The Elder Dionysius, at the moment of his death, boasted of having left his dominion “fastened by chains of adamant;” that is, sustained by a large body of mercenaries,[111] well trained and well paid—by impregnable fortifications on the islet of Ortygia—by four hundred ships of war—by immense magazines of arms and military stores—and by established intimidation over the minds of the Syracusans. These were really “chains of adamant”—so long as there was a man like Dionysius to keep them in hand. But he left no successor competent to the task; nor indeed an unobstructed succession. He had issue by two wives, whom he had married both at the same time, as has been already mentioned. By the Lokrian wife, Doris, he had his eldest son named Dionysius, and two others; by the Syracusan wife Aristomachê, daughter of Hipparinus, he had two sons, Hipparinus and Nysæus—and two daughters, Sophrosynê and Aretê.[112] Dionysius the younger can hardly have been less than twenty-five years old at the death of his father and namesake. Hipparinus, the eldest son by the other wife, was considerably younger. Aristomachê his mother had long remained childless; a fact which the elder Dionysius ascribed to incantations wrought by the mother of the Lokrian wife, and punished by putting to death the supposed sorceress.[113]

The offspring of Aristomachê, though the younger brood of the two, derived considerable advantage from the presence and countenance of her brother Dion. Hipparinus, father of Dion and Aristomachê, had been the principal abettor of the elder Dionysius in his original usurpation, in order to retrieve his own fortune,[114] ruined by profligate expenditure. So completely had that object been accomplished, that his son Dion was now among the richest men in Syracuse,[115] possessing property estimated at above one hundred talents (about £23,000). Dion was, besides, son-in-law to the elder Dionysius, who had given his daughter Sophrosynê in marriage to his son (by a different mother) the younger Dionysius; and his daughter Aretê, first to his brother Thearides—next, on the death of Thearides, to Dion. As brother of Aristomachê, Dion was thus brother-in-law to the elder Dionysius, and uncle both to Aretê his own wife and to Sophrosynê the wife of the younger Dionysius; as husband of Aretê, he was son-in-law to the elder Dionysius, and brother-in-law (as well as uncle) to the wife of the younger. Marriages between near relatives (excluding any such connection between uterine brother and sister) were usual in Greek manners. We cannot doubt that the despot accounted the harmony likely to be produced by such ties between the members of his two families and Dion, among the “adamantine chains” which held fast his dominion.

Apart from wealth and high position, the personal character of Dion was in itself marked and prominent. He was of an energetic temper, great bravery, and very considerable mental capacities. Though his nature was haughty and disdainful towards individuals, yet as to political communion, his ambition was by no means purely self-seeking and egoistic, like that of the elder Dionysius. Animated with vehement love of power, he was at the same time penetrated with that sense of regulated polity, and submission of individual will to fixed laws, which floated in the atmosphere of Grecian talk and literature, and stood so high in Grecian morality. He was moreover capable of acting with enthusiasm, and braving every hazard in prosecution of his own convictions.

Born about the year 408 B. C.,[116] Dion was twenty-one years of age in 378 B. C., when the elder Dionysius, having dismantled Rhegium and subdued Kroton, attained the maximum of his dominion, as master of the Sicilian and Italian Greeks. Standing high in the favor of his brother-in-law Dionysius, Dion doubtless took part in the wars whereby this large dominion had been acquired; as well as in the life of indulgence and luxury which prevailed generally among wealthy Greeks in Sicily and Italy, and which to the Athenian Plato appeared alike surprising and repulsive.[117] That great philosopher visited Italy and Sicily about 387 B. C., as has been already mentioned. He was in acquaintance and fellowship with the school of philosophers called Pythagoreans; the remnant of that Pythagorean brotherhood, who had once exercised so powerful a political influence over the cities of those regions—and who still enjoyed considerable reputation, even after complete political downfall, through individual ability and rank of the members, combined with habits of recluse study, mysticism, and attachment among themselves. With these Pythagoreans Dion also, a young man of open mind and ardent aspirations, was naturally thrown into communication by the proceedings of the elder Dionysius in Italy.[118] Through them he came into intercourse with Plato, whose conversation made an epoch in his life.

The mystic turn of imagination, the sententious brevity, and the mathematical researches of the Pythagoreans, produced doubtless an imposing effect upon Dion; just as Lysis, a member of that brotherhood, had acquired the attachment and influenced the sentiments of Epaminondas at Thebes. But Plato’s power of working upon the minds of young men was far more impressive and irresistible. He possessed a large range of practical experience, a mastery of political and social topics, and a charm of eloquence, to which the Pythagoreans were strangers. The stirring effect of the Sokratic talk, as well as of the democratical atmosphere in which Plato had been brought up, had developed all the communicative aptitude of his mind; and great as that aptitude appears in his remaining dialogues, there is ground for believing that it was far greater in his conversation; greater perhaps in 387 B. C., when he was still mainly the Sokratic Plato—than it became in later days, after he had imbibed to a certain extent the mysticism of these Pythagoreans.[119] Brought up as Dion had been at the court of Dionysius—accustomed to see around him only slavish deference and luxurious enjoyment—unused to open speech or large philosophical discussion—he found in Plato a new man exhibited, and a new world opened before him.

The conception of a free community—with correlative rights and duties belonging to every citizen, determined by laws and protected or enforced by power emanating from the collective entity called the City—stood in the foreground of ordinary Grecian morality—reigned spontaneously in the bosoms of every Grecian festival crowd—and had been partially imbibed by Dion, though not from his own personal experience, yet from teachers, sophists, and poets. This conception, essential and fundamental with philosophers as well as with the vulgar, was not merely set forth by Plato with commanding powers of speech, but also exalted with improvements and refinements into an ideal perfection. Above all, it was based upon a strict, even an abstemious and ascetic, canon, as to individual enjoyment; and upon a careful training both of mind and body, qualifying each man for the due performance of his duties as a citizen; a subject which Plato (as we see by his dialogues) did not simply propound with the direct enforcement of a preacher, but touched with the quickening and pungent effect, and reinforced with the copious practical illustrations, of Sokratic dialogue.

