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Since we have finished with the affairs of Macedonia and Illyria, we shall now turn to events of a different kind. In Sicily Dionysius the Younger, tyrant of the Syracusans, who had succeeded to the realm1 in the period preceding this but was indolent and much inferior to his father, pretended because of his lack of enterprise to be peacefully inclined and mild of disposition.2 [2] Accordingly, since he had inherited the war with the Carthaginians,3 he made peace with them and likewise pursued war listlessly for some time against the Lucanians4 and then, in the latest battles having had the advantage, he gladly brought to a close the war against them. [3] In Apulia he founded two cities because he wished to make safe for navigators the passage across the Ionian Sea; for the barbarians who dwelt along the coast were accustomed to put out in numerous pirate ships and render the whole shore along the Adriatic Sea unsafe for merchants. [4] Thereafter, having given himself over to a peaceful existence, he relieved the soldiers of their drills in warfare and though he had succeeded to the greatest of the realms in Europe, the tyranny that was said by his father to be bound fast by adamantine chains,5 yet, strange to say, he lost it all by his pusillanimity. The causes for its dissolution and the various events I shall attempt to record.

1 For the succession of Dionysius II see Book 15.74.5.

2 For the character of Dionysius II see Plut. Dion 7.3-4 and Hackforth, Cambridge Ancient History, 6.272-273.

3 The cessation of activities against Carthage is noted in Book 15.73.4.

4 No mention is made previously of this war with the Lucanians. In Book 14.100.5 Dionysius I is said to have made an alliance with the Lucanians and his policy of supporting them against the Italiot Greeks is clearly shown in chapter 101 of that Book. This seems to be the war mentioned in Plut. Dion 16.3 and Plat. L. 3.317a. For this war see Costanzi, "De bello Lucanico quod Dionysius minor recens ab imperio composuerit," Rivista di Filologia, 26 (1898), 450 ff.

5 This phrase is found in chap. 70.2, in Plut. Dion 7.3 and Plut. Dion 10.3, and in Aelian Varia Historia 6.12.

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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