Page:History of Greece Vol XI.djvu/46

 20 HISTORY OF GREECE. passion even among the soldiers of Dionysius himself. Thou murmurs became so pronounced, that he began to apprehend an open mutiny for the purpose of rescuing Phyton. Under this fear he gave orders that the torments should be discontinued, and that Phyton with his entire kindred should be drowned. 1 The prophetic persuasion under which this unhappy man per- ished, that divine vengeance would soon overtake his destroyer, was noway borne out by the subsequent reality. The power and prosperity of Dionysius underwent abatement by his war with the Carthaginians in 383 B. c., yet remained very considerable even to his dying day. And the misfortunes which fell thickly upon his son the younger Dionysius, more than thirty years after- wards, though they doubtless received a religious interpretation from contemporary critics, were probably ascribed to acts more recent than the barbarities inflicted on Phyton. But these barba- rities, if not avenged, were at least laid to heart with profound sympathy by the contemporary world, and even commemorated with tenderness and pathos by poets. While Dionysius was com- posing tragedies (of which more presently) in hopes of applause in Greece, he was himself furnishing real matter of history, not less tragical than the sufferings of those legendary heroes and he- roines to which he (in common with other poets) resorted for a subject. Among the many acts of cruelty, more or less aggra- vated, which it is the melancholy duty of an historian of Greece to recount, there are few so revolting as the death of the Rhegine general ; who was not a subject, nor a conspirator, nor a rebel, but an enemy in open warfare of whom the worst that even Diony- sius himself could say, was, that he had persuaded his country- men into the war. And even this could not be said truly ; 1 Diodor. xiv. 112. 'O 6s $VTUV, /cord rtjv KoT^topniav arpaTrj-ybf uyadbf yeycvrjiiEvof, nal Kara rbv uh.7i.ov fiiov 7raivovfievof,ovK ayevvuf v~euve r/)i> iirl rfjf Te^EVTTJf nffupiav vx?tv 0t>/laf, KO.I fiotiv, on TT/V ir6ti.iv ov BovT.rj'&els itpodovvai Aiovvaiu rvyxuvei TIJC rtftupiaf, i/v avrti rb tiacpoviov iiceivu avvro^tuf ima-yau- uare rqv uperr/v ruvdpbf nal trapu, rolf arpariuTaif rov Aiovvaiov KaTeZ.esla&ai, not nvaf TjAij -dopvfielv O (5e Atovvaiof, et'/la.(37?i?eopuv, ueru Tavra irotrjruf roi'f tipTivyaovrar rb rf]f irrpnrtTEiaf