Chapter LXXXV

Chapter LXXXV

SICILIAN AFFAIRS DOWN TO THE CLOSE OF THE EXPEDITION OF TIMOLEON. B. C. 353-336.

The assassination of Dion, as recounted in my last chapter, appears to have been skilfully planned and executed for the purpose of its contriver, the Athenian Kallippus. Succeeding at once to the command of the soldiers, among whom he had before been very popular,—and to the mastery of Ortygia,—he was practically supreme at Syracuse. We read in Cornelius Nepos, that after the assassination of Dion there was deep public sorrow, and a strong reaction in his favor, testified by splendid obsequies attended by the mass of the population.[269] But this statement is difficult to believe; not merely because Kallippus long remained undisturbed master, but because he also threw into prison the female relatives of Dion—his sister Aristomachê and his pregnant wife Aretê, avenging by such act of malignity the false oath which he had so lately been compelled to take, in order to satisfy their suspicions.[270] Aretê was delivered of a son in the prison. It would seem that these unhappy women were kept in confinement during all the time, more than a year, that Kallippus remained master. On his being deposed, they were released; when a Syracusan named Hiketas, a friend of the deceased Dion, affected to take them under his protection. After a short period of kind treatment, he put them on board a vessel to be sent to Peloponnesus, but caused them to be slain on the voyage, and their bodies to be sunk in the sea. To this cruel deed he is said to have been instigated by the enemies of Dion; and the act shows but too plainly how implacable those enemies were.[271]

[269] Cornelius Nepos, Dion, c. 10.

[270] Plutarch, Dion, c. 56, 57.

[271] Plutarch, Dion, c. 58.

How Kallippus maintained himself in Syracuse—by what support, or violences, or promises—and against what difficulties he had to contend—we are not permitted to know. He seems at first to have made promises of restoring liberty; and we are even told, that he addressed a public letter to his country, the city of Athens;[272] wherein he doubtless laid claim to the honors of tyrannicide; representing himself as the liberator of Syracuse. How this was received by the Athenian assembly, we are not informed. But to Plato and the frequenters of the Academy, the news of Dion’s death occasioned the most profound sorrow, as may still be read in the philosopher’s letters.

[272] Plutarch, Dion, c. 58.

Kallippus maintained himself for a year in full splendor and dominion. Discontents had then grown up; and the friends of Dion—or perhaps the enemies of Kallippus assuming that name—showed themselves with force in Syracuse. However, Kallippus defeated them, and forced them to take refuge in Leontini;[273] of which town we presently find Hiketas despot. Encouraged probably by this success, Kallippus committed many enormities, and made himself so odious,[274] that the expelled Dionysian family began to conceive hopes of recovering their dominion. He had gone forth from Syracuse on an expedition against Katana; of which absence Hipparinus took advantage to effect his entry into Syracuse, at the head of a force sufficient, combined with popular discontent, to shut him out of the city. Kallippus speedily returned, but was defeated by Hipparinus, and compelled to content himself with the unprofitable exchange of Katana in place of Syracuse.[275]

[273] Plutarch, Dion, c. 58; Diodor. xvi. 31-36.

[274] Plutarch, Timoleon, c. 11; Plutarch, compar. Timoleon and Paul Emil, c. 2.

[275] This seems to result from Plutarch, Dion, c. 58, compared with Diodor. xvi. 36.

Hipparinus and Nysæus were the two sons of Dionysius the elder, by Aristomachê, and were therefore nephews of Dion. Though Hipparinus probably became master of Ortygia, the strongest portion of Syracuse, yet it would appear that in the other portions of Syracuse there were opposing parties who contested his rule; first, the partisans of Dionysius the younger, and of his family—next, the mass who desired to get rid of both the families, and to establish a free popular constitution. Such is the state of facts which we gather from the letters of Plato.[276] But we are too destitute of memorials to make out anything distinct respecting the condition of Syracuse or of Sicily between 353 B. C. and 344 B. C.—from the death of Dion to the invitation sent to Corinth, which brought about the mission of Timoleon. We are assured generally that it was a period of intolerable conflicts, disorders, and suffering; that even the temples and tombs were neglected;[277] that the people were everywhere trampled down by despots and foreign mercenaries; that the despots were frequently overthrown by violence or treachery, yet only to be succeeded by others as bad or worse; that the multiplication of foreign soldiers, seldom regularly paid, spread pillage and violence everywhere.[278] The philosopher Plato—in a letter written about a year or more after the death of Dion (seemingly after the expulsion of Kallippus) and addressed to the surviving relatives and friends of the latter—draws a lamentable picture of the state both of Syracuse and Sicily. He goes so far as to say, that under the distraction and desolation which prevailed, the Hellenic race and language were likely to perish in the island, and give place to the Punic or Oscan.[279] He adjures the contending parties at Syracuse to avert this miserable issue by coming to a compromise, and by constituting a moderate and popular government,—yet with some rights reserved to the ruling families, among whom he desires to see a fraternal partnership established, tripartite in its character; including Dionysius the younger (now at Lokri)—Hipparinus son of the elder Dionysius—and the son of Dion. On the absolute necessity of such compromise and concord, to preserve both people and despots from one common ruin, Plato delivers the most pathetic admonitions. He recommends a triple coördinate kingship, passing by hereditary transmission in the families of the three persons just named; and including the presidency of religious ceremonies with an ample measure of dignity and veneration, but very little active political power. Advising that impartial arbitrators, respected by all, should be invoked to settle terms for the compromise, he earnestly implores each of the combatants to acquiesce peaceably in their adjudication.[280]

[276] Plato, Epistol. viii. p. 353, 355, 356.

[277] Plato, Epist. viii. 356 B. ἐλεῶν δὲ πατρίδα καὶ ἱερῶν ἀθεραπευσίαν καὶ τάφους, etc.

[278] Plutarch, Timoleon, c. 1.

[279] Plato, Epistol. viii. p. 353 F. ... διολέσθαι δ᾽ ὑπὸ τοῦ κύκλου τούτου καὶ τὸ τυραννικὸν ἅπαν καὶ τὸ δημοτικὸν γένος, ~ἥξει δὲ~, ἐάν περ τῶν εἰκότων γίγνηταί τι καὶ ἀπευκτῶν, ~σχεδὸν εἰς ἐρημίαν τῆς Ἑλληνικῆς φωνῆς Σικελία πᾶσα, Φοινίκων ἢ Ὀπικῶν μεταβαλοῦσα εἴς τινα δυναστεῖαν καὶ κράτος~. Τούτων δὴ χρὴ πάσῃ προθυμίᾳ πάντας τοὺς Ἕλληνας τέμνειν φάρμακον.

[280] Plato, Epistol. viii. p. 356.

To Plato,—who saw before him the line double of Spartan kings, the only hereditary kings in Greece,—the proposition of three coördinate kingly families did not appear at all impracticable; nor indeed was it so, considering the small extent of political power allotted to them. But amidst the angry passions which then raged, and the mass of evil which had been done and suffered on all sides, it was not likely that any pacific arbitrator, of whatever position or character, would find a hearing, or would be enabled to effect any such salutary adjustment as had emanated from the Mantinean Dêmônax at Kyrênê—between the discontented Kyreneans and the dynasty of the Battiad princes.[281] Plato’s recommendation passed unheeded. He died in 348-347 B. C., without seeing any mitigation of those Sicilian calamities which saddened the last years of his long life. On the contrary, the condition of Syracuse grew worse instead of better. The younger Dionysius contrived to effect his return, expelling Hipparinus and Nysæus from Ortygia, and establishing himself there again as master. As he had a long train of past humiliation to avenge, his rule was of that oppressive character which the ancient proverb recognized as belonging to kings restored from exile.[282]

[281] Herodot. iv. 161.

[282] Plutarch, Timoleon, c. 1.

... Regnabis sanguine multo Ad regnum quisquis venit ab exilio.

Of all these princes descended from the elder Dionysius, not one inherited the sobriety and temperance which had contributed so much to his success. All of them are said to have been of drunken and dissolute habits[283]—Dionysius the younger, and his son Apollokrates, as well as Hipparinus and Nysæus. Hipparinus was assassinated while in a fit of intoxication; so that Nysæus became the representative of this family, until he was expelled from Ortygia by the return of the younger Dionysius.

[283] Aristotle and Theopompus, ap. Athenæum, x. p. 435, 436; Theopomp. Fragm. 146, 204, 213, ed. Didot.

That prince, since his first expulsion from Syracuse, had chiefly resided at Lokri in Italy, of which city his mother Doris was a native. It has already been stated that the elder Dionysius had augmented and nursed up Lokri by every means in his power, as an appurtenance of his own dominion at Syracuse. He had added to its territory all the southernmost peninsula of Italy (comprehended within a line drawn from the Gulf of Terina to that of Skylletium), once belonging to Rhegium, Kaulonia, and Hipponium. But though the power of Lokri was thus increased, it had ceased to be a free city, being converted into a dependency of the Dionysian family.[284] As such, it became the residence of the second Dionysius, when he could no longer maintain himself in Syracuse. We know little of what he did; though we are told that he revived a portion of the dismantled city of Rhegium under the name of Phœbia.[285] Rhegium itself reappears shortly afterwards as a community under its own name, and was probably reconstituted at the complete downfall of the second Dionysius.

[284] Aristotel. Politic. v. 6, 7.

[285] Strabo, vi. p. 258.

The season between 356-346 B. C., was one of great pressure and suffering for all the Italiot Greeks, arising from the increased power of the inland Lucanians and Bruttians. These Bruttians, who occupied the southernmost Calabria, were a fraction detached from the general body of Lucanians and self-emancipated; having consisted chiefly of indigenous rural serfs in the mountain communities, who threw off the sway of their Lucanian masters, and formed an independent aggregate for themselves. These men, especially in the energetic effort which marked their early independence, were formidable enemies of the Greeks on the coast, from Tarentum to the Sicilian strait; and more than a match even for the Spartans and Epirots invited over by the Greeks as auxiliaries.

It appears that the second Dionysius, when he retired to Lokri after the first loss of his power at Syracuse, soon found his rule unacceptable and his person unpopular. He maintained himself, seemingly from the beginning, by means of two distinct citadels in the town, with a standing army under the command of the Spartan Pharax, a man of profligacy and violence.[286] The conduct of Dionysius became at last so odious, that nothing short of extreme force could keep down the resentment of the citizens. We read that he was in the habit of practising the most licentious outrage towards the marriageable maidens of good family in Lokri. The detestation thus raised against him was repressed by his superior force—not, we may be sure, without numerous cruelties perpetrated against individual persons who stood on their defence—until the moment arrived when he and his son Apollokrates effected their second return to Ortygia. To ensure so important an acquisition, Dionysius diminished his military force at Lokri, where he at the same time left his wife, his two daughters, and his youthful son. But after his departure, the Lokrians rose in insurrection, overpowered the reduced garrison, and took captive these unfortunate members of his family. Upon their guiltless heads fell all the terrors of retaliation for the enormities of the despot. It was in vain that both Dionysius himself, and the Tarentines[287] supplicated permission to redeem the captives at the highest ransom. In vain was Lokri besieged, and its territory desolated. The Lokrians could neither be seduced by bribes, nor deterred by threats, from satiating the full extremity of vindictive fury. After multiplied cruelties and brutalities, the wife and family of Dionysius were at length relieved from farther suffering by being strangled.[288] With this revolting tragedy terminated the inauspicious marital connection begun between the elder Dionysius and the oligarchy of Lokri.

[286] Plutarch, Timoleon, c. 11; Compar. Timoleon and Paul. Emil. c. 2; Theopompus ap. Athenæ. xii. p. 536; Plutarch, Reipub. Gerend. Præcept. p. 821 D. About the two citadels in Lokri, see Livy, xxix. 6.

It may have been probably a predatory fleet in the service of the younger Dionysius, which Livy mentions to have been ravaging about this time the coast of Latium, coöperating with the Gauls against portions of the Roman territory (Livy, vii. 25, 26).

[287] It would appear that relations of amity, or amicable dependence, still subsisted between Dionysius the younger and the Tarentines. There was seen, in the prytaneum or government-house of Tarentum, a splendid chandelier with three hundred and sixty-five burners, a present from Dionysius (Euphorion, ap. Athenæum, xv. p. 700).

[288] Strabo, vi. p. 259, 260; Athenæus, xii. p. 541.

By the manner in which Dionysius exercised his power at Lokri, we may judge how he would behave at Syracuse. The Syracusans endured more evil than ever, without knowing where to look for help. Hiketas the Syracusan (once the friend of Dion, ultimately the murderer of the slain Dion’s widow and sister), had now established himself as despot at Leontini. To him they turned as an auxiliary, hoping thus to obtain force sufficient for the expulsion of Dionysius. Hiketas gladly accepted the proposition, with full purpose of reaping the reward of such expulsion, when achieved, for himself. Moreover, a formidable cloud was now gathering from the side of Carthage. What causes had rendered Carthage inactive for the last few years, while Sicily was so weak and disunited—we do not know; but she had now become once more aggressive, extending her alliances among the despots of the island, and pouring in a large force and fleet, so as to menace the independence both of Sicily and of Southern Italy.[289] The appearance of this new enemy drove the Syracusans to despair, and left them no hope of safety except in assistance from Corinth. To that city they sent a pathetic and urgent appeal, setting forth both the actual suffering and the approaching peril from without. And such indeed was the peril, that even to a calm observer, it might well seem as if the mournful prophecy of Plato was on the point of receiving fulfilment—Hellenism as well as freedom becoming extinct on the island.

[289] Diodor. xvi. 67.

To the invocation of Corinthian aid, Hiketas was a party; yet an unwilling party. He had made up his mind that for his purpose, it was better to join the Carthaginians, with whom he had already opened negotiations—and to employ their forces, first in expelling Dionysius, next in ruling Syracuse for himself. But these were schemes not to be yet divulged: accordingly, Hiketas affected to concur in the pressing entreaty sent by the Syracusans to Corinth, intending from the beginning to frustrate its success.[290] He expected indeed that the Corinthians would themselves decline compliance: for the enterprise proposed to them was full of difficulty; they had neither injury to avenge, nor profit to expect; while the force of sympathy, doubtless not inconsiderable, with a suffering colony, would probably be neutralized by the unsettled and degraded condition into which all Central Greece was now rapidly sinking, under the ambitious strides of Philip of Macedon.

[290] Plutarch, Timoleon, c. 2.

The Syracusan envoys reached Corinth at a favorable moment. But it is melancholy to advert to the aggregate diminution of Grecian power, as compared with the time when (seventy years before) their forefathers had sent thither to solicit aid against the besieging armament of Athens; a time when Athens, Sparta, and Syracuse herself, were all in exuberant vigor as well as unimpaired freedom. However, the Corinthians happened at this juncture to have their hands as well as their minds tolerably free, so that the voice of genuine affliction, transmitted from the most esteemed of all their colonies, was heard with favor and sympathy. A decree was passed, heartily and unanimously, to grant the aid solicited.[291]

[291] Plutarch, Timoleon, c. 3.

The next step was to choose a leader. But a leader was not easily found. The enterprise presented little temptation, with danger and difficulty abundant as well as certain. The hopeless discord of Syracuse for years past, was well known to all the leading Corinthian politicians or generals. Of all or most of these, the names were successively put up by the archons; but all with one accord declined. At length, while the archons hesitated whom to fix upon, an unknown voice in the crowd pronounced the name of Timoleon, son of Timodemus. The mover seemed prompted by divine inspiration;[292] so little obvious was the choice, and so preëminently excellent did it prove. Timoleon was named—without difficulty, and without much intention of doing him honor—to a post which all the other leading men declined.

[292] Plutarch, Timoleon, c. 3. ἀλλὰ θεοῦ τινος, ὡς ἔοικεν, εἰς νοῦν ἐμβαλόντος τῷ ἀνθρώπῳ, etc.

Some points must be here noticed in the previous history of this remarkable man. He belonged to an illustrious family in Corinth, and was now of mature age—perhaps about fifty. He was distinguished no less for his courage than for the gentleness of his disposition. Little moved either by personal vanity or by ambition, he was devoted in his patriotism, and unreserved in his hatred of despots as well as of traitors.[293] The government of Corinth was, and always had been, oligarchical; but it was a regular, constitutional, oligarchy; while the Corinthian antipathy against despots was of old standing[294]—hardly less strong than that of democratical Athens. As a soldier in the ranks of Corinthian hoplites, the bravery of Timoleon, and his submission to discipline, were alike remarkable.

[293] Plutarch, Timoleon, c. 3 ... φιλόπατρις δὲ καὶ πρᾶος διαφερόντως, ὅσα μὴ σφόδρα μισοτύραννος εἶναι καὶ μισοπόνηρος.

[294] Herodot. v. 92.

These points of his character stood out the more forcibly from contrast with his elder brother Timophanes; who possessed the soldierlike merits of bravery and energetic enterprise, but combined with them an unprincipled ambition, and an unscrupulous prosecution of selfish advancement at all cost to others. The military qualities of Timophanes, however, gained for him so much popularity, that he was placed high as an officer in the Corinthian service. Timoleon, animated with a full measure of brotherly attachment, not only tried to screen his defects as well as to set off his merits, but also incurred the greatest perils for the purpose of saving his life. In a battle against the Argeians and Kleonæans, Timophanes was commanding the cavalry, when his horse, being wounded, threw him on the ground, very near to the enemy. The remaining horsemen fled, leaving their commander to what seemed certain destruction; but Timoleon, who was serving among the hoplites, rushed singly forth from the ranks with his utmost speed, and covered Timophanes with his shield, when the enemy were just about to pierce him. He made head single-handed against them, warding off numerous spears and darts, and successfully protected his fallen brother until succor arrived; though at the cost of several wounds to himself.[295]

[295] Plutarch, Timoleon, c. 4. At what time this battle took place cannot be made out.

