Plutarch · a new plain-English translation from the original language
For others' benefit, originally, I set out to compose these Lives; yet now I continue the task and take delight in it for my own sake too, using history as a kind of mirror in which I try, somehow, to order and adorn my own life in the likeness of the virtues of these men. For the experience is nothing other than living together and sharing a household with them, when, as though entertaining each of them in turn as a guest through history,
we receive and take them in and review “how great he was and of what sort,” gathering from their deeds what is most weighty and most beautiful to know. Ah, what greater joy could one gain than this, or one more effective toward the improvement of character? Democritus indeed maintains that our prayers ought to be for encountering well-omened images, so that beings kindred and good may come to us from the surrounding air rather than the
base and perverse ones — a doctrine that introduces into philosophy an untrue teaching leading to endless superstitions. We, however, by our devotion to history and our habit of writing prepare ourselves so as always to receive into our souls the remembrance of the best and most approved men; and if the company we are forced by necessity to keep brings any base, ill-natured, or ignoble thing into contact with us, we drive it off
and thrust it away, turning our thought, gracious and gentle, toward the noblest of examples. Among these I have now set before you, for the present, the life of Timoleon of Corinth and that of Aemilius Paulus, men who employed not only similar principles of action but also similar good fortune in their affairs, and who will furnish grounds for dispute whether it was good luck rather than wisdom that brought about the greatest of their achievements
successfully. The situation of the Syracusans before Timoleon's expedition to Sicily was as follows. When Dion had driven out the tyrant Dionysius and was straightway treacherously slain, and those who had been with Dion in liberating the Syracusans fell into faction, the city, passing continually from one tyrant to another, through the multitude of its evils came near to being left desolate; and of the rest of Sicily, part was already utterly
laid waste and stripped of cities on account of the fighting, while the greater number of towns were held by mixed barbarians and soldiers who went unpaid, and who readily welcomed changes of rulers; and Dionysius, in the tenth year, gathering mercenaries and driving out Nysaeus, who then held power over the Syracusans, took the government back again and was established as tyrant from the beginning — unaccountably having lost, through a small force, the greatest tyranny that ever was,
and still more unaccountably becoming again, from an exile and a man brought low, master of those who had cast him out. Now those who remained in the city of the Syracusans were enslaved to a tyrant who was in no other respect reasonable, and who at that time had been utterly brutalized in spirit by his misfortunes; while the best and most notable citizens turned to Hicetas, who held power among the Leontines, entrusted themselves to him, and chose him general of the war, though he was
in no way better than any of the acknowledged tyrants, having, however, no other refuge, and trusting him since he had been born a Syracusan and commanded forces capable of matching the tyrant. Meanwhile, the Carthaginians having arrived in Sicily with a great fleet and hovering threateningly over affairs, the Sicilian Greeks, in fear, resolved to dispatch envoys to Greece seeking assistance from the Corinthians, not only because of their
kinship, nor from confidence grounded in the numerous favors already received at their hands, but also because they saw that the city as a whole had ever been devoted to freedom and set against tyranny, and had fought most of its greatest wars not for supremacy or gain but for the freedom of the Greeks. But Hicetas, since he had made the tyranny itself the very purpose of his generalship, was secretly
already in negotiation with the Carthaginians, though openly he praised the Syracusans and sent envoys along with them to the Peloponnese — not wishing that aid should actually come from there, but hoping that, as was likely, the Corinthians, occupied and distracted by troubles in Greece, would decline to help, so that he might more easily turn affairs over to the Carthaginians and use them as allies and fellow-combatants against the Syracusans
rather than against the tyrant. This scheme, however, was exposed a little later. When the envoys arrived, the Corinthians, who were always accustomed to care for their colonial cities and above all for Syracuse, and who at that time happened to be troubled by none of the affairs of Greece but were living in peace and leisure, voted eagerly to send help. And when a general was sought, and the magistrates were writing up and proposing the men who were
eager to win reputation in the city, one man rose up out of the many and named Timoleon, son of Timodemus, though he no longer took part in public affairs and had neither hope nor purpose of the kind — but it was some god, it seems, who put the thought into the man's mind: so great was the graciousness of fortune that shone at once about his choice, and such favor attended his subsequent actions, gracing and adorning the virtue of the man.
He was, then, of parents distinguished in the city, Timodemus and Demariste; he loved his homeland and was remarkably mild-tempered, except in that he fiercely despised tyranny and wickedness. In warfare his nature was so well and evenly tempered that much intelligence appeared in him as a young man, and no less courage in his deeds when he grew old. He had an older brother, Timophanes, in no way
resembling him, but rash and corrupted by a passion for sole rule, always surrounded by base friends and mercenary strangers, seeming to have something impetuous and reckless about him in his campaigns. By this quality, winning the citizens over as a warlike and energetic man, he was appointed to commands. And in these matters Timoleon supported him, entirely concealing his faults or making them appear small, while whatever
attractive quality nature brought forth in him he adorned and magnified. In the engagement fought by Corinth against the Argives and Cleonaeans, Timoleon chanced to be stationed among the hoplites, while Timophanes, commanding the cavalry, was overtaken by sudden danger. For his horse, struck by a wound, threw him among the enemy, and of his companions some at once scattered in fear, while others
who remained, few against many, fought on with difficulty, barely holding out. When Timoleon saw what had happened, he ran to help, set his shield before Timophanes as he lay there, and, receiving many javelin-casts and many blows at close quarters upon his body and his armor, with difficulty drove back the enemy and saved his brother. But when the Corinthians, fearing they might suffer the fate they had
already suffered once before at the hands of their allies, in losing their city, voted to maintain four hundred mercenaries and set Timophanes in command of them, he, scorning what was noble and just, at once set about making the city his own; and having put to death many of the leading citizens without trial, he proclaimed himself tyrant. Timoleon took this hard, and, regarding his brother's wickedness as his own misfortune,
he attempted to reason with him and urge him to abandon his madness and the ill-starred nature of that desire, and to seek some means of correcting his wrongs toward the citizens; but when Timophanes rebuffed and despised him, he then took with him, of his relatives, Aeschylus, who was the brother of Timophanes' wife, and of his friends the seer whom Theopompus calls Satyrus, but Ephorus and Timaeus call Orthagoras; and after letting
