Chapter LXXXIII (1)

SICILIAN AFFAIRS (_continued_). — FROM THE DESTRUCTION OF THE CARTHAGINIAN ARMY BY PESTILENCE BEFORE SYRACUSE, DOWN TO THE DEATH OF DIONYSIUS THE ELDER. B. C. 394-367.

In my preceding volume, I have described the first eleven years of the reign of Dionysius called the Elder, as despot at Syracuse, down to his first great war against the Carthaginians; which war ended by a sudden turn of fortune in his favor, at a time when he was hard pressed and actually besieged. The victorious Carthaginian army before Syracuse was utterly ruined by a terrible pestilence, followed by ignominious treason on the part of its commander Imilkon.

Within the space of less than thirty years, we read of four distinct epidemic distempers,[1] each of frightful severity, as having afflicted Carthage and her armies in Sicily, without touching either Syracuse or the Sicilian Greeks. Such epidemics were the most irresistible of all enemies to the Carthaginians, and the most effective allies to Dionysius. The second and third,—conspicuous among the many fortunate events of his life,—occurred at the exact juncture necessary for rescuing him from a tide of superiority in the Carthaginian arms, which seemed in a fair way to overwhelm him completely. Upon what physical conditions the frequent repetition of such a calamity depended, together with the remarkable fact that it was confined to Carthage and her armies,—we know partially in respect to the third of the four cases, but not at all in regard to the others.

[1] Diodor. xiii. 86-114; xiv. 70; xv. 24. Another pestilence is
alluded to by Diodorus in 368 B. C. (Diodor. xv. 73).

Movers notices the intense and frequent sufferings of the
ancient Phœnicians, in their own country, from pestilence; and
the fearful expiations to which these sufferings gave rise (Die
Phönizier, vol. ii. part ii. p. 9).

The flight of Imilkon with his Carthaginians from Syracuse left Dionysius and the Syracusans in the full swing of triumph. The conquests made by Imilkon were altogether lost, and the Carthaginian dominion in Sicily was now cut down to that restricted space in the western corner of the island, which it had occupied prior to the invasion of Hannibal in 409 B. C. So prodigious a success probably enabled Dionysius to put down the opposition recently manifested among the Syracusans to the continuance of his rule. We are told that he was greatly embarrassed by his mercenaries; who, having been for some time without pay, manifested such angry discontent as to threaten his downfall. Dionysius seized the person of their commander, the Spartan Aristoteles: upon which the soldiers mutined and flocked in arms around his residence, demanding in fierce terms both the liberty of their commander and the payment of their arrears. Of these demands, Dionysius eluded the first by saying that he would send away Aristoteles to Sparta, to be tried and dealt with among his own countrymen: as to the second, he pacified the soldiers by assigning to them, in exchange for their pay, the town and territory of Leontini. Willingly accepting this rich bribe, the most fertile soil of the island, the mercenaries quitted Syracuse to the number of ten thousand, to take up their residence in the newly assigned town; while Dionysius hired new mercenaries in their place. To these (including perhaps the Iberians or Spaniards who had recently passed from the Carthaginian service into his) and to the slaves whom he had liberated, he intrusted the maintenance of his dominion.[2]

[2] Diodor. xiv. 78.

These few facts, which are all that we hear, enable us to see that the relations between Dionysius and the mercenaries by whose means he ruled Syracuse, were troubled and difficult to manage. But they do not explain to us the full cause of such discord. We know that a short time before, Dionysius had rid himself of one thousand obnoxious mercenaries by treacherously betraying them to death in a battle with the Carthaginians. Moreover, he would hardly have seized the person of Aristoteles, and sent him away for trial, if the latter had done nothing more than demand pay really due to his soldiers. It seems probable that the discontent of the mercenaries rested upon deeper causes, perhaps connected with that movement in the Syracusan mind against Dionysius, manifested openly in the invective of Theodorus. We should have been glad also to know how Dionysius proposed to pay the new mercenaries, if he had no means of paying the old. The cost of maintaining his standing army, upon whomsoever it fell, must have been burdensome in the extreme. What became of the previous residents and proprietors at Leontini, who must have been dispossessed when this much-coveted site was transferred to the mercenaries? On all these points we are unfortunately left in ignorance.

Dionysius now set forth towards the north of Sicily to reëstablish Messênê; while those other Sicilians, who had been expelled from their abodes by the Carthaginians, got together and returned. In reconstituting Messênê after its demolition by Imilkon, he obtained the means of planting there a population altogether in his interests, suitable to the aggressive designs which he was already contemplating against Rhegium and the other Italian Greeks. He established in it one thousand Lokrians,—four thousand persons from another city the name of which we cannot certainly make out,[3]—and six hundred of the Peloponnesian Messenians. These latter had been expelled by Sparta from Zakynthus and Naupaktus at the close of the Peloponnesian war, and had taken service in Sicily with Dionysius. Even here, the hatred of Sparta followed them. Her remonstrances against his project of establishing them in a city of consideration bearing their own ancient name, obliged him to withdraw them: upon which he planted them on a portion of the Abakene territory on the northern coast. They gave to their new city the name of Tyndaris, admitted many new residents, and conducted their affairs so prudently, as presently to attain a total of five thousand citizens.[4] Neither here, nor at Messênê, do we find any mention made of the reëstablishment of those inhabitants who had fled when Imilkon took Messênê, and who formed nearly all the previous population of the city, for very few are mentioned as having been slain. It seems doubtful whether Dionysius readmitted them, when he reconstituted Messênê. Renewing with care the fortifications of the city, which had been demolished by Imilkon, he placed in it some of his mercenaries as garrison.[5]

[3] Diodor. xiv. 78. Διονύσιος δ᾽ εἰς Μεσσήνην κατῴκισε χιλίους
μὲν Λοκροὺς, τετρακισχιλίους δὲ ~Μεδιμναίους~, ἑξακοσίους δὲ τῶν
ἐκ Πελοποννήσου Μεσσηνίων, ἔκ τε Ζακύνθου καὶ Ναυπάκτου φευγόντων.