This act of generous devotion raised great admiration towards Timoleon. But it also procured sympathy for Timophanes, who less deserved it. The Corinthians had recently incurred great risk of seeing their city fall into the hands of their Athenian allies, who had laid a plan to seize it, but were disappointed through timely notice given at Corinth.[296] To arm the people being regarded as dangerous to the existing oligarchy,[297] it was judged expedient to equip a standing force of four hundred paid foreign soldiers, and establish them as a permanent garrison in the strong and lofty citadel. The command of this garrison, with the mastery of the fort, was intrusted to Timophanes. A worse choice could not have been made. The new commander—seconded not only by his regiment and his strong position, but also by some violent partisans whom he took into his pay and armed, among the poorer citizens—speedily stood forth as despot, taking the whole government into his own hands. He seized numbers of the chief citizens, probably all the members of the oligarchical councils who resisted his orders, and put them to death without even form of trial.[298] Now, when it was too late, the Corinthians repented of the mistaken vote which had raised up a new Periander among them. But to Timoleon, the crimes of his brother occasioned an agony of shame and sorrow. He first went up to the acropolis[299] to remonstrate with him; conjuring him emphatically, by the most sacred motives public as well as private, to renounce his disastrous projects. Timophanes repudiated the appeal with contempt. Timoleon had now to choose between his brother and his country. Again he went to the acropolis, accompanied by Æschylus, brother of the wife of Timophanes—by the prophet Orthagoras, his intimate friend—perhaps also by another friend named Telekleides. Admitted into the presence of Timophanes, they renewed their prayers and supplications; urging him even yet to recede from his tyrannical courses. But all their pleading was without effect. Timophanes first laughed them to scorn; presently, he became exasperated, and would hear no more. Finding words unavailing, they now drew their swords and put him to death. Timoleon lent no hand in the deed, but stood a little way off, with his face hidden, and in a flood of tears.[300]

[296] Plutarch, Timoleon, c. 4. Ἐπεὶ δ᾽ οἱ Κορίνθιοι, δεδιότες μὴ πάθοιεν οἷα καὶ πρότερον ὑπὸ τῶν συμμάχων ἀποβαλόντες τὴν πόλιν, etc.

The Corinthians were carrying on war, in conjunction with Athens and Sparta, against Thebes, when (in 366 B. C.) the Athenians laid their plan for seizing the city. The Corinthians, having heard of it in time, took measures to frustrate it. See Xenophon, Hellen. vii. 4, 4-5.

[297] Aristotel. Politic, v. 5, 9.

[298] Plutarch, Timoleon, c. 4. συχνοὺς ἀνελὼν ἀκρίτους τῶν πρώτων πολιτῶν, ἀνέδειξεν αὐτὸς ἑαυτὸν τύραννον.

Diodorus (xvi. 65) coincides in the main fact—but differs in several details.

[299] Plutarch, Timoleon, c. 4. αὖθις ~ἀνέβη~ πρὸς τὸν ἀδελφὸν, etc.

[300] Plutarch, Timoleon, c. 4; Cornelius Nepos, Timol. c. 1; Plutarch, Reipub. Gerend. Præcept. p. 808 A. That Telekleides was present and took part in the deed—though Plutarch directly names only Æschylus and Orthagoras—seems to be implied in an indirect allusion afterwards (c. 7), where Telekleides says to Timoleon after his nomination to the Sicilian command, Ἂν νῦν καλῶς ἀγωνίσῃς τύραννον ἀνῃρηκέναι ~δόξομεν~· ἂν δὲ φαυλῶς, ἀδελφόν.

The presence of the prophet seems to show, that they had just been offering sacrifice, to ascertain the will of the gods respecting what they were about to do.

Nepos says that Timoleon was not actually present at the moment of his brother’s death, but stood out of the room to prevent assistance from arriving.

Diodorus (xvi. 65) states that Timoleon slew his brother in the market place. But the account of Plutarch appears preferable.

With the life of Timophanes passed away the despotism which had already begun its crushing influence upon the Corinthians. The mercenary force was either dismissed, or placed in safe hands; the acropolis became again part of a free city; the Corinthian constitution was revived as before. In what manner this change was accomplished, or with what measure of violence it was accompanied, we are left in ignorance; for Plutarch tells us hardly anything except what personally concerns Timoleon. We learn however that the expressions of joy among the citizens, at the death of Timophanes and the restoration of the constitution, were vehement and universal. So strongly did this tide of sentiment run, as to carry along with it, in appearance, even those who really regretted the departed despotism. Afraid to say what they really felt about the deed, these men gave only the more abundant utterance to their hatred of the doer. Though it was good that Timophanes should be killed (they said), yet that he should be killed by his brother, and his brother-in-law, was a deed which tainted both the actors with inexpiable guilt and abomination. The majority of the Corinthian public, however, as well as the most distinguished citizens, took a view completely opposite. They expressed the warmest admiration as well for the doer as for the deed. They extolled the combination of warm family affection with devoted magnanimity and patriotism, each in its right place and properly balanced, which marked the conduct of Timoleon. He had displayed his fraternal affection by encountering the greatest perils in the battle, in order to preserve the life of Timophanes. But when that brother, instead of an innocent citizen, became the worst enemy of Corinth, Timoleon had then obeyed the imperative call of patriotism, to the disregard not less of his own comfort and interest than of fraternal affection.[301]

[301] Plutarch, Timoleon, c. 5.

Such was the decided verdict pronounced by the majority—a majority as well in value as in number—respecting the behavior of Timoleon. In his mind, however, the general strain of encomium was not sufficient to drown, or even to compensate, the language of reproach, in itself so much more pungent, which emanated from the minority. Among that minority too was found one person whose single voice told with profound impression—his mother Demaristê, mother also of the slain Timophanes. Demaristê not only thought of her murdered son with the keenest maternal sorrow, but felt intense horror and execration for the authors of the deed. She imprecated curses on the head of Timoleon, refused even to see him again, and shut her doors against his visits, in spite of earnest supplications.

There wanted nothing more to render Timoleon thoroughly miserable, amidst the almost universal gratitude of Corinth. Of his strong fraternal affection for Timophanes, his previous conduct leaves no doubt. Such affection had to be overcome before he accompanied his tyrannicidal friends to the acropolis, and doubtless flowed back with extreme bitterness upon his soul, after the deed was done. But when to this internal source of distress, was added the sight of persons who shrank from contact with him as a fratricide, together with the sting of the maternal Erinnys—he became agonized even to distraction. Life was odious to him; he refused for some time all food, and determined to starve himself to death. Nothing but the pressing solicitude of friends prevented him from executing the resolve. But no consoling voice could impart to him spirit for the duties of public life. He fled the city and the haunts of men, buried himself in solitude amidst his fields in the country, and refrained from seeing or speaking to any one. For several years he thus hid himself like a self-condemned criminal; and even when time had somewhat mitigated the intensity of his anguish, he still shunned every prominent position, performing nothing more than his indispensable duties as a citizen. An interval of twenty years[302] had now elapsed from the death of Timophanes, to the arrival of the Syracusan application for aid. During all this time, Timoleon, in spite of the sympathy and willingness of admiring fellow-citizens, had never once chosen to undertake any important command or office. At length the vox Dei is heard, unexpectedly, amidst the crowd; dispelling the tormenting nightmare which had so long oppressed his soul, and restoring him to healthy and honorable action.

[302] Plutarch, Timoleon, c. 7.

There is no doubt that the conduct of Timoleon and Æschylus in killing Timophanes was in the highest degree tutelary to Corinth. The despot had already imbrued his hands in the blood of his countrymen, and would have been condemned, by fatal necessity, to go on from bad to worse, multiplying the number of victims, as a condition of preserving his own power. To say that the deed ought not to have been done by near relatives, was tantamount to saying, that it ought not to have been done at all; for none but near relatives could have obtained that easy access which enabled them to effect it. And even Timoleon and Æschylus could not make the attempt without the greatest hazard to themselves. Nothing was more likely than that the death of Timophanes would be avenged on the spot; nor are we told how they escaped such vengeance from the soldiers at hand. It has been already stated that the contemporary sentiment towards Timoleon was divided between admiration of the heroic patriot, and abhorrence of the fratricide; yet with a large preponderance on the side of admiration, especially in the highest and best minds. In modern times the preponderance would be in the opposite scale. The sentiment of duty towards family covers a larger proportion of the field of morality, as compared with obligations towards country, than it did in ancient times; while that intense antipathy against a despot who overtops and overrides the laws, regarding him as the worst of criminals—which stood in the foreground of the ancient virtuous feeling—has now disappeared. Usurpation of the supreme authority is regarded generally among the European public as a crime, only where it displaces an established king already in possession; where there is no king, the successful usurper finds sympathy rather than censure: and few readers would have been displeased with Timoleon, had he even seconded his brother’s attempt. But in the view of Timoleon and of his age generally, even neutrality appeared in the light of treason to his country, when no other man but him could rescue her from the despot. This sentiment is strikingly embodied in the comments of Plutarch; who admires the fraternal tyrannicide, as an act of sublime patriotism, and only complains that the internal emotions of Timoleon were not on a level with the sublimity of the act; that the great mental suffering which he endured afterwards, argued an unworthy weakness of character; that the conviction of imperative patriotic duty, having been once deliberately adopted, ought to have steeled him against scruples, and preserved him from that after-shame and repentance which spoiled half the glory of an heroic act. The antithesis, between Plutarch and the modern European point of view, is here pointed; though I think his criticism unwarranted. There is no reason to presume that Timoleon ever felt ashamed and repentant for having killed his brother. Placed in the mournful condition of a man agitated by conflicting sentiments, and obeying that which he deemed to carry the most sacred obligation, he of necessity suffered from the violation of the other. Probably the reflection that he had himself saved the life of Timophanes, only that the latter might destroy the liberties of his country—contributed materially to his ultimate resolution; a resolution, in which Æschylus, another near relative, took even a larger share than he.

It was in this state of mind that Timoleon was called upon to take the command of the auxiliaries for Syracuse. As soon as the vote had passed, Telekleides addressed to him a few words, emphatically exhorting him to strain every nerve, and to show what he was worth—with this remarkable point in conclusion—“If you now come off with success and glory, we shall pass for having slain a despot; if you fail, we shall be held as fratricides.”[303]

[303] Plutarch, Timoleon, c. 7. Diodorus (xvi. 65) states this striking antithesis as if it was put by the senate to Timoleon, on conferring upon him the new command. He represents the application from Syracuse as having come to Corinth shortly after the death of Timophanes, and while the trial of Timoleon was yet pending. He says that the senate nominated Timoleon to the command, in order to escape the necessity of pronouncing sentence one way or the other.

I follow the account of Plutarch, as preferable, in recognizing a long interval between the death of Timophanes and the application from Syracuse an interval of much mental suffering to Timoleon.

He immediately commenced his preparation of ships and soldiers. But the Corinthians, though they had resolved on the expedition, were not prepared either to vote any considerable subsidy, or to serve in large numbers as volunteers. The means of Timoleon were so extremely limited, that he was unable to equip more than seven triremes, to which the Korkyræans (animated by common sympathy for Syracuse, as of old in the time of the despot Hippokrates[304]) added two more, and the Leukadians one. Nor could he muster more than one thousand soldiers, reinforced afterwards on the voyage to twelve hundred. A few of the principal Corinthians—Eukleides, Telemachus and Neon, among them—accompanied him. But the soldiers seem to have been chiefly miscellaneous mercenaries,—some of whom had served under the Phokians in the Sacred war (recently brought to a close), and had incurred so much odium as partners in the spoliation of the Delphian temple, that they were glad to take foreign service anywhere.[305]

[304] Herodot. vii. 155.

[305] Plutarch, Timoleon, c. 8, 11, 12, 30; Diodor, xvi. 66; Plutarch, Ser. Num. Vind. p. 552. In the Aristotelian treatise, Rhetorica ad Alexandrum, s. 9, Timoleon is said to have had nine ships.

Some enthusiasm was indeed required to determine volunteers in an enterprise of which the formidable difficulties, and the doubtful reward, were obvious from the beginning. But even before the preparations were completed, news came which seemed to render it all but hopeless. Hiketas sent a second mission, retracting all that he said in the first, and desiring that no expedition might be sent from Corinth. Not having received Corinthian aid in time (he said), he had been compelled to enter into alliance with the Carthaginians, who would not permit any Corinthian soldiers to set foot in Sicily. This communication, greatly exasperating the Corinthians against Hiketas, rendered them more hearty in votes to put him down. Yet their zeal for active service, far from being increased, was probably even abated by the aggravation of obstacles thus revealed. If Timoleon even reached Sicily, he would find numberless enemies, without a single friend of importance:—for without Hiketas, the Syracusan people were almost helpless. But it now seemed impossible that Timoleon with his small force could ever touch the Sicilian shore, in the face of a numerous and active Carthaginian fleet.[306]

[306] Plutarch, Timoleon, c. 7.

While human circumstances thus seemed hostile, the gods held out to Timoleon the most favorable signs and omens. Not only did he receive an encouraging answer at Delphi, but while he was actually in the temple, a fillet with intertwined wreaths and symbols of victory fell from one of the statues upon his head. The priestesses of Persephonê learnt from the goddess in a dream, that she was about to sail with Timoleon for Sicily, her own favorite island. Accordingly he caused a new special trireme to be fitted out, sacred to the Two goddesses (Dêmêtêr and Persephonê) who were about to accompany him. And when, after leaving Korkyra, the squadron struck across for a night voyage to the Italian coast, this sacred trireme was seen illumined by a blaze of light from heaven; while a burning torch on high, similar to that which was usually carried in the Eleusinian mysteries, ran along with the ship and guided the pilot to the proper landing place at Metapontum. Such manifestations of divine presence and encouragement, properly certified and commented upon by the prophets, rendered the voyage one of universal hopefulness to the armament.[307]

[307] Plutarch, Timoleon, c. 8; Diodor. xvi. 66.

These hopes, however, were sadly damped, when after disregarding a formal notice from a Carthaginian man-of-war, they sailed down the coast of Italy and at last reached Rhegium. This city, having been before partially revived under the name of Phœbia, by the younger Dionysius, appears now as reconstituted under its old name and with its full former autonomy, since the overthrow of his rule at Lokri and in Italy generally. Twenty Carthaginian triremes, double the force of Timoleon, were found at Rhegium awaiting his arrival—with envoys from Hiketas aboard. These envoys came with what they pretended to be good news. “Hiketas had recently gained a capital victory over Dionysius, whom he had expelled from most part of Syracuse, and was now blocking up in Ortygia; with hopes of soon starving him out, by the aid of a Carthaginian fleet. The common enemy being thus at the end of his resources, the war could not be prolonged. Hiketas therefore trusted that Timoleon would send back to Corinth his fleet and troops, now become superfluous. If Timoleon would do this, he (Hiketas) would be delighted to see him personally at Syracuse, and would gladly consult him in the resettlement of that unhappy city. But he could not admit the Corinthian armament into the island; moreover, even had he been willing, the Carthaginians peremptorily forbade it, and were prepared, in case of need, to repel it with their superior naval force now in the strait.”[308]

[308] Plutarch, Timoleon, c. 9; Diodor. xvi. 68.

The game which Hiketas was playing with the Carthaginians now stood plainly revealed, to the vehement indignation of the armament. Instead of being their friend, or even neutral, he was nothing less than a pronounced enemy, emancipating Syracuse from Dionysius only to divide it between himself and the Carthaginians. Yet with all the ardor of the armament, it was impossible to cross the strait in opposition to an enemy’s fleet of double force. Accordingly Timoleon resorted to a stratagem, in which the leaders and people of Rhegium, eagerly sympathizing with his projects of Sicilian emancipation, coöperated. In an interview with the envoys of Hiketas as well as with the Carthaginian commanders, he affected to accept the conditions prescribed by Hiketas; admitting at once that it was useless to stand out. But he at the same time reminded them, that he had been intrusted with the command of the armament for Sicilian purposes,—and that he should be a disgraced man, if he now conducted it back without touching the island; except under the pressure of some necessity not merely real, but demonstrable to all and attested by unexceptionable witnesses. He therefore desired them to appear, along with him, before the public assembly of Rhegium, a neutral city and common friend of both parties. They would then publicly repeat the communication which they had already made to him, and they would enter into formal engagement for the good treatment of the Syracusans, as soon as Dionysius should be expelled. Such proceeding would make the people of Rhegium witnesses on both points. They would testify on his (Timoleon’s) behalf, when he came to defend himself at Corinth, that he had turned his back only before invincible necessity, and that he had exacted everything in his power in the way of guarantee for Syracuse; they would testify also on behalf of the Syracusans, in case the guarantee now given should be hereafter evaded.[309]

[309] Plutarch, Timoleon, c. 10.

Neither the envoys of Hiketas, nor the Carthaginian commanders, had any motive to decline what seemed to them an unmeaning ceremony. Both of them accordingly attended, along with Timoleon, before the public assembly of Rhegium formally convened. The gates of the city were closed (a practice usual during the time of a public assembly): the Carthaginian men-of-war lay as usual near at hand, but in no state for immediate movement, and perhaps with many of the crews ashore; since all chance of hostility seemed to be past. What had been already communicated to Timoleon from Hiketas and the Carthaginians, was now repeated in formal deposition before the assembly; the envoys of Hiketas probably going into the case more at length, with certain flourishes of speech prompted by their own vanity. Timoleon stood by as an attentive listener; but before he could rise to reply, various Rhegine speakers came forward with comments or questions, which called up the envoys again. A long time was thus insensibly wasted, Timoleon often trying to get an opportunity to speak, but being always apparently constrained to give way to some obtrusive Rhegine. During this long time, however, his triremes in the harbor were not idle. One by one, with as little noise as possible, they quitted their anchorage and rowed out to sea, directing their course towards Sicily. The Carthaginian fleet, though seeing this proceeding, neither knew what it meant, nor had any directions to prevent it. At length the other Grecian triremes were all afloat and in progress; that of Timoleon alone remaining in the harbor. Intimation being secretly given to him as he sat in the assembly, he slipped away from the crowd, his friends concealing his escape—and got aboard immediately. His absence was not discovered at first, the debate continuing as if he were still present, and intentionally prolonged by the Rhegine speakers. At length the truth could no longer be kept back. The envoys and the Carthaginians found out that the assembly and the debate were mere stratagems, and that their real enemy had disappeared. But they found it out too late. Timoleon with his triremes was already on the voyage to Tauromenium in Sicily, where all arrived safe and without opposition. Overreached and humiliated, his enemies left the assembly in vehement wrath against the Rhegines, who reminded them that Carthaginians ought to be the last to complain of deception in others.[310]

[310] Plutarch, Timoleon, c. 10, 11.

