CHAPTER XC._History of Greece, Volume 11 (of 12)

FROM THE PEACE OF 346 B. C. TO THE BATTLE OF CHÆRONEIA AND THE

DEATH OF PHILIP.

Position of Philip after the conclusion of the Sacred War.

— Sentiments of Demosthenes — he recommends acquiescence in

the peace, and recognition of the new Amphiktyonic dignity of

Philip. — Sentiments of Isokrates — his letter to Philip — his

abnegation of free Hellenism. — Position of the Persian king

Ochus — his measures against revolters in Phenicia and Egypt. —

Reconquest of Phenicia by Ochus — perfidy of the Sidonian prince

Tennes. — Reconquest of Egypt by the Persian force under Mentor

and Bagoas. — Power of Mentor as Persian viceroy of the Asiatic

coast — he seizes Hermeias of Atarneus. — Peace between Philip

and the Athenians, continued without formal renunciation from

346-340 B. C. — Movements and intrigues of Philip everywhere

throughout Greece. — Disunion of the Grecian world — no Grecian

city recognized as leader. — Vigilance and renewed warnings of

Demosthenes against Philip. — Mission of Python to Athens by

Philip — amendments proposed in the recent peace — fruitless

discussions upon them. — Dispute about Halonnesus. — The

Athenians refuse to accept cession of Halonnesus as a favor,

claiming restitution of it as their right. — Halonnesus taken and

retaken — reprisals between Philip and the Athenians. — Movements

of the philippizing factions at Megara — at Oreus — at Eretria. —

Philip in Thrace — disputes about the Bosphorus and Hellespont —

Diopeithes commander for Athens in the Chersonese. Philip takes

part with the Kardians against Athens. Hostile collisions and

complaints against Diopeithes. — Accusations against Diopeithes

at Athens by the philippizing orators — Demosthenes defends him

— speech on the Chersonese, and third Philippic. — Increased

influence of Demosthenes at Athens — Athenian expedition sent,

upon his motion, to Eubœa — Oreus and Eretria are liberated,

and Eubœa is detached from Philip. — Mission of Demosthenes

to the Chersonese and Byzantium — his important services in

detaching the Byzantines from Philip, and bringing them into

alliance with Athens. — Philip commences the siege of Perinthus

— he marches through the Chersonesus — declaration of war

by Athens against him. — Manifesto of Philip, declaring war

against Athens — Complaints of Philip against the Athenians —

his policy towards Athens — his lecture on the advantages of

peace. — Open war between Philip and the Athenians. — Siege of

Perinthus by Philip. His numerous engines for siege — great scale

of operations. Obstinacy of the defence. The town is relieved

by the Byzantines, and by Grecian mercenaries from the Persian

satraps. — Philip attacks Byzantium — danger of the place — it

is relieved by the fleets of Athens, Chios, Rhodes, etc. Success

of the Athenian fleet in the Propontis under Phokion. Philip

abandons the sieges both of Perinthus and Byzantium. — Votes

of thanks from Byzantium and the Chersonesus to Athens for her

aid — honors and compliments to Demosthenes. — Philip withdraws

from Byzantium, concludes peace with the Byzantines, Chians,

and others, and attacks the Scythians. He is defeated by the

Triballi, and wounded, on his return. — Important reform effected

by Demosthenes in the administration of the Athenian marine. —

Abuses which had crept into the trierarchy — unfair apportionment

of the burthen — undue exemption which the rich administrators

had acquired for themselves. — Individual hardship, and bad

public consequences, occasioned by these inequalities. —

Opposition offered by the rich citizens and by Æschines to the

proposed reform of Demosthenes — difficulties which he had to

overcome. — His new reform distributes the burthen of trierarchy

equitably. — Its complete success. Improved efficiency of the

naval armaments under it. — New Sacred War commences in Greece.

— Kirrha and its plain near Delphi consecrated to Apollo, in the

first Sacred War under Solon. — Necessity of a port at Kirrha,

for the convenience of visitors to Delphi. Kirrha grows up again,

and comes into the occupation of the Lokrians of Amphissa. —

Relations between the Lokrians of Amphissa and Delphi — they

had stood forward earnestly in the former Sacred War to defend

Delphi against the Phokians. — Amphiktyonic meeting at Delphi —

February, 339 B. C. Æschines one of the legates from Athens. —

Language of an Amphissian speaker among the Amphiktyons against

Athens — new dedication of an old Athenian donative in the

temple. — Speech of Æschines in the Amphiktyonic assembly. —

Passion and tumult excited by his speech. — Violent resolution

adopted by the Amphiktyons. — The Amphiktyons with the Delphian

multitude march down to destroy Kirrha — interference of the

Amphissians to rescue their property. They drive off the

Amphiktyons. — Farther resolution taken by the Amphiktyons to

hold a future special meeting and take measures for punishing the

Lokrians. — Unjust violence of the Amphiktyons — public mischief

done by Æschines. — Effect of the proceeding of Æschines at

Athens. Opposition of Demosthenes at first fruitless. — Change of

feeling at Athens — the Athenians resolve to take no part in the

Amphiktyonic proceedings against Amphissa. — Special meeting of

the Amphiktyons at Thermopylæ, held without Athens. Vote passed

to levy a force for punishing Amphissa. Kottyphus president. The

Amphiktyons invoke the intervention of Philip. — Motives which

dictated the vote — dependence of most of the Amphiktyonic voters

upon Philip — Philip accepts the command — marches southward

through Thermopylæ. — Philip enters Phokis. — He suddenly

occupies, and begins to re-fortify Elateia. — He sends an embassy

to Thebes, announcing his intention to attack Attica, and asking

either aid, or a free passage for his own army. — Unfriendly

relations subsisting between Athens and Thebes. Hopes of Philip

that Thebes would act in concert with him against Athens. —

Great alarm at Athens, when the news arrived that Philip was

fortifying Elateia. — Athenian public assembly held — general

anxiety and silence — no one will speak but Demosthenes. — Advice

of Demosthenes to despatch an embassy immediately to Thebes, and

to offer alliance on the most liberal terms. — The advice of

Demosthenes is adopted — he is despatched with other envoys to

Thebes. — Divided state of feeling at Thebes — influence of the

philippizing party — effect produced by the Macedonian envoys. —

Efficient and successful oratory of Demosthenes — he persuades

the Thebans to contract alliance with Athens against Philip.

— The Athenian army marches by invitation to Thebes — cordial

coöperation of the Thebans and Athenians. — Vigorous resolutions

taken at Athens — continuance of the new docks suspended — the

Theôric Fund is devoted to military purposes. — Disappointment of

Philip — he remains in Phokis, and writes to his Peloponnesian

allies to come and join him against Amphissa. — War of the

Athenians and Thebans against Philip in Phokis — they gain some

advantages over him — honors paid to Demosthenes at Athens. — The

Athenians and Thebans reconstitute the Phokians and their towns.

