"bad a wife to you, and of so mean a soul, as to have abandoned my “husband in his flight, and not to have desired to share in his dangers and "misfortunes? No! I knew nothing of it; or I should have been much "happier in being called the wife of Polyxenus the exile, in all places, "than, in Syracuse, the sister of the tyrant." Dionysius could not but admire an answer so full of spirit and generosity; and the Syracusans in general were so charmed with her virtue, that after the tyranny was suppressed, the same honours, equipage, and train of a queen, which she had before, were continued to her during her life; and after her death the whole people attended her body to the tomb, and honoured her funeral with an extraordinary appearance.

On the side of the Carthaginians affairs began to take a new face on a sudden. They had committed an irretrievable error in not attacking Syracuse upon their arrival, and in not taking the advantage of the consternation, which the sight of a fleet and army equally formidable had occasioned. The plague, which was looked upon as a punishment sent from heaven for the plundering of temples and demolishing of tombs, had destroyed great numbers of their army in a short time. I have described the extraordinary symptoms of it in the history of the Carthaginians. To add to that misfortune, the Syracusans, being informed of their unhappy condition, attacked them in the night by sea and land. The surprise, terror, and even haste they were in to put themselves into a posture of defence, threw them into new difficulty and confusion. They knew not on which side to send relief; all being equally in danger. Many of their vessels were sunk, and others almost entirely disabled, and a much greater number destroyed by fire. The old men, women and children, ran in crowds to the walls, to be witnesses of that scene of horror, and lifted up their hands towards heaven, returning thanks to the gods for so signal a protection of their city. The slaughter within and without the camp, and on board the vessels, was great and dreadful, and ended only with the day.

Imilcar, reduced to despair, offered Dionysius secretly 300,000 crowns* for permission to retire in the night with the remains of his army and fleet. The tyrant, who was not displeased with leaving the Carthaginians some resource, to keep his subjects in continual awe, gave his consent; but only for the citizens of Carthage. Upon which Imilcar set out with the Carthaginians, and only 40 ships; leaving the rest of his troops behind. The Corinthians, discovering from the noise and motion of the galleys, that Imilcar was making off, sent to inform Dionysius of his flight, who affected ignorance of it, and gave immediate orders to pursue him; but as those orders were but slowly executed, they followed the enemy themselves, and sunk several vessels of their rear guard.

Dionysius then marched out with his troops; but before their arrival, the Sicilians in the Carthaginian service had retired to their several countries. Having first posted troops in the passes, he advanced directly to the enemy's camp, though it was not quite day. The barbarians, who saw themselves cruelly abandoned and betrayed by Imilcar and the Sicilians, lost courage and fled. Some of them were taken by the troops in the passes; others laid down their arms, and asked quarter. Only the Iberians drew up and sent an herald to capitulate with Dionysius, who incorporated them into his guards. The rest were all made prisoners.

Such was the fate of the Carthaginians; which shows, says the histori

*300 talents.

an,

* that humiliation treads upon the heels of pride, and that those who are too much puffed up with power and success are soon forced to confess their weakness and vanity. Those haughty victors, masters of almost all Sicily, who looked upon Syracuse as already their own, and entered at first triumphant into the great port, insulting the citizens, are now reduced to fly shamefully under the covert of the night; dragging away with them the sad ruins and miserable remains of their fleet and army, and trembling for the fate of their native country. Imilcar, who had neither regarded the sacred refuge of temples, nor the inviolable sanctity of tombs, after having left 150,000 men unburied in the enemy's country, returns to perish miserably at Carthage, avenging upon himself by his death the contempt he had expressed for gods and men.

Dionysius, who was suspicious of the strangers in his service, removed 10,000 of them and under the pretence of rewarding their merit, gave them the city of Leontium, which was in reality very commodiously situated, and an advantageous settlement. He confided the guard of his person to other foreigners, and the slaves he had made free. He made several attempts upon places in Sicily, and in the neighbouring country, especially against Rhegium.† The people of Italy, seeing themselves in danger, entered into a powerful alliance to put a stop to his conquests. The success was tolerably equal on both sides.

About this time the Gauls, who some months before had burned Rome, sent deputies to Dionysius to make an alliance with him, who was at that time in Italy. The advices he had received of the great preparations making by the Carthaginians for war, obliged him to return to Sicily.