The well-managed stratagem, whereby Timoleon had overcome a difficulty to all appearance insurmountable, exalted both his own fame and the spirits of his soldiers. They were now safe in Sicily, at Tauromenium, a recent settlement near the site of the ancient Naxos: receiving hearty welcome from Andromachus, the leading citizen of the place—whose influence was so mildly exercised, and gave such complete satisfaction, that it continued through and after the reform of Timoleon, when the citizens might certainly have swept it away if they had desired. Andromachus, having been forward in inviting Timoleon to come, now prepared to coöperate with him, and returned a spirited reply to the menaces sent over from Rhegium by the Carthaginians, after they had vainly pursued the Corinthian squadron to Tauromenium.

But Andromachus and Tauromenium were but petty auxiliaries compared with the enemies against whom Timoleon had to contend; enemies now more formidable than ever. For Hiketas, incensed with the stratagem practised at Rhegium, and apprehensive of interruption to the blockade which he was carrying on against Ortygia, sent for an additional squadron of Carthaginian men-of-war to Syracuse; the harbor of which place was presently completely beset.[311] A large Carthaginian land force was also acting under Hanno in the western regions of the island, with considerable success against the Campanians of Entella and others.[312] The Sicilian towns had their native despots, Mamerkus at Katana—Leptines at Apollonia[313]—Nikodemus at Kentoripa—Apolloniades at Agyrium[314]—from whom Timoleon could expect no aid, except in so far as they might feel predominant fear of the Carthaginians. And the Syracusans, even when they heard of his arrival at Tauromenium, scarcely ventured to indulge hopes of serious relief from such a handful of men, against the formidable array of Hiketas and the Carthaginians under their walls. Moreover, what guarantee had they that Timoleon would turn out better than Dion, Kallippus, and others before him? seductive promisers of emancipation, who, if they succeeded, forgot the words by which they had won men’s hearts, and thought only of appropriating to themselves the sceptre of the previous despot, perhaps even aggravating all that was bad in his rule? Such was the question asked by many a suffering citizen of Syracuse, amidst that despair and sickness of heart which made the name of an armed liberator sound only like a new deceiver and a new scourge.[315]

[311] Plutarch, Timoleon, c. 11.

[312] Diodor. xvi. 67.

[313] Plutarch, Timoleon, c. 13-24; Diodor. xvi. 72.

[314] Diodor. xvi. 82.

[315] Plutarch, Timoleon, c. 11.

It was by acts alone that Timoleon could refute such well-grounded suspicions. But at first, no one believed in him; nor could he escape the baneful effects of that mistrust which his predecessors had everywhere inspired. The messengers whom he sent round were so coldly received, that he seemed likely to find no allies beyond the walls of Tauromenium.

At length one invitation, of great importance, reached him—from the town of Adranum, about forty miles inland from Tauromenium; a native Sikel town, seemingly in part hellenized, inconsiderable in size, but venerated as sacred to the god Adranus, whose worship was diffused throughout all Sicily. The Adranites being politically divided, at the same time that one party sent the invitation to Timoleon, the other despatched a similar message to Hiketas. Either at Syracuse or Leontini, Hiketas was nearer to Adranum than Timoleon at Tauromenium; and lost no time in marching thither, with five thousand troops, to occupy so important a place. He arrived there in the evening, found no enemy, and established his camp without the walls, believing himself already master of the place. Timoleon, with his inferior numbers, knew that he had no chance of success except in surprise. Accordingly, on setting out from Tauromenium, he made no great progress the first day, in order that no report of his approach might reach Adranum; but on the next morning he marched with the greatest possible effort, taking the shortest, yet most rugged paths. On arriving within about three miles of Adranum, he was informed that the troops from Syracuse, having just finished their march, had encamped near the town, not aware of any enemy near. His officers were anxious that the men should be refreshed after their very fatiguing march, before they ventured to attack an army four times superior in number. But Timoleon earnestly protested against any such delay, entreating them to follow him at once against the enemy, as the only chance of finding them unprepared. To encourage them, he at once took up his shield and marched at their head, carrying it on his arm (the shield of the general was habitually carried for him by an orderly), in spite of the fatiguing march, which he had himself performed on foot as well as they. The soldiers obeyed, and the effort was crowned by complete success. The troops of Hiketas, unarmed and at their suppers, were taken so completely by surprise, that in spite of their superior number, they fled with scarce any resistance. From the rapidity of their flight, three hundred of them only were slain, But six hundred were made prisoners, and the whole camp, including its appurtenances, was taken, with scarcely the loss of a man. Hiketas escaped with the rest to Syracuse.[316]

[316] Plutarch, Timoleon, c. 12; Diodor. xvi. 68. Diodorus and Plutarch agree in the numbers both of killed and of prisoners on the side of Hiketas.

This victory, so rapidly and skilfully won—and the acquisition of Adranum which followed it—produced the strongest sensation throughout Sicily. It counted even for more than a victory; it was a declaration of the gods in favor of Timoleon. The inhabitants of the holy town, opening their gates and approaching him with awe-stricken reverence, recounted the visible manifestations of the god Adranus in his favor. At the moment when the battle was commencing, they had seen the portals of their temple spontaneously burst open, and the god brandishing his spear, with profuse perspiration on his face.[317] Such facts,—verified and attested in a place of peculiar sanctity, and circulated from thence throughout the neighboring communities,—contributed hardly less than the victory to exalt the glory of Timoleon. He received offers of alliance from Tyndaris and several other towns, as well as from Mamerkus despot of Katana, one of the most warlike and powerful princes in the island.[318] So numerous were the reinforcements thus acquired, and so much was his confidence enhanced by recent success, that he now ventured to march even under the walls of Syracuse, and defy Hiketas; who did not think it prudent to hazard a second engagement with the victor of Adranum.[319]

[317] Plutarch, Timoleon, c. 12.

[318] Plutarch, Timoleon, c. 13; Diodor. xvi. 69.

[319] Diodor. xvi. 68, 69. That Timoleon marched up to Syracuse, is stated by Diodorus, though not by Plutarch. I follow Diodorus so far; because it makes the subsequent proceedings in regard to Dionysius more clear and intelligible.

But Diodorus adds two further matters, which cannot be correct. He affirms that Timoleon pursued Hiketas at a running pace (δρομαῖος) immediately from the field of battle at Adranum to Syracuse; and that he then got possession of the portion of Syracuse called Epipolæ.

Now it was with some difficulty that Timoleon could get his troops even up to the field of battle at Adranum, without some previous repose; so long and fatiguing was the march which they had undergone from Tauromenium. It is therefore impossible that they can have been either inclined or competent to pursue (at a rapid pace) Hiketas immediately from the field of battle at Adranum to Syracuse.

Next, it will appear from subsequent operations, that Timoleon did not, on this occasion, get possession of any other portion of Syracuse than the Islet Ortygia, surrendered to him by Dionysius. He did not enter Epipolæ until afterwards.

Hiketas was still master of all Syracuse—except Ortygia, against which he had constructed lines of blockade, in conjunction with the Carthaginian fleet occupying the harbor. Timoleon was in no condition to attack the place, and would have been obliged speedily to retire, as his enemies did not choose to come out. But it was soon seen that the manifestations of the Two goddesses, and of the god Adranus, in his favor, were neither barren nor delusive. A real boon was now thrown into his lap, such as neither skill nor valor could have won. Dionysius, blocked up in Ortygia with a scanty supply of provisions, saw from his walls the approaching army of Timoleon, and heard of the victory of Adranum. He had already begun to despair of his own position of Ortygia;[320] where indeed he might perhaps hold out by bold effort and steady endurance, but without any reasonable chance of again becoming master of Syracuse; a chance which Timoleon and the Corinthian intervention cut off more decidedly than ever. Dionysius was a man not only without the energetic character and personal ascendency of his father, which might have made head against such difficulties—but indolent and drunken in his habits, not relishing a sceptre when it could only be maintained by hard fighting, nor stubborn enough to stand out to the last merely as a cause of war.[321] Under these dispositions, the arrival of Timoleon both suggested to him the idea, and furnished him with the means, of making his resignation subservient to the purchase of a safe asylum and comfortable future maintenance: for to a Grecian despot, with the odium of past severities accumulated upon his head, abnegation of power was hardly ever possible, consistent with personal security.[322] But Dionysius felt assured that he might trust to the guarantee of Timoleon and the Corinthians for shelter and protection at Corinth, with as much property as he could carry away with him; since he had the means of purchasing such guarantee by the surrender of Ortygia—a treasure of inestimable worth. Accordingly he resolved to propose a capitulation, and sent envoys to Timoleon for the purpose.

[320] Plutarch, Timoleon, c. 13. ἀπειρηκὼς ἤδη ταῖς ἐλπίσι καὶ μικρὸν ἀπολιπὼν ἐκπολιορκεῖσθαι, etc.

[321] Tacitus, Histor. iii. 70. Respecting the last days of the Emperor Vitellius, “Ipse, neque jubendi neque vetandi potens, non jam Imperator, sed tantum belli causa erat.”

[322] See, among other illustrations of this fact, the striking remark of Solon (Plutarch, Solon, c. 14).

There was little difficulty in arranging terms. Dionysius stipulated only for a safe transit with his movable property to Corinth, and for an undisturbed residence in that city; tendering in exchange the unconditional surrender of Ortygia with all its garrison, arms, and magazines. The convention was concluded forthwith, and three Corinthian officers—Telemachus, Eukleides and Neon—were sent in with four hundred men to take charge of the place. Their entrance was accomplished safely, though they were obliged to elude the blockade by stealing in at several times, and in small companies. Making over to them the possession of Ortygia with the command of its garrison, Dionysius passed, with some money and a small number of companions, into the camp of Timoleon; who conveyed him away, leaving at the same time the neighborhood of Syracuse.[323]

[323] Plutarch, Timoleon, c. 13; Diodor. xvi. 70. Diodorus appears to me to misdate these facts; placing the capitulation of Dionysius and the surrender of Ortygia to Timoleon, after the capture of the other portion of Syracuse by Timoleon. I follow Plutarch’s chronology, which places the capitulation of Ortygia first.

Conceive the position and feelings of Dionysius, a prisoner in the camp of Timoleon, traversing that island over which his father as well as himself had reigned all-powerful, and knowing himself to be the object of either hatred or contempt to every one,—except so far as the immense boon which he had conferred, by surrendering Ortygia, purchased for him an indulgent forbearance! He was doubtless eager for immediate departure to Corinth, while Timoleon was no less anxious to send him thither, as the living evidence of triumph accomplished. Although not fifty days[324] had yet elapsed, since Timoleon’s landing in Sicily, he was enabled already to announce a decisive victory, a great confederacy grouped around him, and the possession of the inexpugnable position of Ortygia, with a garrison equal in number to his own army; the despatches being accompanied by the presence of that very despot, bearing the terrific name of Dionysius, against whom the expedition had been chiefly aimed! Timoleon sent a special trireme[325] to Corinth, carrying Dionysius, and communicating important events, together with the convention which guaranteed to the dethroned ruler an undisturbed residence in that city.

[324] Plutarch, Timoleon, c. 16.

[325] Theopompus stated that Dionysius had gone from Sicily to Corinth in a merchant ship (νηῒ στρογγύλῃ). Timæus contradicted this assertion seemingly with his habitual asperity, and stated that Dionysius had been sent in a ship of war (νηῒ μακρᾷ). See Timæus, Fragment 133; Theopompus, Fragm. 216, ed. Didot.

Diodorus (xvi. 70) copies Theopompus.

Polybius (xii. 4 a) censures Timæus for cavilling at such small inaccuracies, as if the difference between the two were not worth noticing. Probably the language of Timæus may have deserved blame as ill-mannered; but the matter of fact appears to me to have been perfectly worth correcting. To send Dionysius in a trireme, was treating him as prisoner in a respectful manner, which Timoleon was doubtless bound to do; and which he would be inclined to do on his own account—seeing that he had a strong interest in making the entry of Dionysius as a captive into Corinth, an impressive sight. Moreover the trireme would reach Corinth more speedily than the merchantman.

That Dionysius should go in a merchant-ship, was one additional evidence of fallen fortune; and this seems to have been the reason why it was taken up by Theopompus—from the passion, prevalent among so many Greek authors, for exaggerating contrasts.

The impression produced at Corinth by the arrival of this trireme and its passengers was powerful beyond all parallel. Astonishment and admiration were universal; for the expedition of Timoleon had started as a desperate venture, in which scarce one among the leading Corinthians had been disposed to embark; nor had any man conceived the possibility of success so rapid as well as so complete. But the victorious prospect in Sicily, with service under the fortunate general, was now the general passion of the citizens. A reinforcement of two thousand hoplites and two hundred cavalry was immediately voted and equipped.[326]

[326] Plutarch, Timoleon, c. 13, 14, 15.

If the triumph excited wonder and joy, the person of Dionysius himself appealed no less powerfully to other feelings. A fallen despot was a sight denied to Grecian eyes; whoever aspired to despotism, put his all to hazard, forfeiting his chance of retiring to a private station. By a remarkable concurrence of circumstances, the exception to this rule was presented just where it was least likely to take place; in the case of the most formidable and odious despotism which had ever overridden the Grecian world. For nearly half a century prior to the expedition of Dion against Syracuse, every one had been accustomed to pronounce the name of Dionysius with a mixture of fear and hatred—the sentiment of prostration before irresistible force. How much difficulty Dion himself found, in overcoming this impression in the minds of his own soldiers, has been already related. Though dissipated by the success of Dion, the antecedent alarm became again revived, when Dionysius recovered his possession of Ortygia, and when the Syracusans made pathetic appeal to Corinth for aid against him. Now, on a sudden, the representative of this extinct greatness, himself bearing the awful name of Dionysius, enters Corinth under a convention, suing only for the humble domicile and unpretending security of a private citizen.[327] The Greek mind was keenly sensitive to such contrasts, which entered largely into every man’s views of human affairs, and were reproduced in a thousand forms by writers and speakers. The affluence of visitors—who crowded to gaze upon and speak to Dionysius, not merely from Corinth, but from other cities of Greece—was immense; some in simple curiosity, others with compassion, a few even with insulting derision. The anecdotes which are recounted seem intended to convey a degrading impression of this last period of his career. But even the common offices of life—the purchase of unguents and condiments at the tavern[328]—the nicety of criticism displayed respecting robes and furniture[329]—looked degrading when performed by the ex-despot of Syracuse. His habit of drinking largely, already contracted, was not likely to become amended in these days of mortification; yet on the whole his conduct seems to have had more dignity than could have been expected. His literary tastes, manifested during the time of his intercourse with Plato, are implied even in the anecdotes intended to disparage him. Thus he is said to have opened a school for teaching boys to read, and to have instructed the public singers in the art of singing or reciting poetry.[330] His name served to subsequent writers, both Greek and Roman,—as those of Crœsus, Polykrates, and Xerxes, serve to Herodotus—for an instance to point a moral on the mutability of human events. Yet the anecdotes recorded about him can rarely be verified, nor can we distinguish real matters of fact from those suitable and impressive myths which so pregnant a situation was sure to bring forth.

[327] Plutarch, Timoleon, c. 14; Diodor. xvi. 70. The remarks of Tacitus upon the last hours of the Emperor Vitellius have their application to the Greek feeling on this occasion (Histor. iii. 68):—“Nec quisquam adeo rerum humanarum immemor, quem non commoveret illa facies; Romanum principem, et generis humani paulo ante dominum, relictâ fortunæ suæ sede, exire de imperio. Nihil tale viderant, nihil audierant,” etc.

[328] Plutarch, Timoleon, c. 14; Theopomp. Fragm. 217, ed. Didot.; Justin xxi. 5.

[329] Timæus, ap. Polybium. xii. 24.

[330] Plutarch, Timol. c. 14; Cicero, Tuscul. Disp. iii. 12, 7. His remark, that Dionysius opened the school from anxiety still to have the pleasure of exercising authority, can hardly be meant as serious.

We cannot suppose that Dionysius in his exile at Corinth suffered under any want of a comfortable income: for it is mentioned, that all his movable furniture (ἐπισκευὴ) was bought by his namesake Dionysius, the fortunate despot of the Pontic Herakleia; and this furniture was so magnificent, that the acquisition of it is counted among the peculiar marks of ornament and dignity to the Herakleotic dynasty:—see the Fragments of the historian Memnon of Herakleia, ch. iv. p. 10, ed. Orell. apud Photium Cod. 224.