The Medimnæans are completely unknown. Cluverius and Wesseling
conjecture _Medmæans_, from Medmæ or Medamæ, noticed by Strabo
as a town in the south of Italy. But this supposition cannot be
adopted as certain; especially as the total of persons named is
so large. The conjecture of Palmerius—Μηθυμναίους—has still less
to recommend it. See the note of Wesseling.

[4] Diodor. xiv. 78.

[5] Diodor. xiv. 87.

Dionysius next undertook several expeditions against the Sikels in the interior of the island, who had joined Imilkon in his recent attack upon Syracuse. He conquered several of their towns, and established alliances with two of their most powerful princes, at Agyrium and Kentoripæ. Enna and Kephalœdium were also betrayed to him, as well as the Carthaginian dependency of Solûs. By these proceedings, which appear to have occupied some time, he acquired powerful ascendency in the central and north-east parts of the island, while his garrison at Messênê; ensured to him the command of the strait between Sicily and Italy.[6]

[6] Diodor. xiv. 78. εἰς τὴν τῶν Σικελῶν χώραν πλεονάκις
στρατεύσας, etc. Wesseling shows in his note, that these words,
and those which follow must refer to Dionysius.

His acquisition of this important fortified position was well understood to imply ulterior designs against Rhegium and the other Grecian cities in the south of Italy, among whom accordingly a lively alarm prevailed. The numerous exiles whom he had expelled, not merely from Syracuse, but also from Naxus, Katana, and the other conquered towns, having no longer any assured shelter in Sicily, had been forced to cross over into Italy, where they were favorably received both at Kroton and at Rhegium.[7] One of these exiles, Helôris, once the intimate friend of Dionysius, was even appointed general of the forces of Rhegium; forces at that time not only powerful on land, but sustained by a fleet of seventy or eighty triremes.[8] Under his command, a Rhegine force crossed the strait for the purpose partly of besieging Messênê, partly of establishing the Naxian and Katanean exiles at Mylæ on the northern coast of the island, not far from Messênê. Neither scheme succeeded: Helôris was repulsed from Messênê with loss, while the new settlers at Mylæ were speedily expelled. The command of the strait was thus fully maintained to Dionysius; who, on the point of undertaking an aggressive expedition over to Italy, was delayed only by the necessity of capturing the newly established Sikel town on the hill of Taurus—or Tauromenium. The Sikels defended this position, in itself high and strong, with unexpected valor and obstinacy. It was the spot on which the primitive Grecian colonists who first came to Sicily, had originally landed, and from whence, therefore, the successive Hellenic encroachments upon the pre-established Sikel population, had taken their commencement. This fact, well known to both parties, rendered the capture on one side as much a point of honor, as the preservation on the other. Dionysius spent months in the siege, even throughout midwinter, while the snow covered this hill-top. He made reiterated assaults, which were always repulsed. At last, on one moonless winter night, he found means to scramble over some almost inaccessible crags to a portion of the town less defended, and to effect a lodgment in one of the two fortified portions into which it was divided. Having taken the first part, he immediately proceeded to attack the second. But the Sikels, resisting with desperate valor, repulsed him, and compelled the storming party to flee in disorder, amidst the darkness of night, and over the most difficult ground. Six hundred of them were slain on the spot, and scarcely any escaped without throwing away their arms. Even Dionysius himself, being overthrown by the thrust of a spear on his cuirass, was with difficulty picked up and carried off alive; all his arms, except the cuirass, being left behind. He was obliged to raise the siege, and was long in recovering from his wound: the rather as his eyes also had suffered considerably from the snow.[9]

[7] Diodor. xiv. 87-103.

[8] Diodor. xiv. 8, 87, 106

[9] Diodor. xiv. 88.

So manifest a reverse, before a town comparatively insignificant, lowered his military reputation, and encouraged his enemies throughout the island. The Agrigentines and others, throwing off their dependence upon him, proclaimed themselves autonomous; banishing those leaders among them who upheld his interest.[10] Many of the Sikels also, elate with the success of their countrymen at Tauromenium, declared openly against him; joining the Carthaginian general Magon, who now, for the first time since the disaster before Syracuse, again exhibited the force of Carthage in the field.

[10] Diodor. xiv. 88. μετὰ δὲ τὴν ἀτυχίαν ταύτην, Ἀκραγαντῖνοι
~καὶ Μεσσνήνιοι~ τοὺς τὰ Διονυσίου φρονοῦντας μεταστησάμενοι, τῆς
ἐλευθερίας ἀντείχοντο, καὶ τῆς τοῦ τυράννου συμμαχίας ἀπέστησαν.

It appears to me that the words καὶ Μεσσνήνιοι in this sentence
cannot be correct. The Messenians were a new population just
established by Dionysius, and relying upon him for protection
against Rhegium: moreover they will appear, during the events
immediately succeeding, constantly in conjunction with him, and
objects of attack by his enemies.

I cannot but think that Diodorus has here inadvertently placed
the word Μεσσνήνιοι instead of a name belonging to some other
community—what community, we cannot tell.

Since the disaster before Syracuse, Magon had remained tranquil in the western or Carthaginian corner of the island, recruiting the strength and courage of his countrymen, and taking unusual pains to conciliate the attachment of the dependent native towns. Reinforced in part by the exiles expelled by Dionysius, he was now in a condition to assume the aggressive, and to espouse the cause of the Sikels after their successful defence of Tauromenium. He even ventured to overrun and ravage the Messenian territory; but Dionysius, being now recovered from his wound, marched against him, defeated him in a battle near Abakæna, and forced him again to retire westward, until fresh troops were sent to him from Carthage.[11]

[11] Diodor. xiv. 90-95.

