he raised the siege. It was not out of favour or clemency that he acted in this manner, but to make their destruction sure, after having first reduced their power.

Accordingly the next year, under the false pretext, and with the reproach of their having violated the treaty, he besieged them again with all his forces, having first sert back their hostages. Both parties acted with the utmost vigour. The desire of revenge on one side, and the fear of the most cruel torments on the other, animated the troops. Those of the city were commanded by Phyto, a brave and intrepid man, whom the danger of his country rendered more courageous. He made frequent and vigorous sallies, in one of which Dionysius received a wound, of which he recovered with great difficulty. The siege went on slowly, and had already continued eleven months, when a cruel famine reduced the city to the last extremities. A measure of wheat (of about six bushels) was sold for about ten pounds.* After having consumed all their horses and beasts of burden, they were reduced to support themselves with leather and hides, which they boiled; and at last to feed upon the grass of the fields like beasts; a resource of which Dionysius soon deprived them, by making his horse eat up all the herbage around the city. Necessity at length reduced them to surrender at discretion, and Dionysius entered the place, which he found covered with dead bodies. Those who survived were rather skeletons than men. He took above 6000 prisoners, whom he sent to Syracuse. Such as could pay about two pounds† he dismissed, and sold the rest for slaves.

Dionysius let fall the whole weight of his resentment and revenge upon Phyto. He began with ordering his son to be thrown into the sea. The next day he ordered the father to be fastened to the extremity of the highest of his engines for a spectacle to the whole army, and in that condition he sent to tell him that his son had been thrown into the sea. Then he is happier than I by a day, replied that unfortunate parent. He afterwards caused him to be led through the whole city, to be scourged with rods, and to suffer a thousand other indignities, whilst a herald proclaimed, that the perfidious traitor was treated in that manner, for having inspired the people of Rhegium with rebellion.-Say rather, answered that generous defender of his country's liberty, that a faithful citizen is so used, for having refused to sacrifice his country to a tyrant. Such an object and such a discourse drew tears from all eyes, and even from the soldiers of Dionysius. He was afraid his prisoner would be taken from him before he had satiated his revenge, and ordered him to be flung into the sea directly.

SECTION IV.

Viorent passion of Dionysius for poesy. Reflections upon that taste of the tyrant. Flattery of his courtiers. Generous freedom of Philoxenus. Death of Dionysius. His bad qualities.

At an interval of leisure which his success against Rhegium had left Dionysius,* the tyrant, who was desirous of glory of every kind, and piqued himself upon the excellence of his genius, sent his brother Thearides to Olympia, to dispute in his name the prizes of the chariot-race and poetry.

The circumstance which I am now going to treat, and which regards the taste or rather passion of Dionysius for poetry and polite learning, being one of his peculiar characteristics, and having besides a mixture of good and bad in itself, makes it requisite, in order to form an equitable judgment upon this point, to distinguish wherein this taste of his is either laudable or worthy of blame.

I say the same of the tyrant's total character, with whose vices of ambition and tyranny many great qualities were united, which ought not to be disguised or misrepresented; the veracity of history requiring, that justice should be done to the most wicked, as they are not so in every respect. We have seen several things in his character that certainly deserve praise; I mean in regard to his manners and behaviour: the mildress with which he suffered the freedom of young Dion, the admiration he expressed of the bold and generous answer of his sister Thesta upon the occasion of her husband's flight, his gracious and insinuating deportment upon several other occasions to the Syracusans, the familiarity with which he conversed with the meanest citizens and even workmen, the equality he observed between his two wives, and his kindness and respect for them; all which imply that Dionysius had more equity, moderation, affability, and generosity, than is commonly ascribed to him. lle is not such a tyrant as Phalaris, Alexander of Pheræ, Caligula, Nero, or Caracalla.

