Page:Dictionary of Greek and Roman Biography and Mythology (1870) - Volume 1.djvu/1052

Rh 1034 DIONYSIUS. sold as slaves or compelled to migrate to Syracuse. Naxos was utterly destroyed, and Catana occupied by a colony of Campanian mercenaries, B. c. 403. (Diod. xiv. 14, 15.) For several years after this he appears to have been occupied in strengthen- ing his power and in preparations for renewing the war with Carthage. Among these may be reckoned the great works which he at this time erected, — the docks adapted for the reception of several hun- dred ^hips, and the wall of 30 stadia in length, en- closing the whole extent of the Epipolae, the magni- ficence of which is attested by its existing remains at the present day. (Diod. xiv. 18,42; Smith's Sicily^ p. 167.) It was not till b. c. 397 that Dionysius con- sidered himself sufficiently strong, or his prepara- tions enough advanced, to declare war against Car- thage. He hfvd in the mean time assembled a large army of auxiliary and mercenary troops, and a fleet of two hundred ships, remarkable for the number of quadriremes and quinqueremes which were seen in it for the first time. The Cartha- ginians had been greatly weakened by the ravages of a pestilence in Africa, and were unprepared for war. Dionysius was immediately joined not only by the Greeks of Gela, Agrigentum, Ilimera, and S'Jinus, which had become tributary to Carthage by the late treaty of 405, but by the Sicelians of the interior, and even the Sicanians, in general the firm allies of Carthage. He thus advanced without opposition from one end of Sicily to the other, and laid siege to Motya, one of the chief strongholds of the Carthaginians, which fell into his power after a long and desperate resistance, prolonged till near the close of the summer. Segesta, however, suc- cessfully resisted his efforts, and the next year (n. c. 396) the arrival of a great Carthaginian armament under Himilco changed the face of aflairs. Motya was quickly recovered ; the Sica- nians and Sicelians abandoned the S3Tacusan al- liance for that of the enemy, and Himilco advanced unopposed as far as Messaiia, which he carried by assault, and utterly destroyed. The Syracusan fleet under Leptines, the brother of Dionysius, was tot;illy defeated ; and the latter, not daring to risk a battle, withdrew with his land forces, and shut himself up within the walls of Syracuse. Aban- doned by the other Sicilian Greeks, and besieged by the Carthaginians both by sea and land, his situation appeared to be desperate. It is even said that he was on the point of giving up all for lost, and making his escape, but was deterred by one of his friends observing, " that sovereign power was an honourable winding-sheet." (Isocrat. Archi- dam. § 49 ; Aelian. V. H. iv. 8 ; but compare Diod. xiv. 8.) A pestilence shortly after broke out in the Carthaginian camp, which a second time proved the salvation of Syracuse. Dionysius ably availed himself of the state of weakness to which the enemy was thus reduced, and by a sudden attack both by sea and land, defeated the Cartha- ginian army, and burnt great part of their fleet. Still he was glad to consent to a secret capitulation, by which the Carthaginians themselves were allowed to depart unmolested, abandoning both their allies and foreign mercenaries, who, thus left without a leader, were quickly dispersed. (Diod. xiv. 41 -76.) No pe.ice was concluded with Carthage upon this occasion ; but the effects of their late disastrous expedition, and the revolt of their subjects in DIONYSIUS. Africa, prevented the Carthaginians from renewing hostilities against Syracuse until the summer of 393, when Mago, who had succeeded Himilco in the command, having renewed the alliance with the Sicelians, advanced towards Messana, but was defeated by Dionysius near Abacaenum. The next year (b. c. 392) he marched against the Syracusan territory with a much greater force ; but Dionysius having secured the alliance of Agyris, tyrant of Agyrium, was enabled to cut off the supplies of the enemy, and thus reduced them to such distress, that Mago was compelled to treat for peace. The Sj'racusans also were weary of the war, and a treaty was concluded, by which the Carthaginians abandoned their Sicelian allies, and Dionysius be- came master of Tauromenium: in other respects, both parties remained nearly as before. (Diod. xiv. 90, 95, m.) This treaty left Dionysius at leisure to continue the ambitious projects in which he had previously engaged against the Greek cities in Italy. Already, before the Carthaginian war, he had secured the alliance of the Locrians by marrying Doris, the daughter of one of their principal citizens. Rhe- gium, on the contrary, had been uniformly hostile to him, and was the chief place of refuge of the Syracusan exiles. (Diod. xiv. 40.) Hence Dionysius established at Messana, after its destruc- tion by Himilco, a colony of citizens from Locri and its kindred city of Medama, to be a stronghold against Rhegium. (xiv. 78.) His designs in this quarter attracted so much attention, that the prin- cipal Greek cities in Italy, which were at the same ■ time hard pressed by the Lucanians of the interior, m concluded a league for their common defence at l once against the barbarians and Dionysius. The latter retaliated by entering into alliance with the Lucanians, and sending a fleet to their assistance under his brother Leptines, b. c. 390. (xiv. 91, 100 — 102.) The next year he gained a decisive victory over the combined forces of the Italian Greeks at the river Helorus ; and this success was followed by the reduction of Caulonia, Hipponium, and finally, after a siege protracted for nearly eleven months, of Rhegium itself, B. c. 387. (xiv. 1 03—108, 1 1 1.) The inhabitants of the conquered cities were for the most part removed to Syracuse, and their territory given up to the Locrians. Dionysius was now at the summit of his great- ness, and during the twenty years that elapsed from this period to his death, possessed an amount of power and influence far exceeding those enjoyed by any other Greek before the time of Alexander. In Sicily he held undisputed rule over the eastern half of the island, while the principal cities of the interior and those along the north coast, as far as Cephaloedium, were either subject to him, or held by his close and dependent allies, (xiv. 78, QG.) In Italy it is difficult to estimate the precise ex- tent of his influence: direct dominion he had ap- parently none. But his allies, the Locrians, were masters of the whole southern extremity of the peninsula, and his powerful fleets gave him the command both of the Tyrrhenian and Adriatic seas. In the former he repressed the piracies of the Etruscans, and, under pretence of retaliation, led a fleet of 60 triremes against them, with which he took the town of P'rgi, the port of Caere, and plundered its wealthy temple of Matuta. (DioA XV. 14 ; Strab. v. p. 226 ; Pseud.-Aristot. Oeconom^ ii, 2.) On this occasion he is also said to have