[870] A Carthaginian citizen wore as many rings as he had served campaigns (Aristotel. Politic. vii, 2, 6).

[871] Diodor. xx, 10.

[872] Appian, viii, 80. Twenty thousand panoplies, together with an immense stock of weapons and engines of siege, were delivered up to the perfidious manœuvres of the Romans, a little before the last siege of Carthage.

See Bötticher, Geschichte der Carthager, p. 20-25.

[873] Diodor. xvi, 8.

[874] See the striking description in Livy, of the motley composition of the Carthaginian mercenary armies, where he bestows just admiration on the genius of Hannibal, for having always maintained his ascendency over them, and kept them in obedience and harmony (Livy, xxviii, 12). Compare Polybius, i, 65-67, and the manner in which Imilkon abandoned his mercenaries to destruction at Syracuse (Diodor. xiv, 75-77).

[875] There were in like manner two suffetes in Gades and each of the other Phœnician colonies (Livy, xxviii, 37). Cornelius Nepos (Hannibal, c. 7) talks of Hannibal as having been made king (rex) when he was invested with his great foreign military command, at twenty-two years of age. So Diodorus (xiv, 54) talks about Imilkon, and Herodotus (vii, 166) about Hamilkar.

[876] See Movers, Die Phönizier, ii, 1, p. 483-499.

[877] Polybius, x, 18; Livy, xxx, 16.

Yet again Polybius in another place speaks of the Gerontion at Carthage as representing the aristocratical force, and as opposed to the πλῆθος or people (vi, 51). It would seem that by Γερόντιον he must mean the same as the assembly called in another passage (x, 18) Σύγκλητος.

[878] Aristotel. Politic. ii, 8, 2.

[879] Livy, xxxiii, 46. Justin (xix, 2) mentions the one hundred select Senators set apart as judges.

[880] Heeren (Ideen über den Verkehr der Alten Welt, part ii, p. 138, 3rd edit.) and Kluge (in his Dissertation, Aristoteles de Politiâ Carthaginiensium, Wratisl. 1824) have discussed all these passages with ability. But their materials do not enable them to reach any certainty.

[881] Valerius Max. ix, 5, 4. “Insolentiæ inter Carthaginiensem et Campanum senatum quasi æmulatio fuit. Ille enim separato à plebe balneo lavabatur, hic diverso foro utebatur.”

[882] Diodor. xx, 10; xxiii, 9; Valer. Max. ii, 7, 1.

[883] Aristotel Politic. iii, 5, 6.

These banquets must have been settled, daily proceedings,—as well as multitudinous, in order to furnish even apparent warrant for the comparison which Aristotle makes with the Spartan public mess. But even granting the analogy on these external points,—the intrinsic difference of character and purpose between the two must have been so great, that the comparison seems not happy.

Livy (xxxiv, 61) talks of the circuli et convivia at Carthage; but this is probably a general expression, without particular reference to the public banquets mentioned by Aristotle.

[884] Aristotel. Polit. ii, 8, 3.

[885] Aristot. Polit. ii, 8, 1. He briefly alludes to the abortive conspiracy of Hanno (v, 6, 2), which is also mentioned in Justin (xxi, 4). Hanno is said to have formed the plan of putting to death the Senate, and making himself despot. But he was detected, and executed under the severest tortures; all his family being put to death along with him.

Not only is it very difficult to make out Aristotle’s statements about the Carthaginian government,—but some of them are even contradictory. One of these (v, 10, 3) has been pointed out by M. Barthélemy St. Hilaire, who proposes to read ἐν Χαλκηδόνι instead of ἐν Καρχηδόνι. In another place (v, 10, 4) Aristotle calls Carthage (ἐν Καρχηδόνι δημοκρατουμένῃ) a state democratically governed; which cannot be reconciled with what he says in ii, 8, respecting its government.

Aristotle compares the Council of One Hundred and Four at Carthage to the Spartan ephors. But it is not easy to see how so numerous a body could have transacted the infinite diversity of administrative and other business performed by the five ephors.

[886] Justin. xix, 1.

[887] Diodor. xiii.

[888] Justin, xix, 2.

[889] Diodor. xii, 82.

