Towards the Syracusans his conduct underwent a material change. The cruelty and oppression which had hitherto marked his dominion was discontinued; he no longer put men to death, or sent them into banishment, with the same merciless hand as before. In place of such tyranny, he now substituted comparative mildness, forbearance, and conciliation.[1008] Where the system had before been so fraught with positive maltreatment to many and alarm to all, the mitigation of it must have been sensibly as well as immediately felt. And when we make present to our minds the relative position of Dionysius and the Syracusans, we shall see that the evil inflicted by his express order by no means represented the whole amount of evil which they suffered. He occupied the impregnable fortress of Ortygia, with the entire harbor, docks, and maritime means of the city. The numerous garrison in his pay, and devoted to him, consisted in great part of barbaric or non-Hellenic soldiers and of liberated slaves, probably also non-Hellenic. The Syracusans resident in the outer city and around were not only destitute of the means of defensive concert and organization, but were also disarmed. For these mercenaries either pay was to be provided from the contributions of the citizens, or lands from their properties; for them, and for other partisans also, Dionysius had enforced spoliations and transfers of land and house-property by wholesale.[1009] Now, while the despot himself was inflicting tyrannical sentences for his own purposes, we may be sure that these men, the indispensable instruments of his tyranny, would neither of themselves be disposed to respect the tranquillity of the other citizens, nor be easily constrained to do so. It was not, therefore, merely from the systematic misrule of the chief that the Syracusans had to suffer, but also from the insolence and unruly appetites of the subordinates. And accordingly they would be doubly gainers, when Dionysius, from anxiety to attack the Carthaginians, thought it prudent to soften the rigor of his own proceedings; since his example, and in case of need his interference, would restrict the license of his own partisans. The desire for foreign conquest made it now his interest to conciliate some measure of goodwill from the Syracusans; or at least to silence antipathies which might become embarrassing if they broke out in the midst of a war. And he had in this case the advantage of resting on another antipathy, powerful and genuine in their minds. Hating as well as fearing Carthage, the Syracusans cordially sympathized in the aggressive schemes of Dionysius against her; which held out a prospect of relief from the tyranny under which they groaned, and some chance of procuring a restoration of the arms snatched from them.[1010]
Towards the Sicilian Greeks, also, the conduct of Dionysius was mainly influenced by his anti-Carthaginian projects, which made him eager to put aside, or at least to defer, all possibilities of war in other quarters. The inhabitants of Rhegium, on the Italian side of the Strait of Messina, had recently manifested a disposition to attack him. They were of common Chalkidic origin with Naxos and Katana, the two cities which Dionysius had recently conquered and enslaved. Sixteen years before, when the powerful Athenian armament visited Sicily with the ostensible view of protecting the Chalkidic cities against Syracuse, the Rhegines in spite of their fellowship of race, had refused the invitation of Nikias[1011] to lend assistance, being then afraid of Athens. But subsequent painful experience had taught them, that to residents in or near Sicily, Syracuse was the more formidable enemy of the two. The ruin of Naxus and Katana, with the great extension of Syracusan dominion northward, had filled them with apprehension from Dionysius, similar to the fears of Carthage, inspired to the Syracusans themselves by the disasters of Agrigentum and Gela. Anxious to revenge their enslaved kinsmen, the Rhegines projected an attack upon Dionysius before his power should become yet more formidable; a resolution, in which they were greatly confirmed by the instigations of the Syracusan exiles (now driven from Ætna and the other neighboring cities to Rhegium), confident in their assurances that insurrection would break out against Dionysius at Syracuse, so soon as any foreign succor should be announced as approaching. Envoys were sent across the strait to Messênê, soliciting coöperation against Dionysius, upon the urgent plea that the ruin of Naxus and Katana could not be passed over, either in generosity or in prudence, by neighbors on either side of the strait. These representations made so much impression on the generals of