Fifth Letter (Plato)

The Fifth Letter of Plato, also called Epistle V or Letter V, is an epistle that tradition has ascribed to Plato. It falls among those Epistles of Plato that have nothing to do with Sicilian politics and the intrigues between Dion and his nephew, Dionysius the Younger, tyrant of Syracuse. In the Stephanus pagination it spans III. 321c–322c.

The Fifth Letter purports to be a private letter addressed to Perdiccas III, king of Macedon from 365 to 359 BCE. It announces that its author has complied with Perdiccas' request to counsel one Euphraeus to turn his attention to Perdiccas' interests and then proceeds to counsel Perdiccas himself on the advantages of listening to Euphraeus' counsels. Perdiccas is young, and few people are as fit to give advice concerning politics as they claim to be. Echoing the Republic, the letter goes on to say that each form of government (πολιτεία) has its own language or voice (φωνή), and that it is necessary to speak to both gods and men in the voice appropriate to the regime if one is to flourish. Euphraeus will help Perdiccas to explore the speech or logic (λόγος) of monarchy.

The letter next raises a hypothetical objection: Plato himself did not speak to the Athenian democracy, even as the above argument suggests that he knows what would be advantageous to it. It counsels Perdiccas to respond to this objection by saying that Plato was born when his fatherland had already been corrupted beyond the ability of his counsel to benefit it, while the risks of engaging in its politics were great, and that he would probably leave off counseling Perdiccas himself if he thought him incurable.

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