Page:History of Greece Vol X.djvu/9

 PREFACE TO VOL. X. THE present Volume is already extended to an untx- sual number of pages ; yet I have been compelled to close it at an inconvenient moment, midway in the reign of the Syracusan despot Dionysius. To carry that reign to its close, one more chapter will be required, which must be reserved for the succeeding volume. The history of the Sicilian and Italian Greeks, form- ing as it does a stream essentially distinct from that of the Peloponnesians, Athenians, etc., is peculiarly inter- esting during the interval between 409 B. c. (the date of the second Carthaginian invasion) and the death of Ti- moleon in 336 B. c. It is, moreover, reported to us by authors (Diodorus and Plutarch), who, though not them- selves very judicious as selectors, had before them good contemporary witnesses. And it includes some of the most prominent and impressive characters of the Hel- lenic world, Dionysius I, Dion ith Plato as instructor, and Timoleon.