Plutarch: Timoleon

The “Dryden Version” as edited from 1854-1859 by Arthur Hugh Clough (and Paul Swarney in 2007)

[Aemilius Paullus 1. IT was for the sake of others that I first commenced writing biographies;  but I find myself proceeding and attaching myself to it for my own;  the virtues of these great men serving me as a sort of looking-glass,  in which I may see how to adjust and adorn my own life. Indeed, it  can be compared to nothing but daily living and associating together;  we receive, as it were, in our inquiry, and entertain each successive  guest, view-

 "Their stature and their qualities,"

and select from their actions  all that is noblest and worthiest to know.

"Ah, and what greater pleasure can one have?" or what more effective  means to one's moral improvement? Democritus tells us we ought to  pray that of the phantasms appearing in the circumambient air, such  may present themselves to us as are propitious, and that we may rather  meet with those that are agreeable to our natures and are good than  the evil and unfortunate; which is simply introducing into philosophy  a doctrine untrue in itself, and leading to endless superstitions.  My method, on the contrary, is, by the study of history, and by the  familiarity acquired in writing, to habituate my memory to receive  and retain images of the best and worthiest characters. I thus am  enabled to free myself from any ignoble, base, or vicious impressions,  contracted from the contagion of ill company that I may be unavoidably  engaged in; by the remedy of turning my thoughts in a happy and calm  temper to view these noble examples. Of this kind are those of Timoleon  the Corinthian and Paulus Aemilius, to write whose lives is my present  business; men equally famous, not only for their virtues, but success;  insomuch that they have left it doubtful whether they owe their greatest  achievements to good fortune, or their own prudence and conduct.]

1.     The affairs of the Syracusans, before Timoleon was sent into Sicily,  were in this posture; after Dion had driven out Dionysius the tyrant,  he was slain by treachery, and those that had assisted him in delivering  Syracuse were divided among themselves; and thus the city by a continual  change of governors, and a train of mischiefs that succeeded each  other, became almost abandoned; while of the rest of Sicily, part  was now utterly depopulated and desolate through long continuance  of war, and most of the cities that had been left standing were in  the hands of barbarians and soldiers out of employment, that were  ready to embrace every turn of government. Such being the state of  things, Dionysius takes the opportunity, and in the tenth year of  his banishment, by the help of some mercenary troops he had got together,  forces out Nysaeus, then master of Syracuse, recovers all afresh,  and is again settled in his dominion; and as at first he had been  strangely deprived of the greatest and most absolute power that ever  was by a very small party, so now, in a yet stranger manner, when  in exile and of mean condition, he became the sovereign of those who  had ejected him. All therefore that remained in Syracuse had to serve  under a tyrant, who at the best was of an ungentle nature, and exasperated  now to a degree of savageness by the late misfortunes and calamities  he had suffered. The better and more distinguished citizens, having  timely retired thence to Hicetes, ruler of the Leontines, put themselves  under his protection, and chose him for their general in the war;  not that he was much preferable to any open and avowed tyrant, but  they had no other sanctuary at present, and it gave them some ground  of confidence he was of a Syracusan family, and had forces able to  encounter those of Dionysius.

2.     In the meantime the Carthaginians appeared before Sicily with a great  navy, watching when and where they might make a descent upon the island;  and terror at this fleet made the Sicilians incline to send an embassy  into Greece to demand succours from the Corinthians, whom they confided  in rather than others, not only upon the account of their near kindred,  and the great benefits they had often received by trusting them, but  because Corinth had ever shown herself attached to freedom and averse  from tyranny and had engaged in many noble wars, not for empire or  aggrandizement, but for the sole liberty of the Greeks, But Hicetes,  who made it the business of his command not so much to deliver the  Syracusans from other tyrants, as to enslave them to himself, had  already entered into some secret conferences with those of Carthage,  while in public he commended the design of his Syracusan clients,  and despatched ambassadors from himself, together with theirs, into  Peloponnesus; not that he really desired any relief to come from there,  but in case the Corinthians, as was likely enough, on account of the  troubles of Greece and occupation at home, should refuse their assistance,  hoping then he should be able with less difficulty to dispose and  incline things for the Carthaginian interest, and so make use of these  foreign pretenders, as instruments and auxiliaries for himself, either  against the Syracusans or Dionysius, as occasion served. This was  discovered a while after.

3.     The ambassadors being arrived, and their request known, the Corinthians,  who had always a great concern for all their colonies and plantations,  but especially for Syracuse, since by good fortune there was nothing  to molest them in their own country, where they were enjoying peace  and leisure at that time, readily and with one accord passed a vote  for their assistance. And when they were deliberating about the choice  of a captain for the expedition, and the magistrates were urging the  claims of various aspirants for reputation, one of the crowd stood  up and named Timoleon, son of Timodemus, who had long absented himself  from public business, and had neither any thoughts of nor the least  pretensions to, an employment of that nature. Some god or other, it  might rather seem, had put it in the man's heart to mention him; such  favour and good-will on the part of Fortune seemed at once to be shown  in his election, and to accompany all his following actions, as though  it were on purpose to commend his worth, and add grace and ornament  to his personal virtues. As regards his parentage, both Timodemus  his father, and his mother Demariste, were of high rank in the city;  and as for himself, he was noted for his love of his country, and  his gentleness of temper, except in his extreme hatred to tyrants  and wicked men. His natural abilities for war were so happily tempered,  that while a rare prudence might be seen in all the enterprises of  his younger years, an equal courage showed itself in the last exploits  of his declining age. He had an elder brother, whose name was Timophanes,  who was every way unlike him, being indiscreet and rash, and infected  by the suggestions of some friends and foreign soldiers, whom he kept  always about him, with a passion for absolute power. He seemed to  have a certain force and vehemence in all military service, and even  to delight in dangers, and thus he took much with the people, and  was advanced to the highest charges, as a vigorous and effective warrior;  in the obtaining of which offices and promotions, Timoleon much assisted  him, helping to conceal or at least to extenuate his errors, embellishing  by his praise whatever was commendable in him, and setting off his  good qualities to the best advantage.

4.     It happened once in the battle fought by the Corinthians against the  forces of Argos and Cleonae, that Timoleon served among the infantry,  when Timophanes, commanding their cavalry, was brought into extreme  danger; as his horse being wounded fell forward and threw him headlong  amidst the enemies, while part of his companions dispersed at once  in a panic, and the small number that remained, bearing up against  a great multitude, had much ado to maintain any resistance. As soon,  therefore, as Timoleon was aware of the accident, he ran hastily in  to his brother's rescue, and covering the fallen Timophanes with his  buckler, after having received abundance of darts, and several strokes  by the sword upon his body and his armour, he at length with much  difficulty obliged the enemies to retire, and brought off his brother  alive and safe. But when the Corinthians, for fear of losing their  city a second time, as they had once before, by admitting their allies,  made a decree to maintain four hundred mercenaries for its security,  and gave Timophanes the command over them, he, abandoning all regard  to honour and equity, at once proceeded to put into execution his  plans for making himself absolute, and bringing the place under his  own power; and having cut off many principal citizens, uncondemned  and without trial, who were most likely to hinder his designs, he  declared himself tyrant of Corinth; a procedure that infinitely afflicted  Timoleon, to whom the wickedness of such a brother appeared to be  his own reproach and calamity. He undertook to persuade him by reasoning,  that desisting from that wild and unhappy ambition, he would bethink  himself how he should make the Corinthians some amends, and find out  an expedient to remedy and correct the evils he had done them. When  his single admonition was rejected and contemned by him, he makes  a second attempt, taking with him Aeschylus his kinsman, brother to  the wife of Timophanes, and a certain diviner, that was his friend,  whom Theopompus in his history calls Satyrus, but Ephorus and Timaeus  mention in theirs by the name of Orthagoras. After a few days, then,  he returns to his brother with this company, all three of them surrounding  and earnestly importuning him upon the same subject, that now at length  he would listen to reason, and be of another mind. But when Timophanes  began first to laugh at the men's simplicity, and presently broke  out into rage and indignation against them, Timoleon stepped aside  from him and stood weeping with his face covered, while the other  two, drawing out their swords, dispatched him in a moment.

5.     On the rumour of this act being soon scattered about, the better and  more generous of the Corinthians highly applauded Timoleon for the  hatred of wrong and the greatness of soul that had made him, though  of a gentle disposition and full of love and kindness for his family,  think the obligations to his country stronger than the ties of consanguinity,  and prefer that which is good and just before gain and interest and  his own particular advantage. For the same brother, who with so much  bravery had been saved by him when he fought valiantly in the cause  of Corinth, he had now as nobly sacrificed for enslaving her afterwards  by a base usurpation. But then, on the other side, those that knew  not how to live in a democracy, and had been used to make their humble  court to the men of power, though they openly professed to rejoice  at the death of the tyrant, nevertheless, secretly reviling Timoleon,  as one that had committed an impious and abominable act, drove him  into melancholy and dejection. And when he came to understand how  heavily his mother took it, and that she likewise uttered the saddest  complaints and most terrible imprecations against him, he went to  satisfy and comfort her as to what had happened; and finding that  she would not endure so much as to look upon him, but caused her doors  to be shut, that he might have no admission into her presence, with  grief at this he grew so disordered in his mind and so disconsolate,  that he determined to put an end to his perplexity with his life,  by abstaining from all manner of sustenance. But through the care  and diligence of his friends, who were very instant with him, and  added force to their entreaties, he came to resolve and promise at  last, that he would endure living, provided it might be in solitude,  and remote from company; so that, quitting all civil transactions  and commerce with the world for a long while after his first retirement,  he never came into Corinth, but wandered up and down the fields, full  of anxious and tormenting thoughts, and spent his time in desert places,  at the farthest distance from society and human intercourse.

