[327] Plutarch, Timoleon, c. 14; Diodor. xvi. 70. The remarks of Tacitus upon the last hours of the Emperor Vitellius have their application to the Greek feeling on this occasion (Histor. iii. 68):—“Nec quisquam adeo rerum humanarum immemor, quem non commoveret illa facies; Romanum principem, et generis humani paulo ante dominum, relictâ fortunæ suæ sede, exire de imperio. _Nihil tale viderant, nihil audierant_,” etc. [328] Plutarch, Timoleon, c. 14; Theopomp. Fragm. 217, ed. Didot.; Justin xxi. 5. [329] Timæus, ap. Polybium. xii. 24. [330] Plutarch, Timol. c. 14; Cicero, Tuscul. Disp. iii. 12, 7. His remark, that Dionysius opened the school from anxiety still to have the pleasure of exercising authority, can hardly be meant as serious. We cannot suppose that Dionysius in his exile at Corinth suffered under any want of a comfortable income: for it is mentioned, that all his movable furniture (ἐπισκευὴ) was bought by his namesake Dionysius, the fortunate despot of the Pontic Herakleia; and this furniture was so magnificent, that the acquisition of it is counted among the peculiar marks of ornament and dignity to the Herakleotic dynasty:—see the Fragments of the historian Memnon of Herakleia, ch. iv. p. 10, ed. Orell. apud Photium Cod. 224. Among those who visited him at Corinth was Aristoxenus of Tarentum: for the Tarentine leaders, first introduced by Plato, had maintained their correspondence with Dionysius even after his first expulsion from Syracuse to Lokri, and had vainly endeavored to preserve his unfortunate wife and daughters from the retributive vengeance of the Lokrians. During the palmy days of Dionysius, his envoy Polyarchus had been sent on a mission to Tarentum, where he came into conversation with the chief magistrate Archytas. This conversation Aristoxenus had recorded in writing; probably from the personal testimony of Archytas, whose biography he composed. Polyarchus dwelt upon wealth, power, and sensual enjoyments, as the sole objects worth living for; pronouncing those who possessed them in large masses, as the only beings deserving admiration. At the summit of all stood the Persian King, whom Polyarchus extolled as the most enviable and admirable of mortals. “Next to the Persian King (said he), though with a very long interval, comes our despot of Syracuse.”[331] What had become of Polyarchus, we do not know; but Aristoxenus lived to see the envied Dionysius under the altered phase of his life at Corinth, and probably to witness the ruin of the Persian Kings also. On being asked, what had been the cause of his displeasure against Plato, Dionysius replied, in language widely differing from that of his former envoy Polyarchus, that amidst the many evils which surrounded a despot, none was so mischievous as the unwillingness of his so-called friends to tell him the truth. Such false friends had poisoned the good feeling between him and Plato.[332] This anecdote