Dionysius I of Syracuse

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Dionysius I or Dionysius the Elder (c. 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 a type of the worst kind of despot--cruel, suspicious and vindictive.

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.

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 third of 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 of 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.

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.

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.

Like Pisistratus, tyrant of Athens, Dionysius was fond of having distinguished 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 the 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 prison".

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

A fictional version of Dionysius is a character in Mary Renault's historical novel The Mask of Apollo.

See Diod. Sic. xiiL, xiv., xv.; J Bass, Dionysius I von Syrakus (Vienna, 1881).

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