after torture, declared that he left the house while it was yet night
carrying a razor, Dion's accusers withdrew their charges against him,
and the people became reconciled with Dion and condemned Sosis to death.
Nevertheless, they viewed the mercenaries with suspicion, especially
after the great battles which took place at sea, when Philistus came
from Iapygia with many triremes to rescue Dionysius, upon which they
imagined that the mercenaries, being heavy-infantry soldiers, would be
of no further use in the war, and would soon become their enemies, as
they were all seafaring people, whose strength lay in their ships. They
were further excited by their success in a sea-fight, in which they
defeated Philistus, and treated him with the utmost barbarity. Ephorus
states that Philistus killed himself as soon as his ship was captured,
but Timonides, who was present with Dion throughout the whole of these
events, in a letter which he wrote to the philospher, Speusippus,
informs him that Philistus was taken alive from his ship which ran
ashore; and that the Syracusans first stripped him of his corslet and
displayed him naked, jeering at him, he being then an old man; and that
after this they cut off his head and gave up the body to the boys of the
town, bidding them drag it through Achradina, and cast it into the stone
quarries. Timæus declares that Philistus was treated with even greater
indignity, his dead body being dragged by the boys through the city by
the lame leg amidst the insults of all the people of Syracuse, who were
pleased to see this treatment inflicted on the man who had told
Dionysius that far from requiring a swift horse to escape from his
throne, he ought to remain until he was dragged from it by the leg.
Philistus, however, gave this advice to Dionysius, not as having been
said by himself, but by some one else.
XXXVI. Philistus doubtless laid himself open to blame by his zealous
adherence to the cause of the monarchy, but Timæus takes advantage of
this to satisfy his own spite by abusing him. It might, perhaps, be
pardoned if those who had been wronged by him were so transported by
rage as even to insult his senseless corpse; but a historian, writing an
account of his actions in a later age, without having been in any way
personally injured by him, ought to be restrained by feelings of honour
and decency from taunting him with his misfortunes, which, indeed, might
equally have befallen the best of men. Neither does Ephorus show a sound
judgment in praising Philistus, for, in spite of his skill in inventing
good motives for evil conduct and actions, and the care with which his
words are chosen, he cannot, with all his art, gloss over the fact that
Philistus was devotedly attached to the cause of despotism, and that he,
more than any one else, was dazzled and attracted by wealth, power,
luxury and marriages with the daughters of absolute princes. A historian
would show better taste than either of these by neither praising
Philistus for his conduct nor reproaching him with his misfortunes.
XXXVII. After the death of Philistus, Dionysius sent to Dion offering to
deliver up to him the citadel, the arms which it contained, the
mercenary troops and five months pay for them, and demanding to be
allowed to retire unmolested to Italy and live there, and also to
receive the revenues of a large and fertile tract belonging to Syracuse
called Gyarta, which extended from the sea-side to the interior of the
island. Dion would not receive the embassy, but bade Dionysius address
himself to the people of Syracuse; and they, hoping to take Dionysius
alive, drove away his ambassadors. Dionysius now handed over the citadel
to Apollokrates, his eldest son, and himself placed what persons and
property he chiefly valued on board ship, waited for a fair wind, and
then sailed away, eluding the vigilance of the admiral Herakleides.
Herakleides was fiercely reproached by the citizens for his neglect, but
suborned one of the popular speakers to make proposals to the people for
a division of lands, pointing out that equality is the source of
freedom, and that poverty reduces men to slavery. Herakleides spoke on
the same side, openly opposed Dion, who led the opposite faction, and
prevailed upon the Syracusans to agree to this proposal, and further to
refuse to pay the mercenary troops and to rid themselves of the haughty
arrogance of Dion by electing new generals. Thus, like a man who
attempts to rise and walk when weakened by a long illness, the
Syracusans, after ridding themselves of their despotism, at once tried
to adopt the institutions of free peoples, and both failed in their
undertakings and disliked Dion, because he, like a careful physician,
wished to impose a strict and temperate regimen upon them.
