Page:History of Greece Vol X.djvu/456

134 HISTORY OF GREECE. the Athenian Kritias, when he caused the execution D Theramenes in the oligarchical senate, was an offence against law as well as against parliamentary order. The presiding magistrates reproved Dionysius as a disturber of order, and fined him, as they were em- powered by law. 1 But his partisans Avere loud in his support. Philistus not only paid down the fine for him on the spot, but pub- licly proclaimed that he would go on for the whole day paying all similar fines which might be imposed, and incited Dionysius to persist in such language as he thought proper. That which had begun as illegality, was now aggravated into open defiance of the law. Yet so enfeebled was the authority of the magistrates, and so vehement the cry against them, in the actual position of the city, that they were unable either to punish or to repress the speaker. Dionysius pursued his harangue in a tone yet more inflammatory, not only accusing the generals of having corruptly betrayed Agri- gentum, but also denouncing the conspicuous and wealthy citizens generally, as oligarchs who held tyrannical sway, who treated the many with scorn, and made their own profit out of the misfor- tunes of the city. Syracuse (he contended) could never be saved, unless men of a totally different character were invested with au- thority ; men, not chosen from wealth and station, but of humble birth, belonging to the people by position, and kind in their de- portment from consciousness of their own weakness. 2 His bitter invective against generals already discredited, together with the impetuous warmth of his apparent sympathy for the people against the rich, were both alike favorably received. Plato states that the assembly became so furiously exasperated, as to follow literally the lawless and blood-thirsty inspirations of Dionysius, and to stone all these generals, ten in number, on the spot, without any form of trial. But Diodorus simply tells us, that a vote was passed to cashier 1 Diodor. xiii, 91. Tuv J' upxovruv fypiovvruv rbv Aioviiciov Kara rotif vofiove, wf dopvflovrTa, i'tAtcrof, 6 ruf ioropiaf varepov avy-)put}>af, oiioiav e%uv fj.eyuhrjv, etc. In the description given by Thucydides (vi, 32-39) of the debate in the Syracusan assembly (prior to the arrival of the Athenian expedition) in which Hcrmokrates and Athenagoras speak, we find the magistrates inter- fering to prevent the continuance of a debate which had become very per- soBul and acrimonious ; though there was nothing in it at all brutal, not any exhortation to personal violence or infringement of the law. 1 Diodor. xiii, 91.