THE

HISTORY

OF

THE WORLD,

IN FIVE BOOKS.

THE FIFTH BOOK.

CHAP. I.

OF THE FIRST PUNIC WAR.

SECT. IV.

Of the Island of Sicily.

(4.) Of Dionysius the tyrant, and others following him, in Syracuse.

THE Syracusans had enjoyed their liberty about threescore years, from the death of Thrasybulus to the death of Hermocrates; at which time Dionysius was raised up by God to take revenge, as well of their cruelty towards strangers, as of their ingratitude towards their own best citizens; for, before the time VOL. V.

A

of Dionysius, they had made it their pastime to reward the virtue of their worthiest commanders with death or disgrace; which custom they must now be taught to amend.

Dionysius obtained the principality of Syracuse by the same degrees that many others before him had made themselves masters of other cities, and of Syracuse itself; for, being made prætor, and commanding their armies against the Carthaginians, and other their enemies, he behaved so well, that he got a general love among the people and men of war. Then began he to follow the example of Pisistratus, that made himself lord of Athens; obtaining a band of six hundred men to defend his person, under pretence that his private enemies, being traitorously affected to the state of Syracuse, had laid plots how to murder him, because of his good services. He doubled the pay of the soldiers, alleging, that it would encourage them to fight manfully; but intending thereby to assure them to himself. He persuaded the citizens to call home out of exile those that had been banished, which were the best men of Syracuse; and these were afterwards at his devotion, as obliged unto him by so great a benefit. His first favour among the Syracusans grew from his accusation of the principal men, It is the delight of base people to reign over their betters; wherefore gladly did he help them to break down, as fetters imprisoning their liberty, the bars that held it under safe custody. Long it was not ere the chief citizens had found whereat he aimed. But what they saw the people would not see; and some that were needy, and knew not how to get offices without his help, were willing to help him, though they knew his purposes to be such as would make all the city to smart, He began early to hunt after the tyranny, being but twenty-five years of age when he obtained it: belike it was his desire to reign long. His first work of making himself absolute lord in Syracuse was the

possession of the citadel; wherein was much good provision, and under it the gallies were moored. This he obtained by allowance of the people; and having done this he cared for no more, but declared himself without all shame or fear: the army, the chief citizens restored by him from banishment, all the needy sort within Syracuse, that could not thrive by honest courses; and some neighbour towns, bound ur.to him, either for his help in war, or for establishing the faction reigning at that present,―were wholly affected to his assistance. Having therefore gotten the citadel into his hands he needed no more, save to assure what he had already. He strengthened himself by divers marriages; taking first to wife the daughter of Hermocrates, and after her two at once; the one a Locrian, Doris, by whom he had Dionysius, his successor; the other, Aristomache, the daughter of Hipparinus, and sister to Dion, honourable men in Syracuse, which bare unto him many children, that served to fortify him with new alliances.

Yet it was not long ere some of the Syracusans (envying his prosperity) incited the multitude, and took arms against him, even in the novelty of his rule. But their enterprize was more passionately than wisely governed. He had shamefully been beaten by the Carthaginians at Gela; which, as it vexed the Sicilian men at arms, making them suspect that it was his purpose to let the Carthaginians waste all, that he might afterwards take possession of the desolate places; so it inflamed them with a desire to free themselves from his tyranny. They departed therefore from him, and marched hastily to Syracuse, where they found friends to help them. There they forced his palace, ransacked his treasures, and so shamefully abused his wife, that, for the grief thereof, she poisoned herself. But he followed their heels apace, and, firing a gate of the city by night, entered soon enough to take revenge, by making a speedy

riddance of them; for he spared none of his known, no, not of his suspected enemies. After that, he grew so doubtful of his life, as he never durst trust barber to trim him, nor any person, no, not so much as his brother, to enter into his chamber unstripped and searched. He was the greatest robber of the people that ever reigned in any state, and withal the most unrespectively cruel.

After this, he separated with fortification that part of the city called the Island, from the rest; like as the Spaniard did the citadel of Antwerp; therein he lodged his treasures and his guards.

He then began to make war upon the free cities of Sicily; but, while he lay before Herbesse, an inland town, the Syracusans rebelled against him; so as with great difficulty he recovered his citadel; from whence, having allured the old soldiers of the Campanians, who forced their passage through the city with twelve hundred horse, he again recovered the mastery over the Syracusans; and when a multitude of them were busied in gathering in their harvest, he disarmed all the townsmen remaining, and new strengthened the fort of the island with a double wall. He inclosed that part also called Epipoles; which, with threescore thousand labourers, he finished in three weeks, being two leagues in compass. He then built two hundred new gallies, and repaired one hundred and ten of the old; forged one hundred and forty thousand targets, with as many swords and head-pieces, with fourteen thousand corslets, and all other suitable arms. Which done, he sent word to the Carthaginians, (greatly enfeebled by the plague,) that, except they would abandon the Greek towns which they held in Sicily, he would make war upon them; and, not staying for answer, he took the spoil of all the Phoenician ships and merchandise within his ports; as king Philip the Second did of our English before the war in our late queen's time. He then goes to the field with fourscore thousand

zens.

foot and three thousand horse, and sends his brother Leptines to sea with two hundred gallies and five hundred ships of burden. Most of the towns which held for Carthage yielded unto him, saving Panormus, Segesta, or Egesta, Ancyræ, Motya, and Entella. Of these, he first won Motya by assault, and put all therein to the sword; but before Egesta he lost a great part of his army by a sally of the citiIn the meanwhile Himilco arrives, but, ere he took land, he lost in a fight at sea with Leptines fifty ships of war, and five thousand soldiers, besides many ships of burden. This, notwithstanding, he recovered again Motya upon his first descent. From thence, marching towards Messina, he took Lypara, and (soon after) Messina, and razed it to the ground. Now began Dionysius greatly to doubt of his estate. He therefore fortified all the places he could in the territory of the Leontines, by which he supposed that Himilco would pass toward Syracuse; and he himself took the field again with thirty-four thousand foot and one thousand horse. Now, hearing that Himilco had divided his army into two parts, marching with the one half over-land, and sending Mago with the other by sea, he sent Leptines, his brother, to encounter Mago. But Leptines was utterly beaten by the Carthaginians, twenty thousand of his men were slain, and an hundred of his gallies lost. It is very strange, and hardly credible, which yet good authors tell us, that one city should be able to furnish five hundred sail of ships, and two hundred gallies, (for so many did Syracuse arm in this war ;) and more strange it is, that in a battle at sea, without any great artillery or musket-shot, twenty thousand should be slain in one fight. In all our fights against the Turks, of which that at Lepanto was the most notable, we hear of no such number lost; nor in any other fight by sea that ever happened in our age, nor before us. When Charles the Fifth went to besiege Algiers, he had in all his fleet, transports