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Contents of the Sixteenth Book of Diodorus
chapter 1chapter 2chapter 3chapter 4chapter 5chapter 6chapter 7chapter 8chapter 9chapter 10chapter 11chapter 12chapter 13chapter 14chapter 15chapter 16chapter 17chapter 18chapter 19chapter 20chapter 21chapter 22chapter 23chapter 24chapter 25chapter 26chapter 27chapter 28chapter 29chapter 30chapter 31chapter 32chapter 33chapter 34chapter 35chapter 36chapter 37chapter 38chapter 39chapter 40chapter 41chapter 42chapter 43chapter 44chapter 45chapter 46chapter 47chapter 48chapter 49chapter 50chapter 51chapter 52chapter 53chapter 54chapter 55chapter 56chapter 57chapter 58chapter 59chapter 60chapter 61chapter 62chapter 63chapter 64chapter 65chapter 66chapter 67chapter 68chapter 69chapter 70chapter 71chapter 72chapter 73chapter 74chapter 75chapter 76chapter 77chapter 78chapter 79chapter 80chapter 81chapter 82chapter 83chapter 84chapter 85chapter 86chapter 87chapter 88chapter 89chapter 90chapter 91chapter 92chapter 93chapter 94chapter 95
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1When Pythodotus was archon at Athens, the Romans elected as
consuls Gaius Plautius and Titus Manlius.2 In this year3 Timoleon frightened the tyrant
Dionysius into surrendering the citadel, resigning his office and retiring under a safe-conduct
to the Peloponnese, but retaining his private possessions.
[2]
Thus, through cowardice and meanness, he lost that celebrated tyranny which had been, as
people said, bound with fetters of steel,4 and spent the remaining years of his life in poverty at Corinth, furnishing
in his life and misfortune an example to all who vaunt themselves unwisely on their successes.
[3]
He who had possessed four hundred triremes5
arrived shortly after in Corinth in a small tub of a freighter,6 conspicuously displaying the
enormity of the change in his fortunes.
[4]
Timoleon took over the Island and the forts which had formerly belonged to Dionysius.
He razed the citadel and the tyrant's palace on the Island, and restored the independence of
the fortified towns.
[5]
Straightway he set to work on a new code
of laws, converting the city into a democracy, and specified in exact detail the law of
contracts and all such matters, paying special attention to equality.7
[6]
He instituted also the annual office that is held in highest
honour, which the Syracusans call the "amphipoly" of Zeus Olympius.8 To this, the first priest elected was Callimenes, the son of
Alcadas, and henceforth the Syracusans continued to designate the years by these officials down
to the time of my writing this history and of the change in their form of government. For when
the Romans shared their citizenship with the Greeks of Sicily, the office of these priests
became insignificant, after having been important for over three hundred years.9Such was the condition of affairs in Sicily.
1 343/2 B.C.
2 Pythodotus was archon at Athens from July 343 to June 342 B.C. C. Plautius Venno and T. Manlius Imperiosus Torquatus were the consuls of 347 B.C. (Broughton, 1.130).
4 This was an oft-quoted metaphor credited to the elder Dionysius; cp. above, chap. 5.4; Plut. Dion 7.3 and Plut. Dion 10.3.
5 The same figure in chap. 9.2; Plut. Dion 14.2. Nepos Dion 5.3, mentions five hundred.
6 This term is traceable to Theopompus (Polybius 12.4a. 2; Jacoby, Fragmente der griechischen Historiker, no. 115, F 341), where Timaeus used ναῦς.
7 Plut. Timoleon 22.1-2; Nepos Timoleon 3.3.
8 This priesthood is not mentioned by Plutarch, and may be a personal observation of Diodorus himself.
9 This humbling of the amphipolate probably consisted in making it no longer eponymous; instead of a local priesthood, the Syracusans thereafter dated by the Roman consuls. The reference may be to the grant of jus Latii to the Sicilians by Caesar (by 44 B.C.: Cicero Ad Atticum 14.12.1), or to later grants by Augustus (A. N. Sherwin-White, The Roman Citizenship (1939), 175).
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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References (17 total)
- Cross-references to this page
(5):
- Dictionary of Greek and Roman Geography (1854), CARTHA´GO
- Dictionary of Greek and Roman Geography (1854), SYRACU´SAE
- Smith's Bio, Diony'sius or Diony'sius the Younger or the Younger Diony'sius
- Smith's Bio, Hi'cetas
- Smith's Bio, Timo'leon
- Cross-references in notes from this page (8):
- Cross-references in general dictionaries to this page
(4):
- LSJ, ἀμφίπολος
- LSJ, ἀμφιπολ-ία
- LSJ, νομο-γρα^φέω
- LSJ, τυ^ρανν-εῖον
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