Without pursuing Magon, Dionysius returned to Syracuse, from whence he presently set forth to execute his projects against Rhegium, with a fleet of one hundred ships of war. So skilfully did he arrange or mask his movements, that he arrived at night at the gates and under the walls of Rhegium, without the least suspicion on the part of the citizens. Applying combustibles to set fire to the gate (as he had once done successfully at the gate of Achradina),[12] he at the same time planted his ladders against the walls, and attempted an escalade. Surprised and in small numbers, the citizens began their defence; but the attack was making progress, had not the general Helôris, instead of trying to extinguish the flames, bethought himself of encouraging them by heaping on dry faggots and other matters. The conflagration became so violent, that even the assailants themselves were kept off until time was given for the citizens to mount the walls in force; and the city was saved from capture by burning a portion of it. Disappointed in his hopes, Dionysius was obliged to content himself with ravaging the neighboring territory; after which, he concluded a truce of one year with the Rhegines, and then returned to Syracuse.[13]

[12] Diodor. xiii. 113.

[13] Diodor xiv. 90.

This step was probably determined by news of the movements of Magon, who was in the field anew with a mercenary force reckoned at eighty thousand men—Libyan, Sardinian, and Italian—obtained from Carthage, where hope of Sicilian success was again reviving. Magon directed his march through the Sikel population in the centre of the island, receiving the adhesion of many of their various townships. Agyrium, however, the largest and most important of all, resisted him as an enemy. Agyris, the despot of the place, who had conquered much of the neighboring territory, and had enriched himself by the murder of several opulent proprietors, maintained strict alliance with Dionysius. The latter speedily came to his aid, with a force stated at twenty thousand men, Syracusans and mercenaries. Admitted into the city, and co-operating with Agyris, who furnished abundant supplies, he soon reduced the Carthaginians to great straits. Magon was encamped near the river Chrysas, between Agyrium and Morgantinê; in an enemy’s country, harassed by natives who perfectly knew the ground, and who cut off in detail all his parties sent out to obtain provisions. The Syracusans, indeed, disliking or mistrusting such tardy methods, impatiently demanded leave to make a vigorous attack; and when Dionysius refused, affirming that with a little patience the enemy must be speedily starved out, they left the camp and returned home. Alarmed at their desertion, he forthwith issued a requisition for a large number of slaves to supply their places. But at this very juncture, there arrived a proposition from the Carthaginians to be allowed to make peace and retire; which Dionysius granted, on condition that they should abandon to him the Sikels and their territory—especially Tauromenium. Upon these terms peace was accordingly concluded, and Magon again returned to Carthage.[14]

[14] Diodor. xiv. 95, 96.

Relieved from these enemies, Dionysius was enabled to restore those slaves, whom he had levied under the recent requisition, to their masters. Having established his dominion fully among the Sikels, he again marched against Tauromenium, which on this occasion was unable to resist him. The Sikels, who had so valiantly defended it, were driven out, to make room for new inhabitants, chosen from among the mercenaries of Dionysius.[15]

[15] Diodor. xiv. 96.

Thus master both of Messênê and Tauromenium, the two most important maritime posts on the Italian side of Sicily, Dionysius prepared to execute his ulterior schemes against the Greeks in the south of Italy. These still powerful, though once far more powerful, cities, were now suffering under a cause of decline common to all the Hellenic colonies on the coast of the continent. The indigenous population of the interior had been reinforced, or enslaved, by more warlike emigrants from behind, who now pressed upon the maritime Grecian cities with encroachment difficult to resist.

It was the Samnites, a branch of the hardy Sabellian race, mountaineers from the central portion of the Apennine range, who had been recently spreading themselves abroad as formidable assailants. About 420 B. C., they had established themselves in Capua and the fertile plains of Campania, expelling or dispossessing the previous Tuscan proprietors. From thence, about 416 B. C., they reduced the neighboring city of Cumæ, the most ancient western colony of the Hellenic race.[16] The neighboring Grecian establishments of Neapolis and Dikæarchia seem also to have come, like Cumæ, under tribute and dominion to the Campanian Samnites, and thus became partially dis-hellenised.[17] These Campanians, of Samnite race, have been frequently mentioned in the two preceding chapters, as employed on mercenary service both in the armies of the Carthaginians, and in those of Dionysius.[18] But the great migration of this warlike race was farther to the south-east, down the line of the Apennines towards the Tarentine Gulf and the Sicilian strait. Under the name of Lucanians, they established a formidable power in these regions, subjugating the Œnotrian population there settled.[19] The Lucanian power seems to have begun and to have gradually increased from about 430 B. C. At its maximum (about 380-360 B. C.), it comprehended most part of the inland territory, and considerable portions of the coast, especially the southern coast,—bounded by an imaginary line drawn from Metapontum on the Tarentine Gulf, across the breadth of Italy to Poseidonia or Pæstum, near the mouth of the river Silaris, on the Tyrrhenian or Lower sea. It was about 356 B. C., that the rural serfs, called Bruttians,[20] rebelled against the Lucanians, and robbed them of the southern part of this territory; establishing an independent dominion in the inland portion of what is now called the Farther Calabria—extending from a boundary line drawn across Italy between Thurii and Läus, down to near the Sicilian strait. About 332 B. C., commenced the occasional intervention of the Epirotic kings from the one side, and the persevering efforts of Rome from the other, which, after long and valiant struggles, left Samnites, Lucanians, Bruttians, all Roman subjects.

[16] Livy, iv. 37-44; Strabo, v. p. 243-250. Diodorus (xii.
31-76) places the commencement of the Campanian nation in 438
B. C., and their conquest of Cumæ in 421 B. C. Skylax in his
Periplus mentions both Cumæ and Neapolis as in Campania (s. 10.)
Thucydides speaks of Cumæ as being ἐν Ὀπικίᾳ (vi. 4).

[17] Strabo, v. p. 246.

[18] Thucydides (vii. 53-57) does not mention _Campanians_ (he
mentions Tyrrhenians) as serving in the besieging Athenian
armament before Syracuse (414-413 B. C.) He does not introduce
the name _Campanians_ at all; though alluding to Iberian
mercenaries as men whom Athens calculated on engaging in her
service (vi. 90).

But Diodorus mentions, that eight hundred Campanians were engaged
by the Chalkidian cities in Sicily for service with the Athenians
under Nikias, and that they had escaped during the disasters of
the Athenian army (xiii. 44).