XXXVIII. When they assembled to choose their new commanders the time
was about midsummer, and ominous thunderstorms and portents took place
for fifteen days in succession, dispersing the people and preventing
their election of any other generals. When the popular leaders, by
waiting and watching, had obtained a fair still day for the election of
chief magistrates, a draught ox, who was quite tame and accustomed to
crowds, but who was enraged with his driver, broke from his yoke and ran
towards the theatre. He scattered the people in the greatest confusion
and panic, and ran on prancing and causing disorder through all that
part of the city which afterwards fell into the hands of the enemy.
Nevertheless, the Syracusans disregarded this omen, and elected
five-and-twenty generals, one of whom was Herakleides. They also made
secret overtures to Dion's mercenaries, inviting them to desert, and
offering them equal rights with the other citizens. They, however, would
not listen to these proposals, but faithfully and promptly got under
arms, formed column with Dion in their midst, and began to march out of
the city, without harming any one, but bitterly reproaching all whom
they met with their ingratitude and wickedness. But the Syracusans, who
despised them for their small numbers and for not having been the first
to attack, had now collected in crowds, far outnumbering the
mercenaries, and set upon them, expecting that in a street-fight they
would easily be able to overpower them and to kill them all.
XXXIX. In this terrible dilemma, as he was forced either to fight
against his fellow-countrymen or to perish with his mercenaries, Dion
stretched out his hands towards the Syracusans and implored them to
desist, and pointed to the citadel, full of armed enemies, who were
watching them from the battlements. As, however, the excited mob could
not be turned from its purpose, for the speeches of the demagogues
stirred up the people as the wind stirs up the waves of the sea, Dion
ordered his troops not to charge them, but to march forward with a shout
and martial clash of arms. At this none of the Syracusans stood their
ground, but ran away along the streets unpursued; for Dion at once
wheeled round his troops and marched away to Leontini. The new chiefs of
the Syracusans, ridiculed by the women, and wishing to wipe out their
disgrace, now again got the citizens under arms and pursued Dion. They
came up with him as he was crossing a stream, and rode up to his troops
in skirmishing order. When, however, they perceived that Dion was no
longer willing to deal gently and paternally with their follies, but
that he angrily formed his troops in line and ordered them to attack,
they fled more disgracefully than before back to their city, without
losing many of their number.
XL. The people of Leontini received Dion with especial honours, provided
his troops with pay, and made them free of the city. They also sent
ambassadors to the Syracusans, calling upon them to do the soldiers
justice; to which they replied by sending ambassadors to prefer charges
against Dion. When, however, all the allies held a meeting at Leontini
and discussed the matter, the Syracusans were held to be in fault. But
the Syracusans refused to accept this decision, as they were now full of
insolent importance, having no one to rule them, but being led by
generals who were the merest slaves of the people.
XLI. After this a fleet of triremes sent by Dionysius arrived at the
city, under the command of Nypsius, a Neapolitan, with supplies of corn
and money for the besieged. In a sea-fight which took place the
Syracusans were victorious, and took four of the ships, but were so
elated by their victory, and, having none to rule them, celebrated their
success with such reckless excesses of drinking and feasting, that while
they imagined they had taken the citadel they really lost the city as
well; for Nypsius, observing that discipline was everywhere at an end,
as the populace were engaged in drinking to the sound of music from
daylight until late at night, and that the generals were delighted at
the festivity and were unwilling to summon the drunken men to their
duty, seized his opportunity and attacked the Syracusan wall of
investment. His attack succeeded; he broke through the works, and at
once let loose his foreign mercenaries, bidding them deal as they
pleased with all whom they met. The Syracusans, though they soon learned
their misfortune, yet were slow to assemble, being taken by surprise;
for the city was being sacked, the men slaughtered, the walls thrown
down and the women and children being forced weeping into the citadel,
while the generals gave up all for lost, and could make no use of the
citizens, who were everywhere confusedly mixed up with the enemy.
XLII. While the city was in this condition, and the danger began to
menace Achradina also, all men thought of him who was their last and
only hope, but no one spoke of Dion, as they were all ashamed of the
folly and ingratitude with which they had treated him. Sheer necessity,
however, forced some of the auxiliary troops and the knights[494] to cry
out that they must send for Dion and his Peloponnesians from Leontini.
