Page:History of Greece Vol XI.djvu/92

 06 HISTORY OF GREECE. chitectmal monuments, too grand to be peimanent, 1 immediately outside of Ortygia, near the RegaJ Gates leading to that ciladel. Among the popular measures, natural at the commencement of a new reign, the historian Philistus was recalled from exile. 2 He had been one of the oldest and most attached partisans of the el- der Dionysius ; by whom, however, he had at last been banished, and never afterwards forgiven. His recall now seemed to prom ise a new and valuable assistant to the younger, whom it also pre- sented as softening the rigorous proceedings of his father. In this respect, it would harmonize with the views of Dion, though Phi- listus afterwards became his great opponent. Dion was now both the prime minister, and the confiden- tial monitor, of the young Dionysius. He upheld the march of the government with undiminished energy, and was of greater political importance than Dionysius himself. But success in this 1 Tacitus, Histor. ii. 49. " Othoni scpulcrum exstructum est, modicum, et mansurum." A person named Timseus was immortalized as the constructor of the funeral pile: see Athenseus, v. p. 206. Both Giiller (Timoei Fragm. 95} and M. Didot (Timsci Fr. 126) have referred this passage to Timaeus the historian, and have supposed it to relate to the description given by Timseua of the funeral-pile. But the passage in Athenseus seems to me to indicate Timaeus as the builder, not the describer, of this famous irvpu. It is he who is meant, probably, in the passage of Cicero (De NaturA Deor. iii. 35) (Dionysius) "in sno lectulo mortuus in Tympanidis rogum Hiatus es/,eamque potestatem quam ipse per scclus erat nactus, quasi justam et legitimam hereditatis loco filio tradidit." This seems at least the best way of explaining a passage which perplexes the editors : see the note of Davis. sent that Philistus was recalled at the persuasion of the enemies of Dion, as a counterpoise and corrective to the ascendency of the latter over Dio- nysius the younger. Though Philistus afterwards actually performed this part, I doubt whether such was the motire which caused him to be recalled, lie seems to have come back before the obsequies of Dionysius the elder ; that is, very early after the commencement of the new reign. Philistus had described, in his history, these obsequies in a manner so elaborate and copious, that this passage in his work excited the special notice of tho ancient critics (see Philisti Fragment. 42, ed. Didot ; Plutarch, Pelopidas, c. 34). I venture to think that this proves him to have betn present at the obsequies ; which would of course be very impressive to him, since thej were among the first things which he saw after his long exile.
 * Plutarch (De Exilio. p. 637) and Cornelius Nepos (Dion, c. 3) repre-