[348a]
we lived, Dionysius and I, was this—I was gazing out of my cage, like a bird1 that is longing to fly off and away, while he was scheming how he might shoo me back without paying away any of Dion's money; nevertheless, to the whole of Sicily we appeared to be comrades.Now Dionysius attempted, contrary to his father's practice, to reduce the pay of the older members of his mercenary force, and the soldiers, being infuriated, assembled together and refused to permit it. And when he kept trying to force them by closing the gates of the citadel,2
1 cf. Plat. Phaedrus 249d.
2 The mercenaries lived in the island of Ortygia, but beyond the walls of the Acropolis; so when Plato had to quit the Acropolis he was surrounded by them in his new lodgings.
Plato. Plato in Twelve Volumes, Vol. 7 translated by R.G. Bury. Cambridge, MA, Harvard University Press; London, William Heinemann Ltd. 1966.
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