[1] At the outset, indeed, after he had killed Dion, Callippus was a glorious personage, and had Syracuse in his power. He actually wrote letter to the city of Athens, which, next to the gods, he ought to have held in awe and fear after setting his hands to so great a pollution.
[2] But it appears to be truly said of that city that the good men whom she breeds are of the highest excellence, and the bad men of the most despicable baseness, just as her soil produces sweetest honey and deadliest hemlock.
[3] However, Callippus did not long remain a scandal to fortune and the gods, as though they had no eyes for a man who won leadership and power by so great impiety, but speedily paid a fitting penalty.
[4] For on setting out to take Catana, he at once lost Syracuse; at which time, as they say, he remarked that he had lost a city and got a cheese-grater.
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[5] Then he attacked Messana and lost most of his soldiers, among whom were the murderers of Dion; and since no city in Sicily would receive him, but all hated and spurned him, he took possession of Rhegium.
[6] But there, being in straitened circumstances and unable to support his mercenaries properly, he was put to death by Leptines and Polyperchon, who, as fortune would have it, used the shortsword with which Dion also was said to have been smitten.
[7] And it was known by its size, which was short, after the Spartan fashion, and by the style of its workmanship, being delicately and cunningly wrought. Such, then, was the penalty which Callippus paid.
[8]
As for Andromache and Arete, when they were released from prison, they were taken up by Hicetas the Syracusan, who had been one of Dion’s friends, and who was thought to be faithfully and honourably disposed towards them.
As for Andromache and Arete, when they were released from prison, they were taken up by Hicetas the Syracusan, who had been one of Dion’s friends, and who was thought to be faithfully and honourably disposed towards them.
[9] Afterwards, having been persuaded by the enemies of Dion, he got a ship ready for them, pretending that they were to be sent into Peloponnesus, and ordered the sailors, during the voyage, to cut their throats and cast them into the sea. Others, however, say that they were thrown overboard alive, and the little boy with them.
[10] But Hicetas also met with a punishment worthy of his crimes. For he himself was captured by Timoleon and put to death, and the Syracusans, to avenge Dion, slew his two daughters also; of which things I have written at length in my Life of Timoleon.
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Dion. Plutarch. Bernadotte Perrin (Translator). Cambridge, MA. 1918.
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