Dion

As the plot was ripening, Dion saw an apparition of great size and portentous aspect. He was sitting late in the day in the vestibule of his house, alone and lost in thought,

when suddenly a noise was heard at the other end of the colonnade, and turning his gaze in that direction he saw (for it was not yet dark) a woman of lofty stature, in garb and countenance exactly like a tragic Fury, sweeping the house with a sort of broom.

He was terribly shocked, and, becoming apprehensive, summoned his friends, told them what he had seen, and begged them to remain and spend the night with him, being altogether beside himself, and fearing that if he were left alone the portent would appear to him again.

This, indeed, did not occur a second time. But a few days afterwards his son, who was hardly a boy any more, in a fit of angry displeasure caused by some trivial and childish grievance, threw himself headlong from the roof and was killed.

While Dion was thus heavily afflicted, Callippus was all the more intent upon his plot, and spread a report among the Syracusans that Dion, being now childless, had made up his mind to send for Apollocrates, the son of Dionysius, and make him his successor, since he was his wife’s nephew and his sister’s grandson.