As the stimulus from the teacher was here put forth with consummate efficacy, so the predisposition of the learner enabled it to take full effect. Dion became an altered man both in public sentiment and in individual behavior. He recollected that twenty years before, his country Syracuse had been as free as Athens. He learnt to abhor the iniquity of the despotism by which her liberty had been overthrown, and by which subsequently the liberties of so many other Greeks in Italy and Sicily had been trodden down also. He was made to remark, that Sicily had been half-barbarized through the foreign mercenaries imported as the despot’s instruments. He conceived the sublime idea or dream of rectifying all this accumulation of wrong and suffering. It was his wish first to cleanse Syracuse from the blot of slavery, and to clothe her anew in the brightness and dignity of freedom; yet not with the view of restoring the popular government as it had stood prior to the usurpation, but of establishing an improved constitutional policy, originated by himself, with laws which should not only secure individual rights, but also educate and moralize the citizens.[120] The function which he imagined to himself, and which the conversation of Plato suggested, was not that of a despot like Dionysius, but that of a despotic legislator like Lykurgus,[121] taking advantage of a momentary omnipotence, conferred upon him by grateful citizens in a state of public confusion, to originate a good system; which, when once put in motion, would keep itself alive by fashioning the minds of the citizens to its own intrinsic excellence. After having thus both liberated and reformed Syracuse, Dion promised to himself that he would employ Syracusan force, not in annihilating, but in recreating, other free Hellenic communities throughout the island; expelling from thence all the barbarians—both the imported mercenaries and the Carthaginians.

Such were the hopes and projects which arose in the mind of the youthful Dion as he listened to Plato; hopes pregnant with future results which neither of them contemplated—and not unworthy of being compared with those enthusiastic aspirations which the young Spartan kings Agis and Kleomenes imbibed, a century afterwards, in part from the conversation of the philosopher Sphærus.[122] Never before had Plato met with a pupil who so quickly apprehended, so profoundly meditated, or so passionately laid to heart, his lessons.[123] Inflamed with his newly communicated impulse towards philosophy, as the supreme guide and directress of virtuous conduct, Dion altered his habits of life; exchanging the splendor and luxury of a Sicilian rich man for the simple fare and regulated application becoming a votary of the Academy. In this course he persisted without faltering throughout all his residence at the court of Dionysius, in spite of the unpopularity contracted among his immediate companions. His enthusiasm even led him to believe, that the despot himself, unable to resist that persuasive tongue by which he had been himself converted, might be gently brought round into an employment of his mighty force for beneficent and reformatory purposes. Accordingly Dion, inviting Plato to Syracuse, procured for him an interview with Dionysius. How miserably the speculation failed, has been recounted in my last chapter. Instead of acquiring a new convert, the philosopher was fortunate in rescuing his own person, and in making good his returning footsteps out of that lion’s den, into which the improvident enthusiasm of his young friend had inveigled him.

The harsh treatment of Plato by Dionysius was a painful, though salutary, warning to Dion. Without sacrificing either his own convictions, or the philosophical regularity of life which he had thought fit to adopt—he saw that patience was imperatively necessary, and he so conducted himself as to maintain unabated the favor and confidence of Dionysius. Such a policy would probably be recommended to him even by Plato, in prospect of a better future. But it would be strenuously urged by the Pythagoreans of Southern Italy; among whom was Archytas, distinguished not only as a mathematician and friend of Plato, but also as the chief political magistrate of Tarentum. To these men, who dwelt all within the reach,[124] if not under the dominion, of this formidable Syracusan despot, it would be an unspeakable advantage to have a friend like Dion near him, possessing his confidence, and serving as a shield to them against his displeasure or interference. Dion so far surmounted his own unbending nature as to conduct himself towards Dionysius with skill and prudence. He was employed by the despot in several important affairs, especially in embassies to Carthage, which he fulfilled well, especially with conspicuous credit for eloquence; and also in the execution of various cruel orders, which his humanity secretly mitigated.[125] After the death of Thearides, Dionysius gave to Dion in marriage the widow Aretê (his daughter), and continued until the last to treat him with favor, accepting from him a freedom of censure such as he would tolerate from no other adviser.

During the many years which elapsed before the despot died, we cannot doubt that Dion found opportunities of visiting Peloponnesus and Athens, for the great festivals and other purposes. He would thus keep up his friendship and philosophical communication with Plato. Being as he was minister and relative, and perhaps successor presumptive, of the most powerful prince in Greece, he would enjoy everywhere great importance, which would be enhanced by his philosophy and eloquence. The Spartans, at that time the allies of Dionysius, conferred upon Dion the rare honor of a vote of citizenship;[126] and he received testimonies of respect from other cities also. Such honors tended to exalt his reputation at Syracuse; while the visits to Athens and the cities of Central Greece enlarged his knowledge both of politicians and philosophers.

At length occurred the death of the elder Dionysius, occasioned by an unexpected attack of fever, after a few days’ illness. He had made no special announcement about his succession. Accordingly, as soon as the physicians pronounced him to be in imminent danger, a competition arose between his two families: on the one hand Dionysius the younger, his son by the Lokrian wife Doris; on the other, his wife Aristomachê and her brother Dion, representing her children Hipparinus and Nysæus, then very young. Dion, wishing to obtain for these two youths either a partnership in the future power, or some other beneficial provision, solicited leave to approach the bedside of the sick man. But the physicians refused to grant his request without apprising the younger Dionysius; who, being resolved to prevent it, directed a soporific portion to be administered to his father, from the effects of which the latter never awoke so as to be able to see any one.[127] The interview with Dion being thus frustrated, and the father dying without giving any directions, Dionysius the younger succeeded as eldest son, without opposition. He was presented to that which was called an assembly of the Syracusan people,[128] and delivered some conciliatory phrases, requesting them to continue to him that good-will which they had so long shown to his father. Consent and acclamation were of course not wanting, to the new master of the troops, treasures, magazines, and fortifications in Ortygia; those “adamantine chains” which were well known to dispense with the necessity of any real popular good-will.

Dionysius II. (or the younger), then about twenty-five years of age, was a young man of considerable natural capacity, and of quick and lively impulses;[129] but weak and vain in his character, given to transitory caprices, and eager in his appetite for praise without being capable of any industrious or resolute efforts to earn it. As yet he was wholly unpractised in serious business of any kind. He had neither seen military service nor mingled in the discussion of political measures; having been studiously kept back from both, by the extreme jealousy of his father. His life had been passed in the palace or acropolis of Ortygia, amidst all the indulgences and luxuries belonging to a princely station, diversified with amateur carpenter’s work and turnery. However, the tastes of the father introduced among the guests at the palace a certain number of poets, reciters, musicians, etc., so that the younger Dionysius had contracted a relish for poetical literature, which opened his mind to generous sentiments, and large conceptions of excellence, more than any portion of his very confined experience. To philosophy, to instructive conversation, to the exercise of reason, he was a stranger.[130] But the very feebleness and indecision of his character presented him as impressible, perhaps improvable, by a strong will and influence brought to bear upon him from that quarter, at least as well as from any other.

