Page:History of Greece Vol XI.djvu/146

 120 HISTORY OF GREECE. That these intentions on t.e part of Dion were sincere, we need not question. They had been originally conceived without any views of acquiring the first place for himself, during the life of the elder Dionysius, and were substantially the same as those which he had exhorted the younger Dionysius to realize, imme- diately after the death of the lather. They are the same as he had intended to further by calling in Plato, with what success, has been already recounted. But Dion made the fatal mistake of not remarking, that the state of things, both as to himself and as to Syracuse, was totally altered during the interval between 337 B. c. and 354 B. c. If at the former period, when the Dionysian dynasty was at the zenith of power, and Syracuse completely prostrated, the younger Dionysius could have been persuaded spontaneously and without contest or constraint to merge his own despotism in a more liberal system, even dictated by himself it is certain that such a free, though moderate concession, would at first have provoked unbounded gratitude, and would have had a chance (though that is more doubtful) of giving long-continued satisfaction. But the situation was totally different in 354 B. c., when Dion, after the expulsion of Apollokrates, had become mas- ter in Ortygia; and it was his mistake that he still insisted on ap- plying the old plans when they had become not merely unsuitable, but mischievous. Dion was not in the position of an established despot, who consents to renounce, for the public good, powers which every one knows he can retain, if he chooses ; nor were the Syracusans any longer passive, prostrate, and hopeless. They had received a solemn promise of liberty, and had been thereby inflamed into vehement action, by Dion himself ; who had been armed by them with delegated powers, for the special purpose of putting down Dionysius. That under these circumstances Dion, instead of laying down his trust, should constitute himself king even limited king and determine how much liberty he would consent to allot to the Syracusans who had appointed him this was a proceeding which they could not but resent as a flagrant usurpation, and which he could orly hope to man: tain by force. The real conduct of Dion, however, was worse even than this He manifested no visible evidence of realizing even that fraction of popular liberty which had entered into his original scheme.