The conquest of Cumæ in 416 B. C. opened to these Campanian
Samnites an outlet for hired military service beyond sea.
Cumæ being in its Origin Chalkidic, would naturally be in
correspondence with the Chalkidic cities in Sicily. This forms
the link of connection, which explains to us how the Campanians
came into service in 413 B. C. under the Athenian general before
Syracuse, and afterwards so frequently under others in Sicily
(Diodor. xiii. 62-80, etc.).

[19] Strabo, vi. p. 253, 254. See a valuable section on this
subject in Niebuhr, Römisch. Geschichte, vol. i. p. 94-98.

It appears that the Syracusan historian Antiochus made no mention
either of Lucanians or of Bruttians, though he enumerated the
inhabitants of the exact line of territory afterwards occupied
by these two nations. After repeating the statement of Antiochus
that this territory was occupied by Italians, Œnotrians, and
Chonians, Strabo proceeds to say—Οὗτος μὲν οὖν ἁπλουστέρως εἴρηκε
καὶ ἀρχαϊκῶς, οὐδὲν διορίσας περὶ τῶν Λευκανῶν καὶ τῶν Βρεττίων.
The German translator Grosskurd understands these words as
meaning, that Antiochus “did not distinguish the Lucanians from
the Bruttians.” But if we read the paragraph through, it will
appear, I think, that Strabo means to say, that Antiochus had
stated nothing positive respecting either Lucanians or Bruttians.
Niebuhr (p. 96 _ut suprà_) affirms that Antiochus represented the
Lucanians as having extended themselves as far as Läus; which I
cannot find.

The date of Antiochus seems not precisely ascertainable. His work
on Sicilian history was carried down from early times to 424 B.
C. (Diodor. xii. 71). His silence respecting the Lucanians goes
to confirm the belief that the date of their conquest of the
territory called Lucania was considerably later than that year.

Polyænus (ii. 10. 2-4) mentions war as carried on by the
inhabitants of Thurii, under Kleandridas the father of Gylippus,
against the Lucanians. From the age and circumstances of
Kleandridas, this can hardly be later than 420 B. C.

[20] Strabo, vi. p. 256. The Periplus of Skylax (s. 12, 13)
recognizes Lucania as extending down to Rhegium. The date to
which this Periplus refers appears to be about 370-360 B. C.:
see an instructive article among Niebuhr’s Kleine Schriften, p.
105-130. Skylax does not mention the Bruttians (Klausen, Hekatæus
and Skylax, p. 274. Berlin, 1831).

At the period which we have now reached, these Lucanians, having conquered the Greek cities of Poseidonia (or Pæstum) and Läus, with much of the territory lying between the Gulfs of Poseidonia and Tarentum, severely harassed the inhabitants of Thurii, and alarmed all the neighboring Greek cities down to Rhegium. So serious was the alarm of these cities, that several of them contracted an intimate defensive alliance, strengthening for the occasion that feeble synodical band, and sense of Italiot communion,[21] the form and trace of which seems to have subsisted without the reality, even under marked enmity between particular cities. The conditions of the newly-contracted alliance were most stringent; not only binding each city to assist at the first summons any other city invaded by the Lucanians, but also pronouncing, that if this obligation were neglected, the generals of the disobedient city should be condemned to death.[22] However, at this time the Italiot Greeks were not less afraid of Dionysius and his aggressive enterprises from the south, than of the Lucanians from the north; and their defensive alliance was intended against both. To Dionysius, on the contrary, the invasion of the Lucanians from landward was a fortunate incident for the success of his own schemes. Their concurrent designs against the same enemies, speedily led to the formation of a distinct alliance between the two.[23] Among the allies of Dionysius, too, we must number the Epizephyrian Lokrians; who not only did not join the Italiot confederacy, but espoused his cause against it with ardor. The enmity of the Lokrians against their neighbors, the Rhegines, was ancient and bitter; exceeded only by that of Dionysius, who never forgave the refusal of the Rhegines to permit him to marry a wife out of their city, and was always grateful to the Lokrians for having granted to him the privilege which their neighbors had refused.

[21] Diodor. xiv. 91-101. Compare Polybius, ii. 39. When Nikias
on his way to Sicily, came near to Rhegium and invited the
Rhegines to coöperate against Syracuse, the Rhegines declined,
replying, ὅ,τι ἂν καὶ τοῖς ἄλλοις Ἰταλιώταις ξυνδοκῇ, τοῦτο
ποιήσειν (Thucyd. vi. 44).

[22] Diodor. xiv. 101.

[23] Diodor. xiv. 100.

Wishing as yet, if possible, to avoid provoking the other members of the Italiot confederacy, Dionysius still professed to be revenging himself exclusively upon Rhegium; against which he conducted a powerful force from Syracuse. Twenty thousand foot, one thousand horse, and one hundred and twenty ships of war, are mentioned as the total of his armament. Disembarking near Lokri, he marched across the lower part of the peninsula in a westerly direction, ravaged with fire and sword the Rhegian territory, and then encamped near the strait on the northern side of Rhegium. His fleet followed coastwise round Cape Zephyrium to the same point. While he was pressing the siege, the members of the Italiot synod despatched from Kroton a fleet of sixty sail, to assist in the defence. Their ships, having rounded Cape Zephyrium, were nearing Rhegium from the south, when Dionysius himself approached to attack them, with fifty ships detached from his force. Though inferior in number, his fleet was probably superior in respect to size and equipment; so that the Krotoniate captains, not daring to hazard a battle, ran their ships ashore. Dionysius here attacked them, and would have towed off all the ships (without their crews) as prizes, had not the scene of action lain so near to Rhegium, that the whole force of the city could come forth in reinforcement, while his own army was on the opposite side of the town. The numbers and courage of the Rhegines baffled his efforts, rescued the ships, and hauled them all up upon the shore in safety. Obliged to retire without success, Dionysius was farther overtaken by a terrific storm, which exposed his fleet to the utmost danger. Seven of his ships were driven ashore; their crews, fifteen hundred in number, being either drowned, or falling into the hands of the Rhegines. The rest, after great danger and difficulty, either rejoined the main fleet or got into the harbor of Messênê; where Dionysius himself in his quinquereme also found refuge, but only at midnight, and after imminent risk for several hours. Disheartened by this misfortune as well as by the approach of winter, he withdrew his forces for the present, and returned to Syracuse.[24]

[24] Diodor. xiv 100.

