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Download: A 88k text-only version is <A HREF="timoleon.1b.txt" onMouseOver="window.status='Download text-only version'; return true;">available for download</A>. <HR SIZE="1" COLOR="990033" NOSHADE> <A NAME="1"></A><DIV ALIGN="CENTER">Timoleon <A NAME="2"></A> (legendary, died 337 B.C.E.) By Plutarch <A NAME="3"></A> Written 75 A.C.E. Translated by John Dryden</DIV> <A NAME="start"></A> <A NAME="10"></A>IT was for the sake of others that I first commenced writing biographies; <A NAME="11"></A>but I find myself proceeding and attaching myself to it for my own; the <A NAME="12"></A>virtues of these great men serving me as a sort of looking-glass, in which <A NAME="13"></A>I may see how to adjust and adorn my own life. Indeed, it can be compared <A NAME="14"></A>to nothing but daily living and associating together; we receive, as it <A NAME="15"></A>were, in our inquiry, and entertain each successive guest, <A NAME="16"></A>view- <A NAME="17"></A> "Their stature and their qualities," and select from their actions <A NAME="18"></A>all that is noblest and worthiest to know. <A NAME="19"></A> "Ah, and what greater pleasure can one have?" or what more effective <A NAME="20"></A>means to one's moral improvement? Democritus tells us we ought to pray <A NAME="21"></A>that of the phantasms appearing in the circumambient air, such may present <A NAME="22"></A>themselves to us as are propitious, and that we may rather meet with those <A NAME="23"></A>that are agreeable to our natures and are good than the evil and unfortunate; <A NAME="24"></A>which is simply introducing into philosophy a doctrine untrue in itself, <A NAME="25"></A>and leading to endless superstitions. My method, on the contrary, is, by <A NAME="26"></A>the study of history, and by the familiarity acquired in writing, to habituate <A NAME="27"></A>my memory to receive and retain images of the best and worthiest characters. <A NAME="28"></A>I thus am enabled to free myself from any ignoble, base, or vicious impressions, <A NAME="29"></A>contracted from the contagion of ill company that I may be unavoidably <A NAME="30"></A>engaged in; by the remedy of turning my thoughts in a happy and calm temper <A NAME="31"></A>to view these noble examples. Of this kind are those of Timoleon the Corinthian <A NAME="32"></A>and Paulus Aemilius, to write whose lives is my present business; men equally <A NAME="33"></A>famous, not only for their virtues, but success; insomuch that they have <A NAME="34"></A>left it doubtful whether they owe their greatest achievements to good fortune, <A NAME="35"></A>or their own prudence and conduct. <A NAME="36"></A> The affairs of the Syracusans, before Timoleon was sent into Sicily, <A NAME="37"></A>were in this posture; after Dion had driven out Dionysius the tyrant, he <A NAME="38"></A>was slain by treachery, and those that had assisted him in delivering Syracuse <A NAME="39"></A>were divided among themselves; and thus the city by a continual change <A NAME="40"></A>of governors, and a train of mischiefs that succeeded each other, became <A NAME="41"></A>almost abandoned; while of the rest of Sicily, part was now utterly depopulated <A NAME="42"></A>and desolate through long continuance of war, and most of the cities that <A NAME="43"></A>had been left standing were in the hands of barbarians and soldiers out <A NAME="44"></A>of employment, that were ready to embrace every turn of government. Such <A NAME="45"></A>being the state of things, Dionysius takes the opportunity, and in the <A NAME="46"></A>tenth year of his banishment, by the help of some mercenary troops he had <A NAME="47"></A>got together, forces out Nysaeus, then master of Syracuse, recovers all <A NAME="48"></A>afresh, and is again settled in his dominion; and as at first he had been <A NAME="49"></A>strangely deprived of the greatest and most absolute power that ever was <A NAME="50"></A>by a very small party, so now, in a yet stranger manner, when in exile <A NAME="51"></A>and of mean condition, he became the sovereign of those who had ejected <A NAME="52"></A>him. All therefore that remained in Syracuse had to serve under a tyrant, <A NAME="53"></A>who at the best was of an ungentle nature, and exasperated now to a degree <A NAME="54"></A>of savageness by the late misfortunes and calamities he had suffered. The <A NAME="55"></A>better and more distinguished citizens, having timely retired thence to <A NAME="56"></A>Hicetes, ruler of the Leontines, put themselves under his protection, and <A NAME="57"></A>chose him for their general in the war; not that he was much preferable <A NAME="58"></A>to any open and avowed tyrant, but they had no other sanctuary at present, <A NAME="59"></A>and it gave them some ground of confidence he was of a Syracusan family, <A NAME="60"></A>and had forces able to encounter those of Dionysius. <A NAME="61"></A> In the meantime the Carthaginians appeared before Sicily with a <A NAME="62"></A>great navy, watching when and where they might make a descent upon the <A NAME="63"></A>island; and terror at this fleet made the Sicilians incline to send an <A NAME="64"></A>embassy into Greece to demand succours from the Corinthians, whom they <A NAME="65"></A>confided in rather than others, not only upon the account of their near <A NAME="66"></A>kindred, and the great benefits they had often received by trusting them, <A NAME="67"></A>but because Corinth had ever shown herself attached to freedom and averse <A NAME="68"></A>from tyranny and had engaged in many noble wars, not for empire or aggrandizement, <A NAME="69"></A>but for the sole liberty of the Greeks, But Hicetes, who made it the business <A NAME="70"></A>of his command not so much to deliver the Syracusans from other tyrants, <A NAME="71"></A>as to enslave them to himself, had already entered into some secret conferences <A NAME="72"></A>with those of Carthage, while in public he commended the design of his <A NAME="73"></A>Syracusan clients, and despatched ambassadors from himself, together with <A NAME="74"></A>theirs, into Peloponnesus; not that he really desired any relief to come <A NAME="75"></A>from there, but in case the Corinthians, as was likely enough, on account <A NAME="76"></A>of the troubles of Greece and occupation at home, should refuse their assistance, <A NAME="77"></A>hoping then he should be able with less difficulty to dispose and incline <A NAME="78"></A>things for the Carthaginian interest, and so make use of these foreign <A NAME="79"></A>pretenders, as instruments and auxiliaries for himself, either against <A NAME="80"></A>the Syracusans or Dionysius, as occasion served. This was discovered a <A NAME="81"></A>while after. <A NAME="82"></A> The ambassadors being arrived, and their request known, the Corinthians, <A NAME="83"></A>who had always a great concern for all their colonies and plantations, <A NAME="84"></A>but especially for Syracuse, since by good fortune there was nothing to <A NAME="85"></A>molest them in their own country, where they were enjoying peace and leisure <A NAME="86"></A>at that time, readily and with one accord passed a vote for their assistance. <A NAME="87"></A>And when they were deliberating about the choice of a captain for the expedition, <A NAME="88"></A>and the magistrates were urging the claims of various aspirants for reputation, <A NAME="89"></A>one of the crowd stood up and named Timoleon, son of Timodemus, who had <A NAME="90"></A>long absented himself from public business, and had neither any thoughts <A NAME="91"></A>of nor the least pretensions to, an employment of that nature. Some god <A NAME="92"></A>or other, it might rather seem, had put it in the man's heart to mention <A NAME="93"></A>him; such favour and good-will on the part of Fortune seemed at once to <A NAME="94"></A>be shown in his election, and to accompany all his following actions, as <A NAME="95"></A>though it were on purpose to commend his worth, and add grace and ornament <A NAME="96"></A>to his personal virtues. As regards his parentage, both Timodemus his father, <A NAME="97"></A>and his mother Demariste, were of high rank in the city; and as for himself, <A NAME="98"></A>he was noted for his love of his country, and his gentleness of temper, <A NAME="99"></A>except in his extreme hatred to tyrants and wicked men. His natural abilities <A NAME="100"></A>for war were so happily tempered, that while a rare prudence might be seen <A NAME="101"></A>in all the enterprises of his younger years, an equal courage showed itself <A NAME="102"></A>in the last exploits of his declining age. He had an elder brother, whose <A NAME="103"></A>name was Timophanes, who was every way unlike him, being indiscreet and <A NAME="104"></A>rash, and infected by the suggestions of some friends and foreign soldiers, <A NAME="105"></A>whom he kept always about him, with a passion for absolute power. He seemed <A NAME="106"></A>to have a certain force and vehemence in all military service, and even <A NAME="107"></A>to delight in dangers, and thus he took much with the people, and was advanced <A NAME="108"></A>to the highest charges, as a vigorous and effective warrior; in the obtaining <A NAME="109"></A>of which offices and promotions, Timoleon much assisted him, helping to <A NAME="110"></A>conceal or at least to extenuate his errors, embellishing by his praise <A NAME="111"></A>whatever was commendable in him, and setting off his good qualities to <A NAME="112"></A>the best advantage. <A NAME="113"></A> It happened once in the battle fought by the Corinthians against <A NAME="114"></A>the forces of Argos and Cleonae, that Timoleon served among the infantry, <A NAME="115"></A>when Timophanes, commanding their cavalry, was brought into extreme danger; <A NAME="116"></A>as his horse being wounded fell forward and threw him headlong amidst the <A NAME="117"></A>enemies, while part of his companions dispersed at once in a panic, and <A NAME="118"></A>the small number that remained, bearing up against a great multitude, had <A NAME="119"></A>much ado to maintain any resistance. As soon, therefore, as Timoleon was <A NAME="120"></A>aware of the accident, he ran hastily in to his brother's rescue, and covering <A NAME="121"></A>the fallen Timophanes with his buckler, after having received abundance <A NAME="122"></A>of darts, and several strokes by the sword upon his body and his armour, <A NAME="123"></A>he at length with much difficulty obliged the enemies to retire, and brought <A NAME="124"></A>off his brother alive and safe. But when the Corinthians, for fear of losing <A NAME="125"></A>their city a second time, as they had once before, by admitting their allies, <A NAME="126"></A>made a decree to maintain four hundred mercenaries for its security, and <A NAME="127"></A>gave Timophanes the command over them, he, abandoning all regard to honour <A NAME="128"></A>and equity, at once proceeded to put into execution his plans for making <A NAME="129"></A>himself absolute, and bringing the place under his own power; and having <A NAME="130"></A>cut off many principal citizens, uncondemned and without trial, who were <A NAME="131"></A>most likely to hinder his designs, he declared himself tyrant of Corinth; <A NAME="132"></A>a procedure that infinitely afflicted Timoleon, to whom the wickedness <A NAME="133"></A>of such a brother appeared to be his own reproach and calamity. He undertook <A NAME="134"></A>to persuade him by reasoning, that desisting from that wild and unhappy <A NAME="135"></A>ambition, he would bethink himself how he should make the Corinthians some <A NAME="136"></A>amends, and find out an expedient to remedy and correct the evils he had <A NAME="137"></A>done them. When his single admonition was rejected and contemned by him, <A NAME="138"></A>he makes a second attempt, taking with him Aeschylus his kinsman, brother <A NAME="139"></A>to the wife of Timophanes, and a certain diviner, that was