In order that the voting of any public assembly shall be really available as a protection to the people, its votes must not only be preceded by full and free discussion, but must also be open from time to time to rediscussion and correction. That error will from time to time be committed, as well by the collective people as by particular fractions of the people, is certain; opportunity for amendment is essential. A vote which is understood to be final, and never afterwards to be corrigible, is one which can hardly turn to the benefit of the people themselves, though it may often, as in the case of Dionysius, promote the sinister purposes of some designing protector.
CHAPTER LXXXII.
SICILY DURING THE DESPOTISM OF THE ELDER DIONYSIUS AT SYRACUSE.
The proceedings, recounted at the close of my last chapter, whereby Dionysius erected his despotism, can hardly have occupied less than three months; coinciding nearly with the first months of 405 B.C., inasmuch as Agrigentum was taken about the winter solstice of 406 B.C.[960] He was not molested during this period by the Carthaginians, who were kept inactive in quarters at Agrigentum, to repose after the hardships of the blockade; employed in despoiling the city of its movable ornaments, for transmission to Carthage, and in burning or defacing, with barbarous antipathy, such as could not be carried away.[961] In the spring Imilkon moved forward towards Gela, having provided himself with fresh siege-machines, and ensured his supplies from the Carthaginian territory in his rear. Finding no army to oppose him, he spread his troops over the territory both of Gela and of Kamarina, where much plunder was collected and much property ruined. He then returned to attack Gela, and established a fortified camp by clearing some plantation-ground near the river of the same name, between the city and the sea. On this spot stood, without the walls, a colossal statue of Apollo, which Imilkon caused to be carried off and sent as a present to Tyre.
Gela was at this moment defended only by its own citizens, for Dionysius had called away Dexippus with the mercenary troops. Alarmed at the approach of the formidable enemy who had already mastered Agrigentum, Himera, and Selinus,—the Geloans despatched pressing entreaties to Dionysius for aid; at the same time resolving to send away their women and children for safety to Syracuse. But the women, to whom the idea of separation was intolerable, supplicated so earnestly to be allowed to stay and share the fortunes of their fathers and husbands, that this resolution was abandoned. In expectation of speedy relief from Dionysius, the defence was brave and energetic. While parties of the Geloans, well-acquainted with the country, sallied out and acted with great partial success against the Carthaginian plunderers,—the mass of the citizens repelled the assaults of Imilkon against the walls. His battering-machines and storming-parties were brought to bear on several places at once; the walls themselves,—being neither in so good a condition, nor placed upon so unassailable an eminence, as those of Agrigentum,—gave way on more than one point. Yet still the besieged, with obstinate valor, frustrated every attempt to penetrate within; reëstablishing during the night the breaches which had been made during the day. The feebler part of their population aided, by every means in their power, the warriors on the battlements; so the defence was thus made good until Dionysius appeared with the long-expected reinforcement. It comprised his newly-levied mercenaries, with the Syracusan citizens, and succors from the Italian as well as from the Sicilian Greeks; amounting in all to fifty thousand men, according to Ephorus,—to thirty thousand foot, and one thousand horse, as Timæus represented. A fleet of fifty ships of war sailed round Cape Pachynus to coöperate with them off Gela.[962]
Dionysius fixed his position between Gela and the sea, opposite to that of the Carthaginians, and in immediate communication with his fleet. His presence having suspended the assaults upon the town, he became in his turn the aggressor; employing both his cavalry and his fleet to harass the Carthaginians and intercept their supplies. The contest now assumed a character nearly the same as had taken place before Agrigentum, and which had ended so unfavorably to the Greeks. At length, after twenty days of such desultory warfare, Dionysius, finding that he had accomplished little, laid his plan for a direct attack upon the Carthaginian camp. On the side towards the sea, as no danger had been expected, that camp was unfortified; it was there, accordingly, that Dionysius resolved to make his principal attack with his left division, consisting principally of Italiot Greeks, sustained by the Syracusan ships, who were to attack simultaneously from seaward. He designed at the same time also to strike blows from two other points. His right division, consisting of Sicilian allies, was ordered to march on the right or western side of the town of Gela, and thus fall upon the left of the Carthaginian camp; while he himself, with the mercenary troops which he kept specially around him, intended to advance through the town itself, and assail the advanced or central portion of their position near the walls, where their battering-machinery was posted. His cavalry were directed to hold themselves in reserve for pursuit, in case the attack proved successful; or for protection to the retreating infantry, in case it failed.[963]
Of this combined scheme, the attack upon the left or seaward side of the Carthaginian camp, by the Italiot division and the fleet in concert, was effectively executed, and promised at first to be successful. The assailants overthrew the bulwarks, forced their way into the camp, and were only driven out by extraordinary efforts on the part of the defenders; chiefly Iberians and Campanians, but reinforced from the other portions of the army, which were as yet unmolested. But of the two other divisions of Dionysius, the right did not attack until long after the moment intended, and the centre never attacked at all. The right had to make a circuitous march, over the Geloan plain round the city, which occupied longer time than had been calculated; while Dionysius with the mercenaries around him, intending to march through the city, found themselves so obstructed and embarrassed that they made very slow progress, and were yet longer before they could emerge on the Carthaginian side. Probably the streets, as in so many other ancient towns, were crooked, narrow, and irregular; perhaps also, farther blocked up by precautions recently taken for defence. And thus the Sicilians on the right, not coming up to the attack until the Italians on the left had been already repulsed, were compelled to retreat, after a brave struggle, by the concurrent force of the main Carthaginian army. Dionysius and his mercenaries, coming up later still, found that the moment for attack had passed altogether, and returned back into the city without fighting at all.
