[214] Plutarch, Dion, c. 35. About the Athenian seamen in Ortygia, see a remarkable passage of Plato, Epistol. vii. p. 350 A. When Plato was at Syracuse, in danger from the mercenaries, the Athenian seamen, there employed, gave warning to him as their countryman. [215] Diodor. xvi. 16. Dionysius was shortly afterwards reinforced by Philistus, who brought to Ortygia, not only his fleet from the Tarentine Gulf, but also a considerable regiment of cavalry. With these latter, and some other troops besides, Philistus undertook an expedition against the revolted Leontini. But though he made his way into the town by night, he was presently expelled by the defenders, seconded by reinforcements from Syracuse.[216] [216] Diodor. xvi. 16. To keep Ortygia provisioned, however, it was yet more indispensable for Philistus to maintain his superiority at sea against the growing naval power of the Syracusans, now commanded by Herakleides.[217] After several partial engagements, a final battle, desperate and decisive, at length took place between the two admirals. Both fleets were sixty triremes strong. At first Philistus, brave and forward, appeared likely to be victorious. But presently the fortune of the day turned against him. His ship was run ashore, and himself with most part of his fleet, overpowered by the enemy. To escape captivity, he stabbed himself. The wound however was not mortal; so that he fell alive, being now about seventy-eight years of age, into the hands of his enemies,—who stripped him naked, insulted him brutally, and at length cut off his head, after which they dragged his body by the leg through the streets of Syracuse.[218] Revolting as this treatment is, we must recollect that it was less horrible than that which the elder Dionysius had inflicted on the Rhegine general Phyton. [217] See a Fragment of the fortieth Book of the Philippica of Theopompus (Theopomp. Fragm. 212, ed. Didot), which seems to refer to this point of time. [218] Diodor. xvi. 16; Plutarch, Dion, c. 35. The last hopes of the Dionysian dynasty perished with Philistus, the ablest and most faithful of its servants. He had been an actor in its first day of usurpation—its eighteenth Brumaire: his timely, though miserable death, saved him from sharing in its last day of exile—its St. Helena.