Such was the novice who suddenly stept into the place of the most energetic and powerful despot of the Grecian world. Dion—being as he was of mature age, known service and experience, and full enjoyment of the confidence of the elder Dionysius,—might have probably raised material opposition to the younger. But he attempted no such thing. He acknowledged and supported the young prince with cordial sincerity, dropping altogether those views, whatever they were, on behalf of the children of Aristomachê, which had induced him to solicit the last interview with the sick man. While exerting himself to strengthen and facilitate the march of the government, he tried to gain influence and ascendency over the mind of the young Dionysius. At the first meeting of council which took place after the accession, Dion stood conspicuous not less for his earnest adhesion than for his dignified language and intelligent advice. The remaining councillors—accustomed, under the self-determining despot who had just quitted the scene, to the simple function of hearing, applauding, and obeying, his directions—exhausted themselves in phrases and compliments, waiting to catch the tone of the young prince before they ventured to pronounce any decided opinion. But Dion, to whose freedom of speech even the elder Dionysius had partially submitted, disdained all such tampering, entered at once into a full review of the actual situation, and suggested the positive measures proper to be adopted. We cannot doubt that, in the transmission of an authority which had rested so much on the individual spirit of the former possessor, there were many precautions to be taken, especially in regard to the mercenary troops both at Syracuse and in the outlying dependencies. All these necessities of the moment Dion set forth, together with suitable advice. But the most serious of all the difficulties arose out of the war with Carthage still subsisting, which it was foreseen that the Carthaginians were likely to press more vigorously, calculating on the ill-assured tenure and inexperienced management of the new prince. This difficulty Dion took upon himself. If the council should think it wise to make peace, he engaged to go to Carthage and negotiate peace—a task in which he had been more than once employed under the elder Dionysius. If, on the other hand, it were resolved to prosecute the war, he advised that imposing forces should be at once put in equipment, promising to furnish, out of his own large property, a sum sufficient for the outfit of fifty triremes.[131]

The young Dionysius was not only profoundly impressed with the superior wisdom and suggestive resource of Dion, but also grateful for his generous offer of pecuniary as well as personal support.[132] In all probability Dion actually carried the offer into effect, for to a man of his disposition, money had little value except as a means of extending influence and acquiring reputation. The war with Carthage seems to have lasted at least throughout the next year,[133] and to have been terminated not long afterwards. But it never assumed those perilous proportions which had been contemplated by the council as probable. As a mere contingency, however, it was sufficient to inspire Dionysius with alarm, combined with the other exigencies of his new situation. At first he was painfully conscious of his own inexperience; anxious about hazards which he now saw for the first time, and not merely open to advice, but eager and thankful for suggestions, from any quarter where he could place confidence. Dion, identified by ancient connection as well as by marriage with the Dionysian family—trusted, more than any one else, by the old despot, and surrounded with that accessory dignity which ascetic strictness of life usually confers in excess—presented every title to such confidence. And when he was found not only the most trustworthy, but the most frank and fearless, of councillors, Dionysius gladly yielded both to the measures which he advised and to the impulses which he inspired.

Such was the political atmosphere of Syracuse during the period immediately succeeding the new accession, while the splendid obsequies in honor of the departed Dionysius were being solemnized; coupled with a funeral pile so elaborate as to confer celebrity on Timæus the constructor—and commemorated by architectural monuments, too grand to be permanent,[134] immediately outside of Ortygia, near the Regal Gates leading to that citadel. Among the popular measures, natural at the commencement of a new reign, the historian Philistus was recalled from exile.[135] He had been one of the oldest and most attached partisans of the elder Dionysius; by whom, however, he had at last been banished, and never afterwards forgiven. His recall now seemed to promise a new and valuable assistant to the younger, whom it also presented as softening the rigorous proceedings of his father. In this respect, it would harmonize with the views of Dion, though Philistus afterwards became his great opponent.

Dion was now both the prime minister, and the confidential monitor, of the young Dionysius. He upheld the march of the government with undiminished energy, and was of greater political importance than Dionysius himself. But success in this object was not the end for which Dion labored. He neither wished to serve a despot, nor to become a despot himself. The moment was favorable for resuming that project which he had formerly imbibed from Plato, and which, in spite of contemptuous disparagement by his former master, had ever since clung to him as the dream of his heart and life. To make Syracuse a free city, under a government, not of will, but of good laws, with himself as lawgiver in substance, if not in name—to enfranchise and replant the semi-barbarised Hellenic cities in Sicily—and to expel the Carthaginians—were schemes to which he now again devoted himself with unabated enthusiasm. But he did not look to any other means of achieving them than the consent and initiative of Dionysius himself. The man who had been sanguine enough to think of working upon the iron soul of the father, was not likely to despair of shaping anew the more malleable metal of which the son was composed. Accordingly, while lending to Dionysius his best service as minister, he also took up the Platonic profession, and tried to persuade him to reform both himself and his government. He endeavored to awaken in him a relish for a better and nobler private conduct than that which prevailed among the luxurious companions around him. He dwelt with enthusiasm on the scientific and soul-stirring conversation of Plato; specimens[136] of which he either read aloud or repeated, exalting the hearer not only to a higher intellectual range, but also to the full majesty of mind requisite for ruling others with honor and improvement. He pointed out the unrivalled glory which Dionysius would acquire in the eyes of Greece, by consenting to employ his vast power, not as a despot working on the fears of subjects, but as a king enforcing temperance and justice, by his own paternal example as well as by good laws. He tried to show that Dionysius, after having liberated Syracuse, and enrolled himself as a king limited and responsible amidst grateful citizens, would have far more real force against the barbarians than at present.[137]

Such were the new convictions which Dion tried to work into the mind of the young Dionysius, as a living faith and sentiment. Penetrated as he was with the Platonic idea—that nothing could be done for the improvement and happiness of mankind,[138] until philosophy and ruling power came together in the same hands; but everything, if the two did so come together—he thought that he saw before him a chance of realizing the conjunction, in the case of the greatest among all Hellenic potentates. He already beheld in fancy his native country and fellow citizens liberated, moralized, ennobled, and conducted to happiness, without murder or persecution,[139] simply by the well-meaning and instructed employment of power already organized. If accident had thrown the despotism into the hands of Dion himself, at this period of his life, the Grecian world would probably have seen an experiment tried, as memorable and generous as any event recorded in its history: what would have been its result, we cannot say. But it was enough to fire his inmost soul, to see himself separated from the experiment only by the necessity of persuading an impressible young man over whom he had much influence; and for himself he was quite satisfied with the humbler position of nominal minister, but real originator and chief, in so noble an enterprise.[140] His persuasive powers, strengthened as they were by intense earnestness as well as by his imposing station and practical capacity, actually wrought a great effect upon Dionysius. The young man appeared animated with a strong desire of self-improvement, and of qualifying himself for such a use of the powers of government as Dion depicted. He gave proof of the sincerity of his feeling by expressing eagerness to see and converse with Plato, to whom he sent several personal messages, warmly requesting him to visit Syracuse.[141]

