ripping it of gold
and ornaments to the value of one thousand talents. So great was the
celebrity he acquired, that the Gauls of Northern Italy, who had recently
sacked Rome, proffered their alliance and aid. Master of Sicily and
Southern Italy, he inspired, by his unscrupulous plundering of temples,
the greatest terror and dislike throughout Central Greece. He then entered
as competitor at the festivals of Greece for the prize of tragic poetry.
But so contemptible were his poems, they were disgracefully hissed and
ridiculed. Especially those poems which were recited at Olympeia--where he
sent legations decked in the richest garments, furnished with gold and
silver, and provided with splendid tents--were received with a storm of
hisses, which plunged him in an agony of shame and grief, and drove him
nearly mad, and made him conscious of the deep hatred which everywhere
existed toward him. All his rich displays, which surpassed every thing
that had ever before been seen in that holy plain, were worse than a
failure--because they came from him. Not all his grandeur in Syracuse could
save him from the disgrace and insults which he had received in Olympeia.

(M678) It was at this time, B.C. 387, that Plato visited Sicily on a
voyage of inquiry and curiosity, chiefly to see Mount AEtna, and was
introduced to Dion, then a young man in Syracuse, and brother-in-law to
Dionysius. Dion was so impressed with the conversation of Plato, that he
invited the tyrant to talk with him also. Plato discoursed on virtue and
justice, showing that happiness belonged only to the virtuous, and that
despots could not lay claim even to the merit of true courage--most
unpalatable doctrine to the tyrant, who became bitterly hostile to the
philosopher. He even caused Plato to be exposed in the market as a slave,
and sold for twenty minae, which his friends paid and released him. On his
voyage home, through the influence of the tyrant, he was again sold at
Egina, and again repurchased, and set at liberty. So bitter are tyrants of
the virtues which contrast with their misdeeds; and so vindictive
especially was the despot who reigned at Syracuse.

(M679) Dionysius was now occupied, by the new defenses and fortifications
of his capital, so that the whole slope of Epipolae was bordered and
protected by massive walls and towers, and five divisions of the city had
each its separate fortifications, so that it was the largest fortified
city in all Greece--la