A Dictionary of Greek and Roman biography and mythology. By various writers. Ed. by William Smith. Illustrated by numerous engravings on wood.

1034 DIONYSIUS.
sold as slaves or compelled to migrate to Syracuse.
Naxos was utterly destroyed, and Catana occupied
by a colony of Campanian mercenaries, B. c.
403. (Diod. xiv. 14, 15.) For several years after
this he appears to have been occupied in strengthening his power and in preparations for renewing the
war with Carthage. Among these may be reckoned
the great works which he at this time erected,--
the docks adapted for the reception of several hundred ships, and the wall of 30 stadia in length, enclosing the whole extent of the Epipolae, the magnificence of which is attested by its existing remains
at the present day. (Diod. xiv. 18, 42; Smith's
Siily, p. 167.)
It was not till B. c. 397 that Dionysius considered himself sufficiently strong, or his preparations enough advanced, to declare war against Carthage. He had in the mean time assembled a
large army of auxiliary and mercenary troops, and
a fleet of two hundred ships, remarkable for the
number of quadriremes and quinqueremes which
were seen in it for the first time. The Carthaginians had been greatly weakened by the ravages
of a pestilence in Africa, and were unprepared for
war. Dionysius was immediately joined not only
by the Greeks of Gela, Agrigentum, Himera, and
Selinns, which had become tributary to Carthage
by the late treaty of 405, but by the Sicelians of
the interior, and even the Sicanians, in general the
firm allies of Carthage. He thus advanced without
opposition from one end of Sicily to the other, and
laid siege to Motya, one of the chief strongholds of
the Carthaginians, which fell into his power after
a long and desperate resistance, prolonged till near
the close of the summer. Segesta, however, successfully resisted his efforts, and the next year
(a. c. 396) the arrival of a great Carthaginian
armament under Himilco changed the face of
affairs. Motya was quickly recovered; the Sicanians and Sicelians abandoned the Syracusan alliance for that of the enemy, and Himilco advanced
unopposed as far as Messana, which he carried by
assault, and utterly destroyed. The Syracusan
fleet under Leptines, the brother of Dionysius, was
totally defeated; and the latter, not daring to risk
a battle, withdrew with his land forces, and shut
himself up within the walls of Syracuse. Abandoned by the other Sicilian Greeks, and besieged
by the Carthaginians both by sea and land, his
situation appeared to be desperate. It is even said
that he was on the point of giving up all for lost,
and making his escape, but was deterred by one of
his friends observing, "that sovereign power was
an honourable winding-sheei." (Isocrat. Arch/idam. ~ 49; Aelian. V. H. iv. 8; but compare
Diod. xiv. 8.) A pestilence shortly after broke
out in the Carthaginian camp, which a second time
proved the salvation of Syracuse. Dionysius ably
availed himself of the state of weakness to which
the enemy was thus reduced, and by a sudden
attack both by sea and land, defeated the Carthaginian army, and burnt great part of their fleet.
Still he was glad to consent to a secret capitulation,
by which the Carthaginians themselves were allowed
to depart unmolested, abandoning both their allies
and foreign mercenaries, who, thus left without a
leader, were quickly dispersed. (Diod. xiv. 41
-76.)
No peace was concluded with Carthage upon
this occasion; but the effects of their late disastrous
expedition, and the revolt of their subjects in

DIONYSIUS.
Africa, prevented the Carthaginians from renewing
hostilities against Syracuse until the summer of
393, when Mago, who had succeeded Himilco in
the command, having renewed the alliance with
the Sicelians, advanced towards Messana, but was
defeated by Dionysius near Abacaenum. The next
year (B. c. 392) he marched against the Syracusan
territory with a much greater force; but Dionysius
having secured the alliance of Agyris, tyrant of
Agyrium, was enabled to cut off the supplies of the
enemy, and thus reduced them to such distress,
that Mago was compelled to treat for peace. The
Syracusans also were weary of the war, and a
treaty was concluded, by which the Carthaginians
abandoned their Sicelian allies, and Dionysius became master of Tauromenium: in other respects,
both parties remained nearly as before. (Diod.
xiv. 90, 95, 96.)
This treaty left Dionysius at leisure to continue
the ambitious projects in which he had previously
engaged against the Greek cities in Italy. Already,
before the Carthaginian war, he had secured the
alliance of the Locrians by marrying Doris, the
daughter of one of their principal citizens. Rhegium, on the contrary, had been uniformly hostile
to him, and was the chief place of refuge of the
Syracusan exiles. (Diod. xiv. 40.) Hence
Dionysius established at Messana, after its destruction by Himilco, a colony of citizens from Locri
and its kindred city of Medama, to be a stronghold
against Rhegium. (xiv. 78.) His designs in this
quarter attracted so much attention, that the principal Greek cities in Italy, which were at the same
time hard pressed by the Lucanians of the interior,
concluded a league for their common defence at
once against the barbarians and Dionysius. The
latter retaliated by entering into alliance with the
Lucanians, and sending a fleet to their assistance
under his brother Leptines, B. c. 390. (xiv. 91,
100-102.) The next year he gained a decisive
victory over the combined forces of the Italian
Greeks at the river Helorus; and this success was
followed by the reduction of Caulonia, Hipponium,
and finally, after a siege protracted for nearly
eleven months, of Rhegium itself, B. c. 387. (xiv.
103-108, 111.) The inhabitants of the conquered
cities were for the most part removed to Syracuse,
and their territory given up to the Locrians.
Dionysius was now at the summit of his greatness, and during the twenty years that elapsed
from this period to his death, possessed an amount
of power and influence far exceeding those enjoyed
by any other Greek before the time of Alexander.
In Sicily he held undisputed rule over the eastern
half of the island, while the principal cities of the
interior and those along the north coast, as far as
Cephaloedium, were either subject to him, or held
by his close and dependent allies. (xiv. 78, 96.)
In Italy it is difficult to estimate the precise extent of his influence: direct dominion he had apparently none. But his allies, the Locrians, were
masters of the whole southern extremity of the
peninsula, and his powerful fleets gave him the
command both of the Tyrrhenian and Adriatic
seas. In the former he repressed the piracies of
the Etruscans, and, under pretence of retaliation,
led a fleet of 60 triremes against them, with which
he took the town of Pyrgi, the port of Caere, and
plundered its wealthy temple of Matuta. (Diod.
xv. 14; Strab. v. p. 226; Pseud.-Aristot. Oeconon.
ii. 2.) On this occasion he is also said to have