Still however the demands of the people were not fully granted, and dissension continued. Not merely the poorer citizens, but also the population of serfs—homogeneous, speaking the same language, and sympathizing with each other, like Helots or Penestæ—when once agitated by the hope of liberty, were with difficulty appeased. The government, though greatly democratized, found itself unable to maintain tranquillity, and invoked assistance from without. Application was made first, to the Athenian Timotheus—next, to the Theban Epaminondas; but neither of them would interfere—nor was there, indeed, any motive to tempt them. At length application was made to the exiled citizen Klearchus.
This exile, now about forty years of age, intelligent, audacious and unprincipled, had passed four years at Athens partly in hearing the lessons of Plato and Isokrates—and had watched with emulous curiosity the brilliant fortune of the despot Dionysius at Syracuse, in whom both these philosophers took interest.[1079] During his banishment, moreover, he had done what was common with Grecian exiles; he had taken service with the enemy of his native city, the neighboring prince Mithridates,[1080] and probably enough against the city itself. As an officer, he distinguished himself much; acquiring renown with the prince and influence over the minds of soldiers. Hence his friends, and a party in Herakleia, became anxious to recall him, as moderator and protector under the grievous political discords prevailing. It was the oligarchical party who invited him to come back, at the head of a body of troops, as their auxiliary in keeping down the plebs. Klearchus accepted their invitation; but with the full purpose of making himself the Dionysius of Herakleia. Obtaining from Mithridates a powerful body of mercenaries, under secret promise to hold the city only as his prefect, he marched thither with the proclaimed purpose of maintaining order, and upholding the government. As his mercenary soldiers were soon found troublesome companions, he obtained permission to construct a separate stronghold in the city, under color of keeping them apart in the stricter discipline of a barrack.[1081] Having thus secured a strong position, he invited Mithridates into the city, to receive the promised possession; but instead of performing this engagement, he detained the prince as prisoner, and only released him on payment of a considerable ransom. He next cheated, still more grossly, the oligarchy who had recalled him; denouncing their past misrule, declaring himself their mortal enemy, and espousing the pretensions as well as the antipathies of the plebs. The latter willingly seconded him in his measures—even extreme measures of cruelty and spoliation—against their political enemies. A large number of the rich were killed, imprisoned, or impoverished and banished; their slaves or serfs, too, were not only manumitted by order of the new despot, but also married to the wives and daughters of the exiles. The most tragical scenes arose out of these forced marriages; many of the women even killed themselves, some after having first killed their new husbands. Among the exiles, a party, driven to despair, procured assistance from without, and tried to obtain by force readmittance into the city; but they were totally defeated by Klearchus, who after this victory became more brutal and unrelenting than ever.[1082]
He was now in irresistible power; despot of the whole city, plebs as well as oligarchy. Such he continued to be for twelve years; during which he displayed great warlike energy against exterior enemies, together with unabated cruelty towards the citizens. He farther indulged in the most overweening insolence of personal demeanor, adopting an Oriental costume and ornaments, and proclaiming himself the son of Zeus—as Alexander the Great did after him. Amidst all these enormities, however, his literary tastes did not forsake him; he collected a library, at that time a very rare possession.[1083] Many were the conspiracies attempted by suffering citizens against this tyrant; but his vigilance baffled and punished all. At length two young men, Chion and Leonidas (they too having been among the hearers of Plato), found an opportunity to stab him at a Dionysiac festival. They, with those who seconded them, were slain by his guards, after a gallant resistance; but Klearchus himself died of the wound, in torture and mental remorse.[1084]
His death unfortunately brought no relief to the Herakleots. The two sons whom he left, Timotheus and Dionysius, were both minors; but his brother Satyrus, administering in their name, grasped the sceptre and continued the despotism, with cruelty not merely undiminished, but even aggravated and sharpened by the past assassination. Not inferior to his predecessor in energy and vigilance, Satyrus was in this respect different, that he was altogether rude and unlettered. Moreover he was rigidly scrupulous in preserving the crown for his brother’s children, as soon as they should be of age. To ensure to them an undisturbed succession, he took every precaution to avoid begetting children of his own by his wife.[1085] After a rule of seven years, Satyrus died of a lingering and painful distemper.