his friend, <A NAME="140"></A>whom Theopompus in his history calls Satyrus, but Ephorus and Timaeus mention <A NAME="141"></A>in theirs by the name of Orthagoras. After a few days, then, he returns <A NAME="142"></A>to his brother with this company, all three of them surrounding and earnestly <A NAME="143"></A>importuning him upon the same subject, that now at length he would listen <A NAME="144"></A>to reason, and be of another mind. But when Timophanes began first to laugh <A NAME="145"></A>at the men's simplicity, and presently broke out into rage and indignation <A NAME="146"></A>against them, Timoleon stepped aside from him and stood weeping with his <A NAME="147"></A>face covered, while the other two, drawing out their swords, despatched <A NAME="148"></A>him in a moment. <A NAME="149"></A> On the rumour of this act being soon scattered about, the better <A NAME="150"></A>and more generous of the Corinthians highly applauded Timoleon for the <A NAME="151"></A>hatred of wrong and the greatness of soul that had made him, though of <A NAME="152"></A>a gentle disposition and full of love and kindness for his family, think <A NAME="153"></A>the obligations to his country stronger than the ties of consanguinity, <A NAME="154"></A>and prefer that which is good and just before gain and interest and his <A NAME="155"></A>own particular advantage. For the same brother, who with so much bravery <A NAME="156"></A>had been saved by him when he fought valiantly in the cause of Corinth, <A NAME="157"></A>he had now as nobly sacrificed for enslaving her afterwards by a base usurpation. <A NAME="158"></A>But then, on the other side, those that knew not how to live in a democracy, <A NAME="159"></A>and had been used to make their humble court to the men of power, though <A NAME="160"></A>they openly professed to rejoice at the death of the tyrant, nevertheless, <A NAME="161"></A>secretly reviling Timoleon, as one that had committed an impious and abominable <A NAME="162"></A>act, drove him into melancholy and dejection. And when he came to understand <A NAME="163"></A>how heavily his mother took it, and that she likewise uttered the saddest <A NAME="164"></A>complaints and most terrible imprecations against him, he went to satisfy <A NAME="165"></A>and comfort her as to what had happened; and finding that she would not <A NAME="166"></A>endure so much as to look upon him, but caused her doors to be shut, that <A NAME="167"></A>he might have no admission into her presence, with grief at this he grew <A NAME="168"></A>so disordered in his mind and so disconsolate, that he determined to put <A NAME="169"></A>an end to his perplexity with his life, by abstaining from all manner of <A NAME="170"></A>sustenance. But through the care and diligence of his friends, who were <A NAME="171"></A>very instant with him, and added force to their entreaties, he came to <A NAME="172"></A>resolve and promise at last, that he would endure living, provided it might <A NAME="173"></A>be in solitude, and remote from company; so that, quitting all civil transactions <A NAME="174"></A>and commerce with the world for a long while after his first retirement, <A NAME="175"></A>he never came into Corinth, but wandered up and down the fields, full of <A NAME="176"></A>anxious and tormenting thoughts, and spent his time in desert places, at <A NAME="177"></A>the farthest distance from society and human intercourse. So true it is <A NAME="178"></A>that the minds of men are easily shaken and carried off from their own <A NAME="179"></A>sentiments through the casual commendation or reproof of others, unless <A NAME="180"></A>the judgments that we make, and the purposes we conceive, be confirmed <A NAME="181"></A>by reason and philosophy, and thus obtain strength and steadiness. An action <A NAME="182"></A>must not only be just and laudable in its own nature, but it must proceed <A NAME="183"></A>likewise from motives and a lasting principle, that so we may fully and <A NAME="184"></A>constantly approve the thing, and be perfectly satisfied in what we do; <A NAME="185"></A>for otherwise, after having put our resolution into practice, we shall <A NAME="186"></A>out of pure weakness come to be troubled at the performance, when the grace <A NAME="187"></A>and godliness, which rendered it before so amiable and pleasing to us, <A NAME="188"></A>begin to decay and wear out of our fancy; like greedy people, who, seizing <A NAME="189"></A>on the more delicious morsels of any dish with a keen appetite, are presently <A NAME="190"></A>disgusted when they grow full, and find themselves oppressed and uneasy <A NAME="191"></A>now by what they before so greedily desired. For a succeeding dislike spoils <A NAME="192"></A>the best of actions, and repentance makes that which was never so well <A NAME="193"></A>done become base and faulty; whereas the choice that is founded upon knowledge <A NAME="194"></A>and wise reasoning does not change by disappointment, or suffer us to repent, <A NAME="195"></A>though it happen perchance to be less prosperous in the issue. And thus, <A NAME="196"></A>Phocion, of Athens, having always vigorously opposed the measures of Leosthenes, <A NAME="197"></A>when success appeared to attend them, and he saw his countrymen rejoicing <A NAME="198"></A>and offering sacrifice in honour of their victory, "I should have been <A NAME="199"></A>as glad," said he to them, "that I myself had been the author of what Leosthenes <A NAME="200"></A>has achieved for you, as I am that I gave you my own counsel against it." <A NAME="201"></A>A more vehement reply is record to have been made by Aristides the Locrian, <A NAME="202"></A>one of Plato's companions, to Dionysius the elder, who demanded one of <A NAME="203"></A>his daughters in marriage: "I had rather," said he to him, "see the virgin <A NAME="204"></A>in her grave than in the palace of a tyrant." And when Dionysius, enraged <A NAME="205"></A>at the affront, made his sons be put to death a while after, and then again <A NAME="206"></A>insultingly asked, whether he were still in the same mind as to the disposal <A NAME="207"></A>of his daughters, his answer was, "I cannot but grieve at the cruelty of <A NAME="208"></A>your deeds, but am not sorry for the freedom of my own words." Such expressions <A NAME="209"></A>as these may belong perhaps to a more sublime and accomplished <A NAME="210"></A>virtue. <A NAME="211"></A> The grief, however, of Timoleon at what had been done, whether <A NAME="212"></A>it arose from commiseration of his brother's fate or the reverence he bore <A NAME="213"></A>his mother, so shattered and broke his spirits, that for the space of almost <A NAME="214"></A>twenty years he had not offered to concern himself in any honourable or <A NAME="215"></A>public action. When, therefore, he was pitched upon for a general, and, <A NAME="216"></A>joyfully accepted as such by the suffrages of the people, Teleclides, who <A NAME="217"></A>was at that time the most powerful and distinguished man in Corinth, began <A NAME="218"></A>to exhort him that he would act now like a man of worth and gallantry: <A NAME="219"></A>"For," said he, "if you do bravely in this service we shall believe that <A NAME="220"></A>you delivered us from a tyrant; but if otherwise that you killed your brother." <A NAME="221"></A>While he was yet preparing to set sail, and enlisting soldiers to embark <A NAME="222"></A>with him, there came letters to the Corinthians from Hicetes, plainly disclosing <A NAME="223"></A>his revolt and treachery. For his ambassadors had no sooner gone for Corinth, <A NAME="224"></A>but he openly joined the Carthaginians, negotiating that they might assist <A NAME="225"></A>him to throw out Dionysius, and become master of Syracuse in his room. <A NAME="226"></A>And fearing he might be disappointed of his aim if troops and a commander <A NAME="227"></A>should come from Corinth before this were effected, he sent a letter of <A NAME="228"></A>advice thither, in all haste, to prevent their setting out, telling them <A NAME="229"></A>they need not be at any cost and trouble upon his account, or run the hazard <A NAME="230"></A>of a Sicilian voyage, especially since the Carthaginians, alliance with <A NAME="231"></A>whom against Dionysius the slowness of their motions had compelled him <A NAME="232"></A>to embrace, would dispute their passage, and lay in wait to attack them <A NAME="233"></A>with a numerous fleet. This letter being publicly read, if any had been <A NAME="234"></A>cold and indifferent before as to the expedition in hand, the indignation <A NAME="235"></A>they now conceived against Hicetes so exasperated and inflamed them all <A NAME="236"></A>that they willingly contributed to supply Timoleon, and endeavoured with <A NAME="237"></A>one accord to hasten his departure. <A NAME="238"></A> When the vessels were equipped, and his soldiers every way provided <A NAME="239"></A>for, the female priest of Proserpina had a dream or vision wherein she <A NAME="240"></A>and her mother Ceres appeared to them in a travelling garb, and were heard <A NAME="241"></A>to say that they were going to sail with Timoleon into Sicily; whereupon <A NAME="242"></A>the Corinthians, having built a sacred galley, devoted it to them, and <A NAME="243"></A>called it the galley of the goddesses. Timoleon went in person to Delphi, <A NAME="244"></A>where he sacrificed to Apollo, and, descending into the place of prophecy, <A NAME="245"></A>was surprised with the following marvellous occurrence. A riband, with <A NAME="246"></A>crowns and figures of victory embroidered upon it, slipped off from among <A NAME="247"></A>the gifts that were there consecrated and hung up in the temple, and fell <A NAME="248"></A>directly down upon his head; so that Apollo seemed already to crown him <A NAME="249"></A>with success, and send him thence to conquer and triumph. He put to sea <A NAME="250"></A>only with seven ships of Corinth, two of Corcyra, and a tenth which was <A NAME="251"></A>furnished by the Leucadians; and when he was now entered into the deep <A NAME="252"></A>by night, and carried with a prosperous gale, the heaven seemed all on <A NAME="253"></A>a sudden to break open, and a bright spreading flame to issue forth from <A NAME="254"></A>it, and hover over the ship he was in; and, having formed itself into a <A NAME="255"></A>torch, not unlike those that are used in the mysteries, it began to steer <A NAME="256"></A>the same course, and run along in their company, guiding them by its light <A NAME="257"></A>to that quarter of Italy where they designed to go ashore. The soothsayers <A NAME="258"></A>affirmed that this apparition agreed with the dream of the holy woman, <A NAME="259"></A>since the goddesses were now visibly joining in the expedition, and sending <A NAME="260"></A>this light from heaven before them: Sicily being thought sacred to Proserpina, <A NAME="261"></A>as poets feign that the rape was committed there, and that the island was <A NAME="262"></A>given her in dowry when she married Pluto. <A NAME="263"></A> These early demonstrations of divine favour greatly encouraged <A NAME="264"></A>his whole army; so that making all the speed they were able, by a voyage <A NAME="265"></A>across the open sea, they were soon passing along the coast of Italy. But <A NAME="266"></A>the tidings that came from Sicily much perplexed Timoleon, and disheartened <A NAME="267"></A>his soldiers. For Hicetes, having already beaten Dionysius out of the field, <A NAME="268"></A>and reduced most of the quarters of Syracuse itself, now hemmed him in <A NAME="269"></A>and besieged him in the citadel and what is called the Island, whither <A NAME="270"></A>he was fled for his last refuge; while the Carthaginians, by agreement, <A NAME="271"></A>were to make it their business to hinder Timoleon from landing in any port <A NAME="272"></A>of Sicily; so that he and his party being driven back, they might with <A