Dionysius

Dionysius the Elder, tyrant of Syracuse, was born about 430 B.C. He was originally a clerk in a public office, but early showed a passion for political and military distinction. When the Agrigentines, after the conquest of their city by the Carthaginians, charged the Syracusan generals with treachery, Dionysius supported their accusations, and induced the Syracusans to appoint new commanders, of whom he himself was one. But in a very short time he supplanted his colleagues also, and so made himself at twenty-five absolute ruler of the city. To strengthen his position he married the daughter of Hermocrates, the late head of the aristocratic party. After suppressing with ferocity several insurrections, and conquering some of the Greek towns of Sicily, he made preparations for a great war with the Carthaginians, which began in 397. At first fortune favoured Dionysius, but after a short time he suffered a series of reverses so calamitous, that all his allies abandoned him, and he was shut up in Syracuse apparently without hope of escape. When he was about to fall a victim to despair, a pestilence broke out in the Carthaginian fleet. Dionysius took courage, and suddenly attacking his enemies by land and sea, obtained a complete victory. In the years 393 and 392 the Carthaginians renewed hostilities, but were defeated on both occasions, and Dionysius was enabled to conclude a most advantageous peace. He now turned his arms against Lower Italy, and in 387, after a siege of eleven months, captured Rhegium. From this time he continued to exercise the greatest influence over the Greek cities of Lower Italy, while his fleets swept the Tyrrhenian and Adriatic seas. But Dionysius was not contented with the reputation of being the first warrior and statesman of his age; he wished to shine as a poet also. He even ventured so far as to contend for the prize at the Olympic games, but the best reciters of the time, reading his poems with their utmost art, could not induce the judges to decide in his favour. Dionysius was more successful at Athens, where he several times obtained the second and third prizes for tragedy, his last production obtaining the first. He also invited many poets and philosophers to his court, as Philoxenus and Plato, but these distinguished guests were not always safe from his capricious violence. He adorned Syracuse with splendid temples and public buildings. One of his works was the gloomy and terrible rock-hewn dungeon called Lautumix. In 368 he renewed the war with the Carthaginians, whom he wished to drive out of Sicily altogether, but died suddenly next year, not without a suspicion that his physician had hastened nature to make favour with his son. Dionysius was a most vigorous but unscrupulous ruler. His last years were tormented with an excessive dread of treachery.