Whether the plan or the execution was here at fault,—or both the one and the other,—we are unable certainly to determine. There will appear reasons for suspecting, that Dionysius was not displeased at a repulse which should discourage his army, and furnish an excuse for abandoning Gela. After retiring again within the walls, he called together his principal friends to consult what was best to be done. All were of opinion that it was imprudent to incur farther hazard for the preservation of the town. Dionysius now found himself in the same position as Diokles after the defeat near Himera, and as Daphnæus and the other Syracusan generals before Agrigentum, after the capture of their provision-fleet by the Carthaginians. He felt constrained to abandon Gela, taking the best means in his power for protecting the escape of the inhabitants. Accordingly, to keep the intention of flight secret, he sent a herald to Imilkon to solicit a burial-truce for the ensuing day; he also set apart a body of two thousand light troops, with orders to make noises in front of the enemy throughout the whole night, and to keep the lights and fires burning, so as to prevent any suspicion on the part of the Carthaginians.[964] Under cover of these precautions, he caused the Geloan population to evacuate their city in mass at the commencement of night, while he himself with his main army followed at midnight to protect them. All hurried forward on their march to Syracuse, turning to best account the hours of darkness. On their way thither lay Kamarina,—Kamarina the immovable,[965] as it was pronounced by an ancient oracle or legend, yet on that fatal night seeming to falsify the epithet. Not thinking himself competent to defend this city, Dionysius forced all the Kamarinæan population to become partners in the flight of the Geloans. The same heart-rending scene, which has already been recounted at Agrigentum and Himera, was now seen repeated on the road from Gela to Syracuse: a fugitive multitude, of all ages and of both sexes, free as well as slave, destitute and terror-stricken, hurrying they knew not whither, to get beyond the reach of a merciless enemy. The flight to Syracuse, however, was fortunately not molested by any pursuit. At daybreak the Carthaginians, discovering the abandonment of the city, immediately rushed in and took possession of it. As very little of the valuable property within it had been removed, a rich plunder fell into the hands of the conquering host, whose barbarous hands massacred indiscriminately the miserable remnant left behind: old men, sick, and children, unable to accompany a flight so sudden and so rapid. Some of the conquerors farther satiated their ferocious instincts by crucifying or mutilating these unhappy prisoners.[966]
Amidst the sufferings of this distressed multitude, however, and the compassion of the protecting army, other feelings also were powerfully aroused. Dionysius, who had been so unmeasured and so effective in calumniating unsuccessful generals before, was now himself exposed to the same arrows. Fierce were the bursts of wrath and hatred against him, both among the fugitives and among the army. He was accused of having betrayed to the Carthaginians, not only the army, but also Gela and Kamarina, in order that the Syracusans, intimidated by these formidable neighbors so close to their borders, might remain in patient servitude under his dominion. It was remarked that his achievements for the relief of Gela had been unworthy of the large force which he brought with him; that the loss sustained in the recent battle had been nowise sufficient to compel, or even to excuse, a disgraceful flight; that the mercenaries, especially, the force upon which he most relied, had not only sustained no loss, but had never been brought into action; that while his measures taken against the enemy had thus been partial and inefficient, they on their side had manifested no disposition to pursue him in his flight,—thus affording a strong presumption of connivance between them. Dionysius was denounced as a traitor by all,—except his own mercenaries, whom he always kept near him for security. The Italiot allies, who had made the attack and sustained the main loss during the recent battle, were so incensed against him for having left them thus unsupported, that they retired in a body, and marched across the centre of the island home to Italy.
But the Syracusans in the army, especially the horsemen, the principal persons in the city, had a double ground of anger against Dionysius; partly from his misconduct or supposed treachery in this recent enterprise, but still more from the despotism which he had just erected over his fellow-citizens. This despotism, having been commenced in gross fraud and consummated by violence, was now deprived of the only plausible color which it had ever worn, since Dionysius had been just as disgracefully unsuccessful against the Carthaginians as those other generals whom he had denounced and superseded. Determined to rid themselves of one whom they hated at once as a despot and as a traitor, the Syracusan horsemen watched for an opportunity of setting upon Dionysius during the retreat, and killing him. But finding him too carefully guarded by the mercenaries who always surrounded his person, they went off in a body, and rode at their best speed to Syracuse, with the full purpose of reëstablishing the freedom of the city, and keeping out Dionysius. As they arrived before any tidings had been received of the defeat and flight at Gela, they obtained admission without impediment into the islet of Ortygia; the primitive interior city, commanding the docks and harbor, set apart by the despot for his own residence and power. They immediately assaulted and plundered the house of Dionysius, which they found richly stocked with gold, silver, and valuables of every kind. He had been despot but a few weeks; so that he must have begun betimes to despoil others, since it seems ascertained that his own private property was by no means large. The assailants not only plundered his house with all its interior wealth, but also maltreated his wife so brutally that she afterwards died of the outrage.[967] Against this unfortunate woman they probably cherished a double antipathy, not only as the wife of Dionysius, but also as the daughter of Hermokrates. They at the same time spread abroad the news that Dionysius had fled never to return; for they fully confided in the disruption which they had witnessed among the retiring army, and in the fierce wrath which they had heard universally expressed against him.[968] After having betrayed his army, together with Gela and Kamarina, to the Carthaginians, by a flight without any real ground of necessity (they asserted),—he had been exposed, disgraced, and forced to flee in reality, before the just displeasure of his own awakened fellow-citizens. Syracuse was now free; and might, on the morrow, reconstitute formally her popular government.