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So that when I compare those sad stories of Philistus, touching the daughters of Leptines, where he makes pitiful moan on their behalf, as fallen from all the blessings and advantages of powerful greatness to the miseries of a humble life, they seem to me like the lamentations of a woman who has lost her box of ointment, her purple dresses, and her golden trinkets.
But Dion's enemies, fearing an alteration in Dionysius, persuaded him to recall from banishment Philistus, a man of learned education, and at the same time of great experience in the ways of tyrants, and who might serve as a counterpoise to Plato and his philosophy.
For Philistus from the beginning had been a great instrument in establishing the tyranny, and for a long time had held the office of captain of the citadel. There was a report, that he had been intimate with the mother of Dionysius the first, and not without his privity.
He that neither praises Philistus for his conduct, nor insults over his misfortunes, seems to me to take the fittest course.
But here it will be well for me to entreat the reader, in all courtesy, not to think that I contend with Thucydides in matters so pathetically, vividly, and eloquently, beyond all imitation, and even beyond himself, expressed by him; nor to believe me guilty of the like folly with Timaeus, who, hoping in his history to surpass Thucydides in art, and to make Philistus appear a trifler and a novice, pushes on in his descriptions, through all the battles, sea-fights, and public speeches, in recording which they have been most successful, without meriting so much as to be compared in Pindar's phrase, to
Ortygia was again blockaded, but as Dionysius was still master of the sea, he ravaged the coasts for provisions, and maintained his position, until the arrival of Heraclides, with a Peloponnesian fleet, gave the Syracusans a tolerable naval force. Philistus commanded the fleet of Dionysius, but in a battle with Heraclides, he lost his life.
A thoroughly contemporary historian such as Lord Clarendon or Thucydides is in reality part of the history he criticises; and, in the case of such contemporary historians as Fabius and Philistus, Polybius in compelled to acknowledge that they are misled by patriotic and other considerations. Against Polybius himself no such accusation can be made.
Nevertheless, on these comitial days the tribunes say that they will bring forward the case of Gabinius. I collect every item of intelligence, that I may have some news to tell you: but, as you see, I am short of material. Accordingly, I return to Callisthenes and Philistus, in whom I see that you have been wallowing.
Philistus also gives a similar account of Pyrrhus, the dog of the tyrant Gelon; and it is said also, that the dog of Nicomedes, King of Bithynia , tore Consingis, the wife of that king, in consequence of her wanton behavior, when toying with her husband. Dogs are the only animals that are sure to know their masters, and if they suddenly meet him as a stranger, they will instantly recognize him.
In his account of the death of Nikias and Demosthenes, Timæus does not exactly follow the narrative of Thucydides and Philistus, as he informs us that while the assembly was still sitting, Hermokrates sent to their prison to inform them that they were condemned to death, and to afford them the means of dying by their own hands, while the other historians state that the Syracusans put them to death.
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