dion and his Roman counterpart Brutus are profiled as trained Platonists: ‘one of them was close (plhsiãsaw) to Plato himself, the other was weaned on Plato’s doctrines (to›w lÒgoiw §ntrafe‹w). Both went from the same gym, as it were, into the greatest of combats’ (Dion 1.2). By choosing to frame Dion through Platonism, Plutarch raises the stakes both for the hero and the teaching that supplies the ideological armature of the Lives themselves. 2 Dion’s failure in politics offsets and potentially deflates his first-hand experience of Plato’s philosophy. 3 As a participant and the core primary source 4 of the Plutarchan Life, Plato is caught up in the pedagogical and political embarrassment over Dion, and also over the younger Dionysius. A double miscarriage, then - not an easy story to tell while staying discoursally beholden to the Platonic world-view. Perhaps the best Plutarch can do here is to fall back on Plato for intertextual insights into the causation behind the disappointing outcomes. Modern scholarship on the Dion-Brutus has explored the built-in Plutarchan problematics of transferring ethico-political ideals into reality; 5 the compromises and misconstruction in the