NAXUS, KATANA, LEONTIN1. 467 while the citizens were busy in the fields, he caused the houses to be searched, and seized all the arms found therein. Not satisfied with thus robbing his opponents of the means of attack, he farther proceeded to construct additional fortifications around the islet of Ortygia, to augment his standing army of mercenaries, and to build fresh ships. Feeling more than ever that his dominion was repug- nant to the Syracusans, and rested only on naked force, he thus surrounded himself with precautions probably stronger than any other Grecian despot had ever accumulated. He was yet farther strengthened by the pronounced and active support of Sparta, now at the maximum of her imperial ascendency ;' and by the presence of the mighty Lysander at Syracuse as her ambassador to counte- nance and exalt him. 2 The Spartan alliance, however, did not prevent him from enrolling among his mercenaries a considerable fraction of the Messenians, the bitter enemies of Sparta ; who were now driven out of Naupaktus and Kephallenia, with no other pos- session left except their arms 3 and whose restoration to Pelo- ponnesus by Epaminondas, about thirty years afterwards, has been described in a preceding chapter. So large a mercenary force, while the people in Syracuse were prostrate and in no condition for resistance, naturally tempted Dio- nysius to seek conquest as well as plunder beyond the border. Not choosing as yet to provoke a war with Carthage, he turned his arms to the north and north-west of the Syracusan territory ; the Grecian (Chalkidic or Ionic) cities, Naxus, Katana, and Leontini and the Sikels, towards the centre of Sicily. The three Chal- kidic cities were the old enemies of Syracuse, but Leontini had been conquered by the Syracusans even before the Athenian expe- dition, and remained as a Syracusan possession until the last peace with the Carthaginians, when it had been declared independent. Naxus and Katana had contrived to retain their independence against Syracuse, even after the ruin of the Athenian armament under Nikias. At the head of a powerful force, Dionysius marched out from Syracuse first against the town of ^Etna, occupied by a considerable body of Syracusan exiles hostile to his dominion, 1 Diodor. xiv, 10. Kai TU hoirrn TtapsaKEvu^ero irpbg TJJV aaqu.'X.Eiav rrjL Tvpavvidof, uf av epyoif ijdr] -nelpav eihrjQuf, OTI niiv viro/UEvovaiv oi Svpa/co* oi %u.pLv TOV pi 6ovheiieiv.
- Plutarch, Lysander, c. 2. 3 Dioior. xiv v 34.
