Page:History of Greece Vol XI.djvu/47

TREATMENT CF KHEGIUM. 21 since the antipathy of the Rhegines towards Dionysius was of old standing, traceable to his enslavement of Naxos and Katana, if not to causes yet earlier though the statement of Phyton may very probably be true, that Dionysius had tried to bribe him to betray Rhegium (as the generals of Naxos and Katana had been bribed to betray their respective cities), and was incensed beyond measure at finding the proposition repelled. The Hellenic war- practice was in itself sufficiently cruel. Both Athenians and La- cedremonians put to death prisoners of war by wholesale, after the capture of Melos, after the battle of JEgospotami, and elsewhere. But to make death worse than death by a deliberate and pro- tracted tissue of tortures and indignities, is not Hellenic ; it is Carthaginian and Asiatic. Dionysius had shown himself better than a Greek when he released without ransom the Krotoniate prisoners captured at the battle of Kaulonia ; but he became far worse than a Greek, and worse even than his own mercenaries, when he heaped aggravated suffering, beyond the simple death- warrant, on the heads of Phyton and his kindred. Dionysius caused the city of Rhegium to be destroyed 1 or dia mantled. Probably he made over the lands to Lokri, like those of Kaulonia and Hipponium. The free Rhegine citizens had all been transported to Syracuse for sale ; and those who were for- tunate enough to save their liberty by providing the stipulated ransom, would not be allowed to come back to their native soil. If Dionysius was so zealous in enriching the Lokrians, as to transfer to them two other neighboring town-domains, against the inhabitants of which he had no peculiar hatred much more would he be disposed to make the like transfer of the Rhegine territory, whereby he would gratify at once his antipathy to the one state and his partiality to the other. It is true that Rhegium did not permanently continue incorporated with Lokri ; but nei- ther did Kaulonia nor Hipponium. The maintenance of all the three transfers depended on the ascendency of Dionysius and his dynasty ; but for the time immediately succeeding the capture of Rhegium, the Lokrians became masters of the Rhegine territory la well as of the two other townships, and thus possessed all the 1 Strabo, vi. p. 258 i-Kityavr) 6' iisv AoAiv oi-aav .... /carac/cui/'ai ^v, etc.