Dion

In this way the tyranny, being softened, like iron in the fire, appeared to its subjects to be kindly, and gradually remitted its excessive cruelty, though its edge was blunted not so much by any clemency in the sovereign as by his love of ease.

As a consequence, the laxity of the young king gained ground little by little, until at last those adamantine bonds with which the elder Dionysius said he had left the monarchy fastened, were melted and destroyed.

For it is said that the young king once kept up a drinking bout for ninety consecutive days from its beginning, and that during this time his court gave no access or admission to men or matters of consequence, but drunkenness and raillery and music and dancing and buffoonery held full sway.

Dion, then, as was natural, was obnoxious to these men, since he indulged in no pleasure or youthful folly. And so they tried to calumniate him by actually giving to his virtues plausible names of vices; for instance, they called his dignity haughtiness, and his boldness of speech self-will.

Even when he admonished, he was thought to denounce, and when he would not share men’s sins, to despise.

And in very truth his character had naturally a certain majesty, together with a harshness that repelled intercourse and was hard to deal with. For not only to a man who was young and whose ears had been corrupted by flattery was he an unpleasant and irksome associate, but many also who were intimate with him and who loved the simplicity and nobility of his disposition, were apt to find fault with the manner of his intercourse with men, on the ground that he dealt with those who sought his aid more rudely and harshly than was needful in public life.

On this head Plato also afterwards wrote to him,[*](Epist. iv. ad fin.) in a tone almost prophetic, that he should be on his guard against self-will, which was a

companion of solitude.

However, at this time, though circumstances led men to think him of more value than any one else, and the only or the chief supporter and guardian of the storm-tossed tyranny, he knew that it was not out of goodwill, but against the wishes of the tyrant and owing to his needs, that he was first and greatest.