Dion

Plutarch

Plutarch. Plutarch's Lives, Vol. VI. Perrin, Bernadotte, translator. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press; London: William Heinemann Ltd., 1918.

But a strange misfortune befell the man who had been sent with the letters. After he had crossed to Italy and passed through the territory of Rhegium, and as he was hastening on to Dionysius at Caulonia, he met one of his acquaintances who was carrying an animal that had been recently sacrificed, and after accepting from him a portion of the flesh, went on his way with all speed.

But after travelling part of the night, he was compelled by weariness to take a little sleep, and lay down, just as he was, in a wood by the side of the road.

Then a wolf came to the spot, attracted by the scent, and seizing the flesh which had been fastened to the wallet in which the man had his letters, went off with it and the wallet too.

When the man awoke and perceived what had happened, he wandered about a long time in search of what he had lost, but could not find it, and therefore determined not to go to the tyrant without the letters, but to run away and disappear.

Dionysius, therefore, was destined to learn of the war in Sicily late and from other sources; but meanwhile, as Dion proceeded on his march, he was joined by the Camarinaeans, and no small multitude of the rural Syracusans revolted and swelled his ranks.

Moreover, the Leontines and Campanians who were guarding Epipolae[*](The plateau west of the city of Syracuse. See the note on Nicias, xvii. 1. ) with Timocrates, in consequence of a false report which Dion sent to them that he would attack their cities first, deserted Timocrates and went off to assist their own peoples.

When news of this was brought to Dion as he lay encamped near Acrae, he roused up his soldiers while it was still night and came to the river Anapus, which is ten furlongs distant from the city.

There he halted and sacrificed by the river, addressing his prayers to the rising sun, and on the instant the soothsayers declared that the gods promised him victory. When, too, the audience beheld Dion with a wreath on his head for the sacrifice, with one impulse they all crowned themselves with wreaths.

No fewer than five thousand men had joined him on the march, and though they were wretchedly armed with such weapons as came to hand, their enthusiasm made up for their lack of equipment, so that when Dion gave the word they advanced on the run, exhorting one another with joyful shouts to win their liberty.

As for the Syracusans in the city, the men of note and cultivation, in fresh apparel, went to meet them at the gates, while the multitude set upon the tyrant’s friends and seized those called tale-bearers, wicked men whom the gods hated, who went up and down in the city busily mingling with the Syracusans and reporting to the tyrant the sentiments and utterances of every one.