[1] After the death of Philistus, Dionysius sent to Dion offering to surrender to him the acropolis, his munitions of war, and his mercenaries, with five months’ full pay for these,
[2] and demanding for himself the privilege of retiring unmolested into Italy, and of enjoying during his residence there the revenues of Gyarta, a large and rich tract in the territory of Syracuse, extending from the sea to the interior of the island.
[3] Dion, however, would not accept these terms, but bade him apply to the Syracusans, and these, hoping to take Dionysius alive, drove away his ambassadors.
[4] Upon this, the tyrant handed over the citadel to Apollocrates, his eldest son, while he himself, after watching for a favourable wind and putting on board his ships the persons and property that he held most dear, eluded the vigilance of Heracleides the admiral, and sailed off.
[5]
Heracleides was now stormily denounced by the citizens, whereupon he induced Hippo, one of their leaders, to make proposals to the people for a distribution of land, urging that liberty was based on equality, and slavery on the poverty of those who had naught.
Heracleides was now stormily denounced by the citizens, whereupon he induced Hippo, one of their leaders, to make proposals to the people for a distribution of land, urging that liberty was based on equality, and slavery on the poverty of those who had naught.
[6] Supporting Hippo, and heading a faction which overwhelmed the opposition of Dion, Heracleides persuaded the Syracusans to vote this measure, to deprive the mercenaries of their pay, and to elect other generals, thus ridding themselves of the seventies of Dion.
[7] So the people, attempting, as it were, to stand at once upon their feet after their long sickness of tyranny, and to act the part of independence out of season, stumbled in their undertakings, and yet hated Dion, who, like a physician, wished to subject the city to a strict and temperate regimen.
Dion. Plutarch. Bernadotte Perrin (Translator). Cambridge, MA. 1918.
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