useless; besides being very expensive to the crews, and giving
opportunities for the formation of plots against the government; but
they continued the siege of the citadel, and thoroughly completed the
wall across the isthmus. As no assistance arrived for the besieged,
while their provisions began to fail, and their troops became inclined
to mutiny, the son of Dionysius despaired of success, arranged terms of
capitulation with Dion, handed over the citadel to him together with all
the arms and other war material which it contained, and himself, taking
his mother and sisters and their property on board of five triremes,
sailed away to his father. Dion permitted him to leave in safety, and
his departure was witnessed by every one of the Syracusans, who even
called upon the names of those who were absent, and were unable to see
this day when the sun rose upon a free Syracuse. Indeed the downfall of
Dionysius is one of the most remarkable instances of the vicissitudes of
fortune known in history; and what then must we suppose was the joy and
pride of the Syracusans, when they reflected that with such slender
means they had overthrown the most powerful dynasty at that time
existing in the world?
LI. After Apollokrates had sailed away and Dion had entered the citadel,
the women could endure no longer to wait indoors till he came to them,
but ran to the gates, Aristomache leading Dion's son, and Arete
following behind her in tears, and at a loss to know how she should
greet her husband after she had been married to another. After Dion had
embraced his sister and his child, Aristomache led Arete forward, and
said, "Dion, we were unhappy while you were an exile; but now that you
have returned and conquered you have taken away our reproach from all
but Arete here, whom I have had the misery to see forced to accept
another husband while you were yet alive. Now, therefore, since fortune
has placed us in your power, how do you propose to settle this
difficulty? Is she to embrace you as her uncle or as her husband also?"
Dion shed tears at these words of Aristomache, and affectionately
embraced his wife. He placed his son in her hands, and bade her go to
his own house, where he himself also continued to live; for he delivered
up the citadel to the people of Syracuse.
LII. After he had thus accomplished his enterprise, he reaped no
advantage from his success, except that he conferred favours on his
friends and rewarded his allies; while he bestowed upon his own
companions, both Syracusan and Peloponnesian, such signal marks of his
gratitude that his generosity even outran his means. He himself
continued to live simply and frugally, while not only Sicily and
Carthage, but all Greece viewed with admiration the manner in which he
bore his prosperity, considering his achievements to be the greatest,
and himself to be the most splendid instance of successful daring known
to that age. He remained as modest in his dress, his household, and his
table, as though he were still the guest of Plato in the Academy, and
not living among mercenary soldiers, who recompense themselves for the
hardships and dangers of their lives by daily indulgence in sensual
pleasures. Plato wrote a letter to him, in which he informed him that
the eyes of all the world were fixed upon him; but Plato probably only
alluded to one place in one city, namely the Academy, and meant that the
critics and judges of Dion therein assembled did not admire his
exertions or his victory, but only considered whether he bore himself
discreetly and modestly in his success, and showed moderation now that
he was all-powerful. Dion made a point of maintaining the same haughty
demeanour in society, and of treating the people with the same severity
as before, although the times demanded that he should unbend, and though
Plato, as we have said before, wrote to him bidding him remember that an
arrogant temper is the consort of a lonely life. However, Dion appears
to have been naturally inclined to harshness, and besides was desirous
of reforming the manners of the Syracusans, who were excessively
licentious and corrupt.
LIII. Now Herakleides again opposed him. When Dion sent for him to
attend at the council, he refused to come, declaring that he was a mere
private man, and would go only to the public assembly with the other
citizens. Next he reproached Dion for not having demolished the citadel,
for having restrained the people when they wished to break open the tomb
of Dionysius (the elder) and cast out his body, and for having insulted
his own fellow-countrymen by sending to Corinth for counsellors and
colleagues. Indeed, Dion had sent to Corinth for some commissioners from
that city, hoping that their presence would assist him in effecting the
reforms which he meditated. Like Plato, he regarded a pure democracy as
not being a government at all, but rather a warehouse of all forms of
government: and his intention was to establish a constitution, somewhat
on the Lacedæmonian or Cretan model, by a judicious combination of
monarchy and oligarchy: and he saw that the government of Corinth was
more of an oligarchy than a democracy, and that few important measures
were submitted to the people. As Dion expected that Herakleides would
most vehemently oppose these projects, and was moreover a turbulent,
fickle, and facetious personage, he gave him up to those who had long
before desired to kill him, but whom he had formerly restrained from
doing so. These men broke into the house of Herakleides and killed him.
