Dionysius’s desire for total control and power affect the story’s plot in “Damon and Pythias” when Dionysius character was hot - tempered and imperious and anyone who angered him was put to death. In this situation, people in Syracuse were afraid to make a statement about him because they will be put to death. And so when a day came that he was informed that a young man named Pythias had been heard complaining against the cruelty of Dionysius, he condemned the youth to die.