Page:History of Greece Vol XI.djvu/154

 128 HISTORY OF GREECE. as much liberty as he thought right, and to requhe them to be satisfied with it ; nay, even worse, to defer giving them any liber ty at all, on the plea, or pretence, of full consultation with advisers of his own choice. Through this deplorable mistake, alike mischievous to Syracuse and to himself, Dion made his government one of pure force. He placed himself in a groove wherein he was fatally condemned to move on from bad to worse, without possibility of amendment. He had already made a martyr of Herakleides, and he would have been compelled to make other martyrs besides, had his life continued. It is fortunate for his reputation that his career was a/rested so early, before he had become bad enough to forfeit that sympathy and esteem with which the philosopher Plato still mourns his death, appeasing his own disappointment by throwing the blame of Dion's failure on every one but Dion himself. CHAPTER LX-XXV. SICILIAN AFFAIRS DOWN TO THE CLOSE OF THE EXPEDITION 01 TIMOLEON. B. C. 353-336. THE assassination of Dion, as recounted in my last chapter, appears to have been skilfully planned and executed for the pur- pose of its contriver, the Athenian Kallippus. Succeeding at once to the command of the soldiers, among whom he had before bean very popular, and to the mastery of Ortygia, he was practically supreme at Syracuse. We read in Cornelius Nepos, that after the assassination of Dion there was deep public sorrow, and a strong reaction in his favor, testified by splendid obsequies attended by the mass of the population. 1 But this statement is difficult to believe; not merely because Kallippus long remaine] undisturbed master, but because he also threw into prison tha fo 1 Cornelius Ncpos, Dion, c. 10.