a few days pass, he returned once more to his brother, and all three, gathered around him, pleaded with him even now, upon reflection, to change his course. When Timophanes at first mocked them, and then broke out in anger and grew harsh, Timoleon withdrew a little distance, covered his face, and stood weeping, while the others drew their swords and quickly killed him. When the deed became known,
the best of the Corinthians praised Timoleon's hatred of wrongdoing and his greatness of soul, in that, being kind and a lover of his family, he had nevertheless preferred his country and what was noble and just to his own advantage — having saved his brother when he fought bravely for his country, but killing him when he plotted against it and enslaved it. But those who could not live under democracy and were accustomed to look toward
men of power pretended to rejoice at the tyrant's death, but denouncing Timoleon for committing a deed both unholy and detestable, plunged him into deep dejection. And when he learned that his mother too was taking it hard, uttering terrible words and dreadful curses against him, he went to console her, but she could not bear to look upon his face, and shut her house against him; and it was then, indeed,
that, becoming utterly grief-stricken and disturbed in mind, he set out to destroy himself by abstaining from food, but his friends would not allow it, and by every entreaty and every constraint brought to bear upon him, persuaded him to resolve to live apart by himself, withdrawn from public life: he gave up all political activity, and for the first years did not even go down into the city, but wandered in distress in the most desolate of the fields,
spending his time there. So it is that our judgments, unless they gain firmness and strength from reason and philosophy as applied to action, are shaken and easily carried off course by chance praise and blame, being knocked out of their proper reasoning; for it is necessary, it seems, not only that the deed itself be noble and just, but that the opinion from which it is done be stable and unshaken, so that we may act
with settled judgment, and not, like gluttons who pursue rich foods with the keenest appetite, quickly grow disgusted once they are filled, so that we too, after our deeds are accomplished, lose heart through weakness as the vision of the noble fades away. For repentance makes shameful even a deed nobly done, whereas a choice that springs from knowledge and reasoning is not altered even if the actions miscarry. Wherefore Phocion
the Athenian, having opposed the measures of Leosthenes, when the latter seemed to be succeeding and he saw the Athenians sacrificing and boasting greatly over their victory, said that he would have wished these things to have been accomplished, but that his own counsel should still have been the one taken; and more forcefully still, Aristides the Locrian, one of Plato's companions, when the elder Dionysius sought one of his daughters as a bride, replied that he would sooner see
the girl dead than married to a tyrant; and when, a little later, Dionysius had put his own sons to death and asked him insultingly whether he still held the same opinion about the giving of his daughters, he answered that he grieved for what had happened, but did not repent of what he had said. These things, then, are perhaps the mark of a greater and more perfect virtue. But the suffering that Timoleon felt over what
he had done — whether it was pity for the dead man or reverence for his mother — so broke and crushed his spirit that, for nearly twenty years afterward, he took part in no notable or political action. When, therefore, he was proclaimed general, and the people had eagerly received and voted for him, Telecleides, who was then first in power and reputation in the city, rose up and urged Timoleon concerning
his conduct, to be a good and noble man. "For if," he said, "you fight well, we shall think you have destroyed a tyrant; but if badly, a brother." While Timoleon busied himself with departure preparations and mustering troops, a letter reached the Corinthians from Hicetas, revealing his change of allegiance and treachery. For as soon as he had sent off the envoys, he attached himself openly to the Carthaginians and acted along with them
...so that, having driven Dionysius out of Syracuse, he himself would be tyrant. And fearing that, before a force and a general arrived from Corinth, the affair might slip away from him, he sent a letter to the Corinthians saying that they had no need to bear trouble and expense sailing to Sicily and running risks, especially since the Carthaginians were forbidding it and guarding the strait with many ships — men whom he himself, compelled by their delay,
would make allies against the tyrant. When this letter was read out, even if any of the Corinthians had before felt lukewarm about the campaign, then anger against Hicetas provoked them all, so that they eagerly furnished supplies to Timoleon and helped prepare the sailing. When the ships were ready, and what was needed had been provided for the soldiers, the priestesses of Kore
seemed to see in a dream the goddesses setting out on some journey and saying that they were about to sail with Timoleon to Sicily. For this reason the Corinthians, having fitted out a trireme, named it sacred to the two goddesses. Timoleon himself, going to Delphi, sacrificed to the god, and as he was going down into the oracle a sign occurred to him: from among the offerings hanging there a ribbon slipped loose and, drifting down, bearing woven into it crowns
and figures of Nike, fell upon Timoleon's head, so that he seemed to be crowned by the god and sent forth on his undertaking. Having seven Corinthian ships, two Corcyrean, and a tenth furnished besides by the Leucadians, he put out to sea. And having set out into open water by night and enjoying a fair wind, he seemed to see the sky suddenly split open above the ship and pour out a great and
conspicuous fire. And out of this a torch, rising up, resembling those of the mysteries, ran along the same course as the ship, in the direction toward which the helmsmen were steering for Italy, and there it came down. The seers declared that the apparition confirmed the priestesses' dreams, and that the goddesses, joining in the campaign, were revealing from heaven that light; for Sicily was sacred to Kore, since indeed the
myths tell that her seizure happened there, and that as a bridal gift she received the whole island, a veil for her wedding. So then, these signs from the gods gave the expedition courage, and hastening on, they crossed the sea and made their way along the coast of Italy. But the reports coming from Sicily caused Timoleon much perplexity, and the soldiers much discouragement. For Hicetas, having defeated
Dionysius in battle and seized most of Syracuse, was besieging and walling in that man, now confined to the acropolis and the place called the Island, while he himself bade the Carthaginians see to it that Timoleon should not set foot in Sicily, so that once he had been driven off, they themselves might quietly divide the island between them. So they sent twenty triremes to Rhegium, aboard which sailed envoys from him
to Timoleon, bringing proposals matching what was being done — for these were fine-sounding covers and pretexts for base designs — asking that he himself, if he wished, come to Hicetas as an advisor and partner in everything already well accomplished, but that he should send the ships and soldiers back to Corinth, since the war was all but finished; and that the Carthaginians would prevent the crossing and fight against anyone who tried to force it,
being ready to do so. So when the Corinthians, putting in at Rhegium, encountered these envoys and saw the Phoenicians lying at anchor not far off, they were angered at being insulted, and anger against Hicetas rose in everyone, along with fear for the Sicilian Greeks, whom they clearly saw left as spoils and wages — for Hicetas the wage of treachery, for the Carthaginians the wage of tyranny — and it seemed impossible to overcome both
