Page:Plutarch's Lives (Clough, v.5, 1865).djvu/305

 DION-. 297 Now knowing that Heraclides would be his most con- siderable adversary, and that in aU ways he was a turbu- lent, fickle, and factious man, he gave way to some whom formerly he hindered when they designed to kill him, who, breaking in, murdered Heraclides in his own house. His death was much resented by the citizens. Neverthe- less, when Dion made him a splendid funeral, followed the dead body with all his soldiers, and then addressed them, they understood that it would have been impos- sible to have kept the city quiet, as long as Dion and Heraclides were competitors in the government. Dion had a friend called Callippus, an Athenian, who, Plato says, first made acquaintance and afterwards ob- tained familiarity with him, not from any connection vnih his philosophic studies, but on occasion afforded by the celebration of the mysteries, and in the way of ordi- nary society. This man went ^vith him in all his mUitary service, and was in great honor and esteem ; being the first of his friends who marched by his side into Syracuse, wearing a garland upon his head, having behaved him- self very well in all the battles, and made himself re- markable for his gallantry. He, finding that Dion's principal and most considerable friends were cut off in the war, Heraclides now dead, and the people without a leader, and that the soldiers had a great kindness for him, like a perfidious and wicked villain, in hopes to get the chief command of Sicily as his reward for the ruin of his fi'iend aud beuefictor, and, as some say, being also bribed by the enemy with twent}- talents to destroy Dion, inveigled and engaged several of the soldiers in a conspiracy against him, taking this cmming and wicked occasion for his plot. He daily informed Dion of what he heard or what he feigned the soldiers said against him ; whereby he gained that credit and confidence, that he was allowed bj^ Dion to consort privately with whom he would, and talk freely against him in any company, that