Gelon and especially Hieron I supported and encouraged an active literary circle, including the playwrights Epicharmus, Deinolochus, Phormis, and, more briefly, Aeschylus. Literary and historical evidence suggests that their plays were performed on a grand scale. When the Deinomenids fell, a democratic government came to power and there is little evidence of large-scale public theatrical events for more than half a century. This period of turbulent democracy was brought to an end by Dionysius I (405–367), who not only ruled Syracuse, but extended his control over most of Sicily and up the mainland as far as the gulf of Taras and beyond.