the barbarians' ships lying there, twice their own number, and the force there with Hicetas, which they had come to command. Nevertheless Timoleon, meeting with the envoys and the Carthaginian commanders, said reasonably that he would obey their orders — for what could he gain by disobeying? — but that he wished to hear and to speak this before departing, in front of the Rhegians, a Greek community that was friendly to both sides:
for this too, he said, worked toward his own safety, and would make them abide more firmly by what they promised concerning the Syracusans, having deposited their agreement with the people as witness. But these were pretexts he put forward, contriving a deception regarding the crossing, and the Rhegian generals joined in the scheme, all desiring that the affairs of the Sicilian Greeks fall to the Corinthians, and fearing the nearness of the barbarians. So they called the citizens into assembly and had the gates shut,
so that the citizens should not turn their attention to anything else, and coming before the crowd they spun out long speeches, one handing the same subject off to another to no purpose, simply spending the time otherwise, until the Corinthian triremes should have put out, keeping the Carthaginians at the assembly without suspicion, since Timoleon too was present and gave the impression that he was just about to
rise and address the assembly. But when someone reported to him secretly that the other triremes had already put out, and only his own remained waiting behind, he slipped away through the crowd, the Rhegians around the platform helping to conceal him, and going down to the sea he sailed out quickly. And they made landfall in Sicily at Tauromenium, welcomed and invited, as he had long eagerly wished, by Andromachus, who
held and ruled that city. This man was the father of Timaeus the historian, and by far the strongest of those then holding power in Sicily; he led his own citizens lawfully and justly, and was clearly always hostile and estranged toward tyrants. For this reason he then gave the city to Timoleon as a base, and persuaded the citizens to join the Corinthians in the struggle and
help free Sicily. But the Carthaginians at Rhegium, taking it hard that Timoleon had put out and the assembly had broken up, gave the Rhegians trouble over having been outmaneuvered, since as Phoenicians they were displeased at what had been done through deception. So they sent an envoy to Tauromenium on a trireme, who, after speaking at length with Andromachus, insolently and in barbarian fashion threatened him that unless he
expelled the Corinthians as quickly as possible, he would... finally he showed his hand palm-up, then turning it over threatened that he would make his city like that. Andromachus, laughing, gave no other answer, but holding out his hand, now palm-up as the man had done, now palm-down, told him to sail away, unless he wished his ship turned from the one into the other. And
Hicetas, learning of Timoleon's crossing and taking fright, sent for many Carthaginian triremes; and at this the Syracusans came to despair altogether of their safety, seeing the Carthaginians in control of their harbor, Hicetas holding the city, Dionysius master of the citadel, and Timoleon, as if clinging to Sicily by some slender fringe, attached to the little town of the Tauromenians, resting on a weak
and slight foundation of power: for he had no more than a thousand soldiers and just the provisions necessary for them. Nor did the cities trust him, sick through and through with troubles and grown savage toward all who led armies, especially because of the faithlessness of Callippus and Pharax, of whom the one was Athenian, the other Spartan, both claiming to have come on behalf of freedom and to put down the monarchs, but gold
had shown Sicily the miseries within tyranny, and made those who had ended their days in slavery seem more fortunate than those who had been granted independence by such men. So, expecting the Corinthian to be no better than these, but that these were once again tricks and lures come to them, meant to tame them, through good hopes and humane promises, into accepting a change to a new master, they grew suspicious and turned away the Corinthians'
invitations — except the people of Adranum, who, inhabiting a small city, but one sacred to Adranus, a god especially honored throughout all Sicily, were divided against one another, some drawing toward Hicetas and the Carthaginians, others sending to Timoleon. And somehow it happened by chance that, both sides hastening, their arrivals coincided at the very same moment. But Hicetas arrived leading five thousand troops, whereas for Timoleon
his men altogether numbered no more than twelve hundred. Taking these from Tauromenium — Adranum being three hundred and forty stadia away — on the first day he advanced not far along the road and made camp, but on the second, marching briskly and passing through difficult country, and with the daylight now waning, word came to him that Hicetas was at that very moment nearing the little town and
making camp. So the company commanders and officers halted the vanguard, meaning to use them, once they had eaten and rested, with greater eagerness; but Timoleon, passing along the ranks, urged them against any such delay, telling them rather to press on at once and engage an enemy still in disorder, as was likely, having just now stopped from their march and being occupied with tents and dinner. And saying this at the same time, taking up his shield he led the way himself,
as if toward an assured victory. And the men followed, taking courage, while still less than thirty stadia from the enemy. And when they had covered this distance too, they fell upon them in confusion and flight, the moment the enemy perceived them approaching; from this not much more than three hundred were killed, but twice that number were taken alive, and the camp was captured. And the people of Adranum, opening their gates, joined Timoleon,
reporting with awe and wonder that, as the battle was being joined, the sacred doors of the temple had opened of their own accord, and the god's spear had been seen quivering from the point of its blade, while his face streamed with heavy sweat. These signs, it seems, betokened not only that day's victory, but also the deeds that followed, to which that struggle
gave a fortunate beginning. For at once cities sent embassies and joined Timoleon, and Mamercus, tyrant of Catana, a warlike man strong in wealth, gave himself over as an ally. But greatest of all, Dionysius himself, having by now given up hope and being close to being taken by siege, scorned Hicetas, who had been shamefully defeated, and, admiring Timoleon, sent word to him, handing over himself and
the acropolis to the Corinthians. Timoleon, accepting this unhoped-for good fortune, sent Euclides and Telemachus, Corinthian men, to the acropolis, along with four hundred soldiers — not all together nor openly, for that was impossible with the enemy blockading, but secretly and in small groups slipping in. So the soldiers took over the acropolis and the tyrant's residence, along with the equipment and
the supplies useful for war — for there were no few horses there, and every kind of siege engine, and a great quantity of missiles, and seventy thousand weapons stored up from of old, while two thousand soldiers were present with Dionysius, whom he, like everything else, handed over to Timoleon. He himself, taking money and a few of his friends, escaped Hicetas' notice and sailed away. And having been brought to
Timoleon's camp, seen then for the first time as a private and humble man, he was sent off to Corinth on a single ship with a little money — a man born and raised in the most illustrious and greatest of all tyrannies, and having held it for ten years, then, for twelve more years after Dion's campaign, worn down amid struggles and wars, having in his tyranny done things surpassing what he suffered — for indeed
