Volume 11 — CHAPTER LXXXIV. SICILIAN AFFAIRS AFTER THE DEATH OF THE ELDER DIONYSIUS — DIONYSIUS THE YOUNGER — AND DION. (continued 2)

In this guise Dion arrived at Leontini, where he found the warmest sympathy towards himself, with indignant disgust at the behavior of the Syracusans. Allied with the newly-enfranchised Syracuse against the Dionysian dynasty, the Leontines not only received the soldiers of Dion into their citizenship, and voted to them a positive remuneration, but sent an embassy to Syracuse insisting that justice should be done to them. The Syracusans, on their side, sent envoys to Leontini, to accuse Dion before an assembly of all the allies there convoked. Who these allies were, our defective information does not enable us to say. Their sentence went in favor of Dion and against the Syracusans; who nevertheless stood out obstinately, refusing all justice or reparation,[230] and fancying themselves competent to reduce Ortygia without Dion’s assistance—since the provisions therein were exhausted, and the garrison was already suffering from famine. Despairing of reinforcement, Apollokrates had already resolved to send envoys and propose a capitulation, when Nypsius, a Neapolitan officer, despatched by Dionysius from Lokri, had the good fortune to reach Ortygia at the head of a reinforcing fleet, convoying numerous transports with an abundant stock of provisions. There was now no farther talk of surrender. The garrison of Ortygia was reinforced to ten thousand mercenary troops of considerable merit, and well provisioned for some time.[231]

The Syracusan admirals, either from carelessness or ill-fortune, had not been able to prevent the entry of Nypsius. But they made a sudden attack upon him while his fleet were in the harbor, and while the crews, thinking themselves safe from an enemy, were interchanging salutations or aiding to disembark the stores. This attack was well-timed and successful. Several of the triremes of Nypsius were ruined—others were towed off as prizes, while the victory, gained by Herakleides without Dion, provoked extravagant joy throughout Syracuse. In the belief that Ortygia could not longer hold out, the citizens, the soldiers, and even the generals, gave loose to mad revelry and intoxication, continued into the ensuing night. Nypsius, an able officer, watched his opportunity, and made a vigorous night-sally. His troops, issuing forth in good order, planted their scaling-ladders, mounted the blockading wall, and slew the sleeping or drunken sentinels without any resistance. Master of this important work, Nypsius employed a part of his men to pull it down, while he pushed the rest forward against the city. At daybreak the affrighted Syracusans saw themselves vigorously attacked even in their own stronghold, when neither generals nor citizens were at all prepared to resist. The troops of Nypsius first forced their way into Neapolis, which lay the nearest to the wall of Ortygia; next into Tycha, the other fortified suburb. Over these they ranged victorious, vanquishing all the detached parties of Syracusans which could be opposed to them. The streets became a scene of bloodshed—the houses of plunder; for as Dionysius had now given up the idea of again permanently ruling at Syracuse, his troops thought of little else except satiating the revenge of their master and their own rapacity. The soldiers of Nypsius stripped the private dwellings in the town, taking away not only the property, but also the women and children, as booty into Ortygia. At last (it appears) they got also into Achradina, the largest and most populous portion of Syracuse. Here the same scene of pillage, destruction, and bloodshed, was continued throughout the whole day, and on a still larger scale; with just enough resistance to pique the fury of the victors, without restraining their progress.

It soon became evident to Herakleides and his colleagues, as well as to the general body of citizens, that there was no hope of safety except in invoking the aid of Dion and his soldiers from Leontini. Yet the appeal to one whom they not only hated and feared, but had ignominiously maltreated, was something so intolerable, that for a long time no one would speak out to propose what every man had in his mind. At length some of the allies present, less concerned in the political parties of the city, ventured to broach the proposition, which ran from man to man, and was adopted under a press of mingled and opposite emotions. Accordingly two officers of the allies, and five Syracusan horsemen set off at full speed to Leontini, to implore the instant presence of Dion. Reaching the place towards evening, they encountered Dion himself immediately on dismounting, and described to him the miserable scenes now going on at Syracuse. Their tears and distress brought around them a crowd of hearers, Leontines as well as Peloponnesians; and a general assembly was speedily convened, before which Dion exhorted them to tell their story. They described, in the tone of men whose all was at stake, the actual sufferings and the impending total ruin of the city; entreating oblivion for their past misdeeds, which were already but too cruelly expiated.

