jects, military expeditions, and glorious exploits, to which the hopes of riches and plunder would be annexed. He conceived this to be also the means of acquiring the affection of his troops: and that the esteem of the people would be a consequence of the grandeur and success of his enterprises.

Dionysius wanted neither courage or policy, and had all the qualities of a great general. He took, either by force or fraud, Naxos, Catana, Leontium, Ætna, and Enna, towns in the neighbourhood of Syracuse, which for that reason were very convenient to his purposes. Some of them he treated with favour and clemency, to engage the esteem and confidence of the people: others he plundered, to strike terror into the country. The inhabitants of Leontium were transplanted to Syracuse.

These conquests alarmed the neighbouring cities, which saw themselves threatened with the same misfortune. Rhegium, situated upon the opposite coast of the strait which divides Sicily from Italy, prepared to prevent it, and entered into an alliance with the Syracusan exiles, who were very numerous, and with the Messenians on the Sicilian side of the strait, who were to aid them with a powerful supply. They had levied a considerable army, and were on the point of marching against the tyrant, when discord arose among the troops, and rendered the enterprise abortive. It terminated in a treaty of peace and alliance between Dionysius and the two cities.

He had long revolved in his mind a great design, which was to run the Carthaginian power in Sicily, a great obstacle to his own, as his discontented subjects never failed of refuge in the towns dependent upon that nation. The accident of the plague, which had lately ravaged Carthage, and extremely diminished its strength, seemed to present a favourable opportunity for the execution of his design. But as a man of ability, he knew, that to ensure suc cess, the greatness of the preparations should correspond with the magnitude of the enterprise, and he applied himself to them in a manner which shows the extent of his views, and extraordinary capacity. He therefore used uncommon pains and application for that purpose; conscious that the war, into which he was entering with one of the most powerful nations then in the world, might be of long duration, and be attended with various success.

His first care was to bring to Syracuse, as well from the conquered cities in Sicily, as from Greece, and Italy, a great number of artisans and workmen of all kinds, whom he induced to come thither by the offer of great gain and reward, the certain means of engaging the most excellent persons in every profession. He caused an infinite number of every kind of arms to be made swords, javelins, lances, partisans, helmets, cuirasses, and bucklers; all after the manner of the nation by whom they were to be worn. He built also a great number of galleys, that had from three to five benches of oars and were of an entirely new construction, with an adequate number of barks and other vessels for the transportation of troops and provisions.

The whole city seemed but one workshop, and continually resounded with the noise of the several artisans. Not only the porches, piazzas, porticoes places of exercise, and public places, but private houses of any extent, were full of workmen. Dionysius had distributed them with admirable order. Each class of artists, separated by streets and districts, had its overseers and inspectors, who, by their presence and direction, promoted and completed the works. Dionysius himself was perpetually among the workmen, encouraging them with praise and rewarding their merit. He knew how to confer different marks of honour upon them, according as they distinguished themselves by their ingenuity and application. He would even make some of them dine at his own table, where he entertained them with the freedom and kindness of a friend. It is justly said, that honour nourishes arts and sciences, and that men of all ranks and conditions are animated by the love of glory.* The prince who knows how to put in motion, under proper regulatic a, the two great springs

Honos alit artes, omnesque incenduntur ad studia gloriæ.-Cic, Tuse. Qucast - 1 n. 4.

and strongest incentives of the human soul, interest and glory, will soon make all arts and sciences flourish in his kingdom, and fill it at small expense with persons who excel in every profession. This was now the case at Syracuse; where a single person of great ability in the art of governing, excited such ardour and emulation among the artificers, as is not easy to imagine or describe. Dionysius applied himself more particularly to the navy. He knew that Corinth had invented the art of building galleys with three and five benches of oars, and was ambitious of acquiring for Syracuse, a Corinthian colony, the glory of bringing that art to perfection, which he effected. The timber for building his galleys was brought, part of it from Italy, where it was drawn on carriages to the sea-side, and from thence shipped to Syracuse; and part from mount Etna, which at that time produced abundance of pine and fir trees. In a short time a fleet of two hundred galleys was seen in a manner to rise out of the sea; and a hundred others formerly built were refitted by his order. He caused also one hundred and sixty sheds to be erected within the great port, each of them capable of containing two galleys, and one hundred and fifty more to be repaired.