he saw the deaths of his grown sons and the prostitution of his daughters; and his own sister, who was also his wife, he saw violated in body by the enemy with the most licentious pleasures while she yet lived, and then put to death by force along with her children and drowned in the sea. These things are written in precise detail in the Life of Dion. But when Dionysius arrived by ship at Corinth, not a single Greek failed to
long to see him and speak to him. Some who rejoiced at his misfortunes came together gladly out of hatred, wanting, as it were, to trample on a man cast down by fortune; others, moved by the reversal and full of sympathy, contemplated the great power of hidden and divine causes at work amid weak and visible human affairs. For neither nature nor art at that time
displayed so great a work as that which fortune showed then: the man who a little before had been tyrant of Sicily now spending his time in Corinth around the fish-market, or sitting in a perfume-shop, drinking watered wine bought from the taverns, and wrangling in the open with the women who worked for hire, teaching songstresses their songs, and eagerly disputing with them over musical melodies and theatrical songs — these things
some thought Dionysius did simply because he was by nature idle and given over to dissipation; others thought that he practiced them and put on this act against his own nature in order to be despised and not seem fearsome to the Corinthians, nor suspected of chafing under the change in his life and reaching for power again — displaying much foolishness precisely by his leisure. However that may be, certain sayings of his are also remembered,
by which he seemed to bear his present circumstances not ignobly. For instance, when he had put in at Leucas, a city colonized by the Corinthians just as Syracuse was, he said that he felt the same as young men who have done wrong: for just as they associate cheerfully with their brothers but avoid their fathers out of shame, so he, feeling shame before the mother-city, would gladly live there among her colonists rather than in Corinth itself. And this too:
when some stranger in Corinth mocked him rather boorishly about his conversations with the philosophers, which he had delighted in while he was tyrant, and finally asked what benefit he had gotten from Plato's wisdom, he said, "Do you think we've gained nothing from Plato, bearing such a reversal of fortune as this?" And to the musician Aristoxenus and some others who asked him what the origin was and what complaint he had against Plato,
he said that tyranny, full as it is of many evils, has nothing so great as this: that none of those called friends will speak with frank openness — for he himself had been deprived by them of Plato's goodwill. And when one of those who wanted to appear witty mocked Dionysius by shaking out his cloak as he came in to see him, as though approaching a tyrant, Dionysius mocked him back, telling him to do this instead whenever he went out
from his presence, in case he left carrying off something of what was inside. When Philip of Macedon, over wine, brought up with some irony the songs and tragedies the elder Dionysius had left behind, and pretended to wonder at what point he had found the leisure to compose them, Dionysius answered him not badly, saying, "At the very time when you and I and all who are counted blessed
spend our time over the wine-bowl." Plato, then, did not live to see Dionysius in Corinth, but had already died. Diogenes of Sinope, however, on first meeting him said, "How unworthily you live, Dionysius." And when Dionysius stopped and said, "You do well, Diogenes, to share our grief at our misfortune," Diogenes replied, "What? Do you suppose I grieve with you, and am not rather indignant that such a slave as you,
fit, like your father, to grow old and die amid your tyranny, now spend your days here playing and living in luxury among us?" So that, when I compare these words with the sayings of Philistus, which he utters lamenting over the daughters of Leptines — how they had come down from the great goods of tyranny to a lowly way of life — his words sound like the laments of a woman longing for her alabaster jars and purple robes and gold ornaments. These things, then, we do not think
foreign to the writing of Lives, nor useless to readers who are not in a hurry or otherwise occupied. And if Dionysius's misfortune appeared paradoxical, no less remarkable was Timoleon's good fortune. For having landed in Sicily, within fifty days he had taken the acropolis of Syracuse and sent Dionysius off to the Peloponnese. Encouraged by this, the Corinthians sent him two thousand hoplites and two hundred cavalry,
who, having been brought as far as Thurii, saw that the crossing from there was impossible, since the sea was held by many Carthaginian ships; and since they were forced to wait quietly there for an opportunity, they put their leisure to the finest use. For while the people of Thurii were on campaign against the Brettians, they took over the city and guarded it faithfully and honestly as if it were their own homeland. Meanwhile Hicetas was besieging the acropolis of Syracuse and preventing
grain from sailing in to the Corinthians, and he sent two foreign men against Timoleon to assassinate him, dispatching them to Adranum, where Timoleon had no organized bodyguard around his person, and at that time especially, because of the god, was relaxed and off his guard, spending time freely among the Adranum townsfolk. Those two agents, discovering purely by chance that he was on the point of offering sacrifice, arrived at the temple carrying daggers under their cloaks, and mingling with those standing
around the altar, they gradually worked their way closer. And just as they were about to signal to each other to begin, one of them struck the other on the head with his sword, and when he fell, neither the one who struck him stayed, nor the one who had come with the man who was struck; rather, the one, sword still in hand, fled and leapt up onto a high rock, while the other took hold of the altar and begged for
immunity from Timoleon in exchange for revealing everything. And having received it, he informed against himself and against the dead man, saying that they had been sent to kill him. Meanwhile others brought down the man from the rock, who cried out that he was guilty of no crime, but had rightly slain the man to avenge his father, whom the other had earlier killed at Leontini. And he had some of those present as witnesses, who marveled at the same time at the
cleverness of fortune, how by moving one thing through another she draws everything together from far apart and weaves it in with things that seem most different and to have nothing in common with each other, always using the ends and beginnings of one another's affairs. The Corinthians crowned this man with ten minas, since he had, on behalf of the guardian spirit watching over Timoleon, discharged a just passion, and had not spent beforehand
the anger long harbored in him, but had preserved it, through his own private cause, by fortune, for that man's salvation. And this good fortune, both for the present occasion and, through the hopes it raised, for the future, lifted men's spirits, seeing that Timoleon, arriving as a sacred man and, with god's help, an avenger for Sicily, was to be revered and protected. But when Hicetas failed in this attempt, and
saw many gathering to Timoleon's side, blaming himself that, with so great a Carthaginian force present, he was, as it were ashamed before it, using it only in small measure and secretly, stealing it in and introducing the alliance piecemeal, he sent for Mago their general with the entire fleet. And Mago sailed in fearsomely with a hundred and fifty ships, taking the harbor, and disembarking sixty thousand infantry, and encamping in
the city of the Syracusans, so that everyone thought that the long-spoken-of and long-expected barbarization had come upon Sicily. For never before had it happened to the Carthaginians, in the countless wars they had fought in Sicily, to take Syracuse; but now, since Hicetas had received them and handed the city over, one could see the city had become a barbarian camp. Meanwhile those holding the acropolis for the Corinthians were faring precariously and with difficulty,