The Carthaginians having set on foot a numerous army under the conduct of Mago, made new efforts against Syracuse, but with no better success than the former. They terminated in an accommodation with Dionysius.

He attacked Rhegium again, and at first received no inconsiderable check. But having gained a great victory against the Greeks of Italy, in which he took more than 10,000 prisoners, he dismissed them all without ransom, contrary to their expectation, with a view of dividing the Italians from the interests of Rhegium, and of dissolving a powerful league, which might have defeated his designs. Having by this action of favour and generosity acquired the good opinion of all the inhabitants of the country, and from enemies, made them his friends and allies, he returned against Rhegium. He was extremely incensed against that city upon account of their refusing to give him one of their citizens in marriage, and the insolent answer with which that refusal was attended. The besieged, finding themselves incapable of resisting so numerous an army as that of Dionysius, and expecting no quarter if the city were taken by assault, began to talk of capitulating to which he hearkened not unwillingly. He made them pay 300,000 crowns, deliver up all their vessels to the number of 70, and put 100 hostages into his hands; after which he raised the siege. It was not out of favour and clemency that he acted in this manner, but to make their destruction sure, after having first reduced their power.

Accordingly the next year, under the false pretext, and with the reproach of their having violated the treaty, he besieged them again with all his forces, first sending back their hostages. Both parties acted with the

*Diodorus Siculus.

Diod. 1. xiv. p. 304-310.

A. M. 3615. Ant. J. C. 389.

Justin. xx. c. 5,

utmost vigour. The desire of revenge on one side, and the fear of the greatest cruelties on the other, animated the troops. Those of the city were commanded by Phyto, a brave and intrepid man, whom the danger of his country rendered more courageous. He made frequent and rude sallies. In one of them Dionysius received a wound, of which he recovered with great difficulty. The siege went on slowly, and had already continued 11 months, when a cruel famine reduced the city to the last extremities. A measure of wheat, of about six bushels, was sold for 250 livres. After having consumed all their horses and beasts of carriage, they were obliged to support themselves with leather and hides, which they boiled, and at last to feed upon the grass of the fields like beasts; a resource, of which Dionysius soon deprived them, by making his horses eat up all the herbage around the city. Necessity at length reduced them to surrender at discretion, and Dionysius entered the place, which he found covered with dead bodies. Those who survived were rather skeletons than men. He took about 6000 prisoners, whom he sent to Syracuse. Such as could -pay 50 livres he dismissed, and sold the rest for slaves.

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

SECTION IV.

VIOLENT PASSION OF DIONYSIUS FOR

POETRY.-HIS DEATH AND BAD

QUALITIES.

AT an interval which the success against Rhegium had left Dionysius the tyrant, who was fond of all kinds of glory, and piqued himself upor the excellence of his genius, he sent his brother Thearides to Olympia, to dispute in his name the prizes of the chariot race and poetry.*

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

I shall say as much upon the tyrant's total character, with whose vices of ambition and tyranny many great qualities were united, which ought not to be disguised nor misrepresented; the veracity of history requiring that justice should be done to the most wicked, as they are not so in every

*Diod: 1. xiv. p. 318.

respect. We have seen several things in his character that certainly deserve praise; I mean in regard to his manners and behaviour: the mildness with which he suffered the freedom of young Dion, the admiration he expressed of the bold and generous answer of his sister Thesta upon account of her husband's flight, his gracious and insinuating deportment upon several other occasions to the Syracusans, the familiarity of his discourse with the meanest citizens, and even workmen, the equality he observed between his two wives, and his kindness and respect for them: all which imply that Dionysius had more equity, moderation, affability, and generosity, than is commonly ascribed to him. He is not such a tyrant as Phalaris, Alexander of Pheræ, Caligula, Nero, or Caracalla.

But to return to Dionysius' taste for poetry. In his intervals of leisure, he loved to unbend in the conversation of persons of wit, and in the study of arts and sciences. He was particularly fond of versifying, and employed himself in the composition of poems, especially of tragedies. Thus far this passion of his may be excused, having something undoubtedly laudable in it: I mean in the taste for polite learning, the esteem he expressed for learned men, his inclination to do them good offices, and the application of his leisure hours. Was it not better to employ them in the exercise of his wit and the cultivation of science, than feasting, dancing, theatrical amusements, gaming, frivolous company, and other pleasures still more pernicious? Which wise reflection Dionysius the younger made when at Corinth. * Philip king of Macedon being at table with him, spoke of the odes and tragedies his father had left behind him, with an air of raillery and contempt, and seemed to be under some difficulty to comprehend at what time of his life he had leisure for such compositions: Dionysius smartly reparteed, "the difficulty is very great indeed! Why, "he composed them at those hours which you and I, and an infinity of (6 others, as we have reason to believe, pass in drinking and other diver"sions."