— War against Philip in Phokis — great influence of Demosthenes

— auxiliaries which he procured. — Increased efforts of Philip

in Phokis. — Successes of Philip — he defeats a large body of

mercenary troops — he takes Amphissa. — No eminent general on

the side of the Greeks — Demosthenes keeps up the spirits of

the allies, and holds them together. — Battle of Chæroneia —

complete victory of Philip. — Macedonian phalanx — its long pikes

— superior in front charge to the Grecian hoplites. — Excellent

organization of the Macedonian army by Philip — different sorts

of force combined. — loss at the battle of Chæroneia. — Distress

and alarm at Athens on the news of the defeat. — Resolutions

taken at Athens for energetic defence. Respect and confidence

shown to Demosthenes. — Effect produced upon some of the

islanders in the Ægean by the defeat — conduct of the Rhodians. —

Conduct of Philip after the victory — harshness towards Thebes —

greater lenity to Athens. — Conduct of Æschines — Demades is sent

as envoy to Philip. — Peace of Demades, concluded between Philip

and the Athenians. The Athenians are compelled to recognize him

as chief of the Hellenic world. — Remarks of Polybius on the

Demadean peace — means of resistance still possessed by Athens.

— Honorary votes passed at Athens to Philip. — Impeachment

brought against Demosthenes at Athens — the Athenians stand

by him. — Expedition of Philip into Peloponnesus. He invades

Laconia. — Congress held at Corinth. Philip is chosen chief of

the Greeks against Persia. — Mortification to Athenian feelings

— degraded position of Athens and of Greece. No genuine feeling

in Greece now, towards war against Persia. — Preparations of

Philip for the invasion of Persia. — Philip repudiates Olympias

at the instance of his recently married wife, Kleopatra —

resentment of Olympias and Alexander — dissension at Court. —

Great festival in Macedonia — celebrating the birth of a son

to Philip by Kleopatra, and the marriage of his daughter with

Alexander of Epirus. — Pausanias — outrage inflicted upon him

— his resentment against Philip, encouraged by the partisans of

Olympias and Alexander. — Assassination of Philip by Pausanias,

who is slain by the guards. — Accomplices of Pausanias. —

Alexander the great is declared king — first notice given to him

by the Lynkestian Alexander, one of the conspirators — Attalus

and queen Kleopatra, with her infant son, are put to death. —

Satisfaction manifested by Olympias at the death of Philip. —

Character of Philip.

434-523

HISTORY OF GREECE.

CHAPTER LXXXIII.

SICILIAN AFFAIRS (_continued_). — FROM THE DESTRUCTION OF THE

CARTHAGINIAN ARMY BY PESTILENCE BEFORE SYRACUSE, DOWN TO THE DEATH OF

DIONYSIUS THE ELDER. B. C. 394-367.

In my preceding volume, I have described the first eleven years of

the reign of Dionysius called the Elder, as despot at Syracuse, down

to his first great war against the Carthaginians; which war ended by

a sudden turn of fortune in his favor, at a time when he was hard

pressed and actually besieged. The victorious Carthaginian army

before Syracuse was utterly ruined by a terrible pestilence, followed

by ignominious treason on the part of its commander Imilkon.

Within the space of less than thirty years, we read of four distinct

epidemic distempers,[1] each of frightful severity, as having

afflicted Carthage and her armies in Sicily, without touching

either Syracuse or the Sicilian Greeks. Such epidemics were the

most irresistible of all enemies to the Carthaginians, and the most

effective allies to Dionysius. The second and third,—conspicuous

among the many fortunate events of his life,—occurred at the exact

juncture necessary for rescuing him from a tide of superiority in

the Carthaginian arms, which seemed in a fair way to overwhelm him

completely. Upon what physical conditions the frequent repetition of

such a calamity depended, together with the remarkable fact that it

was confined to Carthage and her armies,—we know partially in respect

to the third of the four cases, but not at all in regard to the

others.

[1] Diodor. xiii. 86-114; xiv. 70; xv. 24. Another pestilence is

alluded to by Diodorus in 368 B. C. (Diodor. xv. 73).

Movers notices the intense and frequent sufferings of the

ancient Phœnicians, in their own country, from pestilence; and

the fearful expiations to which these sufferings gave rise (Die

Phönizier, vol. ii. part ii. p. 9).

The flight of Imilkon with his Carthaginians from Syracuse left

Dionysius and the Syracusans in the full swing of triumph. The

conquests made by Imilkon were altogether lost, and the Carthaginian

dominion in Sicily was now cut down to that restricted space in the

western corner of the island, which it had occupied prior to the

invasion of Hannibal in 409 B. C. So prodigious a success probably

enabled Dionysius to put down the opposition recently manifested

among the Syracusans to the continuance of his rule. We are told

that he was greatly embarrassed by his mercenaries; who, having

been for some time without pay, manifested such angry discontent

as to threaten his downfall. Dionysius seized the person of their

commander, the Spartan Aristoteles: upon which the soldiers mutined

and flocked in arms around his residence, demanding in fierce terms

both the liberty of their commander and the payment of their arrears.

Of these demands, Dionysius eluded the first by saying that he would

send away Aristoteles to Sparta, to be tried and dealt with among

his own countrymen: as to the second, he pacified the soldiers by

assigning to them, in exchange for their pay, the town and territory

of Leontini. Willingly accepting this rich bribe, the most fertile

soil of the island, the mercenaries quitted Syracuse to the number

of ten thousand, to take up their residence in the newly assigned

town; while Dionysius hired new mercenaries in their place. To these

(including perhaps the Iberians or Spaniards who had recently passed

from the Carthaginian service into his) and to the slaves whom he had

liberated, he intrusted the maintenance of his dominion.[2]

[2] Diodor. xiv. 78.

These few facts, which are all that we hear, enable us to see that

the relations between Dionysius and the mercenaries by whose means

he ruled Syracuse, were troubled and difficult to manage. But they

do not explain to us the full cause of such discord. We know that

a short time before, Dionysius had rid himself of one thousand

obnoxious mercenaries by treacherously betraying them to death in a

battle with the Carthaginians. Moreover, he would hardly have seized

the person of Aristoteles, and sent him away for trial, if the latter

had done nothing more than demand pay really due to his soldiers.

It seems probable that the discontent of the mercenaries rested

upon deeper causes, perhaps connected with that movement in the

Syracusan mind against Dionysius, manifested openly in the invective

of Theodorus. We should have been glad also to know how Dionysius

proposed to pay the new mercenaries, if he had no means of paying

the old. The cost of maintaining his standing army, upon whomsoever

it fell, must have been burdensome in the extreme. What became of

the previous residents and proprietors at Leontini, who must have

been dispossessed when this much-coveted site was transferred to

the mercenaries? On all these points we are unfortunately left in

ignorance.

Dionysius now set forth towards the north of Sicily to reëstablish

Messênê; while those other Sicilians, who had been expelled from

their abodes by the Carthaginians, got together and returned. In

reconstituting Messênê after its demolition by Imilkon, he obtained

the means of planting there a population altogether in his interests,

suitable to the aggressive designs which he was already contemplating

against Rhegium and the other Italian Greeks. He established in it

one thousand Lokrians,—four thousand persons from another city the

name of which we cannot certainly make out,[3]—and six hundred of the

Peloponnesian Messenians. These latter had been expelled by Sparta

from Zakynthus and Naupaktus at the close of the Peloponnesian

war, and had taken service in Sicily with Dionysius. Even here, the

hatred of Sparta followed them. Her remonstrances against his project

of establishing them in a city of consideration bearing their own

ancient name, obliged him to withdraw them: upon which he planted

them on a portion of the Abakene territory on the northern coast.