no longer having sufficient food, but going short because the harbors were guarded, and always occupied in struggles and battles around the walls and against every kind of siege engine and every form of siege-craft. Nonetheless Timoleon kept sending them help, sending grain over from Catana aboard small fishing craft and light skiffs, vessels which especially in stormy weather slipped through the barbarian triremes,
sneaking underneath while those ships were kept apart by the swell and the surge. Mago and Hicetas, observing this, wanted to take Catana, from which the provisions sailed in to the besieged, and taking the most warlike part of their force they put out to sea from Syracuse. But Neon of Corinth — for he was the commander of the besieged — seeing from the heights those
of the enemy left behind guarding carelessly and negligently, since they were scattered, suddenly fell upon them; and killing some, routing others, he took and held the district called Achradina, which was reckoned the strongest and most unassailable part of the city of Syracuse, since it was in a manner made up and fitted together out of several cities. Well provisioned with both grain and funds, he refused to give up the position, nor did he pull back again
to the citadel, but fenced off the perimeter of Achradina and, joining his fortifications to the acropolis, held it securely. Meanwhile a horseman from Syracuse overtook Mago and Hicetas, who were already near Catana, and reported the capture of Achradina. Thrown into confusion, they withdrew in haste, having neither taken the city they had set out for nor kept guard over the one they had held. These things, then,
still leave some room for foresight and virtue to contend against fortune; but what happened after this seems entirely to have come about through good luck. For the Corinthian soldiers who were passing their time at Thurii, fearing on the one hand the Carthaginian triremes, which under Hanno were watching for them, and on the other hand the sea being made savage by wind for many days, set out to march on foot through Brettian territory,
and, partly persuading and partly forcing the natives, they made their way down to Rhegium, the sea still holding a great storm. But the Carthaginian fleet-commander, not anticipating the Corinthians and supposing they were sitting idle for nothing, persuaded himself that he had thought of something clever and cunning for a deception: ordering his sailors to wear garlands and decorating his triremes with Greek shields
and purple hangings, he sailed toward Syracuse. And passing by the acropolis, amid the splash of oars, with clapping and laughter, he shouted that the Corinthians were coming, having been defeated and captured, taken at sea while trying to cross over, wanting thereby to cause some despondency to the besieged. But while he was carrying on with this nonsense and trickery, the Corinthians, having come down from Brettian territory to Rhegium, seeing that no one was on watch and that the
wind had died down unexpectedly, giving the strait a calm and smooth appearance, quickly filled the ferries and the fishing boats that were on hand, put out to sea, and crossed over to Sicily, so safely and through such a calm that their horses swam alongside the boats, towed by their reins. When all had crossed over, Timoleon received them and at once took Messene, and having formed them up
he marched against Syracuse, trusting more in the good fortune and success that attended him than in his strength; for those with him were no more than four thousand. When news of the advance was reported to Mago, he grew disturbed, and was led into still greater suspicion by an incident of the following kind. In the marshes around the city there was much drinkable water from springs, and much also from marshes and
the rivers flowing down into the sea in these parts, a great quantity of eels feeds, and abundant catch is always there for those who want it. These the men serving for pay on both sides used to hunt together whenever there was leisure and a truce. Since they were Greeks and had no private grudges against one another, in battle they risked their lives vigorously, but during truces they would visit one another and talk. And on this occasion too
having a common occupation in the fishing, they fell to talking, marveling at the natural advantages of the sea and the arrangement of the ground. And one of those serving with the Corinthians said, "So great a city in size and adorned with so many fine things, and you, being Greeks, are eager to barbarize it, settling the most wicked and murderous Carthaginians nearer to us — against whom we ought to be praying that many Sicilies
lay in front of Greece as a barrier. Or do you suppose these men gathered an army all the way from the Pillars of Heracles, from beside the Atlantic Ocean, only to come here and risk their lives for the sake of Hicetas's rule? If he had had the reasoning of a leader, he would not have driven out his fathers nor brought the enemy against his fatherland, but would have obtained both honor and power as much as was fitting, by persuading the Corinthians and Timoleon." These words the mercenaries
spread abroad through the camp, and gave Mago grounds for suspicion that he was being betrayed — he who had long wanted a pretext. Therefore, though Hicetas begged him to remain and pointed out how much better they were than the enemy, Mago, thinking rather that he was falling short of Timoleon in valor and fortune than surpassing him in the size of his forces, at once set sail and departed for Libya, shamefully, by no reckoning a man could justify, letting Sicily slip out of his hands. On the next day
Timoleon was present, drawn up for battle; but when they learned of the flight and saw the dockyards deserted, laughter overtook them at Mago's cowardice, and going about they proclaimed in the city a reward for whoever could tell where the Carthaginian fleet had run off to escape them. Nevertheless, since Hicetas still loved fighting and would not let go his hold on the city, but clung
to the strong and hard-to-attack quarters he held, Timoleon divided his forces: he himself attacked at the most difficult point, along the stream of the Anapus, while he ordered others to make their assault from Achradina, led by Isias the Corinthian, and a third group he brought against Epipolae under Deinarchus and Demaretus, who had led the later reinforcement from Corinth. At the same time,
the assault having been made from every side, and Hicetas's men overturned and put to flight, that so swift a storming brought the city into their hands, with the enemy driven out — this deserves to be credited to the fighters' courage and to the general's skill; but that no Corinthian was killed, nor even wounded, this was the particular achievement shown by Timoleon's own fortune, as though vying
with the man's valor, so that those who heard of the things praised in him might marvel still more at the blessings attending them. For the news at once gripped all of Sicily and Italy, and in a matter of days it had traveled through Greece as well, telling how great the success was, so that the city of the Corinthians, disbelieving whether the fleet had even made the crossing, heard at once that the men were both safe and victorious. So
smoothly did the actions flow, and such speed did Fortune add to the beauty of the achievements. Once the citadel had fallen into his hands, he did not repeat Dion's fate, and he refused to spare the fortress despite its beauty and the great expense of its construction, but guarding against the suspicion that had slandered and then destroyed that man, he proclaimed that any Syracusan who wished should come with an iron tool and join in tearing down
the tyrants' fortifications. And when all had gone up, making that proclamation and that day the surest foundation of liberty, they overturned and razed to the ground not only the citadel but also the houses and the tombs of the tyrants. At once he leveled the place and built there the law courts, doing a favor to the citizens and making democracy superior to tyranny. But when he had