Messênê, that without consulting the public assembly, they forthwith summoned the military force of the city, and marched along with the Rhegines towards the Syracusan frontier,—six thousand Rhegine and four thousand Messenian hoplites,—six hundred Rhegine and four hundred Messenian horsemen,—with fifty Rhegine triremes. But when they reached the frontiers of the Messenian territory, a large portion of the soldiers refused to follow their generals farther. A citizen named Laomedon headed the opposition, contending that the generals had no authority to declare war without a public vote of the city, and that it was imprudent to attack Dionysius unprovoked. Such was the effect of these remonstrances, that the Messenian soldiers returned back to their city; while the Rhegines, believing themselves to be inadequate to the enterprise single handed, went home also.[1012]
Apprised of the attack meditated, Dionysius had already led his troops to defend the Syracusan frontier. But he now reconducted them back to Syracuse, and listened favorably to propositions for peace which speedily reached him, from Rhegium and Messênê.[1013] He was anxious to conciliate them for the present, at all price, in order that the Carthaginians, when he came to execute his plans, might find no Grecian allies to coöperate with them in Sicily. He acquired an influence in Messênê, by making to the city large concessions of conterminous territory; on which side of the border, or how acquired, we do not know. He farther endeavored to open an intimate connection with Rhegium by marrying a Rhegine wife; with which view he sent a formal message to the citizens, asking permission to contract such an alliance, accompanied with a promise to confer upon them important benefits, both in territorial aggrandizement and in other ways. After a public debate, the Rhegines declined his proposition. The feeling in their city was decidedly hostile to Dionysius, as the recent destroyer of Naxus and Katana; and it appears that some of the speakers expressed themselves with contemptuous asperity, remarking that the daughter of the public executioner was the only fit wife for him.[1014] Taken by itself, the refusal would be sufficiently galling to Dionysius. But when coupled with such insulting remarks (probably made in public debate in the presence of his own envoys, for it seems not credible that the words should have been embodied in the formal reply or resolution of the assembly[1015]), it left the bitterest animosity; a feeling, which we shall hereafter find in full operation.
Refused at Rhegium, Dionysius sent to prefer a similar request, with similar offers, at the neighboring city of Lokri; where it was favorably entertained. It is remarkable that Aristotle comments upon this acquiescence of the Lokrians as an act of grave imprudence, and as dictated only by the anxiety of the principal citizens, in an oligarchical government, to seek for aggrandizement to themselves out of such an alliance. The request would not have been granted (Aristotle observes) either in a democracy or in a well-regulated aristocracy. The marital connection now contracted by Dionysius with a Lokrian female, Doris, the daughter of a citizen of distinction named Xenetus, produced as an ultimate consequence the overthrow of the oligarchy of Lokri.[1016] And even among the Lokrians, the request was not granted without opposition. A citizen named Aristeides (one of the companions of Plato), whose daughter Dionysius had solicited in marriage, returned for answer that he would rather see her dead than united to a despot. In revenge for this bitter reply, Dionysius caused the sons of Aristeides to be put to death.[1017]
But the amicable relations which Dionysius was at so much pains to establish with the Greek cities near the Strait of Messênê, were destined chiefly to leave him free for preparations against Carthage; which preparations he now commenced on a gigantic scale. Efforts so great and varied, combined not merely with forecast but with all the scientific appliances then available, have not hitherto come before us throughout this history. The terrible effect with which Hannibal had recently employed his battering-machines against Selinus and Himera, stimulated Dionysius to provide himself with the like implements in greater abundance than any Greek general had ever before possessed. He collected at Syracuse, partly by constraint, partly by allurement, all the best engineers, mechanists, armorers, artisans, etc., whom Sicily or Italy could furnish. He set them upon the construction of machines and other muniments of war, and upon the manufacture of arms offensive as well as defensive, with the greatest possible assiduity. The arms