NAME="273"></A>ease and at their own leisure divide the island among themselves. In pursuance <A NAME="274"></A>of which design the Carthaginians sent away twenty of their galleys to <A NAME="275"></A>Rhegium, having aboard them certain ambassadors from Hicetes to Timoleon, <A NAME="276"></A>who carried instructions suitable to these proceedings, specious amusements, <A NAME="277"></A>and plausible stories, to colour and conceal dishonest purposes. They had <A NAME="278"></A>order to propose and demand that Timoleon himself, if he liked the offer, <A NAME="279"></A>should come and advise with Hicetes and partake of all his conquests, but <A NAME="280"></A>that he might send back his ships and forces to Corinth, since the war <A NAME="281"></A>was in a manner finished, and the Carthaginians had blocked up the passage, <A NAME="282"></A>determined to oppose them if they should try to force their way towards <A NAME="283"></A>the shore. When, therefore, the Corinthians met with these envoys at Rhegium, <A NAME="284"></A>and received their message, and saw the Phoenician vessels riding at anchor <A NAME="285"></A>in the bay, they became keenly sensible of the abuse that was put upon <A NAME="286"></A>them, and felt a general indignation against Hicetes, and great apprehensions <A NAME="287"></A>for the Siceliots, whom they now plainly perceived to be as it were a prize <A NAME="288"></A>and recompense to Hicetes on one side for his perfidy, and to the Carthaginians <A NAME="289"></A>on the other for the sovereign power they secured to him. For it seemed <A NAME="290"></A>utterly impossible to force and overbear the Carthaginian ships that lay <A NAME="291"></A>before them and were double their number, as also to vanquish the victorious <A NAME="292"></A>troops which Hicetes had with him in Syracuse, to take the lead of which <A NAME="293"></A>very troops they had undertaken their voyage. <A NAME="294"></A> The case being thus, Timoleon, after some conference with the envoys <A NAME="295"></A>of Hicetes and the Carthaginian captains, told them he should readily submit <A NAME="296"></A>to their proposals (to what purpose would it be to refuse compliance?): <A NAME="297"></A>he was desirous only, before his return to Corinth, that what had passed <A NAME="298"></A>between them in private might be solemnly declared before the people of <A NAME="299"></A>Rhegium, a Greek city, and a common friend to the parties; this, he said, <A NAME="300"></A>would very much conduce to his own security and discharge; and they likewise <A NAME="301"></A>would more strictly observe articles of agreement, on behalf of the Syracusans, <A NAME="302"></A>which they had obliged themselves to in the presence of so many witnesses. <A NAME="303"></A>The design of all which was only to divert their attention, while he got <A NAME="304"></A>an opportunity of slipping away from their fleet; a contrivance that all <A NAME="305"></A>the principal Rhegians were privy and assisting to, who had a great desire <A NAME="306"></A>that the affairs of Sicily should fall into Corinthian hands, and dreaded <A NAME="307"></A>the consequences of having barbarian neighbours. An assembly was therefore <A NAME="308"></A>called, and the gates shut, that the citizens might have no liberty to <A NAME="309"></A>turn to other business; and a succession of speakers came forward, addressing <A NAME="310"></A>the people at great length, to the same effect, without bringing the subject <A NAME="311"></A>to any conclusion, making way each for another and purposely spinning out <A NAME="312"></A>the time, till the Corinthian galleys should get clear of the haven; the <A NAME="313"></A>Carthaginian commanders being detained there without any suspicion, as <A NAME="314"></A>also Timoleon still remained present, and gave signs as if he were just <A NAME="315"></A>preparing to make an oration. But upon secret notice that the rest of the <A NAME="316"></A>galleys were already gone off, and that his alone remained waiting for <A NAME="317"></A>him, by the help and concealment of those Rhegians that were about the <A NAME="318"></A>hustings and favoured his departure, he made shift to slip away through <A NAME="319"></A>the crowd, and running down to the port, set sail with all speed; and having <A NAME="320"></A>reached his other vessels, they came all safe to Tauromenium in Sicily, <A NAME="321"></A>whither they had been formerly invited, and where they were now kindly <A NAME="322"></A>received by Andromachus, then ruler of the city. This man was father of <A NAME="323"></A>Timaeus the historian, and incomparably the best of all those that bore <A NAME="324"></A>sway in Sicily at that time, governing his citizens according to law and <A NAME="325"></A>justice and openly professing an aversion and enmity to all tyrants; upon <A NAME="326"></A>which account he gave Timoleon leave to muster up his troops there, and <A NAME="327"></A>to make that city the seat of war, persuading the inhabitants to join their <A NAME="328"></A>arms with the Corinthian forces, and assist them in the design of delivering <A NAME="329"></A>Sicily. <A NAME="330"></A> But the Carthaginians who were left in Rhegium perceiving, when <A NAME="331"></A>the assembly was dissolved, that Timoleon had given them the go-by, were <A NAME="332"></A>not a little vexed to see themselves out-witted, much to the amusement <A NAME="333"></A>of the Rhegians, who could not but smile to find Phoenicians complain of <A NAME="334"></A>being cheated. However, they despatched a messenger aboard one of their <A NAME="335"></A>galleys to Tauromenium, who, after much blustering in the insolent barbaric <A NAME="336"></A>way, and many menaces to Andromachus if he did not forthwith send the Corinthians <A NAME="337"></A>off, stretched out his hand with the inside upward, and then turning it <A NAME="338"></A>down again, threatened he would handle their city even so, and turn it <A NAME="339"></A>topsy-turvy in as little time, and with as much ease. Andromachus, laughing <A NAME="340"></A>at the man's confidence, made no other reply, but, imitating his gesture, <A NAME="341"></A>bid him hasten his own departure, unless he had a mind to see that kind <A NAME="342"></A>of dexterity practised first upon the galley which brought him <A NAME="343"></A>hither. <A NAME="344"></A> Hicetes, informed that Timoleon had made good his passage, was <A NAME="345"></A>in great fear of what might follow, and sent to desire the Carthaginians <A NAME="346"></A>that a large number of galleys might be ordered to attend and secure the <A NAME="347"></A>coast. And now it was that the Syracusans began wholly to despair of safety, <A NAME="348"></A>seeing the Carthaginians possessed of their haven, Hicetes master of the <A NAME="349"></A>town, and Dionysius supreme in the citadel; while Timoleon had as yet but <A NAME="350"></A>a slender hold of Sicily, as it were by the fringe or border of it, in <A NAME="351"></A>the small city of the Tauromenians, with a feeble hope and a poor company; <A NAME="352"></A>having but a thousand soldiers at the most, and no more provisions, either <A NAME="353"></A>of corn or money, than were just necessary for the maintenance and the <A NAME="354"></A>pay of that inconsiderable number. Nor did the other towns of Sicily confide <A NAME="355"></A>in him, overpowered as they were with violence and outrage, and embittered <A NAME="356"></A>against all that should offer to lead armies by the treacherous conduct <A NAME="357"></A>chiefly of Callipus, an Athenian, and Pharax, a Lacedaemonian captain, <A NAME="358"></A>both of whom, after giving out that the design of their coming was to introduce <A NAME="359"></A>liberty and to depose tyrants, so tyrannized themselves, that the reign <A NAME="360"></A>of former oppressors seemed to be a golden age in comparison, and the Sicilians <A NAME="361"></A>began to consider those more happy who had expired in servitude, than any <A NAME="362"></A>that had lived to see such a dismal freedom. <A NAME="363"></A> Looking, therefore, for no better usage from the Corinthian general, <A NAME="364"></A>but imagining that it was only the same old course of things once more, <A NAME="365"></A>specious pretences and false professions to allure them by fair hopes and <A NAME="366"></A>kind promises into the obedience of a new master, they all, with one accord, <A NAME="367"></A>unless it were the people of Adranum, suspected the exhortations, and rejected <A NAME="368"></A>the overtures that were made them in his name. These were inhabitants of <A NAME="369"></A>a small city, consecrated to Adranus, a certain god that was in high veneration <A NAME="370"></A>throughout Sicily, and, as it happened, they were then at variance among <A NAME="371"></A>themselves, insomuch that one party called in Hicetes and the Carthaginians <A NAME="372"></A>to assist them, while the other sent proposals to Timoleon. It so fell <A NAME="373"></A>out that these auxiliaries, striving which should be soonest, both arrived <A NAME="374"></A>at Adranum about the same time; Hicetes bringing with him at least five <A NAME="375"></A>thousand men, while all the force Timoleon could make did not exceed twelve <A NAME="376"></A>hundred. With these he marched out of Tauromenium, which was about three <A NAME="377"></A>hundred and forty furlongs distant from that city. The first day he moved <A NAME="378"></A>but slowly, and took up his quarters betimes after a short journey; but <A NAME="379"></A>the day following he quickened his pace, and, having passed through much <A NAME="380"></A>difficult ground, towards evening received advice that Hicetes was just <A NAME="381"></A>approaching Adranum, and pitching his camp before it; upon which intelligence, <A NAME="382"></A>his captains and other officers caused the vanguard to halt, that the army <A NAME="383"></A>being refreshed, and having reposed a while, might engage the enemy with <A NAME="384"></A>better heart. But Timoleon, coming up in haste, desired them not to stop <A NAME="385"></A>for that reason, but rather use all possible diligence to surprise the <A NAME="386"></A>enemy, whom probably they would now find in disorder, as having lately <A NAME="387"></A>ended their march and being taken up at present in erecting tents and preparing <A NAME="388"></A>supper; which he had no sooner said, but laying hold of his buckler and <A NAME="389"></A>putting himself in the front, he led them on as it were to certain victory. <A NAME="390"></A>The braveness of such a leader made them all follow him with like courage <A NAME="391"></A>and assurance. They were now within less than thirty furlongs of Adranum, <A NAME="392"></A>which they quickly traversed, and immediately fell in upon the enemy, who <A NAME="393"></A>were seized with confusion, and began to retire at their first approaches; <A NAME="394"></A>one consequence of which was that, amidst so little opposition, and so <A NAME="395"></A>early and general a flight, there were not many more than three hundred <A NAME="396"></A>slain, and about twice the number made prisoners. Their camp and baggage, <A NAME="397"></A>however, was all taken. The fortune of this onset soon induced the Adranitans <A NAME="398"></A>to unlock their gates, and to embrace the interest of Timoleon, to whom <A NAME="399"></A>they recounted, with a mixture of affright and admiration, how, at the <A NAME="400"></A>very minute of the encounter, the doors of their temple flew open of their <A NAME="401"></A>own accord, that the javelin also, which their god held in his band, was <A NAME="402"></A>observed to tremble at the point, and that drops of sweat had been seen <A NAME="403"></A>running down his face; prodigies that not only presaged the victory then <A NAME="404"></A>obtained, but were an omen, it seemed, of all his future exploits, to which <A NAME="405"></A>this first happy action gave the occasion. <A NAME="406"></A> For now the neighbouring