taken the city he found it without citizens, since some had perished in the wars and the factional strife, and others had fled the tyrannies; the market-place at Syracuse, through such great and deep desolation, had grown up so thick a wood that horses grazed in it, with their grooms lying in the grass, while the other cities, except for a very few, had become full of deer and
wild boars, and in the suburbs and around the walls those with leisure often went hunting; no one obeyed who dwelt in the strongholds and forts, nor did they come down into the city, but dread and hatred possessed them all of the marketplace and of civic life and of the speaker's platform, out of which most of the tyrants had sprung up for them. So it seemed good to Timoleon and to the Syracusans
to write to the Corinthians, asking that colonists be sent from Greece to Syracuse, since the land was going to lie idle, and they were expecting a great war from Libya, learning that the Carthaginians, angered that Mago had impaled his own body after killing himself, on account of his generalship, were themselves gathering a great force to cross over to Sicily as soon as the season allowed. When this letter
was brought from Timoleon, and when at the same time envoys of the Syracusans were present begging that the city be cared for and that new founders be provided from the start, the Corinthians did not seize upon this advantage for themselves, nor did they appropriate the city, but first went around to Greece's sacred contests and its largest festival assemblies, where they had heralds make proclamation that the Corinthians, having put down the tyranny at Syracuse
and driven out the tyrant, invited the Syracusans and any of the other Sicilian Greeks who wished to inhabit the city, free and self-governing, to divide the land on equal and just terms; then, sending messengers to Asia and the islands, wherever they learned that the greatest numbers of exiles were scattered and dwelling, they urged them all to come to Corinth, since the Corinthians would provide safe escort and ships and commanders
at their own expense, to Syracuse. When these proclamations were made, the city received the most just and noble praise and emulation, freeing men from tyrants, saving them from barbarians, and restoring the land to its citizens. Those who gathered at Corinth proved too few, and so asked to add fellow colonists drawn from Corinth itself and the rest of Greece; and
having become no fewer than ten thousand, they sailed down to Syracuse. And by now many from Italy and Sicily as well had come together to join Timoleon, and when their numbers reached sixty thousand in all, as Athanis has said, he divided up the land, but sold the houses for a thousand talents, at once leaving it to the original Syracusans to buy back their own, and at the same time contriving an abundance of money for the people, so
poor as they were both otherwise and with regard to the war, that they even sold off the statues, a vote being cast on each one and an accusation being brought, as though the men themselves were being called to account, when — so they say — the Syracusans preserved the statue of Gelon, the old tyrant, though the others were condemned, out of admiration and honor for the man for the victory he won over the Carthaginians at Himera. And as the city thus
rekindled and filled up, with citizens flowing into it from every side, Timoleon, wishing also to free the other cities and to root out entirely from Sicily the tyrannies, campaigned against their territories and compelled Hicetas, having renounced the Carthaginians, to agree to demolish the acropolises and to live as a private citizen at Leontini; and Leptines, who was tyrant of Apollonia and many other small towns, once capture by force was closing in on him,
he spared once he had surrendered himself, and sent him off to Corinth, thinking it a fine thing that in the mother city the tyrants of Sicily should be gazed upon by the Greeks living as exiles and in humble circumstances. Wishing the mercenaries to profit from enemy territory and not to be idle, he himself returned to Syracuse to attend to settling the constitution together with the lawgivers sent out from Corinth, Cephalus and
Dionysius, to arrange with them the most important and finest matters, while he sent off Deinarchus and Demaretus into the territory held by the Carthaginians; and they, detaching many cities from the barbarians, not only lived themselves in abundance but also raised money for the war from what they captured. Meanwhile the Carthaginians sailed down to Lilybaeum bringing seventy thousand troops and two hundred triremes
and a thousand vessels carrying siege-engines and four-horse chariots and abundant grain and the rest of their equipment, as though they meant no longer to wage the war piecemeal, but to drive the Greeks out of the whole of Sicily at once; for their force was sufficient even without the Sicilian Greeks being sick or destroyed by one another. On learning that their territory was being ravaged, they advanced at once in anger against the Corinthians, with Hasdrubal
and Hamilcar as generals. When the news reached Syracuse swiftly, the Syracusans were so terrified at the size of the force that scarcely could three thousand men out of so many tens of thousands be persuaded to take up arms and go out together with Timoleon. The mercenaries numbered four thousand, and out of these roughly a thousand lost their nerve on the road and turned back, claiming that Timoleon had taken leave of his senses and gone mad
beyond his years, marching against seventy thousand enemy with five thousand infantry and a thousand cavalry, and stretching his forces over a march of eight days' distance from Syracuse, from which point there would be no safety for those who fled nor burial for those who fell. These men, then, Timoleon considered it a gain to have shown themselves plainly before the battle, and encouraging the rest, he led them swiftly on toward the
river Crimisus, where he heard that the Carthaginians too were converging. As he was ascending toward a hill, from which, once they crossed over, they were going to catch sight of the enemy's army and forces, mules laden with celery met them; and it occurred to the soldiers that this was an evil omen, because we are accustomed to crown the tombs of the dead fittingly with celery, and from this a proverb has arisen, that one who is dangerously ill needs
celery. Wishing then to free them from this superstition and to remove their despondency, Timoleon halted the march and, among other remarks suited to the moment, said that even before the victory the crown had come to them unbidden — the same crown that the Corinthians place on the victors at the Isthmian contests, since they hold the celery wreath sacred as an ancestral custom; for at that time still, in the Isthmian games,
as is still done today at the Nemean games, celery served as the crown, and only recently did the pine come to hold that place instead. Timoleon then, having met with the soldiers as has been said, and taking some celery, crowned himself first, and then those commanders around him and the multitude did likewise. And the seers, seeing two eagles approaching, one of which carried a serpent pierced through with its talons, while the other flew
with loud, bold screeching, showed the birds to the soldiers, and everyone turned to prayer and calling on the gods. Now the season of the year was at the height of summer, and toward the end of the month Thargelion, near the solstice, the time was coming; and since the river was giving off a great mist, at first the plain was hidden in darkness, and nothing could be seen of the enemy, only the sound
a certain confused and mingled mass moved up toward the hill, as so great an army rose from the distance. When the Corinthians had climbed the hill and taken their stand, and had set down their shields to rest a while, while the sun wheeled round and drew up the vapor, the murky air gathered upon the heights and thickened, darkening the summits with cloud, while the ground beneath their feet was clearing, and the