6.     So true  it is that the minds of men are easily shaken and carried off from  their own sentiments through the casual commendation or reproof of  others, unless the judgments that we make, and the purposes we conceive,  be confirmed by reason and philosophy, and thus obtain strength and  steadiness. An action must not only be just and laudable in its own  nature, but it must proceed likewise from motives and a lasting principle,  that so we may fully and constantly approve the thing, and be perfectly  satisfied in what we do; for otherwise, after having put our resolution  into practice, we shall out of pure weakness come to be troubled at  the performance, when the grace and godliness, which rendered it before  so amiable and pleasing to us, begin to decay and wear out of our  fancy; like greedy people, who, seizing on the more delicious morsels  of any dish with a keen appetite, are presently disgusted when they  grow full, and find themselves oppressed and uneasy now by what they  before so greedily desired. For a succeeding dislike spoils the best  of actions, and repentance makes that which was never so well done  become base and faulty; whereas the choice that is founded upon knowledge  and wise reasoning does not change by disappointment, or suffer us  to repent, though it happen perchance to be less prosperous in the  issue. And thus, Phocion, of Athens, having always vigorously opposed  the measures of Leosthenes, when success appeared to attend them,  and he saw his countrymen rejoicing and offering sacrifice in honour  of their victory, "I should have been as glad," said he to them, "that  I myself had been the author of what Leosthenes has achieved for you,  as I am that I gave you my own counsel against it." A more vehement  reply is record to have been made by Aristides the Locrian, one of  Plato's companions, to Dionysius the elder, who demanded one of his  daughters in marriage: "I had rather," said he to him, "see the virgin  in her grave than in the palace of a tyrant." And when Dionysius,  enraged at the affront, made his sons be put to death a while after,  and then again insultingly asked, whether he were still in the same  mind as to the disposal of his daughters, his answer was, "I cannot  but grieve at the cruelty of your deeds, but am not sorry for the  freedom of my own words." Such expressions as these may belong perhaps  to a more sublime and accomplished virtue.

7.     The grief, however, of Timoleon at what had been done, whether it  arose from commiseration of his brother's fate or the reverence he  bore his mother, so shattered and broke his spirits, that for the  space of almost twenty years he had not offered to concern himself  in any honourable or public action. When, therefore, he was pitched  upon for a general, and, joyfully accepted as such by the suffrages  of the people, Teleclides, who was at that time the most powerful  and distinguished man in Corinth, began to exhort him that he would  act now like a man of worth and gallantry: "For," said he, "if you  do bravely in this service we shall believe that you delivered us  from a tyrant; but if otherwise that you killed your brother." While  he was yet preparing to set sail, and enlisting soldiers to embark  with him, there came letters to the Corinthians from Hicetes, plainly  disclosing his revolt and treachery. For his ambassadors had no sooner  gone for Corinth, but he openly joined the Carthaginians, negotiating  that they might assist him to throw out Dionysius, and become master  of Syracuse in his room. And fearing he might be disappointed of his  aim if troops and a commander should come from Corinth before this  were effected, he sent a letter of advice thither, in all haste, to  prevent their setting out, telling them they need not be at any cost  and trouble upon his account, or run the hazard of a Sicilian voyage,  especially since the Carthaginians, alliance with whom against Dionysius  the slowness of their motions had compelled him to embrace, would  dispute their passage, and lay in wait to attack them with a numerous  fleet. This letter being publicly read, if any had been cold and indifferent  before as to the expedition in hand, the indignation they now conceived  against Hicetes so exasperated and inflamed them all that they willingly  contributed to supply Timoleon, and endeavoured with one accord to  hasten his departure.

8.     When the vessels were equipped, and his soldiers every way provided  for, the female priest of Proserpina had a dream or vision wherein  she and her mother Ceres appeared to them in a travelling garb, and  were heard to say that they were going to sail with Timoleon into  Sicily; whereupon the Corinthians, having built a sacred galley, devoted  it to them, and called it the galley of the goddesses. Timoleon went  in person to Delphi, where he sacrificed to Apollo, and, descending  into the place of prophecy, was surprised with the following marvellous  occurrence. A riband, with crowns and figures of victory embroidered  upon it, slipped off from among the gifts that were there consecrated  and hung up in the temple, and fell directly down upon his head; so  that Apollo seemed already to crown him with success, and send him  thence to conquer and triumph. He put to sea only with seven ships  of Corinth, two of Corcyra, and a tenth which was furnished by the  Leucadians; and when he was now entered into the deep by night, and  carried with a prosperous gale, the heaven seemed all on a sudden  to break open, and a bright spreading flame to issue forth from it,  and hover over the ship he was in; and, having formed itself into  a torch, not unlike those that are used in the mysteries, it began  to steer the same course, and run along in their company, guiding  them by its light to that quarter of Italy where they designed to  go ashore. The soothsayers affirmed that this apparition agreed with  the dream of the holy woman, since the goddesses were now visibly  joining in the expedition, and sending this light from heaven before  them: Sicily being thought sacred to Proserpina, as poets feign that  the rape was committed there, and that the island was given her in  dowry when she married Pluto.

9.     These early demonstrations of divine favour greatly encouraged his  whole army; so that making all the speed they were able, by a voyage  across the open sea, they were soon passing along the coast of Italy.  But the tidings that came from Sicily much perplexed Timoleon, and  disheartened his soldiers. For Hicetes, having already beaten Dionysius  out of the field, and reduced most of the quarters of Syracuse itself,  now hemmed him in and besieged him in the citadel and what is called  the Island, whither he was fled for his last refuge; while the Carthaginians,  by agreement, were to make it their business to hinder Timoleon from  landing in any port of Sicily; so that he and his party being driven  back, they might with ease and at their own leisure divide the island  among themselves. In pursuance of which design the Carthaginians sent  away twenty of their galleys to Rhegium, having aboard them certain  ambassadors from Hicetes to Timoleon, who carried instructions suitable  to these proceedings, specious amusements, and plausible stories,  to colour and conceal dishonest purposes. They had order to propose  and demand that Timoleon himself, if he liked the offer, should come  and advise with Hicetes and partake of all his conquests, but that  he might send back his ships and forces to Corinth, since the war  was in a manner finished, and the Carthaginians had blocked up the  passage, determined to oppose them if they should try to force their  way towards the shore. When, therefore, the Corinthians met with these  envoys at Rhegium, and received their message, and saw the Phoenician  vessels riding at anchor in the bay, they became keenly sensible of  the abuse that was put upon them, and felt a general indignation against  Hicetes, and great apprehensions for the Siceliots, whom they now  plainly perceived to be as it were a prize and recompense to Hicetes  on one side for his perfidy, and to the Carthaginians on the other  for the sovereign power they secured to him. For it seemed utterly  impossible to force and overbear the Carthaginian ships that lay before  them and were double their number, as also to vanquish the victorious  troops which Hicetes had with him in Syracuse, to take the lead of  which very troops they had undertaken their voyage.

10.                        The case being thus, Timoleon, after some conference with the envoys  of Hicetes and the Carthaginian captains, told them he should readily  submit to their proposals (to what purpose would it be to refuse compliance?):  he was desirous only, before his return to Corinth, that what had  passed between them in private might be solemnly declared before the  people of Rhegium, a Greek city, and a common friend to the parties;  this, he said, would very much conduce to his own security and discharge;  and they likewise would more strictly observe articles of agreement,  on behalf of the Syracusans, which they had obliged themselves to  in the presence of so many witnesses. The design of all which was  only to divert their attention, while he got an opportunity of slipping  away from their fleet; a contrivance that all the principal Rhegians  were privy and assisting to, who had a great desire that the affairs  of Sicily should fall into Corinthian hands, and dreaded the consequences  of having barbarian neighbours. An assembly was therefore called,  and the gates shut, that the citizens might have no liberty to turn  to other business; and a succession of speakers came forward, addressing  the people at great length, to the same effect, without bringing the  subject to any conclusion, making way each for another and purposely  spinning out the time, till the Corinthian galleys should get clear  of the haven; the Carthaginian commanders being detained there without  any suspicion, as also Timoleon still remained present, and gave signs  as if he were just preparing to make an oration. But upon secret notice  that the rest of the galleys were already gone off, and that his alone  remained waiting for him, by the help and concealment of those Rhegians  that were about the hustings and favoured his departure, he made shift  to slip away through the crowd, and running down to the port, set  sail with all speed; and having reached his other vessels, they came  all safe to Tauromenium in Sicily, whither they had been formerly  invited, and where they were now kindly received by Andromachus, then  ruler of the city. This man was father of Timaeus the historian, and  incomparably the best of all those that bore sway in Sicily at that  time, governing his citizens according to law and justice and openly  professing an aversion and enmity to all tyrants; upon which account  he gave Timoleon leave to muster up his troops there, and to make  that city the seat of war, persuading the inhabitants to join their  arms with the Corinthian forces, and assist them in the design of  delivering Sicily.