A part of his fleet, however, under Leptines, was despatched northward along the south-western coast of Italy to the Gulf of Elea, to coöperate with the Lucanians; who from that coast and from inland were invading the inhabitants of Thurii on the Tarentine Gulf. Thurii was the successor, though with far inferior power, of the ancient Sybaris; whose dominion had once stretched across from sea to sea, comprehending the town of Läus, now a Lucanian possession.[25] Immediately on the appearance of the Lucanians, the Thurians had despatched an urgent message to their allies, who were making all haste to arrive, pursuant to covenant. But before such junction could possibly take place, the Thurians, confiding in their own native force of fourteen thousand foot, and one thousand horse, marched against the enemy single-handed. The Lucanian invaders retreated, pursued by the Thurians, who followed them even into that mountainous region of the Appenines which stretches between the two seas, and which presents the most formidable danger and difficulty for all military operations.[26] They assailed successfully a fortified post or village of the Lucanians, which fell into their hands with a rich plunder. By such partial advantage they were so elated, that they ventured to cross over all the mountain passes even to the neighborhood of the southern sea, with the intention of attacking the flourishing town of Läus[27]—once the dependency of their Sybaritan predecessors. But the Lucanians, having allured them into these impracticable paths, closed upon them behind with greatly increased numbers, forbade all retreat, and shut them up in a plain surrounded with high and precipitous cliffs. Attacked in this plain by numbers double their own, the unfortunate Thurians underwent one of the most bloody defeats recorded in Grecian history. Out of their fourteen thousand men, ten thousand were slain, under merciless order from the Lucanians to give no quarter. The remainder contrived to flee to a hill near the sea-shore, from whence they saw a fleet of ships of war coasting along at no great distance. Distracted with terror, they were led to fancy, or to hope, that these were the ships expected from Rhegium to their aid; though the Rhegines would naturally send their ships, when demanded, to Thurii, on the Tarentine Gulf, not to the Lower sea near Läus. Under this impression, one thousand of them swam off from the shore to seek protection on shipboard. But they found themselves, unfortunately, on board the fleet of Leptines, brother and admiral of Dionysius, come for the express purpose of aiding the Lucanians. With a generosity not less unexpected than honorable, this officer saved their lives, and also, as it would appear, the lives of all the other defenceless survivors; persuading or constraining the Lucanians to release them, on receiving one mina of silver per man.[28]

[25] Herodot. vi. 21; Strabo, vi. p. 253.

[26] See the description of this mountainous region between
the Tarentine Gulf and the Tyrrhenian Sea, in an interesting
work by a French General employed in Calabria in 1809—Calabria
during a military residence of Three Years, Letters, 17, 18, 19
(translated and published by Effingham Wilson. London, 1832).

[27] Diodor. xiv. 101. βουλόμενοι Λᾶον, πόλιν εὐδαίμονα,
πολιορκῆσαι. This appears the true reading: it is an acute
conjecture proposed by Niebuhr (Römisch. Geschicht. i. p. 96)
in place of the words—βουλόμενοι λαὸν καὶ πόλιν εὐδαίμονα,
πολιορκῆσαι.

[28] Diodor. xiv. 102.

This act of Hellenic sympathy restored three or four thousand citizens on ransom to Thurii, instead of leaving them to be massacred or sold by the barbarous Lucanians, and procured the warmest esteem for Leptines personally among the Thurians and other Italiot Greeks. But it incurred the strong displeasure of Dionysius, who now proclaimed openly his project of subjugating these Greeks, and was anxious to encourage the Lucanians as indispensable allies. Accordingly he dismissed Leptines, and named as admiral his other brother Thearides. He then proceeded to conduct a fresh expedition; no longer intended against Rhegium alone, but against all the Italiot Greeks. He departed from Syracuse with a powerful force—twenty thousand foot and three thousand horse, with which, he marched by land in five days to Messênê; his fleet under Thearides accompanying him—forty ships of war, and three hundred transports with provisions. Having first successfully surprised and captured near the Lipari isles a Rhegian squadron of ten ships, the crews of which he constituted prisoners at Messênê, he transported his army across the strait into Italy, and laid siege to Kaulonia—on the eastern coast of the peninsula, and conterminous with the northern border of his allies the Lokrians. He attacked this place vigorously, with the best siege machines which his arsenal furnished.

The Italiot Greeks, on the other hand, mustered their united force to relieve it. Their chief centre of action was Kroton where most of the Syracusan exiles, the most forward of all champions in the cause, were now assembled. One of these exiles, Helôris (who had before been named general by the Rhegines), was intrusted with the command of the collective army; an arrangement neutralizing all local jealousies. Under the cordial sentiment prevailing, an army was mustered at Kroton, estimated at twenty-five thousand foot and two thousand horse; by what cities furnished, or in what proportion, we are unable to say.[29] At the head of these troops, Helôris marched southward from Kroton to the river Elleporus not far from Kaulonia; where Dionysius, raising the siege, met him.[30] He was about four miles and a half from the Krotoniate army, when he learnt from his scouts that Helôris with a chosen regiment of five hundred men (perhaps Syracusan exiles like himself), was considerably in advance of the main body. Moving rapidly forward in the night, Dionysius surprised this advanced guard at break of day, completely isolated from the rest. Helôris, while he despatched instant messages to accelerate the coming up of the main body, defended himself with his small band against overwhelming superiority of numbers. But the odds were too great. After an heroic resistance, he was slain, and his companions nearly all cut to pieces, before the main body, though they came up at full speed, could arrive.

[29] Diodor. xiv. 103.

[30] Polybius (i. 6) gives us the true name of this river:
Diodorus calls it the river _Helôris_.