Crimesus came into view, and as the enemy crossed it they were seen—first the chariots, terrifyingly arrayed for battle, and behind them ten thousand hoplites with white shields. These they judged to be Carthaginians, from the brilliance of their equipment and the slowness and order of their advance. After these, as the rest of the nations poured in and made their crossing amid jostling and confusion, Timoleon, perceiving
that the river held back the enemy's numbers for them, allowing them to take on and fight only as many as they wished, and having bidden his soldiers observe that the enemy's line was broken apart by the stream, some already across and others still to cross, ordered Demaretus to take the cavalry and charge into the Carthaginians and throw their formation into disorder before their battle-order was settled. He himself, coming down into the plain,
assigned the wings to the rest of the Sicilian Greeks, mixing in a few mercenaries with each, while he himself, taking his stand in the center with the Syracusans and the most warlike of the mercenaries about him, paused a short while watching the work of the cavalry. But when he saw that they could not close the distance and grapple with the Carthaginian line, blocked as they were by chariots darting to and fro before the enemy's ranks, but instead
were being forced, in order not to be thrown into confusion, to wheel about repeatedly and make their charges again and again by circling back, he took up his shield, and shouting to the infantry to follow and take courage, seemed to use a voice more than human and greater than his usual one—whether he stretched it to that pitch through passion in the heat of battle and inspired fervor, or whether, as it seemed to many at the time, some divine power joined its voice to his. Quickly they returned his shout,
and urged him to lead on and not delay, he signaled the cavalry to ride out past the line of chariots and strike the enemy's flank from the side, while he himself, drawing the front ranks together with locked shields, and ordering the trumpet to sound, charged the Carthaginians. They withstood the first onset vigorously, and being encased in bodies covered with iron breastplates and bronze
helmets, and holding out great shields before them, they turned aside the spear-thrusts. But when the fight came to swords, and the work became a matter no less of skill than of strength, suddenly terrible thunderclaps broke from the mountains and fiery lightning flashed down with them. Then the gloom that had gathered about the hills and summits, coming down upon the battle, mingled with rain and wind and hail,
poured behind the Greeks and at their backs, but struck the barbarians in the face and flashed lightning into their eyes, as a wet squall together with continuous flame came driving from the clouds; and among these there was much that distressed them, especially those unused to it, and the thunderclaps and the clatter of weapons being struck by the driving rain and
hail seemed no less harmful, since it prevented the commanders' orders from being heard. And for the Carthaginians, being no lightly-armed force but, as already noted, laden with heavy armor, the mud proved an additional hindrance, and the folds of their tunics filling with water made them heavy and hard to use in the fight, while it made it easy for the Greeks to overturn them, and once fallen they could not get up again out of the mud with their
weapons. For indeed the Crimesus, swollen already by the rains, was churned up by those crossing it, and the plain around it, lying beneath many ravines and gullies, was filled with streams running not in their proper channels; in these the Carthaginians, rolling about, made their escape only with difficulty. At last, when the storm bore down upon them still, and the Greeks had cut down the enemy's front rank, four hundred men, the
mass turned to flight. Many were caught and destroyed on the plain, and many the river, catching them as they collided with those still crossing, swept away and destroyed, while a great many others who fled toward the hills were hunted down and slain by the light-armed troops. It is reported, in any case, that among ten thousand dead, three thousand were Carthaginians—a great grief to the city, for in birth, wealth, or reputation none were better
than these, nor do they recall so many of the Carthaginians themselves ever having died in a single battle before, but in most of their wars they used Libyans and Iberians and Numidians, and took on the defeats through others' losses. The Greeks learned the rank of the fallen from the spoils, for the tally of bronze and iron taken by the plunderers was very small—so abundant was the silver,
and abundant the gold; for they also captured the camp along with the pack animals as they crossed. Of the captives, most were stolen away by the soldiers, but five thousand in number were handed over to the common fund, and two hundred of the chariots were captured as well. A most beautiful and magnificent sight was displayed by Timoleon's tent, heaped round with spoils of every kind, among which a thousand breastplates, outstanding in workmanship and beauty,
and ten thousand shields were put on display. Few men, stripping so many and coming upon such great riches, only on the third day after the battle managed to set up a trophy. Together with the news of the victory, Timoleon sent to Corinth the finest of the captured arms, wishing his homeland to be envied by all mankind, when men saw that in that city alone among the Greek cities the most conspicuous temples were not
adorned with Greek spoils, nor did they carry the joyless memories of dedications won from kinsmen's slaughter and the killing of fellow Greeks, but bore barbarian spoils inscribed with the finest legends, declaring, along with the courage of the victors, their justice: that the Corinthians and Timoleon their general, having freed the Greeks who dwelt in Sicily from the Carthaginians, dedicated these as thank-offerings to the gods. After this, leaving behind in enemy territory the mercenaries to harry and plunder the
Carthaginian dominion, he himself came to Syracuse; and as for the thousand mercenaries who had deserted him before the battle, he drove them out of Sicily, and forced them to depart from Syracuse before sunset. These men, sailing across to Italy, perished, betrayed by the Bruttians, and this penalty divine providence laid upon them for their treachery. As for those around Mamercus, the
tyrant of Catana, and Hicetas—whether out of envy at Timoleon's successes, or out of fear of him as a man untrustworthy and implacable toward tyrants—they entered into a compact with the Carthaginians, pressing them to dispatch an army and a commander, lest they be driven out of Sicily altogether; and Gisco sailed with seventy ships, and taking on Greek mercenaries as well—something the Carthaginians had never done before, but now
marveled at them as irresistible and the most warlike of all men—these, banding together with one another in Messenia, killed four hundred of the allied mercenaries sent by Timoleon, and in Carthaginian territory, near the place called the Sacred Places, they ambushed and destroyed the mercenaries under Euthymus of Leucas. From these events especially it came about that Timoleon's good fortune became doubly renowned. For these men were
of those who had joined Philomelus the Phocian and Onomarchus in seizing Delphi and had shared in that sacrilege; and since all men hated them and shunned them as accursed, wandering about the Peloponnese, they were taken on by Timoleon, who was short of soldiers at the time. Arriving in Sicily, in all the battles they fought alongside him they were victorious, but when the greatest and most decisive struggles were over and they were sent out to other
