Page:History of Greece Vol XI.djvu/69

 DEFEAT OF DIONYSIUS. 43 moment for making peace, and sent to Dionysius envoys vith full powers. But Dionysius only obtained peace by large concessions ; giving up to Carthage Selinus with its territory, as well as half the Agrigentine territory all that lay to the west of the rive. Halykus ; and farther covenanting to pay to Carthage the sum of one thousand talents. 1 To these unfavorable conditions Diony- sius was constrained to subscribe; after having but a few days before required the Carthaginians to evacuate all Sicily, and pay the costs of the war. As it seems doubtful whether Dionysius would have so large a sum ready to pay down at once, we may reasonably presume that he would undertake to liquidate it by annual instalments. And we thus find confirmation of the mem- orable statement of Plato, that Dionysius became tributary to the Carthaginians. 2 Such are the painful gaps in Grecian history as it is transmit- ted to us, that we hear scarcely anything about Dionysius for thir teen years after the peace of 383-382 B. c. It seems that the Carthaginians (in 379 B. c.) sent an armament to the southern portion of Italy for the purpose of reestablishing the town of Hipponium and its inhabitants. 3 But their attention appears to have been withdrawn from this enterprise by the recurrence of previous misfortunes fearful pestilence, and revolt of their Ly- byan dependencies, which seriously threatened the safety of their city. Again, Dionysius also, during one of these years, undertook some operations, of which a faint echo reaches us, in this same Italian peninsula (now Calabria Ultra). He projected a line of wall across the narrowest portion or isthmus of the peninsula, from the Gulf of Skylletium to that of Hipponium, so as to separate the territory of Lokri from the northern portion of Italy, and secure it completely to his own control. Professedly the wall was des- tined to repel the incursions of the Lucanians ; but in reality (we 1 Diodor. xv. 17. he had given to Dionysius the younger, he proceeds to say ITOI/J.OV j ip tlvai, roiiruv -yvofj.vuv, Tro/U) ^u/Uov dovJiuaaadai Kap^rjdoviovf TJ?; eirl feTiUvof avrolf -yevofj.evr]f Sov^,taf, a/l/l' ov%, uairsp vvv roiivdv riov, 6 Tca-rfip aiirov tyopov iru^aro Qepeiv role ftapfta- >toif ,' etc. 3 Diodor. xv. 4.
 * Plato, Epistol. vii. p. 333 A. After reciting the advice which Dion and