Among those who visited him at Corinth was Aristoxenus of Tarentum: for the Tarentine leaders, first introduced by Plato, had maintained their correspondence with Dionysius even after his first expulsion from Syracuse to Lokri, and had vainly endeavored to preserve his unfortunate wife and daughters from the retributive vengeance of the Lokrians. During the palmy days of Dionysius, his envoy Polyarchus had been sent on a mission to Tarentum, where he came into conversation with the chief magistrate Archytas. This conversation Aristoxenus had recorded in writing; probably from the personal testimony of Archytas, whose biography he composed. Polyarchus dwelt upon wealth, power, and sensual enjoyments, as the sole objects worth living for; pronouncing those who possessed them in large masses, as the only beings deserving admiration. At the summit of all stood the Persian King, whom Polyarchus extolled as the most enviable and admirable of mortals. “Next to the Persian King (said he), though with a very long interval, comes our despot of Syracuse.”[331] What had become of Polyarchus, we do not know; but Aristoxenus lived to see the envied Dionysius under the altered phase of his life at Corinth, and probably to witness the ruin of the Persian Kings also. On being asked, what had been the cause of his displeasure against Plato, Dionysius replied, in language widely differing from that of his former envoy Polyarchus, that amidst the many evils which surrounded a despot, none was so mischievous as the unwillingness of his so-called friends to tell him the truth. Such false friends had poisoned the good feeling between him and Plato.[332] This anecdote bears greater mark of being genuine, than others which we read more witty and pungent. The Cynic philosopher Diogenes treated Dionysius with haughty scorn for submitting to live in a private station after having enjoyed so overruling an ascendency. Such was more or less the sentiment of every visitor who saw him; but the matter to be lamented is, that he had not been in a private station from the beginning. He was by nature unfit to tread, even with profit to himself, the perilous and thorny path of a Grecian despot.

[331] Aristoxenus, Fragm. 15, ed. Didot. ap. Athenæum, p. 545. δεύτερον δὲ, φησὶ, τὸν ἡμέτερον τύραννον θείη τις ἂν, καίπερ πολὺ λειπόμενον.

One sees that the word τύραννος was used even by those who intended no unfriendly sense—applied by an admiring envoy to his master.

[332] Plutarch, Timoleon, c. 15. Aristoxenus heard from Dionysius at Corinth the remarkable anecdote about the faithful attachment of the two Pythagorean friends, Damon and Phintias. Dionysius had been strongly impressed with the incident, and was fond of relating it (~πολλάκις~ ἡμῖν διηγεῖτο, Aristoxen. Fragm. 9, ed. Didot; apud Jamblichum Vit. Pythag. s. 233).

The reinforcements decreed by the Corinthians, though equipped without delay and forwarded to Thurii in Italy, were prevented from proceeding farther on shipboard by the Carthaginian squadron at the strait, and were condemned to wait for a favorable opportunity.[333] But the greatest of all reinforcements to Timoleon was, the acquisition of Ortygia. It contained not merely a garrison of two thousand soldiers—who passed (probably much to their own satisfaction) from the declining cause of Dionysius to the victorious banner of Timoleon—but also every species of military stores. There were horses, engines for siege and battery, missiles of every sort, and above all, shields and spears to the amazing number of seventy thousand—if Plutarch’s statement is exact.[334] Having dismissed Dionysius, Timoleon organized a service of small craft from Katana to convey provisions by sea to Ortygia, eluding the Carthaginian guard squadron. He found means to do this with tolerable success,[335] availing himself of winds or bad weather, when the ships of war could not obstruct the entrance of the lesser harbor. Meanwhile he himself returned to Adranum, a post convenient for watching both Leontini and Syracuse. Here two assassins, bribed by Hiketas, were on the point of taking his life, while sacrificing at a festival; and were only prevented by an accident so remarkable, that every one recognized the visible intervention of the gods to protect him.[336]

[333] Plutarch, Timoleon, c. 16.

[334] Plutarch, Timoleon, c. 13.

[335] Plutarch, Timoleon, c. 18.

[336] Plutarch, Timoleon, c. 16.

Meanwhile Hiketas, being resolved to acquire possession of Ortygia, invoked the aid of the full Carthaginian force under Magon. The great harbor of Syracuse was presently occupied by an overwhelming fleet of one hundred and fifty Carthaginian ships of war, while a land force, said to consist of sixty thousand men, came also to join Hiketas, and were quartered by him within the walls of Syracuse. Never before had any Carthaginian troops got footing within those walls. Syracusan liberty, perhaps Syracusan Hellenism, now appeared extinct. Even Ortygia, in spite of the bravery of its garrison under the Corinthian Neon, seemed not long tenable, against repeated attack and battery of the walls, combined with strict blockade to keep out supplies by sea. Still, however, though the garrison was distressed, some small craft with provisions from Katana contrived to slip in; a fact, which induced Hiketas and Magon to form the plan of attacking that town, thinking themselves strong enough to accomplish this by a part of their force, without discontinuing the siege of Ortygia. Accordingly they sailed forth from the harbor, and marched from the city of Syracuse, with the best part of their armament, to attack Katana, leaving Ortygia still under blockade. But the commanders left behind were so negligent in their watch, that Neon soon saw from the walls of Ortygia the opportunity of attacking them with advantage. Making a sudden and vigorous sally, he fell upon the blockading army unawares, routed them at all points with serious loss, and pressed his pursuit so warmly, that he got possession of Achradina, expelling them from that important section of the city. The provisions and money, acquired herein at a critical moment, rendered this victory important. But what gave it the chief value was, the possession of Achradina which Neon immediately caused to be joined on to Ortygia by a new line of fortifications, and thus held the two in combination.[337] Ortygia had been before (as I have already remarked) completely distinct from Achradina. It is probable that the population of Achradina, delighted to be liberated from the Carthaginians, lent zealous aid to Neon both in the defence of their own walls, and in the construction of the new connecting lines towards Ortygia; for which the numerous intervening tombs would supply materials.

[337] Plutarch, Timoleon, c. 18. ... Ὁ δὲ Κορίνθιος Νέων, κατιδὼν ἀπὸ τῆς ἄκρας τοὺς ὑπολελειμμένους τῶν πολεμίων ἀργῶς καὶ ἀμελῶς φυλάττοντας, ἐξαίφνης ἐνέπεσε διεσπαρμένοις αὐτοῖς· καὶ τοὺς μὲν ἀνελὼν, τοὺς δὲ τρεψάμενος, ἐκράτησε καὶ κατέσχε τὴν λεγομένην Ἀχραδινὴν, ὃ κράτιστον ἐδόκει καὶ ἀθραυστότατον ὑπάρχειν τῆς Συρακουσίων μέρος πόλεως, τρόπον τινα συγκειμένης καὶ συνηρμοσμένης ἐκ πλειόνων πόλεων. Εὐπορήσας δὲ καὶ σίτου καὶ χρημάτων οὐκ ἀφῆκε τὸν τόπον, οὐδ᾽ ἀνεχώρησε πάλιν ἐπὶ τὴν ἄκραν, ἀλλὰ φραξάμενος τὸν περίβολον τῆς Ἀχραδινῆς ~καὶ συνάψας τοῖς ἐρύμασι πρὸς τὴν ἀκρόπολιν~, διεφύλαττε.

This gallant exploit of Neon permanently changed the position of the combatants at Syracuse. A horseman started instantly to convey the bad news to Hiketas and Magon near Katana. Both of them returned forthwith; but they returned only to occupy half of the city—Tycha, Neapolis, and Epipolæ. It became extremely difficult to prosecute a successful siege or blockade of Ortygia and Achradina united: besides that Neon had now obtained abundant supplies for the moment.

Meanwhile Timoleon too was approaching, reinforced by the new Corinthian division; who, having been at first detained at Thurii, and becoming sick of delay, had made their way inland, across the Bruttian territory, to Rhegium. They were fortunate enough to find the strait unguarded; for the Carthaginian admiral Hanno—having seen their ships laid up at Thurii, and not anticipating their advance by land—had first returned with his squadron to the Strait of Messina, and next, hoping by a stratagem to frighten the garrison of Ortygia into surrender, had sailed to the harbor of Syracuse with his triremes decorated as if after a victory. His seamen with wreaths round their heads, shouted as they passed into the harbor under the walls of Ortygia, that the Corinthian squadron approaching the strait had been all captured, and exhibited as proofs of the victory certain Grecian shields hung up aboard. By this silly fabrication, Hanno probably produced a serious dismay among the garrison of Ortygia. But he purchased such temporary satisfaction at the cost of leaving the strait unguarded, and allowing the Corinthian division to cross unopposed from Italy into Sicily. On reaching Rhegium, they not only found the strait free, but also a complete and sudden calm, succeeding upon several days of stormy weather. Embarking immediately on such ferry boats and fishing craft as they could find, and swimming their horses alongside by the bridle, they reached the Sicilian coast without loss or difficulty.[338]

[338] Plutarch, Timoleon, c. 19.

Thus did the gods again show their favor towards Timoleon by an unusual combination of circumstances, and by smiting the enemy with blindness. So much did the tide of success run along with him, that the important town of Messênê declared itself among his allies, admitting the new Corinthian soldiers immediately on their landing. With little delay, they proceeded forward to join Timoleon; who thought himself strong enough, notwithstanding that even with this reinforcement he could only command four thousand men, to march up to the vicinity of Syracuse, and there to confront the immeasurably superior force of his enemies.[339] He appears to have encamped near the Olympieion, and the bridge over the river Anapus.

[339] Plutarch, Timoleon, c. 20.

Though Timoleon was sure of the coöperation of Neon and the Corinthian garrison in Ortygia and Achradina, yet he was separated from them by the numerous force of Hiketas and Magon, who occupied Epipolæ, Neapolis, and Tycha, together with the low ground between Epipolæ and the Great Harbor; while the large Carthaginian fleet filled the Harbor itself. On a reasonable calculation, Timoleon seemed to have little chance of success. But suspicion had already begun in the mind of Magon, sowing the seeds of disunion between him and Hiketas. The alliance between Carthaginians and Greeks was one unnatural to both parties, and liable to be crossed, at every mischance, by mutual distrust, growing out of antipathy which each party felt in itself and knew to subsist in the other. The unfortunate scheme of marching to Katana, with the capital victory gained by Neon in consequence of that absence, made Magon believe that Hiketas was betraying him. Such apprehensions were strengthened, when he saw in his front the army of Timoleon, posted on the river Anapus—and when he felt that he was in a Greek city generally disaffected to him, while Neon was at his rear in Ortygia and Achradina. Under such circumstances, Magon conceived the whole safety of his Carthaginians as depending on the zealous and faithful coöperation of Hiketas, in whom he had now ceased to confide. And his mistrust, once suggested, was aggravated by the friendly communication which he saw going on between the soldiers of Timoleon and those of Hiketas. These soldiers, all Greeks and mercenaries fighting for a country not their own, encountered each other, on the field of battle, like enemies,—but conversed in a pacific and amicable way, during intervals, in their respective camps. Both were now engaged, without disturbing each other, in catching eels amidst the marshy and watery ground between Epipolæ and the Anapus. Interchanging remarks freely, they were admiring the splendor and magnitude of Syracuse with its great maritime convenience,—when one of Timoleon’s soldiers observed to the opposite party—“And this magnificent city, you, Greeks as you are, are striving to barbarise, planting these Carthaginian cut-throats nearer to us than they now are; though our first anxiety ought to be, to keep them as far off as possible from Greece. Do you really suppose that they have brought up this host from the Atlantic and the pillars of Herakles, all for the sake of Hiketas and his rule? Why, if Hiketas took measure of affairs like a true ruler, he would not thus turn out his brethren, and bring in an enemy to his country; he would ensure to himself an honorable sway, by coming to an understanding with the Corinthians and Timoleon.” Such was the colloquy passing between the soldiers of Timoleon and those of Hiketas, and speedily made known to the Carthaginians. Having made apparently strong impression on those to whom it was addressed, it justified alarm in Magon; who was led to believe that he could no longer trust his Sicilian allies. Without any delay, he put all his troops aboard the fleet, and in spite of the most strenuous remonstrances from Hiketas sailed away to Africa.[340]

[340] Plutarch, Timoleon, c. 20.

On the next day, when Timoleon approached to the attack, he was amazed to find the Carthaginian army and fleet withdrawn. His soldiers, scarcely believing their eyes, laughed to scorn the cowardice of Magon. Still however Hiketas determined to defend Syracuse with his own troops, in spite of the severe blow inflicted by Magon’s desertion. That desertion had laid open both the Harbor, and the lower ground near the Harbor; so that Timoleon was enabled to come into direct communication with his garrison in Ortygia and Achradina, and to lay plans for a triple simultaneous onset. He himself undertook to attack the southern front of Epipolæ towards the river Anapus, where the city was strongest; the Corinthian Isias was instructed to make a vigorous assault from Achradina, or the eastern side; while Deinarchus and Demaretus, the generals who had conducted the recent reinforcement from Corinth, were ordered to attack the northern wall of Epipolæ, or the Hexapylon;[341] they were probably sent round from Ortygia, by sea, to land at Trogilus. Hiketas, holding as he did the aggregate consisting of Epipolæ, Tycha, and Neapolis, was assailed on three sides at once. He had a most defensible position, which a good commander, with brave and faithful troops, might have maintained against forces more numerous than those of Timoleon. Yet in spite of such advantages, no effective resistance was made, nor even attempted. Timoleon not only took the place, but took it without the loss of a single man, killed or wounded. Hiketas and his followers fled to Leontini.[342]

[341] Plutarch, Timoleon, c. 21. The account given by Plutarch of Timoleon’s attack is very intelligible. He states that the side of Epipolæ fronting southwards or towards the river Anapus was the strongest.

Saverio Cavallari (Zur Topographie von Syrakus, p. 22) confirms this, by remarking that the northern side of Epipolæ, towards Trogilus, is the weakest, and easiest for access or attack.

We thus see that Epipolæ was the last portion of Syracuse which Timoleon mastered—not the first portion, as Diodorus states (xvi. 69).

[342] Plutarch, Timoleon, c. 21.

The desertion of Magon explains of course a great deal of discouragement among the soldiers of Hiketas. But when we read the astonishing facility of the capture, it is evident that there must have been something more than discouragement. The soldiers on defence were really unwilling to use their arms for the purpose of repelling Timoleon, and keeping up the dominion of Hiketas in Syracuse. When we find this sentiment so powerfully manifested, we cannot but discern that the aversion of these men to serve, in what they looked upon as a Carthaginian cause, threw into the hands of Timoleon an easy victory, and that the mistrustful retreat of Magon was not so absurd and cowardly as Plutarch represents.[343]

[343] Plutarch, Timoleon, c. 20, 21. Diodorus also implies the same verdict (xvi. 69), though his account is brief as well as obscure.

The Grecian public, however, not minutely scrutinizing preliminary events, heard the easy capture as a fact, and heard it with unbounded enthusiasm. From Sicily and Italy the news rapidly spread to Corinth and other parts of Greece. Everywhere the sentiment was the same; astonishment and admiration, not merely at the magnitude of the conquest, but also at the ease and rapidity with which it had been achieved. The arrival of the captive Dionysius at Corinth had been in itself a most impressive event. But now the Corinthians learnt the disappearance of the large Carthaginian host and the total capture of Syracuse, without the loss of a man; and that too before they were even assured that their second reinforcement, which they knew to have been blocked up at Thurii, had been able to touch the Sicilian shore.

Such transcendent novelties excited even in Greece, and much more in Sicily itself, a sentiment towards Timoleon such as hardly any Greek had ever yet drawn to himself. His bravery, his skilful plans, his quickness of movement, were indeed deservedly admired. But in this respect, others had equalled him before; and we may remark that even the Corinthian Neon, in his capture of Achradina, had rivalled anything performed by his superior officer. But that which stood without like or second in Timoleon—that which set a peculiar stamp upon all his meritorious qualities—was, his superhuman good fortune; or—what in the eyes of most Greeks was the same thing in other words—the unbounded favor with which the gods had cherished both his person and his enterprise. Though greatly praised as a brave and able man, Timoleon was still more affectionately hailed as an enviable man.[344] “Never had the gods been so manifest in their dispensations of kindness towards any mortal.[345]” The issue, which Telekleides had announced as being upon trial when Timoleon was named, now stood triumphantly determined. After the capture of Syracuse, we may be sure that no one ever denounced Timoleon as a fratricide;—every one extolled him as a tyrannicide. The great exploits of other eminent men, such as Agesilaus and Epaminondas, had been achieved at the cost of hardship, severe fighting, wounds and death to those concerned, etc., all of which counted as so many deductions from the perfect mental satisfaction of the spectator. Like an oration or poem smelling of the lamp, they bore too clearly the marks of preliminary toil and fatigue. But Timoleon, as the immortal gods descending to combat on the plain of Troy, accomplished splendid feats,—overthrew what seemed insuperable obstacles—by a mere first appearance, and without an effort. He exhibited to view a magnificent result, executed with all that apparent facility belonging as a privilege to the inspirations of first-rate genius.[346] Such a spectacle of virtue and good fortune combined—glorious consummation with graceful facility—was new to the Grecian world.

[344] Plutarch, Timoleon, c. 21. Τὸ μὲν ἁλῶναι τὴν πόλιν (Syracuse) κατ᾽ ἄκρας καὶ γενέσθαι ταχέως ὑποχείριον ἐκπεσόντων τῶν πολεμίων, δίκαιον ἀναθεῖναι τῇ τῶν μαχομένων ἀνδραγαθίᾳ καὶ τῇ δεινότητι τοῦ στρατηγοῦ· τὸ δὲ μὴ ἀποθανεῖν τινα μηδὲ τρωθῆναι τῶν Κορινθίων, ἴδιον ἔργον αὑτῆς ἡ Τιμολέοντος ἐπεδείξατο τύχη, καθάπερ διαμιλλωμένη πρὸς τὴν ἀρετὴν τοῦ ἀνδρὸς, ~ἵνα τῶν ἐπαινουμένων αὐτοῦ τὰ μακαριζόμενα μᾶλλον οἱ πυνθανόμενοι θαυμάζωσιν~.

[345] Homer, Odyss. iii. 219 (Nestor addressing Telemachus).

Εἰ γάρ σ᾽ ὣς ἔθελοι φιλέειν γλαυκῶπις Ἀθήνη, Ὡς τότ᾽ Ὀδυσσῆος περικήδετο κυδαλίμοιο Δήμῳ ἔνι Τρώων, ὅθι πάσχομεν ἄλγε᾽ Ἀχαῖοι— Οὐ γάρ πω ἴδον ὧδε θεοὺς ἀναφανδὰ φιλεῦντας, Ὡς κείνῳ ἀναφανδὰ παρίστατο Παλλὰς Ἀθήνη.

