Page:Plutarch's Lives (Clough, v.5, 1865).djvu/290

 282 DION. to enjoy the revenues of Gyarta, a large and fruitful ter- ritory belonging to Syracuse, reaching from the sea-side to the middle of the country. Dion rejected these pro- posals, and referred him to the Syracusans. They, hoping in a short time to take Dionysius- alive, dismissed his am- bassadors summarily. But he, leaving his eldest son, Apollocrates, to defend the castle, and putting on board his ships the persons and the property that he set most value upon, took the opportunity of a fair wind, and made his escape, undiscovered by the admiral Heraclides and his fleet. The citizens loudly exclaimed against Heraclides for this neglect; but he got one of their public speakers, Hippo by name, to go among them, and make proposals to the assembly for a redivision of lands, alleging that the first beginning of liberty was equality, and that poverty and slavery were inseparable companions. In support of this, Heraclides spoke, and used the faction in favor of it to overpower Dion, who opposed it ; and, in fine, he persuaded the people to ratify it by their vote, and further to decree, that the foreign soldiers should receive no pay, and that they would elect new com- manders, and so be rid of Dion's oppression. The people, attempting, as it were, after their long sickness of despot- ism, all at once to stand on their legs, and to do the part, for which they were yet unfit, of freemen, stumbled in all their actions ; and yet hated Dion, who, like a good physician, endeavored to keep the city to a strict and temperate regnnen. When they met in the assembly to choose their com- manders, about the middle of summer, unusual and terri- ble thunders, with other inauspicious appearances, for fifteen days together, dispersed the people, deterring them, on grounds of religious fear, from creating new generals. But, at last, the popular leaders, ha^sang found