The hurried pace of the Italiot army, however, though it did not suffice to save the general, was of fatal efficacy in deranging their own soldierlike army. Confused and disheartened by finding that Helôris was slain, which left them without a general to direct the battle or restore order, the Italiots fought for some time against Dionysius, but were at length defeated with severe loss. They effected their retreat from the field of battle to a neighboring eminence, very difficult to attack, yet destitute of water and provisions. Here Dionysius blocked them up, without attempting an attack, but keeping the strictest guard round the hill during the whole remaining day and the ensuing night. The heat of the next day, with total want of water, so subdued their courage, that they sent to Dionysius a herald with propositions, entreating to be allowed to depart on a stipulated ransom. But the terms were peremptorily refused; they were ordered to lay down their arms, and surrender at discretion. Against this terrible requisition they stood out yet awhile, until the increasing pressure of physical exhaustion and suffering drove them to surrender, about the eighth hour of the day.[31]

[31] Diodor. xiv. 105. παρέδωκαν αὑτοὺς περὶ ὀγδόην ὥραν, ἤδη τὰ
σώματα παρείμενοι.

More than ten thousand disarmed Greeks descended from the hill and defiled before Dionysius, who numbered the companies as they passed with a stick. As his savage temper was well known, they expected nothing short of the harshest sentence. So much the greater was their astonishment and delight, when they found themselves treated not merely with lenity, but with generosity.[32] Dionysius released them all without even exacting a ransom; and concluded a treaty with most of the cities to which they belonged, leaving their autonomy undisturbed. He received the warmest thanks, accompanied by votes of golden wreaths, from the prisoners as well as from the cities; while among the general public of Greece, the act was hailed as forming the prominent glory of his political life.[33] Such admiration was well deserved, looking to the laws of war then prevalent.

[32] Diodor. xiv. 105. Καὶ πάντων αὐτοῦ ὑποπτευόντων τὸ θηριῶδες,
τοὐναντίον ἐφάνη πάντων ἐπιεικέστατος.

[33] Diodor. xiv. 105. καὶ σχεδὸν τοῦτ᾽ ἔδοξε πράττειν ἐν τῷ ζῇν
κάλλιστον. Strabo, vi. p. 261.

With the Krotoniates and other Italiot Greeks (except Rhegium and Lokri) Dionysius had had no marked previous relations and therefore had not contracted any strong personal sentiment either of antipathy or favor. With Rhegium and Lokri, the case was different. To the Lokrians he was strongly attached: against the Rhegines his animosity was bitter and implacable, manifesting itself in a more conspicuous manner by contrast with his recent dismissal of the Krotoniate prisoners; a proceeding which had been probably dictated, in great part, by his anxiety to have his hands free for the attack of isolated Rhegium. After having finished the arrangements consequent upon his victory, he marched against that city, and prepared to besiege it. The citizens, feeling themselves without hope of succor, and intimidated by the disaster of their Italiot allies, sent out heralds to beg for moderate terms, and imploring him to abstain from extreme or unmeasured rigor.[34] For a moment, Dionysius seemed to comply with their request. He granted them peace, on condition that they should surrender all their ships of war, seventy in number—that they should pay to him three hundred talents in money—and that they should place in his hands one hundred hostages. All these demands were strictly complied with; upon which Dionysius withdrew his army, and agreed to spare the city.[35]

[34] Diodor. xiv. 106. καὶ παρακαλέσαι μηδὲν περὶ αὐτῶν ~ὑπὲρ
ἄνθρωπον~ βουλεύεσθαι.

[35] Diodor. xiv. 106.

His next proceeding was, to attack Kaulonia and Hipponium; two cities which seem between them to have occupied the whole breadth of the Calabrian peninsula, immediately north of Rhegium and Lokri; Kaulonia on the eastern coast, Hipponium on or near the western. Both these cities he besieged, took, and destroyed: probably neither of them, in the hopeless circumstances of the case, made any strenuous resistance. He then caused the inhabitants of both of them, such at least as did not make their escape, to be transported to Syracuse, where he domiciliated them as citizens, allowing them five years of exemption from taxes.[36] To be a citizen of Syracuse meant at this moment, to be a subject of his despotism, and nothing more: how he made room for these new citizens, or furnished them with lands and houses, we are unfortunately not informed. But the territory of both these towns, evacuated by its free inhabitants (though probably not by its slaves, or serfs), was handed over to the Lokrians and annexed to their city. That favored city, which had accepted his offer of marriage, was thus immensely enriched both in lands and in collective property. Here again it would have been interesting to hear what measures were taken to appropriate or distribute the new lands; but our informant is silent.

[36] Diodor. xiv. 106, 107.

Dionysius had thus accumulated into Syracuse, not only all Sicily[37] (to use the language of Plato), but even no inconsiderable portion of Italy. Such wholesale changes of domicile and property must probably have occupied some months; during which time the army of Dionysius seems never to have quitted the Calabrian peninsula, though he himself may probably have gone for a time in person to Syracuse. It was soon seen that the depopulation of Hipponium and Kaulonia was intended only as a prelude to the ruin of Rhegium. Upon this Dionysius had resolved. The recent covenant into which he had entered with the Rhegines, was only a fraudulent device for the purpose of entrapping them into a surrender of their navy, in order that he might afterwards attack them at greater advantage. Marching his army to the Italian shore of the strait, near Rhegium, he affected to busy himself in preparations for crossing to Sicily. In the mean time, he sent a friendly message to the Rhegines, requesting them to supply him for a short time with provisions, under assurance that what they furnished should speedily be replaced from Syracuse. It was his purpose, if they refused, to resent it as an insult, and attack them; if they consented, to consume their provisions, without performing his engagement to replace the quantity consumed; and then to make his attack after all, when their means of holding out had been diminished. At first the Rhegines complied willingly, furnishing abundant supplies. But the consumption continued, and the departure of the army was deferred—first on pretence of the illness of Dionysius, next on other grounds—so that they at length detected the trick, and declined to furnish any more. Dionysius now threw off the mask, gave back to them their hundred hostages, and laid siege to the town in form.[38]

[37] Plato, Epistol. vii. p. 332 D. Διονύσιος δὲ εἰς μίαν πόλιν
ἀθροίσας πᾶσαν Σικελίαν ὑπὸ σοφίας, etc.

