[353a]
to begin his speaking and his thinking with the gods); yet may it attain fulfilment in indicating some such counsel as this:—Now and almost ever since the war1 began both you and your enemies have been ruled continuously by that one family which your fathers set on the throne in the hour of their greatest distress, when Greek Sicily was in the utmost danger of being entirely overrun by the Carthaginians and barbarized. On that occasion they chose Dionysius because of his youth and warlike prowess to take charge of
1 The struggle against the Carthaginians, which had lasted, with hardly a break, since 409 B.C.