Page:History of Greece Vol XI.djvu/28

 2 HISTORY OF GREECE. ty in the Carthaginian arms, which seemed in a fair way to over- whelm him completely. Upon what physical conditions the fre- quent repetition of such a calamity depended, together with the remarkable fact that it was confined to Carthage and her armies,, we know partially in respect to the third of the four ?ases, but not at all in regard to the others. The flight of Imilkon with his Carthaginians from Syracuse left Dionysius and the Syracusans in the full swing of triumph. The conquests made by Imilkon were altogether lost, and the Car- thaginian dominion in Sicily was now cut down to that restricted space in the western corner of the island, which it had occupied prior to the invasion of Hannibal in 409 B. c. So prodigious a success probably enabled Dionysius to put down the opposition re- cently manifested among the Syracusans to the continuance of his rule. We are told that he was greatly embarrassed by his mer- cenaries ; who, having been for some time without pay, manifested such angry discontent as to threaten his downfall. Dionysius seized the person of their commander, the Spartan Aristoteles : upon which the soldiers mutined and flocked in arms around his residence, demanding in fierce terms both the liberty of their com- mander and the payment of their arrears. Of these demands, Dionysius eluded the first by saying that he would send away Aristoteles to Sparta, to be tried and dealt with among his own countrymen : as to the second, he pacified the soldiers by assign- ing to them, in exchange for their pay, the town and territory of Leontini. Willingly accepting this rich bribe, the most fertile soi) of the island, the mercenaries quitted Syracuse to the number of ten thousand, to take up their residence in the newly assigned town ; while Dionysius hired new mercenaries in their place. To these (including perhaps the Iberians or Spaniards who had re- cently passed from the Carthaginian service into his) and to the slaves whom he had liberated, he intrusted the maintenance of his dominion. 1 These few facts, which are all that we hear, enable us to see that the relations between Dionysius and the mercenaries by whose means he ruled Syracuse, were troubled and difficult tc '' Diodor. xiv. 78