Page:History of Greece Vol XI.djvu/159

 DIONYSIUS II. AT LOKRI. 13 J The season between 356-346 B. c., was one of great pressure and suffering for all the Italiot Greeks, arising from the increased power of the inland Lucanians and Bruttians. These Bruttians, who occupied the southernmost Calabria, were a fraction detached from the general body of Lucanians and self-emancipated ; having consisted chiefly of indigenous rural serfs in the mountain com- munities, who threw off the sway of their Lucanian masters, and formed an independent aggregate for themselves. These men, especially in the energetic effort which marked their early inde- pendence, were formidable enemies of the Greeks on the coast, from Tarentum to the Sicilian strait ; and more than a match even for the Spartans and Epirots invited over by the Greeks as auxiliaries. It appears that the second Dionysius, when he retired to Lokri after the first loss of his power at Syracuse, soon found his rule unacceptable and his person unpopular. He maintained himself, seemingly from the beginning, by means of two distinct citadels in the town, with a standing army under the command of the Spartan Pharax, a man of profligacy and violence. 1 The con- duct of Dionysius became at last so odious, that nothing short of extreme force could keep down the resentment of the citizens. We read that he was in the habit of practising the most licentious outrage towards the marriageable maidens of good family in Lokri. The detestation thus raised against him was repressed by his superior force not, we may be sure, without numerous cru- elties perpetrated against individual persons who stood on their defence until the moment arrived when he and his son Apollo- krates effected their second return to Ortygia. To ensure so important an acquisition, Dionysius diminished his military force at Lokri, where he at the same time left his wife, his two daugh- ters, and his youthful son. But after his departure, the Lokrians rose in insurrection, overpowered the reduced garrison, and took
 * Plutarch, Timoleon, c. 11; Compar. Timoleon and Paul. Emil. c. 2 ;

Theopompus ap. Athenoe. xii. p. 536 ; Plutarch, Reipub. Gerend. Prtecept p. 821 D. About the two citadels in Lokri, see Livy, xxix. 6. It may have been probably a predatory fleet in the service of the younger Dionysius, which Livy mentions to have been ravaging about this time the coast of Latium, cooperating with the Gauls agrinst portions of the Ro man territory (Livy, vii. 25, 26). VOL. XI. 12