It seems probable that the war which Diodorus mentions to have taken place in 452 B.C., between the Egestæans and Lilybæans—was really a war between Egesta and Selinus (see Diodor, xi, 86—with Wesseling’s note). Lilybæum as a town attained no importance until after the capture of Motyê by the older Dionysius in 393 B.C.

[890] Diodor. xiii, 43.

[891] Diodor. xiii, 43.

[892] Diodor. xiii, 43. Κατέστησαν στρατηγὸν τὸν Ἀννίβαν, κατὰ νόμους τότε βασιλεύοντα. Οὗτος δὲ ἦν υἱωνὸς μὲν τοῦ πρὸς Γέλωνα πολεμήσαντος Ἁμίλκου, καὶ πρὸς Ἱμέρᾳ τελευτήσαντος, υἱὸς δὲ Γέσκωνος, ὃς διὰ τὴν τοῦ πατρὸς ἧτταν ἐφυγαδεύθη, καὶ κατεβίωσεν ἐν τῇ Σελινοῦντι. Ὁ δ’ οὖν Ἀννίβας, ὢν μὲν καὶ φύσει μισέλλην, ὅμως δὲ τὰς τῶν προγόνων ἀτιμίας διορθώσασθαι βουλόμενος, etc.

The banishment of Giskon, and that too for the whole of his life, deserves notice, as a point of comparison between the Greek republics and Carthage. A defeated general in Greece, if he survived his defeat, was not unfrequently banished, even where there seems neither proof nor probability that he had been guilty of misconduct, or misjudgment, or omission. But I do not recollect any case in which, when a Grecian general thus apparently innocent was not merely defeated but slain in the battle, his son was banished for life, as Giskon was banished by the Carthaginians. In appreciating the manner in which the Grecian states, both democratical and oligarchical, dealt with their officers, the contemporary republic of Carthage is one important standard of comparison. Those who censure the Greeks, will have to find stronger terms of condemnation when they review the proceedings of the Carthaginians.

[893] Diodor. xiii, 43, 44.

[894] Diodor. xiii, 44.

[895] Diodor. xiii, 59.

[896] Diodor. xiii, 55; xi, 21.

[897] Diodor. xiii, 54-58. οἱ τοῖς Καρχηδονίοις Ἕλληνες ξυμμαχοῦντες, etc.

It cannot therefore be exact,—that which Plutarch affirms, Timoleon, c. 30,—that the Carthaginians had never employed Greeks in their service, at the time of the battle of the Krimêsus,—B.C. 340.

[898] Thucyd. vi, 34. δυνατοὶ δέ εἰσι (the Carthaginians) μάλιστα τῶν νῦν, βουληθέντες· χρυσὸν γὰρ καὶ ἄργυρον πλεῖστον κέκτηνται, ὅθεν ὅ τε πόλεμος καὶ τἄλλα εὐπορεῖ.

[899] Diodor. xiii, 54, 55.

[900] Diodor. xiii, 56, 57.

[901] Diodor. xiii, 57.

[902] Diodor. xiii, 57, 58.

[903] Diodor. xiii, 59. Ὁ δὲ Ἀννίβας ἀπεκρίθη, τοὺς μὲν Σελινουντίους μὴ δυναμένους τηρεῖν τὴν ἐλευθερίαν, πεῖραν τῆς δουλείας λήψεσθαι· τοὺς δὲ θεοὺς ἐκτὸς Σελινοῦντος οἴχεσθαι, προσκόψαντας τοῖς ἐνοικοῦσιν.

[904] Diodor. xiii, 59. The ruins, yet remaining, of the ancient temples of Selinus, are vast and imposing; characteristic as specimens of Doric art, during the fifth and sixth centuries B.C. From the great magnitude of the fallen columns, it has been supposed that they were overthrown by an earthquake. But the ruins afford distinct evidence, that these columns have been first undermined, and then overthrown by crow-bars.

This impressive fact, demonstrating the agency of the Carthaginian destroyers, is stated by Niebuhr, Vorträge über alte Geschichte, vol. iii. p. 207.

[905] Diodor. xiii, 60.

[906] Diodor. xiii, 61, 62.