This was precisely the first step which Dion had been laboring to bring about. He well knew, and had personally felt, the wonderful magic of Plato’s conversation when addressed to young men. To bring Plato to Syracuse, and to pour his eloquent language into the predisposed ears of Dionysius, appeared like realizing the conjunction of philosophy and power. Accordingly he sent to Athens, along with the invitation from Dionysius, the most pressing and emphatic entreaties from himself. He represented the immense prize to be won—nothing less than the means of directing the action of an organized power, extending over all the Greeks of Italy and Sicily—provided only the mind of Dionysius could be thoroughly gained over. This (he said) was already half done; not only Dionysius himself, but also his youthful half brothers of the other line, had been impressed with earnest mental aspirations, and longed to drink at the pure fountain of true philosophy. Everything presaged complete success, such as would render them hearty and active proselytes, if Plato would only come forthwith—before hostile influences could have time to corrupt them—and devote to the task his unrivalled art of penetrating the youthful mind. These hostile influences were indeed at work, and with great activity; if victorious, they would not only defeat the project of Dion, but might even provoke his expulsion, or threaten his life. Could Plato, by declining the invitation, leave his devoted champion and apostle to fight so great a battle, alone and unassisted? What could Plato say for himself afterwards, if by declining to come, he not only let slip the greatest prospective victory which had ever been opened to philosophy, but also permitted the corruption of Dionysius and the ruin of Dion?[142]

Such appeals, in themselves emphatic and touching, reached Athens reinforced by solicitations, hardly less strenuous, from Archytas of Tarentum and the other Pythagorean philosophers in the south of Italy; to whose personal well-being, over and above the interests of philosophy, the character of the future Syracusan government was of capital importance. Plato was deeply agitated and embarrassed. He was now sixty-one years of age. He enjoyed preëminent estimation, in the grove of Akadêmus near Athens, amidst admiring hearers from all parts of Greece. The Athenian democracy, if it accorded to him no influence on public affairs, neither molested him nor dimmed his intellectual glory. The proposed voyage to Syracuse carried him out of his enviable position into a new field of hazard and speculation; brilliant indeed and flattering, beyond anything which had ever been approached by philosophy, if it succeeded; but fraught with disgrace, and even with danger to all concerned, if it failed. Plato had already seen the elder Dionysius surrounded by his walls and mercenaries in Ortygia, and had learnt by cruel experience the painful consequences of propounding philosophy to an intractable hearer, whose displeasure passed so readily into act. The sight of contemporary despots nearer home, such as Euphron of Sikyon and Alexander of Pheræ, was by no means reassuring; nor could he reasonably stake his person and reputation on the chance, that the younger Dionysius might prove a glorious exception to the general rule. To outweigh such scruples, he had indeed the positive and respectful invitation of Dionysius himself; which however would have passed for a transitory, though vehement caprice on the part of a young prince, had it not been backed by the strong assurances of a mature man and valued friend like Dion. To these assurances, and to the shame which would be incurred by leaving Dion to fight the battle and incur the danger alone, Plato sacrificed his own grounds for hesitation. He went to Syracuse, less with the hope of succeeding in the intended conversion of Dionysius, than from the fear of hearing both himself and his philosophy taunted with confessed impotence—as fit only for the discussions of the school, shrinking from all application to practice, betraying the interest of his Pythagorean friends, and basely deserting that devoted champion who had half opened the door to him for triumphant admission.[143]

Such is the account which the philosopher gives of his own state of mind in going to Syracuse. At the same time, he intimates that his motives were differently interpreted by others.[144] And as the account which we possess was written fifteen years after the event—when Dion had perished, when the Syracusan enterprise had realized nothing like what was expected, and when Plato looked back upon it with the utmost grief and aversion,[145] which must have poisoned the last three or four years of his life—we may fairly suspect that he partially transfers back to 367 B. C. the feelings of 352 B. C.; and that at the earlier period, he went to Syracuse not merely because he was ashamed to decline, but because he really flattered himself with some hopes of success.

However desponding he may have been before, he could hardly fail to conceive hopes from the warmth of his first reception. One of the royal carriages met him at his landing, and conveyed him to his lodging. Dionysius offered a sacrifice of thanksgiving to the gods for his safe arrival. The banquets at the acropolis became distinguished for their plainness and sobriety. Never had Dionysius been seen so gentle in answering suitors or transacting public business. He began immediately to take lessons in geometry from Plato. Every one around him, of course, was suddenly smitten with a taste for geometry;[146] so that the floors were all spread with sand, and nothing was to be seen except triangles and other figures inscribed upon it, with expositors and a listening crowd around them. To those who had been inmates of the acropolis, under the reign of the former despot, this change was surprising enough. But their surprise was converted into alarm, when, at a periodical sacrifice just then offered, Dionysius himself arrested the herald in pronouncing the customary prayer to the gods—“That the despotism might long remain unshaken.” “Stop! (said Dionysius to the herald) imprecate no such curse upon us!”[147] To the ears of Philistus, and the old politicians, these words portended nothing less than revolution to the dynasty, and ruin to Syracusan power. A single Athenian sophist (they exclaimed), with no other force than his tongue and his reputation, had achieved the conquest of Syracuse; an attempt in which thousands of his countrymen had miserably perished half a century before.[148] Ineffably were they disgusted to see Dionysius abdicate in favor of Plato, and exchange the care of his vast force and dominion for geometrical problems and discussions on the summum bonum.

