Dion

However, although the assembly had become confused and tumultuous, Dion came forward and showed in his own defence that Sosis was a brother of one of the body-guards of Dionysius, and had been induced by him to raise confusion and faction among the citizens, since there was no safety for Dionysius except in their mutual distrust and dissension.

At the same time, too, the physicians examined the wound of Sosis and discovered that it had been made by razure rather than by a downright blow.

For the blows of a sword, by reason of its weight, make wounds that are deepest in the middle, but that of Sosis was shallow all along, and intermittent, as would be natural if he stopped his work on account of pain, and then began it again.

Besides, certain well known persons brought a razor to the assembly, and stated that as they were walking along the street, Sosis met them, all bloody, and declaring that he was running away from Dion’s mercenaries, by whom he had just been wounded;

at once, then, they ran after them, and found no one, but saw a razor lying under a hollow rock in the quarter from which Sosis had been seen to come.

Well, then, the case of Sosis was already desperate; but when, in addition to these proofs, his servants testified that while it was still night he had left the house alone and carrying the razor, Dion’s accusers withdrew, and the people, after condemning Sosis to death, were reconciled with Dion.

However, they were none the less suspicious of his mercenaries, and especially so, now that most of the struggles against the tyrant were carried on at sea, since Philistus had come from Iapygia with a large number of triremes to help Dionysius; and since the mercenaries were men-at-arms, they thought them of no further use for the war, nay, they felt that even these troops were dependent for protection upon the citizens themselves, who were seamen, and derived their power from their fleet.

And they were still more elated by a successful engagement at sea, in which they defeated Philistus, and then treated him in a barbarous and savage fashion.