The sight of such a fleet, built in so short a time, and fitted out with so much magnificence, would have given reason to believe that all Sicily had united its labours and revenues in accomplishing so great a work. On the other side, the view of such an incredible quantity of arms newly made, would have inclined one to think, that Dionysius had solely employed himself in providing them, and had exhausted his treasures in the expense. They consisted of one hundred and forty thousand shields, and as many helmets and swords; and upwards of fourteen thousand cuirasses, finished with all the art and elegance imaginable. These were intended for the horse, for the tribunes and centurions of the foot, and for the foreign troops, who had the guard of his person. Darts, arrows, and lances, were innumerable; and engines and machines of war, in proportion to the rest of the preparations.

The fleet was to be manned by an equal number of citizens and strangers. Dionysius did not think of raising troops till all his preparations were complete. Syracuse and the cities dependent on it supplied him with part of his forces. Many came from Greece, especially from Sparta. The considerable pay he offered, brought soldiers in crowds from all parts to enlist in his service. He omitted none of the precautions necessary to the success of his enterprise, the importance as well as difficulty of which was well known to him. He was not ignorant that every thing depends upon the zeal and affection of the troops for their general, and applied himself particularly to the gaining of the hearts, not of his own subjects only, but of all the inhabitants of Sicily, and succeeded in it wonderfully. He had entirely changed his behaviour for some time. Kindness, courtesy, clemency, a disposition to do good, and an insinuating complacency towards all, had taken place of that haughty and imperious air, and cruel disposition, which had rendered him so odious He was so entirely altered, that he did not seem to be the same man.

While he was lastening his preparations for the war, and striving to attain the affections of his subjects, he meditated an alliance with the two powerful cities, Rhegium and Messina, which were capable of disconcerting his great designs by a formidable diversion. The league formed by those cities some time before, though without any effect, gave him some uneasiness. He therefore thought it necessary to make sure of the amity of both. He presented the in habitants of Messina with a considerable quantity of land, which was situated in their neighbourhood, and lay very commodiously for them. To give the people of Rhegium an instance of his esteem and regard for them, he sent ambassadors to desire that they would give him one of their citizens in marriage. He had lost his first wife in the popular commotion, as before related Dionysius, sensible that nothing establishes a throne more effectually than the prospect of a successor who may enter into the same designs, have the same interests, pursue the same plan, and observe the same maxims of govern

ment, took the opportunity of the present tranquillity of his affairs, to contract a double marriage, in order to have a successor, to whom he might transfer the Sovereignty, which had cost him so much pains and dangers to acquire.

The people of Rhegium, to whom Dionysius had first applied, having called a counsel to take his demand into consideration, came to a resolution not to contract any alliance with a tyrant; and for their final answer returned, that they had only the hangman's daughter to give him. The raillery went home and cut deep. We shall see in the sequel how dear that city paid for their jest. The Locrians, to whom Dionysius sent the same ambassadors, did not show themselves so difficult and delicate, but sent him Doris for a wife, who was the daughter of one of their most illustrious citizens. He caused her to be brought from Locris in a galley with five benches of oars, of extraordinary magnificence, and glittering on all sides with gold and silver. He married, at the same time, Aristomache, daughter of Hipparinus, the most considerable and powerful of the Syracusan citizens, and sister of Dion, of whom much will be said hereafter. She was brought to his palace in a chariot drawn by four white horses, which was then a singular mark of distinction. The nuptials of both were celebrated the same day with universal rejoicings throughout the whole city, and was attended with feasts and presents of incredible magnificence. It was contrary to the manners and universal custom of the western nations, from all antiquity, that he espoused two wives at once; taking in this, as in every thing else, the liberty assumed by tyrants of setting themselves above all laws.

Dionysius seemed to have an equal affection for the two wives, without giving the preference to either, to remove all cause of jealousy and discord. The people of Syracuse reported, that he preferred his own country-woman to the stranger; but the latter had the good fortune to bring her husband the first son, which supported him not a little against the cabals and intrigues of the Syracusans. Aristomache was a long time without any symptoms of child-bearing; though Dionysius desired so earnestly to have issue by her, that he put the mother of his Locrian wife to death, accusing her of hindering Aristomache from conceiving by witchcraft.

