ABSTRACT
This conclusion presents some closing thoughts on the key concepts discussed in the preceding chapters of this book. Marshall argues that the scholars would take due cognisance of the various influences, and he forces the determining approach of the sources which they utilised for their biographies and minimises the risk of assuming their subjective interpretation of the source material. The book shows the subsequent evolution of the hostile tradition that is equally suspect, and based as it was upon Athenian comic, philosophic and Peripatetic distortion, subjective theorising with neutral data and above all the Athenian-derived, highly subjective, unreliable, powerful and negative testimony of Timaeus of Tauromenium. Ancient historians who are so heavily dependent upon Diodorus' testimony are advised to approach Diodorus with considerable caution before utilising the data provided by the historian of Agyrium to prove totally and unequivocally the undemocratic, unpopular and repressive character of Dionysius' rule.