They gave to their new city the name of Tyndaris, admitted many new

residents, and conducted their affairs so prudently, as presently to

attain a total of five thousand citizens.[4] Neither here, nor at

Messênê, do we find any mention made of the reëstablishment of those

inhabitants who had fled when Imilkon took Messênê, and who formed

nearly all the previous population of the city, for very few are

mentioned as having been slain. It seems doubtful whether Dionysius

readmitted them, when he reconstituted Messênê. Renewing with care

the fortifications of the city, which had been demolished by Imilkon,

he placed in it some of his mercenaries as garrison.[5]

[3] Diodor. xiv. 78. Διονύσιος δ᾽ εἰς Μεσσήνην κατῴκισε χιλίους

μὲν Λοκροὺς, τετρακισχιλίους δὲ ~Μεδιμναίους~, ἑξακοσίους δὲ τῶν

ἐκ Πελοποννήσου Μεσσηνίων, ἔκ τε Ζακύνθου καὶ Ναυπάκτου φευγόντων.

The Medimnæans are completely unknown. Cluverius and Wesseling

conjecture _Medmæans_, from Medmæ or Medamæ, noticed by Strabo

as a town in the south of Italy. But this supposition cannot be

adopted as certain; especially as the total of persons named is

so large. The conjecture of Palmerius—Μηθυμναίους—has still less

to recommend it. See the note of Wesseling.

[4] Diodor. xiv. 78.

[5] Diodor. xiv. 87.

Dionysius next undertook several expeditions against the Sikels in

the interior of the island, who had joined Imilkon in his recent

attack upon Syracuse. He conquered several of their towns, and

established alliances with two of their most powerful princes, at

Agyrium and Kentoripæ. Enna and Kephalœdium were also betrayed to

him, as well as the Carthaginian dependency of Solûs. By these

proceedings, which appear to have occupied some time, he acquired

powerful ascendency in the central and north-east parts of the

island, while his garrison at Messênê; ensured to him the command of

the strait between Sicily and Italy.[6]

[6] Diodor. xiv. 78. εἰς τὴν τῶν Σικελῶν χώραν πλεονάκις

στρατεύσας, etc. Wesseling shows in his note, that these words,

and those which follow must refer to Dionysius.

His acquisition of this important fortified position was well

understood to imply ulterior designs against Rhegium and the other

Grecian cities in the south of Italy, among whom accordingly a lively

alarm prevailed. The numerous exiles whom he had expelled, not merely

from Syracuse, but also from Naxus, Katana, and the other conquered

towns, having no longer any assured shelter in Sicily, had been

forced to cross over into Italy, where they were favorably received

both at Kroton and at Rhegium.[7] One of these exiles, Helôris, once

the intimate friend of Dionysius, was even appointed general of the

forces of Rhegium; forces at that time not only powerful on land,

but sustained by a fleet of seventy or eighty triremes.[8] Under his

command, a Rhegine force crossed the strait for the purpose partly

of besieging Messênê, partly of establishing the Naxian and Katanean

exiles at Mylæ on the northern coast of the island, not far from

Messênê. Neither scheme succeeded: Helôris was repulsed from Messênê

with loss, while the new settlers at Mylæ were speedily expelled. The

command of the strait was thus fully maintained to Dionysius; who,

on the point of undertaking an aggressive expedition over to Italy,

was delayed only by the necessity of capturing the newly established

Sikel town on the hill of Taurus—or Tauromenium. The Sikels defended

this position, in itself high and strong, with unexpected valor

and obstinacy. It was the spot on which the primitive Grecian

colonists who first came to Sicily, had originally landed, and from

whence, therefore, the successive Hellenic encroachments upon the

pre-established Sikel population, had taken their commencement. This

fact, well known to both parties, rendered the capture on one side as

much a point of honor, as the preservation on the other. Dionysius

spent months in the siege, even throughout midwinter, while the snow

covered this hill-top. He made reiterated assaults, which were always

repulsed. At last, on one moonless winter night, he found means to

scramble over some almost inaccessible crags to a portion of the town

less defended, and to effect a lodgment in one of the two fortified

portions into which it was divided. Having taken the first part, he

immediately proceeded to attack the second. But the Sikels, resisting

with desperate valor, repulsed him, and compelled the storming party

to flee in disorder, amidst the darkness of night, and over the most

difficult ground. Six hundred of them were slain on the spot, and

scarcely any escaped without throwing away their arms. Even Dionysius

himself, being overthrown by the thrust of a spear on his cuirass,

was with difficulty picked up and carried off alive; all his arms,

except the cuirass, being left behind. He was obliged to raise the

siege, and was long in recovering from his wound: the rather as his

eyes also had suffered considerably from the snow.[9]

[7] Diodor. xiv. 87-103.

[8] Diodor. xiv. 8, 87, 106

[9] Diodor. xiv. 88.

So manifest a reverse, before a town comparatively insignificant,

lowered his military reputation, and encouraged his enemies

throughout the island. The Agrigentines and others, throwing off

their dependence upon him, proclaimed themselves autonomous;

banishing those leaders among them who upheld his interest.[10] Many

of the Sikels also, elate with the success of their countrymen at

Tauromenium, declared openly against him; joining the Carthaginian

general Magon, who now, for the first time since the disaster before

Syracuse, again exhibited the force of Carthage in the field.

[10] Diodor. xiv. 88. μετὰ δὲ τὴν ἀτυχίαν ταύτην, Ἀκραγαντῖνοι

~καὶ Μεσσνήνιοι~ τοὺς τὰ Διονυσίου φρονοῦντας μεταστησάμενοι, τῆς

ἐλευθερίας ἀντείχοντο, καὶ τῆς τοῦ τυράννου συμμαχίας ἀπέστησαν.

It appears to me that the words καὶ Μεσσνήνιοι in this sentence

cannot be correct. The Messenians were a new population just

established by Dionysius, and relying upon him for protection

against Rhegium: moreover they will appear, during the events

immediately succeeding, constantly in conjunction with him, and

objects of attack by his enemies.

I cannot but think that Diodorus has here inadvertently placed

the word Μεσσνήνιοι instead of a name belonging to some other

community—what community, we cannot tell.

Since the disaster before Syracuse, Magon had remained tranquil

in the western or Carthaginian corner of the island, recruiting

the strength and courage of his countrymen, and taking unusual

pains to conciliate the attachment of the dependent native towns.

Reinforced in part by the exiles expelled by Dionysius, he was now

in a condition to assume the aggressive, and to espouse the cause

of the Sikels after their successful defence of Tauromenium. He

even ventured to overrun and ravage the Messenian territory; but

Dionysius, being now recovered from his wound, marched against him,

defeated him in a battle near Abakæna, and forced him again to retire

westward, until fresh troops were sent to him from Carthage.[11]

[11] Diodor. xiv. 90-95.

Without pursuing Magon, Dionysius returned to Syracuse, from whence

he presently set forth to execute his projects against Rhegium, with

a fleet of one hundred ships of war. So skilfully did he arrange

or mask his movements, that he arrived at night at the gates and

under the walls of Rhegium, without the least suspicion on the part

of the citizens. Applying combustibles to set fire to the gate

(as he had once done successfully at the gate of Achradina),[12]

he at the same time planted his ladders against the walls, and

attempted an escalade. Surprised and in small numbers, the citizens

began their defence; but the attack was making progress, had not

the general Helôris, instead of trying to extinguish the flames,

bethought himself of encouraging them by heaping on dry faggots

and other matters. The conflagration became so violent, that even

the assailants themselves were kept off until time was given for

the citizens to mount the walls in force; and the city was saved

from capture by burning a portion of it. Disappointed in his

hopes, Dionysius was obliged to content himself with ravaging the

neighboring territory; after which, he concluded a truce of one year

with the Rhegines, and then returned to Syracuse.[13]

[12] Diodor. xiii. 113.

