Page:History of Greece Vol X.djvu/467

 DIONYSIUS AS DESPOT. 445 his fellow-countrymen. The successive stages of his rise I have detailed from Diodorus, who (excepting a hint or two from Aris- totle) is our only informant. His authority is on this occasion better than usual, since he had before him not merely Ephorus and Timaeus, but also Philistus. He is, moreover, throughout this whole narrative at least clear and consistent with himself. We understand enough of the political strategy pursued by Dio- aysius, to pronounce that it was adapted to his end with a degree of skill that would have greatly struck a critical eye like Machia- vel; whose analytical appreciation of means, when he is canvass- ing men like Dionysius, has been often unfairly construed as if it implied sympathy with and approbation of their end. We see that Dionysius, in putting himself forward as the chief and repre- sentative of the Hermokratean party, acquired the means of em- ploying a greater measure of fraud and delusion than an exile like Hermokrates, in prosecution of the same ambitious purposes. Favored by the dangers of the state and the agony of the public mind, he was enabled to simulate an ultra-democratical ardor both in defence of the people against the rich, and in denunciation of the unsuccessful or incompetent generals, as if they were cor- rupt traitors. Though it would seem that the government of Sy- racuse, in 406 B. c., must have been strongly democratical, yet Dionysius in his ardor for popular rights, treats it as an anti-popu- lar oligarchy ; and tries to acquire the favor of the people by placing himself in the most open quarrel and antipathy to the rich. Nine years before, in the debate between Hermokrates and Athenagoras in the Syracusan assembly, the former stood forth, or at least was considered to stand forth, as champion of the rich ; while the latter spoke as a conservative democrat, complaining of conspiracies on the part of the rich. In 406 B. c., the leader of the Hermokratean party has reversed this policy, assuming a pre- tended democratical fervor mi^ch more violent than that of Athe- nagoras. Dionysius, who took up the trade of what is called a demagogue on this one occasion, simply for the purpose of procur- ing one single vote in his own favor, and then shutting the dooi by force against all future voting and all correction, might resort to grosser falsehood than Athenagoras ; who, as an habitual speak- er, was always before the people, and even if successful by fraud at one meeting, was nevertheless open to exposure at a second.