As soon as any were found bold enough to raise this cry, the Syracusans
shouted aloud, and rejoiced with tears, for they prayed that Dion would
come, they longed to see him, and they remembered his courage and
strength in time of danger, in which he not only remained calm and
unmoved, but gave them confidence by his demeanour and caused them
fearlessly and bravely to attack their enemies. They therefore at once
sent off to him Archonides and Telesides, as representatives of the
allies, and Hellanikus, with four others, of the knights. These men rode
at full gallop to Leontini, arriving there late in the afternoon. When
they dismounted, the first person they met was Dion, and with tears in
their eyes they told him of the misfortunes which had befallen the
Syracusans. Soon some of the citizens of Leontini fell in with them, and
many of the Peloponnesians gathered round Dion, suspecting from the
earnest and supplicatory tones and gestures of the ambassadors that
something important had happened. Dion at once led the way to the public
assembly, where all the people soon met together. Archonides and
Hellanikus in a few words informed them of the great misfortune which
had befallen the Syracusans, and besought the stranger mercenaries to
help them and not to bear malice for the treatment which they had
received, since the Syracusans had been more terribly punished for their
misconduct than even the soldiers could have wished them to be.
XLIII. After they had ceased speaking, there was a great silence; and
when Dion rose and began to speak, tears choked his utterance. The
Peloponnesians encouraged him, and showed sympathy with him, and at
length he mastered his emotion and said: "Men of Peloponnesus and
Allies, I have assembled you here to deliberate about your own affairs.
As for myself, I cannot with honour deliberate while Syracuse is being
destroyed, but if I cannot save my country, I will share her ruin and
make her flames my own funeral pyre. As for you, if you can bring
yourselves even now, after all that has passed, to help us, the most
ill-advised and the most ill-fated of men, restore again by your own
means alone the city of Syracuse. But if you hate the Syracusans and
reject their appeal, then may you be rewarded by heaven for your former
brave conduct and loyalty to me, and may you remember Dion, who would
not desert you when you were wronged, and would not afterwards desert
his fellow-countrymen when they were in trouble." While Dion was still
speaking, the Peloponnesians leaped up with a shout, bidding him lead
them as quickly as possible to the rescue, and the ambassadors from
Syracuse embraced him, calling upon heaven to bless both him and the
troops. When order was restored, Dion immediately began to prepare for
the march, and ordered his men to go and eat their dinners at once, and
then to assemble under arms in that very place; for he intended to march
to Syracuse by night.
XLIV. Meanwhile at Syracuse the generals of Dionysius worked great ruin
in the city while it was day, but when darkness came on retired into the
citadel, having lost but few men. The popular leaders now took courage,
and, expecting that the enemy would attempt nothing further, again
called upon the people to have nothing to do with Dion, and, if he came
with his foreign troops, not to admit him into the city and own
themselves inferior to his men in courage, but to reconquer their city
and their liberty by their own exertions. More embassies were now sent
to Dion, from the generals dissuading him from coming, and from the
knights and leading citizens entreating him to come quickly. This caused
him to march more slowly, yet with greater determination. When day
broke, the party opposed to Dion occupied the gates, in order to shut
him out of the city, while Nypsius a second time led out the mercenaries
from the citadel, in greater numbers and far more confident than before.
He at once levelled to the ground the whole of the works by which the
citadel was cut off from the main land, and overran and pillaged the
city. No longer men alone, but even women and children were slaughtered,
and property of every kind mercilessly destroyed; for Dionysius, who now
despaired of ultimate success, and bitterly hated the Syracusans, wished
only, as it were, to bury the monarchy in the ruins of the city. In
order to effect their purpose before Dion could come to the rescue, the
soldiers destroyed the houses in the quickest way by setting them on
fire, using torches for those near at hand, and shooting fiery arrows to
those at a distance. As the Syracusans fled from their burning
dwellings, some were caught and butchered in the streets, while others
who took refuge in the houses perished in the flames, as now a large
number of houses were burning, and kept falling upon the passers by.