[13] Diodor xiv. 90.

This step was probably determined by news of the movements of Magon,

who was in the field anew with a mercenary force reckoned at eighty

thousand men—Libyan, Sardinian, and Italian—obtained from Carthage,

where hope of Sicilian success was again reviving. Magon directed

his march through the Sikel population in the centre of the island,

receiving the adhesion of many of their various townships. Agyrium,

however, the largest and most important of all, resisted him as an

enemy. Agyris, the despot of the place, who had conquered much of

the neighboring territory, and had enriched himself by the murder

of several opulent proprietors, maintained strict alliance with

Dionysius. The latter speedily came to his aid, with a force stated

at twenty thousand men, Syracusans and mercenaries. Admitted into

the city, and co-operating with Agyris, who furnished abundant

supplies, he soon reduced the Carthaginians to great straits. Magon

was encamped near the river Chrysas, between Agyrium and Morgantinê;

in an enemy’s country, harassed by natives who perfectly knew the

ground, and who cut off in detail all his parties sent out to

obtain provisions. The Syracusans, indeed, disliking or mistrusting

such tardy methods, impatiently demanded leave to make a vigorous

attack; and when Dionysius refused, affirming that with a little

patience the enemy must be speedily starved out, they left the camp

and returned home. Alarmed at their desertion, he forthwith issued

a requisition for a large number of slaves to supply their places.

But at this very juncture, there arrived a proposition from the

Carthaginians to be allowed to make peace and retire; which Dionysius

granted, on condition that they should abandon to him the Sikels and

their territory—especially Tauromenium. Upon these terms peace was

accordingly concluded, and Magon again returned to Carthage.[14]

[14] Diodor. xiv. 95, 96.

Relieved from these enemies, Dionysius was enabled to restore those

slaves, whom he had levied under the recent requisition, to their

masters. Having established his dominion fully among the Sikels, he

again marched against Tauromenium, which on this occasion was unable

to resist him. The Sikels, who had so valiantly defended it, were

driven out, to make room for new inhabitants, chosen from among the

mercenaries of Dionysius.[15]

[15] Diodor. xiv. 96.

Thus master both of Messênê and Tauromenium, the two most important

maritime posts on the Italian side of Sicily, Dionysius prepared

to execute his ulterior schemes against the Greeks in the south

of Italy. These still powerful, though once far more powerful,

cities, were now suffering under a cause of decline common to all

the Hellenic colonies on the coast of the continent. The indigenous

population of the interior had been reinforced, or enslaved, by more

warlike emigrants from behind, who now pressed upon the maritime

Grecian cities with encroachment difficult to resist.

It was the Samnites, a branch of the hardy Sabellian race,

mountaineers from the central portion of the Apennine range, who had

been recently spreading themselves abroad as formidable assailants.

About 420 B. C., they had established themselves in Capua and the

fertile plains of Campania, expelling or dispossessing the previous

Tuscan proprietors. From thence, about 416 B. C., they reduced the

neighboring city of Cumæ, the most ancient western colony of the

Hellenic race.[16] The neighboring Grecian establishments of Neapolis

and Dikæarchia seem also to have come, like Cumæ, under tribute

and dominion to the Campanian Samnites, and thus became partially

dis-hellenised.[17] These Campanians, of Samnite race, have been

frequently mentioned in the two preceding chapters, as employed on

mercenary service both in the armies of the Carthaginians, and in

those of Dionysius.[18] But the great migration of this warlike

race was farther to the south-east, down the line of the Apennines

towards the Tarentine Gulf and the Sicilian strait. Under the name

of Lucanians, they established a formidable power in these regions,

subjugating the Œnotrian population there settled.[19] The Lucanian

power seems to have begun and to have gradually increased from about

430 B. C. At its maximum (about 380-360 B. C.), it comprehended most

part of the inland territory, and considerable portions of the coast,

especially the southern coast,—bounded by an imaginary line drawn

from Metapontum on the Tarentine Gulf, across the breadth of Italy

to Poseidonia or Pæstum, near the mouth of the river Silaris, on

the Tyrrhenian or Lower sea. It was about 356 B. C., that the rural

serfs, called Bruttians,[20] rebelled against the Lucanians, and

robbed them of the southern part of this territory; establishing an

independent dominion in the inland portion of what is now called the

Farther Calabria—extending from a boundary line drawn across Italy

between Thurii and Läus, down to near the Sicilian strait. About

332 B. C., commenced the occasional intervention of the Epirotic

kings from the one side, and the persevering efforts of Rome from

the other, which, after long and valiant struggles, left Samnites,

Lucanians, Bruttians, all Roman subjects.

[16] Livy, iv. 37-44; Strabo, v. p. 243-250. Diodorus (xii.

31-76) places the commencement of the Campanian nation in 438

B. C., and their conquest of Cumæ in 421 B. C. Skylax in his

Periplus mentions both Cumæ and Neapolis as in Campania (s. 10.)

Thucydides speaks of Cumæ as being ἐν Ὀπικίᾳ (vi. 4).

[17] Strabo, v. p. 246.

[18] Thucydides (vii. 53-57) does not mention _Campanians_ (he

mentions Tyrrhenians) as serving in the besieging Athenian

armament before Syracuse (414-413 B. C.) He does not introduce

the name _Campanians_ at all; though alluding to Iberian

mercenaries as men whom Athens calculated on engaging in her

service (vi. 90).

But Diodorus mentions, that eight hundred Campanians were engaged

by the Chalkidian cities in Sicily for service with the Athenians

under Nikias, and that they had escaped during the disasters of

the Athenian army (xiii. 44).

The conquest of Cumæ in 416 B. C. opened to these Campanian

Samnites an outlet for hired military service beyond sea.

Cumæ being in its Origin Chalkidic, would naturally be in

correspondence with the Chalkidic cities in Sicily. This forms

the link of connection, which explains to us how the Campanians

came into service in 413 B. C. under the Athenian general before

Syracuse, and afterwards so frequently under others in Sicily

(Diodor. xiii. 62-80, etc.).

[19] Strabo, vi. p. 253, 254. See a valuable section on this

subject in Niebuhr, Römisch. Geschichte, vol. i. p. 94-98.

It appears that the Syracusan historian Antiochus made no mention

either of Lucanians or of Bruttians, though he enumerated the

inhabitants of the exact line of territory afterwards occupied

by these two nations. After repeating the statement of Antiochus

that this territory was occupied by Italians, Œnotrians, and

Chonians, Strabo proceeds to say—Οὗτος μὲν οὖν ἁπλουστέρως εἴρηκε

καὶ ἀρχαϊκῶς, οὐδὲν διορίσας περὶ τῶν Λευκανῶν καὶ τῶν Βρεττίων.

The German translator Grosskurd understands these words as

meaning, that Antiochus “did not distinguish the Lucanians from

the Bruttians.” But if we read the paragraph through, it will

appear, I think, that Strabo means to say, that Antiochus had

stated nothing positive respecting either Lucanians or Bruttians.