cities and potentates sent deputies, one <A NAME="407"></A>upon another, to seek his friendship and make offer of their service. Among <A NAME="408"></A>the rest Mamercus, the tyrant of Catana, an experienced warrior and a wealthy <A NAME="409"></A>prince, made proposals of alliance with him, and what was of greater importance <A NAME="410"></A>still, Dionysius himself, being now grown desperate, and well-nigh forced <A NAME="411"></A>to surrender, despising Hicetes who had been thus shamefully baffled, and <A NAME="412"></A>admiring the valour of Timoleon, found means to advertise him and his Corinthians <A NAME="413"></A>that he should be content to deliver up himself and the citadel into their <A NAME="414"></A>hands. Timoleon, gladly embracing this unlooked-for advantage, sends away <A NAME="415"></A>Euclides and Telemachus, two Corinthian captains, with four hundred men, <A NAME="416"></A>for the seizure and custody of the castle, with directions to enter not <A NAME="417"></A>all at once, or in open view, that being impracticable so long as the enemy <A NAME="418"></A>kept guard, but by stealth, and in small companies. And so they took possession <A NAME="419"></A>of the fortress and the palace of Dionysius, with all the stores and ammunition <A NAME="420"></A>he had prepared and laid up to maintain the war. They found a good number <A NAME="421"></A>of horses, every variety of engines, a multitude of darts, and weapons <A NAME="422"></A>to arm seventy thousand men (a magazine that had been formed from ancient <A NAME="423"></A>time), besides two thousand soldiers that were then with him, whom he gave <A NAME="424"></A>up with the rest for Timoleon's service. Dionysius himself, putting his <A NAME="425"></A>treasure aboard, and taking a few friends, sailed away unobserved by Hicetes, <A NAME="426"></A>and being brought to the camp of Timoleon, there first appeared in the <A NAME="427"></A>humble dress of a private person, and was shortly after sent to Corinth <A NAME="428"></A>with a single ship and a small sum of money. Born and educated in the most <A NAME="429"></A>splendid court and the most absolute monarchy that ever was, which he held <A NAME="430"></A>and kept up for the space of ten years succeeding his father's death, he <A NAME="431"></A>had, after Dion's expedition, spent twelve other years in a continual agitation <A NAME="432"></A>of wars and contests, and great variety of fortune, during which time all <A NAME="433"></A>the mischiefs he had committed in his former reign were more than repaid <A NAME="434"></A>by the ills he himself then suffered, since he lived to see the deaths <A NAME="435"></A>of his sons in the prime and vigour of their age, and the rape of his daughters <A NAME="436"></A>in the flower of their virginity, and the wicked abuse of his sister and <A NAME="437"></A>his wife, who, after being first exposed to all the lawless insults of <A NAME="438"></A>the soldiery, was then murdered with her children, and cast into the sea; <A NAME="439"></A>the particulars of which are more exactly given in the life of <A NAME="440"></A>Dion. <A NAME="441"></A> Upon the news of his landing at Corinth, there was hardly a man <A NAME="442"></A>in Greece who had not the curiosity to come and view the late formidable <A NAME="443"></A>tyrant, and say some words to him; part, rejoicing at his disasters, were <A NAME="444"></A>led thither out of mere spite and hatred, that they might have the pleasure <A NAME="445"></A>of trampling, as it were, on the ruins of his broken fortune; but others, <A NAME="446"></A>letting their attention and their sympathy turn rather to the changes and <A NAME="447"></A>revolutions of his life, could not but see in them a proof of the strength <A NAME="448"></A>and potency with which divine and unseen causes operate amidst the weakness <A NAME="449"></A>of human and visible things. For neither art nor nature did in that age <A NAME="450"></A>produce anything comparable to this work and wonder of fortune which showed <A NAME="451"></A>the very same man, that was not long before supreme monarch of Sicily, <A NAME="452"></A>loitering about perhaps in the fish-market, or sitting in a perfumer's <A NAME="453"></A>shop drinking the diluted wine of taverns, or squabbling in the street <A NAME="454"></A>with common women, or pretending to instruct the singing women of the theatre, <A NAME="455"></A>and seriously disputing with them about the measure and harmony of pieces <A NAME="456"></A>of music that were performed there. Such behaviour on his part was variously <A NAME="457"></A>criticized. He was thought by many to act thus out of pure compliance with <A NAME="458"></A>his own natural indolent and vicious inclinations; while finer judges were <A NAME="459"></A>of the opinion, that in all this he was playing a politic part, with a <A NAME="460"></A>design to be contemned among them, and that the Corinthians might not feel <A NAME="461"></A>any apprehension or suspicion of his being uneasy under his reverse of <A NAME="462"></A>fortune, or solicitous to retrieve it; to avoid which danger, he purposely <A NAME="463"></A>and against his true nature affected an appearance of folly and want of <A NAME="464"></A>spirit in his private life and amusements. <A NAME="465"></A> However it be, there are sayings and repartees of his left still <A NAME="466"></A>upon record, which seem to show that he not ignobly accommodated himself <A NAME="467"></A>to his present circumstances; as may appear in part from the ingenuousness <A NAME="468"></A>of the avowal he made on coming to Leucadia, which, as well as Syracuse, <A NAME="469"></A>was a Corinthian colony, where he told the inhabitants that he found himself <A NAME="470"></A>not unlike boys who had been in fault, who can talk cheerfully with their <A NAME="471"></A>brothers, but are ashamed to see their father; so likewise he, he said, <A NAME="472"></A>could gladly reside with them in that island, whereas he felt a certain <A NAME="473"></A>awe upon his mind which made him averse to the sight of Corinth, that was <A NAME="474"></A>a common mother to them both. The thing is further evident from the reply <A NAME="475"></A>he once made to a stranger in Corinth, who deriding him in a rude and scornful <A NAME="476"></A>manner about the conferences he used to have with philosophers, whose company <A NAME="477"></A>had been one of his pleasures while yet a monarch, and demanding, in fine, <A NAME="478"></A>what he was the better now for all those wise and learned discourses of <A NAME="479"></A>Plato, "Do you think," said he, "I have made no profit of his philosophy <A NAME="480"></A>when you see me bear my change of fortune as I do?" And when Aristoxenus <A NAME="481"></A>the musician, and several others, desired to know how Plato offended him, <A NAME="482"></A>and what had been the ground of his displeasure with him, he made answer <A NAME="483"></A>that, of the many evils attaching to the condition of sovereignty, the <A NAME="484"></A>one greatest infelicity was that none of those who were accounted friends <A NAME="485"></A>would venture to speak freely, or tell the plain truth; and that by means <A NAME="486"></A>of such he had been deprived of Plato's kindness. At another time, when <A NAME="487"></A>one of those pleasant companions that are desirous to pass for wits, in <A NAME="488"></A>mockery to Dionysius, as if he were still the tyrant, shook out the folds <A NAME="489"></A>of his cloak, as he was entering into a room where he was, to show there <A NAME="490"></A>were no concealed weapons about him, Dionysius, by way of retort, observed, <A NAME="491"></A>that he would prefer he would do so on leaving the room, as a security <A NAME="492"></A>that he was carrying nothing off with him. And when Philip of Macedon, <A NAME="493"></A>at a drinking party, began to speak in banter about the verses and tragedies <A NAME="494"></A>which his father, Dionysius the elder, had left behind him, and pretended <A NAME="495"></A>to wonder how he could get any time from his other business to compose <A NAME="496"></A>such elaborate and ingenious pieces, he replied, very much to the purpose, <A NAME="497"></A>"It was at those leisurable hours, which such as you and I, and those we <A NAME="498"></A>call happy men, bestow upon our cups." Plato had not the opportunity to <A NAME="499"></A>see Dionysius at Corinth, being already dead before he came thither; but <A NAME="500"></A>Diogenes of Sinope, at their first meeting in the street there, saluted <A NAME="501"></A>him with the ambiguous expression, "O Dionysius, how little you deserve <A NAME="502"></A>your present life! Upon which Dionysius stopped and replied, "I thank you, <A NAME="503"></A>Diogenes, for your condolence." "Condole with you!" replied Diogenes; "do <A NAME="504"></A>you not suppose that, on the contrary, I am indignant that such a slave <A NAME="505"></A>as you, who, if you had your due, should have been let alone to grow old <A NAME="506"></A>and die in the state of tyranny, as your father did before you, should <A NAME="507"></A>now enjoy the ease of private persons, and be here to sport and frolic <A NAME="508"></A>in our society?" So that when I compare those sad stories of Philistus, <A NAME="509"></A>touching the daughters of Leptines, where he makes pitiful moan on their <A NAME="510"></A>behalf, as fallen from all the blessings and advantages of powerful greatness <A NAME="511"></A>to the miseries of an humble life, they seem to me like the lamentations <A NAME="512"></A>of a woman who has lost her box of ointment, her purple dresses, and her <A NAME="513"></A>golden trinkets. Such anecdotes will not, I conceive, be thought either <A NAME="514"></A>foreign to my purpose of writing Lives, or unprofitable in themselves, <A NAME="515"></A>by such readers as are not in too much haste, or busied and taken up with <A NAME="516"></A>other concerns. <A NAME="517"></A> But if the misfortune of Dionysius appears strange and extraordinary, <A NAME="518"></A>we shall have no less reason to wonder at the good fortune of Timoleon, <A NAME="519"></A>who, within fifty days after his landing in Sicily, both recovered the <A NAME="520"></A>citadel of Syracuse and sent Dionysius an exile into Peloponnesus. This <A NAME="521"></A>lucky beginning so animated the Corinthians, that they ordered him a supply <A NAME="522"></A>of two thousand foot and two hundred horse, who, reaching Thurii, intended <A NAME="523"></A>to cross over thence into Sicily; but finding the whole sea beset with <A NAME="524"></A>Carthaginian ships, which made their passage impracticable, they were constrained <A NAME="525"></A>to stop there, and watch their opportunity: which time, however, was employed <A NAME="526"></A>in a noble action. For the Thurians, going out to war against their Bruttian <A NAME="527"></A>enemies, left their city in charge with these Corinthian strangers, who <A NAME="528"></A>defended it as carefully as if it had been their own country, and faithfully <A NAME="529"></A>resigned it up again. <A NAME="530"></A> Hicetes, in the interim, continued still to besiege the castle <A NAME="531"></A>of Syracuse, and hindered all provisions from coming in by sea to relieve <A NAME="532"></A>the Corinthians that were in it. He had engaged also, and despatched towards <A NAME="533"></A>Adranum, two unknown foreigners to assassinate Timoleon, who at no time <A NAME="534"></A>kept any standing guard about his person, and was then altogether secure, <A NAME="535"></A>diverting himself, without any apprehension, among the citizens of the <A NAME="536"></A>place, it being a festival in honour of their gods. The two men that were <A NAME="537"></A>sent, having casually heard that Timoleon was about to sacrifice, came <A NAME="538"></A>directly into the temple with poniards under their cloaks, and pressing <A NAME="539"></A>in among the crowd, by little and little got up close to the