When Cephisodotus was archon at Athens, the Romans elected as consuls Gaius Licinius and Gaius Sulpicius. During their term of office Dion, son of Hipparinus and the most distinguished of the Syracusans, escaped from Sicily2 and by his nobility of spirit set free the Syracusans and the other Sicilian Greeks in the following manner. [2] Dionysius the Elder had begotten children of two wives, of the first, who was a Locrian by birth, Dionysius, who succeeded to the tyranny, and of the second, who was the daughter of Hipparinus, a Syracusan of great renown, two sons Hipparinus and Nysaeus. [3] It chanced that the brother of the second wife was Dion, a man who had great proficiency in philosophy3 and, in the matter of courage and skill in the art of war, far surpassed the other Syracusans of his time. [4] Dion, because of his high birth and nobility of spirit, fell under suspicion with the tyrant, for he was considered powerful enough to overthrow the tyranny. So, fearing him, Dionysius decided to get him out of the way by arresting him on a charge involving the death penalty. But Dion, becoming aware of this, was at first concealed in the homes of some of his friends, and then escaped from Sicily to the Peloponnese in the company of his brother Megacles and of Heracleides who had been appointed commandant of the garrison by the tyrant. [5] When he landed at Corinth, he besought the Corinthians4 to collaborate with him in setting free the Syracusans, and he himself began to gather mercenary troops and to collect suits of armour.5 Soon many gave ear to his pleas and he gradually accumulated large supplies of armour and many mercenaries,6 then, hiring two merchantmen, he loaded on board arms and men, while he himself with these transports sailed from Zacynthus, which is near Cephallenia, to Sicily, but he left Heracleides behind to bring up later some triremes as well as merchantmen to Syracuse.