11.                        But the Carthaginians who were left in Rhegium perceiving, when the  assembly was dissolved, that Timoleon had given them the go-by, were  not a little vexed to see themselves out-witted, much to the amusement  of the Rhegians, who could not but smile to find Phoenicians complain  of being cheated. However, they despatched a messenger aboard one  of their galleys to Tauromenium, who, after much blustering in the  insolent barbaric way, and many menaces to Andromachus if he did not  forthwith send the Corinthians off, stretched out his hand with the  inside upward, and then turning it down again, threatened he would  handle their city even so, and turn it topsy-turvy in as little time,  and with as much ease. Andromachus, laughing at the man's confidence,  made no other reply, but, imitating his gesture, bid him hasten his  own departure, unless he had a mind to see that kind of dexterity  practised first upon the galley which brought him hither. Hicetes, informed that Timoleon had made good his passage, was in  great fear of what might follow, and sent to desire the Carthaginians  that a large number of galleys might be ordered to attend and secure  the coast. And now it was that the Syracusans began wholly to despair  of safety, seeing the Carthaginians possessed of their haven, Hicetes  master of the town, and Dionysius supreme in the citadel; while Timoleon  had as yet but a slender hold of Sicily, as it were by the fringe  or border of it, in the small city of the Tauromenians, with a feeble  hope and a poor company; having but a thousand soldiers at the most,  and no more provisions, either of corn or money, than were just necessary  for the maintenance and the pay of that inconsiderable number. Nor  did the other towns of Sicily confide in him, overpowered as they  were with violence and outrage, and embittered against all that should  offer to lead armies by the treacherous conduct chiefly of Callipus,  an Athenian, and Pharax, a Lacedaemonian captain, both of whom, after  giving out that the design of their coming was to introduce liberty  and to depose tyrants, so tyrannized themselves, that the reign of  former oppressors seemed to be a golden age in comparison, and the  Sicilians began to consider those more happy who had expired in servitude,  than any that had lived to see such a dismal freedom.

12.                        Looking, therefore, for no better usage from the Corinthian general,  but imagining that it was only the same old course of things once  more, specious pretences and false professions to allure them by fair  hopes and kind promises into the obedience of a new master, they all,  with one accord, unless it were the people of Adranum, suspected the  exhortations, and rejected the overtures that were made them in his  name. These were inhabitants of a small city, consecrated to Adranus,  a certain god that was in high veneration throughout Sicily, and,  as it happened, they were then at variance among themselves, insomuch  that one party called in Hicetes and the Carthaginians to assist them,  while the other sent proposals to Timoleon. It so fell out that these  auxiliaries, striving which should be soonest, both arrived at Adranum  about the same time; Hicetes bringing with him at least five thousand  men, while all the force Timoleon could make did not exceed twelve  hundred. With these he marched out of Tauromenium, which was about  three hundred and forty furlongs distant from that city. The first  day he moved but slowly, and took up his quarters betimes after a  short journey; but the day following he quickened his pace, and, having  passed through much difficult ground, towards evening received advice  that Hicetes was just approaching Adranum, and pitching his camp before  it; upon which intelligence, his captains and other officers caused  the vanguard to halt, that the army being refreshed, and having reposed  a while, might engage the enemy with better heart. But Timoleon, coming  up in haste, desired them not to stop for that reason, but rather  use all possible diligence to surprise the enemy, whom probably they  would now find in disorder, as having lately ended their march and  being taken up at present in erecting tents and preparing supper;  which he had no sooner said, but laying hold of his buckler and putting  himself in the front, he led them on as it were to certain victory.  The braveness of such a leader made them all follow him with like  courage and assurance. They were now within less than thirty furlongs  of Adranum, which they quickly traversed, and immediately fell in  upon the enemy, who were seized with confusion, and began to retire  at their first approaches; one consequence of which was that, amidst  so little opposition, and so early and general a flight, there were  not many more than three hundred slain, and about twice the number  made prisoners. Their camp and baggage, however, was all taken. The  fortune of this onset soon induced the Adranitans to unlock their  gates, and to embrace the interest of Timoleon, to whom they recounted,  with a mixture of affright and admiration, how, at the very minute  of the encounter, the doors of their temple flew open of their own  accord, that the javelin also, which their god held in his band, was  observed to tremble at the point, and that drops of sweat had been  seen running down his face; prodigies that not only presaged the victory  then obtained, but were an omen, it seemed, of all his future exploits,  to which this first happy action gave the occasion.

13.                        For now the neighbouring cities and potentates sent deputies, one  upon another, to seek his friendship and make offer of their service.  Among the rest Mamercus, the tyrant of Catana, an experienced warrior  and a wealthy prince, made proposals of alliance with him, and what  was of greater importance still, Dionysius himself, being now grown  desperate, and well-nigh forced to surrender, despising Hicetes who  had been thus shamefully baffled, and admiring the valour of Timoleon,  found means to advertise him and his Corinthians that he should be  content to deliver up himself and the citadel into their hands. Timoleon,  gladly embracing this unlooked-for advantage, sends away Euclides  and Telemachus, two Corinthian captains, with four hundred men, for  the seizure and custody of the castle, with directions to enter not  all at once, or in open view, that being impracticable so long as  the enemy kept guard, but by stealth, and in small companies. And  so they took possession of the fortress and the palace of Dionysius,  with all the stores and ammunition he had prepared and laid up to  maintain the war. They found a good number of horses, every variety  of engines, a multitude of darts, and weapons to arm seventy thousand  men (a magazine that had been formed from ancient time), besides two  thousand soldiers that were then with him, whom he gave up with the  rest for Timoleon's service. Dionysius himself, putting his treasure  aboard, and taking a few friends, sailed away unobserved by Hicetes,  and being brought to the camp of Timoleon, there first appeared in  the humble dress of a private person, and was shortly after sent to  Corinth with a single ship and a small sum of money. Born and educated  in the most splendid court and the most absolute monarchy that ever  was, which he held and kept up for the space of ten years succeeding  his father's death, he had, after Dion's expedition, spent twelve  other years in a continual agitation of wars and contests, and great  variety of fortune, during which time all the mischiefs he had committed  in his former reign were more than repaid by the ills he himself then  suffered, since he lived to see the deaths of his sons in the prime  and vigour of their age, and the rape of his daughters in the flower  of their virginity, and the wicked abuse of his sister and his wife,  who, after being first exposed to all the lawless insults of the soldiery,  was then murdered with her children, and cast into the sea; the particulars  of which are more exactly given in the life of Dion.

14.                        Upon the news of his landing at Corinth, there was hardly a man in  Greece who had not the curiosity to come and view the late formidable  tyrant, and say some words to him; part, rejoicing at his disasters,  were led thither out of mere spite and hatred, that they might have  the pleasure of trampling, as it were, on the ruins of his broken  fortune; but others, letting their attention and their sympathy turn  rather to the changes and revolutions of his life, could not but see  in them a proof of the strength and potency with which divine and  unseen causes operate amidst the weakness of human and visible things.  For neither art nor nature did in that age produce anything comparable  to this work and wonder of fortune which showed the very same man,  that was not long before supreme monarch of Sicily, loitering about  perhaps in the fish-market, or sitting in a perfumer's shop drinking  the diluted wine of taverns, or squabbling in the street with common  women, or pretending to instruct the singing women of the theatre,  and seriously disputing with them about the measure and harmony of  pieces of music that were performed there. Such behaviour on his part  was variously criticized. He was thought by many to act thus out of  pure compliance with his own natural indolent and vicious inclinations;  while finer judges were of the opinion, that in all this he was playing  a politic part, with a design to be contemned among them, and that  the Corinthians might not feel any apprehension or suspicion of his  being uneasy under his reverse of fortune, or solicitous to retrieve  it; to avoid which danger, he purposely and against his true nature  affected an appearance of folly and want of spirit in his private  life and amusements.

15.                        However it be, there are sayings and repartees of his left still upon  record, which seem to show that he not ignobly accommodated himself  to his present circumstances; as may appear in part from the ingenuousness  of the avowal he made on coming to Leucadia, which, as well as Syracuse,  was a Corinthian colony, where he told the inhabitants that he found  himself not unlike boys who had been in fault, who can talk cheerfully  with their brothers, but are ashamed to see their father; so likewise  he, he said, could gladly reside with them in that island, whereas  he felt a certain awe upon his mind which made him averse to the sight  of Corinth, that was a common mother to them both. The thing is further  evident from the reply he once made to a stranger in Corinth, who  deriding him in a rude and scornful manner about the conferences he  used to have with philosophers, whose company had been one of his  pleasures while yet a monarch, and demanding, in fine, what he was  the better now for all those wise and learned discourses of Plato,  "Do you think," said he, "I have made no profit of his philosophy  when you see me bear my change of fortune as I do?" And when Aristoxenus  the musician, and several others, desired to know how Plato offended  him, and what had been the ground of his displeasure with him, he  made answer that, of the many evils attaching to the condition of  sovereignty, the one greatest infelicity was that none of those who  were accounted friends would venture to speak freely, or tell the  plain truth; and that by means of such he had been deprived of Plato's  kindness. At another time, when one of those pleasant companions that  are desirous to pass for wits, in mockery to Dionysius, as if he were  still the tyrant, shook out the folds of his cloak, as he was entering  into a room where he was, to show there were no concealed weapons  about him, Dionysius, by way of retort, observed, that he would prefer  he would do so on leaving the room, as a security that he was carrying  nothing off with him. And when Philip of Macedon, at a drinking party,  began to speak in banter about the verses and tragedies which his  father, Dionysius the elder, had left behind him, and pretended to  wonder how he could get any time from his other business to compose  such elaborate and ingenious pieces, he replied, very much to the  purpose, "It was at those leisurable hours, which such as you and  I, and those we call happy men, bestow upon our cups." Plato had not  the opportunity to see Dionysius at Corinth, being already dead before  he came thither; but Diogenes of Sinope, at their first meeting in  the street there, saluted him with the ambiguous expression, "O Dionysius,  how little you deserve your present life! Upon which Dionysius stopped  and replied, "I thank you, Diogenes, for your condolence." "Condole  with you!" replied Diogenes; "do you not suppose that, on the contrary,  I am indignant that such a slave as you, who, if you had your due,  should have been let alone to grow old and die in the state of tyranny,  as your father did before you, should now enjoy the ease of private  persons, and be here to sport and frolic in our society?" So that  when I compare those sad stories of Philistus, touching the daughters  of Leptines, where he makes pitiful moan on their behalf, as fallen  from all the blessings and advantages of powerful greatness to the  miseries of an humble life, they seem to me like the lamentations  of a woman who has lost her box of ointment, her purple dresses, and  her golden trinkets. Such anecdotes will not, I conceive, be thought  either foreign to my purpose of writing Lives, or unprofitable in  themselves, by such readers as are not in too much haste, or busied  and taken up with other concerns.

