Dionysius I or Dionysius the Elder (ca. 432–367 BC, Greek: Διονύσιος), tyrant of Syracuse, conquered several cities in Sicily and southern Italy, opposed Carthage's influence in Sicily and made Syracuse the most powerful of the Western Greek colonies. He was regarded by the ancients as an example of the worst kind of despot--cruel, suspicious and vindictive.

Early life

Dionysius I began life as a clerk in a public office. Because of his achievements in the war against Carthage that had begun in 409 BC, he was elected supreme military commander in 406 BC; in the following year he seized total power and became tyrant. In subsequent years he consolidated his position ruthlessly.

Conquests

He carried on war with Carthage with varying success; his attempts to drive the Carthaginians entirely out of the island of Sicily failed, and at his death they were masters of at least a <1/3> it. He also carried on an expedition against Rhegium and its allied cities in Magna Graecia. In one campaign, in which he was joined by the Lucanians, he devastated the territories Thurii, Croton and Locri.

After a protracted siege he took Rhegium (386), and sold the inhabitants as slaves. He joined the Illyrians in an attempt to plunder the temple of Delphi, pillaged the temple of Caere on the Etruscan coast, and founded several military colonies on the Adriatic. In the Peloponnesian War he espoused the side of the Spartans, and assisted them with mercenaries.

Name Association

His name is most well known for the legends of Damocles and Damon and Pythias.

He also posed as an author and patron of literature; his poems, severely criticized by Philoxenus, were hissed at the Olympic games; but having gained a prize for a tragedy on the Ransom of Hector at the Lenaea at Athens, he was so elated that he engaged in a debauch which proved fatal.

Death

According to others, he was poisoned by his physicians at the instigation of his son, Dionysius the Younger who succeeded him as ruler of Syracuse. His life was written by Philistus, but the work is not extant.

Additionally, it is said that upon hearing news of his play, The Ransom of Hector, winning the competition at the Lanaean festival at Athens, he celebrated so fiercely that he drank himself to death. Others report that he died of natural causes shortly after learning of the his play's victory in 367 BC.

Intellectual Tastes

Like Pisistratus, tyrant of Athens, Dionysius was fond of having literary men about him, such as the historian Philistus, the poet Philoxenus, and the philosopher Plato, but treated them in a most arbitrary manner. Once he had Philoxenos arrested and brought before him for a poetry reading. Dionysius read his own work and the audience applauded. When he asked Philoxenos how he liked it, the poet replied only "take me back to the quarries".

The Ear of Dionysius in Syracuse is an artificial limestone cave named after Dionysius.

Fictional References

A fictional version of Dionysius is a character in Mary Renault's historical novel The Mask of Apollo. He also features prominently in L. Sprague de Camp's historical novel The Arrows of Hercules, as a patron of inventors on the island of Ortygia near Syracuse. He is the main character in Valerio Massimo Manfredi's novel Tyrant. He is also mentioned in Dante's The Divine Comedy as a tyrant who indulged in blood and rapine and suffers in a river of boiling blood.

See also

• Diod. Sic. xii., xiv., xv.; J Bass, Dionysius I von Syrakus (Vienna, 1881).
• "Tyrant" a Fictional novel by Valerio Massimo Manfredi, ISBN 0-330-42654-0

References

• This article incorporates text from the Encyclopædia Britannica Eleventh Edition, a publication now in the public domain.

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