A01=James Romm
ancient greek biography
ancient history
ancient world
Author_James Romm
autocracy
Category=NH
Category=NHC
Category=QDHA
classical studies
democracy
dionysius
eq_bestseller
eq_history
eq_isMigrated=1
eq_isMigrated=2
eq_nobargain
eq_non-fiction
greek history
philosopher biography
philosophy
plato
republic
syracuse
Product details
- ISBN 9781324093183
- Weight: 627g
- Dimensions: 160 x 236mm
- Publication Date: 13 May 2025
- Publisher: WW Norton & Co
- Publication City/Country: US
- Product Form: Hardback
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Many people know something of Plato’s 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 Plato’s 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. Plato’s interventions in the violent contest between Dionysius the Younger and his brother-in-law, Dion—with whom Plato may have had a long love affair—were the backdrop and perhaps the motivation for his masterwork. In a thrilling narrative, Romm captures how Plato’s experiment in enlightened autocracy spiralled into catastrophe and gives us a new account of the origins of Western political philosophy.
James Romm is the James H. Ottaway Jr. Professor of Classics at Bard College and editor of the Ancient Lives biography series from Yale University Press. He is the author of several other studies of Greek and Roman history, and his reviews and essays appear regularly in the Wall Street Journal and the New York Review of Books.
