Nor did Syracuse suffer alone. The reign of the elder Dionysius was desolating for the Hellenic population generally, both of Sicily and Italy. Syracuse became a great fortress, with vast military power in the hands of its governor, “whose policy[109] it was to pack all Sicily into it;” while the remaining free Hellenic communities were degraded, enslaved, and half depopulated. On this topic, the mournful testimonies already cited from Lysias and Isokrates, are borne out by the letters of the eye-witness Plato. In his advice, given to the son and successor of Dionysius, Plato emphatically presses upon him two points: first, as to the Syracusans, to transform his inherited oppressive despotism into the rule of a king, governing gently and by fixed laws; next, to reconstitute and repeople, under free constitutions, the other Hellenic communities in Sicily, which at his accession had become nearly barbarised and half deserted.[110] The elder Dionysius had imported into Sicily large bodies of mercenaries, by means of whom he had gained his conquests, and for whom he had provided settlements at the cost of the subdued Hellenic cities. In Naxos, Katana, Leontini, and Messênê, the previous residents had been dispossessed and others substituted, out of Gallic and Iberian mercenaries. Communities thus transformed, with their former free citizens degraded into dependence or exile, not only ceased to be purely Hellenic, but also became far less populous and flourishing. In like manner Dionysius had suppressed, and absorbed into Syracuse and Lokri, the once autonomous Grecian communities of Rhegium, Hipponium, and Kaulonia, on the Italian side of the strait. In the inland regions of Italy, he had allied himself with the barbarous Lucanians; who, even without his aid, were gaining ground and pressing hard upon the Italiot Greeks on the coast. [109] See the citation from Plato, in a note immediately preceding. [110] Plato, Epistol. iii. p. 315 E. (to the younger Dionysius). Φασὶ δ᾽ οὐκ ὀλίγοι λέγειν σε πρός τινας τῶν παρά σε πρεσβευόντων, ὡς ἄρα σοῦ ποτὲ λέγοντος ἀκούσας ἐγὼ μέλλοντος ~τάς τε Ἑλληνίδας πόλεις ἐν Σικελίᾳ οἰκίζειν, καὶ Συρακουσίους ἐπικουφίσαι~, τὴν ἀρχὴν ἀντὶ τυραννίδος εἰς βασιλείαν μεταστήσαντα, ταῦτ᾽ ἄρα σὲ μέν τοτε διεκώλυσα, σοῦ σφόδρα προθυμουμένου, νῦν δὲ Δίωνα διδάσκοιμι δρᾷν αὐτὰ ταῦτα, καὶ τοῖς διανοήμασι τοῖς σοῖς τὴν σὴν ἀρχὴν ἀφαιρούμεθά σε. Ibid. p. 319 C. Μή με διάβαλλε λέγων, ὡς οὐκ εἴων σε πόλεις Ἑλληνίδας ἐῤῥούσας ὑπὸ βαρβάρων οἰκίζειν, οὐδὲ Συρακουσίους ἐπικουφίσαι ... ~ὡς ἐγὼ μὲν ἐκέλευον, σὺ δ᾽ οὐκ ἤθελες πράττειν αὐτά~. Again, see Epistol. vii. p. 331 F. 332 B. 334 D. 336 A.-D.—and the brief notice given by Photius (Codex, 93) of the lost historical works of Arrian, respecting Dion and Timoleon.