Dion

But Dion came forward and protested that in giving this office to Heracleides, they had done away with that which they had before given to him, for he would no longer be general with absolute powers if another should have command of time navy. Then the Syracusans reluctantly revoked the appointment of Heracleides.

When this had been done, Dion summoned Heracleides to his house and gently reproached him, on the ground that he was not acting well or wisely in quarrelling with him for honours at a crisis where a slight impulse might ruin their cause. Then he himself called a fresh assembly and appointed Heracleides admiral, and persuaded the citizens to give him a body-guard, like his own.

In word and mien, now, Heracleides paid court to Dion, acknowledged his thanks to him, and attended submissively upon him, performing his commands; but in secret he perverted and stirred up the multitude and the revolutionaries, and encompassed Dion with disturbances which reduced him to utter perplexity.

For if he advised to let Dionysius leave the citadel under a truce, he would be charged with sparing and preserving him; and if, wishing to give no offence, he simply continued the siege, it would be said that he was protracting the war, in order that he might the longer be in command and overawe the citizens.

Now, there was a certain Sosis, a man whose baseness and impudence gave him renown in Syracuse, where it was thought that abundance of liberty could only be shown by such license of speech as his.

This man, with hostile designs upon Dion, first rose in aim assembly and roundly abused the Syracusans for not comprehending that they had merely exchanged a stupid and drunken tyrant for a watchful and sober master;

and having thus declared himself an open enemy of Dion, he left the assembly. Next, on the following day he was seen running through the city naked, his head and face covered with blood, as though he were trying to escape pursuit.

In this condition he dashed into the assembly and told the people there that he had been set upon by Dion’s mercenaries, and showed them his head with its wounds. He found many to share his resentment and take sides with him against Dion, who, they said, was committing dire acts of tyranny, if by murder and peril of life he sought to rob the citizens of their free speech.