16.                        But if the misfortune of Dionysius appears strange and extraordinary,  we shall have no less reason to wonder at the good fortune of Timoleon,  who, within fifty days after his landing in Sicily, both recovered  the citadel of Syracuse and sent Dionysius an exile into Peloponnesus.  This lucky beginning so animated the Corinthians, that they ordered  him a supply of two thousand foot and two hundred horse, who, reaching  Thurii, intended to cross over thence into Sicily; but finding the  whole sea beset with Carthaginian ships, which made their passage  impracticable, they were constrained to stop there, and watch their  opportunity: which time, however, was employed in a noble action.  For the Thurians, going out to war against their Bruttian enemies,  left their city in charge with these Corinthian strangers, who defended  it as carefully as if it had been their own country, and faithfully  resigned it up again. Hicetes, in the interim, continued still to besiege the castle of  Syracuse, and hindered all provisions from coming in by sea to relieve  the Corinthians that were in it. He had engaged also, and despatched  towards Adranum, two unknown foreigners to assassinate Timoleon, who  at no time kept any standing guard about his person, and was then  altogether secure, diverting himself, without any apprehension, among  the citizens of the place, it being a festival in honour of their  gods. The two men that were sent, having casually heard that Timoleon  was about to sacrifice, came directly into the temple with poniards  under their cloaks, and pressing in among the crowd, by little and  little got up close to the altar; but, as they were just looking for  a sign from each other to begin the attempt, a third person struck  one of them over the head with a sword, upon whose sudden fall, neither  he that gave the blow, nor the partisan of him that received it, kept  their stations any longer; but the one, making way with his bloody  sword, put no stop to his flight, till he gained the top of a certain  lofty precipice, while the other, laying hold of the altar, besought  Timoleon to spare his life, and he would reveal to him the whole conspiracy.  His pardon being granted, he confessed that both himself and his dead  companion were sent thither purposely to slay him. While this discovery  was made, he that killed the other conspirator had been fetched down  from his sanctuary of the rock, loudly and often protesting, as he  came along, that there was no injustice in the fact, as he had only  taken righteous vengeance for his father's blood, whom this man had  murdered before in the city of Leontini; the truth of which was attested  by several there present, who could not choose but wonder too at the  strange dexterity of fortune's operations, the facility with which  she makes one event the spring and motion to something wholly different,  uniting every scattered accident and loose particular and remote action,  and interweaving them together to serve her purpose; so that things  that in themselves seem to have no connection or interdependence whatsoever,  become in her hands, so to say, the end and the beginning of each  other. The Corinthians, satisfied as to the innocence of this seasonable  feat, honoured and rewarded the author with a present of ten pounds  in their money, since he had, as it were, lent the use of his just  resentment to the tutelar genius that seemed to be protecting Timoleon,  and had not pre-expended this anger, so long ago conceived, but had  reserved and deferred, under fortune's guidance, for his preservation,  the revenge of a private quarrel.

17.                        But this fortunate escape had effects and consequences beyond the  present, as it inspired the highest hopes and future expectations  of Timoleon, making people reverence and protect him as a sacred person  sent by heaven to revenge and redeem Sicily. Hicetes, having missed  his aim in this enterprise, and perceiving, also, that many went off  and sided with Timoleon, began to chide himself for his foolish modesty,  that, when so considerable a force of the Carthaginians lay ready  to be commanded by him, he had employed them hitherto by degrees and  in small numbers, introducing their reinforcements by stealth and  clandestinely, as if he had been ashamed of the action. Therefore,  now laying aside his former nicety, he calls in Mago, their admiral,  with his whole navy, who presently set sail, and seized upon the port  with a formidable fleet of at least a hundred and fifty vessels, landing  there sixty thousand foot, which were all lodged within the city of  Syracuse; so that, in all men's opinion, the time anciently talked  of and long expected, wherein Sicily should be subjugated by barbarians,  was now come to its fatal period. For in all their preceding wars  and many desperate conflicts with Sicily, the Carthaginians had never  been able, before this, to take Syracuse; whereas Hicetes now receiving  them and putting them into their hands, you might see it become now  as it were a camp of barbarians. By this means, the Corinthian soldiers  that kept the castle found themselves brought into great danger and  hardship; as, besides that their provision grew scarce, and they began  to be in want, because the havens were strictly guarded and blocked  up, the enemy exercised them still with skirmishes and combats about  their walls, and they were not only obliged to be continually in arms,  but to divide and prepare themselves for assaults and encounters of  every kind, and to repel every variety of the means of offence employed  by a besieging army.

18.                        Timoleon made shift to relieve them in these straits, sending corn  from Catana by small fishing-boats and little skiffs, which commonly  gained a passage through the Carthaginian galleys in times of storm,  stealing up when the blockading ships were driven apart and dispersed  by the stress of weather; which Mago and Hicetes observing, they agreed  to fall upon Catana, from whence these supplies were brought in to  the besieged, and accordingly put off from Syracuse, taking with them  the best soldiers in their whole army. Upon this Neon the Corinthian,  who was captain of those that kept the citadel, taking notice that  the enemies who stayed there behind were very negligent and careless  in keeping guard, made a sudden sally upon them as they lay scattered,  and, killing some and putting others to flight, he took and possessed  himself of that quarter which they call Acradina, and was thought  to be the strongest and most impregnable part of Syracuse, a city  made up and compacted, as it were, of several towns put together.  Having thus stored himself with corn and money, he did not abandon  the place, nor retire again into the castle, but fortifying the precincts  of Acradina, and joining it by works to the citadel, he undertook  the defence of both. Mago and Hicetes were now come near to Catana,  when a horseman, despatched from Syracuse, brought them tidings that  Acradina was taken; upon which they returned, in all haste, with great  disorder and confusion, having neither been able to reduce the city  they went against, nor to preserve that they were masters of.

19.                        These successes, indeed, were such as might leave foresight and courage  a pretence still of disputing it with fortune, which contributed most  to the result. But the next following event can scarcely be ascribed  to anything but pure felicity. The Corinthian soldiers who stayed  at Thurii, partly for fear of the Carthaginian galleys which lay in  wait for them under the command of Hanno, and partly because of tempestuous  weather which had lasted for many days, and rendered the sea dangerous,  took a resolution to march by land over the Bruttian territories,  and what with persuasion and force together, made good their passage  through those barbarians to the city of Rhegium, the sea being still  rough and raging as before. But Hanno, not expecting the Corinthians  would venture out, and supposing it would be useless to wait there  any longer, bethought himself, as he imagined, of a most ingenious  and clever stratagem apt to delude and ensnare the enemy; in pursuance  of which he commanded the seamen to crown themselves with garlands,  and adorning his galleys with bucklers both of the Greek and Carthaginian  make, he sailed away for Syracuse in this triumphant equipage, and  using all his oars as he passed under the castle with much shouting  and laughter, cried out, on purpose to dishearten the besieged, that  he was come from vanquishing and taking the Corinthian succours, which  he fell upon at sea as they were passing over into Sicily. While he  was thus trifling and playing his tricks before Syracuse, the Corinthians,  now come as far as Rhegium, observing the coast clear, and that the  wind was laid, as it were by miracle, to afford them in all appearance  a quiet and smooth passage, went immediately aboard on such little  barks and fishing-boats as were then at hand, and got over to Sicily  with such complete safety and in such an extraordinary calm, that  they drew their horses by the reins, swimming along by them as the  vessels went across.

