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Philip of Macedon was quite interested in the policies of Dionysius the Elder. Philip interviewed his son Dionysius II in Corinth, after he had been expelled from Sicily. Plato's friend Dion was the first to expel Dionysius II leading the invasion in August 357. Dion made his intentions known during the Olympics in July 360.

Dion had good reason to be angry. He had been exiled from his homeland, his wife was given to another man, he hadn't seen his son in six years, and then Dionysius II sold his property and gave him only half the proceeds. So why did it take him three years from July 360 to August 357 for him to finally invade Syracuse?

Question: where did he get the invading troops from? Were they rebels, foreign mercenaries or some other city's army? Maybe he had to spend time getting the funds for this army, drumming up support, persuading some tyrant or city to back his move. Just guessing.

The majority of his army were democratic exiles turned mercenaries based in Zacynthos. Timotheos had established this town as a base for them in about 375. Very few of the Syracusan exiles accompanied Dion back.

Dion likely did travel, trying to drum up support. However, for any support he gathered early on, he could not afford to pay hundreds of men over the intervening years from 360 to his invasion three years later, as his income stream was cut off by Dionysius II.

If only we had good histories of the Carthaginian point of view during this time....

adisciplus wrote:The majority of his army were democratic exiles turned mercenaries based in Zacynthos. Timotheos had established this town as a base for them in about 375. Very few of the Syracusan exiles accompanied Dion back.

Dion likely did travel, trying to drum up support. However, for any support he gathered early on, he could not afford to pay hundreds of men over the intervening years from 360 to his invasion three years later, as his income stream was cut off by Dionysius II.

If only we had good histories of the Carthaginian point of view during this time....

This is surely correct, Dion would not have been able to afford to pay troops while 'drumming up support'. But that does not exclude his few faithful supporters eking out their own livings in Zakynthos, whilst Dion went from one potential patron to another looking for sufficient means to hire troops, or a patron to provide troops directly, as others had done .....and that could well have taken 3 years before he was successful.

adisciplus wrote:If only we had good histories of the Carthaginian point of view during this time....

Oh yes! There were plenty of people in Carthage and Punic Sicily who could write in Greek, and I don't think its very likely that the books of Mago on agriculture, the original version of Josephus' Jewish War, and the Aramaic story about the war between Aššurbanipal and his brother Šamaš-šum-ukin were the whole of Punic and Aramaic literature on topics other than religion. But after the fall of Carthage, not enough people who could write fashionable Greek were interested in their story.

I talk about this a bit in the new issue of Ancient History magazine https://www.karwansaraypublishers.com/p ... agazine-7/