[346] Plutarch, Timoleon, c. 36. μετὰ τοῦ καλοῦ πολὺ τὸ ῥᾳδίως ἔχουσα (ἡ Τιμολέοντος στρατηγία) φαίνεται, τοῖς εὖ καὶ δικαίως λογιζομένοις, οὐ τύχης ἔργον, ἀλλ᾽ ἀρετῆς εὐτυχούσης.

For all that he had done, Timoleon took little credit to himself. In the despatch which announced to the Corinthians his Veni, Vidi, Vici, as well as in his discourses at Syracuse, he ascribed the whole achievement to fortune or to the gods, whom he thanked for having inscribed his name as nominal mover of their decree for liberating Sicily.[347] We need not doubt that he firmly believed himself to be a favored instrument of the divine will, and that he was even more astonished than others at the way in which locked gates flew open before him. But even if he had not believed it himself, there was great prudence in putting this coloring on the facts; not simply because he thereby deadened the attacks of envy, but because, under the pretence of modesty, he really exalted himself much higher. He purchased for himself a greater hold on men’s minds towards his future achievements, as the beloved of the gods, than he would ever have possessed as only a highly endowed mortal. And though what he had already done was prodigious, there still remained much undone; new difficulties, not the same in kind, yet hardly less in magnitude, to be combated.

[347] Plutarch, Timoleon, c. 36; Cornelius Nepos, Timoleon, c. 4; Plutarch, De Sui Laude, p. 542 E.

It was not only new difficulties, but also new temptations, which Timoleon had to combat. Now began for him that moment of trial, fatal to so many Greeks before him. Proof was to be shown, whether he could swallow, without intoxication or perversion, the cup of success administered to him in such overflowing fulness. He was now complete master of Syracuse; master of it too with the fortifications of Ortygia yet standing,—with all the gloomy means of despotic compression, material and moral, yet remaining in his hand. In respect of personal admiration and prestige of success, he stood greatly above Dion, and yet more above the elder Dionysius in the early part of his career. To set up for himself as despot at Syracuse, burying in oblivion all that he had said or promised before, was a step natural and feasible; not indeed without peril or difficulty, but carrying with it chances of success equal to those of other nascent despotisms, and more than sufficient to tempt a leading Greek politician of average morality. Probably most people in Sicily actually expected that he would avail himself of his unparalleled position to stand forth as a new Dionysius. Many friends and partisans would strenuously recommend it. They would even deride him as an idiot (as Solon had been called in his time[348]) for not taking the boon which the gods set before him, and for not hauling up the net when the fish were already caught in it. There would not be wanting other advisers to insinuate the like recommendation under the pretence of patriotic disinterestedness, and regard for the people whom he had come to liberate. The Syracusans (it would be contended), unfit for a free constitution, must be supplied with liberty in small doses, of which Timoleon was the best judge: their best interests require that Timoleon should keep in his hands the anti-popular power with little present diminution, in order to restrain their follies, and ensure to them benefits which they would miss if left to their own free determination.

[348] Solon, Fragm. 26, ed. Schneid.; Plutarch, Solon, c. 14.

Οὐκ ἔφυ Σόλων βαθύφρων, οὐδὲ βουλήεις ἀνήρ· Ἐσθλὰ γὰρ θεοῦ διδόντος, αὐτὸς οὐκ ἐδέξατο. Περιβαλὼν δ᾽ ἄγραν, ἀγασθεὶς οὐκ ἀνέσπασεν μέγα Δίκτυον, θυμοῦ θ᾽ ἁμαρτῇ καὶ φρενῶν ἀποσφαλείς.

Considerations of this latter character had doubtless greatly weighed with Dion in the hour of his victory, over and above mere naked ambition, so as to plunge him into that fatal misjudgment and misconduct out of which he never recovered. But the lesson deducible from the last sad months of Dion’s career was not lost upon Timoleon. He was found proof, not merely against seductions within his own bosom, but against provocations or plausibilities from without. Neither for self-regarding purposes, nor for beneficent purposes, would he be persuaded to grasp and perpetuate the anti-popular power. The moment of trial was that in which the genuine heroism and rectitude of judgment united in his character, first shone forth with its full brightness.

Master as he now was of all Syracuse, with its fivefold aggregate, Ortygia, Achradina, Tycha, Neapolis, and Epipolæ—he determined to strike down at once that great monument of servitude which the elder Dionysius had imposed upon his fellow citizens. Without a moment’s delay, he laid his hand to the work. He invited by proclamation every Syracusan who chose, to come with iron instruments, and coöperate with him in demolishing the separate stronghold, fortification, and residence, constructed by the elder Dionysius in Ortygia; as well as the splendid funeral monument erected to the memory of that despot by his son and successor.[349] This was the first public act executed in Syracuse by his order; the first manifestation of the restored sovereignty of the people; the first outpouring of sentiment, at once free, hearty, and unanimous, among men trodden down by half a century of servitude; the first fraternizing coöperation of Timoleon and his soldiers with them, for the purpose of converting the promise of liberation into an assured fact. That the actual work of demolition was executed by the hands and crowbars of the Syracusans themselves, rendered the whole proceeding an impressive compact between them and Timoleon. It cleared away all mistake, all possibility of suspicion, as to his future designs. It showed that he had not merely forsworn despotism for himself, but that he was bent on rendering it impossible for any one else, when he began by overthrowing what was not only the conspicuous memento, but also the most potent instrument, of the past despots. It achieved the inestimable good of inspiring at once confidence in his future proceedings, and disposing the Syracusans to listen voluntarily to his advice. And it was beneficial, not merely in smoothing the way to farther measures of pacific reconstruction, but also in discharging the reactionary antipathies of the Syracusans, inevitable after so long an oppression, upon unconscious stones; and thus leaving less of it to be wreaked on the heads of political rivals, compromised in the former proceedings.

[349] Plutarch, Timoleon, c. 22. Γενόμενος δὲ τῆς ἀκρᾶς κύριος, οὐκ ἔπαθε Δίωνι ταὐτὸ πάθος, οὐδ᾽ ἐφείσατο τοῦ τόπου διὰ τὸ κάλλος καὶ τὴν πολυτέλειαν τῆς κατασκευῆς, ἀλλὰ τὴν ἐκεῖνον διαβαλοῦσαν, εἶτ᾽ ἀπολέσασαν ὑποψίαν φυλαξάμενος, ἐκήρυξε τῶν Συρακοσίων τὸν βουλόμενον παρεῖναι μετὰ σιδήρου καὶ συνεφάπτεσθαι τῶν τυραννικῶν ἐρυμάτων. Ὡς δὲ πάντες ἀνέβησαν, ἀρχὴν ἐλευθερίας ποιησάμενοι βεβαιοτάτην τὸ κήρυγμα καὶ τὴν ἡμέραν ἐκείνην, οὐ μόνον τὴν ἄκραν, ἀλλὰ καὶ τὰς οἰκίας καὶ τὰ μνήματα τῶν τυράννων ἀνέτρεψαν καὶ κατέσκαψαν. Εὐθὺς δὲ τὸν τόπον συνομαλύνας, ἐνῳκοδόμησε τὰ δικαστήρια, χαριζόμενος τοῖς πολίταις, καὶ τῆς τυραννίδος ὑπερτέραν ποιῶν τὴν δημοκρατίαν.

Compare Cornelius Nepos, Timoleon, c. 3.

This important act of demolition was farther made subservient to a work of new construction, not less significant of the spirit in which Timoleon had determined to proceed. Having cleared away the obnoxious fortress, he erected upon the same site, and probably with the same materials, courts for future judicature. The most striking symbol and instrument of popular government thus met the eye as a local substitute for that of the past despotism.

Deep was the gratitude of the Syracusans for these proceedings—the first fruits of Timoleon’s established ascendency. And if we regard the intrinsic importance of the act itself—the manner in which an emphatic meaning was made to tell as well upon the Syracusan eye as upon the Syracusan mind—the proof evinced not merely of disinterested patriotism, but also of prudence in estimating the necessities of the actual situation—lastly, the foundation thus laid for accomplishing farther good—if we take all these matters together, we shall feel that Timoleon’s demolition of the Dionysian Bastile, and erection in its place of a building for the administration of justice, was among the most impressive phenomena in Grecian history.

The work which remained to be done was indeed such as to require the best spirit, energy and discretion, both on his part and on that of the Syracusans. Through long oppression and suffering, the city was so impoverished and desolate, that the market-place (if we were to believe what must be an exaggeration of Plutarch) served as pasture for horses, and as a place of soft repose for the grooms who attended them. Other cities of Sicily exhibited the like evidence of decay, desertion, and poverty. The manifestations of city life had almost ceased in Sicily. Men were afraid to come into the city, which they left to the despot and his mercenaries, retiring themselves to live on their fields and farms, and shrinking from all acts of citizenship. Even the fields were but half cultivated, so as to produce nothing beyond bare subsistence. It was the first anxiety of Timoleon to revive the once haughty spirit of Syracuse out of this depth of insecurity and abasement; to which revival no act could be more conducive than his first proceedings in Ortygia. His next step was to bring together, by invitations and proclamations everywhere circulated, those exiles who had been expelled, or forced to seek refuge elsewhere, during the recent oppression. Many of these, who had found shelter in various parts of Sicily and Italy, obeyed his summons with glad readiness.[350] But there were others, who had fled to Greece or the Ægean islands, and were out of the hearing of any proclamations from Timoleon. To reach persons thus remote, recourse was had, by him and by the Syracusans conjointly, to Corinthian intervention. The Syracusans felt so keenly how much was required to be done for the secure reorganization of their city as a free community, that they eagerly concurred with Timoleon in entreating the Corinthians to undertake, a second time, the honorable task of founders of Syracuse.[351]

[350] Plutarch, Timoleon, c. 23; Diodor. xvi. 83.

[351] Plutarch, Timoleon, c. 23.

Two esteemed citizens, Kephalus and Dionysius, were sent from Corinth to coöperate with Timoleon and the Syracusans, in constituting the community anew, on a free and popular basis, and in preparing an amended legislation.[352] These commissioners adopted, for their main text and theme, the democratical constitution and laws as established by Dioklês about seventy years before, which the usurpation of Dionysius had subverted when they were not more than seven years old. Kephalus professed to do nothing more than revive the laws of Dioklês, with such comments, modifications, and adaptations, as the change of times and circumstances had rendered necessary.[353] In the laws respecting inheritance and property, he is said to have made no change at all; but unfortunately we are left without any information what were the laws of Dioklês, or how they were now modified. It is certain, however, that the political constitution of Dioklês was a democracy, and that the constitution as now reëstablished was democratical also.[354] Beyond this general fact we can assert nothing.

[352] Plutarch, Timoleon, c. 24.

[353] Diodor. xiii. 35; xvi. 81.

[354] Diodor. xvi. 70.

Though a free popular constitution, however, was absolutely indispensable, and a good constitution a great boon—it was not the only pressing necessity for Syracuse. There was required, no less an importation of new citizens; and not merely of poor men bringing with them their arms and their industry, but also of persons in affluent or easy circumstances, competent to purchase lands and houses. Besides much land ruined or gone out of cultivation, the general poverty of the residents was extreme; while at the same time the public exigencies were considerable, since it was essential, among other things, to provide pay for those very soldiers of Timoleon to whom they owed their liberation. The extent of poverty was painfully attested by the fact that they were constrained to sell those public statues which formed the ornaments of Syracuse and its temples; a cruel wound to the sentiments of every Grecian community. From this compulsory auction, however, they excepted by special vote the statue of Gelon, in testimony of gratitude for his capital victory at Himera over the Carthaginians.[355]

[355] Plutarch, Timoleon, c. 23; Dion Chrysostom, Orat. xxxvii. p. 460.

For the renovation of a community thus destitute, new funds as well as new men were wanted; and the Corinthians exerted themselves actively to procure both. Their first proclamation was indeed addressed specially to Syracusan exiles, whom they invited to resume their residence at Syracuse as free and autonomous citizens under a just allotment of lands. They caused such proclamation to be publicly made at all the Pan-hellenic and local festivals; prefaced by a certified assurance that the Corinthians had already overthrown both the despotism and the despot—a fact which the notorious presence of Dionysius himself at Corinth contributed to spread more widely than any formal announcement. They farther engaged, if the exiles would muster at Corinth, to provide transports, convoy, and leaders, to Syracuse, free of all cost. The number of exiles, who profited by the invitation and came to Corinth, though not inconsiderable, was still hardly strong enough to enter upon the proposed Sicilian renovation. They themselves therefore entreated the Corinthians to invite additional colonists from other Grecian cities. It was usually not difficult to find persons disposed to embark in a new settlement, if founded under promising circumstances, and effected under the positive management of a powerful presiding city.[356] There were many opulent persons anxious to exchange the condition of metics in an old city for that of full citizens in a new one. Hence the more general proclamation now issued by the Corinthians attracted numerous applicants, and a large force of colonists was presently assembled at Corinth; an aggregate of ten thousand persons, including the Syracusan exiles.[357]

[356] Compare the case of the Corinthian proclamation respecting Epidamnus, Thucyd. i. 27; the Lacedæmonian foundation of Herakleia, Thucyd. iii. 93; the proclamation of the Battiad Arkesilaus at Samos, for a new body of settlers to Kyrênê (Herodot. iv. 163).

[357] Plutarch, Timoleon, c. 23. Diodorus states only five thousand (xvi. 82) as coming from Corinth.

When conveyed to Syracuse, by the fleet and under the formal sanction of the Corinthian government, these colonists found a still larger number there assembled, partly Syracusan exiles, yet principally emigrants from the different cities of Sicily and Italy. The Italian Greeks, at this time hard pressed by the constantly augmenting force of the Lucanians and Bruttians, were becoming so unable to defend themselves without foreign aid, that several were probably disposed to seek other homes. The invitation of Timoleon counted even more than that of the Corinthians as an allurement to new comers—from the unbounded admiration and confidence which he now inspired; more especially as he was actually present at Syracuse. Accordingly, the total of immigrants from all quarters (restored exiles as well as others) to Syracuse in its renovated freedom was not less than sixty thousand.[358]

[358] Plutarch, Timoleon, c. 23. To justify his statement of this large total, Plutarch here mentions (I wish he did so oftener) the author from whom he copied it—Athanis, or Athanas. That author was a native Syracusan, who wrote a history of Syracusan affairs from the termination of the history of Philistus in 363 or 362 B. C., down to the death of Timoleon in 337 B. C.; thus including all the proceedings of Dion and Timoleon. It is deeply to be lamented that nothing remains of his work (Diodor. xv. 94; Fragment. Historic. Græc. ed. Didot, vol. ii. p. 81). His name seems to be mentioned in Theopompus (Fr. 212, ed. Didot) as joint commander of the Syracusan troops, along with Herakleides.

Nothing can be more mortifying than to find ourselves without information as to the manner in which Timoleon and Kephalus dealt with this large influx. Such a state of things, as it produces many new embarrassments and conflicting interests, so it calls for a degree of resource and original judgment which furnishes good measure of the capacity of all persons concerned, rendering the juncture particularly interesting and instructive. Unfortunately we are not permitted to know the details. The land of Syracuse is said to have been distributed, and the houses to have been sold for one thousand talents—the large sum of 230,000_l_. A right of preëmption was allowed to the Syracusan exiles for repurchasing the houses formerly their own. As the houses were sold, and that too for a considerable price—so we may presume that the lands were sold also, and that the incoming settlers did not receive their lots gratuitously. But how they were sold, or how much of the territory was sold, we are left in ignorance. It is certain, however, that the effect of the new immigration was not only to renew the force and population of Syracuse, but also to furnish relief to the extreme poverty of the antecedent residents. A great deal of new money must thus have been brought in.[359]

[359] Plutarch, Timoleon, c. 23. καὶ γενομένοις αὐτοῖς ἑξακισμυρίοις τὸ πλῆθος, ὡς Ἄθανις εἴρηκε, τὴν μὲν χώραν διένειμε, τὰς δὲ οἰκίας ἀπέδοτο χιλίων ταλάντων, ἅμα μὲν ὑπολειπόμενος τοῖς ἀρχαίοις Συρακουσίοις ἐξωνεῖσθαι τὰς αὑτῶν, ἅμα δὲ χρημάτων εὐπορίαν τῷ δήμῳ μηχανώμενος οὕτως πενομένῳ καὶ πρὸς τἄλλα καὶ πρὸς τὸν πόλεμον, ὥστε, etc.

Diodorus (xvi. 82) affirms that forty thousand new settlers were admitted εἰς τὴν Συρακουσίαν τὴν ἀδιαίρετον, and that ten thousand were settled in the fine and fertile territory of Agyrium. This latter measure was taken certainly, after the despot of Agyrium had been put down by Timoleon. We should have been glad to have an explanation of τὴν Συρακουσίαν τὴν ἀδιαίρετον: in the absence of information, conjecture as to the meaning is vain.

Such important changes doubtless occupied a considerable time, though we are not enabled to arrange them in months or years. In the meantime Timoleon continued to act in such a manner as to retain, and even to strengthen, the confidence and attachment of the Syracusans. He employed his forces actively in putting down and expelling the remaining despots throughout the island. He first attacked Hiketas, his old enemy, at Leontini; and compelled him to capitulate, on condition of demolishing the fortified citadel, abdicating his rule, and living as a private citizen in the town. Leptines, despot of Apollonia and of several other neighboring townships, was also constrained to submit, and to embrace the offer of a transport to Corinth.[360]

[360] Plutarch, Timoleon, c. 24.