Their discourse, profoundly touching to the audience, was heard in silence. Every one waited for Dion to begin, and to determine the fate of Syracuse. He rose to speak; but for a time tears checked his utterance, while his soldiers around cheered him with encouraging sympathy. At length he found voice to say, “I have convened you, Peloponnesians and allies, to deliberate about your own conduct. For me, deliberation would be a disgrace, while Syracuse is in the hands of the destroyer. If I cannot save my country, I shall go and bury myself in its flaming ruins. For you, if, in spite of what has happened, you still choose to assist us, misguided and unhappy Syracusans, we shall owe it to you that we still continue a city. But if, in disdainful sense of wrong endured, you shall leave us to our fate, I here thank you for all your past valor and attachment to me, praying that the gods may reward you for it. Remember Dion, as one who neither deserted you when you were wronged, nor his own fellow-citizens when they were in misery.”

This address, so replete with pathos and dignity, went home to the hearts of the audience, filling them with passionate emotion and eagerness to follow him. Universal shouts called upon him to put himself at their head instantly and march to Syracuse; while the envoys present fell upon his neck, invoking blessings both upon him and upon the soldiers. As soon as the excitement had subsided, Dion gave orders that every man should take his evening meal forthwith, and return in arms to the spot, prepared for a night-march to Syracuse.

By daybreak, Dion and his band were within a few miles of the northern wall of Epipolæ. Messengers from Syracuse here met him, inducing him to slacken his march and proceed with caution. Herakleides and the other generals had sent a message forbidding his nearer approach, with notice that the gates would be closed against him; yet at the same time, counter-messages arrived from many eminent citizens, entreating him to persevere, and promising him both admittance and support. Nypsius, having permitted his troops to pillage and destroy in Syracuse throughout the preceding day, had thought it prudent to withdraw them back into Ortygia for the night. His retreat raised the courage of Herakleides and his colleagues; who, fancying that the attack was now over, repented of the invitation which they had permitted to be sent to Dion. Under this impression they despatched to him the second message of exclusion; keeping guard at the gate in the northern wall to make their threat good. But the events of the next morning speedily undeceived them. Nypsius renewed his attack with greater ferocity than before, completed the demolition of the wall of blockade before Ortygia, and let loose his soldiers with merciless hand throughout all the streets of Syracuse. There was on this day less of pillage, but more of wholesale slaughter. Men, women, and children perished indiscriminately, and nothing was thought of by these barbarians except to make Syracuse a heap of ruins and dead bodies. To accelerate the process, and to forestall Dion’s arrival, which they fully expected—they set fire to the city in several places, with torches and fire-bearing arrows. The miserable inhabitants knew not where to flee, to escape the flames within their houses, or the sword without. The streets were strewed with corpses, while the fire gained ground perpetually, threatening to spread over the greater part of the city. Under such terrible circumstances, neither Herakleides, himself wounded, nor the other generals, could hold out any longer against the admission of Dion; to whom even the brother and uncle of Herakleides were sent, with pressing entreaties to accelerate his march, since the smallest delay would occasion ruin to Syracuse.[232]

Dion was about seven miles from the gates when these last cries of distress reached him. Immediately hurrying forward his soldiers, whose ardor was not inferior to his own, at a running pace, he reached speedily the gates called Hexapyla, in the northern wall of Epipolæ. When once within these gates, he halted in an interior area called the Hekatompedon.[233] His light-armed were sent forward at once to arrest the destroying enemy, while he kept back the hoplites until he could form them into separate columns under proper captains, along with the citizens who crowded round him with demonstrations of great reverence. He distributed them so as to enter the interior portion of Syracuse, and attack the troops of Nypsius, on several points at once.[234] Being now within the exterior fortification formed by the wall of Epipolæ, there lay before him the tripartite interior city—Tycha, Neapolis, Achradina. Each of these parts had its separate fortification; between Tycha and Neapolis lay an unfortified space, but each of them joined on to Achradina, the western wall of which formed their eastern wall. It is probable that these interior fortifications had been partially neglected since the construction of the outer walls along Epipolæ, which comprised them all within, and formed the principal defence against a foreign enemy. Moreover the troops of Nypsius, having been masters of the three towns, and roving as destroyers around them, for several hours, had doubtless broken down the gates and in other ways weakened the defences. The scene was frightful, and the ways everywhere impeded by flame and smoke, by falling houses and fragments, and by the numbers who lay massacred around. It was amidst such horrors that Dion and his soldiers found themselves—while penetrating in different divisions at once into Neapolis, Tycha, and Achradina.