But to return to Dionysius's taste for poetry. In his intervals of leisure, he loved to unbend in the conversation of persons of wit, and in the study of the arts and sciences. He was particularly fond of versifying, and employed himself in the composition of poems, especially of tragedies. Thus far this passion of his may be excused, having something undoubtedly ludable in it; I mean in his taste for polite learning, the esteem he expressed for learned men, his inclination to do them good offices, and the employment to which he devoted his leisure hours. Was it not better to employ them in exercising his mind and the cultivation of science, than in feasting, dancing, theatrical amusements, gaming, frivolous company, and other pleasures still more pernicious? This is the wise reflection which Dionysius the younger made when at Corinth * Diod. l. xiv. p. 318.

Philip of Macedon being at table with him,* spoke of the odes and tragedies his father had left benind him with an air of raillery and contempt, and seemed to be under some difficulty to comprehend at what time of his life he had leisure for such compositions. Dionysius smartly and wittily replied, The difficulty is very great indeed! Why, he composed them at those hours which you and I, and an infinity of others, who have so high an opinion of ourselves, pass in drinking, and other diversions.

Julius Cæsar and the emperor Augustus cultivated poetry, and composed tragedies. Lucullus, intended to have written the memoirs of his military actions in verse. The coinedies of Terence were attributed to Lælius and Scipio, both great captains, especially the latter; and that report, which generally prevailed at Rome, was so far from lessening their reputation, that it added to the general esteem in which they were held.

These relaxations, therefore, were not blameable in their own nature; this taste for poetry was rather laudable, if kept within due bounds; but Dionysius was ridiculous for pretending to excel all others in it. He could not endure either a superior or competitor in any thing. From being in the sole possession of supreme authority, he had accustomed himself to imagine that he possessed the same paramount rank in the empire of wit: in a word, he was in every thing a tyrant. His immoderate estimation of his own merit flowed, in some measure, from the overbearing turn of mind which empire and command had given him. The continual applauses of a court, and the flatteries of those who knew how to recommend themselves by soothing his darling foible, were another source of this vain conceit. And of what will not a great man,‡ a minister, a prince, think himself capable, who has such incense and adoration continually paid to him? It is well known that Cardinal Richelieu, in the midst of his important business, not only composed dramatic pieces, but piqued himself on his excellence in that talent; and what is more, his jealousy in that point rose so high as to use his authority in causing criticisms to be directed against the compositions of those to whom the public, a just and incorruptible judge in the question, had given the preference against him.

Dionysius did not reflect, that there are things, estimable in themselves, and conferring honour upon private persons, in which it does not become a prince to desire to excel. I have mentioned else. where Philip of Macedon's expression to his son Alexander, upon his having shown too much skill in music at a public entertainment: Are you not ashamed, said he, to sing so well? It was acting inconsistently with the dignity of his rank. If Cæsar and Augustus, when they wrote tragedies, had taken it into their heads to equal

Plut. in Timol. p. 243. c. lxxxv. † Suet. in Cæs. c. lvi. in August. c. lxxxv. Plut in Lucul. p. 402.

-Nihil est quod credere de se

Non possit, cùm laudatur diis æqua potcstas. Juvenal.

or excel Sophocles, it had not only been ridiculous, but a reproach to them. And the reason is, because a prince being obliged by au essential and indispensable duty to apply himself incessantly to the affairs of government, and having an infinitude of various business perpetually flowing in upon him, he can make no other use of the sciences, than to divert him at such short intervals, as will not admit such progress in them, as is requisite in order to excel those who make them their particular study. Hence when the public sees a prince affect the first rank in this kind of merit, they have a right to conclude that he neglects his more important duties, and what he owes to his people's happiness, to give himself up to an employment which wastes his time and mental energy ineffectually.

We must, however, do Dionysius the justice to own, that he was never reproached for letting poetry interfere to the prejudice of his great affairs, or that it made him less active and diligent on any important occasion.