20.                        When they were all landed, Timoleon came to receive them, and by their  means at once obtained possession of Messena, from whence he marched  in good order to Syracuse, trusting more to his late prosperous achievements  than his present strength, as the whole army he had then with him  did not exceed the number of four thousand: Mago, however, was troubled  and fearful at the first notice of his coming, and grew more apprehensive  and jealous still upon the following occasion. The marshes about Syracuse,  that receive a great deal of fresh water, as well from springs as  from lakes and rivers discharging themselves into the sea, breed abundance  of eels, which may be always taken there in great quantities by any  that will fish for them. The mercenary soldiers that served on both  sides were wont to follow the sport together at their vacant hours,  and upon any cessation of arms; who being all Greeks, and having no  cause of private enmity to each other, as they would venture bravely  in fight, so in times of truce used to meet and converse amicably  together. And at this present time, while engaged about this common  business of fishing, they fell into talk together; and some expressing  their admiration of the neighbouring sea, and others telling how much  they were taken with the convenience and commodiousness of the buildings  and public works, one of the Corinthian party took occasion to demand  of the others: "And is it possible that you who are Grecians born  should be so forward to reduce a city of this greatness, and enjoying  so many rare advantages, into the state of barbarism; and lend your  assistance to plant Carthaginans, that are the worst and bloodiest  of men, so much the nearer to us? whereas you should rather wish there  were many more Sicilies to lie between them and Greece. Have you so  little sense as to believe, that they come hither with an army, from  the Pillars of Hercules and the Atlantic Sea, to hazard themselves  for the establishment of Hicetes? who, if he had had the consideration  which becomes a general, would never have thrown out his ancestors  and founders to bring in the enemies of his country in the room of  them, when he might have enjoyed all suitable honour and command,  with consent of Timoleon and the rest of Corinth." The Greeks that  were in pay with Hicetes, noising these discourses about their camp,  gave Mago some ground to suspect, as indeed he had long sought for  a pretence to be gone, that there was treachery contrived against  him; so that, although Hicetes entreated him to tarry, and made it  appear how much stronger they were than the enemy, yet, conceiving  they came far more short of Timoleon in respect of courage and fortune  than they surpassed him in number, he presently went aboard and set  sail for Africa, letting Sicily escape out of his hands with dishonour  to himself, and for such uncertain causes, that no human reason could  give an account of his departure.

21.                        The day after he went away, Timoleon came up before the city in array  for a battle. But when he and his company heard of this sudden flight;  and saw the docks all empty, they could not forbear laughing at the  cowardice of Mago, and in mockery caused proclamation to be made through  the city that a reward would be given to any one who could bring them  tidings whither the Carthaginian fleet had conveyed itself from them.  However, Hicetes resolving to fight it out alone, and not quitting  his hold of the city, but sticking close to the quarters he was in  possession of, places that were well fortified and not easy to be  attacked, Timoleon divided his forces into three parts, and fell himself  upon the side where the river Anapas ran, which was most strong and  difficult of access; and he commanded those that were led by Isias,  a Corinthian captain, to make their assault from the post of Acradina,  while Dinarchus and Demaretus, that brought him the last supply from  Corinth, were, with a third division, to attempt the quarter called  Epipolae. A considerable impression being made from every side at  once, the soldiers of Hicetes were beaten off and put to flight; and  this- that the city came to be taken by storm, and fall suddenly into  their hands, upon the defeat and rout of the enemy- we must in all  justice ascribe to the valour of the assailants and the wise conduct  of their general; but that not so much as a man of the Corinthians  was either slain or wounded in the action, this the good fortune of  Timoleon seems to challenge for her own work, as though, in a sort  of rivalry with his own personal exertions, she made it her aim to  exceed and obscure his actions by her favours, that those who heard  him commended for his noble deeds might rather admire the happiness  than the merit of them. For the fame of what was done not only passed  through all Sicily, and filled Italy with wonder, but even Greece  itself, after a few days, came to ring with the greatness of his exploit;  insomuch that those of Corinth, who had as yet no certainty that their  auxiliaries were landed on the island, had tidings brought them at  the same time that they were safe and were conquerors. In so prosperous  a course did affairs run, and such was the speed and celerity of execution  with which fortune, as with a new ornament, set off the native lustres  of the performance.

22.                        Timoleon, being master of the citadel, avoided the error which Dion  had been guilty of. He spared not the place for the beauty and sumptuousness  of its fabric, and, keeping clear of those suspicions which occasioned  first the unpopularity and afterwards the fall of Dion, made a public  crier give notice that all the Syracusans who were willing to have  a hand in the work should bring pick-axes and mattocks, and other  instruments, and help him to demolish the fortifications of the tyrants.  When they all came up with one accord, looking upon that order and  that day as the surest foundation of their liberty, they not only  pulled down the castle, but overturned the palaces and monuments adjoining,  and whatever else might preserve any memory of former tyrants. Having  soon levelled and cleared the place, he there presently erected courts  for administration of justice, ratifying the citizens by this means,  and building popular government on the fall and ruin of tyranny. But  since he had recovered a city destitute of inhabitants, some of them  dead in civil wars and insurrections, and others being fled to escape  tyrants, so that through solitude and want of people the great market-place  of Syracuse was overgrown with such quantity of rank herbage that  it became a pasture for their horses, the grooms lying along in the  grass as they fed by them; while also other towns, very few excepted,  were become full of stags and wild boars, so that those who had nothing  else to do went frequently a-hunting, and found game in the suburbs  and about the walls; and not one of those who possessed themselves  of castles, or made garrisons in the country, could be persuaded to  quit their present abode, or would accept an invitation to return  back into the city, so much did they all dread and abhor the very  name of assemblies and forms of government and public speaking, that  had produced the greater part of those usurpers who had successively  assumed a dominion over them- Timoleon, therefore, with the Syracusans  that remained, considering this vast desolation, and how little hope  there was to have it otherwise supplied, thought good to write to  the Corinthians, requesting that they would send a colony out of Greece  to repeople Syracuse. For else the land about it would lie unimproved;  and besides this, they expected to be involved in a greater war from  Africa, having news brought them that Mago had killed himself, and  that the Carthaginians, out of rage for his ill-conduct in the late  expedition, had caused his body to be nailed upon a cross, and that  they were raising a mighty force, with design to make their descent  upon Sicily the next summer.

23.                        These letters from Timoleon being delivered at Corinth, and the ambassadors  of Syracuse beseeching them at the same time that they would take  upon them the care of their poor city, and once again become the founders  of it, the Corinthians were not tempted by any feeling of cupidity  to lay hold of the advantage. Nor did they seize and appropriate the  city to themselves, but going about first to the games that are kept  as sacred in Greece, and to the most numerously attended religious  assemblages, they made publication by heralds, that the Corinthians,  having destroyed the usurpation at Syracuse and driven out the tyrant,  did thereby invite the Syracusan exiles, and any other Siceliots,  to return and inhabit the city, with full enjoyment of freedom under  their own laws, the land being divided among them in just and equal  proportions. And after this, sending messengers into Asia and the  several islands where they understood that most of the scattered fugitives  were then residing, they bade them all repair to Corinth, engaging  that the Corinthians would afford them vessels and commanders, and  a safe convoy, at their own charges, to Syracuse. Such generous proposals,  being thus spread about, gained them the just and honourable recompense  of general praise and benediction, for delivering the country from  oppressors, and saving it from barbarians, and restoring it at length  to the rightful owners of the place. These, when they were assembled  at Corinth, and found how insufficient their company was, besought  the Corinthians that they might have a supplement of other persons,  as well out of their city as the rest of Greece, to go with them as  joint colonists; and so raising themselves to the number of ten thousand,  they sailed together to Syracuse. By this time great multitudes, also,  from Italy and Sicily had flocked in to Timoleon, so that, as Athanis  reports, their entire body amounted now to sixty thousand men. Among  these he divided the whole territory, and sold the houses for a thousand  talents; by which method he both left it in the power of the old Syracusans  to redeem their own, and made it a means also for raising a stock  for the community, which had been so much impoverished of late and  was so unable to defray other expenses, and especially those of a  war, that they exposed their very statues to sale, a regular process  being observed, and sentence of auction passed upon each of them by  majority of votes, as if they had been so many criminals taking their  trial; in the course of which it is said that while condemnation was  pronounced upon all other statues, that of the ancient usurper Gelo  was exempted, out of admiration and honour and for the sake of the  victory he gained over the Carthaginian forces at the river Himera.

24.                        Syracuse being thus happily revived, and replenished again by the  general concourse of inhabitants from all parts, Timoleon was desirous  now to rescue other cities from the like bondage, and wholly and once  for all to extirpate arbitrary government out of Sicily. And for this  purpose, marching in to the territories of those that used it, he  compelled Hicetes first to renounce the Carthaginian interest, and,  demolishing the fortresses which were held by him, to live henceforth  among the Leontinians as a private person. Leptines, also, the tyrant  of Apollonia and divers other little towns, after some resistance  made, seeing the danger he was in of being taken by force, surrendered  himself; upon which Timoleon spared his life, and sent him away to  Corinth, counting it a glorious thing that the mother city should  expose to the view of other Greeks these Sicilian tyrants, living  now in an exiled and a low condition. After this he returned to Syracuse,  that he might have leisure to attend to the establishment of the new  constitution, and assist Cephalus and Dionysius, who were sent from  Corinth to make laws, in determining the most important points of  it. In the meanwhile, desirous that his hired soldiers should not  want action, but might rather enrich themselves by some plunder from  the enemy, he despatched Dinarchus and Demaretus with a portion of  them into the part of the island belonging to the Carthaginians, where  they obliged several cities to revolt from the barbarians, and not  only lived in great abundance themselves, but raised money from their  spoil to carry on the war.