Niebuhr (p. 96 _ut suprà_) affirms that Antiochus represented the

Lucanians as having extended themselves as far as Läus; which I

cannot find.

The date of Antiochus seems not precisely ascertainable. His work

on Sicilian history was carried down from early times to 424 B.

C. (Diodor. xii. 71). His silence respecting the Lucanians goes

to confirm the belief that the date of their conquest of the

territory called Lucania was considerably later than that year.

Polyænus (ii. 10. 2-4) mentions war as carried on by the

inhabitants of Thurii, under Kleandridas the father of Gylippus,

against the Lucanians. From the age and circumstances of

Kleandridas, this can hardly be later than 420 B. C.

[20] Strabo, vi. p. 256. The Periplus of Skylax (s. 12, 13)

recognizes Lucania as extending down to Rhegium. The date to

which this Periplus refers appears to be about 370-360 B. C.:

see an instructive article among Niebuhr’s Kleine Schriften, p.

105-130. Skylax does not mention the Bruttians (Klausen, Hekatæus

and Skylax, p. 274. Berlin, 1831).

At the period which we have now reached, these Lucanians, having

conquered the Greek cities of Poseidonia (or Pæstum) and Läus, with

much of the territory lying between the Gulfs of Poseidonia and

Tarentum, severely harassed the inhabitants of Thurii, and alarmed

all the neighboring Greek cities down to Rhegium. So serious was the

alarm of these cities, that several of them contracted an intimate

defensive alliance, strengthening for the occasion that feeble

synodical band, and sense of Italiot communion,[21] the form and

trace of which seems to have subsisted without the reality, even

under marked enmity between particular cities. The conditions of

the newly-contracted alliance were most stringent; not only binding

each city to assist at the first summons any other city invaded by

the Lucanians, but also pronouncing, that if this obligation were

neglected, the generals of the disobedient city should be condemned

to death.[22] However, at this time the Italiot Greeks were not less

afraid of Dionysius and his aggressive enterprises from the south,

than of the Lucanians from the north; and their defensive alliance

was intended against both. To Dionysius, on the contrary, the

invasion of the Lucanians from landward was a fortunate incident for

the success of his own schemes. Their concurrent designs against the

same enemies, speedily led to the formation of a distinct alliance

between the two.[23] Among the allies of Dionysius, too, we must

number the Epizephyrian Lokrians; who not only did not join the

Italiot confederacy, but espoused his cause against it with ardor.

The enmity of the Lokrians against their neighbors, the Rhegines, was

ancient and bitter; exceeded only by that of Dionysius, who never

forgave the refusal of the Rhegines to permit him to marry a wife out

of their city, and was always grateful to the Lokrians for having

granted to him the privilege which their neighbors had refused.

[21] Diodor. xiv. 91-101. Compare Polybius, ii. 39. When Nikias

on his way to Sicily, came near to Rhegium and invited the

Rhegines to coöperate against Syracuse, the Rhegines declined,

replying, ὅ,τι ἂν καὶ τοῖς ἄλλοις Ἰταλιώταις ξυνδοκῇ, τοῦτο

ποιήσειν (Thucyd. vi. 44).

[22] Diodor. xiv. 101.

[23] Diodor. xiv. 100.

Wishing as yet, if possible, to avoid provoking the other members of

the Italiot confederacy, Dionysius still professed to be revenging

himself exclusively upon Rhegium; against which he conducted a

powerful force from Syracuse. Twenty thousand foot, one thousand

horse, and one hundred and twenty ships of war, are mentioned as the

total of his armament. Disembarking near Lokri, he marched across

the lower part of the peninsula in a westerly direction, ravaged

with fire and sword the Rhegian territory, and then encamped near

the strait on the northern side of Rhegium. His fleet followed

coastwise round Cape Zephyrium to the same point. While he was

pressing the siege, the members of the Italiot synod despatched

from Kroton a fleet of sixty sail, to assist in the defence. Their

ships, having rounded Cape Zephyrium, were nearing Rhegium from the

south, when Dionysius himself approached to attack them, with fifty

ships detached from his force. Though inferior in number, his fleet

was probably superior in respect to size and equipment; so that the

Krotoniate captains, not daring to hazard a battle, ran their ships

ashore. Dionysius here attacked them, and would have towed off all

the ships (without their crews) as prizes, had not the scene of

action lain so near to Rhegium, that the whole force of the city

could come forth in reinforcement, while his own army was on the

opposite side of the town. The numbers and courage of the Rhegines

baffled his efforts, rescued the ships, and hauled them all up upon

the shore in safety. Obliged to retire without success, Dionysius was

farther overtaken by a terrific storm, which exposed his fleet to the

utmost danger. Seven of his ships were driven ashore; their crews,

fifteen hundred in number, being either drowned, or falling into the

hands of the Rhegines. The rest, after great danger and difficulty,

either rejoined the main fleet or got into the harbor of Messênê;

where Dionysius himself in his quinquereme also found refuge,

but only at midnight, and after imminent risk for several hours.

Disheartened by this misfortune as well as by the approach of winter,

he withdrew his forces for the present, and returned to Syracuse.[24]

[24] Diodor. xiv 100.

A part of his fleet, however, under Leptines, was despatched

northward along the south-western coast of Italy to the Gulf of Elea,

to coöperate with the Lucanians; who from that coast and from inland

were invading the inhabitants of Thurii on the Tarentine Gulf.

Thurii was the successor, though with far inferior power, of the

ancient Sybaris; whose dominion had once stretched across from sea to

sea, comprehending the town of Läus, now a Lucanian possession.[25]

Immediately on the appearance of the Lucanians, the Thurians had

despatched an urgent message to their allies, who were making all

haste to arrive, pursuant to covenant. But before such junction could

possibly take place, the Thurians, confiding in their own native

force of fourteen thousand foot, and one thousand horse, marched

against the enemy single-handed. The Lucanian invaders retreated,

pursued by the Thurians, who followed them even into that mountainous

region of the Appenines which stretches between the two seas, and

which presents the most formidable danger and difficulty for all

military operations.[26] They assailed successfully a fortified

post or village of the Lucanians, which fell into their hands with

a rich plunder. By such partial advantage they were so elated, that

they ventured to cross over all the mountain passes even to the

neighborhood of the southern sea, with the intention of attacking the

flourishing town of Läus[27]—once the dependency of their Sybaritan

predecessors. But the Lucanians, having allured them into these

impracticable paths, closed upon them behind with greatly increased

numbers, forbade all retreat, and shut them up in a plain surrounded

with high and precipitous cliffs. Attacked in this plain by numbers

double their own, the unfortunate Thurians underwent one of the most

bloody defeats recorded in Grecian history. Out of their fourteen

thousand men, ten thousand were slain, under merciless order from the

Lucanians to give no quarter. The remainder contrived to flee to a

hill near the sea-shore, from whence they saw a fleet of ships of war

coasting along at no great distance. Distracted with terror, they

were led to fancy, or to hope, that these were the ships expected

from Rhegium to their aid; though the Rhegines would naturally send

their ships, when demanded, to Thurii, on the Tarentine Gulf, not

to the Lower sea near Läus. Under this impression, one thousand of

them swam off from the shore to seek protection on shipboard. But

they found themselves, unfortunately, on board the fleet of Leptines,

brother and admiral of Dionysius, come for the express purpose of

aiding the Lucanians. With a generosity not less unexpected than

honorable, this officer saved their lives, and also, as it would

appear, the lives of all the other defenceless survivors; persuading

or constraining the Lucanians to release them, on receiving one mina

of silver per man.[28]

[25] Herodot. vi. 21; Strabo, vi. p. 253.