For a moment Plato seemed to be despot of Syracuse; so that the noble objects for which Dion had labored were apparently within his reach, either wholly or in part. And as far as we can judge, they really were to a great degree within his reach—had this situation, so interesting and so fraught with consequences to the people of Sicily, been properly turned to account. With all reverence for the greatest philosopher of antiquity, we are forced to confess that upon his own showing, he not only failed to turn the situation to account, but contributed even to spoil it by an unseasonable rigor. To admire philosophy in its distinguished teachers, is one thing; to learn and appropriate it, is another stage, rarer and more difficult, requiring assiduous labor, and no common endowments; while that which Plato calls “the philosophical life,”[149] or practical predominance of a well-trained intellect and well-chosen ethical purposes, combined with the minimum of personal appetite—is a third stage, higher and rarer still. Now Dionysius had reached the first stage only. He had contracted a warm and profound admiration for Plato. He had imbibed this feeling from the exhortations of Dion; and we shall see by his subsequent conduct that it was really a feeling both sincere and durable. But he admired Plato without having either inclination or talent to ascend higher, and to acquire what Plato called philosophy. Now it was an unexpected good fortune, and highly creditable to the persevering enthusiasm of Dion, that Dionysius should have been wound up so far as to admire Plato, to invoke his presence, and to instal him as a sort of spiritual power by the side of the temporal. Thus much was more than could have been expected; but to demand more, and to insist that Dionysius should go to school and work through a course of mental regeneration—was a purpose hardly possible to attain, and positively mischievous if it failed. Unfortunately, it was exactly this error which Plato, and Dion in deference to Plato, seem to have committed. Instead of taking advantage of the existing ardor of Dionysius to instigate him at once into active political measures beneficial to the people of Syracuse and Sicily, with the full force of an authority which, at that moment, would have been irresistible—instead of heartening him up against groundless fears or difficulties of execution, and seeing that full honor was done to him for all the good which he really accomplished, meditated, or adopted—Plato postponed all these as matters for which his royal pupil was not yet ripe. He and Dion began to deal with Dionysius as a confessor treats his penitent; to probe the interior man[150]—to expose him to his own unworthiness—to show that his life, his training, his companions, had all been vicious—to insist upon repentance and amendment upon these points, before he could receive absolution, and be permitted to enter upon active political life—to tell him that he must reform himself, and become a rational and temperate man, before he was fit to enter seriously on the task of governing others.

Such was the language which Plato and Dion held to Dionysius. They well knew indeed that they were treading on delicate ground—that while irritating a spirited horse in the sensitive part, they had no security against his kicks.[151] Accordingly, they resorted to many circumlocutory and equivocal expressions, so as to soften the offence given. But the effect was not the less produced, of disgusting Dionysius with his velleities towards political good. Not only did Plato decline entering upon political recommendations of his own, but he damped, instead of enforcing, the positive good resolutions which Dion had already succeeded in infusing. Dionysius announced freely, in the presence of Plato, his wish and intention to transform his despotism at Syracuse into a limited kingship, and to replant the dis-hellenised cities in Sicily. These were the two grand points to which Dion had been laboring so generously to bring him, and which he had invoked Plato for the express purpose of seconding. Yet what does Plato say when this momentous announcement is made? Instead of bestowing any praise or encouragement, he drily remarks to Dionysius,—“First go through your schooling, and then do all these things; otherwise leave them undone.”[152] Dionysius afterwards complained, and with good show of reason (when Dion was in exile, menacing attack upon Syracuse, under the favorable sympathies of Plato), that the great philosopher had actually deterred him (Dionysius) from executing the same capital improvements which he was now encouraging Dion to accomplish by an armed invasion. Plato was keenly sensitive to this reproach afterwards; but even his own exculpation proves it to have been in the main not undeserved.

Plutarch observes that Plato felt a proud consciousness of philosophical dignity in disdaining respect to persons, and in refusing to the defects of Dionysius any greater measure of indulgence than he would have shown to an ordinary pupil of the Academy.[153] If we allow him credit for a sentiment in itself honorable, it can only be at the expense of his fitness for dealing with practical life; by admitting (to quote a remarkable phrase from one of his own dialogues) that “he tried to deal with individual men without knowing those rules of art or practice which bear on human affairs.[154]” Dionysius was not a common pupil, nor could Plato reasonably expect the like unmeasured docility from one for whose ear so many hostile influences were competing. Nor were Plato and Dionysius the only parties concerned. There was, besides, in the first place, Dion, whose whole position was at stake—next, and of yet greater moment, the relief of the people of Syracuse and Sicily. For them, and on their behalf, Dion had been laboring with such zeal, that he had inspired Dionysius with readiness to execute the two best resolves which the situation admitted; resolves not only pregnant with benefit to the people, but also insuring the position of Dion—since if Dionysius had once entered upon this course of policy, Dion would have been essential to him as an auxiliary and man of execution.

It is by no means certain, indeed, that such schemes could have been successfully realized, even with full sincerity on the part of Dionysius, and the energy of Dion besides. With all governments, to do evil is easy—to effect beneficial change, difficult; and with a Grecian despot, this was true in a peculiar manner. Those great mercenary forces and other instruments, which had been strong as adamant for the oppressive rule of the elder Dionysius would have been found hardly manageable, perhaps even obstructive, if his son had tried to employ them for more liberal purposes. But still the experiment would have been tried, with a fair chance of success—if only Plato, during his short-lived spiritual authority at Syracuse, had measured more accurately the practical influence which a philosopher might reasonably hope to exercise over Dionysius. I make these remarks upon him with sincere regret; but I am much mistaken if he did not afterwards hear them in more poignant language from the banished Dion, upon whom the consequences of the mistake mainly fell.

Speedily did the atmosphere at Syracuse become overclouded. The conservative party—friends of the old despotism, with the veteran Philistus at their head—played their game far better than that of the reformers was played by Plato, or by Dion since the arrival of Plato. Philistus saw that Dion, as the man of strong patriotic impulses and of energetic execution, was the real enemy to be aimed at. He left no effort untried to calumniate Dion, and to set Dionysius against him. Whispers and misrepresentations from a thousand different quarters beset the ear of Dionysius, alarming him with the idea that Dion was usurping to himself the real authority in Syracuse, with the view of ultimately handing it over to the children of Aristomachê, and of reigning in their name. Plato had been brought thither (it was said) as an agent in the conspiracy, for the purpose of winning over Dionysius into idle speculations, enervating his active vigor, and ultimately setting him aside; in order that all serious political agency might fall into the hands of Dion.[155] These hostile intrigues were no secret to Plato himself, who, even shortly after his arrival, began to see evidence of their poisonous activity. He tried sincerely to counterwork them;[156] but unfortunately the language which he himself addressed to Dionysius was exactly such as to give them the best chance of success. When Dionysius recounted to Philistus or other courtiers, how Plato and Dion had humiliated him in his own eyes, and told him that he was unworthy to govern until he had undergone a thorough purification—he would be exhorted to resent it as presumption and insult; and would be assured that it could only arise from a design to dispossess him of his authority, in favor of Dion, or perhaps of the children of Aristomachê with Dion as regent.