altar; but, <A NAME="540"></A>as they were just looking for a sign from each other to begin the attempt, <A NAME="541"></A>a third person struck one of them over the head with a sword, upon whose <A NAME="542"></A>sudden fall, neither he that gave the blow, nor the partisan of him that <A NAME="543"></A>received it, kept their stations any longer; but the one, making way with <A NAME="544"></A>his bloody sword, put no stop to his flight, till he gained the top of <A NAME="545"></A>a certain lofty precipice, while the other, laying hold of the altar, besought <A NAME="546"></A>Timoleon to spare his life, and he would reveal to him the whole conspiracy. <A NAME="547"></A>His pardon being granted, he confessed that both himself and his dead companion <A NAME="548"></A>were sent thither purposely to slay him. While this discovery was made, <A NAME="549"></A>he that killed the other conspirator had been fetched down from his sanctuary <A NAME="550"></A>of the rock, loudly and often protesting, as he came along, that there <A NAME="551"></A>was no injustice in the fact, as he had only taken righteous vengeance <A NAME="552"></A>for his father's blood, whom this man had murdered before in the city of <A NAME="553"></A>Leontini; the truth of which was attested by several there present, who <A NAME="554"></A>could not choose but wonder too at the strange dexterity of fortune's operations, <A NAME="555"></A>the facility with which she makes one event the spring and motion to something <A NAME="556"></A>wholly different, uniting every scattered accident and loose particular <A NAME="557"></A>and remote action, and interweaving them together to serve her purpose; <A NAME="558"></A>so that things that in themselves seem to have no connection or interdependence <A NAME="559"></A>whatsoever, become in her hands, so to say, the end and the beginning of <A NAME="560"></A>each other. The Corinthians, satisfied as to the innocence of this seasonable <A NAME="561"></A>feat, honoured and rewarded the author with a present of ten pounds in <A NAME="562"></A>their money, since he had, as it were, lent the use of his just resentment <A NAME="563"></A>to the tutelar genius that seemed to be protecting Timoleon, and had not <A NAME="564"></A>pre-expended this anger, so long ago conceived, but had reserved and deferred, <A NAME="565"></A>under fortune's guidance, for his preservation, the revenge of a private <A NAME="566"></A>quarrel. <A NAME="567"></A> But this fortunate escape had effects and consequences beyond the <A NAME="568"></A>present, as it inspired the highest hopes and future expectations of Timoleon, <A NAME="569"></A>making people reverence and protect him as a sacred person sent by heaven <A NAME="570"></A>to revenge and redeem Sicily. Hicetes, having missed his aim in this enterprise, <A NAME="571"></A>and perceiving, also, that many went off and sided with Timoleon, began <A NAME="572"></A>to chide himself for his foolish modesty, that, when so considerable a <A NAME="573"></A>force of the Carthaginians lay ready to be commanded by him, he had employed <A NAME="574"></A>them hitherto by degrees and in small numbers, introducing their reinforcements <A NAME="575"></A>by stealth and clandestinely, as if he had been ashamed of the action. <A NAME="576"></A>Therefore, now laying aside his former nicety, he calls in Mago, their <A NAME="577"></A>admiral, with his whole navy, who presently set sail, and seized upon the <A NAME="578"></A>port with a formidable fleet of at least a hundred and fifty vessels, landing <A NAME="579"></A>there sixty thousand foot, which were all lodged within the city of Syracuse; <A NAME="580"></A>so that, in all men's opinion, the time anciently talked of and long expected, <A NAME="581"></A>wherein Sicily should be subjugated by barbarians, was now come to its <A NAME="582"></A>fatal period. For in all their preceding wars and many desperate conflicts <A NAME="583"></A>with Sicily, the Carthaginians had never been able, before this, to take <A NAME="584"></A>Syracuse; whereas Hicetes now receiving them and putting them into their <A NAME="585"></A>hands, you might see it become now as it were a camp of barbarians. By <A NAME="586"></A>this means, the Corinthian soldiers that kept the castle found themselves <A NAME="587"></A>brought into great danger and hardship; as, besides that their provision <A NAME="588"></A>grew scarce, and they began to be in want, because the havens were strictly <A NAME="589"></A>guarded and blocked up, the enemy exercised them still with skirmishes <A NAME="590"></A>and combats about their walls, and they were not only obliged to be continually <A NAME="591"></A>in arms, but to divide and prepare themselves for assaults and encounters <A NAME="592"></A>of every kind, and to repel every variety of the means of offence employed <A NAME="593"></A>by a besieging army. <A NAME="594"></A> Timoleon made shift to relieve them in these straits, sending corn <A NAME="595"></A>from Catana by small fishing-boats and little skiffs, which commonly gained <A NAME="596"></A>a passage through the Carthaginian galleys in times of storm, stealing <A NAME="597"></A>up when the blockading ships were driven apart and dispersed by the stress <A NAME="598"></A>of weather; which Mago and Hicetes observing, they agreed to fall upon <A NAME="599"></A>Catana, from whence these supplies were brought in to the besieged, and <A NAME="600"></A>accordingly put off from Syracuse, taking with them the best soldiers in <A NAME="601"></A>their whole army. Upon this Neon the Corinthian, who was captain of those <A NAME="602"></A>that kept the citadel, taking notice that the enemies who stayed there <A NAME="603"></A>behind were very negligent and careless in keeping guard, made a sudden <A NAME="604"></A>sally upon them as they lay scattered, and, killing some and putting others <A NAME="605"></A>to flight, he took and possessed himself of that quarter which they call <A NAME="606"></A>Acradina, and was thought to be the strongest and most impregnable part <A NAME="607"></A>of Syracuse, a city made up and compacted, as it were, of several towns <A NAME="608"></A>put together. Having thus stored himself with corn and money, he did not <A NAME="609"></A>abandon the place, nor retire again into the castle, but fortifying the <A NAME="610"></A>precincts of Acradina, and joining it by works to the citadel, he undertook <A NAME="611"></A>the defence of both. Mago and Hicetes were now come near to Catana, when <A NAME="612"></A>a horseman, despatched from Syracuse, brought them tidings that Acradina <A NAME="613"></A>was taken; upon which they returned, in all haste, with great disorder <A NAME="614"></A>and confusion, having neither been able to reduce the city they went against, <A NAME="615"></A>nor to preserve that they were masters of. <A NAME="616"></A> These successes, indeed, were such as might leave foresight and <A NAME="617"></A>courage a pretence still of disputing it with fortune, which contributed <A NAME="618"></A>most to the result. But the next following event can scarcely be ascribed <A NAME="619"></A>to anything but pure felicity. The Corinthian soldiers who stayed at Thurii, <A NAME="620"></A>partly for fear of the Carthaginian galleys which lay in wait for them <A NAME="621"></A>under the command of Hanno, and partly because of tempestuous weather which <A NAME="622"></A>had lasted for many days, and rendered the sea dangerous, took a resolution <A NAME="623"></A>to march by land over the Bruttian territories, and what with persuasion <A NAME="624"></A>and force together, made good their passage through those barbarians to <A NAME="625"></A>the city of Rhegium, the sea being still rough and raging as before. But <A NAME="626"></A>Hanno, not expecting the Corinthians would venture out, and supposing it <A NAME="627"></A>would be useless to wait there any longer, bethought himself, as he imagined, <A NAME="628"></A>of a most ingenious and clever stratagem apt to delude and ensnare the <A NAME="629"></A>enemy; in pursuance of which he commanded the seamen to crown themselves <A NAME="630"></A>with garlands, and adorning his galleys with bucklers both of the Greek <A NAME="631"></A>and Carthaginian make, he sailed away for Syracuse in this triumphant equipage, <A NAME="632"></A>and using all his oars as he passed under the castle with much shouting <A NAME="633"></A>and laughter, cried out, on purpose to dishearten the besieged, that he <A NAME="634"></A>was come from vanquishing and taking the Corinthian succours, which he <A NAME="635"></A>fell upon at sea as they were passing over into Sicily. While he was thus <A NAME="636"></A>trifling and playing his tricks before Syracuse, the Corinthians, now come <A NAME="637"></A>as far as Rhegium, observing the coast clear, and that the wind was laid, <A NAME="638"></A>as it were by miracle, to afford them in all appearance a quiet and smooth <A NAME="639"></A>passage, went immediately aboard on such little barks and fishing-boats <A NAME="640"></A>as were then at hand, and got over to Sicily with such complete safety <A NAME="641"></A>and in such an extraordinary calm, that they drew their horses by the reins, <A NAME="642"></A>swimming along by them as the vessels went across. <A NAME="643"></A> When they were all landed, Timoleon came to receive them, and by <A NAME="644"></A>their means at once obtained possession of Messena, from whence he marched <A NAME="645"></A>in good order to Syracuse, trusting more to his late prosperous achievements <A NAME="646"></A>than his present strength, as the whole army he had then with him did not <A NAME="647"></A>exceed the number of four thousand: Mago, however, was troubled and fearful <A NAME="648"></A>at the first notice of his coming, and grew more apprehensive and jealous <A NAME="649"></A>still upon the following occasion. The marshes about Syracuse, that receive <A NAME="650"></A>a great deal of fresh water, as well from springs as from lakes and rivers <A NAME="651"></A>discharging themselves into the sea, breed abundance of eels, which may <A NAME="652"></A>be always taken there in great quantities by any that will fish for them. <A NAME="653"></A>The mercenary soldiers that served on both sides were wont to follow the <A NAME="654"></A>sport together at their vacant hours, and upon any cessation of arms; who <A NAME="655"></A>being all Greeks, and having no cause of private enmity to each other, <A NAME="656"></A>as they would venture bravely in fight, so in times of truce used to meet <A NAME="657"></A>and converse amicably together. And at this present time, while engaged <A NAME="658"></A>about this common business of fishing, they fell into talk together; and <A NAME="659"></A>some expressing their admiration of the neighbouring sea, and others telling <A NAME="660"></A>how much they were taken with the convenience and commodiousness of the <A NAME="661"></A>buildings and public works, one of the Corinthian party took occasion to <A NAME="662"></A>demand of the others: "And is it possible that you who are Grecians born <A NAME="663"></A>should be so forward to reduce a city of this greatness, and enjoying so <A NAME="664"></A>many rare advantages, into the state of barbarism; and lend your assistance <A NAME="665"></A>to plant Carthaginans, that are the worst and bloodiest of men, so much <A NAME="666"></A>the nearer to us? whereas you should rather wish there were many more Sicilies <A NAME="667"></A>to lie between them and Greece. Have you so little sense as to believe, <A NAME="668"></A>that they come hither with an army, from the Pillars of Hercules and the <A NAME="669"></A>Atlantic Sea, to hazard themselves for the establishment of Hicetes? who, <A NAME="670"></A>if he had had the consideration which becomes a general, would never have <A NAME="671"></A>thrown out his ancestors and founders to bring in the enemies of his country <A NAME="672"></A>in the room of them, when he