The Syracusans were deeply grieved at his death; yet, as Dion gave him a
splendid funeral, followed the corpse at the head of his army, and
afterwards made a speech to the people, they forgave him, reflecting
that their city could never have obtained rest while Dion and
Herakleides were both engaged in political life.
LIV. One of Dion's companions was an Athenian named Kallippus, who, we
are told by Plato, became intimate with him, not because of his
learning, but because he happened to have initiated Dion into some
religious mysteries. This man took part in Dion's expedition, and
received especial honours, being the first of all Dion's comrades who
marched into Syracuse with him, wearing a garland on his head, and he
had always distinguished himself in the combats which took place since
that time. Now, seeing that the noblest and best of Dion's friends had
fallen in the war, and that by the death of Herakleides the Syracusan
people were deprived of their leader, while he had greater influence
than any one else with Dion's mercenary soldiers, Kallippus conceived a
scheme of detestable villainy. No doubt he hoped to obtain the whole of
Sicily as his reward for murdering Dion, though some writers state that
he received a bribe of twenty talents from Dion's personal enemies. He
now drew several of the mercenary soldiers into a conspiracy against
Dion, conducting his plot in a most ingenious and treacherous manner.
He was in the habit of informing Dion of any treasonable speeches,
whether true or invented by himself, which he said that he had heard
from the mercenary troops, and by this means gained such entire
confidence with him, that he was able to hold secret meetings and plot
against Dion with whichever of the soldiers he pleased, having Dion's
express command to do so, in order that none of the disaffected party
might escape his notice. By this means Kallippus was easily enabled to
find out all the worst and most discontented of the mercenaries, and to
organise a conspiracy amongst them; while, if any man refused to listen
to his proposals and denounced him to Dion, he took no heed of it and
showed no anger, believing that Kallippus was merely carrying out his
own instructions.
LV. When the plot was formed, Dion beheld a great and portentous vision.
Late in the evening he was sitting alone in the hall[495] of his house,
plunged in thought. Suddenly he heard a noise on the other side of the
court, and, looking up, as it was not quite dark, saw a tall woman, with
the face and dress of a Fury as represented upon the stage, sweeping the
house with a kind of broom. He was terribly startled, and became so much
alarmed that he sent for his friends, described the vision to them, and
besought them to remain with him during the night, as he was beside
himself with fright, and dreaded lest if he were alone the apparition
might return. This, however, did not take place. A few days after this
his son, now almost grown up, took offence at some trifling affront, and
destroyed himself by throwing himself headlong from the roof of the
house.
LVI. While Dion was thus alarmed and distressed, Kallippus all the more
eagerly carried out his plot. He spread a rumour among the Syracusans
that Dion, being childless, had determined to recall Apollokrates, the
son of Dionysius, and to make him his heir, since he was his wife's
nephew, and his sister's grandson. By this time Dion and the women of
his household began to entertain some suspicion of the plot, and
information of it reached them from all quarters. Dion, however, grieved
at the murder of Herakleides, as though that crime had stained his
glory, had become low-spirited and miserable, and frequently said that
he was willing to die, and would let any man cut his throat, if he were
obliged to live amidst constant precautions against his friends as well
as his enemies. Kallippus, who perceived that the women had discovered
the whole plot, came to them in great alarm, denying that he had any
share in it, shedding tears, and offering to give any pledge of his
loyalty which they chose to ask for. They demanded that he should swear
the great oath, which is as follows:--The person who is about to swear
enters the precinct of the temple of Demeter and Persephone, and after
certain religious ceremonies puts on the purple robe of the goddess
Persephone, and swears, holding a lighted torch in his hand. All this
was done by Kallippus, and after swearing the oath he was impious enough
to wait for the festival of the goddess whose name he had taken in vain,
and to commit the murder on the day which was specially dedicated to
her, although, perhaps, he thought nothing about the profanation of that
particular day, but considered that it would be wickedness enough to
murder the man whom he had himself initiated into the mysteries, on
whatever day he might do it.
LVII. Many were now in the plot; and when Dion was sitting with his
friends in a room furnished with several couches, some of the
conspirators surrounded the house, while others stood at the doors and
windows. Those who intended to do the deed were Zakynthians, and entered
the house in their tunics, without swords. Those who remained outside
made fast the doors, while those within rushed upon Dion, and
endeavoured to strangle him. As, however, they could not accomplish
this, they asked for a sword; but no one ventured to open the doors,
because within the house were many of Dion's friends, but as each of
these imagined that, if he gave up Dion, he himself might get away safe,
no one would help him. After some delay, a Syracusan, named Lykon,
handed a dagger through a window to the Zakynthians, with which, as if
sacrificing a victim, they cut the throat of Dion, who had long before
been overpowered and had given himself up for lost. His sister and his
wife, who was pregnant, were at once cast into prison, where the unhappy
woman was delivered of a male child. The women prevailed upon the
keepers of the prison to spare the child's life, and obtained their
request the more readily because Kallippus was already in difficulties.
