Page:History of Greece Vol XI.djvu/72

 HISTORY OF GREECE. Athens, one of his tragedies had been rewarded with the first prize. A chorist who had been employed in the performance eager to convey the first intelligence of this success to Syracuse and to obtain the recompense which would naturally await the messenger hastened from Athens to Corinth, found a vesssl just starting for Syracuse, and reached Syracuse by a straight course with the advantage of favorable winds. He was the first to com- municate the news, and received the full reward of his diligence. Dionysius was overjoyed at the distinction conferred upon him ; for though on former occasions he had obtained the second or third place in the Athenian competitions, he had never before been ad- judged worthy of the first prize. Offering sacrifice to the gods for the good news, he invited his friends to a splendid banquet, wherein he indulged in an unusual measure of conviviality. But the joyous excitement, coupled with the effects of the wine, brought on an attack of fever, of which he shortly afterwards died, after a reign of thirty -eight years. 1 Thirty-eight years, of a career so full of effort, adventure, and danger, as that of Dionysius, must have left a constitution suffi- ciently exhausted to give way easily before acute disease. Throughout this long period he had never spared himself. He was a man of restless energy and activity, bodily as well as men- tal ; always personally at the head of his troops in war keep- ing a vigilant eye and a decisive hand upon all the details of hi? government at home yet employing spare time (which Philip of Macedon was surprised that he could find 2 ) in composing trage- dies of his own, to compete for prizes fairly adjudged. His per- sonal bravery was conspicuous, and he was twice severely wounded in leading his soldiers to assault. His effective skill as an ambi- tious politician his military resource as a commander and the long-sighted care with which he provided implements of offence features in his character. The Roman Scipio Africanus was wont to single out Dionysius and Agathokles (the history of the latter begins about fifty years after the death of the former), both of them despots of Syracuse, as the two Greeks of greatest abili- ty for action knovn to him men who combined, in the 1 Diodor. xv. 74. 2 Plutarch, Timolcon, c. 15.
 * is well as of defence before undertaking war, are remarkable