Hipparinus
3. A son of the elder Dionysius by Aristomache, daughter of No. 1, who succeeded Callippus in the government or tyranny of Syracuse, B. C. 352. According to Diodorus, he attacked the city with a fleet and army, and having defeated Callippus, compelled him to fly from Syracuse, of which he immediately took possession (Diod. 16.36). The account given by Polyaenus is somewhat different: according to his version, Hipparinus was at Leontini (at this time the head-quarters of the disaffected and exiled Syracusans), when he learnt that Callippus had quitted Syracuse with the great body of his forces on an expedition elsewhere, and contrived to surprise the gates and make himself master of the city before his return. (Polyaen. 5.4.) This statement is also in part confirmed by Plutarch (Plut. Dio 58), who relates that Callippus lost Syracuse while attempting to make himself master of Catana, though he does not mention Hipparinus. He held the supreme power for only two years, during which he appears to have excited the contempt of his subjects by his drunkenness, as well as their hatred by his tyranny, and he fell a victim to assassination. (Diod. 16.36; Theopompus, apud Athen. x. p. 436a.; Ael. VH 2.41.)
From William Smith (ed.), Dictionary of Greek and Roman Biography and Mythology. Text provided under a CC BY-SA license by Perseus Digital Library, http://www.perseus.tufts.edu, with funding from the National Endowment for the Humanities and Tufts University. Data accessed from https://github.com/PerseusDL/canonical-pdlrefwk/ on 17 October 2026.