[907] Diodor. xiii, 62. Τῶν δ’ αἰχμαλώτων γυναικάς τε καὶ παῖδας διαδοὺς εἰς τὸ στρατόπεδον παρεφύλαττε· τῶν δ’ ἀνδρῶν τοὺς ἁλόντας, εἰς τρισχιλίους ὄντας, παρήγαγεν ἐπὶ τὸν τόπον, ἐν ᾧ πρότερον Ἀμίλκας ὁ πάππος αὐτοῦ ὑπὸ Γέλωνος ἀνῃρέθη, καὶ πάντας αἰκισάμενος κατέσφαξε.

The Carthaginians, after their victory over Agathokles in 307 B.C., sacrificed their finest prisoners as offerings of thanks to the gods (Diodor. xx, 65.)

[908] Diodor. xiii, 79.

[909] Xenoph. Hellen. i, 1, 37.

[910] Herodot. vi, 28.

[911] Diodor. xiii, 62-80.

[912] Diodor. xiii, 62.

[913] Xenoph. Hellen. i, 1, 28. Οἱ δ’ οὐκ ἔφασαν δεῖν στασιάζειν πρὸς τὴν ἑαυτῶν πόλιν, etc.

[914] Xenoph. Hellen. i, 1, 31; Diodor. xiii, 63.

[915] Diodor. xiii, 63.

[916] Diodor. xiii, 63, 75.

[917] Diodor. xiii, 75. Καὶ ὁ μὲν Διοκλῆς ἐφυγαδεύθη, τὸν δὲ Ἑρμοκράτην οὐδ’ ὡς προσεδέξαντο· ὑπώπτευον γὰρ τὴν τἀνδρὸς τόλμαν, μή ποτε τυχὼν ἡγεμονίας, ἀναδείξῃ ἑαυτὸν τύραννον.

[918] Diodor. xiii, 75. Ὁ μὲν οὖν Ἑρμοκράτης τότε τὸν καιρὸν οὐχ ὁρῶν εὔθετον εἰς τὸ βιάσασθαι, πάλιν ἀνεχώρησεν εἰς Σελινοῦντα. Μετὰ δέ τινα χρόνον, τῶν φίλων αὐτὸν μεταπεμπομένων, ὥρμησε μετὰ τρισχιλίων στρατιωτῶν, καὶ πορευθεὶς διὰ τῆς Γελώας, ἧκε νυκτὸς ἐπὶ τὸν συντεταγμένον τόπον.

[919] Xenoph. Hellen. iv, 4, 8.

[920] Diodor. xiii, 75.

Xenophon (Hellen. i, 3, 13) states that Hermokrates, ἤδη φεύγων ἐκ Συρακουσῶν, was among those who accompanied Pharnabazus along with the envoys intended to go to Susa, but who only went as far as Gordium in Phrygia, and were detained by Pharnabazus (on the requisition of Cyrus) for three years. This must have been in the year 407 B.C. Now I cannot reconcile this with the proceedings of Hermokrates as described by Diodorus; his coming to the Sicilian Messênê,—his exploits near Selinus,—his various attempts to procure restoration to Syracuse:—all of which must have occurred in 408-407 B.C., ending with the death of Hermokrates.

It seems to me impossible that the person mentioned by Xenophon as accompanying Pharnabazus into the interior can have been the eminent Hermokrates. Whether it was another person of the same name,—or whether Xenophon was altogether misinformed,—I will not take upon me to determine. There were really two contemporary Syracusans bearing that name, for the father of Dionysius the despot was named Hermokrates.

Polybius (xii, 25) states that Hermokrates fought with the Lacedæmonians at Ægospotami. He means the eminent general so called; who however cannot have been at Ægospotami in the summer or autumn of 405 B.C. There is some mistake in the assertion of Polybius, but I do not know how to explain it.

[921] Diodor. xiii, 96; xiv, 66.

Isokrates, Or. v, Philipp. s. 73—Dionysius, πολλοστὸς ὢν Συρακοσίων καὶ τῷ γένει καὶ τῇ δόξῃ καὶ τοῖς ἄλλοις ἅπασιν, etc.

Demosthenes, adv. Leptinem, p. 506, s. 178. γραμματέως, ὥς φασι, etc. Polybius (xv, 35), ἐκ δημοτικῆς καὶ ταπεινῆς ὑποθέσεως ὁρμηθεὶς, etc. Compare Polyænus, v, 2, 2.