25.                        Meantime, the Carthaginians landed at the promontory of Lilybaeum,  bringing with them an army of seventy thousand men on board two hundred  galleys, besides a thousand other vessels laden with engines of battery,  chariots, corn, and other military stores, as if they did not intend  to manage the war by piecemeal and in parts as heretofore, but to  drive the Greeks altogether and at once out of all Sicily. And indeed  it was a force sufficient to overpower the Siceliots, even though  they had been at perfect union among themselves, and had never been  enfeebled by intestine quarrels. Hearing that part of their subject  territory was suffering devastation, they forthwith made toward the  Corinthians with great fury, having Asdrubal and Hamilcar for their  generals; the report of whose number and strength coming suddenly  to Syracuse, the citizens were so terrified, that hardly three thousand,  among so many myriads of them, had the courage to take up arms and  join Timoleon. The foreigners, serving for pay, were not above four  thousand in all, and about a thousand of these grew faint-hearted  by the way, and forsook Timoleon in his march towards the enemy, looking  on him as frantic and distracted, destitute of the sense which might  have been expected from his time of life, thus to venture out against  an army of seventy thousand men, with no more than five thousand foot  and a thousand horse; and, when he should have kept those forces to  defend the city, choosing rather to remove them eight days' journey  from Syracuse, so that if they were beaten from the field, they would  have no retreat, nor any burial if they fell upon it. Timoleon, however,  reckoned it some kind of advantage, that these had thus discovered  themselves before the battle, and encouraging the rest, led them with  all speed to the river Crimesus, where it was told him the Carthaginians  were drawn together.

26.                        As he was marching up an ascent, from the top of which they expected  to have a view of the army and of the strength of the enemy, there  met him by chance a train of mules loaded with parsley; which his  soldiers conceived to be an ominous occurrence or ill-boding token,  because this is the herb with which we not unfrequently adorn the  sepulchres of the dead; and there is a proverb derived from the custom,  used of one who is dangerously sick, that he has need of nothing but  parsley. So to ease their minds, and free them from any superstitious  thoughts or forebodings of evil, Timoleon halted, and concluded an  address suitable to the occasion, by saying, that a garland of triumph  was here luckily brought them, and had fallen into their hands of  its own accord, as an anticipation of victory: the same with which  the Corinthians crown the victors in the Isthmian games, accounting  chaplets of parsley the sacred wreath proper to their country; parsley  being at that time still the emblem of victory at the Isthmian, as  it is now at the Nemean sports; and it is not so very long ago that  the pine first began to be used in its place. Timoleon, therefore, having thus bespoke his soldiers, took part of  the parsley, and with it made himself a chaplet first, his captains  and their companies all following the example of their leader. The  soothsayers then, observing also two eagles on the wing towards them,  one of which bore a snake struck through with her talons, and the  other, as she flew, uttered a loud cry indicating boldness and assurance,  at once showed them to the soldiers, who with one consent fell to  supplicate the gods, and call them in to their assistance.

27.                        It was  now about the beginning of summer, and conclusion of the month called  Thargelion, not far from the solstice; and the river sending up a  thick mist, all the adjacent plain was at first darkened with the  fog, so that for a while they could discern nothing from the enemy's  camp; only a confused buzz and undistinguished mixture of voices came  up to the hill from the distant motions and clamours of so vast a  multitude. When the Corinthians had mounted, and stood on the top,  and had laid down their bucklers to take breath and repose themselves,  the sun coming round and drawing up the vapours from below, the gross  foggy air that was now gathered and condensed above formed in a cloud  upon the mountains; and, all the under places being clear and open,  the river Crimesus appeared to them again, and they could descry the  enemies passing over it, first with their formidable four-horse chariots  of war, and then ten thousand footmen bearing white shields, whom  they guessed to be all Carthaginians, from the splendour of their  arms, and the slowness and order of their march. And when now the  troops of various other nations, flowing in behind them, began to  throng for passage in a tumultuous and unruly manner, Timoleon, perceiving  that the river gave them opportunity to single off whatever number  of their enemies they had a mind to engage at and bidding his soldiers  observe how their forces were divided into two separate bodies by  the intervention of the stream, some being already over, and others  still to ford it, gave Demaretus command to fall in upon the Carthaginians  with his horse, and disturb their ranks before they should be drawn  up into form of battle; and coming down into the plain himself forming  his right and left wing of other Sicilians, intermingling only a few  strangers in each, he placed the natives of Syracuse in the middle,  with the stoutest mercenaries he had about his own person; and waiting  a little to observe the action of his horse, when they saw they were  not only hindered from grappling with the Carthaginians by the armed  chariots that ran to and fro before the army, but forced continually  to wheel about to escape having their ranks broken, and so to repeat  their charges anew, he took his buckler in his hand, and crying out  to the foot that they should follow him with courage and confidence,  he seemed to speak with a more than human accent, and a voice stronger  than ordinary; whether it were that he naturally raised it so high  in the vehemence and ardour with his mind to assault the enemy, or  else, as many then thought, some god or other spoke with him. When  his soldiers quickly gave an echo to it, and besought him to lead  them on without any further delay, he made a sign to the horse, that  they should draw off from the front where the chariots were, and pass  sidewards to attack their enemies in the flank; then, making his vanguard  firm by joining man to man and buckler to buckler, he caused the trumpet  to sound, and so bore in upon the Carthaginians.

28.                        They, for their part, stoutly received and sustained his first onset;  and having their bodies armed with breast-plates of iron, and helmets  of brass on their heads, besides great bucklers to cover and secure  them, they could easily repel the charge of the Greek spears. But  when the business came to a decision by the sword, where mastery depends  no less upon art than strength, all on a sudden from the mountain-tops  violent peals of thunder and vivid flashes of lightning broke out;  following upon which the darkness, that had been hovering about the  higher grounds and the crests of the hills, descending to the place  of battle and bringing a tempest of rain and of wind and hail along  with it, was driven upon the Greeks behind, and fell only at their  backs, but discharged itself in the very faces of the barbarians,  the rain beating on them, and the lightning dazzling them without  cessation; annoyances that in many ways distressed at any rate the  inexperienced, who had not been used to such hardships, and, in particular,  the claps of thunder, and the noise of the rain and hail beating on  their arms, kept them from hearing the commands of their officers.  Besides which, the very mud also was a great hindrance to the Carthaginans,  who were not lightly equipped, but, as I said before, loaded with  heavy armour; and then their shirts underneath getting drenched, the  foldings about the bosom filled with water, grew unwieldy and cumbersome  to them as they fought, and made it easy for the Greeks to throw them  down, and, when they were once down, impossible for them, under that  weight, to disengage themselves and rise again with weapons in their  hands. The river Crimesus, too, swollen partly by the rain, and partly  by the stoppage of its course with the numbers that were passing through,  overflowed its banks; and the level ground by the side of it, being  so situated as to have a number of small ravines and hollows of the  hillside descending upon it, was now filled with rivulets and currents  that had no certain channel, in which the Carthaginians stumbled and  rolled about, and found themselves in great difficulty. So that, in  fine, the storm bearing still upon them, and the Greeks having cut  in pieces four hundred men of their first ranks, the whole body of  their army began to fly. Great numbers were overtaken in the plain,  and put to the sword there; and many of them, as they were making  their way back through the river, falling foul upon others that were  yet coming over, were borne away and overwhelmed by the waters; but  the major part, attempting to get up the hill so as to make their  escape, were intercepted and destroyed by the light-armed troops.  It is said that, of ten thousand who lay dead after the fight, three  thousand, at least, were Carthaginian citizens; a heavy loss and great  grief to their countrymen; those that fell being men inferior to none  among them as to birth, wealth, or reputation. Nor do their records  mention that so many native Carthaginians were ever cut off before  in any one battle; as they usually employed Africans, Spaniards, and  Numidians in their wars, so that if they chanced to be defeated, it  was still at the cost and damage of other nations.

29.                        The Greeks easily discovered of what condition and account the slain  were by the richness of their spoils; for when they came to collect  the booty, there was little reckoning made either of brass or iron,  so abundant were better metals, and so common were silver and gold.  Passing over the river they became masters of their camp and carriages.  As for captives, a great many of them were stolen away and sold privately  by the soldiers but about five thousand were brought in and delivered  up for the benefit of the public; two hundred of their chariots of  war were also taken. The tent of Timoleon then presented a most glorious  and magnificent appearance, being heaped up and hung round with every  variety of spoils and military ornaments, among which there were a  thousand breastplates of rare workmanship and beauty, and bucklers  to the number of ten thousand. The victors being but few to strip  so many that were vanquished, and having such valuable booty to occupy  them, it was the third day after the fight before they could erect  and finish the trophy of their conquest. Timoleon sent tidings of  his victory to Corinth, with the best and goodliest arms he had taken  as a proof of it; that he thus might render his country an object  of emulation to the whole world, when, of all the cities of Greece,  men should there alone behold the chief temples adorned, not with  Grecian spoils, nor offerings obtained by the bloodshed and plunder  of their own countrymen and kindred, and attended, therefore, with  sad and unhappy remembrances, but with such as had been stripped from  barbarians and enemies to their nation, with the noblest titles inscribed  upon them, titles telling of the justice as well as fortitude of the  conquerors; namely, that the people of Corinth, and Timoleon their  general, having redeemed the Greeks of Sicily from Carthaginian bondage,  made oblation of these to the gods, in grateful acknowledgment of  their favour.

