Page:History of Greece Vol XI.djvu/122

 96 HIST02Y OF GREECE. the erection of a wall of blockade, reaching from the Great Har- bor at one extremity, to the sea on the eastern side of the Por- tus Lakkius, at the other. 1 He at the same time provided arms as well as he could for the citizens, sending for those spaie arms which he had deposited with Sjnalus at Miuoa. It does not ap- pear that the garrison of Ortygia made any sally to impede him ; so that in the course of seven days, he had not only received his arms from Synalus, but had completed, in a rough way, all or most of the blockading cross- wall. 2 At the end of these seven days, but not before (having been prevented by accident from receiving the express sent to him), Dionysius returned with his fleet to Ortygia.3 Fatally indeed was his position changed. The islet was the only portion of the city which he possessed, and that too was shut up on the land- side by a blockading wall nearly completed. All the rest of the city was occupied by bitter enemies instead of by subjects. Le- ontini also, and probably many of his other dependencies out of Syracuse, had taken the opportunity of revolting. 4 Even with the large fleet which he had brought home, Dionysius did not think himself strong enough to face his enemies in the field, but resorted to stratagem. He first tried to open a private intrigue with Dion ; who, however, refused to receive any separate propositions, and desired him to address them publicly to the freemen, citizens of Syracuse. Accordingly, he sent envoys tendering to the Syra- cusans what in the present day would be called a constitution. He demanded only moderate taxation, and moderate fulfilments of military service, subject to their own vote of consent. But the Syracusans laughed the offer to scorn, and Dion returned in their name the peremptory reply, that no proposition from Dionysius 1 Plutarch, Dion, c. 29; Diodor. xvi. 12. Plntarch says, TTJV (5 iv uTCETeixiot Diodorus is more specific TW 6e "LvpaKovaluv Karea~ KfvaKOTuv EK tiaAaffoijt; elf ftaKaaaav 6iareixiff^ara, etc. These are valua- ble words as indicating the line and the two terminations of Dion's block- ading cross-wall. Plntarch, D'on, c. 29. specified both by Plutarch and Diodorus (Plutarch, Dion, c. 26-29 ; Diodor. xvi. 11). 4 Diodor. xvi. 16.
 * This return of Dionysius, seven days after the coming of Dion, is