might have enjoyed all suitable honour and <A NAME="673"></A>command, with consent of Timoleon and the rest of Corinth." The Greeks <A NAME="674"></A>that were in pay with Hicetes, noising these discourses about their camp, <A NAME="675"></A>gave Mago some ground to suspect, as indeed he had long sought for a pretence <A NAME="676"></A>to be gone, that there was treachery contrived against him; so that, although <A NAME="677"></A>Hicetes entreated him to tarry, and made it appear how much stronger they <A NAME="678"></A>were than the enemy, yet, conceiving they came far more short of Timoleon <A NAME="679"></A>in respect of courage and fortune than they surpassed him in number, he <A NAME="680"></A>presently went aboard and set sail for Africa, letting Sicily escape out <A NAME="681"></A>of his hands with dishonour to himself, and for such uncertain causes, <A NAME="682"></A>that no human reason could give an account of his departure. <A NAME="683"></A> The day after he went away, Timoleon came up before the city in <A NAME="684"></A>array for a battle. But when he and his company heard of this sudden flight; <A NAME="685"></A>and saw the docks all empty, they could not forbear laughing at the cowardice <A NAME="686"></A>of Mago, and in mockery caused proclamation to be made through the city <A NAME="687"></A>that a reward would be given to any one who could bring them tidings whither <A NAME="688"></A>the Carthaginian fleet had conveyed itself from them. However, Hicetes <A NAME="689"></A>resolving to fight it out alone, and not quitting his hold of the city, <A NAME="690"></A>but sticking close to the quarters he was in possession of, places that <A NAME="691"></A>were well fortified and not easy to be attacked, Timoleon divided his forces <A NAME="692"></A>into three parts, and fell himself upon the side where the river Anapas <A NAME="693"></A>ran, which was most strong and difficult of access; and he commanded those <A NAME="694"></A>that were led by Isias, a Corinthian captain, to make their assault from <A NAME="695"></A>the post of Acradina, while Dinarchus and Demaretus, that brought him the <A NAME="696"></A>last supply from Corinth, were, with a third division, to attempt the quarter <A NAME="697"></A>called Epipolae. A considerable impression being made from every side at <A NAME="698"></A>once, the soldiers of Hicetes were beaten off and put to flight; and this- <A NAME="699"></A>that the city came to be taken by storm, and fall suddenly into their hands, <A NAME="700"></A>upon the defeat and rout of the enemy- we must in all justice ascribe to <A NAME="701"></A>the valour of the assailants and the wise conduct of their general; but <A NAME="702"></A>that not so much as a man of the Corinthians was either slain or wounded <A NAME="703"></A>in the action, this the good fortune of Timoleon seems to challenge for <A NAME="704"></A>her own work, as though, in a sort of rivalry with his own personal exertions, <A NAME="705"></A>she made it her aim to exceed and obscure his actions by her favours, that <A NAME="706"></A>those who heard him commended for his noble deeds might rather admire the <A NAME="707"></A>happiness than the merit of them. For the fame of what was done not only <A NAME="708"></A>passed through all Sicily, and filled Italy with wonder, but even Greece <A NAME="709"></A>itself, after a few days, came to ring with the greatness of his exploit; <A NAME="710"></A>insomuch that those of Corinth, who had as yet no certainty that their <A NAME="711"></A>auxiliaries were landed on the island, had tidings brought them at the <A NAME="712"></A>same time that they were safe and were conquerors. In so prosperous a course <A NAME="713"></A>did affairs run, and such was the speed and celerity of execution with <A NAME="714"></A>which fortune, as with a new ornament, set off the native lustres of the <A NAME="715"></A>performance. <A NAME="716"></A> Timoleon, being master of the citadel, avoided the error which <A NAME="717"></A>Dion had been guilty of. He spared not the place for the beauty and sumptuousness <A NAME="718"></A>of its fabric, and, keeping clear of those suspicions which occasioned <A NAME="719"></A>first the unpopularity and afterwards the fall of Dion, made a public crier <A NAME="720"></A>give notice that all the Syracusans who were willing to have a hand in <A NAME="721"></A>the work should bring pick-axes and mattocks, and other instruments, and <A NAME="722"></A>help him to demolish the fortifications of the tyrants. When they all came <A NAME="723"></A>up with one accord, looking upon that order and that day as the surest <A NAME="724"></A>foundation of their liberty, they not only pulled down the castle, but <A NAME="725"></A>overturned the palaces and monuments adjoining, and whatever else might <A NAME="726"></A>preserve any memory of former tyrants. Having soon levelled and cleared <A NAME="727"></A>the place, he there presently erected courts for administration of justice, <A NAME="728"></A>ratifying the citizens by this means, and building popular government on <A NAME="729"></A>the fall and ruin of tyranny. But since he had recovered a city destitute <A NAME="730"></A>of inhabitants, some of them dead in civil wars and insurrections, and <A NAME="731"></A>others being fled to escape tyrants, so that through solitude and want <A NAME="732"></A>of people the great market-place of Syracuse was overgrown with such quantity <A NAME="733"></A>of rank herbage that it became a pasture for their horses, the grooms lying <A NAME="734"></A>along in the grass as they fed by them; while also other towns, very few <A NAME="735"></A>excepted, were become full of stags and wild boars, so that those who had <A NAME="736"></A>nothing else to do went frequently a-hunting, and found game in the suburbs <A NAME="737"></A>and about the walls; and not one of those who possessed themselves of castles, <A NAME="738"></A>or made garrisons in the country, could be persuaded to quit their present <A NAME="739"></A>abode, or would accept an invitation to return back into the city, so much <A NAME="740"></A>did they all dread and abhor the very name of assemblies and forms of government <A NAME="741"></A>and public speaking, that had produced the greater part of those usurpers <A NAME="742"></A>who had successively assumed a dominion over them- Timoleon, therefore, <A NAME="743"></A>with the Syracusans that remained, considering this vast desolation, and <A NAME="744"></A>how little hope there was to have it otherwise supplied, thought good to <A NAME="745"></A>write to the Corinthians, requesting that they would send a colony out <A NAME="746"></A>of Greece to repeople Syracuse. For else the land about it would lie unimproved; <A NAME="747"></A>and besides this, they expected to be involved in a greater war from Africa, <A NAME="748"></A>having news brought them that Mago had killed himself, and that the Carthaginians, <A NAME="749"></A>out of rage for his ill-conduct in the late expedition, had caused his <A NAME="750"></A>body to be nailed upon a cross, and that they were raising a mighty force, <A NAME="751"></A>with design to make their descent upon Sicily the next <A NAME="752"></A>summer. <A NAME="753"></A> These letters from Timoleon being delivered at Corinth, and the <A NAME="754"></A>ambassadors of Syracuse beseeching them at the same time that they would <A NAME="755"></A>take upon them the care of their poor city, and once again become the founders <A NAME="756"></A>of it, the Corinthians were not tempted by any feeling of cupidity to lay <A NAME="757"></A>hold of the advantage. Nor did they seize and appropriate the city to themselves, <A NAME="758"></A>but going about first to the games that are kept as sacred in Greece, and <A NAME="759"></A>to the most numerously attended religious assemblages, they made publication <A NAME="760"></A>by heralds, that the Corinthians, having destroyed the usurpation at Syracuse <A NAME="761"></A>and driven out the tyrant, did thereby invite the Syracusan exiles, and <A NAME="762"></A>any other Siceliots, to return and inhabit the city, with full enjoyment <A NAME="763"></A>of freedom under their own laws, the land being divided among them in just <A NAME="764"></A>and equal proportions. And after this, sending messengers into Asia and <A NAME="765"></A>the several islands where they understood that most of the scattered fugitives <A NAME="766"></A>were then residing, they bade them all repair to Corinth, engaging that <A NAME="767"></A>the Corinthians would afford them vessels and commanders, and a safe convoy, <A NAME="768"></A>at their own charges, to Syracuse. Such generous proposals, being thus <A NAME="769"></A>spread about, gained them the just and honourable recompense of general <A NAME="770"></A>praise and benediction, for delivering the country from oppressors, and <A NAME="771"></A>saving it from barbarians, and restoring it at length to the rightful owners <A NAME="772"></A>of the place. These, when they were assembled at Corinth, and found how <A NAME="773"></A>insufficient their company was, besought the Corinthians that they might <A NAME="774"></A>have a supplement of other persons, as well out of their city as the rest <A NAME="775"></A>of Greece, to go with them as joint colonists; and so raising themselves <A NAME="776"></A>to the number of ten thousand, they sailed together to Syracuse. By this <A NAME="777"></A>time great multitudes, also, from Italy and Sicily had flocked in to Timoleon, <A NAME="778"></A>so that, as Athanis reports, their entire body amounted now to sixty thousand <A NAME="779"></A>men. Among these he divided the whole territory, and sold the houses for <A NAME="780"></A>a thousand talents; by which method he both left it in the power of the <A NAME="781"></A>old Syracusans to redeem their own, and made it a means also for raising <A NAME="782"></A>a stock for the community, which had been so much impoverished of late <A NAME="783"></A>and was so unable to defray other expenses, and especially those of a war, <A NAME="784"></A>that they exposed their very statues to sale, a regular process being observed, <A NAME="785"></A>and sentence of auction passed upon each of them by majority of votes, <A NAME="786"></A>as if they had been so many criminals taking their trial; in the course <A NAME="787"></A>of which it is said that while condemnation was pronounced upon all other <A NAME="788"></A>statues, that of the ancient usurper Gelo was exempted, out of admiration <A NAME="789"></A>and honour and for the sake of the victory he gained over the Carthaginian <A NAME="790"></A>forces at the river Himera. <A NAME="791"></A> Syracuse being thus happily revived, and replenished again by the <A NAME="792"></A>general concourse of inhabitants from all parts, Timoleon was desirous <A NAME="793"></A>now to rescue other cities from the like bondage, and wholly and once for <A NAME="794"></A>all to extirpate arbitrary government out of Sicily. And for this purpose, <A NAME="795"></A>marching in to the territories of those that used it, he compelled Hicetes <A NAME="796"></A>first to renounce the Carthaginian interest, and, demolishing the fortresses <A NAME="797"></A>which were held by him, to live henceforth among the Leontinians as a private <A NAME="798"></A>person. Leptines, also, the tyrant of Apollonia and divers other little <A NAME="799"></A>towns, after some resistance made, seeing the danger he was in of being <A NAME="800"></A>taken by force, surrendered himself; upon which Timoleon spared his life, <A NAME="801"></A>and sent him away to Corinth, counting it a glorious thing that the mother <A NAME="802"></A>city should expose to the view of other Greeks these Sicilian tyrants, <A NAME="803"></A>living now in an exiled and a low condition. After this he returned to <A NAME="804"></A>Syracuse, that he might have leisure to attend to the establishment of <A NAME="805"></A>the new constitution, and