30.                        Having done this, he left his hired soldiers in the enemy's country  to drive and carry away all they could throughout the subject-territory  of Carthage, and so marched with the rest of his army to Syracuse,  where he issued an edict for banishing the thousand mercenaries who  had basely deserted him before the battle, and obliged them to quit  the city before sunset. They, sailing into Italy, lost their lives  there by the hands of the Bruttians, in spite of a public assurance  of safety previously given them; thus receiving, from the divine power,  a just reward of their own treachery. Mamercus, however, the tyrant  of Catana, and Hicetes, after all, either envying Timoleon the glory  of his exploits, or fearing him as one that would keep no agreement,  or having any peace with tyrants, made a league with the Carthaginians,  and pressed them much to send a new army and commander into Sicily,  unless they would be content to hazard all and to be wholly ejected  out of that island. And in consequence of this, Gisco was despatched  with a navy of seventy sail. He took numerous Greek mercenaries also  into pay, that being the first time they had ever been enlisted for  the Carthaginian service; but then it seems the Carthaginians began  to admire them, as the most irresistible soldiers of all mankind.  Uniting their forces in the territory of Messena, they cut off four  hundred of Timoleon's paid soldiers, and within the dependencies of  Carthage, at a place called Hierae, destroyed, by an ambuscade, the  whole body of mercenaries that served under Euthymus the Leucadian;  which accidents, however, made the good fortune of Timoleon accounted  all the more remarkable, as these were the men that, with Philomelus  of Phocis and Onomarchus, had forcibly broken into the temple of Apollo  at Delphi, and were partakers with them in the sacrilege; so that  being hated and shunned by all, as persons under a curse, they were  constrained to wander about in Peloponnesus; when, for want of others,  Timoleon was glad to take them into service in his expedition for  Sicily, where they were successful in whatever enterprise they attempted  under his conduct. But now, when all the important dangers were past,  on his sending them out for the relief and defence of his party in  several places, they perished and were destroyed at a distance from  him, not all together, but in small parties; and the vengeance which  was destined for them, so accommodating itself to the good fortune  which guarded Timoleon as not to allow any harm or prejudice for good  men to arise from the punishment of the wicked, the benevolence and  kindness which the gods had for Timoleon was thus as distinctly recognized  in his disasters as in his successes.

31.                        What most annoyed the Syracusans was their being insulted and mocked  by the tyrants; as, for example, by Mamercus, who valued himself much  upon his gift for writing poems and tragedies, and took occasion,  when coming to present the gods with the bucklers of the hired soldiers  whom he had killed, to make a boast of his victory in an insulting  elegiac inscription:-

These shields with purple, gold, and ivory wrought,  

Were won by us that but with poor ones fought.

After this, while Timoleon marched to Calauria, Hicetes made an inroad  into the borders of Syracuse, where he met with considerable booty,  and having done much mischief and havoc, returned back to Calauria  itself, in contempt of Timoleon and the slender force he had then  with him. He, suffering Hicetes to pass forward, pursued him with  his horsemen and light infantry, which Hicetes perceiving, crossed  the river Damyrias, and then stood in a posture to receive him; the  difficulty of the passage, and the height and steepness of the bank  on each side, giving advantage enough to make him confident. A strange  contention and dispute, meantime, among the officers of Timoleon a  little retarded the conflict; no one of them was willing to let another  pass over before him to engage the enemy; each man claiming it as  a right to venture first and begin the onset; so that their fording  was likely to be tumultuous and without order, a mere general struggle  which should be the foremost. Timoleon, therefore, desiring to decide  the quarrel by lot, took a ring from each of the pretenders, which  he cast into his own cloak, and, after he had shaken all together,  the first he drew out had, by good fortune, the figure of a trophy  engraved as a seal upon it; at the sight of which the young captains  all shouted for joy, and, without waiting any longer to see how chance  would determine it for the rest, took every man his way through the  river with all the speed they could make, and fell to blows with the  enemies, who were not able to bear up against the violence of their  attack, but fled in haste and left their arms behind them all alike,  and a thousand dead upon the place.

32.    Not long after, Timoleon, marching up to the city of the Leontines,  took Hicetes alive, and his son Eupolemus, and Euthymus, the commander  of his horse, who were bound and brought to him by their own soldiers.  Hicetes and the stripling his son were then executed as tyrants and  traitors; and Euthymus, though a brave man, and one of singular courage,  could obtain no mercy, because he was charged with contemptuous language  in disparagement of the Corinthians when they first sent their forces  into Sicily; it is said that he told the Leontini in a speech that  the news did not sound terrible, nor was any great danger to be feared  because of-

Corinthian women coming out of doors.

So true it is that men are  usually more stung and galled by reproachful words than hostile actions:  and they bear an affront with less patience than an injury; to do  harm and mischief by deeds is counted pardonable from the enemies,  as nothing less can be expected in a state of war; whereas virulent  and contumelious words appear to be the expression of needless hatred,  and to proceed from an excess of rancour.

33.                        When Timoleon came back to Syracuse, the citizens brought the wives  and daughters of Hicetes and his son to a public trial, and condemned  and put them to death. This seems to be the least pleasing action  of Timoleon's life; since if he had interposed, the unhappy women  would have been spared. He would appear to have disregarded the thing,  and to have given them up to the citizens, who were eager to take  vengeance for the wrongs done to Dion, who expelled Dionysius; since  it was this very Hicetes who took Arete the wife and Aristomache the  sister of Dion, with a son that had not yet passed his childhood,  and threw them all together into the sea alive, as related in the  life of Dion.

34.                        After this, he moved towards Catana against Mamercus, who gave him  battle near the river Abolus, and was overthrown and put to flight,  losing above two thousand men, a considerable part of whom were the  Phoenician troops sent by Gisco to his assistance. After this defeat  the Carthaginians sued for peace; which was granted on the conditions  that they should confine themselves to the country within the river  Lycus, that those of the inhabitants who wished to remove to the Syracusan  territories should be allowed to depart with their whole families  and fortunes, and, lastly, that Carthage should renounce all engagements  to the tyrants. Mamercus, now forsaken and despairing of success,  took ship for Italy with the design of bringing in the Lucanians against  Timoleon and the people of Syracuse; but the men in his galleys turning  back and landing again and delivering up Catana to Timoleon, thus  obliged him to fly for his own safety to Messena, where Hippo was  tyrant. Timoleon, however, coming up against them, and besieging the  city both by sea and land, Hippo, fearful of the event, endeavoured  to slip away in a vessel; which the people of Messena surprised as  it was putting off, and seizing on his person, and bringing all their  children from school into the theatre, to witness the glorious spectacle  of a tyrant punished, they first publicly scourged and then put him  to death. Mamercus made surrender of himself to Timoleon, with the  proviso that he should be tried at Syracuse and Timoleon should take  no part in his accusation. Thither he was brought accordingly, and  presenting himself to plead before the people, he essayed to pronounce  an oration he had long before composed in his own defence; but finding  himself interrupted by noise and clamours, and observing from their  aspect and demeanour that the assembly was inexorable, he threw off  his upper garment, and running across the theatre as hard as he could,  dashed his head against one of the stones under the seats with intention  to have killed himself; but he had not the fortune to perish as he  designed, but was taken up alive, and suffered the death of a robber.

35.                        Thus did Timoleon cut the nerves of tyranny and put a period to the  wars; and, whereas, at his first entering upon Sicily, the island  was as it were become wild again, and was hateful to the very natives  on account of the evils and miseries they suffered there, he so civilized  and restored it, and rendered it so desirable to all men, that even  strangers now came by sea to inhabit those towns and places which  their own citizens had formerly forsaken and left desolate. Agrigentum  and Gela, two famous cities that had been ruined and laid waste by  the Carthaginians after the Attic war, were then peopled again, the  one by Megellus and Pheristus from Elea, the other by Gorgus, from  the island of Ceos, partly with new settlers, partly with the old  inhabitants whom they collected again from various parts; to all of  whom Timoleon not only afforded a secure and peaceful abode after  so obstinate a war, but was further so zealous in assisting and providing  for them that he was honoured among them as their founder. Similar  feelings also possessed to such a degree all the rest of the Sicilians  that there was no proposal for peace, nor reformation of laws, nor  assignation of land, nor reconstruction of government, which they  could think well of, unless he lent his aid as a chief architect,  to finish and adorn the work, and superadd some touches from his own  hand, which might render it pleasing both to God and man.

36.                        Although Greece had in his time produced several persons of extraordinary  worth, and much renowned for their achievements, such as Timotheus  and Agesilaus and Pelopidas and (Timoleon's chief model) Epaminondas,  yet the lustre of their best actions was obscured by a degree of violence  and labour, insomuch that some of them were matter of blame and of  repentance; whereas there is not any one act of Timoleon's, setting  aside the necessity he was placed under in reference to his brother,  to which, as Timaeus observes, we may not fitly apply that exclamation  of Sophocles-

O gods! what Aphrodite, or what grace divine,  

Did here with human workmanship combine?

For as the poetry of Antimachus,  and the painting of Dionysius, the artists of Colophon, though full  of force and vigour, yet appeared to be strained and elaborate in  comparison with the pictures of Nicomachus and the verses of Homer,  which, besides their general strength and beauty, have the peculiar  charm of seeming to have been executed with perfect ease and readiness;  so the expeditions and acts of Epaminondas or Agesilaus, that were  full of toil and effort, when compared with the easy and natural as  well as noble and glorious achievements of Timoleon, compel our fair  and unbiased judgment to pronounce the latter not indeed the effect  of fortune, but the success of fortunate merit. Though he himself  indeed ascribed that success to the sole favour of fortune; and both  in the letters which he wrote to his friends at Corinth, and in the  speeches he made to the people of Syracuse, he would say, that he  was thankful unto God, who, designing to save Sicily, was pleased  to honour him with the name and title of the deliverance he vouchsafed  it. And having built a chapel in his house, he there sacrificed to  Good Hap, as a deity that had favoured him, and devoted the house  itself to the Sacred Genius; it being a house which the Syracusans  had selected for him, as a special reward and monument of his brave  exploits, granting him together with it the most agreeable and beautiful  piece of land in the whole country, where he kept his residence for  the most part, and enjoyed a private life with his wife and children,  who came to him from Corinth. For he returned thither no more, unwilling  to be concerned in the broils and tumults of Greece, or to expose  himself to public envy (the fatal mischief which great commanders  continually run into, from the insatiable appetite for honours and  authority); but wisely chose to spend the remainder of his days in  Sicily, and there partake of the blessings he himself had procured,  the greatest of which was to behold so many cities flourish, and so  many thousands of people live happy through his means.

