Page:History of Greece Vol X.djvu/219

JASON ASSASSINATED. 197 oi right to the Amphiktyonic assembly. It was feared, moreover, that he would lay hands on the rich treasures of the Delphian temple ; a scheme said to have been conceived by the Syracusan despot Dionysius fifteen years before, in conjunction with the epirot Alketas, who was now dependent upon Jason. 1 As there were no visible means of warding off this blow, the Delphians consulted the god to know what they were to do if Jason ap- proached the treasury ; upon which the god replied, that he would himself take care of it, and he kept his word. This enterpris- ing despot, in the flower of his age and at the summit of his power, perished most unexpectedly before the day of the festival arrived. 2 He had been reviewing his cavalry near Pherae, and was sitting to receive and answer petitioners, when seven young men ap- proached, apparently in hot dispute with each other, and appeal- ing to him for a settlement. As soon as they got near, they set upon him and slew him. 3 One was killed on the spot by the guards, and another also as he was mounting on horseback ; but the remaining five contrived to reach horses ready prepared for them and to gallop away out of the reach of pursuit. In most of the Grecian cities which these fugitives visited, they were received with distinguished honor, as having relieved the Grecian world from one who inspired universal alarm, 4 now that Sparta was unable to resist him, while no other power had as yet taken her place. Jason was succeeded in his dignity, but neither in his power, 1 Diodor. xv, 13. 2 Xen. Hellen. vi, 4, 30. inroKpivaadat. rbv -&eov, on cvrw /lefo'/oei. 'O (T ovv avi) p, TijXiKovrof uv, nai T oaavr a nal TO lavra 6iavoovfj.evof, etc. Xenophon evidently considers the sudden removal of Jason as a conse quence of the previous intention expressed by the god to take care of his own treasure. 3 Xen. Hellen. vi, 4, 31, 32. The cause which provoked 'these young men is differently stated OOAD pare Diodor. xv, 60 ; Valer. Maxim, ix, 10, 2. 4 Xen. Hellen. vi, 4, 32. The death of Jason in the spring or early summer of 370 B. c., refutes the compliment which Cornelius Nepos (Timoth. c. 4) pays to Timotheus; who can never have made war upon Jason after 373 B. c., when he received the latter at Athens in his house