a celebrated historian of Syracuse, who was an active partisan of Dionysius the elder, and was by him made governor of the citadel, b.c. 406. Having dared to marry a relation of the tyrant without his knowledge, he was compelled to fly, and took refuge in the city Adria, in the north of Italy, where he employed himself in writing the history of his native island. Philistus tried to procure his recall, by representing the government of Dionysius in a very favourable light; but the prince refused to listen to his entreaties; and it was not till the accession of Dionysius the younger that he returned to his native country. It is said that the political party in Syracuse which supported despotic principles were afraid of the influence that Plato might have over the mind of Dionysius; and as Philistus had always been a strenuous assertor of arbitrary power, and was, besides, possessed of considerable talents, it was thought that he might have been made use of to counteract the effects of Plato's eloquence. Philistus was killed, b.c. 356, by the Syracusans. He wrote a history of Sicily, the first part of which was contained in seven books, and extended over a period of eight hundred years, terminating with the siege of Agrigentum, b.c. 406. The second part contained the history of the elder Dionysius to b.c. 368, and he gave, in two books, the reign of Dionysius the younger till b.c. 363.