Again, in xv. 6, 7, Diodorus describes the events of 386 B. C. Here he again tells us, that Dionysius, persevering in his poetical occupations, composed verses which were very indifferent—that he was angry with and punished Philoxenus and others who criticized them freely—that he sent some of these compositions to be recited at the Olympic festival, with the best actors and reciters—that the poems, in spite of these advantages, were despised and derided by the Olympic audience—that Dionysius was distressed by this repulse, even to anguish and madness, and to the various severities and cruelties against his friends which have been already mentioned in my text. Now upon this we must remark:— 1. The year 386 B. C. is _not_ an Olympic year. Accordingly, the proceedings described by Diodorus in xv. 6, 7, all done by Dionysius after his hands were free from war, must be transferred to the next Olympic year, 384 B. C. The year in which Dionysius was so deeply stung by the events of Olympia, must therefore have been 384 B. C., or Olympiad 99 (relating to 388 B. C.). 2. Compare Diodor. xiv. 109 with xv. 7. In the first passage, Dionysius is represented as making the most prodigious efforts to display himself at Olympia in every way, by fine tents, chariots, poems, etc.—and also as having undergone the signal insult from the orator Lysias, with the most disgraceful failure in every way. Yet all this he is described to have borne with tolerable equanimity, being soothed by his flatterers. But, in xv. 7 (relating to 386 B. C., or more probably to 384 B. C.) he is represented as having merely failed in respect to the effect of his poems; nothing whatever being said about display of any other kind, nor about an harangue from Lysias, nor insult to the envoys or the tents. Yet the simple repulse of the poems is on this occasion affirmed to have thrown Dionysius into a paroxysm of sorrow and madness. Now if the great and insulting treatment, which Diodorus refers to 388 B. C., could be borne patiently by Dionysius—how are we to believe that he was driven mad by the far less striking failure in 384 B. C.? Surely it stands to reason that the violent invective of Lysias and the profound humiliation of Dionysius, are parts of one and the same Olympic phænomenon; the former as cause, or an essential part of the cause—the latter as effect. The facts will then read consistently and in proper harmony. As they now appear in Diodorus, there is no rational explanation of the terrible suffering of Dionysius described in xv. 7; it appears like a comic exaggeration of reality.