Epistol. viii. p. 357 A. (What Dion intended to do, had he not been prevented by death)—Καὶ μετὰ ταῦτα Σικελίαν ἂν τὴν ἄλλην κατῴκισα, ~τοὺς μὲν βαρβάρους ἣν νῦν ἔχουσιν ἀφελόμενος, ὅσοι μὴ ὑπὲρ τῆς κοινῆς ἐλευθερίας διεπολέμησαν πρὸς τὴν τυραννίδα, τοὺς δ᾽ ἔμπροσθεν οἰκητὰς τῶν Ἑλληνικῶν τόπων εἰς τὰς ἀρχαίας καὶ πατρῴας οἰκήσεις κατοικίσας~. Compare Plutarch, Timoleon, c. 2. αἱ δὲ πλεῖσται πόλεις ὑπὸ βαρβάρων μιγάδων καὶ στρατιωτῶν ἀμίσθων κατείχοντο. The βάρβαροι to whom Plato alludes in this last passage, are not the Carthaginians (none of whom could be expected to come in and fight for the purpose of putting down the despotism at Syracuse), but the Campanian and other mercenaries provided for by the elder Dionysius on the lands of the extruded Greeks. These men would have the strongest interest in upholding the despotism, if the maintenance of their own properties was connected with it. Dion thought it prudent to conciliate this powerful force by promising confirmation of their properties to such of them as would act upon the side of freedom. If we examine the results of the warfare carried on by Dionysius against the Carthaginians, from the commencement to the end of his career, we shall observe, that he began by losing Gela and Kamarina, and that the peace by which he was enabled to preserve Syracuse itself, arose, not from any success of his own, but from the pestilence which ruined his enemies; to say nothing about traitorous collusion with them, which I have already remarked to have been the probable price of their guarantee to his dominion. His war against the Carthaginians in 397 B. C., was undertaken with much vigor, recovered Gela, Kamarina, Agrigentum, and Selinus, and promised the most decisive success. But presently again the tide of fortune turned against him. He sustained capital defeats, and owed the safety of Syracuse, a second time, to nothing but the terrific pestilence which destroyed the army of Imilkon. A third time, in 383 B. C., Dionysius gratuitously renewed the war against Carthage. After brilliant success at first, he was again totally defeated, and forced to cede to Carthage all the territory west of the river Halykus, besides paying a tribute. So that the exact difference between the Sicilian territory of Carthage—as it stood at the beginning of his command and at the end of his reign—amounts to this: that at the earlier period it reached to the river Himera—at the later period only to the river Halykus. The intermediate space between the two comprehends Agrigentum with the greater part of its territory; which represents therefore the extent of Hellenic soil rescued by Dionysius from Carthaginian dominion. CHAPTER LXXXIV. SICILIAN AFFAIRS AFTER THE DEATH OF THE ELDER DIONYSIUS — DIONYSIUS THE YOUNGER — AND DION.