Page:History of Greece Vol XI.djvu/155

 RULE OF KALLIPPUS. 12'j male relatives ot Dion his sister Aristomache andLis pregnant wife Arete, avenging by such act of malignity the false oath which he had so lately been compelled to take, in order to satisfy their suspicions. 1 Arete was delivered of a son in the prison. It would seem that these unhappy women were kept in confinement during all the time, more than a year, that Kallippus remained master. On his being deposed, they were released ; when a Syra cusan named Hiketas, a friend of the deceased Dion, affected to take them under his protection. After a short period of kind treatment, he put them on board a vessel to be sent to Peloponne sus, but caused them to be slain on the voyage, and their bodies to be sunk in the sea. To this cruel deed he is said to have been instigated by the enemies of Dion ; and the act shows but too plainly how implacable those enemies were. 2 How Kallippus maintained himself in Syracuse by what support, or violences, or promises and against what difficulties he had to contend we are net permitted to know. He seems at first to have made promises of restoring liberty ; and we are even told, that he addressed a public letter to his country, the city of Athens ; 3 wherein he doubtless laid claim to the honors of tyran- nicide ; representing himself as the liberator of Syracuse. How this was received by the Athenian assembly, we are not informed. But to Plato and the frequenters of the Academy, the news of Dion's death occasioned the most profound sorrow, as may still be read in the philosopher's letters. Kallippus maintained himself for a year in full splendor and dominion. Discontents had then grown up ; and the friends of Dion or perhaps the enemies of Kallippus assuming that nam, showed themselves with force in Syracuse. However, Kallip- pus defeated them, and forced them to take refuge in Leontini ;4 of which town we presently find Hiketas despot. Encouraged prob- ably by this success, Kallippus committed many enormities, and made himself so odious, 5 that the expelled Dionysian family be- 1 Plutarch, Dion, c. 56, 57. 2 Plutarch, Dion. c. 58. 3 Plutarch, Dion, c. 58. 6 Plutarch, Timoleon, c. 1 1 ; Plutarch, compar. Timoleon and Paul Emil. c. 2.
 * Plutarch, Dion, c. 58 ; Diodor. xvi. 31-36.