Dion

Plutarch

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

For the elder Dionysius was so distrustful and suspicious towards every body, and his fear led him to be so much on his guard, that he would not even have his hair cut with barbers’ scissors, but a hairdresser would come and singe his locks with a live coal.

Neither his brother nor his son could visit him in his apartment wearing any clothes they pleased, but every one had to take off his own apparel before entering and put on another, after the guards had seen him stripped.

And once, when his brother Leptines was describing to him the nature of a place, and drew the plan of it on the ground with a spear which he took from one of his body-guards, he was extremely angry with him, and had the man who gave him the spear put to death.