It appears that the submission of Hiketas was merely a feint, to obtain time for strengthening himself by urging the Carthaginians to try another invasion of Sicily.[361] They were the more disposed to this step as Timoleon, anxious to relieve the Syracusans, sent his soldiers under the Corinthian Deinarchus to find pay and plunder for themselves in the Carthaginian possessions near the western corner of Sicily. This invasion, while it abundantly supplied the wants of the soldiers, encouraged Entella and several other towns to revolt from Carthage. The indignation among the Carthaginians had been violent, when Magon returned after suddenly abandoning the harbor of Syracuse to Timoleon. Unable to make his defence satisfactory, Magon only escaped a worse death by suicide, after which his dead body was crucified by public order. And the Carthaginians now resolved on a fresh effort, to repair their honor as well as to defend their territory.[362]

[361] Plutarch, Timoleon, c. 30. Diodor. (xvi. 72) does not mention that Hiketas submitted at all. He states that Timoleon was repulsed in attacking Leontini; and that Hiketas afterwards attacked Syracuse, but was repulsed with loss, during the absence of Timoleon in his expedition against Leptines.

[362] Plutarch, Timoleon, c. 24; Diodor. xvi. 73.

The effort was made on a vast scale, and with long previous preparations. An army said to consist of seventy thousand men, under Hasdrubal and Hamilkar, was disembarked at Lilybæum, on the western corner of the island; besides which there was a fleet of two hundred triremes, and one thousand attendant vessels carrying provisions, warlike stores, engines for sieges, war-chariots with four horses, etc.[363] But the most conspicuous proof of earnest effort, over and above numbers and expense, was furnished by the presence of no less than ten thousand native infantry from Carthage; men clothed with panoplies costly, complete, and far heavier than ordinary—carrying white shields and wearing elaborate breastplates besides. These men brought to the campaign ample private baggage; splendid goblets and other articles of gold and silver, such as beseemed the rich families of that rich city. The élite of the division—twenty-five hundred in number, or one-fourth part—formed what was called the Sacred Band of Carthage.[364] It has been already stated, that in general, the Carthaginians caused their military service to be performed by hired foreigners, with few of their own citizens. Hence this army stood particularly distinguished, and appeared the more formidable on their landing; carrying panic, by the mere report, all over Sicily not excepting even Syracuse. The Corinthian troops ravaging the Carthaginian province were obliged to retreat in haste, and sent to Timoleon for reinforcement.

[363] Plutarch, Timoleon, c. 25; Diodor. xvi. 77. They agree in the main about the numerical items, and seem to have copied from the same authority.

[364] Plutarch, Timoleon, c. 27; Diodor. xvi. 80.

The miscellaneous body of immigrants recently domiciliated at Syracuse, employed in the cares inseparable from new settlement, had not come prepared to face so terrible a foe. Though Timoleon used every effort to stimulate their courage, and though his exhortations met with full apparent response, yet such was the panic prevailing, that comparatively few would follow him to the field. He could assemble no greater total than twelve thousand men; including about three thousand Syracusan citizens—the paid force which he had round him at Syracuse—that other paid force under Deinarchus, who had been just compelled by the invaders to evacuate the Carthaginian province—and finally such allies as would join.[365] His cavalry was about one thousand in number. Nevertheless, in spite of so great an inferiority, Timoleon determined to advance and meet the enemy in their own province, before they should have carried ravage over the territory of Syracuse and her allies. But when he approached near to the border, within the territory of Agrigentum, the alarm and mistrust of his army threatened to arrest his farther progress. An officer among his mercenaries, named Thrasius, took advantage of the prevailing feeling to raise a mutiny against him, persuading the soldiers that Timoleon was madly hurrying them on to certain ruin, against an enemy six times superior in number, and in a hostile country eight days’ march from Syracuse; so that there would be neither salvation for them in case of reverse, nor interment if they were slain. Their pay being considerably in arrear Thrasius urged them to return to Syracuse for the purpose of extorting the money, instead of following a commander, who could not or would not requite them, upon such desperate service. Such was the success and plausibility of these recommendations, under the actual discouragement, that they could hardly be counterworked by all the efforts of Timoleon. Nor was there ever any conjuncture in which his influence, derived as well from unbounded personal esteem as from belief in his favor with the gods, was so near failing. As it was, though he succeeded in heartening up and retaining the large body of his army, yet Thrasius, with one thousand of the mercenaries, insisted upon returning, and actually did return, to Syracuse. Moreover Timoleon was obliged to send an order along with them to the authorities at home, that these men must immediately, and at all cost, receive their arrears of pay. The wonder is, that he succeeded in his efforts to retain the rest, after insuring to the mutineers a lot which seemed so much safer and more enviable. Thrasius, a brave man, having engaged in the service of the Phokians Philomêlus and Onomarchus, had been concerned in the pillage of the Delphian temple, which drew upon him the aversion of the Grecian world.[366] How many of the one thousand seceding soldiers, who now followed him to Syracuse, had been partners in the same sacrilegious act, we cannot tell. But it is certain that they were men who had taken service with Timoleon in hopes of a period, not merely of fighting, but also of lucrative license, such as his generous regard for the settled inhabitants would not permit.

[365] Plutarch, Timoleon, c. 25; Diodor. xvi. 78. Diodorus gives the total of Timoleon’s force at twelve thousand men; Plutarch at only six thousand. The larger total appears to me most probable, under the circumstances. Plutarch seems to have taken account only of the paid force who were with Timoleon at Syracuse, and not to have enumerated that other division, which, having been sent to ravage the Carthaginian province, had been compelled to retire and rejoin Timoleon when the great Carthaginian host landed.

Diodorus and Plutarch follow in the main the same authorities respecting this campaign.

[366] Plutarch, Timoleon, c. 30.

Having succeeded in keeping up the spirits of his remaining army, and affecting to treat the departure of so many cowards as a positive advantage, Timoleon marched on westward into the Carthaginian province, until he approached within a short distance of the river Krimêsus, a stream which rises in the mountainous region south of Panormus (Palermo), runs nearly southward, and falls into the sea near Selinus. Some mules, carrying loads of parsley, met him on the road; a fact which called forth again the half-suppressed alarm of the soldiers, since parsley was habitually employed for the wreaths deposited on tombstones. But Timoleon, taking a handful of it and weaving a wreath for his own head, exclaimed, “This is our Corinthian symbol of victory: it is the sacred herb with which we decorate our victors at the Isthmian festival. It comes to us here spontaneously, as an earnest of our approaching success.” Insisting emphatically on this theme, and crowning himself as well as his officers with the parsley, he rekindled the spirits of the army, and conducted them forward to the top of the eminence, immediately above the course of the Krimêsus.[367]

[367] The anecdote about the parsley is given both in Plutarch (Timol. c. 26) and Diodorus (xvi. 79).

The upper portion of the river Krimêsus, near which this battle was fought, was in the mountainous region called by Diodorus ἡ Σελινουντία δυσχωρία: through which lay the road between Selinus and Panormus (Diodor. xxiii. Frag. p. 333, ed. Wess.).

It was just at that moment that the Carthaginian army were passing the river, on their march to meet him. The confused noise and clatter of their approach were plainly heard; though the mist of a May morning,[368] overhanging the valley, still concealed from the eye the army crossing. Presently the mist ascended from the lower ground to the hill tops around, leaving the river and the Carthaginians beneath in conspicuous view. Formidable was the aspect which they presented. The war-chariots-and-four,[369] which formed their front, had already crossed the river, and appear to have been halting a little way in advance. Next to them followed the native Carthaginians, ten thousand chosen hoplites with white shields, who had also in part crossed and were still crossing; while the main body of the host, the foreign mercenaries, were pressing behind in a disorderly mass to get to the bank, which appears to have been in part rugged. Seeing how favorable was the moment for attacking them, while thus disarrayed and bisected by the river, Timoleon, after a short exhortation, gave orders immediately to charge down the hill.[370] His Sicilian allies, with some mercenaries intermingled, were on the two wings; while he himself, with the Syracusans and the best of the mercenaries, occupied the centre. Demaretus with his cavalry was ordered to assail the Carthaginians first, before they could form regularly. But the chariots in their front, protecting the greater part of the line, left him only the power of getting at them partially through the vacant intervals. Timoleon, soon perceiving that his cavalry accomplished little, recalled them and ordered them to charge on the flanks, while he himself, with all the force of his infantry, undertook to attack in front. Accordingly, seizing his shield from the attendant, he marched forward in advance, calling aloud to the infantry around to be of good cheer and follow. Never had his voice been heard so predominant and heart-stirring; the effect of it was powerfully felt on the spirits of all around, who even believed that they heard a god speaking along with him.[371] Reëchoing his shout emphatically, they marched forward to the charge with the utmost alacrity—in compact order, and under the sound of trumpets.

[368] Plutarch, Timoleon, c. 27. ἱσταμένου θέρους ὥραν—λήγοντι μηνὶ Θαργηλίωνι, etc.

[369] Of these war-chariots they are said to have had not less than two thousand, in the unsuccessful battle which they fought against Agathokles in Africa, near Carthage (Diodor. xx. 10).

After the time of Pyrrhus, they came to employ tame elephants trained for war.

[370] It appears from Polybius that Timæus ascribed to Timoleon, immediately before this battle, an harangue which Polybius pronounces to be absurd and unsuitable (Timæus, Fr. 134, ed. Didot; Polyb. xii. 26 a).

[371] Plutarch, Timoleon, c. 27. Ἀναλαβὼν τὴν ἀσπίδα καὶ βοήσας ἕπεσθαι καὶ θαῤῥεῖν τοῖς πέζοις ἔδοξεν ὑπερφυεῖ φωνῇ καὶ μείζονι κεχρῆσθαι τοῦ συνήθους, εἴτε τῷ πάθει παρὰ τὸν ἀγῶνα καὶ τὸν ἐνθουσιασμὸν οὕτω διατεινάμενος, εἴτε ~δαιμονίου τινὸς, ὡς τοῖς πολλοῖς τότε παρέστη, συνεπιφθεγξαμένου~.

The infantry were probably able to evade or break through the bulwark of interposed chariots with greater ease than the cavalry, though Plutarch does not tell us how this was done. Timoleon and his soldiers then came into close and furious contest with the chosen Carthaginian infantry, who resisted with a courage worthy of their reputation. Their vast shields, iron breastplates, and brazen helmets (forming altogether armor heavier than was worn usually even by Grecian hoplites), enabled them to repel the spear-thrusts of the Grecian assailants, who were compelled to take to their swords, and thus to procure themselves admission within the line of Carthaginian spears, so as to break their ranks. Such use of swords is what we rarely read of in a Grecian battle. Though the contest was bravely maintained by the Carthaginians, yet they were too much loaded with armor to admit of anything but fighting in a dense mass. They were already losing their front rank warriors, the picked men of the whole, and beginning to fight at a disadvantage—when the gods, yet farther befriending Timoleon, set the seal to their discomfiture by an intervention manifest and terrific.[372] A storm of the most violent character began. The hill-tops were shrouded in complete darkness; the wind blew a hurricane; rain and hail poured abundantly, with all the awful accompaniments of thunder and lightning. To the Greeks, this storm was of little inconvenience, because it came in their backs. But to the Carthaginians, pelting as it did directly in their faces, it occasioned both great suffering, and soul-subduing alarm. The rain and hail beat, and the lightning flashed, in their faces, so that they could not see to deal with hostile combatants: the noise of the wind, and of hail rattling against their armor, prevented the orders of their officers from being heard: the folds of their voluminous military tunics were surcharged with rain-water, so as to embarrass their movements: the ground presently became so muddy that they could not keep their footing; and when they once slipped, the weight of their equipment forbade all recovery. The Greeks, comparatively free from inconvenience, and encouraged by the evident disablement of their enemies, pressed them with redoubled energy. At length, when the four hundred front rank men of the Carthaginians had perished by a brave death in their places, the rest of the White-shields turned their backs and sought relief in flight. But flight, too, was all but impossible. They encountered their own troops in the rear advancing up, and trying to cross the Krimêsus; which river itself was becoming every minute fuller and more turbid, through the violent rain. The attempt to recross was one of such unspeakable confusion, that numbers perished in the torrent. Dispersing in total rout, the whole Carthaginian army thought only of escape, leaving their camp and baggage a prey to the victors, who pursued them across the river and over the hills on the other side, inflicting prodigious slaughter. In this pursuit the cavalry of Timoleon, not very effective during the battle, rendered excellent service; pressing the fugitive Carthaginians one over another in mass, and driving them, overloaded with their armor, into mud and water, from whence they could not get clear.[373]

[372] Diodor. xvi. 79. Περιεγένοντο γὰρ ἀνελπίστως τῶν πολεμίων, οὐ μόνον διὰ τὰς ἰδίας ἀνδραγαθίας, ἀλλὰ καὶ διὰ τὴν τῶν θεῶν συνεργίαν.

[373] Plutarch, Timoleon, c. 27, 28; Diodor. xvi. 79, 80.

No victory in Grecian history was ever more complete than that of Timoleon at the Krimêsus. Ten thousand Carthaginians are said to have been slain, and fifteen thousand made prisoners. Upon these numbers no stress is to be laid; but it is certain that the total of both must have been very great. Of the war-chariots, many were broken during the action, and all that remained, two hundred in number, fell into the hands of the victors. But that which rendered the loss most serious, and most painfully felt at Carthage, was, that it fell chiefly upon the native Carthaginian troops, and much less upon the foreign mercenaries. It is even said that the Sacred Battalion of Carthage, comprising twenty-five hundred soldiers belonging to the most considerable families in Carthage, were all slain to a man; a statement, doubtless, exaggerated, yet implying a fearful real destruction. Many of these soldiers purchased safe escape by throwing away their ornamented shields and costly breastplates, which the victors picked up in great numbers—one thousand breastplates, and not less than ten thousand shields. Altogether, the spoil collected was immense—in arms, in baggage, and in gold and silver from the plundered camp; occupying the Greeks so long in the work of pursuit and capture, that they did not find time to erect their trophy until the third day after the battle. Timoleon left the chief part of the plunder,[374] as well as most part of the prisoners, in the hands of the individual captors, who enriched themselves amply by the day’s work. Yet there still remained a large total for the public Syracusan chest; five thousand prisoners, and a miscellaneous spoil of armor and precious articles, piled up in imposing magnificence around the general’s tent.

[374] Plutarch, Timoleon, c. 29; Diodor. xvi. 80, 81.

The Carthaginian fugitives did not rest until they reached Lilybæum. And even there, such was their discouragement—so profound their conviction that the wrath of the gods was upon them—that they could scarcely be induced to go on shipboard for the purpose of returning to Carthage; persuaded as they were that if once caught out at sea, the gods in their present displeasure would never let them reach land.[375] At Carthage itself also, the sorrow and depression was unparalleled: sorrow private as well as public, from the loss of so great a number of principal citizens. It was even feared that the victorious Timoleon would instantly cross the sea and attack Carthage on her own soil. Immediate efforts were however made to furnish a fresh army for Sicily, composed of foreign mercenaries with few or no native citizens. Giskon, the son of Hanno, who passed for their most energetic citizen, was recalled from exile, and directed to get together this new armament.

[375] Diodor. xvi. 81. Τοσαύτη δ᾽ αὐτοὺς κατάπληξις καὶ δέος κατεῖχεν, ὥστε μὴ τολμᾷν εἰς τὰς ναῦς ἐμβαίνειν, μηδ᾽ ἀποπλεῖν εἰς τὴν Λιβύην, ὡς ~διὰ τὴν τῶν θεῶν ἀλλοτριότητα πρὸς αὐτοὺς ὑπὸ τοῦ Λιβυκοῦ πελάγους καταποθησομένους~. Compare the account of the religious terror of the Carthaginians, after their defeat by Agathokles (Diodor. xx. 14).

So, in the argument between Andokides and his accusers, before the Dikastery at Athens—the accusers contend that Andokides clearly does not believe in the gods, because, after the great impiety which he has committed, he has still not been afraid afterwards to make sea voyages (Lysias, cont. Andokid. s. 19).

On the other hand, Andokides himself argues triumphantly, from the fact of his having passed safely through sea voyages in the winter, that he is not an object of displeasure to the gods.

“If the gods thought that I had wronged them, they would not have omitted to punish me, when they caught me in the greatest danger. For what danger can be greater than a sea voyage in winter-time? The gods had then both my life and my property in their power; and yet they preserved me. Was it not then open to them so to manage, as that I should not even obtain interment for my body?....Have the gods then preserved me from the dangers of sea and pirates, merely to let me perish at Athens by the act of my villanous accuser Kephisius? No, Dikasts; the dangers of accusation and trial are human; but the dangers encountered at sea are divine. If, therefore, we are to surmise about the sentiments of the gods, I think they will be extremely displeased and angry, if they see a man, whom they themselves have preserved, destroyed by others.” (Andokides, De Mysteriis, s. 137-139). ἐγὼ μὲν οὖν ἡγοῦμαι χρῆναι νομίζειν τοὺς τοιούτους κινδύνους ἀνθρωπίνους, ~τοὺς δὲ κατὰ θάλασσαν θείους~. Εἴπερ οὖν δεῖ τὰ τῶν θεῶν ὑπονοεῖν, πολὺ ἂν αὐτοὺς οἶμαι ἐγὼ ὀργίζεσθαι καὶ ἀγανακτεῖν, εἰ τοὺς ὑφ᾽ ἑαυτῶν σωζομένους, ὑπ᾽ ἄλλων ἀπολλυμένους ὁρῷεν.

Compare Plutarch, Paul. Emil. c. 36. ~μάλιστα κατὰ πλοῦν~ ἐδεδίειν τὴν μεταβολὴν τοῦ δαίμονος, etc.

