Dion

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

Accordingly, since he expected that these measures would find their chief opponent in Heracleides, and since the man was in every way turbulent, fickle, and seditious, he now yielded to those who had long wished to kill him, but whom he had hitherto restrained; so they made their way into the house of Heracleides and slew him.

His death was keenly resented by the Syracusans; but nevertheless, when Dion gave him a splendid funeral, followed the body to its grave with his army, and then discoursed to them upon the matter, they came to see that it was impossible for the city to be free from tumults while Heracleides and Dion together conducted its affairs.

Now, there was a certain comrade of Dion’s named Callippus, an Athenian, who, as Plato says,[*](Epist. vi. p. 333.) had become intimately acquainted with him, not as a fellow pupil in philosophy, but in consequence of initiation into the mysteries and the recurrent comradeship which this brought. He took part in Dion’s expedition and was held in honour by him, so that he even entered Syracuse with him at the head of all his comrades, with a garland on his head, after winning glorious distinction in battle.

But now that the chief and noblest friends of Dion had been consumed away by the war, and Heracleides was dead, he saw that the people of Syracuse were without a leader, and that he himself was very much in favour with Dion’s soldiers.

Therefore, showing himself the vilest of men, and altogether expecting that he would have Sicily as a reward for murdering his friend, and, as some say, having received twenty talents from the enemy to pay him for doing the murder, he bribed some of Dion’s mercenaries into a conspiracy against him, beginning his work in a most malicious and rascally manner.