His task would probably have been difficult, had Nypsius been able to control the troops under his command, in themselves brave and good. But these troops had been for some hours dispersed throughout the streets, satiating their licentious and murderous passions, and destroying a town which Dionysius now no longer expected to retain. Recalling as many soldiers as he could from this brutal disorder, Nypsius marshalled them along the interior fortification, occupying the entrances and exposed points where Dion would seek to penetrate into the city.[235] The battle was thus not continuous, but fought between detached parties at separate openings, often very narrow, and on ground sometimes difficult to surmount, amidst the conflagration blazing everywhere around.[236] Disorganized by pillage, the troops of Nypsius could oppose no long resistance to the forward advance of Dion, with soldiers full of ardor and with the Syracusans around him stimulated by despair. Nypsius was overpowered, compelled to abandon his line of defence, and to retreat with his troops into Ortygia, which the greater number of them reached in safety. Dion and his victorious troops, after having forced the entrance into the city, did not attempt to pursue them. The first and most pressing necessity was to extinguish the flames; but no inconsiderable number of the soldiers of Nypsius were found dispersed through the streets and houses, and slain while actually carrying off plunder on their shoulders. Long after the town was cleared of enemies, however, all hands within it were employed in stopping the conflagration; a task in which they hardly succeeded, even by unremitting efforts throughout the day and the following night.[237]

On the morrow Syracuse was another city; disfigured by the desolating trace of flame and of the hostile soldiery, yet still refreshed in the hearts of its citizens, who felt that they had escaped much worse; and above all, penetrated by a renewed political spirit, and a deep sense of repentant gratitude towards Dion. All those generals, who had been chosen at the last election from their intense opposition to him, fled forthwith; except Herakleides and Theodotes. These two men were his most violent and dangerous enemies; yet it appears that they knew his character better than their colleagues, and therefore did not hesitate to throw themselves upon his mercy. They surrendered, confessed their guilt, and implored his forgiveness. His magnanimity (they said) would derive a new lustre, if he now rose superior to his just resentment over misguided rivals, who stood before him humbled and ashamed of their former opposition, entreating him to deal with them better than they had dealt with him.

If Dion had put their request to the vote, it would have been refused by a large majority. His soldiers, recently defrauded of their pay, were yet burning with indignation against the authors of such an injustice. His friends, reminding him of the bitter and unscrupulous attacks which he as well as they had experienced from Herakleides, exhorted him to purge the city of one who abused the popular forms to purposes hardly less mischievous than despotism itself. The life of Herakleides now hung upon a thread. Without pronouncing any decided opinion, Dion had only to maintain an equivocal silence, and suffer the popular sentiment to manifest itself in a verdict invoked by one party, expected even by the opposite. The more was every one astonished when he took upon himself the responsibility of pardoning Herakleides; adding, by way of explanation and satisfaction[238] to his disappointed friends—

“Other generals have gone through most of their training with a view to arms and war. My long training in the Academy has been devoted to aid me in conquering anger, envy, and all malignant jealousies. To show that I have profited by such lessons, it is not enough that I do my duty towards my friends and towards honest men. The true test is, if, after being wronged, I show myself placable and gentle towards the wrong-doer. My wish is to prove myself superior to Herakleides more in goodness and justice, than in power and intelligence. Successes in war, even when achieved single-handed, are half owing to fortune. If Herakleides has been treacherous and wicked through envy, it is not for Dion to dishonor a virtuous life in obedience to angry sentiment. Nor is human wickedness, great as it often is, ever pushed to such an excess of stubborn brutality, as not to be amended by gentle and gracious treatment, from steady benefactors.”[239]

We may reasonably accept this as something near the genuine speech of Dion, reported by his companion Timonides, and thus passing into the biography of Plutarch. It lends a peculiar interest, as an exposition of motives, to the act which it accompanies. The sincerity of the exposition admits of no doubt, for all the ordinary motives of the case counselled an opposite conduct; and had Dion been in like manner at the feet of his rival, his life would assuredly not have been spared. He took pride (with a sentiment something like that of Kallikratidas[240] on liberating the prisoners taken at Methymna) in realizing by conspicuous act the lofty morality which he had imbibed from the Academy; the rather, as the case presented every temptation to depart from it Persuading himself that he could by an illustrious example put to shame and soften the mutual cruelties so frequent in Grecian party-warfare, and regarding the amnesty towards Herakleides as a proper sequel to the generous impulse which had led him to march from Leontini to Syracuse,—he probably gloried in both, more than in the victory itself. We shall presently have the pain of discovering that his anticipations were totally disappointed. And we may be sure that at the time, the judgment passed on his proceeding towards Herakleides was very different from what it now receives. Among his friends and soldiers, the generosity of the act would be forgotten in its imprudence. Among his enemies, it would excite surprise, perhaps admiration—yet few of them would be conciliated or converted into friends. In the bosom of Herakleides himself, the mere fact of owing his life to Dion would be a new and intolerable humiliation, which the Erinnys within would goad him on to avenge. Dion would be warned, by the criticism of his friends, as well as by the instinct of his soldiers, that in yielding to a magnanimous sentiment, he overlooked the reasonable consequences; and that Herakleides continuing at Syracuse would only be more dangerous both to him and them, than he had been before. Without taking his life, Dion might have required him to depart from Syracuse; which sentence, having regard to the practice of the time, would have been accounted generosity.

