Page:History of Greece Vol XI.djvu/126

 100 HISTORY OF GKEECE. the town by night, he was presently expelled by the defenders, se- conded by reinforcements from Syracuse. 1 To keep Ortygia provisioned, however, it was yet more indis- pensable for Philistus to maintain his superiority at sea against the growing naval power of the Syracusans, now commanded by He- rakleidee. 2 After several partial engagements, a final battle, des perate and decisive, at length took place between the two admirals. Both fleets were sixty triremes strong. At first Philistus, brave and forward, appeared likely to be victorious. But presently the fortune of the day turned against him. His ship was run ashore, and himself with most part of his fleet, overpowered by the en- emy. To escape captivity, he stabbed himself. The wound however was not mortal ; so that he fell alive, being now about seventy-eight years of age, into the hands of his enemies, who stripped him naked, insulted him brutally, and at length cut off his head, after which they dragged his body by the leg through the streets of Syracuse. 3 Revolting as this treatment is, we must recollect that it was less horrible than that which the elder Diony- sius had inflicted on the Rhegine general Phyton. The last hopes of the Dionysian dynasty perished with Philis- tus, the ablest and most faithful of its servants. He had been an actor in its first day of usurpation its eighteenth Brumaire: his timely, though miserable death, saved him from sharing in its last day of exile its St. Helena. Even after the previous victory of Dion, Dionysius had lost all chance of overcoming the Syracusans by force. But he had now farther lost, through the victory of Herakleides, his superiority At sea, and therefore his power even of maintaining himself per- manently in Ortygia. The triumph of Dion seemed assured, and his enemy humbled in the dust. But though thus disarmed, Dionysius was still formidable by his means of raising intrigue and dissension in Syracuse. His ancient antipathy against Dion became more vehement than ever. Obliged to forego empire himself yet resolved at any rate that Dion should be ruined 1 Diodor. xvi. 1 6. 2 See a Fragment of the fortieth Book of the Philippica of Theopom pus (Theopomp. Fragm. 212, ed. Didot), which seems to refer to this poin of time.
 * Diodor. xvL 1G; Plutarch, Dion, c. 35.