[26] See the description of this mountainous region between

the Tarentine Gulf and the Tyrrhenian Sea, in an interesting

work by a French General employed in Calabria in 1809—Calabria

during a military residence of Three Years, Letters, 17, 18, 19

(translated and published by Effingham Wilson. London, 1832).

[27] Diodor. xiv. 101. βουλόμενοι Λᾶον, πόλιν εὐδαίμονα,

πολιορκῆσαι. This appears the true reading: it is an acute

conjecture proposed by Niebuhr (Römisch. Geschicht. i. p. 96)

in place of the words—βουλόμενοι λαὸν καὶ πόλιν εὐδαίμονα,

πολιορκῆσαι.

[28] Diodor. xiv. 102.

This act of Hellenic sympathy restored three or four thousand

citizens on ransom to Thurii, instead of leaving them to be massacred

or sold by the barbarous Lucanians, and procured the warmest esteem

for Leptines personally among the Thurians and other Italiot

Greeks. But it incurred the strong displeasure of Dionysius, who

now proclaimed openly his project of subjugating these Greeks, and

was anxious to encourage the Lucanians as indispensable allies.

Accordingly he dismissed Leptines, and named as admiral his other

brother Thearides. He then proceeded to conduct a fresh expedition;

no longer intended against Rhegium alone, but against all the Italiot

Greeks. He departed from Syracuse with a powerful force—twenty

thousand foot and three thousand horse, with which, he marched by

land in five days to Messênê; his fleet under Thearides accompanying

him—forty ships of war, and three hundred transports with provisions.

Having first successfully surprised and captured near the Lipari

isles a Rhegian squadron of ten ships, the crews of which he

constituted prisoners at Messênê, he transported his army across the

strait into Italy, and laid siege to Kaulonia—on the eastern coast

of the peninsula, and conterminous with the northern border of his

allies the Lokrians. He attacked this place vigorously, with the best

siege machines which his arsenal furnished.

The Italiot Greeks, on the other hand, mustered their united force

to relieve it. Their chief centre of action was Kroton where most of

the Syracusan exiles, the most forward of all champions in the cause,

were now assembled. One of these exiles, Helôris (who had before been

named general by the Rhegines), was intrusted with the command of the

collective army; an arrangement neutralizing all local jealousies.

Under the cordial sentiment prevailing, an army was mustered at

Kroton, estimated at twenty-five thousand foot and two thousand

horse; by what cities furnished, or in what proportion, we are unable

to say.[29] At the head of these troops, Helôris marched southward

from Kroton to the river Elleporus not far from Kaulonia; where

Dionysius, raising the siege, met him.[30] He was about four miles

and a half from the Krotoniate army, when he learnt from his scouts

that Helôris with a chosen regiment of five hundred men (perhaps

Syracusan exiles like himself), was considerably in advance of the

main body. Moving rapidly forward in the night, Dionysius surprised

this advanced guard at break of day, completely isolated from the

rest. Helôris, while he despatched instant messages to accelerate

the coming up of the main body, defended himself with his small band

against overwhelming superiority of numbers. But the odds were too

great. After an heroic resistance, he was slain, and his companions

nearly all cut to pieces, before the main body, though they came up

at full speed, could arrive.

[29] Diodor. xiv. 103.

[30] Polybius (i. 6) gives us the true name of this river:

Diodorus calls it the river _Helôris_.

The hurried pace of the Italiot army, however, though it did not

suffice to save the general, was of fatal efficacy in deranging

their own soldierlike army. Confused and disheartened by finding

that Helôris was slain, which left them without a general to direct

the battle or restore order, the Italiots fought for some time

against Dionysius, but were at length defeated with severe loss. They

effected their retreat from the field of battle to a neighboring

eminence, very difficult to attack, yet destitute of water and

provisions. Here Dionysius blocked them up, without attempting an

attack, but keeping the strictest guard round the hill during the

whole remaining day and the ensuing night. The heat of the next day,

with total want of water, so subdued their courage, that they sent

to Dionysius a herald with propositions, entreating to be allowed

to depart on a stipulated ransom. But the terms were peremptorily

refused; they were ordered to lay down their arms, and surrender at

discretion. Against this terrible requisition they stood out yet

awhile, until the increasing pressure of physical exhaustion and

suffering drove them to surrender, about the eighth hour of the

day.[31]

[31] Diodor. xiv. 105. παρέδωκαν αὑτοὺς περὶ ὀγδόην ὥραν, ἤδη τὰ

σώματα παρείμενοι.

More than ten thousand disarmed Greeks descended from the hill and

defiled before Dionysius, who numbered the companies as they passed

with a stick. As his savage temper was well known, they expected

nothing short of the harshest sentence. So much the greater was

their astonishment and delight, when they found themselves treated

not merely with lenity, but with generosity.[32] Dionysius released

them all without even exacting a ransom; and concluded a treaty with

most of the cities to which they belonged, leaving their autonomy

undisturbed. He received the warmest thanks, accompanied by votes of

golden wreaths, from the prisoners as well as from the cities; while

among the general public of Greece, the act was hailed as forming the

prominent glory of his political life.[33] Such admiration was well

deserved, looking to the laws of war then prevalent.

[32] Diodor. xiv. 105. Καὶ πάντων αὐτοῦ ὑποπτευόντων τὸ θηριῶδες,

τοὐναντίον ἐφάνη πάντων ἐπιεικέστατος.

[33] Diodor. xiv. 105. καὶ σχεδὸν τοῦτ᾽ ἔδοξε πράττειν ἐν τῷ ζῇν

κάλλιστον. Strabo, vi. p. 261.

With the Krotoniates and other Italiot Greeks (except Rhegium and

Lokri) Dionysius had had no marked previous relations and therefore

had not contracted any strong personal sentiment either of antipathy

or favor. With Rhegium and Lokri, the case was different. To the

Lokrians he was strongly attached: against the Rhegines his animosity

was bitter and implacable, manifesting itself in a more conspicuous

manner by contrast with his recent dismissal of the Krotoniate

prisoners; a proceeding which had been probably dictated, in great

part, by his anxiety to have his hands free for the attack of

isolated Rhegium. After having finished the arrangements consequent

upon his victory, he marched against that city, and prepared to

besiege it. The citizens, feeling themselves without hope of succor,

and intimidated by the disaster of their Italiot allies, sent out

heralds to beg for moderate terms, and imploring him to abstain from

extreme or unmeasured rigor.[34] For a moment, Dionysius seemed to

comply with their request. He granted them peace, on condition that

they should surrender all their ships of war, seventy in number—that

they should pay to him three hundred talents in money—and that they

should place in his hands one hundred hostages. All these demands

were strictly complied with; upon which Dionysius withdrew his army,

and agreed to spare the city.[35]

[34] Diodor. xiv. 106. καὶ παρακαλέσαι μηδὲν περὶ αὐτῶν ~ὑπὲρ

ἄνθρωπον~ βουλεύεσθαι.

[35] Diodor. xiv. 106.

