Dion

Moreover, if envy led Heracleides to be faithless and base, surely anger must not drive Dion to sully his virtue; for although taking vengeance for a wrong was in the eyes of the law more just than the doing of the wrong unprovoked, by nature it sprang from one and the same weakness.

Furthermore, baseness in a man, even though it be a grievous thing, was not so altogether savage and obstinate that it could not be conquered by frequent benefactions and altered by a sense of gratitude.

After using such arguments as these, Dion set Heracleides and Theodotes free.

Then turning his attention to the siege-wall, he bade each one of the Syracusans to cut a stake and lay it down near the works, and setting his mercenaries to the task all night, while the Syracusans were resting, he succeeded in fencing off the acropolis, so that when day came the citizens and the enemy alike were amazed to see with what speed the work had been accomplished.

He also buried the dead Syracusans, ransomed those who had been taken prisoners, although they were fully two thousand in number, and then held an assembly.

Here Heracleides came forward with a motion that Dion should be chosen general with absolute powers by land and sea.

The aristocracy approved of this motion and urged the appointment; but the mob of sailors and day-labourers tumultuously opposed it, being vexed that Heracleides should lose his office of admiral, and considering him, even though good for nothing in other ways, at least altogether more a man of the people than Dion and more under the control of the multitude.