LIFE OF DION. (continued 2)

LVI. While Dion was thus alarmed and distressed, Kallippus all the more eagerly carried out his plot. He spread a rumour among the Syracusans that Dion, being childless, had determined to recall Apollokrates, the son of Dionysius, and to make him his heir, since he was his wife’s nephew, and his sister’s grandson. By this time Dion and the women of his household began to entertain some suspicion of the plot, and information of it reached them from all quarters. Dion, however, grieved at the murder of Herakleides, as though that crime had stained his glory, had become low-spirited and miserable, and frequently said that he was willing to die, and would let any man cut his throat, if he were obliged to live amidst constant precautions against his friends as well as his enemies. Kallippus, who perceived that the women had discovered the whole plot, came to them in great alarm, denying that he had any share in it, shedding tears, and offering to give any pledge of his loyalty which they chose to ask for. They demanded that he should swear the great oath, which is as follows:—The person who is about to swear enters the precinct of the temple of Demeter and Persephone, and after certain religious ceremonies puts on the purple robe of the goddess Persephone, and swears, holding a lighted torch in his hand. All this was done by Kallippus, and after swearing the oath he was impious enough to wait for the festival of the goddess whose name he had taken in vain, and to commit the murder on the day which was specially dedicated to her, although, perhaps, he thought nothing about the profanation of that particular day, but considered that it would be wickedness enough to murder the man whom he had himself initiated into the mysteries, on whatever day he might do it.

LVII. Many were now in the plot; and when Dion was sitting with his friends in a room furnished with several couches, some of the conspirators surrounded the house, while others stood at the doors and windows. Those who intended to do the deed were Zakynthians, and entered the house in their tunics, without swords. Those who remained outside made fast the doors, while those within rushed upon Dion, and endeavoured to strangle him. As, however, they could not accomplish this, they asked for a sword; but no one ventured to open the doors, because within the house were many of Dion’s friends, but as each of these imagined that, if he gave up Dion, he himself might get away safe, no one would help him. After some delay, a Syracusan, named Lykon, handed a dagger through a window to the Zakynthians, with which, as if sacrificing a victim, they cut the throat of Dion, who had long before been overpowered and had given himself up for lost. His sister and his wife, who was pregnant, were at once cast into prison, where the unhappy woman was delivered of a male child. The women prevailed upon the keepers of the prison to spare the child’s life, and obtained their request the more readily because Kallippus was already in difficulties.

LVIII. After Kallippus had murdered Dion, he at once became a person of importance, and had the entire government of Syracuse in his hands. He even sent despatches to Athens, a city which, next to the gods, he ought, especially to have dreaded, after having brought such pollution and sacrilege upon himself. However, the saying appears to be true, that that city produces both the best of good and the worst of wicked men, just as the territory of Athens produces both the sweetest honey and the most poisonous hemlock. Kallippus did not long survive to mock the justice of heaven, lest the gods might have been thought to disregard a man who, by such a crime, had obtained so great wealth and power; but he soon paid the penalty of his wickedness. He set out to capture Katana, and in doing so lost Syracuse; upon which he is said to have remarked, that he had lost a city and gained a cheese-scraper. In an attack upon Messenia he lost most of his soldiers, among whom were the murderers of Dion. As no city in Sicily would receive him, but all hated him and attacked him, he proceeded to Rhegium, where, as he was quite ruined and could no longer maintain his mercenary soldiers, he was murdered by Leptines and Polyperchon, who chanced to use the self-same dagger with which Dion is said to have been slain. It was recognised by being very short, after the Laconian fashion, and by its workmanship, for it was admirably carved with figures in high relief. Such was the retribution which befel Kallippus; while Aristomache and Arete, when they were released from prison, fell into the power of Hiketes, a Syracusan, who had been one of Dion’s friends, and who treated them at first loyally and honourably, but afterwards, at the instigation of some of the enemies of Dion, sent them on board of a ship, on the pretext of sending them to Peloponnesus, and gave orders to the people of the ship to put them to death and throw their bodies into the sea. They, however, are said to have thrown them alive into the sea, and the child with them. This man also paid a fitting penalty for his crimes, for he was taken and put to death by Timoleon, and the Syracusans put to death his two daughters to avenge the murder of Dion. All of this I have already described at length in the Life of Timoleon.