person
Dionysius tyrannus
also: tyrant Dionysius, Latomiae of Dionysius
Dionysius I, tyrant of Syracuse 405-367 BC, the celebrated builder of the great limestone quarries (latomiae) used as a state prison, and one of the standing Greek paradigms of cruelty. Cicero invokes him with horror at Verr. 2.5.143 (the Roman citizens cast into the Stone-quarries) and uses him for moralising in the philosophical works and the letters.
Reading notes
- Ad Familiares 9.18 §1 just as the tyrant Dionysius, when he had been driven from Syracuse, is said to have opened a school at Corinth
A stock anecdote: the exiled Dionysius II of Syracuse was popularly said to have ended his days as a humble schoolmaster at Corinth, the proverbial image of fallen tyranny reduced to teaching boys. Cicero casts his own forced retirement from the law-courts under Caesar's dictatorship as the same kind of comedown.
- On the Ends of Good and Evil §4.56 the same case as the tyrant Dionysius
Dionysius I (or II) of Syracuse is the type of the wicked tyrant, contrasted with Plato; the Stoics concede that for the tyrant death is best but for Plato life is best. The example shows them quietly admitting differences they elsewhere deny.
- Against Verres, Second Hearing, Book V §143 Latomiae of Dionysius
The stone-quarry prison whose making Cicero attributes to Dionysius the tyrant of Syracuse (4th century BC). The cell-image runs through 68-148.