Page:History of Greece Vol XI.djvu/148

 122 HISTORY OF GREECE. did not originate the overthrow of this dangerous stronghold, bur when Herakleides proposed it, he resisted him and prevented it from being done. 1 We shall find the same den serving for suc- cessive despots preserved by Dion for them as well as for him- self, and only removed by the real liberator Timoleon. Herakleides gained extraordinary popularity among the Syra- cusans by his courageous and patriotic conduct. But Dion saw plainly that he could not, consistently with his own designs, per- mit such free opposition any longer. Many of his adherents, looking upon Herakleides as one who ought not to have been spared on the previous occasion, were ready to put him to death at any moment ; being restrained only by a special prohibition which Dion now thought it time to remove. Accordingly, with his privity, they made their way into the house of Herakleides, and slew him. 2 This dark deed abolished all remaining hope of obtaining Sy racusan freedom from the hands of Dion, and stamped him as the mere successor of the Dionysian despotism. It was in vain that he attended the obsequies of Herakleides with his full milita- ry force, excusing his well-known crime to the people, on the plea, that Syracuse could never be at peace while two such rivals were both in active political life. Under the circumstances of the case, the remark was an insulting derision ; though it might have been advanced with pertinence as a reason for sending Herakleides away, at the moment when he before spared him. Dion had now conferred upon his rival the melancholy honor of dying as a mar tyr to Syracusan freedom ; and in that light he was bitterly mourned by the people. No man after this murder could think himself secure. Having once employed the soldiers as execu tioners of his own political antipathies, Dion proceeded to lend himself more and more to their exigencies. He provided for them pay and largesses, great in amount, first at the cost of his oppo- nents in the city, next at that of his friends, until at length discon- Plutarch, Dion, c. 53. "ETmra KaTTjybpei. TOV Ai'uvoc on rr/v UK-XZV r-i mtmffej ical T<1> dy^u TOV Aiovvoiov TU&OV upfirjjievu hvaai nai rov ^ruMi OVK eTTETpftpe, etc. Compare Plutarch, Timoleon, c. 22
 * 1'littarch. Dion, c. 53; Cornelius NCJKJS, Dion, c. 6.