[922] Xenoph. Hellen. ii, 2, 24. Διονύσιος ὁ Ἑρμοκράτους. Diodor. xiii, 91.

[923] Diodor. xiii, 75.

[924] Diodor. xiii, 79.

[925] Diodor. xiii, 80; Xenoph. Hellen. i, 5, 21.

[926] Diodor. xiii, 81-84.

[927] Diogen. Laert. viii, 63.

[928] Diodor. xiii, 81-84; Polyb. ix, 7.

[929] Diodor. xi, 25.

[930] Virgil, Æneid. iii, 704.

[931] Diodor. xiii, 85.

[932] See about the Topography of Agrigentum,—Seyfert, Akragas, p. 21, 23, 40 (Hamburg, 1845).

The modern town of Girgenti stands on one of the hills of this vast aggregate, which is overspread with masses of ruins, and around which the traces of the old walls may be distinctly made out, with considerable remains of them in some particular parts.

Compare Polybius, i, 18; ix, 27.

Pindar calls the town ποταμίᾳ τ’ Ἀκράγαντι—Pyth. vi, 6: ἱερὸν οἴκημα ποταμοῦ—Olymp. ii, 10.

[933] Diodor. xiii, 85.

We read of a stratagem in Polyænus (v, 10, 4), whereby Imilkon is said to have enticed the Agrigentines, in one of their sallies, into incautious pursuit, by a simulated flight; and thus to have inflicted upon them a serious defeat.

[934] Diodor. xiii, 86.

[935] Diodor. xiii, 87.

It appears that an eminence a little way eastward from Agrigentum still bears the name of Il Campo Cartaginese, raising some presumption that it was once occupied by the Carthaginians. Evidently, the troops sent out by Imilkon to meet and repel Daphnæus, must have taken post to the eastward of Agrigentum, from which side the Syracusan army of relief was approaching. Seyfert (Akragas, p. 41) contests this point, and supposes that they must have been on the western side; misled by the analogy of the Roman siege in 262 B.C., when the Carthaginian relieving army under Hanno were coming from the westward,—from Heraklei (Polyb. i, 19).

[936] Diodor. xiii, 87.

The youth of Argeius, combined with the fact of his being in high command, makes us rather imagine that he was of noble birth: compare Thucydid. vi, 38,—the speech of Athenagoras.

[937] Mention is again made, sixty-five years afterwards, in the description of the war of Timoleon against the Carthaginians,—of the abundance of gold and silver drinking cups, and rich personal ornaments, carried by the native Carthaginians on military service (Diodor. xvi, 81; Plutarch, Timoleon, c. 28, 29).

There was a select body of Carthaginians,—a Sacred Band,—mentioned in these later times, consisting of two thousand five hundred men of distinguished bravery as well as of conspicuous position in the city (Diodor. xvi, 80; xx, 10).

[938] Diodor. xiii, 88.

[939] Diodor. xiii, 89, 90.

[940] Diodor. xiii, 91.

[941] Diodor. xiii, 88.

Xenophon confirms the statement of Diodorus, that Agrigentum was taken by famine (Hellen. i, 5, 21; ii, 2, 24).

[942] Diodor. xiii, 91.

[943] Demosthenes de Coronâ, p. 286, s. 220.

This comparison is made by M. Brunet de Presle, in his valuable historical work (Recherches sur les Establissemens des Grecs en Sicile, Part ii, s. 39, p. 219).

[944] Aristotel. Politic. v, 5, 6. Γίνονται δὲ μεταβολαὶ τῆς ὀλιγαρχίας, καὶ ὅταν ἀναλώσωσι τὰ ἴδια, ζῶντες ἀσελγῶς· καὶ γὰρ οἱ τοιοῦτοι καινοτομεῖν ζητοῦσι, καὶ ἢ τυραννίδι ἐπιτίθενται αὐτοὶ, ἢ κατασκευάζουσιν ἕτερον· ὥσπερ Ἱππαρῖνος Διονύσιον ἐν Συρακούσαις.

Hipparinus was the father of Dion, respecting whom more hereafter.