The government of Herakleia now devolved on Timotheus, who exhibited a contrast, alike marked and beneficent, with his father and uncle. Renouncing all their cruelty and constraint, he set at liberty every man whom he found in prison. He was strict in dispensing justice, but mild and even liberal in all his dealings towards the citizens. At the same time, he was a man of adventurous courage, carrying on successful war against foreign enemies, and making his power respected all round. With his younger brother Dionysius, he maintained perfect harmony, treating him as an equal and partner. Though thus using his power generously towards the Herakleots, he was, however, still a despot, and retained the characteristic marks of despotism—the strong citadel, fortified separately from the town, with a commanding mercenary force. After a reign of about nine years, he died, deeply mourned by every one.[1086]
Dionysius, who succeeded him, fell upon unsettled times, full both of hope and fear; opening chances of aggrandizement, yet with many new dangers and uncertainties. The sovereignty which he inherited doubtless included, not simply the city of Herakleia, but also foreign dependencies and possessions in its neighborhood; for his three predecessors[1087] had been all enterprising chiefs, commanding a considerable aggressive force. At the commencement of his reign, indeed, the ascendency of Memnon and the Persian force in the north-western part of Asia Minor was at a higher pitch than ordinary; it appears too that Klearchus—and probably his successors also—had always taken care to keep on the best terms with the Persian court.[1088] But presently came the invasion of Alexander (334 B. C.), with the battle of the Granikus, which totally extinguished the Persian power in Asia Minor, and was followed, after no long interval, by the entire conquest of the Persian empire. The Persian control being now removed from Asia Minor—while Alexander with the great Macedonian force merely passed through it to the east, leaving viceroys behind him—new hopes of independence or aggrandizement began to arise among the native princes in Bithynia, Paphlagonia, and Kappadokia. The Bithynian prince even contended successfully in the field against Kalas, who had been appointed by Alexander as satrap in Phrygia.[1089] The Herakleot Dionysius, on the other hand, enemy by position of these Bithynians, courted the new Macedonian potentates, playing his political game with much skill in every way. He kept his forces well in hand, and his dominions carefully guarded; he ruled in a mild and popular manner, so as to preserve among the Herakleots the same feelings of attachment which had been inspired by his predecessor. While the citizens of the neighboring Sinôpê (as has been already related) sent their envoys to Darius, Dionysius kept his eyes upon Alexander; taking care to establish a footing at Pella, and being peculiarly assiduous in attentions to Alexander’s sister, the princess Kleopatra.[1090] He was the better qualified for this courtly service, as he was a man of elegant and ostentatious tastes, and had purchased from his namesake, the fallen Syracusan Dionysius, all the rich furniture of the Dionysian family, highly available for presents.[1091]
By the favor of Antipater and the regency at Pella, the Herakleotic despot was enabled both to maintain and extend his dominions, until the return of Alexander to Susa and Babylon in 324 B. C. All other authority was now superseded by the personal will of the omnipotent conqueror; who, mistrusting all his delegates—Antipater, the princesses, and the satraps—listened readily to complainants from all quarters, and took particular pride in espousing the pretensions of Grecian exiles. I have already recounted how in June 324 B. C., Alexander promulgated at the Olympic festival a sweeping edict, directing that in every Grecian city the exiles should be restored—by force, if force was required. Among the various Grecian exiles, those from Herakleia were not backward in soliciting his support, to obtain their own restoration, as well as the expulsion of the despot. As they were entitled, along with others, to the benefit of the recent edict, the position of Dionysius became one of extreme danger. He now reaped the full benefit of his antecedent prudence, in having maintained both his popularity with the Herakleots at home, and his influence with Antipater, to whom the enforcement of the edict was entrusted. He was thus enabled to ward off the danger for a time; and his good fortune rescued him from it altogether, by the death of Alexander in June 323 B. C. That event, coming as it did unexpectedly upon every one, filled Dionysius with such extravagant joy, that he fell into a swoon: and he commemorated it by erecting a statue in honor of Euthymia, or the tranquillizing goddess. His position however seemed again precarious, when the Herakleotic exiles renewed their solicitations to Perdikkas: who favored their cause, and might probably have restored them, if he had chosen to direct his march towards the Hellespont against Antipater and Kraterus, instead of undertaking the ill-advised expedition against Egypt, wherein he perished.[1092]
