Dion

and though at first they were afraid of his boldness of speech, thinking it a trap set for them by the tyrant, yet in time they came to trust him. For all now spoke in the same strain, begging and exhorting Dion to come without ships men-at-arms, or horses; he was simply to come himself in a small boat, and lend the Sicilians his person and his name against Dionysius.

Encouraged by this information from Speusippus, Dion collected mercenaries secretly and by the agency of others, concealing his purpose.

He was assisted also by many statesmen and philosophers, such as Eudemus the Cyprian, on whose death Aristotle wrote his dialogue On the Soul, and Timonides the Leucadian.

Furthermore, they enlisted on his side Miltas the Thessalian also, who was a seer and had studied in the Academy.

But of those who had been banished by the tyrant, and there were not less than a thousand of them, only twenty-five took part in the expedition; the rest played the coward and abandoned it.

The rendezvous was the island of Zacynthus, and here the soldiers were assembled. They numbered fewer than eight hundred, but they were all well known in consequence of many great campaigns, their bodies were exceptionally well trained, while in experience and daring they had no equals in the world, and were capable of inciting and inflaming to share their prowess all the host which Dion expected to have in Sicily.

At first, indeed, when these men heard that their expedition was directed against Dionysius and Sicily, they were full of consternation and denounced the enterprise, declaring that Dion, in a mad frenzy of anger, or in despair, was plunging into desperate undertakings; they were also enraged at their own leaders and recruiting officers for not having told them at the very outset about the war.

But when Dion addressed them, setting forth in detail the unsound condition of the tyranny, and declaring that he was taking them, not as soldiers, but as commanders of the Syracusans and the rest of the Sicilians, who had long been ready for a revolt; and when, after Dion, Alcimenes, who was an Achaean of the highest birth and reputation and a member of time expedition, had argued with them, they were persuaded.

It was now midsummer,[*](357 B.C.) the Etesian winds[*](Winds blowing steadily from the North during the summer.) prevailed at sea, and the moon was at the full. Dion had prepared a magnificent sacrifice to Apollo, and marched in solemn procession to the temple with his soldiers, who were arrayed in full armour.

After the sacrifice, he gave them a banquet in the stadium of the Zacynthians, where, as they reclined on their couches, they wondered at the splendour of the gold and silver beakers, and of the tables, for it passed the limits set by a private man’s fortune; they reasoned, too, that a man who was already past his prime and was master of such great affluence, would not engage in hazardous enterprises unless he had solid hopes of success, and friends over there who offered him unbounded resources.