Aristomache's brother was the celebrated Dion, in great estimation with Dionysius. He was at first obliged for his credit to his sister's favour; but after distinguishing his great capacity in many instances, his own merit made him much beloved and regarded by the tyrant. Among other marks of confidence, which Dionysius bestowed on him, he ordered his treasurers to supply him, without further orders, with whatever money he should demand, provided they informed him the same day they paid it.

Dion had naturally a great and most noble soul. A happy accident had conduced to inspire and confirm in him the most elevated sentiments. It was a kind of chance, or rather, as Plutarch says, a peculiar providence, which at a distance laid the foundations of the Syracusan liberty, that brought Plato, the most celebrated of philosophers, to Syracuse. Dion became his friend and disciple, and made great improvements from his lessons: for though brought up in a luxurious and voluptuous court, where the supreme good was made to consist in pleasure and magnificence, he had no sooner heard the precepts of his new master, and imbibed a taste of the philosophy that inculcates virtue, than his soul was inflamed with the love of it. Plato, in one of his letters, gives this glorious testimony of him, that he had never met with a young man, upon whom his discourses made so great an impression, or who had conceived his principles with so much ardour and vivacity.

As Dion was young and unexperienced, observing the facility with which Plate had changed his taste and inclinations, he imagined, with great simplicity, that the same reasons would have the same effects upon the mind of Dionysius; and from that opinion could not rest till he had prevailed upon the tyrant to bear and converse with him. Dionysius consented: but the lust of tyrannic power had taken too deep a root in his heart to be eradicated from it. It was

like an indelible dye, that had penetrated his inmost soul, from whence it was impossible ever to efface it.*

Though the stay of Plato at the court made no alteration in Dionysius, he persevered in giving Dion the same instances of his esteem and confidence, and even to support, without taking offence, the freedom with which he spoke to him. Dionysius, ridiculing one day the government of Gelon, formerly king of Syracuse, and saying, in allusion to his name, that he had been the "laughing stock" of Sicily, the whole court expressed great admiration, and took great pains in praising the quaintness and delicacy of the conceit, insipid and flat as it was, as puns and quibbles generally are. Dion took it in a serious sense, and was so bold as to represent to him, that he was in the wrong to talk in that mannner of a prince, whose wise and equitable conduct had been an excellent model of government, and given the Syracusans a favourable opinion of monarchial power. “You reign," added he, "and have been trusted, for Gelon's sake; but for your sake no man will ever be trusted after you. It was very extraordinary for a tyrant to suffer himself to be talked to in such a manner with impunity ‡

SECTION III.-DIONYSIUS DECLARES WAR AGAINST THE CARTHAGINIANS. VARIOUS SUCCESS OF IT.

DIONYSIUS Seeing that his great preparations were complete, and that be was in a condition to take the field, publicly opened his design to the Syracusans, in order to interest them the more in the success of the enterprise, and told them that it was against the Carthaginians. He represented that people as the perpetual and inveterate enemy of the Greeks, and especially of those who inhabited Sicily; that the plague, which lately wasted Carthage, had presented a favourable opportunity, which ought not to be neglected; that the people in subjection to so cruel a power, waited only the signal to declare against it; that it would be much for the glory of Syracuse to reinstate in their liberty the Grecian cities which had so long groaned under the yoke of the barbarians; that in declaring war at present against the Carthaginians, they only preceded them in doing so for some time; since, as soon as they had retrieved their losses, they would not fail to attack Syracuse with all their forces.

The assembly were unanimously of the same opinion. The ancient and natural hatred of the barbarians; their anger against them for having given Syracuse a master; and the hope that with arms in their hands they might find some occasion of recovering their liberty, united them in their suffrages. The war was resolved on without any opposition, and began that very instant. There were as well in the city as the port, a great number of Carthaginians, who, upon the faith of treaties, and under the peace, exercised traffic, and thought themselves in security. The populace, by authority of Dionysius, upon the breaking up of the assembly, ran to their houses and ships, plundered their goods, and carried off their effects. They met with the same treatment throughout Sicily; to which murders and massacres were added, by way of reprisal for the many murders committed by the barbarians on those they conquered, and to show them what they had to expect, if they continued to make war with the same inhumanity.