[38] Diodor. xiv. 107, 108. Polyænus relates this stratagem of
Dionysius about the provisions, as if it had been practised at
the siege of Himera, and not of Rhegium (Polyæn. v. 3, 10).

Regretting too late that they had suffered themselves to be defrauded of their means of defence, the Rhegines nevertheless prepared to hold out with all the energy of despair. Phyton was chosen commander, the whole population was armed, and all the line of wall carefully watched. Dionysius made vigorous assaults, employing all the resources of his battering machinery to effect a breach. But he was repelled at all points obstinately, and with much loss on both sides: several of his machines were also burnt or destroyed by opportune sallies of the besieged. In one of the assaults, Dionysius himself was seriously wounded by a spear thrust in the groin, from which he was long in recovering. He was at length obliged to convert the siege into a blockade, and to rely upon famine alone for subduing these valiant citizens. For eleven months did the Rhegines hold out, against the pressure of want gradually increasing, and at last terminating in the agony and destruction of famine. We are told that a medimnus of wheat came to be sold for the enormous price of five minæ; at the rate of about £14 sterling per bushel: every horse and every beast of burthen was consumed: at length hides were boiled and eaten, and even the grass on parts of the wall. Many perished from absolute hunger, while the survivors lost all strength and energy. In this intolerable condition, they were constrained, at the end of near eleven months, to surrender at discretion.

So numerous were these victims of famine, that Dionysius, on entering Rhegium, found heaps of unburied corpses, besides six thousand citizens in the last stage of emaciation. All these captives were sent to Syracuse, where those who could provide a mina (about £3 17s.) were allowed to ransom themselves, while the rest were sold as slaves. After such a period of suffering, the number of those who retained the means of ransom was probably very small. But the Rhegine general, Phyton, was detained with all his kindred, and reserved for a different fate. First, his son was drowned, by order of Dionysius: next, Phyton himself was chained to one of the loftiest siege-machines, as a spectacle to the whole army. While he was thus exhibited to scorn, a messenger was sent to apprise him, that Dionysius had just caused his son to be drowned. “He is more fortunate than his father by one day,” was the reply of Phyton. After a certain time, the sufferer was taken down from his pillory, and led round the city, with attendants scourging and insulting him at every step; while a herald proclaimed aloud, “Behold the man who persuaded the Rhegines to war, thus signally punished by Dionysius!” Phyton, enduring all these torments with heroic courage and dignified silence, was provoked to exclaim in reply to the herald, that the punishment was inflicted because he had refused to betray the city to Dionysius, who would himself soon be overtaken by the divine vengeance. At length the prolonged outrages, combined with the noble demeanor and high reputation of the victim, excited compassion even among the soldiers of Dionysius himself. Their murmurs became so pronounced, that he began to apprehend an open mutiny for the purpose of rescuing Phyton. Under this fear he gave orders that the torments should be discontinued, and that Phyton with his entire kindred should be drowned.[39]

[39] Diodor. xiv. 112. Ὁ δὲ Φύτων, κατὰ τὴν πολιορκίαν στρατηγὸς
ἀγαθὸς γεγενημένος, καὶ κατὰ τὸν ἄλλον βίον ἐπαινούμενος, οὐκ
ἀγεννῶς ὑπέμενε τὴν ἐπὶ τῆς τελευτῆς τιμωρίαν· ἀλλ᾽ ἀκατάπληκτον
τὴν ψυχὴν φυλάξας, καὶ βοῶν, ὅτι τὴν πόλιν οὐ βουληθεὶς προδοῦναι
Διονυσίῳ τυγχάνει τῆς τιμωρίας, ἣν αὐτῷ τὸ δαιμόνιον ἐκείνῳ
συντόμως ἐπιστήσει· ὥστε τὴν ἀρετὴν τἀνδρὸς καὶ παρὰ τοῖς
στρατιώταις τοῦ Διονυσίου κατελεεῖσθαι, καί τινας ἤδη θορυβεῖν.
Ὁ δὲ Διονύσιος, εὐλαβηθεὶς μή τινες τῶν στρατιωτῶν ἀποτολμήσωσιν
ἐξαρπάζειν τὸν Φύτωνα, παυσάμενος τῆς τιμωρίας, κατεπόντωσε τὸν
ἀτυχῆ μετὰ τῆς συγγενείας. Οὗτος μὲν οὖν ἀναξίως τῆς ἀρετῆς
ἐκνόμοις περιέπεσε τιμωρίαις, καὶ πολλοὺς ἔσχε καὶ τότε τῶν
Ἑλλήνων τοὺς ἀλγήσαντας τὴν συμφορὰν, καὶ μετὰ ταῦτα ποιητὰς τοὺς
θρηνήσοντας τὸ τῆς περιπετείας ἐλεεινόν.

The prophetic persuasion under which this unhappy man perished, that divine vengeance would soon overtake his destroyer, was noway borne out by the subsequent reality. The power and prosperity of Dionysius underwent abatement by his war with the Carthaginians in 383 B. C., yet remained very considerable even to his dying day. And the misfortunes which fell thickly upon his son the younger Dionysius, more than thirty years afterwards, though they doubtless received a religious interpretation from contemporary critics, were probably ascribed to acts more recent than the barbarities inflicted on Phyton. But these barbarities, if not avenged, were at least laid to heart with profound sympathy by the contemporary world, and even commemorated with tenderness and pathos by poets. While Dionysius was composing tragedies (of which more presently) in hopes of applause in Greece, he was himself furnishing real matter of history, not less tragical than the sufferings of those legendary heroes and heroines to which he (in common with other poets) resorted for a subject. Among the many acts of cruelty, more or less aggravated, which it is the melancholy duty of an historian of Greece to recount, there are few so revolting as the death of the Rhegine general; who was not a subject, nor a conspirator, nor a rebel, but an enemy in open warfare—of whom the worst that even Dionysius himself could say, was, that he had persuaded his countrymen into the war. And even this could not be said truly; since the antipathy of the Rhegines towards Dionysius was of old standing, traceable to his enslavement of Naxos and Katana, if not to causes yet earlier—though the statement of Phyton may very probably be true, that Dionysius had tried to bribe him to betray Rhegium (as the generals of Naxos and Katana had been bribed to betray their respective cities), and was incensed beyond measure at finding the proposition repelled. The Hellenic war-practice was in itself sufficiently cruel. Both Athenians and Lacedæmonians put to death prisoners of war by wholesale, after the capture of Melos, after the battle of Ægospotami, and elsewhere. But to make death worse than death by a deliberate and protracted tissue of tortures and indignities, is not Hellenic; it is Carthaginian and Asiatic. Dionysius had shown himself better than a Greek when he released without ransom the Krotoniate prisoners captured at the battle of Kaulonia; but he became far worse than a Greek, and worse even than his own mercenaries, when he heaped aggravated suffering, beyond the simple death-warrant, on the heads of Phyton and his kindred.

