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Dionysius seized Phyton, the general of the Rhegians, and drowned his son in the sea, but Phyton himself he at first bound on his loftiest siege engines, wreaking a vengeance upon him such as is to be seen upon the stage of tragedy. He also sent one of his servants to him to tell him that Dionysius had drowned his son in the sea the day before; to whom Phyton replied, "He has been more fortunate than his father by one day." [2] After this Dionysius had him led about the city under flogging and subjected to every indignity, a herald accompanying him and announcing that Dionysius was inflicting this unusual vengeance upon the man because he had persuaded the city to undertake the war. [3] But Phyton, who had shown himself a brave general during the siege and had won approval for all his other qualities, endured his mortal punishment with no low-born spirit. Rather he preserved his spirit undaunted and cried out that he was punished because he would not betray the city to Dionysius, and that heaven would soon visit such punishment upon Dionysius himself. The courage of the man aroused sympathy even among the soldiers of Dionysius, and some of them began to protest. [4] Dionysius, fearing that some of the soldiers might make bold to snatch Phyton out of his hands, ceased to punish him and drowned the unfortunate man at sea together with his near of kin. [5] So this man suffered monstrous tortures unworthy of his merits. He won many of the Greeks to grieve for him at the time and many poets to lament the sad story of his reversal of fortune thereafter.

Diodorus Siculus. Diodorus of Sicily in Twelve Volumes with an English Translation by C. H. Oldfather. Vol. 4-8. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press; London: William Heinemann, Ltd. 1989.

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