Dionysius I of Syracuse

So, Damocles, since this life delights you, do you wish to taste it yourself and make trial of my fortune?

Dionysius I (or Dionysius the Elder; c. 432 BC – 367 BC) was a tyrant of Syracuse, who conquered several cities in Sicily and southern Italy, opposed Carthage's influence and made Syracuse the most powerful of the Western Greek colonies.

Quotes

• Let thy speech be better than silence, or be silent.
  • Frag. 6, as quoted in Handy-book of Literary Curiosities (1892) by William Shepard Walsh, p. 1009.

• So, Damocles, since this life delights you, do you wish to taste it yourself and make trial of my fortune?
  • As quoted by Cicero, in Tusculan disputations 5.61 as translated by Gavin Betts

• I would like somebody to be hated more than I am.
  • Clive Foss, The Tyrants: 2500 Years of Absolute Power and Corruption, London: Quercus Publishing, 2006, ISBN 1905204965, p. 11

Quotes about

• Among the Greek kingdoms, Sicily was renowned for its tyrannical regimes. Its rulers exercised habitual violence against their populations and each other. Best known is Dionysus of Syracuse. He rose from humble origins, deposed the local democracy, established firm control and used it to create the most powerful empire in the Greek world. Since he thought more in terms of a nation than a city-state, and acted like a monarch, he is a forerunner of Alexander the Great.
  • Clive Foss, The Tyrants: 2500 Years of Absolute Power and Corruption, London: Quercus Publishing, 2006, ISBN 1905204965, p. 12

External links

• Notes on the Sword of Damocles

Anecdotes from The Story of the Greeks (1896) by H. A. Guerber:

• The Tyrant of Syracuse
• The Story of Damon and Pythias
• The Sword of Damocles