XLV. This misfortune more than anything else caused all to be unanimous
in opening the gates to Dion. He had been marching slowly, as he heard
that the enemy were shut up in the citadel; but as the day went on, at
first some of the knights rode up to him and told him of the second
occupation of the city; and afterwards some even of the opposite faction
arrived and begged him to hasten his march. As the danger became more
pressing, Herakleides sent first his brother, and afterwards his uncle
Theodotus, to beseech Dion to assist them, and to tell him that no one
any longer could offer any resistance, that Herakleides himself was
wounded, and that the whole city was within a little of being totally
ruined and burned. When these messages reached Dion he was still sixty
stadia distant from the gates of Syracuse. He explained to his troops
the danger the city was in, spoke some words of encouragement to them,
and then led them on, no longer at a walk, but at a run, while messenger
after messenger continued to meet them and urge them to haste. At the
head of his mercenaries, who displayed extraordinary speed and spirit,
Dion made his way through the gates of Syracuse to the place called
Hekatompedon. He at once sent his light-armed troops to attack the
enemy, and to encourage the Syracusans by their presence, while he
himself formed his own heavy infantry, and those of the citizens who
rallied round him in separate columns under several commanders, in order
to create greater terror by attacking the enemy at many points at once.
XLVI. When, after making these preparations, and offering prayer to the
gods, he was beheld leading his troops through the city to attack the
enemy, the Syracusans raised a shout of joy, with a confused murmur of
prayers, entreaties and congratulations, addressing Dion as their
saviour and their tutelary god, and calling the foreign soldiers their
brethren and fellow-citizens. All of them, even the most selfish and
cowardly, now appeared to hold Dion's life dearer than his own or that
of his fellow-citizens, as they saw him lead the way to danger through
blood and fire, and over the corpses which lay in heaps in the streets.
The enemy, too, presented a formidable appearance, for they were
exasperated to fury, and had established themselves in a strong
position, hard even to approach, amidst the ruins of the rampart by
which the citadel had been cut off from the town; while the progress of
the mercenary troops was rendered difficult and dangerous by the flames
of the burning houses by which they were surrounded. They were forced to
leap over heaps of blazing beams, and to run from under great masses of
falling ruins, struggling forwards through thick smoke and choking dust,
and yet striving to keep their ranks unbroken. When at length they
reached the enemy, only a few could fight on either side, because of the
narrowness of the path, but the Syracusans, pushing confidently forward
with loud shouts, forced the troops of Nypsius to give way. Most of them
escaped into the citadel, which was close at hand: but all the
stragglers who were left outside, were pursued and put to death by the
Peloponnesians. The Syracusans could not spare any time to enjoy their
victory and to congratulate one another after such great successes, but
betook themselves at once to extinguishing their burning houses, and
with great exertions put out the fire during the night.
XLVII. As soon as day broke, all the popular leaders, conscious of their
guilt, left the city, with the exception of Herakleides and Theodotus,
who went of their own accord and delivered themselves up to Dion,
admitting that they had done wrong, and begging that he would treat them
better than they had treated him. They pointed out, also, how much he
would enhance the lustre of his other incomparable virtues by showing
himself superior even in the matter of temper to those by whom he had
been wronged, who now came before him admitting that in their rivalry
with him they had been overcome by his virtue. When Herakleides and his
companion thus threw themselves upon the mercy of Dion, his friends
advised him not to spare such envious and malignant wretches, but to
deliver up Herakleides to his soldiers, and thus to put an end to mob
rule, an evil quite as pestilent as despotism itself. Dion, however,
calmed their anger, observing that other generals spent most of their
time in practising war and the use of arms; but that he, during his long
sojourn in the Academy, had learned to subdue his passions, and to show
himself superior to jealousy of his rivals. True greatness of mind, he
said, could be better shown by forgiving those by whom one has been
wronged, than by doing good to one's friends and benefactors; and he
desired not so much to excel Herakleides in power and generalship, as in
clemency and justice, the only qualities which are truly good: for our
successes in war, even if won by ourselves alone, yet can only be won by
the aid of Fortune. "If," he continued, "Herakleides be jealous,
treacherous and base, that is no reason for Dion to stain his glory by
yielding to his anger; for though to revenge a wrong is held to be less
culpable than to commit one, yet both alike spring from the weakness of
human nature: while even though a man be wicked, yet he is seldom so
hopelessly depraved as not to be touched by one who repeatedly returns
good for evil."