The subduing impression of the wrath of the gods, under which the Carthaginians labored, arose from the fact that their defeat had been owing not less to the terrific storm, than to the arms of Timoleon. Conversely, in regard to Timoleon himself, the very same fact produced an impression of awe-striking wonder and envy. If there were any sceptics who doubted before either the reality of special interventions by the gods, or the marked kindness which determined the gods to send such interventions to the service of Timoleon—the victory of the Krimêsus must have convinced them. The storm alike violent and opportune, coming at the back of the Greeks and in the faces of the Carthaginians, was a manifestation of divine favor scarcely less conspicuous than those vouchsafed to Diomedes or Æneas in the Iliad.[376] And the sentiment thus raised towards Timoleon—or, rather previously raised, and now yet farther confirmed—became blended with that genuine admiration which he had richly earned by his rapid and well-conducted movements, as well as by a force of character striking enough to uphold, under the most critical circumstances, the courage of a desponding army. His victory at the Krimêsus, like his victory at Adranum, was gained mainly by that extreme speed in advance, which brought him upon an unprepared enemy at a vulnerable moment. And the news of it which he despatched at once to Corinth,—accompanied with a cargo of showy Carthaginian shields to decorate the Corinthian temples,—diffused throughout Central Greece both joy for the event and increased honor to his name, commemorated by the inscription attached—“The Corinthians and the general Timoleon, after liberating the Sicilian Greeks from the Carthaginians, have dedicated these shields as offerings of gratitude to the gods.”[377]

[376] Claudian, De Tertio Consulatu Honorii, v. 93.

“Te propter, gelidis Aquilo de monte procellis Obruit adversas acies, revolutaque tela Vertit in auctores, et turbine reppulit hastas. O nimium dilecte Deo, cui fundit ab antris Æolus armatas hyemes; cui militat æther, Et conjurati veniunt ad classica venti.”

Compare a passage in the speech of Thrasybulus, Xenoph. Hellen. ii. 4, 14.

[377] Plutarch, Timoleon, c. 29; Diodor. xvi. 80.

Leaving most of his paid troops to carry on war in the Carthaginian province, Timoleon conducted his Syracusans home. His first proceeding was, at once to dismiss Thrasius with the one thousand paid soldiers who had deserted him before the battle. He commanded them to quit Sicily, allowing them only twenty-four hours to depart from Syracuse itself. Probably under the circumstances, they were not less anxious to go away than he was to dismiss them. But they went away only to destruction; for having crossed the Strait of Messina and taken possession of a maritime site in Italy on the Southern sea, the Bruttians of the inland entrapped them by professions of simulated friendship, and slew them all.[378]

[378] Plutarch, Timoleon, c. 30; Diodor. xvi. 82.

Timoleon had now to deal with two Grecian enemies—Hiketas and Mamerkus—the despots of Leontini and Katana. By the extraordinary rapidity of his movements, he had crushed the great invading host of Carthage, before it came into coöperation with these two allies. Both now wrote in terror to Carthage, soliciting a new armament, as indispensable for their security not less than for the Carthaginian interest in the island; Timoleon being the common enemy of both. Presently Giskon son of Hanno, having been recalled on purpose out of banishment, arrived from Carthage with a considerable force—seventy triremes, and a body of Grecian mercenaries. It was rare for the Carthaginians to employ Grecian mercenaries; but the battle of Krimêsus is said to have persuaded them that there were no soldiers to be compared to Greeks. The force of Giskon was apparently distributed partly in the Carthaginian province at the western angle of the island—partly in the neighborhood of Mylæ and Messênê on the north-east, where Mamerkus joined him with the troops of Katana. Messênê appears to have recently fallen under the power of a despot named Hippon, who acted as their ally. To both points Timoleon despatched a portion of his mercenary force, without going himself in command; on both, his troops at first experienced partial defeats; two divisions of them, one comprising four hundred men, being cut to pieces. But such partial reverses were, in the religious appreciation of the time, proofs more conspicuous than ever of the peculiar favor shown by the gods towards Timoleon. For the soldiers thus slain had been concerned in the pillage of the Delphian temple, and were therefore marked out for the divine wrath; but the gods suspended the sentence during the time when the soldiers were serving under Timoleon in person, in order that he might not be the sufferer; and executed it now in his absence, when execution would occasion the least possible inconvenience to him.[379]

[379] Plutarch, Timoleon, c. 30. Ἐξ ὧν καὶ μάλιστα τὴν Τιμολέοντος εὐτυχίαν συνέβη γενέσθαι διώνυμον.... Τὴν μὲν οὖν πρὸς Τιμολέοντα τῶν θεῶν εὐμένειαν, οὐχ ἧττον ἐν αἷς προσέκρουσε πράξεσιν ἢ περὶ ἃς κατώρθου, θαυμάζεσθαι συνέβαινεν.

Compare Plutarch, De Serâ Num. Vind. p. 552 F.

Mamerkus and Hiketas, however, not adopting this interpretation of their recent successes against Timoleon, were full of hope and confidence. The former dedicated the shields of the slain mercenaries to the gods, with an inscription of insolent triumph: the latter—taking advantage of the absence of Timoleon, who had made an expedition against a place not far off called Kalauria—undertook an inroad into the Syracusan territory. Not content with inflicting great damage and carrying off an ample booty, Hiketas, in returning home, insulted Timoleon and the small force along with him by passing immediately under the walls of Kalauria. Suffering him to pass by, Timoleon pursued, though his force consisted only of cavalry and light troops, with few or no hoplites. He found Hiketas posted on the farther side of the Damurias; a river with rugged banks and a ford of considerable difficulty. Yet notwithstanding this good defensive position, the troops of Timoleon were so impatient to attack, and each of his cavalry officers was so anxious to be first in the charge, that he was obliged to decide the priority by lot. The attack was then valiantly made, and the troops of Hiketas completely defeated. One thousand of them were slain in the action, while the remainder only escaped by flight and throwing away of their shields.[380]

[380] Plutarch, Timoleon, c. 31.

It was now the turn of Timoleon to attack Hiketas in his own domain of Leontini. Here his usual good fortune followed him. The soldiers in garrison—either discontented with the behavior of Hiketas at the battle of the Damurias, or awe-struck with that divine favor which waited on Timoleon—mutinied and surrendered the place into his hands; and not merely the place, but also Hiketas himself in chains, with his son Eupolemus, and his general Euthymus, a man of singular bravery as well as a victorious athlete at the games. All three were put to death; Hiketas and his son as despots and traitors; and Euthymus, chiefly in consequence of insulting sarcasms against the Corinthians, publicly uttered at Leontini. The wife and daughters of Hiketas were conveyed as prisoners to Syracuse, where they were condemned to death by public vote of the Syracusan assembly. This vote was passed in express revenge for the previous crime of Hiketas, in putting to death the widow, sister, and son, of Dion. Though Timoleon might probably have saved the unfortunate women by a strong exertion of influence, he did not interfere. The general feeling of the people accounted this cruel, but special, retaliation right under the circumstances; and Timoleon, as he could not have convinced them of the contrary, so he did not think it right to urge them to put their feeling aside as a simple satisfaction to him. Yet the act leaves a deserved stain upon a reputation such as his.[381] The women were treated on both sides as adjective beings, through whose lives revenge was to be taken against a political enemy.

[381] Plutarch, Timoleon, c. 33.

Next came the turn of Mamerkus, who had assembled near Katana a considerable force, strengthened by a body of Carthaginian allies under Giskon. He was attacked and defeated by Timoleon near the river Abolus, with a loss of two thousand men, many of them belonging to the Carthaginian division. We know nothing but the simple fact of this battle; which probably made serious impression upon the Carthaginians, since they speedily afterwards sent earnest propositions for peace, deserting their Sicilian allies. Peace was accordingly concluded; on terms however which left the Carthaginian dominion in Sicily much the same as it had been at the end of the reign of the elder Dionysius, as well as at the landing of Dion in Sicily.[382] The line of separation was fixed at the river Halykus, or Lykus, which flows into the southern sea near Herakleia Minoa, and formed the western boundary of the territory of Agrigentum. All westward of the Halykus was recognized as Carthaginian: but it was stipulated that if any Greeks within that territory desired to emigrate and become inmates of Syracuse, they should be allowed freely to come with their families and their property. It was farther covenanted that all the territory eastward of the Halykus should be considered not only as Greek, but as free Greek, distributed among so many free cities, and exempt from despots. And the Carthaginians formally covenanted that they would neither aid, nor adopt as ally, any Grecian despot in Sicily.[383] In the first treaty concluded by the elder Dionysius with the Carthaginians, it had been stipulated by an express article that the Syracusans should be subject to him.[384] Here is one of the many contrasts between Dionysius and Timoleon.

[382] Diodor. xv. 17. Minoa (Herakleia) was a Carthaginian possession when Dion landed (Plutarch, Dion, c. 25).

Cornelius Nepos (Timoleon, c. 2) states erroneously, that the Carthaginians were completely expelled from Sicily by Timoleon.

[383] Plutarch, Timoleon, c. 34; Diodor. xvi. 82.

[384] Diodor. xiii. 114.

Having thus relieved himself from his most formidable enemy, Timoleon put a speedy end to the war in other parts of the island. Mamerkus in fact despaired of farther defence without foreign aid. He crossed over with a squadron into Italy to ask for the introduction of a Lucanian army into Sicily;[385] which he might perhaps have obtained, since that warlike nation were now very powerful—had not his own seamen abandoned him, and carried back their vessels to Katana, surrendering both the city and themselves to Timoleon. The same thing, and even more, had been done a little before by the troops of Hiketas at Leontini, who had even delivered up Hiketas himself as prisoner; so powerful, seemingly, was the ascendency exercised by the name of Timoleon, with the prestige of his perpetual success. Mamerkus could now find no refuge except at Messênê, where he was welcomed by the despot Hippon. But Timoleon speedily came thither with a force ample enough to besiege Messênê by land and by sea. After a certain length of resistance,[386] the town was surrendered to him, while Hippon tried to make his escape secretly on shipboard. But he was captured and brought back into the midst of the Messenian population, who, under a sentiment of bitter hatred and vengeance, planted him in the midst of the crowded theatre and there put him to death with insult, summoning all the boys from school into the theatre to witness what was considered an elevating scene. Mamerkus, without attempting to escape, surrendered himself prisoner to Timoleon; only stipulating that his fate should be determined by the Syracusan assembly after a fair hearing, but that Timoleon himself should say nothing to his disfavor. He was accordingly brought to Syracuse, and placed on his trial before the assembled people, whom he addressed in an elaborate discourse; probably skilfully composed, since he is said to have possessed considerable talent as a poet.[387] But no eloquence could surmount the rooted aversion entertained by the Syracusans for his person and character. Being heard with murmurs, and seeing that he had no chance of obtaining a favorable verdict, he suddenly threw aside his garment and rushed with violent despair against one of the stone seats, head foremost, in hopes of giving himself a fatal blow. But not succeeding in this attempted suicide, he was led out of the theatre and executed like a robber.[388]

[385] Cornelius Nepos (Timoleon, c. 2) calls Mamerkus an Italian general who had come into Sicily to aid the despots. It is possible enough that he may have been an Italiot Greek; for he must have been a Greek, from the manner in which Plutarch speaks of his poetical compositions.

[386] Plutarch, Timoleon, c. 37.

[387] Plutarch, Timoleon, c. 31.

[388] Plutarch, Timoleon, c. 34.

Timoleon had now nearly accomplished his confirmed purpose of extirpating every despotism in Sicily. There remained yet Nikodemus as despot at Kentoripa, and Apolloniades at Agyrium. Both of these he speedily dethroned or expelled, restoring the two cities to the condition of free communities. He also expelled from the town of Ætna those Campanian mercenaries who had been planted there by the elder Dionysius.[389] In this way did he proceed until there remained only free communities, without a single despot, in the Grecian portion of Sicily.

[389] Diodor. xvi. 82.

Of the details of his proceedings our scanty information permits us to say but little. But the great purpose with which he had started from Corinth was now achieved. After having put down all the other despotisms in Sicily, there remained for him but one farther triumph—the noblest and rarest of all—to lay down his own. This he performed without any delay, immediately on returning to Syracuse from his military proceedings. Congratulating the Syracusans on the triumphant consummation already attained, he entreated them to dispense with his farther services as sole commander; the rather as his eyesight was now failing.[390] It is probable enough that this demand was at first refused, and that he was warmly requested to retain his functions; but if such was the fact, he did not the less persist, and the people, willing or not, acceded. We ought farther to note, that not only did he resign his generalship, but he resigned it at once and immediately, after the complete execution of his proclaimed purpose, to emancipate the Sicilian Greeks from foreign enemies as well as from despot-enemies; just as, on first acquiring possession of Syracuse, he had begun his authoritative career, without a moment’s delay, by ordering the demolition of the Dionysian stronghold, and the construction of a court of justice in its place.[391] By this instantaneous proceeding he forestalled the growth of that suspicion which delay would assuredly have raised, and for which the free communities of Greece had in general such ample reason. And it is not the least of his many merits, that while conscious of good intentions himself, he had also the good sense to see that others could not look into his bosom; that all their presumptions, except what were created by his own conduct, would be derived from men worse than him—and therefore unfavorable. Hence it was necessary for him to be prompt and forward, even to a sort of ostentation, in exhibiting the amplest positive proof of his real purposes, so as to stifle beforehand the growth of suspicion.

[390] Plutarch, Timoleon, c. 37. Ὡς δὲ ἐπανῆλθεν εἰς Συρακούσας, εὐθὺς ἀποθέσθαι τὴν μοναρχίαν καὶ παραιτεῖσθαι τοὺς πολίτας, τῶν πραγμάτων εἰς τὸ κάλλιστον ἡκόντων τέλος.

[391] Plutarch, l. c. ~εὐθὺς~ ἀποθέσθαι τὴν μοναρχίαν: compare c. 22.

He was now a private citizen of Syracuse, having neither paid soldiers under his command nor any other public function. As a reward for his splendid services, the Syracusans voted to him a house in the city, and a landed property among the best in the neighborhood. Here he fixed his residence, sending for his wife and family to Corinth.[392]

[392] Plutarch, Timoleon, c. 36.

Yet though Timoleon had renounced every species of official authority, and all means of constraint, his influence as an adviser over the judgment, feelings and actions, not only of Syracusans, but of Sicilians generally, was as great as ever; perhaps greater—because the fact of his spontaneous resignation gave him one title more to confidence. Rarely is it allowed to mortal man, to establish so transcendent a claim to confidence and esteem as Timoleon now presented; upon so many different grounds, and with so little of alloy or abatement. To possess a counsellor whom every one reverenced, without suspicions or fears of any kind—who had not only given conspicuous proofs of uncommon energy combined with skilful management, but enjoyed besides, in a peculiar degree, the favor of the gods—was a benefit unspeakably precious to the Sicilians at this juncture. For it was now the time when not merely Syracuse, but other cities of Sicily also, were aiming to strengthen their reconstituted free communities by a fresh supply of citizens from abroad. During the sixty years which had elapsed since the first formidable invasion wherein the Carthaginian Hannibal had conquered Selinus, there had been a series of causes all tending to cripple and diminish, and none to renovate, the Grecian population of Sicily. The Carthaginian attacks, the successful despotism of the first Dionysius, and the disturbed reign of the second,—all contributed to the same result. About the year 352-351 B. C., Plato (as has been already mentioned) expresses his fear of an extinction of Hellenism in Sicily giving place before Phenician or Campanian force.[393] And what was a sad possibility, even in 352-351 B. C.—had become nearer to a probability in 344 B. C., before Timoleon landed, in the then miserable condition of the island.

[393] Plato, Epistol. viii. p. 353 F.

His unparalleled success and matchless personal behavior combined with the active countenance of Corinth without—had completely turned the tide. In the belief of all Greeks, Sicily was now a land restored to Hellenism and freedom, but requiring new colonists as well to partake, as to guard, these capital privileges. The example of colonization, under the auspices of Corinth, had been set at Syracuse, and was speedily followed elsewhere, especially at Agrigentum, Gela, and Kamarina. All these three cities had suffered cruelly during those formidable Carthaginian invasions which immediately preceded the despotism of Dionysius at Syracuse. They had had no opportunity, during the continuance of the Dionysian dynasty, even to make up what they had then lost; far less to acquire accessions from without. At the same time, all three (especially Agrigentum) recollected their former scale of opulence and power, as it had stood prior to 407 B. C. It was with eagerness therefore that they availed themselves of the new life and security imparted to Sicily by the career of Timoleon to replenish their exhausted numbers; by recalling those whom former suffering had driven away, and by inviting fresh colonists besides. Megellus and Pheristus, citizens of Elea on the southern coast of Italy (which was probably at this time distressed by the pressure of Lucanians from the interior), conducted a colony to Agrigentum: Gorgus, from Keos, went with another band to Gela: in both cases, a proportion of expatriated citizens returned among them. Kamarina, too, and Agyrium received large accessions of inhabitants. The inhabitants of Leontini are said to have removed their habitations to Syracuse; a statement difficult to understand, and probably only partially true, as the city and its name still continued to exist.[394]

[394] Diodor. xvi. 65, 82; Plutarch, Timoleon, c. 35.

Unfortunately the proceedings of Timoleon come before us (through Diodorus and Plutarch) in a manner so vague and confused, that we can rarely trace the sequence or assign the date of particular facts.[395] But about the general circumstances, with their character and bearing, there is no room either for mistake or doubt. That which rhetors and sophists like Lysias had preached in their panegyrical harangues[396]—that for which Plato sighed, in the epistles of his old age—commending it, after Dion’s death, to the surviving partisans of Dion, as having been the unexecuted purpose of their departed leader—the renewal of freedom and Hellenism throughout the island—was now made a reality under the auspices of Timoleon. The houses, the temples, the walls, were rescued from decay; the lands from comparative barrenness. For it was not merely his personal reputation and achievements which constituted the main allurement to new colonists, but also his superintending advice which regulated their destination when they arrived. Without the least power of constraint, or even official dignity, he was consulted as a sort of general Œkist or Patron-Founder, by the affectionate regard of the settlers in every part of Sicily. The distribution or sale of lands, the modification required in existing laws and customs, the new political constitutions, etc., were all submitted to his review. No settlement gave satisfaction, except such as he had pronounced or approved; none which he had approved was contested.[397]

[395] Eight years elapsed from the time when Timoleon departed with his expedition from Corinth to the time of his death; from 345-344 B. C. to 337-336 B. C. (Diodorus, xvi. 90; Plutarch, Timoleon, c. 37).

