Dionysius I of Syracuse

[close] Dionysius I (c. 432 – 367 BC) was a Greek tyrant of Syracuse, in what is now Sicily, southern Italy. He conquered several cities in Sicily and southern Italy, opposed Carthage's influence in Sicily and made Syracuse the most powerful of the Western Greek colonies. He was regarded by the ancients as an example of the worst kind of despot—cruel, suspicious and vindictive.

Dionysius began his working life as a clerk in a public office. Because of his achievements in the war against Carthage that had begun in 409 BC, he was elected supreme military commander in 406 BC; in the following year he seized total power and became tyrant.
According to some sources, after gaining a prize for one of his tragedies, he was so elated that he drunk himself to death. According to others, he was poisoned by his physicians at the instigation of his son, Dionysius the Younger who succeeded him as ruler of Syracuse.

Additionally, it is said that upon hearing news of his play, The Ransom of Hector, winning the competition at the Lanaean festival at Athens, he celebrated so fiercely that he drank himself to death. Others report that he died of natural causes shortly after learning of his play's victory in 367 BC. The third theory suggests that the company, of which he was a member, had taken revenge on his earlier purges and taxation imposed upon them, in an attempt to raise money for the war with Carthage.

His life was written by Philistus, but the work is not extant