His next proceeding was, to attack Kaulonia and Hipponium; two

cities which seem between them to have occupied the whole breadth

of the Calabrian peninsula, immediately north of Rhegium and Lokri;

Kaulonia on the eastern coast, Hipponium on or near the western. Both

these cities he besieged, took, and destroyed: probably neither of

them, in the hopeless circumstances of the case, made any strenuous

resistance. He then caused the inhabitants of both of them, such at

least as did not make their escape, to be transported to Syracuse,

where he domiciliated them as citizens, allowing them five years of

exemption from taxes.[36] To be a citizen of Syracuse meant at this

moment, to be a subject of his despotism, and nothing more: how he

made room for these new citizens, or furnished them with lands and

houses, we are unfortunately not informed. But the territory of both

these towns, evacuated by its free inhabitants (though probably not

by its slaves, or serfs), was handed over to the Lokrians and annexed

to their city. That favored city, which had accepted his offer of

marriage, was thus immensely enriched both in lands and in collective

property. Here again it would have been interesting to hear what

measures were taken to appropriate or distribute the new lands; but

our informant is silent.

[36] Diodor. xiv. 106, 107.

Dionysius had thus accumulated into Syracuse, not only all Sicily[37]

(to use the language of Plato), but even no inconsiderable portion

of Italy. Such wholesale changes of domicile and property must

probably have occupied some months; during which time the army of

Dionysius seems never to have quitted the Calabrian peninsula, though

he himself may probably have gone for a time in person to Syracuse.

It was soon seen that the depopulation of Hipponium and Kaulonia

was intended only as a prelude to the ruin of Rhegium. Upon this

Dionysius had resolved. The recent covenant into which he had entered

with the Rhegines, was only a fraudulent device for the purpose of

entrapping them into a surrender of their navy, in order that he

might afterwards attack them at greater advantage. Marching his

army to the Italian shore of the strait, near Rhegium, he affected

to busy himself in preparations for crossing to Sicily. In the mean

time, he sent a friendly message to the Rhegines, requesting them

to supply him for a short time with provisions, under assurance

that what they furnished should speedily be replaced from Syracuse.

It was his purpose, if they refused, to resent it as an insult,

and attack them; if they consented, to consume their provisions,

without performing his engagement to replace the quantity consumed;

and then to make his attack after all, when their means of holding

out had been diminished. At first the Rhegines complied willingly,

furnishing abundant supplies. But the consumption continued, and the

departure of the army was deferred—first on pretence of the illness

of Dionysius, next on other grounds—so that they at length detected

the trick, and declined to furnish any more. Dionysius now threw off

the mask, gave back to them their hundred hostages, and laid siege to

the town in form.[38]

[37] Plato, Epistol. vii. p. 332 D. Διονύσιος δὲ εἰς μίαν πόλιν

ἀθροίσας πᾶσαν Σικελίαν ὑπὸ σοφίας, etc.

[38] Diodor. xiv. 107, 108. Polyænus relates this stratagem of

Dionysius about the provisions, as if it had been practised at

the siege of Himera, and not of Rhegium (Polyæn. v. 3, 10).

Regretting too late that they had suffered themselves to be defrauded

of their means of defence, the Rhegines nevertheless prepared to hold

out with all the energy of despair. Phyton was chosen commander,

the whole population was armed, and all the line of wall carefully

watched. Dionysius made vigorous assaults, employing all the

resources of his battering machinery to effect a breach. But he was

repelled at all points obstinately, and with much loss on both sides:

several of his machines were also burnt or destroyed by opportune

sallies of the besieged. In one of the assaults, Dionysius himself

was seriously wounded by a spear thrust in the groin, from which

he was long in recovering. He was at length obliged to convert the

siege into a blockade, and to rely upon famine alone for subduing

these valiant citizens. For eleven months did the Rhegines hold

out, against the pressure of want gradually increasing, and at last

terminating in the agony and destruction of famine. We are told that

a medimnus of wheat came to be sold for the enormous price of five

minæ; at the rate of about £14 sterling per bushel: every horse and

every beast of burthen was consumed: at length hides were boiled and

eaten, and even the grass on parts of the wall. Many perished from

absolute hunger, while the survivors lost all strength and energy. In

this intolerable condition, they were constrained, at the end of near

eleven months, to surrender at discretion.

So numerous were these victims of famine, that Dionysius, on entering

Rhegium, found heaps of unburied corpses, besides six thousand

citizens in the last stage of emaciation. All these captives were

sent to Syracuse, where those who could provide a mina (about £3

17s.) were allowed to ransom themselves, while the rest were sold

as slaves. After such a period of suffering, the number of those

who retained the means of ransom was probably very small. But the

Rhegine general, Phyton, was detained with all his kindred, and

reserved for a different fate. First, his son was drowned, by

order of Dionysius: next, Phyton himself was chained to one of the

loftiest siege-machines, as a spectacle to the whole army. While he

was thus exhibited to scorn, a messenger was sent to apprise him,

that Dionysius had just caused his son to be drowned. “He is more

fortunate than his father by one day,” was the reply of Phyton.

After a certain time, the sufferer was taken down from his pillory,

and led round the city, with attendants scourging and insulting him

at every step; while a herald proclaimed aloud, “Behold the man who

persuaded the Rhegines to war, thus signally punished by Dionysius!”

Phyton, enduring all these torments with heroic courage and dignified

silence, was provoked to exclaim in reply to the herald, that the

punishment was inflicted because he had refused to betray the city

to Dionysius, who would himself soon be overtaken by the divine

vengeance. At length the prolonged outrages, combined with the noble

demeanor and high reputation of the victim, excited compassion even

among the soldiers of Dionysius himself. Their murmurs became so

pronounced, that he began to apprehend an open mutiny for the purpose

of rescuing Phyton. Under this fear he gave orders that the torments

should be discontinued, and that Phyton with his entire kindred

should be drowned.[39]

[39] Diodor. xiv. 112. Ὁ δὲ Φύτων, κατὰ τὴν πολιορκίαν στρατηγὸς

ἀγαθὸς γεγενημένος, καὶ κατὰ τὸν ἄλλον βίον ἐπαινούμενος, οὐκ

ἀγεννῶς ὑπέμενε τὴν ἐπὶ τῆς τελευτῆς τιμωρίαν· ἀλλ᾽ ἀκατάπληκτον

τὴν ψυχὴν φυλάξας, καὶ βοῶν, ὅτι τὴν πόλιν οὐ βουληθεὶς προδοῦναι

Διονυσίῳ τυγχάνει τῆς τιμωρίας, ἣν αὐτῷ τὸ δαιμόνιον ἐκείνῳ

συντόμως ἐπιστήσει· ὥστε τὴν ἀρετὴν τἀνδρὸς καὶ παρὰ τοῖς

στρατιώταις τοῦ Διονυσίου κατελεεῖσθαι, καί τινας ἤδη θορυβεῖν.

Ὁ δὲ Διονύσιος, εὐλαβηθεὶς μή τινες τῶν στρατιωτῶν ἀποτολμήσωσιν

ἐξαρπάζειν τὸν Φύτωνα, παυσάμενος τῆς τιμωρίας, κατεπόντωσε τὸν

ἀτυχῆ μετὰ τῆς συγγενείας. Οὗτος μὲν οὖν ἀναξίως τῆς ἀρετῆς

ἐκνόμοις περιέπεσε τιμωρίαις, καὶ πολλοὺς ἔσχε καὶ τότε τῶν

Ἑλλήνων τοὺς ἀλγήσαντας τὴν συμφορὰν, καὶ μετὰ ταῦτα ποιητὰς τοὺς

θρηνήσοντας τὸ τῆς περιπετείας ἐλεεινόν.

