464 HISTORY OF GREECE. voys to the Campanians, with promises of large pay if they woulJ march immediately to his defence. The Carthaginians were prob- ably under obligation not to oppose this, having ensured to Dio- Jiysius by special article of treaty the possession of Syracuse. To gain time for their arrival, by deluding and disarming the assailants, Dionysius affected to abandon all hope of prolonged de- fence, and sent to request permission to quit the city, along with his private friends and effects. Permission was readily granted to him to depart with five triremes. But as soon as this evidence of success had been acquired, the assailants without abandoned themselves to extravagant joy and confidence, considering Dio- nysius as already subdued, and the siege as concluded. Not merely was all farther attack suspended, but the forces were in a great measure broken up. The Horsemen were disbanded, by a pro- ceeding alike unjust and ungrateful, to be sent back to JEtna while the hoplites dispersed about the country to their various lands and properties. The same difficulty of keeping a popular force long together for any military operation requiring time, which had been felt when the Athenians besieged their usurpers Kylon and Peisistratus in the acropolis, 1 was now experienced in regard to the siege of Ortygia. Tired with the length of the siege, the Syra- cusans blindly abandoned themselves to the delusive assurance held out by Dionysius; without taking heed to maintain their force and efficiency undiminished, until his promised departure should be converted into a reality. In this unprepared and disorderly condi- tion, they were surprised by the sudden arrival of the Campanians, 2 who, attacking and defeating them with considerable loss, forced Philistus ; and Diodorus copies Timceus in one of the passages above re- ferred to, though not in the other. But Philistus himself in his history asserted that the observation had been made by another person (Plutarch. Dion. c. 35). The saying seems to have been remembered and cited long afterwards in Syracuse ; but cited as having been delivered by Dionysius himself, not as addressed to him (Livy, xxiv, 22). Isokrates, while recording the saying, represents it as having oeen deliv- ered when the Carthaginians were pressing Syracuse hardly by siege ; hav- ing in mind doubtless the siege or blockade undertaken by Imilkon seven years afterwards. But I apprehend this to be a misconception. The story seems to suit better to the earlier occasion named by Diodorus 1 Herodotus, v, 71 , Thucydidcs, i, 112.
- It is said that the Campanians, on their way to Syracuse, passed b
