Page:History of Greece Vol XI.djvu/54

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2b HISTORY OF GREECE. must remember that poetical recitation was not included in th formal programme of the festival. All this prodigious outfit, under the superintendence of Thear- ides, brother of Dionysius, was exhibited with dazzling effect be- fore the Olympic crowd. No name stood so prominently and os- tentatiously before them as that of the despot of Syracuse. Eve- ry man, even from the most distant regions of Greece, was stimu- lated to inquire into his past exploits and character. There were probably many persons present, peculiarly forward in answering such inquiries the numerous sufferers, from Italian and Sicilian Greece, whom his conquests had thrown into exile ; and their an- swers would be of a nature to raise the strongest antipathy against Dionysius. Besides the numerous depopulations and mutations of inhabitants which he had occasioned in Sicily, we have already seen that he had, within the last three years, extinguished three free Grecian communities Rhegium, Kaulonia, Hipponium ; transporting all the inhabitants of the two latter to Syracuse. In the case of Kaulonia, an accidental circumstance occurred to im- press its recent extinction vividly upon the spectators. The run- ner who gained the great prize in the stadium, in 384 B. c., was Dikon, a native of Kaulonia. He was a man preeminently swift of foot, celebrated as having gained previous victories in the stadium,

  • nd always proclaimed (pursuant to custom) along with the title

of his native city " Dikon the Kauloniate." To hear this well- known runner now proclaimed as " Dikon the Syracusan," 1 gave 1 Diodor. xv. It. TLapd d' 'HLeiotf 'OAt^TUuf %%&>] tvvevrjKoaTij evvurr} (C. C. 384), /cai?' fjv ivina GTtidiov ALKUV ZvpaKovaioc. Pausanias, vi. 3, 5. Akuv 6e 6 KaMippporov irivre ftev Hvdoi dpopov viKaf, rpelf 6e uveifaro 'Icnfyit'wv, reaaapaf 6e iv NefMey, nal "O/li>|U7na/cuf MOV fiev kv natal, Svo <5e uA/laf uvtip&v nal ol KO.I uvdpiavref loot, raif vinaif eloiv iv^Q^vfimy iraidl ftev 6r] ovn avry KanAwi/tar??, Kai?u7rep ye nal fyv , virjj p !-ev bvayopev&fivaf TO 6e unb TOVTOV 2v paKov- tsiov CLVTOV uv jj~y 6 p eva e v girl % pi] (J.O.G i . Pausanias liere states, that Dikon received a bribe to permit himself to be proclaimed as a Syracusan, and not as a Kauloniate. Such corruption did occasionally take place (compare another case of similar bribery, at tempted by Syracusan envoys, Pausan. vi. 2, 4), prompted by the vanity of the Grecian cities to appropriate to themselves the celebrity of a distin- guished victor at Olympia. But in this instance, the blame imputed io Dikon is more than he deserves. Kaulonia had been already depopulated