The prophetic persuasion under which this unhappy man perished,

that divine vengeance would soon overtake his destroyer, was noway

borne out by the subsequent reality. The power and prosperity of

Dionysius underwent abatement by his war with the Carthaginians in

383 B. C., yet remained very considerable even to his dying day.

And the misfortunes which fell thickly upon his son the younger

Dionysius, more than thirty years afterwards, though they doubtless

received a religious interpretation from contemporary critics, were

probably ascribed to acts more recent than the barbarities inflicted

on Phyton. But these barbarities, if not avenged, were at least laid

to heart with profound sympathy by the contemporary world, and even

commemorated with tenderness and pathos by poets. While Dionysius was

composing tragedies (of which more presently) in hopes of applause in

Greece, he was himself furnishing real matter of history, not less

tragical than the sufferings of those legendary heroes and heroines

to which he (in common with other poets) resorted for a subject.

Among the many acts of cruelty, more or less aggravated, which it

is the melancholy duty of an historian of Greece to recount, there

are few so revolting as the death of the Rhegine general; who was

not a subject, nor a conspirator, nor a rebel, but an enemy in open

warfare—of whom the worst that even Dionysius himself could say, was,

that he had persuaded his countrymen into the war. And even this

could not be said truly; since the antipathy of the Rhegines towards

Dionysius was of old standing, traceable to his enslavement of Naxos

and Katana, if not to causes yet earlier—though the statement of

Phyton may very probably be true, that Dionysius had tried to bribe

him to betray Rhegium (as the generals of Naxos and Katana had

been bribed to betray their respective cities), and was incensed

beyond measure at finding the proposition repelled. The Hellenic

war-practice was in itself sufficiently cruel. Both Athenians and

Lacedæmonians put to death prisoners of war by wholesale, after the

capture of Melos, after the battle of Ægospotami, and elsewhere. But

to make death worse than death by a deliberate and protracted tissue

of tortures and indignities, is not Hellenic; it is Carthaginian

and Asiatic. Dionysius had shown himself better than a Greek when

he released without ransom the Krotoniate prisoners captured at the

battle of Kaulonia; but he became far worse than a Greek, and worse

even than his own mercenaries, when he heaped aggravated suffering,

beyond the simple death-warrant, on the heads of Phyton and his

kindred.

Dionysius caused the city of Rhegium to be destroyed[40] or

dismantled. Probably he made over the lands to Lokri, like those

of Kaulonia and Hipponium. The free Rhegine citizens had all been

transported to Syracuse for sale; and those who were fortunate enough

to save their liberty by providing the stipulated ransom, would not

be allowed to come back to their native soil. If Dionysius was so

zealous in enriching the Lokrians, as to transfer to them two other

neighboring town-domains, against the inhabitants of which he had

no peculiar hatred—much more would he be disposed to make the like

transfer of the Rhegine territory, whereby he would gratify at once

his antipathy to the one state and his partiality to the other. It

is true that Rhegium did not permanently continue incorporated with

Lokri; but neither did Kaulonia nor Hipponium. The maintenance of

all the three transfers depended on the ascendency of Dionysius and

his dynasty; but for the time immediately succeeding the capture of

Rhegium, the Lokrians became masters of the Rhegine territory as well

as of the two other townships, and thus possessed all the Calabrian

peninsula south of the Gulf of Squillace. To the Italiot Greeks

generally, these victories of Dionysius were fatally ruinous, because

the political union formed among them, for the purpose of resisting

the pressure of the Lucanians from the interior, was overthrown,

leaving each city to its own weakness and isolation.[41]

[40] Strabo, vi. p. 258 ἐπιφανῆ δ᾽ οὖν πόλιν οὖσαν ... κατασκάψαι

Διονύσιον, etc.

[41] Polybius, ii. 39, 67.

The year 387, in which Rhegium surrendered, was also distinguished

for two other memorable events; the general peace in Central Greece

under the dictation of Persia and Sparta, commonly called the peace

of Antalkidas; and the capture of Rome by the Gauls.[42]

[42] Polybius, i. 6.

The two great ascendant powers in the Grecian world were now, Sparta

in Peloponnesus, and Dionysius in Sicily; each respectively fortified

by alliance with the other. I have already in a former chapter[43]

described the position of Sparta after the peace of Antalkidas; how

greatly she gained by making herself the champion of that Persian

rescript—and how she purchased, by surrendering the Asiatic Greeks

to Artaxerxes, an empire on land equal to that which she had enjoyed

before the defeat of Knidus, though without recovering the maritime

empire fortified by that defeat.

[43] Chap. LXXVI. Vol. X.

To this great imperial state, Dionysius in the west formed a suitable

counterpart. His recent victories in Southern Italy had already

raised his power to a magnitude transcending all the far-famed

recollections of Gelon; but he now still farther extended it by

sending an expedition against Kroton. This city, the largest in Magna

Græcia, fell under his power; and he succeeded in capturing, by

surprise or bribery, even its strong citadel; on a rock overhanging

the sea.[44] He seems also to have advanced yet farther with his

fleet to attack Thurii; which city owed its preservation solely to

the violence of the north winds. He plundered the temple of Hêrê near

Cape Lakinium, in the domain of Kroton. Among the ornaments of this

temple was one of pre-eminent beauty and celebrity, which at the

periodical festivals was exhibited to admiring spectators: a robe

wrought with the greatest skill, and decorated in the most costly

manner, the votive offering of a Sybarite named Alkimenes. Dionysius

sold this robe to the Carthaginians. It long remained as one of

the permanent religious ornaments of their city, being probably

dedicated to the honor of those Hellenic Deities recently introduced

for worship; whom (as I have before stated) the Carthaginians were

about this time peculiarly anxious to propitiate, in hopes of

averting or alleviating the frightful pestilences wherewith they

had been so often smitten. They purchased the robe from Dionysius

at the prodigious price of one hundred and twenty talents, or

about £27,600 sterling.[45] Incredible as this sum may appear, we

must recollect that the honor done to the new gods would be mainly

estimated according to the magnitude of the sum laid out. As the

Carthaginians would probably think no price too great to transfer

an unrivalled vestment from the wardrobe of the Lakinian Hêrê to

the newly-established temple and worship of Dêmêtêr and Persephonê

in their city—so we may be sure that the loss of such an ornament,

and the spoliation of the holy place, would deeply humiliate the

Krotoniates, and with them the crowd of Italiot Greeks who frequented

the Lakinian festivals.

[44] Livy has preserved the mention of this important acquisition

of Dionysius (xxiv. 3).

“Sed arx Crotonis, unâ parte imminens mari, alterâ vergente in

agrum, situ tantum naturali quondam munita, postea et muro cincta

est, quâ per aversas rupes ab Dionysio Siciliæ tyranno per dolum

fuerat capta.”

Justin also (xx. 5) mentions the attack of Dionysius upon Kroton.

We may, with tolerable certainty, refer the capture to the

present part of the career of Dionysius.