assist Cephalus and Dionysius, who were sent <A NAME="806"></A>from Corinth to make laws, in determining the most important points of <A NAME="807"></A>it. In the meanwhile, desirous that his hired soldiers should not want <A NAME="808"></A>action, but might rather enrich themselves by some plunder from the enemy, <A NAME="809"></A>he despatched Dinarchus and Demaretus with a portion of them into the part <A NAME="810"></A>of the island belonging to the Carthaginians, where they obliged several <A NAME="811"></A>cities to revolt from the barbarians, and not only lived in great abundance <A NAME="812"></A>themselves, but raised money from their spoil to carry on the <A NAME="813"></A>war. <A NAME="814"></A> Meantime, the Carthaginians landed at the promontory of Lilybaeum, <A NAME="815"></A>bringing with them an army of seventy thousand men on board two hundred <A NAME="816"></A>galleys, besides a thousand other vessels laden with engines of battery, <A NAME="817"></A>chariots, corn, and other military stores, as if they did not intend to <A NAME="818"></A>manage the war by piecemeal and in parts as heretofore, but to drive the <A NAME="819"></A>Greeks altogether and at once out of all Sicily. And indeed it was a force <A NAME="820"></A>sufficient to overpower the Siceliots, even though they had been at perfect <A NAME="821"></A>union among themselves, and had never been enfeebled by intestine quarrels. <A NAME="822"></A>Hearing that part of their subject territory was suffering devastation, <A NAME="823"></A>they forthwith made toward the Corinthians with great fury, having Asdrubal <A NAME="824"></A>and Hamilcar for their generals; the report of whose number and strength <A NAME="825"></A>coming suddenly to Syracuse, the citizens were so terrified, that hardly <A NAME="826"></A>three thousand, among so many myriads of them, had the courage to take <A NAME="827"></A>up arms and join Timoleon. The foreigners, serving for pay, were not above <A NAME="828"></A>four thousand in all, and about a thousand of these grew faint-hearted <A NAME="829"></A>by the way, and forsook Timoleon in his march towards the enemy, looking <A NAME="830"></A>on him as frantic and distracted, destitute of the sense which might have <A NAME="831"></A>been expected from his time of life, thus to venture out against an army <A NAME="832"></A>of seventy thousand men, with no more than five thousand foot and a thousand <A NAME="833"></A>horse; and, when he should have kept those forces to defend the city, choosing <A NAME="834"></A>rather to remove them eight days' journey from Syracuse, so that if they <A NAME="835"></A>were beaten from the field, they would have no retreat, nor any burial <A NAME="836"></A>if they fell upon it. Timoleon, however, reckoned it some kind of advantage, <A NAME="837"></A>that these had thus discovered themselves before the battle, and encouraging <A NAME="838"></A>the rest, led them with all speed to the river Crimesus, where it was told <A NAME="839"></A>him the Carthaginians were drawn together. <A NAME="840"></A> As he was marching up an ascent, from the top of which they expected <A NAME="841"></A>to have a view of the army and of the strength of the enemy, there met <A NAME="842"></A>him by chance a train of mules loaded with parsley; which his soldiers <A NAME="843"></A>conceived to be an ominous occurrence or ill-boding token, because this <A NAME="844"></A>is the herb with which we not unfrequently adorn the sepulchres of the <A NAME="845"></A>dead; and there is a proverb derived from the custom, used of one who is <A NAME="846"></A>dangerously sick, that he has need of nothing but parsley. So to ease their <A NAME="847"></A>minds, and free them from any superstitious thoughts or forebodings of <A NAME="848"></A>evil, Timoleon halted, and concluded an address suitable to the occasion, <A NAME="849"></A>by saying, that a garland of triumph was here luckily brought them, and <A NAME="850"></A>had fallen into their hands of its own accord, as an anticipation of victory: <A NAME="851"></A>the same with which the Corinthians crown the victors in the Isthmian games, <A NAME="852"></A>accounting chaplets of parsley the sacred wreath proper to their country; <A NAME="853"></A>parsley being at that time still the emblem of victory at the Isthmian, <A NAME="854"></A>as it is now at the Nemean sports; and it is not so very long ago that <A NAME="855"></A>the pine first began to be used in its place. <A NAME="856"></A> Timoleon, therefore, having thus bespoke his soldiers, took part <A NAME="857"></A>of the parsley, and with it made himself a chaplet first, his captains <A NAME="858"></A>and their companies all following the example of their leader. The soothsayers <A NAME="859"></A>then, observing also two eagles on the wing towards them, one of which <A NAME="860"></A>bore a snake struck through with her talons, and the other, as she flew, <A NAME="861"></A>uttered a loud cry indicating boldness and assurance, at once showed them <A NAME="862"></A>to the soldiers, who with one consent fell to supplicate the gods, and <A NAME="863"></A>call them in to their assistance. It was now about the beginning of summer, <A NAME="864"></A>and conclusion of the month called Thargelion, not far from the solstice; <A NAME="865"></A>and the river sending up a thick mist, all the adjacent plain was at first <A NAME="866"></A>darkened with the fog, so that for a while they could discern nothing from <A NAME="867"></A>the enemy's camp; only a confused buzz and undistinguished mixture of voices <A NAME="868"></A>came up to the hill from the distant motions and clamours of so vast a <A NAME="869"></A>multitude. When the Corinthians had mounted, and stood on the top, and <A NAME="870"></A>had laid down their bucklers to take breath and repose themselves, the <A NAME="871"></A>sun coming round and drawing up the vapours from below, the gross foggy <A NAME="872"></A>air that was now gathered and condensed above formed in a cloud upon the <A NAME="873"></A>mountains; and, all the under places being clear and open, the river Crimesus <A NAME="874"></A>appeared to them again, and they could descry the enemies passing over <A NAME="875"></A>it, first with their formidable four-horse chariots of war, and then ten <A NAME="876"></A>thousand footmen bearing white shields, whom they guessed to be all Carthaginians, <A NAME="877"></A>from the splendour of their arms, and the slowness and order of their march. <A NAME="878"></A>And when now the troops of various other nations, flowing in behind them, <A NAME="879"></A>began to throng for passage in a tumultuous and unruly manner, Timoleon, <A NAME="880"></A>perceiving that the river gave them opportunity to single off whatever <A NAME="881"></A>number of their enemies they had a mind to engage at and bidding his soldiers <A NAME="882"></A>observe how their forces were divided into two separate bodies by the intervention <A NAME="883"></A>of the stream, some being already over, and others still to ford it, gave <A NAME="884"></A>Demaretus command to fall in upon the Carthaginians with his horse, and <A NAME="885"></A>disturb their ranks before they should be drawn up into form of battle; <A NAME="886"></A>and coming down into the plain himself forming his right and left wing <A NAME="887"></A>of other Sicilians, intermingling only a few strangers in each, he placed <A NAME="888"></A>the natives of Syracuse in the middle, with the stoutest mercenaries he <A NAME="889"></A>had about his own person; and waiting a little to observe the action of <A NAME="890"></A>his horse, when they saw they were not only hindered from grappling with <A NAME="891"></A>the Carthaginians by the armed chariots that ran to and fro before the <A NAME="892"></A>army, but forced continually to wheel about to escape having their ranks <A NAME="893"></A>broken, and so to repeat their charges anew, he took his buckler in his <A NAME="894"></A>hand, and crying out to the foot that they should follow him with courage <A NAME="895"></A>and confidence, he seemed to speak with a more than human accent, and a <A NAME="896"></A>voice stronger than ordinary; whether it were that he naturally raised <A NAME="897"></A>it so high in the vehemence and ardour with his mind to assault the enemy, <A NAME="898"></A>or else, as many then thought, some god or other spoke with him. When his <A NAME="899"></A>soldiers quickly gave an echo to it, and besought him to lead them on without <A NAME="900"></A>any further delay, he made a sign to the horse, that they should draw off <A NAME="901"></A>from the front where the chariots were, and pass sidewards to attack their <A NAME="902"></A>enemies in the flank; then, making his vanguard firm by joining man to <A NAME="903"></A>man and buckler to buckler, he caused the trumpet to sound, and so bore <A NAME="904"></A>in upon the Carthaginians. <A NAME="905"></A> They, for their part, stoutly received and sustained his first <A NAME="906"></A>onset; and having their bodies armed with breast-plates of iron, and helmets <A NAME="907"></A>of brass on their heads, besides great bucklers to cover and secure them, <A NAME="908"></A>they could easily repel the charge of the Greek spears. But when the business <A NAME="909"></A>came to a decision by the sword, where mastery depends no less upon art <A NAME="910"></A>than strength, all on a sudden from the mountain-tops violent peals of <A NAME="911"></A>thunder and vivid flashes of lightning broke out; following upon which <A NAME="912"></A>the darkness, that had been hovering about the higher grounds and the crests <A NAME="913"></A>of the hills, descending to the place of battle and bringing a tempest <A NAME="914"></A>of rain and of wind and hail along with it, was driven upon the Greeks <A NAME="915"></A>behind, and fell only at their backs, but discharged itself in the very <A NAME="916"></A>faces of the barbarians, the rain beating on them, and the lightning dazzling <A NAME="917"></A>them without cessation; annoyances that in many ways distressed at any <A NAME="918"></A>rate the inexperienced, who had not been used to such hardships, and, in <A NAME="919"></A>particular, the claps of thunder, and the noise of the rain and hail beating <A NAME="920"></A>on their arms, kept them from hearing the commands of their officers. Besides <A NAME="921"></A>which, the very mud also was a great hindrance to the Carthaginans, who <A NAME="922"></A>were not lightly equipped, but, as I said before, loaded with heavy armour; <A NAME="923"></A>and then their shirts underneath getting drenched, the foldings about the <A NAME="924"></A>bosom filled with water, grew unwieldy and cumbersome to them as they fought, <A NAME="925"></A>and made it easy for the Greeks to throw them down, and, when they were <A NAME="926"></A>once down, impossible for them, under that weight, to disengage themselves <A NAME="927"></A>and rise again with weapons in their hands. The river Crimesus, too, swollen <A NAME="928"></A>partly by the rain, and partly by the stoppage of its course with the numbers <A NAME="929"></A>that were passing through, overflowed its banks; and the level ground by <A NAME="930"></A>the side of it, being so situated as to have a number of small ravines <A NAME="931"></A>and hollows of the hillside descending upon it, was now filled with rivulets <A NAME="932"></A>and currents that had no certain channel, in which the Carthaginians stumbled <A NAME="933"></A>and rolled about, and found themselves in great difficulty. So that, in <A NAME="934"></A>fine, the storm bearing still upon them, and the Greeks having cut in pieces <A NAME="935"></A>four hundred men of their first ranks, the whole body of their army began <A NAME="936"></A>to fly. Great numbers were overtaken in the plain, and put to the sword <A NAME="937"></A>there; and many of them, as they were making their way back through the <A NAME="938"></A>river, falling foul upon others that were yet