Note 72 — 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 a former chapter of this History (Vol. X. Ch. LXXVII. p. 75), I have already shown grounds, derived from the circumstances of Central Greece and Persia, for referring the discourse of Lysias, just noticed, to Olympiad 99 or 384 B. C. I here add certain additional reasons, derived from what is said about Dionysius, towards the same conclusion.

In xiv. 109, Diodorus describes the events of 388 B. C., the year of Olympiad 98, during which Dionysius was still engaged in war in Italy, besieging Rhegium. He says that Dionysius made unparalleled efforts to send a great display to this festival; a splendid legation, with richly decorated tents, several fine chariots-and-four, and poems to be recited by the best actors. He states that Lysias the orator delivered a strong invective against him, exciting those who heard it to exclude the Syracusan despot from sacrificing, and to plunder the rich tents. He then details how the purposes of Dionysius failed miserably on every point; the fine tents were assailed, the chariots all ran wrong or were broken, the poems were hissed, the ships returning to Syracuse were wrecked, etc. Yet in spite of this accumulation of misfortunes (he tells us) Dionysius was completely soothed by his flatterers (who told him that such envy always followed upon greatness), and did not desist from poetical efforts.

Again, in xv. 6, 7, Diodorus describes the events of 386 B. C. Here he again tells us, that Dionysius, persevering in his poetical occupations, composed verses which were very indifferent—that he was angry with and punished Philoxenus and others who criticized them freely—that he sent some of these compositions to be recited at the Olympic festival, with the best actors and reciters—that the poems, in spite of these advantages, were despised and derided by the Olympic audience—that Dionysius was distressed by this repulse, even to anguish and madness, and to the various severities and cruelties against his friends which have been already mentioned in my text.

Now upon this we must remark:—

1. The year 386 B. C. is not an Olympic year. Accordingly, the proceedings described by Diodorus in xv. 6, 7, all done by Dionysius after his hands were free from war, must be transferred to the next Olympic year, 384 B. C. The year in which Dionysius was so deeply stung by the events of Olympia, must therefore have been 384 B. C., or Olympiad 99 (relating to 388 B. C.).

2. Compare Diodor. xiv. 109 with xv. 7. In the first passage, Dionysius is represented as making the most prodigious efforts to display himself at Olympia in every way, by fine tents, chariots, poems, etc.—and also as having undergone the signal insult from the orator Lysias, with the most disgraceful failure in every way. Yet all this he is described to have borne with tolerable equanimity, being soothed by his flatterers. But, in xv. 7 (relating to 386 B. C., or more probably to 384 B. C.) he is represented as having merely failed in respect to the effect of his poems; nothing whatever being said about display of any other kind, nor about an harangue from Lysias, nor insult to the envoys or the tents. Yet the simple repulse of the poems is on this occasion affirmed to have thrown Dionysius into a paroxysm of sorrow and madness.

Now if the great and insulting treatment, which Diodorus refers to 388 B. C., could be borne patiently by Dionysius—how are we to believe that he was driven mad by the far less striking failure in 384 B. C.? Surely it stands to reason that the violent invective of Lysias and the profound humiliation of Dionysius, are parts of one and the same Olympic phænomenon; the former as cause, or an essential part of the cause—the latter as effect. The facts will then read consistently and in proper harmony. As they now appear in Diodorus, there is no rational explanation of the terrible suffering of Dionysius described in xv. 7; it appears like a comic exaggeration of reality.

3. Again, the prodigious efforts and outlay, which Diodorus affirms Dionysius to have made in 388 B. C. for display at the Olympic games—come just at the time when Dionysius, being in the middle of his Italian war, could hardly have had either leisure or funds to devote so much to the other purpose; whereas at the next Olympic festival, or 384 B. C., he was free from war, and had nothing to divert him from preparing with great efforts all the means of Olympic success.

It appears to me that the facts which Diodorus has stated are nearly all correct, but that he has misdated them, referring to 388 B. C., or Olymp. 98—what properly belongs to 384 B. C., or Olymp. 99. Very possibly Dionysius may have sent one or more chariots to run in the former of the two Olympiads; but his signal efforts, with his insulting failure brought about partly by Lysias, belong to the latter.

Dionysius of Halikarnassus, to whom we owe the citation from the oration of Lysias, does not specify to which of the Olympiads it belongs.