It was Dion’s next business to renew the wall of blockade constructed against Ortygia, and partially destroyed in the late sally of Nypsius. Every Syracusan citizen was directed to cut a stake, and deposit it near the spot; after which, during the ensuing night, the soldiers planted a stockade so as to restore the broken parts of the line. Protection being thus ensured to the city against Nypsius and his garrison, Dion proceeded to bury the numerous dead who had been slain in the sally, and to ransom the captives, no less than two thousand in number, who had been carried off into Ortygia.[241] A trophy, with sacrifice to the gods for the victory, was not forgotten.[242]

A public assembly was now held to elect new generals in place of those who had fled. Here a motion was made by Herakleides himself, that Dion should be chosen general with full powers both by land and sea. The motion was received with great favor by the principal citizens; but the poorer men were attached to Herakleides, especially the seamen; who preferred serving under his command, and loudly required that he should be named admiral, along with Dion as general on land. Forced to acquiesce in this nomination, Dion contented himself with insisting and obtaining, that the resolution, which had been previously adopted for redistributing lands and houses, should be rescinded.[243]

The position of affairs at Syracuse was now pregnant with mischief and quarrel. On land, Dion enjoyed a dictatorial authority;—at sea, Herakleides, his enemy not less than ever, was admiral, by separate and independent nomination. The undefined authority of Dion—exercised by one self-willed, though magnanimous, in spirit, and extremely repulsive in manner—was sure to become odious after the feelings arising out of the recent rescue had worn off; and abundant opening would thus be made for the opposition of Herakleides, often on just grounds. That officer indeed was little disposed to wait for just pretences. Conducting the Syracusan fleet to Messênê in order to carry on war against Dionysius at Lokri, he not only tried to raise the seamen in arms against Dion, by charging him with despotic designs, but even entered into a secret treaty with the common enemy Dionysius; through the intervention of the Spartan Pharax, who commanded the Dionysian troops. His intrigues being discovered, a violent opposition was raised against them by the leading Syracusan citizens. It would seem (as far as we can make out from the scanty information of Plutarch) that the military operations were frustrated, and that the armament was forced to return to Syracuse. Here again the quarrel was renewed—the seamen apparently standing with Herakleides, the principal citizens with Dion—and carried so far, that the city suffered not only from disturbance, but even from irregular supply of provisions.[244] Among the mortifications of Dion, not the least was that which he experienced from his own friends or soldiers, who reminded him of their warnings and predictions when he consented to spare Herakleides. Meanwhile Dionysius had sent into Sicily a body of troops under Pharax, who were encamped at Neapolis in the Agrigentine territory. In what scheme of operations this movement forms a part, we cannot make out; for Plutarch tells us nothing except what bears immediately on the quarrel between Dion and Herakleides. To attack Pharax, the forces of Syracuse were brought out; the fleet under Herakleides, the soldiers on land under Dion. The latter, though he thought it imprudent to fight, was constrained to hazard a battle by the insinuations of Herakleides and the clamor of the seamen; who accused him of intentionally eking out the war for the purpose of prolonging his own dictatorship. Dion accordingly attacked Pharax, but was repulsed. Yet the repulse was not a serious defeat, so that he was preparing to renew the attack, when he was apprised that Herakleides with the fleet had departed and were returning at their best speed to Syracuse; with the intention of seizing the city, and barring out Dion with his troops. Nothing but a rapid and decisive movement could defeat this scheme. Leaving the camp immediately with his best horsemen, Dion rode back to Syracuse as fast as possible; completing a distance of seven hundred stadia (about eighty-two miles) in a very short time, and forestalling the arrival of Herakleides.[245]

Thus disappointed and exposed, Herakleides found means to direct another manœuvre against Dion, through the medium of a Spartan named Gæsylus; who had been sent by the Spartans, informed of the dissensions in Syracuse, to offer himself (like Gylippus) for the command. Herakleides eagerly took advantage of the arrival of this officer; pressing the Syracusans to accept a Spartan as their commander-in-chief. But Dion replied that there were plenty of native Syracusans qualified for command; moreover, if a Spartan was required, he was himself a Spartan, by public grant. Gæsylus, having ascertained the state of affairs, had the virtue and prudence not merely to desist from his own pretensions, but also to employ his best efforts in reconciling Dion and Herakleides. Sensible that the wrong had been on the side of the latter, Gæsylus constrained him to bind himself by the strongest oaths to better conduct in future. He engaged his own guarantee for the observance of the covenant; but the better to ensure such observance, the greater part of the Syracusan fleet (the chief instrument of Herakleides) was disbanded, leaving only enough to keep Ortygia under blockade.[246]