Plato, in his warm sympathy for Dion, assigns to Hipparinus more of an equality of rank and importance with the elder Dionysius, than the subsequent facts justify (Plato, Epistol. viii. p. 353 A.; p. 355 F.).

[945] Diodor. xiii, 91. Ἀπορουμένων δὲ πάντων παρελθών Διονύσιος ὁ Ἑρμοκράτους, τῶν μὲν στρατηγῶν κατηγόρησεν, ὡς προδιδόντων τὰ πράγματα τοῖς Καρχηδονίοις· τὰ δὲ πλήθη παρώξυνε πρὸς τὴν αὐτῶν τιμωρίαν, παρακαλῶν μὴ περιμεῖναι τὸν κατὰ τοὺς νόμους κλῆρον, ἀλλ’ ἐκ χειρὸς εὐθέως ἐπιθεῖναι τὴν δίκην.

[946] Diodor. xiii, 91. Τῶν δ’ ἀρχόντων ζημιούντων τὸν Διονύσιον κατὰ τοὺς νόμους, ὡς θορυβοῦντα, Φίλιστος, ὁ τὰς ἱστορίας ὕστερον συγγράψας, οὐσίαν ἔχων μεγάλην, etc.

In the description given by Thucydides (vi, 32-39) of the debate in the Syracusan assembly (prior to the arrival of the Athenian expedition) in which Hermokrates and Athenagoras speak, we find the magistrates interfering to prevent the continuance of a debate which had become very personal and acrimonious; though there was nothing in it at all brutal, nor any exhortation to personal violence or infringement of the law.

[947] Diodor. xiii, 91.

[948] Plato, Epistol. viii, p. 354. Οἱ γὰρ πρὸ Διονυσίου καὶ Ἱππαρίνου ἀρξάντων Σικελιῶται τότε ὡς ᾤοντο εὐδαιμόνως ἔζων, τρυφῶντές τε καὶ ἅμα ἀρχόντων ἄρχοντες· οἱ καὶ τοῦς δέκα στρατηγοὺς κατέλευσαν βάλλοντες τοὺς πρὸ Διονυσίου, κατὰ νόμον οὐδένα κρίναντες, ἵνα δὴ δουλεύοιεν μηδένι μήτε σὺν δίκῃ μήτε νόμῳ δεσπότῃ, ἐλεύθεροι δ’ εἶεν πάντῃ πάντως· ὅθεν αἱ τυραννίδες ἐγένοντο αὐτοῖς.

Diodor. xiii, 92. παραυτίκα τοὺς μὲν ἔλυσε τῆς ἀρχῆς, ἑτέρους δὲ εἵλετο στρατηγοὺς, ἐν οἷς καὶ τὸν Διονύσιον. Some little time afterwards, Diodorus farther mentions that Dionysius accused before the public assembly, and caused to be put to death, Daphnæus and Demarchus (xiii, 96); now Daphnæus was one of the generals (xiii, 86-88).

If we assume the fact to have occurred as Plato affirms it, we cannot easily explain how something so impressive and terror-striking came to be transformed into the more commonplace statement of Diodorus, by Ephorus, Theopompus, Hermeias, Timæus, or Philistus, from one of whom probably his narrative is borrowed.

But if we assume Diodorus to be correct, we can easily account for the erroneous belief in the mind of Plato. A very short time before this scene at Syracuse, an analogous circumstance had really occurred at Agrigentum. The assembled Agrigentines, being inflamed against their generals for what they believed to be slackness or treachery in the recent fight with the Carthaginians, had stoned four of them on the spot, and only spared the fifth on the score of his youth (Diodor. xiii, 87).

I cannot but think that Plato confounded in his memory the scene and proceedings at Syracuse with the other events, so recently antecedent, at Agrigentum. His letter (from which the above citation is made) was written in his old age,—fifty years after the event.