Julius Cæsar and the emperor Augustus applied themselves to poetry, and composed tragedies. Lucullus intended to have written the memoirs of his military actions in verse. The comedies of Terence were attributed to Lælius and Scipio, both great captains, especially the latter; and that report was so far from lessening their reputation at Rome, that it added to the general esteein for them.

These unbendings therefore were not blameable in their own nature; this taste for poetry was rather laudable, if kept within due bounds; but Dionysius was ridiculous for pretending to excel all others in it. He could not endure either a superior or competitor in any thing. From being in the sole possession of supreme authority, he had accustomed himself to Imagine his wit of the same rank with his power: in a word, he was in every thing a tyrant. His immoderate estimation of his own merit flowed in some measure from the overbearing turn of mind which empire and command had given him. The continual applauses of a court, and the flatteries of those who knew how to recommend themselves by his darling foible, were another source of this vain conceit; and of what will not a great man, a minister, a prince, think himself capable, who has such incense and adoration continually paid to him? It is well known that Car

+ Plut. in Timol. c. lxxxv. p. 243. Plut. in Lucul. p. 492.

+ Suct. in Cæs. c. lvi. in August.

-Nihil est quod credere de se

Non possit, cam laudatur diis æqua potestas. JUVENAL.

dinal Richelieu, in the midst of the greatest affairs, not only composed dramatic poems, but piqued himself on his excellency that way; and what is more, his jealousy in that point rose so high as to use his authority by way of criticism upon the compositions of those to whom the public, a just and incorruptible judge in the question, had given the preference against him.

Dionysius did not reflect that there are things which, though estimable in themselves, and which do honour to private persons, it does not become a prince to desire to excel in. I have mentioned elsewhere Philip of Macedon's expression to his son, upon his having shown too much skill in music at a public entertainment: "Are you not ashamed," said he, "to sing so well?" It was acting inconsistently with the dignity of his character. If Cæsar and Augustus, when they wrote tragedies, had taken it into their heads to equal or excel Sophocles, it had not only been ridiculous, but a reproach to them and the reason is, because a prince, being obliged by an essential and indispensable duty to apply himself incessantly to the affairs of government, and having an infinitude of various business always recurring to him, he can make no other use of the sciences, than to divert him at such short intervals as will not admit any great progress in them, and the excelling of those who employ themselves in no other study. Hence, when the public sees a prince affect the first rank in this kind of merit, it may justly conclude that he neglects his more im- . portant duties, and what he owes to his people's happiness, to give himself up to an employment which wastes his time and application of mind ineffectually.

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

* I have already said that this prince, in an interval of peace, had sent his brother Thearides to Olympia, to dispute the prizes of poetry and the chariot race in his name. When he arrived in the assembly, the beauty as well as number of his chariots, and the magnificence of his pavilion, embroidered with gold and silver, attracted the eyes and admiration of all the spectators. The ear was no less charmed when the poems of Dionysius began to be read. He had chosen expressly for the occasion † readers with sonorous, musical voices, who might be heard far and distinctly, and who knew how to give a just emphasis and numerosity to the verses they repeated. At first this had a very happy effect, and the whole audience were deceived by the art and sweetness of the pronunciation. But that charm was soon at an end, and the mind not long amused by the ears. The verses then appeared in all their ridicule. The audience were ashamed of having applauded them, and their praise was turned into laughter, scorn, and insult. To express their contempt and indignation, they tore Dionysius' rich pavilion in pieces. Lycias, the celebrated orator, who was come to the Olympic games to dispute the prize of eloquence, which he had carried several times before, undertook to prove that it was inconsistent with the honour of Greece, the friend and assertor of liberty, to admit an impious tyrant to share in the celebration of the sacred games, who had no other thoughts than of subjecting all Greece to his power. Dionysius was not affronted in that manner then; but the event proved as

*Diod. l. xiv. p. 313.

VOL. II.

52

†These readers were called Payador.