
Plato and the Tyrant
The Fall of Greece's Greatest Dynasty and the Making of a Philosophic Masterpiece
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Narrated by:
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Paul Woodson
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By:
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James Romm
About this listen
Plato is one of history's most influential thinkers, yet the image we have of him—an ethereal figure far removed from society and politics, who conjured abstract ideas in peaceful groves—is a fiction, created by Plato's admirers and built up over centuries.
In Plato and the Tyrant, acclaimed historian and classicist James Romm draws on personal letters of Plato to show how a philosopher helped topple the leading Greek power of the era: the opulent city of Syracuse. There, Plato encountered two authoritarian rulers, a father and son both named Dionysius, and tried to steer them toward philosophy. At the same time, he worked on his masterpiece, Republic, in which he conceived a ruler who unites perfect wisdom with absolute power. That dream has echoed down through the ages and given rise to a famous term, one that Plato himself didn't actually use: philosopher-king. As Romm reveals, Plato's time in Syracuse helped shape Republic—and also had disastrous results for Plato himself and for all of Greek Sicily. The younger Dionysius welcomed Plato with open arms, but soon the relationship soured. Plato's close friendship with Dionysius's uncle, Dion—possibly a bond of romantic love—created a rift in the ruling family that led to a chaotic civil war. Plato and the Tyrant demonstrates how Plato's experiment with enlightened autocracy spiraled into catastrophe.
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Story
Daughter. Duhitár-. Dustr. Dukte. Listen to these English, Sanskrit, Armenian and Lithuanian words, all meaning the same thing, and you hear echoes of one of history’s most unlikely journeys. All four languages—along with hundreds of others, from French and Gaelic, to Persian and Polish—trace their origins to an ancient tongue spoken as the last ice age receded. This language, which we call Proto-Indo-European, was born between Europe and Asia and exploded out of its cradle, fragmenting as it spread east and west.
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Brilliant research and narration
- By Dr. Krishnendu Ray on 05-16-25
By: Laura Spinney
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Crisis on Mount Hood
- Stories from a Hundred Years of Mountain Rescue
- By: Christopher Van Tilburg
- Narrated by: Chris Sorensen
- Length: 9 hrs and 34 mins
- Unabridged
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In Crisis on Mount Hood, author and emergency room doctor Christopher Van Tilburg looks at the history of America's oldest all-volunteer mountain rescue team, the Hood River Crag Rats, and his own three-decade commitment to search and rescue. Centered on Oregon's iconic 11,249-foot-high Mount Hood, considered by many to be the world's most-climbed glaciated peak, this dramatic narrative leads listeners through a century of life-and-death challenges.
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Great descriptions and stories about mountain rescues
- By helen leonard on 05-31-25
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Epic of the Earth
- Reading Homer's "Iliad" in the Fight for a Dying World
- By: Edith Hall
- Narrated by: Edith Hall
- Length: 10 hrs and 40 mins
- Unabridged
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The roots of today's environmental catastrophe run deep into humanity's past. Through this unprecedented reading of Homer's Iliad, the award-winning classicist Edith Hall examines how this foundational text both documents the environmental practices of the ancient Greeks and betrays an awareness of the dangers posed by the destruction of the natural landscape. Underlying Homer's account of brutal military operations, alliances, and cataclysmic struggle is a palpable understanding that the direction in which humanity was headed could create a world that was uninhabitable.
By: Edith Hall