“Very pretty indeed. I have something very like it of my own. Would you like to hear it?”
Callias of course politely assented and expressed as much admiration as his conscience permitted, possibly a little more, for the composition was vapid and clumsy.
But though Dionysius was an indifferent composer, he had really a very strong interest in literary matters. Personal vanity had something to do with it, for he was fully convinced of his own abilities in this way; but he had a genuine pleasure in talking on the subject. This was indeed the first of many conversations which the young Athenian had with him. Politics were never mentioned again, but poetry, the drama, indeed every kind of literary work, supplied topics of unfailing interest. The drama was, perhaps, the despot’s favorite topic. He had received not long before Callias’ arrival, a copy of the play which was described in my first chapter, and was never tired of asking questions about various points of interest in it. It soon became evident that his special ambition lay in this direction.
“So, now that your two great men are gone,” he said to the young Athenian, “you have no man of really the first rank among your dramatists?”
“I should say not,” replied Callias. “Some think well of Iophon, who is the son of Sophocles. Others say that he would be nothing without his father. They declare that the old man helped him when he was alive, and that what he has brought out since his father’s death is really not his own.”
“Well,” said Dionysius, “the stock will be exhausted before long. And there is no one, you say, besides him?”
“No one, certainly of any reputation.”
“Then there would be a chance for an outsider? But would a dramatist that was not an Athenian be allowed to exhibit?”
“I know nothing to the contrary. But I do not know that there has ever been a case. Anyhow it would be easy to exhibit in the name of a citizen.”
“An excellent idea! I shall certainly manage it somehow. The first prize at your festival would be almost as well worth having as the tyranny itself.”[66]