city at so critical a moment. Dionysius achieved nothing in his first enterprise for the relief of Gela and Kamarina. He was forced to retire with as much disgrace as those previous generals whom he had so bitterly vituperated; and apparently even with greater disgrace—since there are strong grounds for believing that he entered into traitorous collusion with the Carthaginians. The salvation of Syracuse, at that moment of peril, arose not from the energy or ability of Dionysius, but from the opportune epidemic which disabled Imilkon in the midst of a victorious career. [97] Isokratês, Or. v. (Philipp.) s. 73. Διονύσιος ... ἐπιθυμήσας μοναρχίας ~ἀλόγως καὶ μανικῶς~, καὶ τολμήσας ἅπαντα πράττειν τὰ φέροντα πρὸς τὴν δύναμιν ταύτην, etc. Dionysius had not only talents to organize, and boldness to make good, a despotism more formidable than anything known to contemporary Greeks, but also systematic prudence to keep it unimpaired for thirty-eight years. He maintained carefully those two precautions which Thucydides specifies as the causes of permanence to the Athenian Hippias, under similar circumstances—intimidation over the citizens, and careful organization, with liberal pay among his mercenaries.[98] He was temperate in indulgencies; never led by any of his appetites into the commission of violence.[99] This abstinence contributed materially to prolong his life, since many a Grecian despot perished through desperate feelings of individual vengeance provoked by his outrages. With Dionysius, all other appetites were merged in the love of dominion, at home and abroad; and of money as a means of dominion. To the service of this master-passion all his energies were devoted, together with those vast military resources which an unscrupulous ability served both to accumulate and to recruit. How his treasury was supplied, with the large exigencies continually pressing upon it, we are but little informed. We know however that his exactions from the Syracusans were exorbitant;[100] that he did not hesitate to strip the holiest temples; and that he left behind him a great reputation for ingenious tricks in extracting money from his subjects.[101] Besides the large garrison of foreign mercenaries by whom his orders were enforced, he maintained a regular body of spies, seemingly of both sexes, disseminated among the body of the citizens.[102] The vast quarry-prison of Syracuse was his work.[103] Both the vague general picture, and the fragmentary details which come before us, of his conduct towards the Syracusans, present to us nothing but an oppressive and extortionate tyrant, by whose fiat numberless victims perished; more than ten thousand according to the general language of Plutarch.[104] He enriched largely his younger brothers and auxiliaries; among which latter, Hipparinus stood prominent, thus recovering a fortune equal to or larger than that which his profligacy had dissipated.[105] But we