Life of Dion, 28

Plutarch  translated by Bernadotte Perrin

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28As for the Syracusans in the city, the men of note and cultivation, in fresh apparel, went to meet them at the gates, while the multitude set upon the tyrant’s friends and seized those called tale-bearers, wicked men whom the gods hated, who went up and down in the city busily mingling with the Syracusans and reporting to the tyrant the sentiments and utterances of every one. 2These, then, were the first to suffer retribution, being beaten to death by those who came upon them; but Timocrates, unable to join the garrison of the acropolis, took horse and dashed out of the city, and as he fled, filled everything with fear and confusion, exaggerating the strength of Dion, that he might not be thought to have abandoned the city through fear of any trivial danger. 3Meanwhile Dion drew near the city and was presently seen, leading the way himself in brilliant armour, with his brother Megacles on one side of him, and on the other, Callippus the Athenian, both crowned with garlands. A hundred of his mercenaries followed Dion as a body-guard, and his officers led the rest in good order, the Syracusans looking on and welcoming as it were a sacred religious procession for the return of liberty and democracy into the city, after an absence of forty-eight years.

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