Aristomache's brother was the celebrated Dion, in great estimation with Dionysius. He was at first obliged for his credit to his sister's favour; but after distinguishing his great capacity in many instances, his own merit made him much beloved and regarded by the tyrant. Among the other marks Dionysius gave him of his confidence, he ordered his treasurers to supply him, without further orders, with whatever money he should demand, provided they informed him the same day they paid it.

Dion had naturally a great and most noble soul. An happy accident had conduced to inspire and confirm in him the most elevated sentiments. It was a kind of chance, or rather, as Plutarch says, a peculiar providence, which at distance laid the foundations of the Syracusan liberty, that brought Plato, the most celebrated of philosophers, to Syracuse. Dion became his friend and disciple, and made great improvements from his lessons; for though brought up in a luxurious and voluptuous court, where the supreme good was made to consist in pleasure and magnificence, he had no sooner heard the precepts of his new master, and imbibed a taste for the philosophy that inculcates virtue, than his soul was inflamed with the love of it. Plato, in one of his letters, gives this glorious testimony of him, that he had never met with a young man, upon whom his discourses made so great an impression, or who had conceived his principles with so much ardour and vivacity.

As Dion was young and inexperienced, observing the facility with which Plato had changed his taste and inclinations, he imagined, with simplicity enough, that

the same reasons would have the same effects upon the mind of Dionysius; and from that opinion could not rest till he had prevailed upon the tyrant to hear, and converse with him. Dionysius consented; but the lust of tyrannic power had taken too deep a root in his heart to be ever eradicated from it. It was like' an indelible dye, that had penetrated his inmost soul, from whence it was impossible ever to efface it.

Though the stay of Plato at the court made no alteration in Dionysius, he persevered in giving Dion the same instances of his esteem and confidence, and even to support, without taking offence, the freedom with which he spoke to him. Dionysius, ridiculing one day the government of Gelon, formerly king of Syracuse, and saying, in allusion to his name, that he had been the "laughing stock "" of Sicily, the whole court fell into great admiration, and took no small pains in praising the quaintness and delicacy of the conceit, insipid and flat as it was, and indeed as puns and quibbles generally are. Dion took it in a serious sense, and was so bold as to represent to him that he was in the wrong to talk in that manner of a prince, whose wise and equitable conduct had been an excellent model of government, and given the Syracusans a favourable opinion of monarchical power. "You reign,” added he, " and have been trusted for Gelon's sake; but for your sake, no man will ever be trusted after you." It was very much, that a tyrant should

* Την βαφην εκ ανιέντα της τυραινίδος, εν πολλώ χρονται δευσοποιον κςαν 220 δυσεκπτυτον. Δρομαιος δε οντας ετι δει των χρησων αντιλαμβανεςθαν λογον, Plut. in moral. p. 779.

* Plut. p. 960.

Is signifies laughing stock.

suffer himself to be talked to in such a manner with

impunity.

SECTION III.

DIONYSIUS DECLARES WAR AGAINST THE CARTHAGINIANS. VARIOUS SUCCESS OF IT.

DIONYSIUS seeing his great preparations were complete, and that he was in a condition to take the field, publicly opened his design to the Syracusans, in order to interest them the more in the success of the enterprise, and told them that it was against the Carthaginians. He represented that people as the perpetual and inveterate enemy of the Greeks, and especially of those who inhabited Sicily; that the plague, which had lately wasted Carthage, had made the opportunity favourable, which ought not to be neglected; that the people in subjection to so cruel a power, waited only the signal to declare against it; that it would be much for the glory of Syracuse, to reinstate the Grecian cities in their liberty, after having so long groaned under the yoke of the barbarians; that in declaring war at present against the Carthaginians, they only preceded them in doing so for some time; since, as soon as they had retrieved their losses, they would not fail to attack Syracuse with all their forces.

The assembly were unanimously of the same opinion. Their ancient and natural hatred of the barbari. ans, their anger against them for having given Syracuse a master, and the hope that with arms in their

hands they might find some occasion of recovering their liberty, united them in their suffrages. The war was resolved without any opposition, and began that very instant. There were, as well in the city as the port, a great number of Carthaginians, who, upon the faith of treaties and under the peace, exercised traffic, and thought themselves in security. The populace, by Dionysius's authority, upon the breaking up of the assembly, ran to their houses and ships, plundered their goods, and carried off their effects. They met with the same treatment throughout Sicily; to which murders and massacres were added, by way of reprisal for the many cruelties committed by the barbarians upon those they conquered, and to show them what they had to expect, if they continued to make war with the same inhumanity.

After this bloody execution, Dionysius sent a letter by an herald to Carthage, in which he signified that the Syracusans declared war against the Carthaginians, if they did not withdraw their garrisons from all the Grecian cities held by them in Sicily. The reading of this letter at first in the senate, and afterwards in the assembly of the people, occasioned an uncommon alarm, as the pestilence had reduced the city to a deplorable condition. However, they were not dismayed, and prepared for a vigorous defence. They raised troops with the utmost diligence, and Imilcar set out immediately to put himself at the head of the Carthaginian army in Sicily.

Dionysius on his side lost no time, and took the field with his army, which daily increased by the arrival of new troops, who came to join him from all

parts. It amounted to eighty thousand foot, and three thousand horse. The fleet consisted of two hundred galleys, and five hundred barks laden with provisions and machines of war. He opened the campaign with the siege of Motya, a fortified town under the Carthaginians near Mount Eryx, in a little island something more than a quarter of a league" from the continent, to which it was joined by a small neck of land, which the besieged immediately cut off, to prevent the approaches of the enemy on that side.

Dionysius having left the care of the siege to Leptinus, who commanded the fleet, went with his land forces to attack the places in alliance with the Carthaginians. Terrified by the approach of so numerous an army, they all surrendered, except five, which were Ancyra, Solos, Palermo, Segesta, and Entella. The last two places he besieged.

Imilcar, however, to make a diversion, detached ten galleys of his fleet, with orders to attack and surprise in the night all the vessels which remained in the port of Syracuse. The commander of this expedition entered the port according to his orders without resistance, and after having sunk a great part of the vessels which he found there, retired well satisfied with the success of his enter

prise.

Dionysius, after having wasted the enemy's country, returned, and sat down with his whole army before Motya, and having employed a great number of hands in making dams and moles, he reinstated the neck of land, and brought his engines to work on that side.

Six stadia, or furlongs.

▾ Panormus.