Character Sketches of Romance, Fiction and the Drama, Vol. 1

This is the reference book. DIONYS’IA, wife of Cleon, governor of Tarsus. Pericles prince of Tyre commits to her charge his infant daughter Mari’na, supposed to be motherless. When her foster-child is fourteen years old, Dionysia, out of jealousy, employs a man to murder her, and the people of Tarsus, hearing thereof, set fire to her house, and both Dionysia and Cleon are burnt to death in the flames, —Shakespeare, Pericles, Prince of Tyre (1608). DIONYS’IUS, tyrant of Syracuse, dethroned Evander, and imprisoned him in a dungeon deep in a huge rock, intending to starve him to death. But Euphrasia, having gained access to him, fed him from her own breast. Timoleon invaded Syracuse, and Dionysius, seeking safety in a tomb, saw there Evander the deposed king, and was about to kill him, when Euphrasia rushed forward, struck the tyrant to the heart, and he fell dead at her feet. ­A. Murphy, The Grecian Daughter (1772).