DIONYSIUS (c. 432–367 B.C.)  , tyrant of Syracuse, began life as a clerk in a public office, but by courage and diplomacy succeeded in making himself supreme (see SYRACUSE) . He carried on war with Carthage with varying success; his attempts to drive the Carthaginians entirely out of the island failed, and at his death they were masters of at least a third of it . He also carried on an expedition against Rhegium and its allied cities in Magna Graecia . In one campaign, in which he was joined by the Lucanians, he devastated the territories of Thurii, Croton and Locri . After a protracted siege he took Rhegium (386), and sold the inhabitants as slaves . He joined the Illyrians in an attempt to plunder the temple of Delphi, pillaged the temple of Caere on the Etruscan coast, and founded several military colonies on the Adriatic . In the Peloponnesian War he espoused the side of the Spartans, and assisted them with mercenaries . He also posed as an author and patron of literature; his poems, severely criticized by Philoxenus, were hissed at the Olympic games; but having gained a prize for a tragedy on the Ransom of Hector at the Lenaea at Athens, he was so elated that he el:gaged in a debauch which proved fatal . According to others, he' was poisoned by his physicians at the instigation of his son . His life was written by Philistus, but the work is not extant . Dionysius was regarded by the ancients as a type of the worst kind of despot—cruel, suspicious and vindictive . Like Peisistratus, he was fond of having distinguished literary men about him, such as the historian Philistus, the poet Philoxenus, and the philosopher Plato, but treated them in a most arbitrary manner .

See Diod . Sic. xiii., xiv., xv.; J .

Bass, Dionysius I. von Syrakus (Vienna, 1881), with full references to authorities in footnotes; articles SIc1LY and SYRACUSE . His son DIoNysrus, known as " the Younger," succeeded in 367 B.C . He was driven from the kingdom by Dion (356) and fled to Locri; but during the commotions which followed Dion's assassination, he managed to make himself master of Syracuse . On the arrival of Timoleon he was compelled to surrender and retire to Corinth (343), where he spent the rest of his days in poverty (Diodorus Siculus xvi.; Plutarch, Timoleon) . See SYRACUSE and TIMoLEox; and, on both the Dionysii, articles by B . Niese in Pauly-Wissowa's Realencyclopadie, v. pt. i (1905) .