The battle of the Krimêsus is assigned by Diodorus to 340 B. C. But as to the other military achievements of Timoleon in Sicily, Diodorus and Plutarch are neither precise, nor in accordance with each other.

[396] Plutarch, Timoleon, c. 37. μόνος, ἐφ᾽ ἃς οἱ σοφισταὶ διὰ τῶν λόγων τῶν πανηγυρικῶν ἀεὶ παρεκάλουν πράξεις τοὺς Ἕλληνας, ἐν αὐταῖς ἀριστεύσας, etc.

[397] Plutarch, Timoleon, c. 35. Οἷς οὐ μόνον ἀσφάλειαν ἐκ πολέμου τοσούτου καὶ γαλήνην ἱδρυομένοις παρεῖχεν, ἀλλὰ καὶ τἄλλα παρασκευάσας καὶ συμπροθυμηθεὶς ὥσπερ οἰκιστὴς ἠγαπᾶτο. Καὶ τῶν ἄλλων δὲ διακειμένων ὁμοίως πρὸς αὐτὸν, οὐ πολέμου τις λύσις, οὐ νόμων θέσις, οὐ χώρας κατοικισμὸς, οὐ πολιτείας διάταξις, ἐδόκει καλῶς ἔχειν, ἧς ἐκεῖνος μὴ προσάψαιτο μηδὲ κατακοσμήσειεν, ὥσπερ ἔργῳ συντελουμένῳ δημιουργὸς ἐπιθείς τινα χάριν θεοφιλῆ καὶ πρέπουσαν.

Compare Cornelius Nepos, Timoleon, c. 3.

In the situation in which Sicily was now placed, it is clear that numberless matters of doubt and difficulty would inevitably arise; that the claims and interests of pre-existing residents, returning exiles and new immigrants, would often be conflicting; that the rites and customs of different fractions composing the new whole, might have to be modified for the sake of mutual harmony; that the settlers, coming from oligarchies as well as democracies might bring with them different ideas as to the proper features of a political constitution; that the apportionment or sale of lands, and the adjustment of old debts, presented but too many chances of angry dispute; that there were, in fact, a thousand novelties in the situation, which could not be determined either by precedent, or by any peremptory rule, but must be left to the equity of a supreme arbitrator. Here then the advantages were unspeakable of having a man like Timoleon to appeal to; a man not only really without sinister bias, but recognized by every one as being so; a man whom every one loved, trusted, and was grieved to offend; a man who sought not to impose his own will upon free communities, but addressed them as freemen, building only upon their reason and sentiments, and carrying out in all his recommendations of detail those instincts of free speech, universal vote, and equal laws, which formed the germ of political obligation in the minds of Greeks generally. It would have been gratifying to know how Timoleon settled the many new and difficult questions which must have been submitted to him as referee. There is no situation in human society so valuable to study, as that in which routine is of necessity broken through, and the constructive faculties called into active exertion. Nor was there ever perhaps throughout Grecian history, a simultaneous colonization, and simultaneous recasting of political institutions, more extensive than that which now took place in Sicily. Unfortunately we are permitted to know only the general fact, without either the charm or the instruction which would have been presented by the details. Timoleon was, in Sicily, that which Epaminondas had been at the foundation of Messênê and Megalopolis, though with far greater power: and we have to deplore the like ignorance respecting the detail proceedings of both these great men.

But though the sphere of Timoleon’s activity was coextensive with Sicily, his residence, his citizenship, and his peculiar interests and duties were at Syracuse. That city, like most of the other Sicilian towns, had been born anew, with a numerous body of settlers and altered political institutions. I have already mentioned that Kephalus and others, invited from Corinth by express vote of the Syracusans, had reëstablished the democratical institution of Dioklês, with suitable modifications. The new era of liberty was marked by the establishment of a new sacred office, that of Amphipolus or Attendant Priest of Zeus Olympius; an office changed annually, appointed by lot (doubtless under some conditions of qualification which are not made known to us,[398]) and intended, like the Archon Eponymus at Athens, as the recognized name to distinguish each Syracusan year. In this work of constitutional reform, as well as in all the labors and adjustments connected with the new settlers, Timoleon took a prominent part. But so soon as the new constitution was consummated and set at work, he declined undertaking any specific duties or exercising any powers under it. Enjoying the highest measure of public esteem, and loaded with honorary and grateful votes from the people, he had the wisdom as well as the virtue to prefer living as a private citizen; a resolution doubtless promoted by his increasing failure of eyesight, which presently became total blindness.[399] He dwelt in the house assigned to him by public vote of the people, which he had consecrated to the Holy God, and within which he had set apart a chapel to the goddess Automatia,—the goddess under whose auspices blessings and glory came as it were of themselves.[400] To this goddess he offered sacrifice, as the great and constant patroness who had accompanied him from Corinth through all his proceedings in Sicily.

[398] Diodor. xvi. 70; Cicero in Verrem, ii. 51.

[399] Plutarch, Timoleon, c. 38.

[400] Plutarch, Timoleon, c. 38. Ἐπὶ δὲ τῆς οἰκίας ἱερὸν ἱδρυσάμενος Αὐτοματίας ἔθυσεν, αὐτὴν δὲ τὴν οἰκίαν Ἱερῷ Δαίμονι καθιέρωσεν.

Cornelius Nepos, Timoleon, c. 4; Plutarch, Reip. Gerend. Præcept. p. 816 D.

The idea of Αὐτοματία is not the same as that of Τύχη, though the word is sometimes translated as if it were. It is more nearly the same as Ἀγαθὴ Τύχη—though still, as it seems to me, not exactly the same.

By refusing the official prominence tendered to him, and by keeping away from the details of public life, Timoleon escaped the jealousy sure to attend upon influence so prodigious as his. But in truth, for all great and important matters, this very modesty increased instead of diminishing his real ascendency. Here as elsewhere, the goddess Automatia worked for him, and brought to him docile listeners without his own seeking. Though the Syracusans transacted their ordinary business through others, yet when any matter of serious difficulty occurred, the presence of Timoleon was specially invoked in the discussion. During the later months of his life, when he had become blind, his arrival in the assembly was a solemn scene. Having been brought in his car drawn by mules across the market-place to the door of the theatre wherein the assembly was held, attendants then led or drew the car into the theatre amidst the assembled people, who testified their affection by the warmest shouts and congratulations. As soon as he had returned their welcome, and silence was restored, the discussion to which he had been invited took place, Timoleon sitting on his car and listening. Having heard the matter thus debated, he delivered his own opinion, which was usually ratified at once by the show of hands of the assembly. He then took leave of the people and retired, the attendants again leading the car out of the theatre, and the same cheers of attachment accompanying his departure; while the assembly proceeded with its other and more ordinary business.[401]

[401] Plutarch, Timoleon, c. 38; Cornel. Nepos, Timoleon, c. 4.

Such is the impressive and picturesque description given (doubtless by Athanis or some other eye-witness[402]) of the relations between the Syracusan people and the blind Timoleon, after his power had been abdicated, and when there remained to him nothing except his character and moral ascendency. It is easy to see that the solemnities of interposition, here recounted, must have been reserved for those cases in which the assembly had been disturbed by some unusual violence or collision of parties. For such critical junctures, where numbers were perhaps nearly balanced, and where the disappointment of an angry minority threatened to beget some permanent feud, the benefit was inestimable, of an umpire whom both parties revered, and before whom neither thought it a dishonor to yield. Keeping aloof from the details and embarrassments of daily political life, and preserving himself (like the Salaminian trireme, to use a phrase which Plutarch applies to Perikles at Athens) for occasions at once momentous and difficult, Timoleon filled up a gap occasionally dangerous to all free societies; but which even at Athens had always remained a gap, because there was no Athenian at once actually worthy, and known to be worthy, to fill it. We may even wonder how he continued worthy, when the intense popular sentiment in his favor tended so strongly to turn his head, and when no contradiction or censure against him was tolerated.

[402] It occurs in Cornelius Nepos prior to Plutarch, and was probably copied by both from the same authority.

Two persons, Laphystius and Demænetus, called by the obnoxious names of sycophants and demagogues, were bold enough to try the experiment. The former required him to give bail in a lawsuit; the latter, in a public discourse, censured various parts of his military campaigns. The public indignation against both these men was vehement; yet there can be little doubt that Laphystius applied to Timoleon a legal process applicable universally to every citizen: what may have been the pertinence of the censures of Demænetus, we are unable to say. However, Timoleon availed himself of the well-meant impatience of the people to protect him either from legal process or from censure, only to administer to them a serious and valuable lesson. Protesting against all interruption to the legal process of Laphystius, he proclaimed emphatically that this was the precise purpose for which he had so long labored, and combated—in order that every Syracusan citizen might be enabled to appeal to the laws and exercise freely his legal rights. And while he thought it unnecessary to rebut in detail the objections taken against his previous generalship, he publicly declared his gratitude to the gods, for having granted his prayer that he might witness all Syracusans in possession of full liberty of speech.[403]

[403] Plutarch, Timoleon, c. 37; Cornelius Nepos, Timoleon, c. 5.

We obtain little from the biographers of Timoleon, except a few incidents, striking, impressive, and somewhat theatrical, like those just recounted. But what is really important is, the tone and temper which these incidents reveal, both in Timoleon and in the Syracusan people. To see him unperverted by a career of superhuman success, retaining the same hearty convictions with which he had started from Corinth; renouncing power, the most ardent of all aspirations with a Greek politician, and descending to a private station, in spite of every external inducement to the contrary; resisting the temptation to impose his own will upon the people, and respecting their free speech and public vote in a manner which made it imperatively necessary for every one else to follow his example; foregoing command, and contenting himself with advice when his opinion was asked—all this presents a model of genuine and intelligent public spirit, such as is associated with few other names except that of Timoleon. That the Syracusan people should have yielded to such conduct and obedience not merely voluntary, but heartfelt and almost reverential, is no matter of wonder. And we may be quite sure that the opinion of Timoleon, tranquilly and unostentatiously consulted, was the guiding star which they followed on most points of moment or difficulty; over and above those of exceptional cases of aggravated dissent where he was called in with such imposing ceremony as an umpire. On the value of such an oracle close at hand it is needless to insist; especially in a city which for the last half century had known nothing but the dominion of force, and amidst a new miscellaneous aggregate composed of Greek settlers from many different quarters.

Timoleon now enjoyed, as he had amply earned, what Xenophon calls “that good, not human, but divine—command over willing men—given manifestly to persons of genuine and highly trained temperance of character.[404]” In him the condition indicated by Xenophon was found completely realized—temperance in the largest and most comprehensive sense of the word—not simply sobriety and continence (which had belonged to the elder Dionysius also), but an absence of that fatal thirst for coercive power at all price, which in Greece was the fruitful parent of the greater crimes and enormities.

[404] Xenoph. Œconomic. xxi. 12. Οὐ γὰρ πάνυ μοι δοκεῖ ὅλον τουτὶ τὸ ἀγαθὸν ἀνθρώπινον εἶναι, ἀλλὰ θεῖον, ~τὸ ἐθελόντων ἄρχειν~· σαφῶς δὲ δίδοται τοῖς ἀληθινῶς σωφροσύνῃ τετελεσμένοις. Τὸ δὲ ἀκόντων τυραννεῖν διδόασιν, ὡς ἐμοὶ δοκεῖ, οὓς ἂν ἡγῶνται ἀξίους εἶναι βιοτεύειν, ὥσπερ ὁ Τάνταλος ἐν ᾅδου λέγεται τὸν ἀεὶ χρόνον διατρίβειν, φοβούμενος μὴ δὶς ἀποθάνῃ.

Timoleon lived to see his great work of Sicilian enfranchisement consummated, to carry it through all its incipient difficulties, and to see it prosperously moving on. Not Syracuse alone, but the other Grecian cities in the island also, enjoyed under their revived free institutions a state of security, comfort, and affluence, to which they had been long strangers. The lands became again industriously tilled; the fertile soil yielded anew abundant exports; the temples were restored from their previous decay, and adorned with the votive offerings of pious munificence.[405] The same state of prosperous and active freedom, which had followed on the expulsion of the Gelonian dynasty a hundred and twenty years before, and lasted about fifty years, without either despots within or invaders from without—was now again made prevalent throughout Sicily under the auspices of Timoleon. It did not indeed last so long. It was broken up in the year 316 B. C., twenty-four years after the battle of the Krimêsus, by the despot Agathokles, whose father was among the immigrants to Syracuse under the settlement of Timoleon. But the interval of security and freedom with which Sicily was blessed between these two epochs, she owed to the generous patriotism and intelligent counsel of Timoleon. There are few other names among the Grecian annals, with which we can connect so large an amount of predetermined and beneficent result.

[405] Diodor. xvi. 83.

Endeared to the Syracusans as a common father and benefactor,[406] and exhibited as their hero to all visitors from Greece, he passed the remainder of his life amidst the fulness of affectionate honor. Unfortunately for the Syracusans, that remainder was but too short; for he died of an illness apparently slight, in the year 337-336 B. C.—three or four years after the battle of the Krimêsus. Profound and unfeigned was the sorrow which his death excited, universally, throughout Sicily. Not merely the Syracusans, but crowds from all other parts of the island, attended to do honor to his funeral, which was splendidly celebrated at the public cost. Some of the chosen youths of the city carried the bier whereon his body was deposited: a countless procession of men and women followed, in their festival attire, crowned with wreaths, and mingling with their tears admiration and envy for their departed liberator. The procession was made to pass over that ground which presented the most honorable memento of Timoleon; where the demolished Dionysian stronghold had once reared its head, and where the court of justice was now placed, at the entrance of Ortygia. At length it reached the Nekropolis, between Ortygia and Achradina, where a massive funeral pile had been prepared. As soon as the bier had been placed on this pile, and fire was about to be applied, the herald Demetrius, distinguished for the powers of his voice, proclaimed with loud announcement as follows:—

[406] Plutarch. Timoleon, c. 39. Ἐν τοιαύτῃ δὲ γηροτροφούμενος τιμῇ μετ᾽ εὐνοίας, ὥσπερ πατὴρ κοινὸς, ἐκ μικρᾶς προφάσεως τῷ χρόνῳ συνεφαψαμένης ἐτελεύτησεν.

“The Syracusan people solemnize, at the cost of two hundred minæ, the funeral of this man, the Corinthian Timoleon, son of Timodemus. They have passed a vote to honor him for all future time with festival matches in music, horse and chariot race, and gymnastics,—because, after having put down the despots, subdued the foreign enemy, and re-colonized the greatest among the ruined cities, he restored to the Sicilian Greeks their constitution and laws.”

A sepulchral monument, seemingly with this inscription recorded on it, was erected to the memory of Timoleon in the agora of Syracuse. To this monument other buildings were presently annexed; porticos, for the assembling of persons in business or conversation—and palæstræ, for the exercises of youths. The aggregate of buildings all taken together was called the Timoleontion.[407]

[407] Plutarch, Timoleon, c. 39; Diodor, xvi. 90.

When we reflect that the fatal battle of Chæroneia had taken place the year before Timoleon’s decease, and that his native city Corinth as well as all her neighbors were sinking deeper and deeper into the degradation of subject towns of Macedonia, we shall not regret, for his sake, that a timely death relieved him from so mournful a spectacle. It was owing to him that the Sicilian Greeks were rescued, for nearly one generation, from the like fate. He had the rare glory of maintaining to the end, and executing to the full, the promise of liberation with which he had gone forth from Corinth. His early years had been years of acute suffering—and that, too, incurred in the cause of freedom—arising out of the death of his brother; his later period, manifesting the like sense of duty under happier auspices, had richly repaid him, by successes overpassing all reasonable expectation, and by the ample flow of gratitude and attachment poured forth to him amidst the liberated Sicilians. His character appears most noble, and most instructive, if we contrast him with Dion. Timoleon had been brought up as the citizen of a free, though oligarchical community in Greece, surrounded by other free communities, and amidst universal hatred of despots. The politicians whom he had learnt to esteem were men trained in this school, maintaining a qualified ascendency against more or less of open competition from rivals, and obliged to look for the means of carrying their views apart from simple dictation. Moreover, the person whom Timoleon had selected for his peculiar model, was Epaminondas, the noblest model that Greece afforded.[408] It was to this example that Timoleon owed in part his energetic patriotism combined with freedom from personal ambition—his gentleness of political antipathy—and the perfect habits of conciliatory and popular dealing—which he manifested amidst so many new and trying scenes to the end of his career.

[408] Plutarch. Timoleon, c. 36. Ὁ μάλιστα ζηλωθεὶς ὑπὸ Τιμολέοντος Ἐπαμεινώνδας, etc.

Polybius reckons Hermokrates, Timoleon, and Pyrrhus, to be the most complete men of action (πραγματικωτάτους) of all those who had played a conspicuous part in Sicilian affairs (Polyb. xii. 25. ed. Didot).

Now the education of Dion (as I have recounted in the preceding chapter) had been something totally different. He was the member of a despotic family, and had learnt his experience under the energetic, but perfectly self-willed, march of the elder Dionysius. Of the temper or exigencies of a community of freemen, he had never learnt to take account. Plunged in this corrupting atmosphere, he had nevertheless imbibed generous and public-spirited aspirations: he had come to hold in abhorrence a government of will, and to look for glory in contributing to replace it by a qualified freedom and a government of laws. But the source from whence he drank was, the Academy and its illustrious teacher Plato; not from practical life, nor from the best practical politicians like Epaminondas. Accordingly, he had imbibed at the same time the idea, that though despotism was a bad thing, government thoroughly popular was a bad thing also; that, in other words, as soon as he had put down the despotism, it lay with him to determine how much liberty he would allow, or what laws he would sanction, for the community; that instead of a despot, he was to become a despotic lawgiver.

Here then lay the main difference between the two conquerors of Dionysius. The mournful letters written by Plato after the death of Dion contrast strikingly with the enviable end of Timoleon, and with the grateful inscription of the Syracusans on his tomb.

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