This is one inaccuracy as to matter-of-fact, which might be produced in support of the views of those who reject the letters of Plato as spurious, though Ast does not notice it, while going through the letters seriatim, and condemning them not only as un-Platonic but as despicable compositions. After attentively studying both the letters themselves, and his reasoning, I dissent entirely from Ast’s conclusion. The first letter, that which purports to come not from Plato, but from Dion, is the only one against which he seems to me to have made out a good case (see Ast, Ueber Platon’s Leben und Schriften, p. 504-530). Against the others, I cannot think that he has shown any sufficient ground for pronouncing them to be spurious and I therefore continue to treat them as genuine, following the opinion of Cicero and Plutarch. It is admitted by Ast that their authenticity was not suspected in antiquity, as far as our knowledge extends. Without considering the presumption hence arising as conclusive, I think it requires to be countervailed by stronger substantive grounds than those which Ast has urged.

Among the total number of thirteen letters, those relating to Dion and Dionysius (always setting aside the first letter)—that is the second, third, fourth, seventh, eighth, and thirteenth,—are the most full of allusions to fact and details. Some of them go very much into detail. Now had they been the work of a forger, it is fair to contend that he could hardly avoid laying himself more open to contradiction than he has done, on the score of inaccuracy and inconsistency with the supposed situation. I have already mentioned one inaccuracy which I take to be a fault of memory, both conceivable and pardonable. Ast mentions another, to disprove the authenticity of the eighth letter, respecting the son of Dion. Plato, in this eighth letter, speaking in the name of the deceased Dion, recommends the Syracusans to name Dion’s son as one of the members of a tripartite kingship, along with Hipparinus (son of the elder Dionysius) and the younger Dionysius. This (contends Ast, p. 523) cannot be correct, because Dion’s son died before his father. To make the argument of Ast complete, we ought to be sure that Dion had only one son; for which there is doubtless the evidence of Plutarch, who after having stated that the son of Dion, a youth nearly grown up, threw himself from the roof of the house and was killed, goes on to say that Kallippus, the political enemy of Dion, founded upon this misfortune a false rumor which he circulated,—ὡς ὁ Δίων ἄπαις γεγονὼς ἔγνωκε τὸν Διονυσίου καλεῖν Ἀπολλοκράτην καὶ ποιεῖσθαι διάδοχον (Plutarch, Dion. c. 55, 56: compare also c. 21,—τοῦ παιδίου). But since the rumor was altogether false, we may surely imagine that Kallippus, taking advantage of a notorious accident which had just proved fatal to the eldest son of Dion, may have fabricated a false statement about the family of Dion, though there might be a younger boy at home. It is not certain that the number of Dion’s children was familiarly known among the population of Syracuse; nor was Dion himself in the situation of an assured king, able to transfer his succession at once to a boy not yet adult. And when we find in another chapter of Plutarch’s Life of Dion (c. 31), that the son of Dion was called by Timæus, Aretæus,—and by Timonides, Hipparinus,—this surely affords some presumption that there were two sons, and not one son called by two different names.

I cannot therefore admit that Ast has proved the eighth Platonic letter to be inaccurate in respect to matter of fact. I will add that the letter does not mention the name of Dion’s son (though Ast says that it calls him Hipparinus); and that it does specify the three partners in the tripartite kingship suggested (though Ast says that it only mentioned two).

Most of Ast’s arguments against the authenticity of the letters, however, are founded, not upon alleged inaccuracies of fact, but upon what he maintains to be impropriety and meanness of thought, childish intrusion of philosophy, unseasonable mysticism and pedantry, etc. In some of his criticisms I coincide, though by no means in all. But I cannot accept them as evidence to prove the point for which he contends,—the spuriousness of the letters. The proper conclusion from his premises appears to me to be, that Plato wrote letters which, when tried by our canons about letter-writing, seem awkward, pedantic, and in bad taste. Dionysius of Halikarnassus (De adm. vi dicend. in Demosth. p. 1025-1044), while emphatically extolling the admirable composition of Plato’s dialogues, does not scruple to pass an unfavorable criticism upon him as a speech-writer; referring to the speeches in the Symposion as well as to the funeral harangue in the Menexenus. Still less need we be afraid to admit, that Plato was not a graceful letter-writer.

That Plato would feel intensely interested, and even personally involved, in the quarrel between Dionysius II. and Dion, cannot be doubted. That he would write letters to Dionysius on the subject,—that he would anxiously seek to maintain influence over him, on all grounds,—that he would manifest a lofty opinion of himself and his own philosophy,—is perfectly natural and credible. And when we consider both the character and the station of Dionysius, it is difficult to lay down beforehand any assured canon as to the epistolary tone which Plato would think most suitable to address him.

