Page:History of Greece Vol XI.djvu/61

 POEMS OF DIONYSIUS. ?5 place, that the poem of Dionysius, himself a man of ability and having every opportunity of profiting by good critics whom h piad 98, during which Dionysius was still engaged in war in Italy, besieg ing Rhegium. He says that Dionysius made unparalleled efforts to send a great display to this festival ; a splendid legation, with richly decorated tents, several fine chariots-and-four, and poems to be recited by the best actors. He states that Lysias the orator delivered a strong invective aguinst him, exciting those who heard it to exclude the Syracusan despot from sacrificing, and to plunder the rich tents. He then details how tho purposes of Dionysius failed miserably on every point ; the fine tents were assailed, the chariots all ran wrong or were broken, the poems were hissed, the ships returning to Syracuse were wrecked, etc. Yet in spite of this ac- cumulation of misfortunes (he tells us) Dionysius was completely soothed by his flatterers (who told him that such envy always followed upon great ness), and did not desist from poetical efforts. Again, in xv. 6, 7, Diodorus describes the events of 386 B. c. Here he again tells us, that Dionysius, persevering in his poetical occupations, composed verses which were very indifferent that he was angry with and punished Philoxenus and others who criticized them freely that he sent some of these compositions to be recited at the Olympic festival, with the best a^ tors and reciters that the poems, in spite of these advantages, were de- spised and derided by the Olympic audience that Dionysius was dis- tressed by this repulse, even to anguish and madness, and to the various severities and cruelties against his friends which have been already men- tioned in my text. Now upon this we must remark : 1. The year 386 B. c. is not an Olympic year. Accordingly, the proceed- ings described by Diodorus in xv. 6, 7, all done by Dionysius after his hands were free from war, must be transferred to the next Olympic year, 384 B. c. The year in which Dionysius was so deeply stung by the events of Olympia, must therefore have been 384 B. c., or Olympiad 99 (relating to 388 B. c.). 2. Compare Diodor. xiv. 109 with xv. 7. In the first passage, Dionysius is represented as making the most prodigious efforts to display himself at Olympia in eveiy way, by fine tents, chariots, poems, etc. and also as having undergone the signal insult from the orator Lysias, with the most disgraceful failure in every way. Yet all this he is described to have borne with tolerable equanimity, being soothed by his flatterers. But, in xv. 7 (relating to 386 B. c., or more probably to 384 B. c.) he is represented as having merely failed in respect to the effect of his poems ; nothing what- ever being said about display of any other kind, nor about an harangue from Lysias, nor insult to the envoys or the tents. Yet the simple repulse of the poems is on this occasion affirmed to have thrown Dionysius into a paroxysm of sorrc/w and madness. Now if the great and insulting treatment, which Diodorus refers tfl