It must not be forgotten that there was a real foundation for jealousy on the part of Dionysius towards Dion; who was not merely superior to him in age, in dignity, and in ability, but also personally haughty in his bearing, and rigid in his habits, while Dionysius relished conviviality and enjoyments. At first, this jealousy was prevented from breaking out—partly by the consciousness of Dionysius that he needed some one to lean upon—partly by what seems to have been great self-command on the part of Dion, and great care to carry with him the real mind and good will of Dionysius. Even from the beginning, the enemies of Dion were doubtless not sparing in their calumnies, to alienate Dionysius from him; and the wonder only is, how, in spite of such intrigues and in spite of the natural causes of jealousy, Dion could have implanted his political aspirations, and maintained his friendly influence over Dionysius until the arrival of Plato. After that event, the natural causes of antipathy tended to manifest themselves more and more powerfully, while the counteracting circumstances all disappeared.

Three important months thus passed away, during which those precious public inclinations, which Plato found instilled by Dion into the bosom of Dionysius, and which he might have fanned into life and action—to liberalize the government of Syracuse, and to restore the other free Grecian cities—disappeared never to return. In place of them, Dionysius imbibed an antipathy, more and more rancorous, against the friend and relative with whom these sentiments had originated. The charges against Dion, of conspiracy and dangerous designs, circulated by Philistus and his cabal, became more audacious than ever. At length in the fourth month, Dionysius resolved to get rid of him.

The proceedings of Dion being watched, a letter was detected which he had written to the Carthaginian commanders in Sicily (with whom the war still subsisted, though seemingly not in great activity), inviting them, if they sent any proposition for peace to Syracuse, to send it through him, as he would take care that it should be properly discussed. I have already stated, that even in the reign of the elder Dionysius, Dion had been the person to whom the negotiations with Carthage were habitually intrusted. Such a letter from him, as far as we make out from the general description, implied nothing like a treasonable purpose. But Dionysius, after taking counsel with Philistus, resolved to make use of it as a final pretext. Inviting Dion into the acropolis, under color of seeking to heal their growing differences,—and beginning to enter into an amicable conversation,—he conducted him unsuspectingly down to the adjacent harbor, where lay moored, close in shore, a boat with the rowers aboard, ready for starting. Dionysius then produced the intercepted letter, handed it to Dion, and accused him to his face of treason. The latter protested against the imputation, and eagerly sought to reply. But Dionysius stopped him from proceeding, insisted on his going aboard the boat, and ordered the rowers to carry him off forthwith to Italy.[157]

This abrupt and ignominious expulsion, of so great a person as Dion, caused as much consternation among his numerous friends, as triumph to Philistus and the partisans of the despotism. All consummation of the liberal projects conceived by Dion was now out of the question; not less from the incompetency of Dionysius to execute them alone, than from his indisposition to any such attempt. Aristomachê the sister, and Aretê the wife, of Dion (the latter half-sister of Dionysius himself), gave vent to their sorrow and indignation; while the political associates of Dion, and Plato beyond all others, trembled for their own personal safety. Among the mercenary soldiers, the name of Plato was particularly odious. Many persons instigated Dionysius to kill him, and rumors even gained footing that he had been killed, as the author of the whole confusion.[158] But the despot, having sent away the person whom he most hated and feared, was not disposed to do harm to any one else. While he calmed the anxieties of Aretê by affirming that the departure of her husband was not to be regarded as an exile, but only as a temporary separation, to allow time for abating the animosity which prevailed—he at the same time ordered two triremes to be fitted out, for sending to Dion his slaves and valuable property, and everything necessary to personal dignity as well as to his comfort. Towards Plato—who was naturally agitated in the extreme, thinking only of the readiest means to escape from so dangerous a situation—his manifestations were yet more remarkable. He soothed the philosopher’s apprehensions—entreated him to remain, in a manner gentle indeed but admitting no denial—and conveyed him at once into his own residence the acropolis, under color of doing him honor. From hence there was no possibility of escaping, and Plato remained there for some time. Dionysius treated him well, communicated with him freely and intimately, and proclaimed everywhere that they were on the best terms of friendship. What is yet more curious—he displayed the greatest anxiety to obtain the esteem and approbation of the sage, and to occupy a place in his mind higher than that accorded to Dion; shrinking nevertheless from philosophy, or the Platonic treatment and training, under the impression that there was a purpose to ensnare and paralyze him, under the auspices of Dion.[159] This is a strange account, given by Plato himself; but it reads like a real picture of a vain and weak prince, admiring the philosopher—coquetting with him, as it were—and anxious to captivate his approbation, so far as it could be done without submitting to the genuine Platonic discipline.

During this long and irksome detention, which probably made him fully sensible of the comparative comforts of Athenian liberty, Plato obtained from Dionysius one practical benefit. He prevailed upon him to establish friendly and hospitable relations with Archytas and the Tarentines, which to these latter was a real increase of security and convenience.[160] But in the point which he strove most earnestly to accomplish, he failed. Dionysius resisted all entreaties for the recall of Dion. Finding himself at length occupied with a war (whether the war with Carthage previously mentioned, or some other, we do not know), he consented to let Plato depart; agreeing to send for him again as soon as peace and leisure should return, and promising to recall Dion at the same time; upon which covenant, Plato, on his side, agreed to come back. After a certain interval, peace arrived, and Dionysius re-invited Plato; yet without recalling Dion—whom he required still to wait another year. But Plato, appealing to the terms of the covenant, refused to go without Dion. To himself personally, in spite of the celebrity which his known influence with Dionysius tended to confer, the voyage was nothing less than repugnant, for he had had sufficient experience of Syracuse and its despotism. Nor would he even listen to the request of Dion himself; who, partly in the view of promoting his own future restoration, earnestly exhorted him to go. Dionysius besieged Plato with solicitations to come,[161] promising that all which he might insist upon in favor of Dion should be granted, and putting in motion a second time Archytas and the Tarentines to prevail upon him. These men, through their companion and friend Archedemus, who came to Athens in a Syracusan trireme, assured Plato that Dionysius was now ardent in the study of philosophy, and had even made considerable progress in it. By their earnest entreaties, coupled with those of Dion, Plato was at length induced to go to Syracuse. He was received, as before, with signal tokens of honor. He was complimented with the privilege, enjoyed by no one else, of approaching the despot without having his person searched; and was affectionately welcomed by the female relatives of Dion. Yet this visit, prolonged much beyond what he himself wished, proved nothing but a second splendid captivity, as the companion of Dionysius in the acropolis at Ortygia.[162]

Dionysius the philosopher obtained abundance of flatterers—as his father Dionysius the poet had obtained before him—and was even emboldened to proclaim himself as the son of Apollo.[163] It is possible that even an impuissant embrace of philosophy, on the part of so great a potentate, may have tended to exalt the reputation of philosophers in the contemporary world. Otherwise the dabblings of Dionysius would have merited no attention; though he seems to have been really a man of some literary talent[164]—retaining to the end a sincere admiration of Plato, and jealously pettish because he could not prevail upon Plato to admire him. But the second visit of Plato to him at Syracuse—very different from his first—presented no chance of benefit to the people of Syracuse, and only deserves notice as it bore upon the destiny of Dion. Here, unfortunately Plato could accomplish nothing; though his zeal on behalf of his friend was unwearied. Dionysius broke all his promises of kind dealing, became more rancorous in his hatred, impatient of the respect which Dion enjoyed even as an exile, and fearful of the revenge which he might one day be able to exact.

