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DIONY'SIUS THE YOUNGER, son of Dionysius the Elder, succeeded him as tyrant of Syracuse, being acknowledged as such by the people. His father had left the state in a prosperous condition; but young Dionysius had neither his abilities nor his prudence and experience. He followed at first the advice of Dion, who, although a republican in principle, had remained faithful to his father, and who now endeavoured to direct the inexperienced son for the good of his country. For this purpose Dion invited his friend Plato to Syracuse about 364 B.C. Dionysius received the philosopher with great respect, and in deference to his advice reformed for awhile his loose habits and the manners of his court. But a faction, led by Philistus, who had always been a supporter of the tyranny of the elder Dionysius, succeeded in prejudicing his son against both Dion and Plato. Dion was exiled under pretence that he had written privately to the senate of Carthage for the purpose of concluding a peace. Plato urgently demanded of Dionysius the recall of Dion, and not being able to obtain it, he left Syracuse, after which Dionysius gave himself up to debauchery without restraint. Aristippus, who was then at his court, was the kind of philosopher best suited to the taste of Dionysius. Dion meantime was travelling through Greece, where his character gained him numerous friends. Dionysius, moved by jealousy, confiscated his property, and obliged his wife to marry another. Upon this Dion_collected a small force at Zacynthus, with which he sailed for Sicily, and entered Syracuse without resistance. Dionysius retired to the citadel in the Ortygia, and after some resistance, in which old Philistus, his best supporter, was taken prisoner and put to death, he quitted Syracuse by sea, and retired to Locri, the country of his mother, where he had connexions and friends. His partisans, however, retained possession of Ortygia, and a faction having risen in the town, headed by Heraclides, a demagogue, who proposed an equal distribution of property, which Dion resisted, the latter was deprived of his command, and would have been killed by the excited populace, had not his soldiers escorted him safely to Leontini. In the midst of the confusion, a successful sortie made by the soldiers of Dionysius, who plundered and burnt part of the city, recalled the Syracusans to their senses, and messengers were dispatched after Dion, requesting him to return. Dion obeyed the call, repulsed the enemy, and soon after took the citadel. But the faction of Heraclides conspired against Dion, and had him treacherously murdered, 354 B.C.

Several tyrants succeeded each other in Syracuse, until Dionysius himself came and retook it about 346. Dionysius, however, instead of improving by his ten years' exile, had grown worse; having usurped the supreme power in Locri, he had committed many atrocities, had put to death several citizens, and abused their wives and daughters. (Justinus, Ælianus.) Upon his return to Syracuse, his cruelty and profligacy drove away a great number of people, who emigrated to various parts of Italy and Greece, whilst others joined Iketas, tyrant of Leontini, and a former friend P. C., No. 531

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of Dion. The latter sent messengers to Corinth to request assistance against Dionysius. The Corinthians appointed as leader of the expedition Timoleon, who had already figured in the affairs of his own country as a determined opponent of tyranny. Timoleon landed in Sicily 344 B.C., notwithstanding the opposition of the Carthaginians and of Iketas, who acted a perfidious part on this occasion; he entered Syracuse, and soon after obliged Dionysius to surrender. Dionysius was sent to Corinth, where he spent the remainder of his life in the company of actors and low women; some say that at one time he kept a school. Justin (xxi. 5) says that he purposely affected low habits in order to disarm revenge, and that being despised, he might no longer be feared or hated for his former tyranny. Several repartees are related of him in answer to those who taunted him upon his altered fortunes which are not destitute of wit or wisdom. (Plutarch, Dion.; Diodorus, xvi.) DIONY'SIUS, the son of Alexander, an historian and critic, born at Halicarnassus in the first century B. C. know nothing of his history beyond what he has told us of himself. He states (Antiq., p. 20-24) that he came to Italy at the termination of the civil war between Augustus and Antony (B. C. 29), and that he spent the following two-andtwenty years at Rome in learning the Latin language and in collecting materials for his history. (Phot. Biblioth., cod. lxxxvi.) He also says (Antiq., p. 1725) that he lived in the time of the great civil war. The principal work of Dionysius is his Roman Antiquities, which commenced with the early history of the people of Italy, and terminated with the beginning of the first Punic war, B.C. 265. (Antiq. i. p. 22.) It originally consisted of twenty books, of which the first ten remain entire. The eleventh breaks off in the year 312 B. C., but several fragments of the latter half of the history are preserved in the collection of Constantine Porphyrogennetus, and to these a valuable addition was made in 1816 by Mai, from an old MS. Besides, the first three books of Appian were founded entirely upon Dionysius; and Plutarch's biography of Camillus must also be considered as a compilation mostly taken from the Roman Antiquities, so that perhaps upon the whole we have not lost much of this work. With regard to the trustworthiness and general value of Dionysius's history, considerable doubts may be justly entertained; for though he has evidently written with much greater care than Livy, and has studied Cato and the old annalists more diligently than his Roman contemporary, yet he wrote with an object which at once invalidates his claim to be considered a veracious and impartial historian. Dionysius wrote for the Greeks; and his object was to relieve them from the mortification which they felt at being conquered by a race of barbarians, as they considered the Romans to be; and this he endeavoured to effect by twisting and forging testimonies and botching up the old legends, so as to make out a prima facie proof of the Greek origin of the city of Rome, and he inserts arbitrarily a great number of set speeches, evidently composed for the same purpose. He VOL. IX.-B