After this bloody execution, Dionysius sent a letter by a herald to Carthage, in which he signified that the Syracusans declared war against the Carthaginians, if they did not withdraw their garrisons from all the Grecian cities held by them in Sicily. The reading of this letter at first in the senate, and after wards in the assembly of the people, occasioned an uncommon alarm, as the pestilence had reduced the city to a deplorable condition. However, they were not dismayed, but prepared for a vigorous defence. They raised troops

* Την βαφήν εκ ανιέντα της τυραννίδος, εν πολλω χρονω δευσοποιων ηταν κ δυσεκπτυτον. Δρομο τους δέοντας έτι δει των χρηστον αντιλαμβάνεσθαι λόγου --Plut. in Moral. p. 779. Tiws, signifies a laughing stock, Plut. p. 960.

with the utmost diligence; and Imilcar set out immediately to put himself at the head of the Carthaginian army in Sicily.

Dionysius on his side lost no time, and took the field with his army, which daily increased by the arrival of new troops, who came to join him. from all parts. It amounted to eighty thousand foot, and three thousand horse. The fleet consisted of two hundred galleys, and five hundred barks laden with provisions, and machines of war. He opened the campaign with the siege of Motya, a fortified town under the Carthaginians near mount Eryx, in a little island something more than a quarter of a league from the continent, to which it was joined by a small neck of land, which the besieged immediately cut off, to prevent the approaches of the enemy on that side.

Dionysius, having left the care of the siege to Leptinus, who commanded the fleet, went with his land forces to attack the places in alliance with the Carthaginians. Terrified by the approach of so numerous an army, they all surrendered except five, which were Ancyra, Solos or Panormus, Palermo, Segesta, and Entalla, the last two of which places he besieged.

Imilcar, however, to make a diversion, detached ten galleys of his fleet, with orders to attack and surprise in the night all the vessels which remained in the port of Syracuse. The commander of this expedition entered the port according to his orders without resistance, and after having sunk a great part of the vessels which he found there, retired well satisfied with the success of his enterprise.

Dionysius, after having wasted the enemy's country, returned, and sat down with his whole army before Motya; and having employed a great number of hands in making dams and moles, he repaired the neck of land, and brought his engines to work on that side. The place was attacked and defended with the utmost vigour. After the besiegers had passed the breach, and entered the city, the besieged persisted a great while in defending themselves with incredible valour; so that it was necessary to pursue and drive them from house to house. The soldiers, enraged at so obstinate a defence, put all before them to the sword; regarding neither age, sex, nor condition, and sparing none except those who had taken refuge in the temples. The town was abandoned to the discretion of the soldiers; Dionysius being pleased with an occasion of attaching the troops to his service by the allurement and hope of gain.

The Carthaginians made an extraordinary effort the next year, and raised an army of three hundred thousand foot, and four thousand horse. The fleet under Mago's command consisted of four hundred galleys, and upwards of six hundred vessels laden with provisions and engines of war. Imilcar had given the captains of the fleet his orders sealed up, which were not to be opened till they were out at sea. He had taken this precaution, that his designs might be kept secret, and to prevent spies from sending advices of them to Sicily. The rendezvous was at Palermo; where the fleet arrived without much loss in their passage. Imilcar took Eryx by treachery, and soon after reduced Motya to surrender. Messina seemed to him a place of importance; because it might favour the landing of troops from Italy and Sicily, and interrupt the passage of those who should come from Peloponnesus. After a long and vigorous defence, it fell into his hands; and some time after he entirely demolished it. Dionysius seeing his forces extremely inferior to the enemy, retired to Syracuse. Almost all the people of Sicily, who hated him from the beginning, and were only reconciled to him in appearance, and out of fear, took this occasion to quit his party, and to join the Carthaginians. The tyrant levied new troops, and gave the slaves their liberty, that they might serve on board the fleet. His army amounted to thirty thousand foot, and three thousand horse, and his fleet to one hundred and eighty galleys. With these forces he took the field, and removed about eighteen leagues from Syracuse. Imilcar advanced continually with his land army, followed by his fleet, which kept near the coast. When he arrived at Naxos, he could not continue his march upon the sea side, and was obliged to make a long circuit round mount Etna;