Gelon is said to have been the first man who became more virtuous by being raised to a throne. He was eminent for honesty, truth, and sincerity; he never wronged the meanest of his subjects, and never promised a thing which he did not perform. Hiero, the eldest of Gelon’s brothers, succeeded him. The beginning of his reign was worthy of great praise. Simonides and Pindar celebrated him in emulation of each other. The latter part of it, however, did not answer the former. He reigned eleven years. Thrasybulus, his brother, succeeded him. He rendered himself odious to all his subjects, by his vices and cruelty. They expelled him the throne and city, after a reign of one year. After his expulsion, Syracuse and all Sicily enjoyed their liberty for the space of almost sixty years. During this interval, the Athenians, animated by the warm exhortations of Alcibiades, turned their arms against Syracuse; this was in the sixth year of the Peloponnesian war. This event was fatal to the Athenians. The reign of Dionysius the Elder is famous for its length of thirty-eight years, and still more for the extraordinary events with which it was attended. Dionysius, son of the elder Dionysius, succeeded him. He contracted a particular intimacy with Plato, and had frequent conversations with him. He did not long improve from the wise precepts of that philosopher, but soon abandoned himself to all the vices and excesses which attend tyranny. Besieged by Dion, he escaped from Sicily, and retired into Italy, where he was assassinated in his house by Callippus. Thirteen months after the death of Dion, Hipparinus, brother of Dionysius the Younger, expelled Callippus, and established himself in Syracuse. During the two years of his reign, Sicily was agitated by great commotions. Dionysius the Younger, taking advantage of these troubles, reascends the throne ten years after having quitted it. At last, reduced by Timoleon, he retires to Corinth. Here he preserved some semblance of his former tyranny, by turning schoolmaster, and exercising a discipline over boys, when he could no longer tyrannise over men. He had learning, and was once a scholar to Plato, whom he caused to come again into Sicily, notwithstanding the unworthy treatment he had met with from Dionysius’s father. Philip, king of Macedon, meeting him in the streets of Corinth, and asking him how he came to lose so considerable a principality as had been left him by his father, he answered, that his father had indeed left him the inheritance, but not the fortune which had preserved both himself and that; however, Fortune did him no great injury, in replacing him on the dunghill, from which she had raised his father. Timoleon restored liberty to Syracuse. He passed the rest of his life there in a glorious retirement, beloved and honoured by all the citizens and strangers.