coming over, were borne away <A NAME="939"></A>and overwhelmed by the waters; but the major part, attempting to get up <A NAME="940"></A>the hill so as to make their escape, were intercepted and destroyed by <A NAME="941"></A>the light-armed troops. It is said that, of ten thousand who lay dead after <A NAME="942"></A>the fight, three thousand, at least, were Carthaginian citizens; a heavy <A NAME="943"></A>loss and great grief to their countrymen; those that fell being men inferior <A NAME="944"></A>to none among them as to birth, wealth, or reputation. Nor do their records <A NAME="945"></A>mention that so many native Carthaginians were ever cut off before in any <A NAME="946"></A>one battle; as they usually employed Africans, Spaniards, and Numidians <A NAME="947"></A>in their wars, so that if they chanced to be defeated, it was still at <A NAME="948"></A>the cost and damage of other nations. <A NAME="949"></A> The Greeks easily discovered of what condition and account the <A NAME="950"></A>slain were by the richness of their spoils; for when they came to collect <A NAME="951"></A>the booty, there was little reckoning made either of brass or iron, so <A NAME="952"></A>abundant were better metals, and so common were silver and gold. Passing <A NAME="953"></A>over the river they became masters of their camp and carriages. As for <A NAME="954"></A>captives, a great many of them were stolen away and sold privately by the <A NAME="955"></A>soldiers but about five thousand were brought in and delivered up for the <A NAME="956"></A>benefit of the public; two hundred of their chariots of war were also taken. <A NAME="957"></A>The tent of Timoleon then presented a most glorious and magnificent appearance, <A NAME="958"></A>being heaped up and hung round with every variety of spoils and military <A NAME="959"></A>ornaments, among which there were a thousand breastplates of rare workmanship <A NAME="960"></A>and beauty, and bucklers to the number of ten thousand. The victors being <A NAME="961"></A>but few to strip so many that were vanquished, and having such valuable <A NAME="962"></A>booty to occupy them, it was the third day after the fight before they <A NAME="963"></A>could erect and finish the trophy of their conquest. Timoleon sent tidings <A NAME="964"></A>of his victory to Corinth, with the best and goodliest arms he had taken <A NAME="965"></A>as a proof of it; that he thus might render his country an object of emulation <A NAME="966"></A>to the whole world, when, of all the cities of Greece, men should there <A NAME="967"></A>alone behold the chief temples adorned, not with Grecian spoils, nor offerings <A NAME="968"></A>obtained by the bloodshed and plunder of their own countrymen and kindred, <A NAME="969"></A>and attended, therefore, with sad and unhappy remembrances, but with such <A NAME="970"></A>as had been stripped from barbarians and enemies to their nation, with <A NAME="971"></A>the noblest titles inscribed upon them, titles telling of the justice as <A NAME="972"></A>well as fortitude of the conquerors; namely, that the people of Corinth, <A NAME="973"></A>and Timoleon their general, having redeemed the Greeks of Sicily from Carthaginian <A NAME="974"></A>bondage, made oblation of these to the gods, in grateful acknowledgment <A NAME="975"></A>of their favour. <A NAME="976"></A> Having done this, he left his hired soldiers in the enemy's country <A NAME="977"></A>to drive and carry away all they could throughout the subject-territory <A NAME="978"></A>of Carthage, and so marched with the rest of his army to Syracuse, where <A NAME="979"></A>he issued an edict for banishing the thousand mercenaries who had basely <A NAME="980"></A>deserted him before the battle, and obliged them to quit the city before <A NAME="981"></A>sunset. They, sailing into Italy, lost their lives there by the hands of <A NAME="982"></A>the Bruttians, in spite of a public assurance of safety previously given <A NAME="983"></A>them; thus receiving, from the divine power, a just reward of their own <A NAME="984"></A>treachery. Mamercus, however, the tyrant of Catana, and Hicetes, after <A NAME="985"></A>all, either envying Timoleon the glory of his exploits, or fearing him <A NAME="986"></A>as one that would keep no agreement, or having any peace with tyrants, <A NAME="987"></A>made a league with the Carthaginians, and pressed them much to send a new <A NAME="988"></A>army and commander into Sicily, unless they would be content to hazard <A NAME="989"></A>all and to be wholly ejected out of that island. And in consequence of <A NAME="990"></A>this, Gisco was despatched with a navy of seventy sail. He took numerous <A NAME="991"></A>Greek mercenaries also into pay, that being the first time they had ever <A NAME="992"></A>been enlisted for the Carthaginian service; but then it seems the Carthaginians <A NAME="993"></A>began to admire them, as the most irresistible soldiers of all mankind. <A NAME="994"></A>Uniting their forces in the territory of Messena, they cut off four hundred <A NAME="995"></A>of Timoleon's paid soldiers, and within the dependencies of Carthage, at <A NAME="996"></A>a place called Hierae, destroyed, by an ambuscade, the whole body of mercenaries <A NAME="997"></A>that served under Euthymus the Leucadian; which accidents, however, made <A NAME="998"></A>the good fortune of Timoleon accounted all the more remarkable, as these <A NAME="999"></A>were the men that, with Philomelus of Phocis and Onomarchus, had forcibly <A NAME="1000"></A>broken into the temple of Apollo at Delphi, and were partakers with them <A NAME="1001"></A>in the sacrilege; so that being hated and shunned by all, as persons under <A NAME="1002"></A>a curse, they were constrained to wander about in Peloponnesus; when, for <A NAME="1003"></A>want of others, Timoleon was glad to take them into service in his expedition <A NAME="1004"></A>for Sicily, where they were successful in whatever enterprise they attempted <A NAME="1005"></A>under his conduct. But now, when all the important dangers were past, on <A NAME="1006"></A>his sending them out for the relief and defence of his party in several <A NAME="1007"></A>places, they perished and were destroyed at a distance from him, not all <A NAME="1008"></A>together, but in small parties; and the vengeance which was destined for <A NAME="1009"></A>them, so accommodating itself to the good fortune which guarded Timoleon <A NAME="1010"></A>as not to allow any harm or prejudice for good men to arise from the punishment <A NAME="1011"></A>of the wicked, the benevolence and kindness which the gods had for Timoleon <A NAME="1012"></A>was thus as distinctly recognized in his disasters as in his <A NAME="1013"></A>successes. <A NAME="1014"></A> What most annoyed the Syracusans was their being insulted and mocked <A NAME="1015"></A>by the tyrants; as, for example, by Mamercus, who valued himself much upon <A NAME="1016"></A>his gift for writing poems and tragedies, and took occasion, when coming <A NAME="1017"></A>to present the gods with the bucklers of the hired soldiers whom he had <A NAME="1018"></A>killed, to make a boast of his victory in an insulting elegiac <A NAME="1019"></A>inscription:- <A NAME="1020"></A> "These shields with purple, gold, and ivory <A NAME="1021"></A>wrought, <A NAME="1022"></A> Were won by us that but with poor ones fought." <A NAME="1023"></A> After this, while Timoleon marched to Calauria, Hicetes made an <A NAME="1024"></A>inroad into the borders of Syracuse, where he met with considerable booty, <A NAME="1025"></A>and having done much mischief and havoc, returned back to Calauria itself, <A NAME="1026"></A>in contempt of Timoleon and the slender force he had then with him. He, <A NAME="1027"></A>suffering Hicetes to pass forward, pursued him with his horsemen and light <A NAME="1028"></A>infantry, which Hicetes perceiving, crossed the river Damyrias, and then <A NAME="1029"></A>stood in a posture to receive him; the difficulty of the passage, and the <A NAME="1030"></A>height and steepness of the bank on each side, giving advantage enough <A NAME="1031"></A>to make him confident. A strange contention and dispute, meantime, among <A NAME="1032"></A>the officers of Timoleon a little retarded the conflict; no one of them <A NAME="1033"></A>was willing to let another pass over before him to engage the enemy; each <A NAME="1034"></A>man claiming it as a right to venture first and begin the onset; so that <A NAME="1035"></A>their fording was likely to be tumultuous and without order, a mere general <A NAME="1036"></A>struggle which should be the foremost. Timoleon, therefore, desiring to <A NAME="1037"></A>decide the quarrel by lot, took a ring from each of the pretenders, which <A NAME="1038"></A>he cast into his own cloak, and, after he had shaken all together, the <A NAME="1039"></A>first he drew out had, by good fortune, the figure of a trophy engraved <A NAME="1040"></A>as a seal upon it; at the sight of which the young captains all shouted <A NAME="1041"></A>for joy, and, without waiting any longer to see how chance would determine <A NAME="1042"></A>it for the rest, took every man his way through the river with all the <A NAME="1043"></A>speed they could make, and fell to blows with the enemies, who were not <A NAME="1044"></A>able to bear up against the violence of their attack, but fled in haste <A NAME="1045"></A>and left their arms behind them all alike, and a thousand dead upon the <A NAME="1046"></A>place. <A NAME="1047"></A> Not long after, Timoleon, marching up to the city of the Leontines, <A NAME="1048"></A>took Hicetes alive, and his son Eupolemus, and Euthymus, the commander <A NAME="1049"></A>of his horse, who were bound and brought to him by their own soldiers. <A NAME="1050"></A>Hicetes and the stripling his son were then executed as tyrants and traitors; <A NAME="1051"></A>and Euthymus, though a brave man, and one of singular courage, could obtain <A NAME="1052"></A>no mercy, because he was charged with contemptuous language in disparagement <A NAME="1053"></A>of the Corinthians when they first sent their forces into Sicily; it is <A NAME="1054"></A>said that he told the Leontini in a speech that the news did not sound <A NAME="1055"></A>terrible, nor was any great danger to be feared because <A NAME="1056"></A>of- <A NAME="1057"></A> "Corinthian women coming out of doors." So true it is that men <A NAME="1058"></A>are usually more stung and galled by reproachful words than hostile actions: <A NAME="1059"></A>and they bear an affront with less patience than an injury; to do harm <A NAME="1060"></A>and mischief by deeds is counted pardonable from the enemies, as nothing <A NAME="1061"></A>less can be expected in a state of war; whereas virulent and contumelious <A NAME="1062"></A>words appear to be the expression of needless hatred, and to proceed from <A NAME="1063"></A>an excess of rancour. <A NAME="1064"></A> When Timoleon came back to Syracuse, the citizens brought the wives <A NAME="1065"></A>and daughters of Hicetes and his son to a public trial, and condemned and <A NAME="1066"></A>put them to death. This seems to be the least pleasing action of Timoleon's <A NAME="1067"></A>life; since if he had interposed, the unhappy women would have been spared. <A NAME="1068"></A>He would appear to have disregarded the thing, and to have given them up <A NAME="1069"></A>to the citizens, who were eager to take vengeance for the wrongs done to <A NAME="1070"></A>Dion, who expelled Dionysius; since it was this very Hicetes who took Arete <A NAME="1071"></A>the wife and Aristomache the sister of Dion, with a son that had not yet <A NAME="1072"></A>passed his childhood, and threw them all together into the sea alive, as <A NAME="1073"></A>related in the life of Dion. <A NAME="1074"></A> After this, he moved towards Catana against Mamercus, who gave <A NAME="1075"></A>him battle near the river Abolus, and was overthrown and put to flight, <A NAME="10