The smaller Greek cities did not have the resources to participate in this new warfare. By the early fourth century it was becoming clear that only determined and autocratic leaders could squeeze them out and so there was a move towards dictatorships that would, ultimately, transform the nature of the Greek world. Agesilaus had hinted at what was possible. In Syracuse in the same period a more successful leader, Dionysius, emerged, as a response to the continued pressures on the city by the Carthaginians who held the west of Sicily. Dionysius’ rule, initiated in 405, is reminiscent of that of the earlier Greek tyrants. He was primarily a soldier, and his position was underwritten by his continual mobilization of Syracuse in war against Carthage. There were no less than four wars, three of them instigated by Dionysius, in forty years. None was conclusive, and the Carthaginian hold on western Sicily remained strong. In mobilizing the Greeks, Dionysius proved ruthless. The need to have a united state, rather than personal ambition, may have been the reason for his suppression of alternative centres of power, such as Rhegium, captured in 387, and his bringing of defeated Greek populations under direct Syracusan control. He extended his authority over what remained of Greek Sicily as well as virtually every Greek city of the Italian mainland.
Italy brought Dionysius resources: tin, copper, iron, silver, and wood, as well as mercenaries. His men came not only from Sicily and the Greek cities of Italy but from mainland Greece, northern and central Italy, and Iberia. They were well armed, allowed to wear the armour and use the weapons they were most used to. The problem was finance, and here Dionysius was unscrupulous in grabbing temple silver and gold, manipulating his coinage, and confiscating the property of his enemies. He even raided the treasuries of Etruscan cities.
There was a strong personal element to Dionysius’ rule. He was not simply a military commander. In his first treaty with Carthage (405) he was named personally as the ruler of Syracuse. He consolidated his position by a network of marriage alliances. (On one occasion he was said to have married two wives, one from Syracuse and one from the Italian mainland, the same day and consummated both marriages the same night.) Several of his seven children were married back into the family to make a formidable network of personal loyalties. The personal nature of his rule was underlined by the wording of his alliance. In a treaty with Athens, for instance, it was agreed that Athens would send him help if ‘anyone makes war by land or sea against Dionysius or his descendants or any place where Dionysius rules’. There are also hints in the sources of the trappings of kingship—purple dress, and a golden crown. However, Dionysius’ only formal title was that of ‘general with full powers’ and he never appeared on coins.
Dionysius never forgot that he was a Greek and that Sicily was part of a wider Greek world. He presided over symposia, wrote poems and tragedies, and sent chariots to compete in the Olympic Games. He supported Sparta in the Corinthian War, supplying her with enough ships to give her superiority over Athens. Later in his reign he was wooed by Athens and finally made a treaty with her in 368. The next year Dionysius entered his play The Ransoming of Hector in the Athenian Lenaea festival. The judges courteously awarded it first prize, at which news it was said that Dionysius celebrated by drinking himself to death.
If Dionysius had defeated Carthage, the history of the western Mediterranean might have taken a different turn. For a start, it would have left him free to move into Italy. It was during his reign that the Etruscans, who had dominated central Italy for centuries, began to weaken. Even the expansion of Rome might have been checked. In the event, Syracuse ceased to be expansionist after his death and Rome was able to consolidate her position on the mainland. Within a century the Greek cities of Italy were under her control although Syracuse herself was not to fall until 212 bc (see below, pp. 377, 394).
The example of Dionysius showed that it was possible for a determined individual to seize power and to mobilize wealth and resources, particularly professional mercenary troops, in the service of a strong and united state. Others soon followed. Thessaly, for instance, was taken over by one Jason, a native of the city of Pherae, in the late 370s. The area was one of rich plains and large estates. It already had a tradition of one-man rule in the shape of an elective monarch, the Tagos. Jason established himself as Tagos, organized a national army, and for a short time, until he was murdered, set Thessaly up as the most powerful state in Greece. Xenophon records a speech of his in which he extols the virtues of a hand-picked mercenary army trained on hardship and richly rewarded if it shows appetite for war.
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