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                                      75 AD
                                    TIMOLEON
                                 411?-337 B.C.
                                  by Plutarch
                           translated by John Dryden
TIMOLEON

  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.
  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.
  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.
  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.
  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, despatched him in a moment.
  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. 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.
  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.
  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.
  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.
  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.
  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.
  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.
  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.
  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.
  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.
  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.
  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.
  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.
  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.
  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.
  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.
  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.
  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.
  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.
  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.
  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.
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.
  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.
  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.
  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.
  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.
  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.
  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.
  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.
  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.
  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 Venus, 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.
  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. 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 despatch in his
absence. 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