provided were of great variety; not merely such as were suitable for Grecian soldiers, heavy or light, but also such as were in use among the different barbaric tribes around the Mediterranean, Gauls, Iberians, Tyrrhenians, etc., from whom Dionysius intended to hire mercenaries; so that every different soldier would be furnished, on arriving, with the sort of weapon which had become habitual to him. All Syracuse became a bustling military workshop,—not only the market-places, porticos, palæstræ, and large private houses, but also the fore-chambers and back-chambers of the various temples. Dionysius distributed the busy multitude into convenient divisions, each with some eminent citizen as superintendent. Visiting them in person frequently, and reviewing their progress, he recompensed largely, and invited to his table, those who produced the greatest amount of finished work. As he farther offered premiums for inventive skill, the competition of ingenious mechanists originated several valuable warlike novelties; especially the great projectile engine for stones and darts, called Catapulta, which was now for the first time devised. We are told that the shields fabricated during this season of assiduous preparation were not less than one hundred and forty thousand in number, and the breast-plates fourteen thousand, many of them unrivalled in workmanship, destined for the body-guard and the officers. Helmets, spears, daggers, etc., with other arms and weapons in indefinite variety, were multiplied in corresponding proportion.[1018] The magazines of arms, missiles, machines, and muniments of war in every variety, accumulated in Ortygia, continued stupendous in amount through the whole life of Dionysius, and even down to the downfall of his son.[1019]
If the preparations for land-warfare were thus stupendous, those for sea-warfare were fully equal, if not superior. The docks of Syracuse were filled with the best ship-builders, carpenters, and artisans; numerous wood-cutters were sent to cut ship-timber on the well-clothed slopes of Ætna and the Calabrian Apennines; teams of oxen were then provided to drag it to the coast, from whence it was towed in rafts to Syracuse. The existing naval establishment of Syracuse comprised one hundred and ten triremes; the existing docks contained one hundred and fifty ship-houses, or covered slips for the purpose either of building or housing a trireme. But this was very inadequate to the conceptions of Dionysius, who forthwith undertook the construction of one hundred and sixty new ship-houses, each competent to hold two vessels,—and then commenced the building of new ships of war to the number of two hundred; while he at the same time put all the existing vessels and docks into the best state of repair. Here too, as in the case of the catapulta, the ingenuity of his architects enabled him to stand forth as a maritime inventor. As yet, the largest ship of war which had ever moved on the Grecian or Mediterranean waters, was the trireme, which was rowed by three banks or tiers of oars. It was now three centuries since the first trireme had been constructed at Corinth and Samos by the inventive skill of the Corinthian Ameinokles:[1020] it was not until the period succeeding the Persian invasion that even triremes had become extensively employed; nor had any larger vessels ever been thought of. The Athenians, who during the interval between the Persian invasion and their great disaster at Syracuse had stood preëminent and set the fashion in all nautical matters, were under no inducement to build above the size of the trireme. As their style of manœuvring consisted of rapid evolutions and changes in the ship’s direction, for the purpose of striking the weak parts of an enemy’s ship with the beak of their own,—so, if the size of their ship had been increased, her capacity for such nimble turns and movements would have been diminished. But the Syracusans had made no attempt to copy the rapid evolutions of the Athenian navy. On the contrary, when fighting against the latter in the confined harbor of Syracuse,[1021] they had found every advantage in their massive build of ships, and straightforward impact of bow driven against bow. For them, the larger ships were the more suitable and efficient; so that Dionysius or his naval architects, full of ambitious aspirations, now struck out the plan of building ships of war with four or five banks of oars instead of three; that is, quadriremes, or quinqueremes, instead of triremes.[1022] Not only did the Syracusan despot thus equip a naval force equal in number of ships to Athens in her best days; but he also exhibited ships larger than Athens had ever possessed, or than Greece had ever conceived.