37.                        As, however, not only, as Simonides says, "on every lark must grow  a crest," but also in every democracy there must spring up a false  accuser, so was it at Syracuse: two of their popular spokesmen, Laphystius  and Demaenetus by name, fell to slander Timoleon. The former of whom  requiring him to put in sureties that he would answer to an indictment  that would be brought against him, Timoleon would not suffer the citizens,  who were incensed at this demand, to oppose it or hinder the proceeding,  since he of his own accord had been, he said, at all that trouble,  and run so many dangerous risks for this very end and purpose, that  every one who wished to try matters by law should freely have recourse  to it. And when Demaenetus, in a full audience of the people, laid  several things to his charge which had been done while he was general,  he made no reply to him, but only said he was much indebted to the  gods for granting the request he had so often made them, namely, that  he might live to see the Syracusans enjoy that liberty of speech which  they now seemed to be masters of.

Timoleon, therefore, having by confession of all done the greatest  and the noblest things of any Greek of his age, and alone distinguished  himself in those actions to which their orators and philosophers,  in their harangues and panegyrics at their solemn national assemblies,  used to exhort and incite the Greeks, and being withdrawn beforehand  by happy fortune, unspotted and without blood, from the calamities  of civil war, in which ancient Greece was soon after involved; having  also given full proof, as of his sage conduct and manly courage to  the barbarians and tyrants, so of his justice and gentleness to the  Greeks, and his friends in general; having raised, too, the greater  part of those trophies he won in battle without any tears shed or  any mourning worn by the citizens either of Syracuse or Corinth, and  within less than eight years' space delivered Sicily from its inveterate  grievances and intestine distempers, and given it up free to the native  inhabitants, began, as he was now growing old, to find his eyes fail,  and awhile after became perfectly blind. Not that he had done anything  himself which might occasion this defect, or was deprived of his sight  by any outrage of fortune; it seems rather to have been some inbred  and hereditary weakness that was founded in natural causes, which  by length of time came to discover itself. For it is said, that several  of his kindred and family were subject to the like gradual decay,  and lost all use of their eyes, as he did, in their declining years.  Athanis the historian tells us that even during the war against Hippo  and Mamercus, while he was in his camp at Mylae, there appeared a  white speck within his eye, from whence all could foresee the deprivation  that was coming on him; this, however, did not hinder him then from  continuing the siege, and prosecuting the war, till he got both the  tyrants into his power; but upon his coming back to Syracuse, he presently  resigned the authority of sole commander, and besought the citizens  to excuse him from any further service, since things were already  brought to so fair an issue.

38.                        Nor is it so much to be wondered that  he himself should bear the misfortune without any marks of trouble;  but the respect and gratitude which the Syracusans showed him when  he was entirely blind may justly deserve our admiration. They used  to go themselves to visit him in troops and brought all the strangers  that travelled through their country to his house and manor, that  they also might have the pleasure to see their noble benefactor; making  it the great matter of their joy and exultation, that when, after  so many brave and happy exploits, he might have returned with triumph  into Greece, he should disregard all the glorious preparations that  were there made to receive him, and choose rather to stay here and  end his days among them. Of the various things decreed and done in  honour of Timoleon, I consider one most signal testimony to have been  the vote which they passed, that, whenever they should be at war with  any foreign nation, they should make use of none but a Corinthian  general. The method, also, of their proceeding in council was a noble  demonstration of the same deference for his person. For, determining  matters of less consequence themselves, they always called him to  advise in the more difficult cases, and such as were of greater moment.  He was, on these occasions, carried through the market-place in a  litter, and brought in, sitting, into the theatre, where the people  with one voice saluted him by his name; and then, after returning  the courtesy, and pausing for a time, till the noise of their gratulations  and blessings began to cease, he heard the business in debate, and  delivered his opinion. This being confirmed by a general suffrage,  his servants went back with the litter through the midst of the assembly,  the people waiting on him out with acclamations and applauses, and  then returning to consider other public matters, which they could  dispatch in his absence.

39.                        Being thus cherished in his old age, with  all the respect and tenderness due to a common father, he was seized  with a very slight indisposition, which, however, was sufficient,  with the aid of time, to put a period to his life. There was an allotment  then of certain days given, within the space of which the Syracusans  were to provide whatever should be necessary for his burial, and all  the neighbouring country people and strangers were to make their appearance  in a body; so that the funeral pomp was set out with great splendour  and magnificence in all other respects, and the bier, decked with  ornaments and trophies, was borne by a select body of young men over  that ground where the palace and castle of Dionysius stood before  they were demolished by Timoleon. There attended on the solemnity  several thousands of men and women, all crowned with flowers, and  arrayed in fresh and clean attire, which made it look like the procession  of a public festival; while the language of all, and their tears mingling  with their praise and benediction of the dead Timoleon, manifestly  showed that it was not any superficial honour, or commanded homage,  which they paid him, but the testimony of a just sorrow for his death,  and the expression of true affection. The bier at length being placed  upon the pile of wood that was kindled to consume his corpse, Demetrius,  one of their loudest criers, proceeded to read a proclamation to the  following purpose:

The people of Syracuse have made a special decree  to inter Timoleon, the son of Timodemus, the Corinthian, at the common  expense of two hundred minas, and to honour his memory for ever, by  the establishment of annual prizes to be competed for in music, and  horse-races, and all sorts of bodily exercise; and this, because he  suppressed the tyrants, overthrew the barbarians, replenished the  principal cities, that were desolate, with new inhabitants, and then  restored the Sicilian Greeks to the privilege of living by their own  laws.

Besides this, they made a tomb for him in the market-place,  which they afterwards built round with colonnades, and attached to  it places of exercise for the young men, and gave it the name of the  Timoleonteum. And keeping to that form and order of civil policy and  observing those laws and constitutions which he left them, they lived  themselves a long time in great prosperity.

THE END

COMPARISON OF PAULUS AEMILIUS AND TIMOLEON.

1. The characters of these men being such as is shown in their histories, it is evident that in comparing them we shall find few differences and points of variance. Even their wars were in both cases waged against notable antagonists, the one with the Macedonians, the other with the Carthaginians: while their conquests were glorious, as the one took Macedonia, and crushed the dynasty of Antigonus in the person of its seventh king, while the other drove all the despots from Sicily and set the island free. Unless indeed any one should insinuate that Aemilius attacked Perseus when he was in great strength and had conquered the Romans before, whereas Timoleon fell upon Dionysius when he was quite worn out and helpless: though again it might be urged on behalf of Timoleon that he overcame many despots and the great power of Carthage, with an army hastily collected from all sources, not, like Aemilius, commanding men who were inured to war and knew how to obey, but making use of disorderly mercenary soldiers who only fought when it pleased them to do so. An equal success, gained with such unequal means, reflects the greater credit on the general.

2. Both were just and incorruptible in their conduct: but Aemilius seems to have had the advantage of the customs and state of feeling among his countrymen, by which he was trained to integrity, while Timoleon without any such encouragement acted virtuously, from his own nature. This is proved by the fact that the Romans of that period were all submissive to authority, and carried out the traditions of the state, respecting the laws and the opinions of their countrymen: whereas, except Dion, no Greek leader or general of that time had anything to do with Sicilian affairs who did not take bribes: though many suspected than Dion was meditating making himself king, and that he had dreams of an empire like that of Sparta.

Timaeus tells us that the Syracusans sent away Gylippus in disgrace for his insatiable covetousness, and the bribes which they discovered that he received when in command. And many writers had dwelt upon the wicked and treacherous acts which Pharax the Spartan and Kallippus the Athenian committed, when they were endeavouring to make themselves masters of Sicily. Yet, what were they, and what resources had they, that they conceived such great designs: the one being only a follower of Dionysius when he was banished from Syracuse, the other a captain of mercenaries under Dion? But Timoleon, who was sent to the Syracusans as generalissimo at their own request and prayer, did not seek for command, but had a right to it. Yet when he received his power as general and ruler from them of their own free will, he voluntarily decided to hold it only till he should have expelled from Sicily all those who were reigning despotically. In Aemilius again we must admire this, that he subdued so great an empire and yet did not enrich himself by one drachma, and never even saw or touched the king's treasures, although he distributed much of them in presents to others. And still, I do not say that Timoleon is to be blamed for having received a fine house and estate; for there is no disgrace in receiving it by such means, though not to take it is better, and shows almost superhuman virtue, which cares not to take what is lawfully within its reach. Yet, as the strongest bodies are those which can equally well support the extremes of heat and cold, so the noblest minds are those which prosperity does not render insolent and overbearing, nor ill fortune depress: and here Aemilius appears more nearly to approach absolute perfection, as, when in great misfortune and grief for his children, he showed the same dignity and firmness as after the greatest success. Whereas Timoleon, though he acted towards his brother as became a noble nature, yet could not support himself against his sorrow by reason, but was so crushed by remorse and grief that for twenty years he could not appear or speak in the public assembly. We ought indeed to shrink from and feel shame at what is base; but the nature which is over-cautious to avoid blame may be gentle and kindly, but cannot be great.

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