The capture of that islet and fortress, now more strictly watched than ever, was approaching. What had become of Pharax, or why he did not advance, after the retreat of Dion, to harass the Syracusans and succor Ortygia—we know not. But no succor arrived; provisions grew scarce; and the garrison became so discontented, that Apollokrates the son of Dionysius could not hold out any longer. Accordingly, he capitulated with Dion; handing over to him Ortygia with its fort, arms, magazines and everything contained in it—except what he could carry away in five triremes. Aboard of these vessels, he placed his mother, his sisters, his immediate friends, and his chief valuables, leaving everything else behind for Dion and the Syracusans, who crowded to the beach in multitudes to see him depart. To them the moment was one of lively joy, and mutual self-congratulation—promising to commence a new era of freedom.[247]

On entering Ortygia, Dion saw for the first time after a separation of about twelve years, his sister Aristomachê, his wife Aretê, and family. The interview was one of the tenderest emotion and tears of delight to all. Aretê, having been made against her own consent the wife of Timokratês, was at first afraid to approach Dion. But he received and embraced her with unabated affection.[248] He conducted both her and his son away from the Dionysian acropolis, in which they had been living since his absence, into his own house; having himself resolved not to dwell in the acropolis, but to leave it as a public fort or edifice belonging to Syracuse. However, this renewal of his domestic happiness was shortly afterwards imbittered by the death of his son; who having imbibed from Dionysius drunken and dissolute habits, fell from the roof of the house, in a fit of intoxication or frenzy, and perished.[249]

Dion was now at the pinnacle of power as well as of glory. With means altogether disproportionate, he had achieved the expulsion of the greatest despot in Greece, even from an impregnable stronghold. He had combated danger and difficulty with conspicuous resolution, and had displayed almost chivalrous magnanimity. Had he “breathed out his soul”[250] at the instant of triumphant entry in Ortygia, the Academy would have been glorified by a pupil of first-rate and unsullied merit. But that cup of prosperity, which poisoned so many other eminent Greeks, had now the fatal effect of exaggerating all the worst of Dion’s qualities, and damping all the best.

Plutarch indeed boasts, and we may perfectly believe, that he maintained the simplicity of his table, his raiment, and his habits of life, completely unchanged—now that he had become master of Syracuse, and an object of admiration to all Greece. In this respect, Plato and the Academy had reason to be proud of their pupil.[251] But the public mistakes, now to be recounted, were not the less mischievous to his countrymen as well as to himself.

From the first moment of his entry into Syracuse from Peloponnesus, Dion had been suspected and accused of aiming at the expulsion of Dionysius, only in order to transfer the despotism to himself. His haughty and repulsive manners, raising against him personal antipathies everywhere, were cited as confirming the charge. Even at moments when Dion was laboring for the genuine good of the Syracusans, this suspicion had always more or less crossed his path; robbing him of well-merited gratitude—and at the same time discrediting his opponents, and the people of Syracuse, as guilty of mean jealousy towards a benefactor.

The time had now come when Dion was obliged to act in such a manner as either to confirm, or to belie, such unfavorable auguries. Unfortunately both his words and his deeds confirmed them in the strongest manner. The proud and repulsive external demeanor, for which he had always been notorious, was rather aggravated than softened. He took pride in showing, more plainly than ever, that he despised everything which looked like courting popularity.[252]

If the words and manner of Dion were thus significant, both what he did, and what he left undone, was more significant still. Of that great boon of freedom, which he had so loudly promised to the Syracusans, and which he had directed his herald to proclaim on first entering their walls, he conferred absolutely nothing. He retained his dictatorial power unabated, and his military force certainly without reduction, if not actually reinforced; for as Apollokrates did not convey away with him the soldiers in Ortygia, we may reasonably presume that a part of them at least remained to embrace the service of Dion. He preserved the acropolis and fortifications of Ortygia just as they were, only garrisoned by troops obeying his command instead of that of Dionysius. His victory made itself felt in abundant presents to his own friends and soldiers;[253] but to the people of Syracuse, it produced nothing better than a change of masters.

