Dion

, a Syracusan, son of Hip par in us, famous for his power and abilities. He was related to Dionysius, and often advised him, together with the philosopher Plato, who at his request had come to reside at the tyrant’s court, to lay aside the supreme power. His great popularity rendered him odious in the eyes of the tyrant, who banished him to Greece. There he collected a numerous force, and encouraged by the influence of his name, and the hatred of his enemy, he resolved to free his country from tyranny. He entered the port of Syracuse only with two ships, and in three days reduced under his power an empire which had already subsisted for 50 years, and which was guarded by 500 ships of war, and 100,000 foot and 10,000 horse. The tyrant fled to Corinth, and Dion kept the power in his own hands, fearful of the aspiring ambition of some of the friends of Dionysius. He was, however, shamefully betrayed and murdered by one of his familiar friends, called Call i crates, or Callipus, 354 years before the christian era, in the 55th year of his age, and four years after his return from Peloponnesus. His death was universally lamented by the Syracusans, and a monument was raised to his memory. Diodorus , bk. 16 .— Cornel i us Nepos , Life of Dion .――A town of Macedonia. Pausanias , bk. 9 , ch. 36 .――Ca ius, a native of Nicæa in Bithynia. His father’s name was Apr on i an us. He was raised to the greatest offices of state in the Roman empire by Pertinax and his three succe ors. Naturally fond of study, he improved himself by unwearied application, and was 10 years collecting materials for a history of Rome, which he made public in 80 books, after a laborious employment of 12 years in composing it. This valuable history began with the arrival of Æneas in Italy, and was continued down to the reign of the emperor Alexander Severus. The 34 first books are totally lost, the 20 following are mutilated, and fragments are all that we po e of the last 20. In the compilation of his extensive history, Dion proposed to himself Thucydides for a model; but he is not perfectly happy in his imitation. His style is pure and elegant, and his narrations are judiciously managed, and his reflections learned; but upon the whole he is credulous, and the bigoted slave of partiality, satire, and flattery. He inveighs against the republican principles of Brutus and Cicero, and extols the cause of Cæsar. Seneca also is the object of his satire, and he represents him as debauched and licentious in his morals. Dion flourished about the 230th year of the christian era. The best edition of his works is that of Reimarus, 2  vols. , folio, Hamburg, 1750.――A famous christian writer, surnamed Chrysostom , .