Dion

Heracleides was now stormily denounced by the citizens, whereupon he induced Hippo, one of their leaders, to make proposals to the people for a distribution of land, urging that liberty was based on equality, and slavery on the poverty of those who had naught.

Supporting Hippo, and heading a faction which overwhelmed the opposition of Dion, Heracleides persuaded the Syracusans to vote this measure, to deprive the mercenaries of their pay, and to elect other generals, thus ridding themselves of the seventies of Dion.

So the people, attempting, as it were, to stand at once upon their feet after their long sickness of tyranny, and to act the part of independence out of season, stumbled in their undertakings, and yet hated Dion, who, like a physician, wished to subject the city to a strict and temperate regimen.

As they met in assembly to assign new commands, the time being midsummer, extraordinary peals of thunder and evil portents from the heavens occurred for fifteen days together, and dispersed the people, whose superstitious fears prevented them from appointing other generals.