It was not indeed the plan of Dion to constitute a permanent despotism. He intended to establish himself king, but to grant to the Syracusans what in modern times would be called a constitution. Having imbibed from Plato and the Academy as well as from his own convictions and tastes, aversion to a pure democracy, he had resolved to introduce a Lacedæmonian scheme of mixed government, combining king, aristocracy, and people, under certain provisions and limitations. Of this general tenor are the recommendations addressed both to him, and to the Syracusans after his death, by Plato; who however seems to contemplate, along with the political scheme, a Lykurgean reform of manners and practice. To aid in framing and realizing his scheme, Dion sent to Corinth to invite counsellors and auxiliaries; for Corinth was suitable to his views, not simply as mother city of Syracuse, but also as a city thoroughly oligarchical.[254]

That these intentions on the part of Dion were sincere, we need not question. They had been originally conceived without any views of acquiring the first place for himself, during the life of the elder Dionysius, and were substantially the same as those which he had exhorted the younger Dionysius to realize, immediately after the death of the father. They are the same as he had intended to further by calling in Plato,—with what success, has been already recounted. But Dion made the fatal mistake of not remarking, that the state of things, both as to himself and as to Syracuse, was totally altered during the interval between 367 B. C. and 354 B. C. If at the former period, when the Dionysian dynasty was at the zenith of power, and Syracuse completely prostrated, the younger Dionysius could have been persuaded spontaneously and without contest or constraint to merge his own despotism in a more liberal system, even dictated by himself—it is certain that such a free, though moderate concession, would at first have provoked unbounded gratitude, and would have had a chance (though that is more doubtful) of giving long-continued satisfaction. But the situation was totally different in 354 B. C., when Dion, after the expulsion of Apollokrates, had become master in Ortygia; and it was his mistake that he still insisted on applying the old plans when they had become not merely unsuitable, but mischievous. Dion was not in the position of an established despot, who consents to renounce, for the public good, powers which every one knows he can retain, if he chooses; nor were the Syracusans any longer passive, prostrate, and hopeless. They had received a solemn promise of liberty, and had been thereby inflamed into vehement action, by Dion himself; who had been armed by them with delegated powers, for the special purpose of putting down Dionysius. That under these circumstances Dion, instead of laying down his trust, should constitute himself king—even limited king—and determine how much liberty he would consent to allot to the Syracusans who had appointed him—this was a proceeding which they could not but resent as a flagrant usurpation, and which he could only hope to maintain by force.

The real conduct of Dion, however, was worse even than this. He manifested no visible evidence of realizing even that fraction of popular liberty which had entered into his original scheme. What exact promises he made, we do not know. But he maintained his own power, the military force, and the despotic fortifications, provisionally undiminished. And who could tell how long he intended to maintain them? That he really had in his mind purposes such as Plato[255] gives him credit for, I believe to be true. But he took no practical step towards them. He had resolved to accomplish them, not through persuasion of the Syracusans, but through his own power. This was the excuse which he probably made to himself, and which pushed him down that inclined plane from whence there was afterwards no escape.

It was not likely that Dion’s conduct would pass without a protest. That protest came loudest from Herakleides; who, so long as Dion had been acting in the real service of Syracuse, had opposed him in a culpable and traitorous manner—and who now again found himself in opposition to Dion, when opposition had become the side of patriotism as well as of danger. Invited by Dion to attend the council, he declined, saying that he was now nothing more than a private citizen, and would attend the public assembly along with the rest; a hint which implied, plainly as well as reasonably, that Dion also ought to lay down his power, now that the common enemy was put down.[256] The surrender of Ortygia had produced strong excitement among the Syracusans. They were impatient to demolish the dangerous stronghold erected in that islet by the elder Dionysius; they both hoped and expected, moreover, to see the destruction of that splendid funeral monument which his son had built in his honor, and the urn with its ashes cast out. Now of these two measures, the first was one of pressing and undeniable necessity, which Dion ought to have consummated without a moment’s delay; the second was compliance with a popular antipathy at that time natural, which would have served as an evidence that the old despotism stood condemned. Yet Dion did neither. It was Herakleides who censured him, and moved for the demolition of the Dionysian Bastile; thus having the glory of attaching his name to the measure eagerly performed by Timoleon eleven years afterwards, the moment that he found himself master of Syracuse. Not only Dion did not originate the overthrow of this dangerous stronghold, but when Herakleides proposed it, he resisted him and prevented it from being done.[257] We shall find the same den serving for successive despots—preserved by Dion for them as well as for himself, and only removed by the real liberator Timoleon.

Herakleides gained extraordinary popularity among the Syracusans by his courageous and patriotic conduct. But Dion saw plainly that he could not, consistently with his own designs, permit such free opposition any longer. Many of his adherents, looking upon Herakleides as one who ought not to have been spared on the previous occasion, were ready to put him to death at any moment; being restrained only by a special prohibition which Dion now thought it time to remove. Accordingly, with his privity, they made their way into the house of Herakleides, and slew him.[258]

