Calippus of Syracuse - Assassination and Rise To Power

Assassination and Rise To Power

In exile, Dionysius bribed Calippus to kill Dion, and Calippus accepted the offer. He was in a prime position to assassinate Dion, since most of Dion’s closest friends had been killed by Dionysius the Younger, and Calippus was his closest friend remaining.

Calippus used the money from Dionysius to bribe some of Dion’s troops to defect to him. He then won Dion’s trust by betraying some of the soldiers to Dion, who then enlisted Calippus’s as a secret agent to discover further plotters. In addition, whenever men told Dion that Calippus was maligning him, Dion simply thought that Calippus was acting as a spy.

Shortly afterwards, Dion’s only son fell from a window and died. Calippus spread a rumor saying that Dion had invited Dionysius’s son, Apollocrates to come to Syracuse as Dion’s successor. Dion’s wife, Arete, and sister, Aristomache, discovered the Calippus’s plot against Dion, but Dion was still paralyzed with remorse from his son’s death, and refused to take action.

Arete and Aristomache further inquired about the plot against Dion, and when Calippus discovered their inquisitiveness, he approached them and told them that he was loyal, and that he would prove his loyalty. They told him to take the Great Oath, involving a ceremony in Persephone’s temple, which he took. Following the ceremony, Calippus broke his vow and stabbed Dion to death, whereupon Calippus took control of Syracuse.