It is not surprising that a ruler who cherished such tastes should have reckoned a library among the ornaments which were to make Syracuse the most splendid among Greek cities. In his Athenian guest he believed himself to have found a competent agent for carrying this purpose into effect; and Callias was in truth a well educated person who knew what books were worth buying. He was well acquainted with the literature of his own country and had a fairly competent knowledge of what had been produced elsewhere in Greece. For the next three years it was his employment, and one, on the whole not uncongenial to his tastes, to collect volumes for Dionysius. In Sicily there was little culture, but the Greek cities of Italy furnished a more fertile field. There was not indeed much in the way of belles-lettres. Works of this kind had to be imported for the most part, either from Athens, or from Lesbos, where the traditions of the school of Sappho and Alcæus were not extinct, but books on philosophy and science, could be secured in considerable numbers. At Crotona, for instance, Callias was fortunate enough to secure a valuable scientific library which had been for some years in the family of Democedes, while at Tarentum he purchased a handsome collection of treatises by teachers of the school of Pythagoras.
This occupation was varied in the second year of his residence by an interesting mission to Rome. That city, the rising greatness of which so keen an observer as Dionysius was able to discern, was at this time sorely distressed by a visitation of famine, and had applied far and wide for help. The harvests of Sicily had been remarkably abundant, and Dionysius sent a magnificent present of a hundred thousand bushels of wheat, putting Callias in charge of the mission.
In spite of these honorable and not distasteful employments the young Athenian did not greatly like his position. It would indeed have been scarcely endurable to a soul that had been reared in an atmosphere of liberty, but for the fact that his work took him much away from Syracuse. Dionysius was all courtesy and generosity in his dealings with him; but he was a tyrant; there was iron under his velvet glove. It was therefore with a considerable feeling of relief that in the early spring of the third (or according to classical reckoning) the fourth year after the fall of Athens, he received a missive from Xenophon couched in the following terms.[67]
“Meet me at Tarsus with all the speed you can. Great things lie before us, of which you will hear more at the proper time. Farewell.”
Leave of absence was obtained with some difficulty, and towards the end of June, Callias found himself at the appointed place.
CHAPTER XXI.
CYRUS THE YOUNGER.
Almost the first person that the Athenian saw when he disembarked at Tarsus was Xenophon. The latter was evidently in the highest spirits.
“You are come at exactly the right moment,” he cried. “All is going well; but, three days ago, I should have said that all would end badly. Cyrus and Clearchus have thrown for great stakes, and they have won; but at first the dice were against them. But I forget; you know nothing of what happened. I will explain. You know something about Cyrus, the Great King’s brother?”