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May 2025
05-01-2025
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 and the Tyrant explores how 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. Romm reveals how Plato’s experiment in enlightened autocracy spiralled into catastrophe and offers 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 books, including Dying Every Day: Seneca at the Court of Nero and Ghost on the Throne: The Death of Alexander the Great and the War for Crown and Empire. He has edited numerous translations of ancient Greek texts, including the Anabasis of Arrian for the volume The Campaigns of Alexander in the distinguished Landmark Series of Ancient Historians. His reviews and essays have appeared in the New Yorker, the Wall Street Journal, the London Review of Books, the Daily Beast, and other venues. He has held the Guggenheim Fellowship (1999-2000), the Birkelund Fellowship at the Dorothy and Lewis B. Cullman Center for Writers and Scholars at the New York Public Library (2010-11), and a Biography Fellowship at the Leon Levy Center of the City University of New York (2014-15).
Leon Botstein is president of Bard College and Leon Levy Professor in the Arts and Humanities. He is the music director and principal conductor of the American Symphony Orchestra (ASO), founder and music director of The Orchestra Now (TŌN), artistic codirector of Bard SummerScape and the Bard Music Festival, and principal guest conductor of the Jerusalem Symphony Orchestra (JSO), where he served as music director from 2003 to 2011. He is editor of The Musical Quarterly and of The Compleat Brahms (Norton); publications include Jefferson’s Children (Doubleday), Judentum und Modernität (Böhlau), and Von Beethoven zu Berg (Zsolnay). Honors include an American Academy of Arts and Letters award, Carnegie Foundation Academic Leadership Award, National Arts Club Gold Medal, Leonard Bernstein Award, Bruckner Society Medal of Honor, Alumni Medal from the University of Chicago, and Austrian Cross of Honor for Science and Art. President Botstein is also chancellor of the Open Society University Network and trustee emeritus, Central European University (board chair, 2007–22; board member, 1991–22) and Foundation for Jewish Culture.
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