rother-in-law of Dionysius the Elder. In his youth he was an admirer
and pupil of Plato, whom Dionysius had invited to Syracuse; and he used
every effort to inculcate the maxims of his master in the mind of the
tyrant. The stern morality of Dion was distasteful to the younger
Dionysius, and the historian Philistus, a faithful supporter of despotic
power, succeeded in procuring his banishment on account of alleged
intrigues with the Carthaginians. The exiled philosopher retired to
Athens, where he was at first permitted to enjoy his revenues in peace;
but the intercession of Plato (who had again visited Syracuse to procure
Dion's recall) only served to exasperate the tyrant, and at length
provoked him to confiscate the property of Dion, and give his wife to
another. This last outrage roused Dion. Assembling a small force at
Zacynthus, he sailed to Sicily (357) and was received with
demonstrations of joy. Dionysius, who was in Italy, returned to Sicily,
but was defeated and obliged to flee. Dion himself was soon after
supplanted by the intrigues of Heracleides, and again banished. The
incompetency of the new leader and the cruelties of Apollocrates, the
son of Dionysius, soon led to his recall. He had, however, scarcely made
himself master of Sicily when the people began to express their
discontent with his tyrannical conduct, and he was assassinated by
Callippus, an Athenian who had accompanied him in his expedition.

See _Lives_ by Plutarch and Cornelius Nepos (cf. Diod. Sic. xvi. 6-20)
and in modern times by T. Lau (1860); see also SYRACUSE and SICILY:
_History_.

DIONE, in the earliest Greek mythology, the wife of Zeus. As such she is
associated with Zeus Naius (the god of fertilizing moisture) at Dodona
(Strabo vii. p. 329), by whose side she sits, adorned with a bridal veil
and garland and holding a sceptre. As the oracle declined in importance,
her place as the wife of Zeus was taken by Hera. It is probable that in
very early times the cult of Dione existed in Athens, where she had an
altar before the Erechtheum. After her admission to the general
religious system of the Greeks, Dione was variously described. In the
_Iliad_ (v. 370) she is the mother by Zeus of Aphrodite, who is herself
in later times called Dione (the epithet Dionaeus was given to Julius
Caesar as claiming descent from Venus). In Hesiod (_Theog._ 353) she is
one of the daughters of Oceanus; in Pherecydes (ap. schol. _Iliad_,
xviii. 48