Dion

Plutarch

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

But it appears to be truly said of that city that the good men whom she breeds are of the highest excellence, and the bad men of the most despicable baseness, just as her soil produces sweetest honey and deadliest hemlock.

However, Callippus did not long remain a scandal to fortune and the gods, as though they had no eyes for a man who won leadership and power by so great impiety, but speedily paid a fitting penalty.

For on setting out to take Catana, he at once lost Syracuse; at which time, as they say, he remarked that he had lost a city and got a cheese-grater.[*](Apparently the meaning in Sicilian Greek, of the word Catana. Callippus maintained himself in Syracuse only thirteen months.)

Then he attacked Messana and lost most of his soldiers, among whom were the murderers of Dion; and since no city in Sicily would receive him, but all hated and spurned him, he took possession of Rhegium.

But there, being in straitened circumstances and unable to support his mercenaries properly, he was put to death by Leptines and Polyperchon, who, as fortune would have it, used the shortsword with which Dion also was said to have been smitten.

And it was known by its size, which was short, after the Spartan fashion, and by the style of its workmanship, being delicately and cunningly wrought. Such, then, was the penalty which Callippus paid.