Grecian Daughter

( The ), Euphrasia, daughter of Evander, a Greek who dethroned Dionysius the Elder, and became king of Syracuse. In his old age he was himself dethroned by Dionysius the Younger, and confined in a dungeon in a rock, where he was saved from starvation by his daughter, who fed him with “the milk designed for her own babe.” Timoleon having made himself master of Syracuse, Dionysius accidentally encountered Evander, his prisoner, and was about to kill him, when Euphrasia rushed forward and stabbed the tyrant tyrant to the heart.—A. Murphy, The Grecian Daughter (1772). ⁂ As an historical drama, this plot is much the same as if the writer had said that James I. (of England) abdicated and retired to St. Germain, and when his son James II. succeeded to the crown, he was beheaded at White hall; for Murphy makes Dionysius the Elder to have been dethroned, and going to Corinth to live (act i.), and Dionysius the Younger to have been slain by the dagger of Euphrasia; whereas Dionysius the Elder never was dethroned, but died in Syracuse at the age of 63; and Dionysius the Younger was not slain in Syracuse, but being dethroned, went to Corinth, where he lived and died in exile.