LVIII. After Kallippus had murdered Dion, he at once became a person of
importance, and had the entire government of Syracuse in his hands. He
even sent despatches to Athens, a city which, next to the gods, he
ought, especially to have dreaded, after having brought such pollution
and sacrilege upon himself. However, the saying appears to be true, that
that city produces both the best of good and the worst of wicked men,
just as the territory of Athens produces both the sweetest honey and the
most poisonous hemlock. Kallippus did not long survive to mock the
justice of heaven, lest the gods might have been thought to disregard a
man who, by such a crime, had obtained so great wealth and power; but he
soon paid the penalty of his wickedness. He set out to capture Katana,
and in doing so lost Syracuse; upon which he is said to have remarked,
that he had lost a city and gained a cheese-scraper. In an attack upon
Messenia he lost most of his soldiers, among whom were the murderers of
Dion. As no city in Sicily would receive him, but all hated him and
attacked him, he proceeded to Rhegium, where, as he was quite ruined and
could no longer maintain his mercenary soldiers, he was murdered by
Leptines and Polyperchon, who chanced to use the self-same dagger with
which Dion is said to have been slain. It was recognised by being very
short, after the Laconian fashion, and by its workmanship, for it was
admirably carved with figures in high relief. Such was the retribution
which befel Kallippus; while Aristomache and Arete, when they were
released from prison, fell into the power of Hiketes, a Syracusan, who
had been one of Dion's friends, and who treated them at first loyally
and honourably, but afterwards, at the instigation of some of the
enemies of Dion, sent them on board of a ship, on the pretext of sending
them to Peloponnesus, and gave orders to the people of the ship to put
them to death and throw their bodies into the sea. They, however, are
said to have thrown them alive into the sea, and the child with them.
This man also paid a fitting penalty for his crimes, for he was taken
and put to death by Timoleon, and the Syracusans put to death his two
daughters to avenge the murder of Dion. All of this I have already
described at length in the Life of Timoleon.
LIFE OF BRUTUS.
I. The ancestor of Marcus Brutus was Junius Brutus,[496] whose statue of
bronze the Romans of old set up in the Capitol, in the midst of the
kings, with a drawn sword in his hand, thereby signifying that it was he
who completely accomplished the putting down of the Tarquinii. Now that
Brutus, like swords forged of cold iron, having a temper naturally hard
and not softened by education, was carried on even to slaying of his
sons through his passion against the tyrants: but this Brutus, about
whom I am now writing, having tempered his natural disposition with
discipline and philosophical training and roused his earnest and mild
character by impulse to action, is considered to have been most aptly
fashioned to virtue, so that even those who were his enemies on account
of the conspiracy against Cæsar, attributed to Brutus whatever of good
the act brought with it, and the worst of what happened they imputed to
Cassius, who was a kinsman and friend of Brutus, but in his disposition
not so simple and pure. His mother Servilia[497] traced her descent from
Ala Servilius,[498] who when Mallius Spurius was contriving to
establish a tyranny and was stirring up the people, put a dagger under
his arm, and going into the Forum and taking his stand close to the man,
as if he were going to have something to do with him and to address him,
struck him as he bent forwards and killed him. Now this is agreed on;
but those who showed hatred and enmity towards Brutus on account of
Cæsar's death, say that on the father's side he was not descended from
the expeller of the Tarquinii, for that Brutus after putting his sons to
death left no descendants, but this Brutus was a plebeian, the son of
one Brutus who was a bailiff,[499] and had only recently attained to a
magistracy. Poseidonius the philosopher says that the sons of Brutus,
who had arrived at man's estate, were put to death as the story is told,
but there was left a third, an infant, from whom the race of Brutus
descended; and that some of the illustrious men of his time who belonged
to the family showed a personal resemblance to the statue of Brutus. So
much about this.