The tide of fortune now turned more than ever in favor of Dionysius. With Antipater and Kraterus, the preponderant potentates in his neighborhood, he was on the best terms; and it happened at this juncture to suit the political views of Kraterus to dismiss his Persian wife Amastris (niece of the late Persian king Darius, and conferred upon Kraterus by Alexander when he himself married Statira), for the purpose of espousing Phila daughter of Antipater. Amastris was given in marriage to Dionysius; for him, a splendid exaltation—attesting the personal influence which he had previously acquired. His new wife, herself a woman of ability and energy, brought to him a large sum from the regal treasure, as well as the means of greatly extending his dominion round Herakleia. Noway corrupted by this good fortune, he still persevered both in his conciliating rule at home, and his prudent alliances abroad, making himself especially useful to Antigonus. That great chief, preponderant throughout most parts of Asia Minor, was establishing his ascendency in Bithynia and the neighborhood of the Propontis, by founding the city of Antigonia in the rich plain adjoining the Askanian Lake.[1093] Dionysius lent effective maritime aid to Antigonus, in that war which ended by his conquest of Cyprus from the Egyptian Ptolemy (307 B. C.) To the other Ptolemy, nephew and general of Antigonus, Dionysius gave his daughter in marriage; and even felt himself powerful enough to assume the title of king, after Antigonus, Lysimachus, and the Egyptian Ptolemy had done the like.[1094] He died, after reigning thirty years with consummate political skill and uninterrupted prosperity—except that during the last few years he lost his health from excessive corpulence.[1095]
Dionysius left three children under age—Klearchus, Oxathres and a daughter—by his wife Amastris; whom he constituted regent, and who, partly through the cordial support of Antigonus, maintained the Herakleotic dominion unimpaired. Presently Lysimachus, king of Thrace and of the Thracian Chersonese (on the isthmus of which he had founded the city of Lysimacheia), coveted this as a valuable alliance, paid his court to Amastris, and married her. The Herakleotic queen thus enjoyed double protection, and was enabled to avoid taking a part in the formidable conflict of Ipsus (300 B. C.); wherein the allies Lysimachus, Kassander, Ptolemy, and Seleukus were victorious over Antigonus. The latter being slain, and his Asiatic power crushed, Lysimachus got possession of Antigonia, the recent foundation of his rival in Bithynia, and changed its name to Nikæa.[1096] After a certain time, however, Lysimachus became desirous of marrying Arsinoê, daughter of the Egyptian Ptolemy; accordingly, Amastris divorced herself from him, and set up for herself separately as regent of Herakleia. Her two sons being now nearly of age, she founded and fortified, for her own residence, the neighboring city of Amastris, about sixty miles eastward of Herakleia on the coast of the Euxine.[1097] These young men, Klearchus and Oxathres, assumed the government of Herakleia, and entered upon various warlike enterprises; of which we know only, that Klearchus accompanied Lysimachus in his expedition against the Getæ, sharing the fate of that prince, who was defeated and taken prisoner. Both afterwards obtained their release, and Klearchus returned to Herakleia; where he ruled in a cruel and oppressive manner, and even committed the enormity (in conjunction with his brother Oxathres) of killing his mother Amastris. This crime was avenged by her former husband Lysimachus; who, coming to Herakleia under professions of friendship (B. C. 286), caused Klearchus and Oxathres to be put to death, seized their treasure, and keeping separate possession of the citadel only, allowed the Herakleots to establish a popular government.[1098]
Lysimachus, however, was soon persuaded by his wife Arsinoê to make over Herakleia to her, as it had been formerly possessed by Amastris; and Arsinoê sent thither a Kymæan officer named Herakleides, who carried with him force sufficient to re-establish the former despotism, with its oppressions and cruelties. For other purposes too, not less mischievous, the influence of Arsinoê was all-powerful. She prevailed upon Lysimachus to kill his eldest son (by a former marriage) Agathokles, a young prince of the most estimable and eminent qualities. Such an atrocity, exciting universal abhorrence among the subjects of Lysimachus, enabled his rival Seleukus to attack him with success. In a great battle fought between these two princes, Lysimachus was defeated and slain—by the hand and javelin of a citizen of Herakleia, named Malakon.[1099]