ch he compromised by giving them the rich territory of
Leontini, so that ten thousand quitted Syracuse, and took up their
residence in the town. The cost of maintaining a large standing army was
exceeding burdensome, and we only wonder how the tyrant found means to pay
it, and prosecute at the same time such great improvements.

(M674) He now directed his attention to the Sikels, in the interior of the
island, and took several of their towns, but from one of them he met with
desperate resistance, find came near losing his life from a wound by a
spear which penetrated his cuirass. This repulse caused the Carthaginians
to rally in the west of the island, under Magon, with an army of eighty
thousand. But he was repulsed by Dionysius, and concluded a truce with
him, which gave the latter leisure to make himself master of Messene and
Taurominium--the two most important maritime posts on the Italian side of
Sicily, and thus prepare for the invasion of the Greek cities in the south
of Italy, B.C. 391.

(M675) Dionysius departed from Syracuse, B.C. 389, with a powerful force,
to subdue the Italiot Greeks, and laid siege to Caulonia. He defeated
their army, and slew their general. The victor treated the defeated Greeks
with lenity, and then laid siege to Rhegium, to which he granted peace on
severe terms. Caulonia and Hipponeum, two cities whose territory occupied
the breadth of the Calabrian peninsula, fell into his hands. Rhegium
surrendered after a desperate defense, and Phyton, who commanded the town,
was treated with brutal inhumanity. The town was dismantled, and all the
territory of Southern Calabria was united to Locri. It was at this time
that the peace of Antalcidas took place, which put an end to the Spartan
wars in Asia Minor. The ascendant powers of Greece were now Sparta and
Syracuse, each fortified by alliance with the other.

(M676) Croton, the largest city in Magna Grecia, was now conquered by
Dionysius, who plundered the temple of Ilere, near Cape Lacinium, and
among its treasure was a splendid robe, decorated in the most costly
manner, which the conqueror sold to the Carthaginians, which long remained
one of the ornaments of their city. The value and beauty of the robe may
be estimated at the price paid for it--one hundred and twenty talents, more
than one hundred thousand dollars.

(M677) He now undertook a maritime expedition along the coast of Latium
and Etruria, and pillaged the rich temple at Agylla, st