Varius? Dionysius was thirty-eight years a tyrant over the most opulent and flourishing city; and, before him, how many years did Pisistratus tyrannize in the very flower of Greece! Phalaris and Apollodorus met with the fate they deserved, but not till after they had tortured and put to death multitudes. Many robbers have been executed; but the number of those who have suffered for their crimes is short of those whom they have robbed and murdered. Anaxarchus,[1] a scholar of Democritus, was cut to pieces by command of the tyrant of Cyprus; and Zeno of Elea[2] ended his life in tortures. What shall I say of Socrates,[3] whose death, as often as I read of it in Plato, draws fresh tears from my eyes? If, therefore, the Gods really see everything that happens to men, you must acknowledge they make no distinction between the good and the bad.
XXXIV. Diogenes the Cynic used to say of Harpalus, one of the most fortunate villains of his time, that the constant prosperity of such a man was a kind of witness against the Gods. Dionysius, of whom we have before spoken, after he had pillaged the temple of Proserpine at Locris, set sail for Syracuse, and, having a fair wind during his voyage, said, with a smile, "See, my friends, what favorable winds the immortal Gods bestow upon church-robbers." Encouraged by this prosperous event, he proceeded in his impiety. When he landed at Peloponnesus, he went into the temple of Jupiter Olympius, and disrobed his statue of a golden mantle of great weight, an ornament which the tyrant Gelo[4] had given out of the spoils of the Carthaginians, and at the same time, in a jesting manner, he said "that a golden mantle was too heavy in summer and too cold in winter;" and then, throwing a woollen cloak over the statue, added, "This will serve for all seasons." At another time, he ordered the golden beard of Æsculapius of Epidaurus to be taken away, saying that "it
- ↑ Diogenes Laertius says he was pounded to death in a stone mortar by command of Nicocreon, tyrant of Cyprus.
- ↑ Elea, a city of Lucania, in Italy. The manner in which Zeno was put to death is, according to Diogenes Laertius, uncertain.
- ↑ This great and good man was accused of destroying the divinity of the Gods of his country. He was condemned, and died by drinking a glass of poison.
- ↑ Tyrant of Sicily.