This dark deed abolished all remaining hope of obtaining Syracusan freedom from the hands of Dion, and stamped him as the mere successor of the Dionysian despotism. It was in vain that he attended the obsequies of Herakleides with his full military force, excusing his well-known crime to the people, on the plea, that Syracuse could never be at peace while two such rivals were both in active political life. Under the circumstances of the case, the remark was an insulting derision; though it might have been advanced with pertinence as a reason for sending Herakleides away, at the moment when he before spared him. Dion had now conferred upon his rival the melancholy honor of dying as a martyr to Syracusan freedom; and in that light he was bitterly mourned by the people. No man after this murder could think himself secure. Having once employed the soldiers as executioners of his own political antipathies, Dion proceeded to lend himself more and more to their exigencies. He provided for them pay and largesses, great in amount, first at the cost of his opponents in the city, next at that of his friends, until at length discontent became universal. Among the general body of the citizens, Dion became detested as a tyrant, and the more detested because he had presented himself as a liberator; while the soldiers also were in great part disaffected to him.[259]

The spies and police of the Dionysian dynasty not having been yet reëstablished, there was ample liberty at least of speech and censure; so that Dion was soon furnished with full indications of the sentiment entertained towards him. He became disquieted and irritable at this change of public feeling;[260] angry with the people, yet at the same time ashamed of himself. The murder of Herakleides sat heavy on his soul. The same man whom he had spared before when in the wrong, he had now slain when in the right. The maxims of the Academy which had imparted to him so much self-satisfaction in the former act, could hardly fail to occasion a proportionate sickness of self-reproach in the latter. Dion was not a mere power-seeker, nor prepared for all that endless apparatus of mistrustful precaution, indispensable to a Grecian despot. When told that his life was in danger, he replied that he would rather perish at once by the hands of the first assassin, than live in perpetual diffidence, towards friends as well as enemies.[261]

One thus too good for a despot, and yet unfit for a popular leader, could not remain long in the precarious position occupied by Dion. His intimate friend, the Athenian Kallippus, seeing that the man who could destroy him would become popular with the Syracusans as well as with a large portion of the soldiery, formed a conspiracy accordingly. He stood high in the confidence of Dion, had been his companion during his exile at Athens, had accompanied him to Sicily, and entered Syracuse by his side. But Plato, anxious for the credit of the Academy, is careful to inform us, that this inauspicious friendship arose, not out of fellowship in philosophy, but out of common hospitalities, and especially common initiation in the Eleusinian mysteries.[262] Brave and forward in battle, Kallippus enjoyed much credit with the soldiery. He was conveniently placed for tampering with them, and by a crafty stratagem, he even insured the unconscious connivance of Dion himself. Having learnt that plots were formed against his life, Dion talked about them to Kallippus, who offered himself to undertake the part of spy, and by simulated partnership to detect as well as to betray the conspirators. Under this confidence, Kallippus had full licence for carrying on his intrigues unimpeded, since Dion disregarded the many warnings which reached him.[263] Among the rumors raised out of Dion’s new position, and industriously circulated by Kallippus—one was, that he was about to call back Apollokrates, son of Dionysius, as his partner and successor to the despotism—as a substitute for the youthful son who had recently perished. By these and other reports, Dion became more and more discredited, while Kallippus secretly organized a wider circle of adherents. His plot however did not escape the penetration of Aristomachê and Aretê; who having, first addressed unavailing hints to Dion, at last took upon them to question Kallippus himself. The latter not only denied the charge, but even confirmed his denial, at their instance, by one of the most solemn and terrific oaths recognized in Grecian religion; going into the sacred grove of Demeter and Persephonê, touching the purple robe of the goddess, and taking in his hand a lighted torch.[264]

Inquiry being thus eluded, there came on presently the day of the Koreia:—the festival of these very Two goddesses in whose name and presence Kallippus had forsworn. This was the day which he had fixed for execution. The strong points of defence in Syracuse were confided beforehand to his principal adherents while his brother Philostrates[265] kept a trireme manned in the harbor ready for flight in case the scheme should miscarry. While Dion, taking no part in the festival, remained at home, Kallippus caused his house to be surrounded by confidential soldiers, and then sent into it a select company of Zakynthians, unarmed, as if for the purpose of addressing Dion on business. These men, young and of distinguished muscular strength, being admitted into the house, put aside or intimidated the slaves, none of whom manifested any zeal or attachment. They then made their way up to Dion’s apartment, and attempted to throw him down and strangle him. So strenuously did he resist, however, that they found it impossible to kill him without arms; which they were perplexed how to procure, being afraid to open the doors, lest aid might be introduced against them. At length one of their number descended to a back-door, and procured from a Syracusan without, named Lykon, a short sword; of the Laconian sort, and of peculiar workmanship. With this weapon they put Dion to death.[266] They then seized Aristomachê and Aretê, the sister and wife of Dion. These unfortunate women were cast into prison, where they were long detained, and where the latter was delivered of a posthumous son.