When expelled from Syracuse, Dion had gone to Peloponnesus and Athens, where he had continued for some years to receive regular remittances of his property. But at length, even while Plato was residing at Syracuse, Dionysius thought fit to withhold one half of the property, on pretence of reserving it for Dion’s son. Presently he took steps yet more violent, threw off all disguise, sold the whole of Dion’s property, and appropriated or distributed among his friends the large proceeds, not less than one hundred talents.[165] Plato, who had the mortification to hear this intelligence while in the palace of Dionysius, was full of grief and displeasure. He implored permission to depart. But though the mind of Dionysius had now been thoroughly set against him by the multiplied insinuations of the calumniators,[166] it was not without difficulty and tiresome solicitations that he obtained permission; chiefly through the vehement remonstrances of Archytas and his companions, who represented to the despot that they had brought him to Syracuse, and that they were responsible for his safe return. The mercenaries of Dionysius were indeed so ill-disposed to Plato, that considerable precautions were required to bring him away in safety.[167]

It was in the spring of 360 B. C. that the philosopher appears to have returned to Peloponnesus from this, his second visit to the younger Dionysius, and third visit to Syracuse. At the Olympic festival of that year, he met Dion, to whom he recounted the recent proceedings of Dionysius.[168] Incensed at the seizure of the property, and hopeless of any permission to return, Dion was now meditating enforcement of his restoration at the point of the sword. But there occurred yet another insult on the part of Dionysius, which infused a more deadly exasperation into the quarrel. Aretê, wife of Dion and half-sister of Dionysius, had continued to reside at Syracuse ever since the exile of her husband. She formed a link between the two, the continuance of which Dionysius could no longer tolerate, in his present hatred towards Dion. Accordingly he took upon him to pronounce her divorced, and to remarry her, in spite of her own decided repugnance, with one of his friends named Timokrates.[169] To this he added another cruel injury, by intentionally corrupting and brutalizing Dion’s eldest son, a youth just reaching puberty.

Outraged thus in all the tenderest points, Dion took up with passionate resolution the design of avenging himself on Dionysius, and of emancipating Syracuse from despotism into liberty. During the greater part of his exile he had resided at Athens, in the house of his friend Kallippus, enjoying the society of Speusippus and other philosophers of the Academy, and the teaching of Plato himself when returned from Syracuse. Well supplied with money, and strict as to his own personal wants, he was able largely to indulge his liberal spirit towards many persons, and among the rest towards Plato, whom he assisted towards the expense of a choric exhibition at Athens.[170] Dion also visited Sparta and various other cities; enjoying a high reputation, and doing himself credit everywhere; a fact not unknown to Dionysius, and aggravating his displeasure. Yet Dion was long not without hope that that displeasure would mitigate, so as to allow of his return to Syracuse on friendly terms. Nor did he cherish any purposes of hostility, until the last proceedings with respect to his property and his wife at once cut off all hope and awakened vindictive sentiments.[171] He began therefore to lay a train for attacking Dionysius and enfranchising Syracuse by arms, invoking the countenance of Plato; who gave his approbation, yet not without mournful reserves; saying that he was now seventy years of age—that though he admitted the just wrongs of Dion and the bad conduct of Dionysius, armed conflict was nevertheless repugnant to his feelings, and he could anticipate little good from it—that he had labored long in vain to reconcile the two exasperated kinsmen, and could not now labor for any opposite end.[172]

But though Plato was lukewarm, his friends and pupils at the Academy cordially sympathized with Dion. Speusippus especially, the intimate friend and relative, having accompanied Plato to Syracuse, had communicated much with the population in the city, and gave encouraging reports of their readiness to aid Dion, even if he came with ever so small a force against Dionysius. Kallippus, with Eudemus (the friend of Aristotle), Timonides, and Miltas—all three members of the society at the Academy, and the last a prophet also—lent him aid and embarked in his enterprise. There were a numerous body of exiles from Syracuse, not less than one thousand altogether; with most of whom Dion opened communication, inviting their fellowship. He at the same time hired mercenary soldiers in small bands, keeping his measures as secret as he could.[173] Alkimenes, one of the leading Achæans in Peloponnesus, was warm in the cause (probably from sympathy with the Achæan colony Kroton, then under the dependence of Dionysius), conferring upon it additional dignity by his name and presence. A considerable quantity of spare arms, of every description, was got together, in order to supply new unarmed partisans on reaching Sicily. With all these aids Dion found himself in the island of Zakynthus, a little after Midsummer 357 B. C.; mustering eight hundred soldiers of tried experience and bravery, who had been directed to come thither silently and in small parties, without being informed whither they were going. A little squadron was prepared, of no more than five merchantmen, two of them vessels of thirty oars, with victuals adequate to the direct passage across the sea from Zakynthus to Syracuse; since the ordinary passage, across from Korkyra and along the Tarentine Gulf was impracticable, in the face of the maritime power of Dionysius.[174]

Such was the contemptible force with which Dion ventured to attack the greatest of all Grecian potentates in his own stronghold and island. Dionysius had now reigned as despot at Syracuse between ten and eleven years. Inferior as he personally was to his father, it does not seem that the Syracusan power had yet materially declined in his hands. We know little about the political facts of his reign; but the veteran Philistus, his chief adviser and officer, appears to have kept together the larger part of the great means bequeathed by the elder Dionysius. The disparity of force, therefore, between the assailant and the party assailed, was altogether extravagant. To Dion, personally, indeed, such disparity was a matter of indifference. To a man of his enthusiastic temperament, so great was the heroism and sublimity of the enterprise,—combining liberation of his country from a despot, with revenge for gross outrages to himself,—that he was satisfied if he could only land in Sicily with no matter how small a force, accounting it honor enough to perish in such a cause.[175] Such was the emphatic language of Dion, reported to us by Aristotle; who (being then among the pupils of Plato) may probably have heard it with his own ears. To impartial contemporary spectators, like Demosthenes, the attempt seemed hopeless.[176]

But the intelligent men of the Academy who accompanied Dion, would not have thrown their lives away in contemplation of a glorious martyrdom; nor were either they or he ignorant, that there existed circumstances, not striking the eye of the ordinary spectator, which materially weakened the great apparent security of Dionysius.