II. Servilia the mother of Brutus was a sister of Cato the philosopher,
whom most of all the Romans this Brutus took for his model, Cato being
his uncle and afterwards his father-in-law. As to the Greek
philosophers, there was not one, so to say, whom he did not hear or to
whom he was averse, but he devoted himself especially to those of
Plato's school. The Academy[500] called the New and the Middle he was
not much disposed to, and he attached himself to the Old, and continued
to be an admirer of Antiochus[501] of Ascalon; but for his friend and
companion he chose Antiochus's brother Aristus, a man who in his manner
of discourse was inferior to many philosophers, but in well-regulated
habits and mildness a rival to the first. Empylus,[502] whom both Brutus
in his letters and his friends often mentioned as being in intimacy
with him, was a rhetorician and left a small work, though not a mean
one, on the assassination of Cæsar, which is inscribed Brutus. In the
Latin language Brutus was sufficiently trained for oratory[503] and the
contests of the forum; but in the Greek, he practised the apophthegmatic
and Laconic brevity which is sometimes conspicuous in his letters. For
instance when he was now engaged in the war, he wrote to the people of
Pergamum: "I hear that you have given money to Dolabella; if you gave it
willingly, you admit your wrong; if you gave it unwillingly, make proof
of this by giving to me willingly!" On another occasion, to the Samians:
"Your counsels are trifling; your help is slow. What end do you expect
of this?" And another about the people of Patara: "The Xanthians by
rejecting my favours have made their country the tomb of their
desperation. The people of Patara by trusting to me want nothing of
liberty in the management of their affairs. It is therefore in your
power also to choose the decision of the people of Patara or the fortune
of the Xanthians." Such is the character of the most remarkable of his
letters.
III. While he was still a youth he went abroad with his uncle Cato, who
was sent to Cyprus[504] to Ptolemæus. After Ptolemæus had put an end to
himself, Cato, being detained of necessity in Rhodes, happened to have
sent Canidius, one of his friends, to look after the money, but as he
feared that Canidius would not keep his hands from filching, he wrote to
Brutus to sail as quick as he could to Cyprus from Pamphylia; for Brutus
was staying there to recover from an illness. Brutus sailed very much
against his will, both out of respect for Canidius, as being
undeservedly deprived of his functions by Cato, and inasmuch as he was a
young man and a student,[505] considering such a piece of business and
administration not at all fit for a free man or for himself. However, he
exerted himself about these matters and was commended by Cato; and when
the king's substance was converted into money, he took the greatest part
and sailed to Rome.
IV. But when matters came to a division, Pompeius and Cæsar having taken
up arms, and the government being in confusion, it was expected that he
would choose Cæsar's side, for his father[506] was put to death by
Pompeius some time before; but as he thought it right to prefer the
public interests to his own, and as he considered the ground of Pompeius
for the war to be better than Cæsar's, he joined Pompeius. And yet,
hitherto, when he met Pompeius, he would not even speak to him, thinking
it a great crime to talk with his father's murderer; but now, placing
himself under Pompeius as leader of his country, he sailed to Sicily as
legatus with Sestius,[507] who had got it for his province. But as there
was nothing of importance to do there, and Pompeius and Cæsar had
already met together to contend for the supremacy, he went to Macedonia
as a volunteer to share the danger; on which occasion they say that
Pompeius, being delighted and surprised at his coming, rose from his
seat and embraced him as a superior man in the presence of all. During
the campaign all the daytime when he was not with Pompeius he was
employed about study and books; and not only at other times, but also
before the great battle. It was the height of summer, and the heat was
excessive, as they were encamped close to marshy ground; and those who
carried the tent of Brutus did not come quickly. After being much
harassed about these matters, and having scarcely by midday anointed
himself and taken a little to eat, while the rest were either sleeping
or engaged in thought and care about the future, he kept on writing till
evening-time, making an epitome of Polybius.[508]
V. It is said that Cæsar, too, was not indifferent about the man, but
gave orders to those who commanded under him not to kill Brutus in the
battle, but to spare him; find if he yielded to bring him, and if he
resisted being taken, to let him alone and not force him; and this, it
is said, he did to please Servilia,[509] the mother of Brutus. For when
he was still a youth, he had, it seems, known Servilia, who was
passionately in love with him, and as Brutus was born about the time
when her love was most ardent, he had in some degree a persuasion that
Brutus was his son. It is recorded that when the great affair of
Catilina had engaged the Senate, which affair came very near overturning
the State, Cato and Cæsar were standing up at the same time and
disputing. While this was going on, a small letter was brought in and
given to Cæsar, which he read silently, whereon Cato called out that
Cæsar was doing a shameful thing in receiving communications and letters
from their enemies. Many of the Senators hereon made a tumult, and Cæsar
gave the letter just as it was to Cato, and it was a passionate letter
from his sister Servilia, which he read and throwing it to Cæsar said,
"Take it, drunkard;" and he again turned afresh to his argument and his
speech. So notorious was the love of Servilia for Cæsar.