 Dion is initially welcomed as a liberator by the Syracusans, but his attempts at reform prove unpopular and he is eventually assassinated.He is succeeded by Callippus, an ambitious and unscrupulous pupil of Plato.In the novel's final chapter, a dozen years after Dion's downfall, Nikeratos encounters the young Alexander the Great and wistfully regrets that Plato never had the chance to tutor Alexander, who might have pursued Plato's social ideals with far greater success than Dionysios the Younger did.