[949] Plutarch, Dion. c. 3.

[950] Diodor. xiii, 93.

[951] Diodor. xiii, 93.

[952] Diodor. xiii, 94.

[953] Diodor. xiii, 95. Διαλυθείσης δὲ τῆς ἐκκλησίας, οὐκ ὀλίγοι τῶν Συρακουσίων κατηγόρουν τῶν πραχθέντων, ὥσπερ οὐκ αὐτοὶ ταῦτα κεκυρωκότες· τοῖς γὰρ λογισμοῖς εἰς ἑαυτοὺς ἐρχόμενοι, τὴν ἐσομένην δυναστείαν ἀνεθεώρουν. Οὗτοι μὲν οὖν βεβαιῶσαι βουλόμενοι τὴν ἐλευθερίαν, ἔλαθον ἑαυτοὺς δεσπότην τῆς πατρίδος καθεστακότες. Ὁ δὲ Διονύσιος, τὴν μετάνοιαν τῶν ὄχλων φθάσαι βουλόμενος, ἐπεζήτει δι’ οὗ τρόπου δύναιτο φύλακας αἰτήσασθαι τοῦ σώματος· τούτου γὰρ συγχωρηθέντος, ῥᾳδίως ἤμελλε κυριεύσειν τῆς τυραννίδος.

[954] Diodor. xiii, 95. Αὐτὴ δ’ ἡ πόλις (Leontini) τότε φρούριον ἦν τοῖς Συρακουσίοις, πλῆρες ὕπαρχον φυγάδων καὶ ξένων ἀνθρώπων. Ἤλπιζε γὰρ τούτους συναγωνιστὰς ἕξειν, ἀνθρώπους δεομένους μεταβολῆς· τῶν δὲ Συρακουσίων τοὺς πλείστους οὐδ’ ἥξειν εἰς Λεοντίνους.

Many of the expelled Agrigentines settled at Leontini, by permission of the Syracusans (Diodor. xiii, 89).

[955] Diodor. xiii, 95.

[956] Aristotel. Politic. iii, 10, 10. Καὶ Διονυσίῳ τις, ὅτ’ ᾔτει τοὺς φύλακας, συνεβούλευε τοῖς Συρακουσίοις διδόναι τοσούτους τοὺς φύλακας—i. e. τοσαύτην τὴν ἴσχυν, ὥσθ’ ἑκάστου μὲν καὶ ἑνὸς καὶ συμπλειόνων κρείττω, τοῦ δὲ πλήθους ἥττω, εἶναι.

[957] Diodor. xiv, 7. τοὺς ἠλευθερωμένους δούλους, etc.

[958] Diodor. xiii, 96.

[959] Diodor. 1, c.; Plutarch, Dion. c. 3.

[960] Xen. Hellen. ii, 2, 24. Ὁ ἐνιαυτὸς ἔληγεν, ἐν ᾧ μεσοῦντι Διονύσιος ἐτυράννησε, etc.

The year meant here is an Olympic year, from Midsummer to Midsummer; so that the middle months of it would fall in the first quarter of the Julian year.

If we compare however Xen. Hellen. i, 5, 21 with ii, 2, 24, we shall see that the indications of time cannot both be correct; for the acquisition of the despotism by Dionysius followed immediately, and as a consequence directly brought about, upon the capture of Agrigentum by the Carthaginians.

It seems to me that the mark of time is not quite accurate in either one passage or the other. The capture of Agrigentum took place at the close of B.C. 406; the acquisition of the despotism by Dionysius, in the early months of 405 B.C., as Diodorus places them. Both events are in the same Olympic year, between Midsummer 406 B.C. and Midsummer 405 B.C. But this year is exactly the year which falls between the two passages above referred to in Xenophon; not coinciding exactly with either one or the other. Compare Dodwell, Chronolog. Xenoph. ad ann. 407 B.C.

[961] Diodor. xiii, 82, 96, 108. τὰς γλυφὰς καὶ τὰ περιττοτέρως εἰργασμένα κατέσκαψεν, etc.

[962] Diodor. xiii, 109.

[963] Diodor. xiii, 109.

[964] Diodor. xiii, 111.