Dionysius I of Syracuse
[citation needed] Having consolidated his position, Dionysius imposed the mercenaries on all parts of the polis community, signaling that democracy had ended in Syracuse.
When the Lacedaemonians [Spartans] had settled the affairs of Greece to their own taste, they dispatched Aristus, one of their distinguished men, to Syracuse, ostensibly pretending that they would overthrow the government, but in truth with intent to increase the power of the tyranny; for they hoped that by helping to establish the rule of Dionysius they would obtain his ready service because of their benefactions to him.
The demise of such a prominent democratic polis and the subsequent actions of Dionysius represented a recurring norm in fourth-century Greek states, thanks to the prevalence of mercenaries.
[5] Aristotle wrote that some form of "guard" (i.e., a personal army) is needed for absolute kingship,[6] and for an elected tyrant an optimum number of professional soldiers should be employed.
In the Corinthian War, he joined the side of the Spartans and assisted them with mercenaries and ships (which contributed in blocking the Athenians' supplies from the Black Sea forcing them to peace).
[11] According to some sources, after gaining a prize for one of his tragedies, “The Ransom of Hector” (see Intellectual tastes below), at a competition at the Lenaia festival at Athens, he was so elated that he drank himself to death.
[1] A similar theory, proposed by Justin, stated that Dionysius "was defeated and broken by constant warfare, and finally murdered by a conspiracy of his own kin".
[1] Like Pisistratus, tyrant of Athens, Dionysius was fond of having literary men around him, such as the historian Philistus, the poet Philoxenus, and the philosopher Plato, but treated them in a most arbitrary manner.
[1] Diodorus Siculus relates in his Bibliotheca historica that Dionysius once had Philoxenus arrested and sent to the quarries for voicing a bad opinion about his poetry.
[17] He also posed as an author and patron of literature; his poems, severely criticized by Philoxenus, were hissed at the Olympic games, but having gained a prize for a tragedy on the Ransom of Hector at the Lenaea at Athens, he was so elated that he engaged in a debauch which, according to some sources, proved fatal.
He transformed Syracuse into the most powerful city in the Greek world, and made it the seat of an empire stretching from Sicily across to Italy.
Rome had strong allegiances with Messana, a small city state in north east Sicily, which Dionysius wanted to control.
The walls were completed in 397 BC and had the following characteristics: Building so big a fortress would have involved installing well over 300 tons of stone every day for 5 years.
[23] He features prominently in L. Sprague de Camp's historical novel The Arrows of Hercules (1965) as a patron of inventors on the island of Ortygia near Syracuse.
