Dion

Plutarch

Plutarch. Plutarch's Lives, Vol. VI. Perrin, Bernadotte, translator. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press; London: William Heinemann Ltd., 1918.

But he seems to have been of a temper naturally averse to graciousness, and, besides, he was ambitious to curb the Syracusans, who were given to excessive license and luxury.

For Heracleides once more set himself in opposition to him. To begin with, when he was invited by Dion to attend the council, he refused to come, saying that as a man in private station he would meet in assembly with the other citizens.

Next, he publicly denounced Dion for not demolishing the citadel, and for checking the people when they set out to open the tomb of Dionysius and cast out his dead body, and for sending to Corinth for counsellors and colleagues in the government, thereby showing contempt for his fellow citizens.

And in fact Dion did send for assistance to the Corinthians, hoping the more easily to establish the civil polity which he had in mind if they were at his side.

And he had it in mind to put a curb upon unmixed democracy in Syracuse, regarding it as not a civil polity, but rather, in the words of Plato,[*](Republic, viii. p. 557 d.) a

bazaar of polities

; also to establish and set in order a mixture of democracy and royalty, somewhat after the Spartan and Cretan fashion, wherein an aristocracy should preside, and administer the most important affairs; for he saw that the Corinthians had a polity which leaned towards oligarchy, and that they transacted little public business in their assembly of the people.