First, there was the pronounced and almost unanimous discontent of the people of Syracuse. Though prohibited from all public manifestations, they had been greatly agitated by the original project of Dion to grant liberty to the city—by the inclinations even of Dionysius himself towards the same end, so soon unhappily extinguished—by the dissembling language of Dionysius, the great position of Dion’s wife and sister, and the second coming of Plato, all of which favored the hope that Dion might be amicably recalled. At length such chance disappeared, when his property was confiscated and his wife re-married to another. But as his energetic character was well known, the Syracusans now both confidently expected, and ardently wished, that he would return by force, and help them to put down one who was alike his enemy and theirs. Speusippus, having accompanied Plato to Syracuse and mingled much with the people, brought back decisive testimonies of their disaffection towards Dionysius, and of their eager longing for relief by the hands of Dion. It would be sufficient (they said) if he even came alone; they would flock around him, and arm him at once with an adequate force.[177]

There were doubtless many other messages of similar tenor sent to Peloponnesus; and one Syracusan exile, Herakleides, was in himself a considerable force. Though a friend of Dion,[178] he had continued high in the service of Dionysius, until the second visit of Plato. At that time he was disgraced, and obliged to save his life by flight, on account of a mutiny among the mercenary troops, or rather of the veteran soldiers among them, whose pay Dionysius had cut down. The men so curtailed rose in arms, demanding continuance of the old pay; and when Dionysius shut the gates of the acropolis, refusing attention to their requisitions, they raised the furious barbaric pæan or war shout, and rushed up to scale the walls.[179] Terrible were the voices of these Gauls, Iberians, and Campanians, in the ears of Plato, who knew himself to be the object of their hatred, and who happened to be then in the garden of the acropolis. But Dionysius, no less terrified than Plato, appeased the mutiny, by conceding all that was asked, and even more. The blame of this misadventure was thrown upon Herakleides, towards whom Dionysius conducted himself with mingled injustice and treachery—according to the judgment both of Plato and of all around him.[180] As an exile, he brought word that Dionysius could not even rely upon the mercenary troops, whom he treated with a parsimony the more revolting as they contrasted it with the munificence of his father.[181] Herakleides was eager to coöperate in putting down the despotism at Syracuse. But he waited to equip a squadron of triremes, and was not ready so soon as Dion; perhaps intentionally, as the jealousy between the two soon broke out.[182]

The second source of weakness to Dionysius lay in his own character and habits. The commanding energy of the father, far from being of service to the son, had been combined with a jealousy which intentionally kept him down, and cramped his growth. He had always been weak, petty, destitute of courage or foresight, and unfit for a position like that which his father had acquired and maintained. His personal incompetency was recognized by all, and would probably have manifested itself even more conspicuously, had he not found a minister of so much ability, and so much devotion to the dynasty, as Philistus. But in addition to such known incompetency, he had contracted recently habits which inspired every one around him with contempt. He was perpetually intoxicated and plunged in dissipation. To put down such a chief, even though surrounded by walls, soldiers, and armed ships, appeared to Dion and his confidential companions an enterprise noway impracticable.[183]

Nevertheless, these causes of weakness were known only to close observers; while the great military force of Syracuse was obvious to the eyes of every one. When the soldiers, mustered by Dion at Zakynthus, were first informed that they were destined to strike straight across the sea against Syracuse, they shrank from the proposition as an act of insanity. They complained of their leaders for not having before told them what was projected; just as the Ten Thousand Greeks in the army of Cyrus, on reaching Tarsus, complained of Klearchus for having kept back the fact that they were marching against the Great King. It required all the eloquence of Dion, with his advanced age,[184] his dignified presence, and the quantity of gold and silver plate in his possession, to remove their apprehensions. How widely these apprehensions were felt, is shown by the circumstance, that out of one thousand Syracusan exiles, only twenty-five or thirty dared to join him.[185]

After a magnificent sacrifice to Apollo, and an ample banquet to the soldiers in the stadium at Zakynthus, Dion gave orders for embarkation in the ensuing morning. On that very night the moon was eclipsed. We have already seen what disastrous consequences turned upon the occurrence of this same phænomenon fifty-six years before, when Nikias was about to conduct the defeated Athenian fleet away from the harbor of Syracuse.[186] Under the existing apprehensions of Dion’s band, the eclipse might well have induced them to renounce the enterprise; and so it probably would, under a general like Nikias. But Dion had learnt astronomy; and what was of not less consequence, Miltas, the prophet of the expedition, besides his gift of prophecy, had received instruction in the Academy also. When the affrighted soldiers inquired what new resolution was to be adopted in consequence of so grave a sign from the gods, Miltas arose and assured them that they had mistaken the import of the sign, which promised them good fortune and victory. By the eclipse of the moon, the gods intimated that something very brilliant was about to be darkened over: now there was nothing in Greece so brilliant as the despotism of Dionysius at Syracuse; it was Dionysius who was about to suffer eclipse, to be brought on by the victory of Dion.[187] Reassured by such consoling words the soldiers got on board. They had good reason at first to believe that the favor of the gods waited upon them, for a gentle and steady Etesian breeze carried them across midsea without accident or suffering, in twelve days, from Zakynthus to Cape Pachynus, the south-eastern corner of Sicily and nearest to Syracuse. The pilot Protus, who had steered the course so as exactly to hit the cape, urgently recommended immediate disembarkation, without going farther along the south-western coast of the island; since stormy weather was commencing, which might hinder the fleet from keeping near the shore. But Dion was afraid of landing so near to the main force of the enemy. Accordingly, the squadron proceeded onward, but were driven by a violent wind away from Sicily towards the coast of Africa, narrowly escaping shipwreck. It was not without considerable hardship and danger that they got back to Sicily, after five days; touching the island at Herakleia Minoa westward of Agrigentum, within the Carthaginian supremacy. The Carthaginian governor of Minoa, Synalus (perhaps a Greek in the service of Carthage), was a personal acquaintance of Dion, and received him with all possible kindness; though knowing nothing beforehand of his approach, and at first resisting his landing through ignorance.