Dionysius caused the city of Rhegium to be destroyed[40] or dismantled. Probably he made over the lands to Lokri, like those of Kaulonia and Hipponium. The free Rhegine citizens had all been transported to Syracuse for sale; and those who were fortunate enough to save their liberty by providing the stipulated ransom, would not be allowed to come back to their native soil. If Dionysius was so zealous in enriching the Lokrians, as to transfer to them two other neighboring town-domains, against the inhabitants of which he had no peculiar hatred—much more would he be disposed to make the like transfer of the Rhegine territory, whereby he would gratify at once his antipathy to the one state and his partiality to the other. It is true that Rhegium did not permanently continue incorporated with Lokri; but neither did Kaulonia nor Hipponium. The maintenance of all the three transfers depended on the ascendency of Dionysius and his dynasty; but for the time immediately succeeding the capture of Rhegium, the Lokrians became masters of the Rhegine territory as well as of the two other townships, and thus possessed all the Calabrian peninsula south of the Gulf of Squillace. To the Italiot Greeks generally, these victories of Dionysius were fatally ruinous, because the political union formed among them, for the purpose of resisting the pressure of the Lucanians from the interior, was overthrown, leaving each city to its own weakness and isolation.[41]

[40] Strabo, vi. p. 258 ἐπιφανῆ δ᾽ οὖν πόλιν οὖσαν ... κατασκάψαι
Διονύσιον, etc.

[41] Polybius, ii. 39, 67.

The year 387, in which Rhegium surrendered, was also distinguished for two other memorable events; the general peace in Central Greece under the dictation of Persia and Sparta, commonly called the peace of Antalkidas; and the capture of Rome by the Gauls.[42]

[42] Polybius, i. 6.

The two great ascendant powers in the Grecian world were now, Sparta in Peloponnesus, and Dionysius in Sicily; each respectively fortified by alliance with the other. I have already in a former chapter[43] described the position of Sparta after the peace of Antalkidas; how greatly she gained by making herself the champion of that Persian rescript—and how she purchased, by surrendering the Asiatic Greeks to Artaxerxes, an empire on land equal to that which she had enjoyed before the defeat of Knidus, though without recovering the maritime empire fortified by that defeat.

[43] Chap. LXXVI. Vol. X.

To this great imperial state, Dionysius in the west formed a suitable counterpart. His recent victories in Southern Italy had already raised his power to a magnitude transcending all the far-famed recollections of Gelon; but he now still farther extended it by sending an expedition against Kroton. This city, the largest in Magna Græcia, fell under his power; and he succeeded in capturing, by surprise or bribery, even its strong citadel; on a rock overhanging the sea.[44] He seems also to have advanced yet farther with his fleet to attack Thurii; which city owed its preservation solely to the violence of the north winds. He plundered the temple of Hêrê near Cape Lakinium, in the domain of Kroton. Among the ornaments of this temple was one of pre-eminent beauty and celebrity, which at the periodical festivals was exhibited to admiring spectators: a robe wrought with the greatest skill, and decorated in the most costly manner, the votive offering of a Sybarite named Alkimenes. Dionysius sold this robe to the Carthaginians. It long remained as one of the permanent religious ornaments of their city, being probably dedicated to the honor of those Hellenic Deities recently introduced for worship; whom (as I have before stated) the Carthaginians were about this time peculiarly anxious to propitiate, in hopes of averting or alleviating the frightful pestilences wherewith they had been so often smitten. They purchased the robe from Dionysius at the prodigious price of one hundred and twenty talents, or about £27,600 sterling.[45] Incredible as this sum may appear, we must recollect that the honor done to the new gods would be mainly estimated according to the magnitude of the sum laid out. As the Carthaginians would probably think no price too great to transfer an unrivalled vestment from the wardrobe of the Lakinian Hêrê to the newly-established temple and worship of Dêmêtêr and Persephonê in their city—so we may be sure that the loss of such an ornament, and the spoliation of the holy place, would deeply humiliate the Krotoniates, and with them the crowd of Italiot Greeks who frequented the Lakinian festivals.

[44] Livy has preserved the mention of this important acquisition
of Dionysius (xxiv. 3).

“Sed arx Crotonis, unâ parte imminens mari, alterâ vergente in
agrum, situ tantum naturali quondam munita, postea et muro cincta
est, quâ per aversas rupes ab Dionysio Siciliæ tyranno per dolum
fuerat capta.”

Justin also (xx. 5) mentions the attack of Dionysius upon Kroton.

We may, with tolerable certainty, refer the capture to the
present part of the career of Dionysius.

See also Ælian, V. H. xii. 61.

[45] Aristotel. Auscult. Mirab. s. 96; Athenæus, xii. p. 541;
Diodor. xiv. 77.

Polemon specified this costly robe, in his work Περὶ τῶν ἐν
Καρχηδόνι Πέπλων....

Thus master of the important city of Kroton, with a citadel near the sea capable of being held by a separate garrison, Dionysius divested the inhabitants of their southern possession of Skylletium, which he made over to aggrandize yet farther the town of Lokri.[46] Whether he pushed his conquests farther along the Tarentine Gulf so as to acquire the like hold on Thurii or Metapontum, we cannot say. But both of them must have been overawed by the rapid extension and near approach of his power; especially Thurii, not yet recovered from her disastrous defeat by the Lucanians.

[46] Strabo, vi. p. 261.