_Dionysius the Elder._
LVIII. Dionysius the first, of Sicily, is stigmatized for one of the
most merciless tyrants the world ever knew; insomuch that we never
hear his name mentioned without the addition of the epithet Tyrant.
Notwithstanding this, there is room to doubt whether he was deserving of
this treatment. The historian Philistus, who applauds and defends him,
is known to have wrote his history while he was in a state of banishment
from Syracuse, his own country, into which he had been sent by this very
Dionysius; which is a circumstance that ought to weigh with all those
that don’t reason like Pausanias and Plutarch, who say he flattered
Dionysius, in hopes of being recalled from his banishment. But this is
pure conjecture, and cannot alter the fact; which is, that while he
lived out of his dominions, and had cause to be dissatisfied with him,
he praised him. The case of Thucydides with Pericles was similar to
this; and no one scruples to regard as sincere the commendations which
Thucydides gives of that leader, or doubts the justness of the applause
the author bestows on his virtue at a time when he was banished from
Athens, and persecuted by that same Pericles.