I have already said,* that this prince, in an interval of peace, had sent his brother Thearides to Olympia, to dispute the prizes of poetry and the chariot-race in his name. When he arrived in the assembly, the beauty as well as number of his chariots, and the magnificence of his pavilion, embroidered with gold and silver, attracted the eyes and admiration of all the spectators. The ear was no less charmed when the poems of Dionysius began to be read. He had chosen expressly for the occasion readers with sonorous,t musical voices, who might be heard far and distinctly, and who knew how to give a just emphasis and cadence to the verses they repeated. At first this had a very happy effect, and the whole audience were deceived by the art and sweetness of the pronunciation. But that charm was soon at an end, and the mind not long seduced by the ears. The verses then appeared in their absurdity. The audience were ashamed of having applauded them, and their praise was turned into laughter, scorn, and insult. Their contempt and indignation rose to such a pitch, that they tore Dionysius's rich pavilion in pieces. Lysias, the celebrated orator, who was come to the Olympic games to dispute the prize of eloquence, which he had carried several times before, undertook to prove, that it was inconsistent with the honour of Greece, the friend and assertor of liberty, to admit an impious tyrant to share in the celebration of the sacred games, who had no other thoughts than of subjecting all Greece to his power. Dionysius was not affronted in that manner then; but the event proved as little in his favour. His chariots having entered the lists, were all of them either carried out of the course by a headlong impetuosity, or dashed in pieces against one another. And to complete the misfortune, the galley which was bringing back the persons Dionysius had sent to the games, met with a violent storm, and did not return to Syracuse without great difficulty. When the

*Diod. 1. xiv. p. 318.

↑ These readers wero culled 'Pafodoì.

pilots arrived there, out of hatred and contempt for the tyrant, they reported throughout the city, that it was his vile poems which had occasioned so many misfortunes to the readers, racers, and even the ship itself. This bad success did not at all discourage Dionysius nor make him abate in the least the high opinion which he entertained of his poetic vein. The flatterers, who abounded in his court, did not fail to insinuate, that such injurious treatment of his poems could proceed only from envy, which always fastens upon what is most excellent; and that sooner or later, the invidious themselves would be compelled by demonstration to do justice to his merit, and acknowledge his superiority to all other poets.

The infatuation of Dionysius on this subject was inconceivable.* He was undoubtedly a great warrior, and an excellent captain; but he fancied himself a much better poet, and believed that his verses were a far greater honour to him than all his victories. To endeavour to undeceive him in an opinion so favourable to himself, to say nothing of the absolute hopelessness of the attempt, would have been an ill way of making court to him; so that all the learned men and poets, who ate at his table in great numbers, seemed to be in an ecstasy of admiration whenever he read them his poems. Never, according to them, was any thing comparable to them: all was great, all noble in his poetry: all was majestic, or, to speak more properly, all divine.

Philoxenus was the only one of all the tribe who did not suffer himself to be hurried away by this torrent of excessive praise and flattery. He was a man of great reputation, and excelled in Dithyrambic poetry. There is a story told of him, which La Fontaine has known how to apply admirably. Being at table with Dionysius, and seeing a very small fish set before him, and a huge one before the king, the whim took him, to lay his ear close to the little fish. He was asked what he meant by that pleasantry: I was inquiring, said he, into some affairs that happened in the reign of Nereus, but this young native of the floods can give me no information: yours is elder, and without doubt knows something of the matter.

Dionysius having read one day some of his verses to Philoxenus, and having pressed him to give him his opinion of them, he answered with entire freedom, and told him plainly his real sentiments. Dionysius, who was not accustomed to such language, was extremely offended, and ascribing his boldness to envy, gave orders to carry him to the quarries; the common jail being so called. The whole court was afflicted upon this account, and solicited for the generous prisoner, whose release they obtained. He was enlarged the next day, and restored to favour.

At the entertainment made that day by Dionysius, for the same guests, which was a kind of ratification of the pardon, and at which they were for that reason more than usually gay and cheerful; after

Diod. 1. xv. p. 331