title: Plato's Symposium: The Ethics of Desire (Oxford Classical Monographs)
author: Frisbee Sheffield
description: <br /><strong>Frisbee Sheffield</strong> is Research Fellow, Girton College, Cambridge.<br />
zlib_text: Plato's Seventh Epistle - tr. Harward v. 08.15, www.philaletheians.co.uk, 10 November 2017 
  Page 1 of 23 
  Plato’s Seventh Epistle 
   
   
   
   
   
  The Sword of Damocles by Herbert Gandy
  
  HELLENIC AND HELLENISTIC PAPERS 
  PLATO’S SEVENTH EPISTLE 
  Plato's Seventh Epistle - tr. Harward v. 08.15, www.philaletheians.co.uk, 10 November 2017 
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  From John Harward. The Seventh and Eighth Platonic Epistles. The Classical Quarterly, 
  Vol. 22 (Issue 3/4, July – October 1928), pp. 143-154. 
   
  Plato to the relatives and friends of Dion 
  Welfare! 
  OU WRITE TO ME that I must consider your views the same as those of Dion, 
  and you urge me to aid your cause so far as I can in word and deed. My an-
  swer is that, if you have the same opinion and desire as he had, I consent to 
  aid your cause; but if not, I shall think more than once about it. Now what his pur-
  pose and desire was, I can inform you from no mere conjecture but from positive 
  knowledge. For when I made my first visit t