Note 64 — 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.

Isokrates holds similar language, both about the destructive conquests of Dionysius, and the past sufferings and present danger of Hellas, in his Orat. IV. (Panegyric.) composed about 380 B. C., and (probably enough) read at the Olympic festival of that year (s. 197). ἴσως δ᾽ ἂν καὶ τῆς ἐμῆς εὐηθείας πολλοὶ καταγελάσειαν, εἰ δυστυχίας ἀνδρῶν ὀδυροίμην ἐν τοιούτοις καιροῖς, ἐν οἷς Ἰταλία μὲν ἀνάστατος γέγονε, Σικελία δὲ καταδεδούλωται (compare s. 145), τοσαῦται δὲ πόλεις τοῖς βαρβάροις ἐκδέδονται, τὰ δὲ λοιπὰ μέρη τῶν Ἑλλήνων ἐν τοῖς μεγίστοις κινδύνοις ἐστίν.

Isokrates had addressed a letter to the elder Dionysius. He alludes briefly to it in his Orat. ad Philippum (Orat. v. s. 93), in terms which appear to indicate that it was bold and plain spoken (θρασύτερον τῶν ἄλλων). The first letter, among the ten ascribed to Isokrates, purports to be a letter to Dionysius; but it seems rather (to judge by the last words) to be the preface of a letter about to follow. Nothing distinct can be made out from it as it now stands.