Of these two enemies, one (the Persian King) was out of reach. But the second—Dionysius—though not present in person, stood forth by his envoys and appurtenances conspicuous even to ostentation, beyond any man on the ground. His Theôry or solemn legation outshone every other by the splendor of its tents and decorations: his chariots to run in the races were magnificent: his horses were of rare excellence, bred from the Venetian stock, imported out of the innermost depths of the Adriatic Gulf:[65] his poems, recited by the best artists in Greece, solicited applause—by excellent delivery and fine choric equipments, if not by superior intrinsic merit. Now the antipathy against Dionysius was not only aggravated by all this display, contrasted with the wretchedness of impoverished exiles whom he had dispossessed—but was also furnished with something to strike at and vent itself upon. Of such opportunity for present action against a visible object, Lysias did not fail to avail himself. While he vehemently preached a crusade to dethrone Dionysius and liberate Sicily, he at the same time pointed to the gold and purple tent before them, rich and proud above all its fellows, which lodged the brother of the despot with his Syracusan legation. He exhorted his hearers to put forth at once an avenging hand, in partial retribution for the sufferings of free Greece, by plundering the tent which insulted them by its showy decorations. He adjured them to interfere and prevent the envoys of this impious despot from sacrificing or entering their chariots in the lists, or taking any part in the holy Pan-hellenic festival.[66]
We cannot doubt that a large proportion of the spectators on the plain of Olympia felt with greater or less intensity the generous Pan-hellenic patriotism and indignation to which Lysias gave utterance. To what extent his hearers acted upon the unbecoming violence of his practical recommendations—how far they actually laid hands on the tents, or tried to hinder the Syracusans from sacrificing, or impeded the bringing out of their chariots for the race—we are unable to say. We are told that some ventured to plunder the tents:[67] how much was effected we do not hear. It is certain that the superintending Eleian authorities would interfere most strenuously to check any such attempt at desecrating the festival, and to protect the Syracusan envoys in their tents, their regular sacrifice, and their chariot-running. And it is farther certain, as far as our account goes, that the Syracusan chariots actually did run on the lists; because they were, though by various accidents, disgracefully unsuccessful, or overturned and broken in pieces.[68]
To any one however who reflects on the Olympic festival, with all its solemnity and its competition for honors of various kinds, it will appear that the mere manifestation of so violent an antipathy, even though restrained from breaking out into act, would be sufficiently galling to the Syracusan envoys. But the case would be far worse, when the poems of Dionysius came to be recited. These were volunteer manifestations, delivered (like the harangue of Lysias) before such persons as chose to come and hear; not comprised in the regular solemnity, nor therefore under any peculiar protection by the Eleian authorities. Dionysius stood forward of his own accord to put himself upon his trial as a poet before the auditors. Here therefore the antipathy against the despot might be manifested by the most unreserved explosions. And when we are told that the badness of the poems[69] caused them to be received with opprobrious ridicule, in spite of the excellence of the recitation, it is easy to see that the hatred intended for the person of Dionysius was discharged upon his verses. Of course the hissers and hooters would make it clearly understood what they really meant, and would indulge in the full license of heaping curses upon his name and acts. Neither the best reciters of Greece, nor the best poems even of Sophokles or Pindar, could have any chance against such predetermined antipathy. And the whole scene would end in the keenest disappointment and humiliation, inflicted upon the Syracusan envoys as well as upon the actors; being the only channel through which the retributive chastisement of Hellas could be made to reach the author.
Though not present in person at Olympia, the despot felt the chastisement in his inmost soul. The mere narrative of what had passed plunged him into an agony of sorrow, which for some time seemed to grow worse by brooding on the scene, and at length drove him nearly mad. He was smitten with intolerable consciousness of the profound hatred borne towards him, even throughout a large portion of the distant and independent Hellenic world. He fancied that this hatred was shared by all around him, and suspected every one as plotting against his life. To such an excess of cruelty did this morbid excitement carry him, that he seized several of his best friends, under false accusations, or surmises, and caused them to be slain.[70] Even his brother Leptinês, and his ancient partisan Philistus, men who had devoted their lives first to his exaltation, and afterwards to his service, did not escape. Having given umbrage to him by an intermarriage between their families made without his privity, both were banished from Syracuse, and retired to Thurii in Italy, where they received that shelter and welcome which Leptinês had peculiarly merited by his conduct in the Lucanian war. The exile of Leptinês did not last longer than (apparently) about a year, after which Dionysius relented, recalled him, and gave him his daughter in marriage. But Philistus remained in banishment more than sixteen years; not returning to Syracuse until after the death of Dionysius the elder, and the accession of Dionysius the younger.[71]
Such was the memorable scene at the Olympic festival of 384 B. C., together with its effect upon the mind of Dionysius. Diodorus, while noticing all the facts, has cast an air of ridicule over them by recognizing nothing except the vexation of Dionysius, at the ill success of his poem, as the cause of his mental suffering; and by referring to the years 388 B. C. and 386 B. C., that which properly belongs to 384 B. C.