XLVIII. After expressing himself thus, Dion released Herakleides. He
next turned his attention to the fortification by which the citadel was
cut off, and ordered each Syracusan to cut a stake and bring it to the
spot. He allowed the citizens to rest during the night, but kept his
mercenary soldiers at work, and by the next morning had completed the
palisade, so that both the enemy and his own countrymen were astonished
at the speed with which he had accomplished so great a work. He now
buried the corpses of those citizens who had fallen in the battle,
ransomed the prisoners, who amounted to no less than two thousand, and
summoned an assembly, in which Herakleides proposed that Dion should be
appointed absolute commander by land and by sea. All the better citizens
approved of this, and wished it to be put to the vote, but it was thrown
out by the interference of the mob of sailors and people of the lower
classes, who were sorry that Herakleides had lost his post as admiral,
and who thought that, although he might be worthless in all other
respects, he was at any rate more of a friend to the people than Dion,
and more easily managed by them. Dion conceded so much to them as to
give Herakleides command of the fleet, but vexed them much by opposing
their plans for a redistribution of land and houses, and by declaring
void all that they had decided upon this subject. In consequence of this
Herakleides, who at once entered upon his office of admiral, sailed to
Messenia, and there by his harangues excited the sailors and soldiers
under his command to mutiny against Dion, who, he declared, intended to
make himself despot of Syracuse; while he, in the meanwhile, entered
upon negotiations with Dionysius by means of the Spartan Pharax. When
this was discovered by the Syracusan nobility, a violent quarrel arose
in his camp, which led to the people of Syracuse being reduced to great
want and scarcity, so that Dion was at his wit's end, and was bitterly
reproached by his friends for having placed such an unmanageable and
villainous rival as Herakleides in possession of power which he used
against his benefactor.
XLIX. Pharax was now encamped at Neapolis, in the territory of
Agrigentum, and Dion, who led out the Syracusans to oppose him, wished
to defer an engagement; but Herakleides and the sailors overwhelmed him
with their clamour, saying that he did not wish to bring the war to an
end by a battle, but to keep it constantly going on in order that he
might remain the longer in command. He therefore fought and was beaten.
The defeat was not a disastrous one, but was due more to the confusion
produced by the quarrels of his own men than to the enemy. Dion
therefore prepared to renew the engagement, drew out his men in battle
array, and addressed them in encouraging terms. Towards evening,
however, he heard that Herakleides had weighed anchor and sailed away to
Syracuse with the fleet, with the intention of seizing the city and
shutting its gates against Dion and the army. Dion at once took the
strongest and bravest men with him, and rode all night, reaching the
gates of Syracuse about the third hour of the next day, after a journey
of seven hundred stadia. Herakleides, who in spite of the exertions of
his fleet was beaten in the race, was at a loss what to do, and sailed
away aimlessly. He chanced to fall in with the Spartan Gæsylus, who
informed him that he was coming from Lacedæmon to take command of the
Sicilian Greeks, as Gylippus had done in former times. Herakleides was
delighted at having met this man, and displayed him to his troops,
boasting that he had found a counterpoise to the power of Dion, he at
once sent a herald to Syracuse, and ordered the citizens to receive the
Spartan as their ruler. When Dion answered that the Syracusans had
rulers enough, and that in case they should require a Spartan to command
them, he himself was a Spartan by adoption, Gæsylus gave up all claims
to command, but went to Dion and reconciled Herakleides to him, making
Herakleides swear the greatest oaths and give the strongest pledges for
his future good behaviour, while Gæsylus himself swore that he would
avenge Dion and punish Herakleides in case the latter should misconduct
himself.