Thus perished Dion, having lived only about a year after his expulsion of the Dionysian dynasty from Syracuse—but a year too long for his own fame. Notwithstanding the events of those last months, there is no doubt that he was a man essentially differing from the class of Grecian despots: a man, not of aspirations purely personal, nor thirsting merely for multitudes of submissive subjects and a victorious army—but with large public-minded purposes attached as coördinate to his own ambitious views. He wished to perpetuate his name as the founder of a polity, cast in something of the general features of Sparta; which, while it did not shock Hellenic instincts, should reach farther than political institutions generally aim to do, so as to remodel the sentiments and habits of the citizens, on principles suited to philosophers like Plato. Brought up as Dion was from childhood at the court of the elder Dionysius, unused to that established legality, free speech, and habit of active citizenship, from whence a large portion of Hellenic virtue flowed—the wonder is how he acquired so much public conviction and true magnanimity of soul—not how he missed acquiring more. The influence of Plato during his youth stamped his mature character; but that influence (as Plato himself tells us) found a rare predisposition in the pupil. Still, Dion had no experience of the working of a free and popular government. The atmosphere in which his youth was passed was that of an energetic despotism; while the aspiration which he imbibed from Plato was, to restrain and regularize that despotism, and to administer to the people a certain dose of political liberty, yet reserving to himself the task of settling how much was good for them, and the power of preventing them from acquiring more.

How this project—the natural growth of Dion’s mind, for which his tastes and capacities were suited—was violently thrust aside through the alienated feelings of the younger Dionysius—has been already recounted. The position of Dion was now completely altered. He became a banished, ill-used man, stung with contemptuous antipathy against Dionysius, and eager to put down his despotism over Syracuse. Here were new motives apparently falling in with the old project. But the conditions of the problem had altogether changed. Dion could not overthrow Dionysius without “taking the Syracusan people into partnership” (to use the phrase of Herodotus[267] respecting the Athenian Kleisthenes)—without promising them full freedom, as an inducement for their hearty coöperation—without giving them arms, and awakening in them the stirring impulses of Grecian citizenship, all the more violent because they had been so long trodden down.[268] With these new allies he knew not how to deal. He had no experience of a free and jealous popular mind in persuasion, he was utterly unpractised: his manners were haughty and displeasing. Moreover, his kindred with the Dionysian family exposed him to antipathy from two different quarters. Like the Duke of Orleans (Égalité) at the end of 1792, in the first French Revolution—he was hated both by the royalists, because, though related to the reigning dynasty, he had taken an active part against it—and by sincere democrats, because they suspected him of a design to put himself in its place. To Dion, such coalition of antipathies was a serious hindrance; presenting a strong basis of support for all his rivals, especially for the unscrupulous Herakleides. The bad treatment which he underwent both from the Syracusans and from Herakleides, during the time when the officers of Dionysius still remained masters in Ortygia, has been already related. Dion however behaved, though not always with prudence, yet with so much generous energy against the common enemy, that he put down his rival, and maintained his ascendency unshaken, until the surrender of Ortygia.

That surrender brought his power to a maximum. It was the turning-point and crisis of his life. A splendid opportunity was now opened, of earning for himself fame and gratitude. He might have attached his name to an act as sublime and impressive as any in Grecian history, which, in an evil hour, he left to be performed in after days by Timoleon—the razing of the Dionysian stronghold, and the erection of courts of justice on its site. He might have taken the lead in organizing, under the discussion and consent of the people, a good and free government, which, more or less exempt from defect as it might have been, would at least have satisfied them, and would have spared Syracuse those ten years of suffering which intervened until Timoleon came to make the possibility a fact. Dion might have done all that Timoleon did—and might have done it more easily, since he was less embarrassed both by the other towns in Sicily and by the Carthaginians. Unfortunately he still thought himself strong enough to resume his original project. In spite of the spirit, kindled partly by himself, among the Syracusans—in spite of the repugnance, already unequivocally manifested, on the mere suspicion of his despotic designs—he fancied himself competent to treat the Syracusans as a tame and passive herd; to carve out for them just as much liberty as he thought right, and to require them to be satisfied with it; nay, even worse, to defer giving them any liberty at all, on the plea, or pretence, of full consultation with advisers of his own choice.

Through this deplorable mistake, alike mischievous to Syracuse and to himself, Dion made his government one of pure force. He placed himself in a groove wherein he was fatally condemned to move on from bad to worse, without possibility of amendment. He had already made a martyr of Herakleides, and he would have been compelled to make other martyrs besides, had his life continued. It is fortunate for his reputation that his career was arrested so early, before he had become bad enough to forfeit that sympathy and esteem with which the philosopher Plato still mourns his death, appeasing his own disappointment by throwing the blame of Dion’s failure on every one but Dion himself.