Filisto, Dionisio I e i barbari (FGrHist/BNJ 566, T13b)

Philistus, Dionysius I and the barbarians (FGrHist/BNJ 556, T 13b) · In FGrHist/BNJ 556, T 13b (apud Plut. De Herod. malign. 855c) Philistus is said to have omitted all the injustices (adikiai) committed by Dionysius the Elder against the barbarians (if they had nothing to do with the events of the Greeks). One can ask oneself who these “barbarians” are. The analysis of Diodorus’ narrative allows us to assume that, among the various non-Hellenic people with which Dionysius the Elder had contacts of diπerent kinds, those to which Plutarch refers in this passage are to be identified with the natives of Sicily, in particular with the Sikels. The Sikels played an important role in the propaganda of the tyrant and in his project of dynasteia, both inspired by Philistus: it is therefore clear why the historian can have opportunely manipulated the history of the relations between Dionysius the Elder and the Sikels, by obscuring t heir embarrassing aspects.