Note 36 — Chapter IX · CORINTH, SIKYON, AND MEGARA. — AGE OF THE GRECIAN DESPOTS.
Reading edition
Plutarch, Sept. Sapient. Conviv. c. 2, p. 147,—ὡς ἐρωτηθεὶς ὑπὸ Μολπαγόρου τοῦ Ἴωνος, τί παραδοξότατον εἴης ἑωρακὼς, ἀποκρίναιο, τύραννον γέροντα.—Compare the answer of Thales, in the same treatise, c. 7, p. 152.
The orator Lysias, present at the Olympic games, and seeing the theors of the Syracusan despot Dionysius also present, in tents with gilding and purple, addressed an harangue, inciting the assembled Greeks to demolish the tents (Lysiæ Λόγος Ὀλυμπιακὸς, Fragm. p. 911, ed. Reisk.; Dionys. Halicar. De Lysiâ Judicium, c. 29-30). Theophrastus ascribed to Themistokles a similar recommendation, in reference to the theôrs and the prize-chariots of the Syracusan despot Hiero (Plutarch, Themistokles, c. 25).
The common-places of the rhetors afford the best proof how unanimous was the sentiment in the Greek mind to rank the despot among the most odious criminals, and the man who put him to death among the benefactors of humanity. The rhetor Theon, treating upon common-places, says: Τόπος ἐστὶ λόγος αὐξητικὸς ὁμολογουμένου πράγματος, ἤτοι ἁμαρτήματος, ἢ ἀνδραγαθήματος. Ἐστὶ γὰρ διττὸς ὁ τόπος· ὁ μέν τις, κατὰ τῶν πεπονηρευμένων, οἷον κατὰ τυράννου, προδότου, ἀνδροφόνου, ἀσώτου· ὁ δέ τις, ὑπὲρ τῶν χρηστόν τι διαπεπραγμένων· οἷον ὑπὲρ τυραννοκτόνου, ἀριστέως, νομοθέτου. (Theon, Progymnasmata, c. vii, ap. Walz. Coll. Rhett. vol. i, p. 222. Compare Aphthonius, Progymn. c. vii, p. 82 of the same volume, and Dionysius Halikarn. Ars Rhetorica, x, 15, p. 390, ed. Reiske.)