[72] Now it is improbable, in the first place, that the poem of Dionysius,—himself a man of ability and having every opportunity of profiting by good critics whom he had purposely assembled around him[73]—should have been so ridiculously bad as to disgust an impartial audience: next, it is still more improbable that a simple poetical failure, though doubtless mortifying to him, should work with such fearful effect as to plunge him into anguish and madness. To unnerve thus violently a person like Dionysius—deeply stained with the great crimes of unscrupulous ambition, but remarkably exempt from infirmities—some more powerful cause is required; and that cause stands out conspicuously, when we conceive the full circumstances of the Olympic festival of 384 B. C. He had accumulated for this occasion all the means of showing himself off, like Krœsus in his interview with Solon, as the most prosperous and powerful man in the Hellenic world;[74] means beyond the reach of any contemporary, and surpassing even Hiero or Thero of former days, whose praises in the odes of Pindar he probably had in his mind. He counted, probably with good reason, that his splendid legation, chariots, and outfit of acting and recitation for the poems, would surpass everything else seen on the holy plain; and he fully expected such reward as the public were always glad to bestow on rich men who exhausted their purses in the recognized vein of Hellenic pious ostentation. In this high wrought state of expectation, what does Dionysius hear, by his messengers returning from the festival? That their mission had proved a total failure, and even worse than a failure; that the display had called forth none of the usual admiration, not because there were rivals on the ground equal or superior, but simply because it came from him; that its very magnificence had operated to render the explosion of antipathy against him louder and more violent; that his tents in the sacred ground had been actually assailed, and that access to sacrifice, as well as to the matches, had been secured to him only by the interposition of authority. We learn indeed that his chariots failed in the field by unlucky accidents; but in the existing temper of the crowd, these very accidents would be seized as occasions for derisory cheering against him. To this we must add explosions of hatred, yet more furious, elicited by his poems, putting the reciters to utter shame. At the moment when Dionysius expected to hear the account of an unparalleled triumph, he is thus informed, not merely of disappointment, but of insults to himself, direct and personal, the most poignant ever offered by Greeks to a Greek, amidst the holiest and most frequented ceremony of the Hellenic world.[75] Never in any other case do we read of public antipathy, against an individual, being carried to the pitch of desecrating by violence the majesty of the Olympic festival.
Here then were the real and sufficient causes—not the mere ill-success of his poem—which penetrated the soul of Dionysius, driving him into anguish and temporary madness. Though he had silenced the Vox Populi at Syracuse, not all his mercenaries, ships, and forts in Ortygia, could save him from feeling its force, when thus emphatically poured forth against him by the free-spoken crowd at Olympia.
It was apparently shortly after the peace of 387 B. C., that Dionysius received at Syracuse the visit of the philosopher Plato.[76] The latter—having come to Sicily on a voyage of inquiry and curiosity, especially to see Mount Ætna—was introduced by his friends, the philosophers of Tarentum, to Dion, then a young man, resident at Syracuse, and brother of Aristomachê, the wife of Dionysius. Of Plato and Dion I shall speak more elsewhere: here I notice the philosopher only as illustrating the history and character of Dionysius. Dion, having been profoundly impressed with the conversation of Plato, prevailed upon Dionysius to invite and talk with him also. Plato discoursed eloquently upon justice and virtue, enforcing his doctrine that wicked men were inevitably miserable—that true happiness belonged only to the virtuous—and that despots could not lay claim to the merit of courage.[77] This meagre abstract does not at all enable us to follow the philosopher’s argument. But it is plain that he set forth his general views on social and political subjects with as much freedom and dignity of speech before Dionysius as before any simple citizen; and we are farther told, that the by-standers were greatly captivated by his manner and language. Not so the despot himself. After one or two repetitions of the like discourse, he became not merely averse to the doctrine, but hostile to the person, of Plato. According to the statement of Diodorus, he caused the philosopher to be seized, taken down to the Syracusan slave-market, and there put up for sale as a slave at the price of twenty minæ; which his friends subscribed to pay, and thus released him. According to Plutarch, Plato himself was anxious to depart, and was put by Dion aboard a trireme which was about to convey home the Lacedæmonian envoy Pollis. But Dionysius secretly entreated Pollis to cause him to be slain on the voyage—or at least to sell him as a slave. Plato was accordingly landed at Ægina, and there sold. He was purchased, or repurchased, by Annikeris of Kyrênê, and sent back to Athens. This latter is the more probable story of the two; but it seems to be a certain fact that Plato was really sold, and became for a moment a slave.[78]
That Dionysius should listen to the discourse of Plato with repugnance, not less decided than that which the Emperor Napoleon was wont to show towards ideologists—was an event naturally to be expected. But that, not satisfied with dismissing the philosopher, he should seek to kill, maltreat, or disgrace him, illustrates forcibly the vindictive and irritable elements of his character, and shows how little he was likely to respect the lives of those who stood in his way as political opponents.
Dionysius was at the same time occupied with new constructions, military, civil, and religious, at Syracuse. He enlarged the fortifications of the city by adding a new line of wall, extending along the southern cliff of Epipolæ, from Euryalus to the suburb called Neapolis; which suburb was now, it would appear, surrounded by a separate wall of its own—or perhaps may have been so surrounded a few years earlier, though we know that it was unfortified and open during the attack of Imilkon in 396 B. C.[79] At the time, probably, the fort at the Euryalus was enlarged and completed to the point of grandeur which its present remains indicate. The whole slope of Epipolæ became thus bordered and protected by fortifications, from its base at Achradina to its apex at Euryalus. And Syracuse now comprised five separately fortified portions,—Epipolæ, Neapolis, Tychê, Achradina, and Ortygia; each portion having its own fortification, though the four first were included within the same outer walls. Syracuse thus became the largest fortified city in all Greece; larger even than Athens in its then existing state, though not so large as Athens had been during the Peloponnesian war, while the Phaleric wall was yet standing.
Besides these extensive fortifications, Dionysius also enlarged the docks and arsenals so as to provide accommodation for two hundred men of war. He constructed spacious gymnasia on the banks of the river Anapus, without the city walls; and he further decorated the city with various new temples in honor of different gods.[80]