We cannot doubt that a large proportion of the spectators on the plain of Olympia felt with greater or less intensity the generous Pan-hellenic patriotism and indignation to which Lysias gave utterance. To what extent his hearers acted upon the unbecoming violence of his practical recommendations—how far they actually laid hands on the tents, or tried to hinder the Syracusans from sacrificing, or impeded the bringing out of their chariots for the race—we are unable to say. We are told that some ventured to plunder the tents:[67] how much was effected we do not hear. It is certain that the superintending Eleian authorities would interfere most strenuously to check any such attempt at desecrating the festival, and to protect the Syracusan envoys in their tents, their regular sacrifice, and their chariot-running. And it is farther certain, as far as our account goes, that the Syracusan chariots actually did run on the lists; because they were, though by various accidents, disgracefully unsuccessful, or overturned and broken in pieces.[68] [67] Diodor. xiv. 109. ὥστε τινὰς τολμῆσαι διαρπάζειν τὰς σκηνάς. [68] Diodor. xiv. 109. To any one however who reflects on the Olympic festival, with all its solemnity and its competition for honors of various kinds, it will appear that the mere manifestation of so violent an antipathy, even though restrained from breaking out into act, would be sufficiently galling to the Syracusan envoys. But the case would be far worse, when the poems of Dionysius came to be recited. These were volunteer manifestations, delivered (like the harangue of Lysias) before such persons as chose to come and hear; not comprised in the regular solemnity, nor therefore under any peculiar protection by the Eleian authorities. Dionysius stood forward of his own accord to put himself upon his trial as a poet before the auditors. Here therefore the antipathy against the despot might be manifested by the most unreserved explosions. And when we are told that the badness of the poems[69] caused them to be received with opprobrious ridicule, in spite of the excellence of the recitation, it is easy to see that the hatred intended for the person of Dionysius was discharged upon his verses. Of course the hissers and hooters would make it clearly understood what they really meant, and would indulge in the full license of heaping curses upon his name and acts. Neither the best reciters of Greece, nor the best poems even of Sophokles or Pindar, could have any chance against such predetermined antipathy. And the whole scene would end in the keenest disappointment and humiliation, inflicted upon the Syracusan envoys as well as upon the actors; being the only channel through which the retributive chastisement of Hellas could be made to reach the author. [69] Diodor. xiv. 109.