In all these offensive preparations against Carthage, as in the previous defences on Epipolæ, the spontaneous impulse of the Syracusans generally went hand in hand with Dionysius.[1023] Their sympathy and concurrence greatly promoted the success of his efforts, for this immense equipment against the common enemy. Even with all this sympathy, indeed, we are at a loss to understand, nor are we at all informed, how he found money to meet so prodigious an outlay.
After the material means for war had thus been completed,—an operation which can hardly have occupied less than two or three years,—it remained to levy men. On this point, the ideas of Dionysius were not less aspiring. Besides his own numerous standing force, he enlisted all the most effective among the Syracusan citizens, as well as from the cities in his dependency. He sent friendly addresses, and tried to acquire popularity, among the general body of Greeks throughout the island. Of his large fleet, one-half was manned with Syracusan rowers, marines, and officers; the other half with seamen enlisted from abroad. He farther sent envoys both to Italy and to Peloponnesus to obtain auxiliaries, with offers of the most liberal pay. From Sparta, now at the height of her power, and courting his alliance as a means of perpetuity to her own empire, he received such warm encouragement, that he was enabled to enlist no inconsiderable numbers in Peloponnesus; while many barbaric or non-Hellenic soldiers from the western regions near the Mediterranean were hired also.[1024] He at length succeeded, to his satisfaction, in collecting an aggregate army, formidable not less from numbers and bravery, than from elaborate and diversified equipment. His large and well-stocked armory (already noticed) enabled him to furnish each newly-arrived soldier, from all the different nations, with native and appropriate weapons.[1025]
When all his preparations were thus complete, his last step was to celebrate his nuptials, a few days previous to the active commencement of the war. He married, at one and the same time, two wives,—the Lokrian Doris (already mentioned), and a Syracusan woman named Aristomachê, daughter of his partisan Hipparinus (and sister of Dion, respecting whom much will occur hereafter). The first use made of one among his newly-invented quinquereme vessels, was to sail to Lokri, decked out in the richest ornaments of gold and silver, for the purpose of conveying Doris in state to Ortygia. Aristomachê was also brought to his house in a splendid chariot with four white horses.[1026] He celebrated his nuptials with both of them in his house on the same day; no one knew which bedchamber he visited first; and both of them continued constantly to live with him at the same table, with equal dignity, for many years. He had three children by Doris, the eldest of whom was Dionysius the Younger; and four by Aristomachê; but the latter was for a considerable time childless; which greatly chagrined Dionysius. Ascribing her barrenness to magical incantations, he put to death the mother of his other wife Doris, as the alleged worker of these mischievous influences.[1027] It was the rumor at Syracuse that Aristomachê was the most beloved of the two. But Dionysius treated both of them well, and both of them equally; moreover his son by Doris succeeded him, though he had two sons by the other. His nuptials were celebrated with banquets and festive recreations, wherein all the Syracusan citizens as well as the soldiers partook. The scene was probably the more grateful to Dionysius, as he seems at this moment, when every man’s mind was full of vindictive impulse and expected victory against Carthage, to have enjoyed a real short-lived popularity, and to have been able to move freely among the people; without that fear of assassination which habitually tormented his life even in his inmost privacy and bedchamber—and that extremity of suspicion which did not except either his wives or his daughters.[1028]
After a few days devoted to such fellowship and festivity, Dionysius convoked a public assembly, for the purpose of formally announcing the intended war. He reminded the Syracusans that the Carthaginians were common enemies to Greeks in general, but most of all to the Sicilian Greeks—as recent events but too plainly testified. He appealed to their generous sympathies on behalf of the five Hellenic cities, in the southern part of the island, which had lately undergone the miseries of capture by the generals of Carthage, and were still groaning under her yoke. Nothing prevented Carthage (he added) from attempting to extend her dominion over the rest of the island, except the pestilence under which she had herself been suffering in Africa. To the Syracusans this ought to be an imperative stimulus for attacking her at once, and rescuing their Hellenic brethren, before she had time to recover.[1029]