Help, please. (Anyone who recognizes the name 'Dionysius of Syracuse')

[Jelly]

I've got to do a speech/talk about a tyrant, for English. I went and picked someone from so far back in history that there really isn't a lot of information about them. I have found some, though. The problem is, I cannot find anything that says why Dionysius the Elder was considered a tyrant, only that he was.

Does anybody know anything about this?

[Loreina]

;D Maybe because he went around doing things like this?

 

Damocles (c. 370-? bc), courtier of Dionysius the Elder, who was tyrant of the city of Syracuse in Sicily. According to a legend recounted by the Roman writers Horace and Cicero, Damocles on one occasion commented to his sovereign on the grandeur and happiness of rulers. Dionysius invited his courtier to a luxurious banquet, where Damocles enjoyed the delights of the table until his attention was directed upwards and he saw a sharp sword hanging above him by a single horsehair. By this device Dionysius made Damocles realize that insecurity might threaten those who appeared to be the most fortunate. A “sword of Damocles” became proverbial.

 

  When I get back from church I'll search through my great books by Cicero and Horace to see if I can find anything else.  :) Don't despair!

[Jelly]

Thankyou! *Hugs*

[Loreina]

Not much on Dionysius I.

Plato says of D the Elder: "The laws, written and unwritten, were being altered for the worse, and the evil was growing with startling rapidity". Plato disapproved of what he called "the life of happiness" - banquets where people stuffed themselves twice a day, and those who "were never without a partner for the night". The excessive eating, drinking, and debauchery offended Plato.

He also mentions that DI trusted no one, and had no trustworthy friends. Because of this, he had no one to rule the Sicilian cities he had taken, so to secure them he levied a tribute for the barbarians. But he failed to restore them to order. 

Plato seems to use the word "tyrant" for any ruler who abandoned the laws of their forefathers. He pleads with Dionysius II to put Sicily under "the rule of laws" instead of enslaving it. Among the transgressions of DII (who learned from his father) : plotting, cowardice, murder for gain, appropriating possessions of smaller states.

I'll keep looking. :)

[Jelly]

Thankyou :)

[Loreina]

From Plutarch's Lives:

Dionysius the First took two wives, Doris and Aristomache. Doris bore him an heir, but when Aristomache continued to be barren, he had Doris's mother put to death, accusing her of giving drugs to Aristomache to prevent her conceiving.

When PLato came to visit, and found a willing pupil in DIon, Aristomache's brother, Dionysius plotted to have the philosopher killed or at least sold as a slave. He supposedly told Pollis that is he sold Plato, Plato would take no harm from it, being still the same just man as before, but would enjoy happiness though he'd lost his liberty. *G*  (plato maintained that tyrants, of all men, had the least pretence to fortitude. He also maintained that the just are happy; the unjust are miserable.)

Pollis is said to have sold Plato in AEgina.

Dionysius married his daughter Sophrosyne to her half-brother Dionysius II and his other daughter Arete to  his brother Thearides, after whose death, she became wife to her uncle Dion.

According to Plutarch, Dionysius I demanded of one Aristides the Locrian one of his daughters in marriage. When Aristides said he'd rather see her dead than married to a tyrant, Dionysius had his sons put to death and then, insultingly, asked himn if he were still in the same mind as to the disposal of his daughters.