campaigns of aid under his command, they perished and were used up, not all together, but by degrees—justice, as it were, arguing its own cause and attaching itself to Timoleon's good fortune, so that the good would be spared any harm arising from the wicked being punished. So it came about that men marveled no less at the goodwill of the gods toward Timoleon in the affairs where he stumbled than in those where he succeeded. But most of the
Syracusans were angered at being insulted by the tyrants. For Mamercus too, priding himself greatly on writing poems and tragedies, boasted after defeating the mercenaries, and dedicating the shields to the gods, inscribed an insolent verse: 'These shields, painted with oyster-shell and gold and ivory and amber, we took with cheap little shields of our own.' After this had happened, and while Timoleon was campaigning against Calauria, Hicetas, invading Syracusan territory, took much
plunder, and after ravaging and outraging much, withdrew right past Calauria itself, scorning Timoleon as having few soldiers. But Timoleon, letting him get ahead, pursued with cavalry and light troops; and Hicetas, perceiving this, after crossing the Damyrias, took his stand by the river as though ready to make a stand, since the crossing was difficult and the steep
banks on either side gave him confidence. But among Timoleon's cavalry commanders a remarkable rivalry and contentiousness broke out, delaying the battle; for no one was willing to cross after another against the enemy, but each man claimed the right to fight first, and the crossing had no order, as they pushed and ran past one another. Wishing therefore to assign the commanders by lot, Timoleon took a ring from each of them;
and throwing them all into his own cloak and mixing them, he showed the first one drawn, which by chance had, engraved on its seal, a trophy. When the young men saw this, they raised a joyful shout and, rather than waiting for the remaining lots to be drawn, each one raced across the river as fast as he could and closed with the enemy. The enemy did not withstand their onslaught, but fled;
and all alike were stripped of their weapons, and lost a thousand men, who fell. Not long after, Timoleon marched against the Leontines and took Hicetas alive, along with his son Eupolemus and the cavalry commander Euthymus, who had been bound by the soldiers and brought to him. Hicetas and his young son were put to death, punished as tyrants and traitors; but
Euthymus, a good man in battle and outstanding in daring, found no pity, on account of a certain slander against the Corinthians charged against him. For it is said that when the Corinthians had marched out against them, he, haranguing the people at Leontini, said that nothing terrible or fearsome had happened, if Corinthian women had come out of doors. So it is that the many are naturally more pained by words than by wicked deeds:
for they bear insult harder than harm. And to defend oneself by deeds is granted as necessary to those at war, but slanders seem to arise from an excess of hatred or malice. When Timoleon returned, the Syracusans, bringing the wives and daughters of Hicetas's family before the assembly for trial, put them to death. And this seems to have been the most ungracious of Timoleon's deeds:
for had he opposed it, the women would not have died in this way. It seems he overlooked it and gave it up to the anger of the citizens exacting justice on behalf of Dion, who had expelled Dionysius. For it was Hicetas who drowned Dion's wife Arete and his sister Aristomache and his son, still a child, while they were alive—matters written of in the Life of Dion. After
After this, campaigning against Mamercus at Catana, and defeating in pitched battle the force that stood against him near the stream called Abolus, and routing it, he killed more than two thousand, no small part of whom were the Phoenician mercenaries sent by Gescon. As a result of this the Carthaginians made peace with him, begging for it, on the terms that they should hold the territory this side of the Lycus, and that they would restore money and families to those who wished to move from it to the Syracusans, and they renounced their alliance with the tyrants.
Mamercus, disheartened in his hopes, sailed for Italy intending to bring the Lucanians against Timoleon and the Syracusans, but when the men with him reversed the triremes' course, made for Sicily instead, and gave Catana up into Timoleon's hands, he too was forced to flee for refuge to Messene, to Hippo, who was tyrant of that city.
When Timoleon marched upon them, blockading them from the sea as well as the land, Hippo, trying to escape by ship, was caught, and the Messenians took him, and bringing the children out of their schools to the theater as to the finest spectacle, the punishment of the tyrant, they tortured and destroyed him. Mamercus surrendered himself to Timoleon on condition that he should stand trial
before the Syracusans, provided Timoleon did not himself bring the accusation. Brought to Syracuse, he came before the assembly and attempted to deliver some speech he had composed long before, but meeting with uproar and seeing the assembly implacable, he ran and threw his cloak down in the middle of the theater, and rushing at a run toward one of the benches he dashed his head against it, meaning to die — yet he did not attain
that end, but was led away still living and paid the penalty that is given to robbers. In this way, then, Timoleon cut out the tyrannies and put an end to the wars; and taking the whole island savaged by evils and hated by its own inhabitants, he so tamed it and made it desirable to all that people sailed to settle there from the very places from which its citizens had formerly been fleeing.
For indeed Acragas and Gela, great cities the Carthaginians had devastated in the aftermath of the Attic war, were at this time resettled — the one by the men around Megellus and Pheristus sailing from Elea, the other by the men around Gorgus sailing from Ceos, gathering together the old citizens. To these he not only gave security from so great a war and calm as they settled in, but also provided everything else and
joined eagerly in their efforts, and was loved like a founder. And since all the others were disposed toward him in the same way, no ending of war, no laying down of laws, no settling of territory, no arrangement of a constitution seemed to be well done unless he took part in it and set it in order, as though he were a craftsman adding, to some work being completed, a certain grace pleasing to the gods and fitting. Indeed, though many great Greeks arose in his time and accomplished great things,
among them Timotheus and Agesilaus and Pelopidas and Epaminondas — whom Timoleon most admired and emulated — the deeds of those men brought forth their brilliance mixed with a certain violence and toil, so that blame and even regret attach to some of them; whereas of Timoleon's deeds, setting aside for the moment the necessity concerning his brother, there is nothing to which the words of Sophocles, as Timaeus says,
would not fittingly apply: 'O gods, what Cypris or what Desire laid hold of this?' Just as Antimachus's verse and the paintings of Dionysius the Colophonian, vigorous and intense though they are, come across as strained and overworked, whereas Nicomachus's paintings together with Homer's own lines, besides all their other force and grace, also carry the look of having been produced effortlessly and with ease, so
compared with the generalship of Epaminondas and of Agesilaus, which came about with much toil and difficulty, that of Timoleon, examined alongside them, having along with its nobility a great deal of ease, appears to those who reckon well and justly to be not the work of fortune but of a virtue that has fortune's favor. And yet he himself attributed everything that succeeded to fortune: for writing to his friends at home and speaking before the Syracusan assembly
he often said he was grateful to god because, wishing to save Sicily, god had inscribed Timoleon's own name upon it. And in his house he founded a shrine and sacrificed to Automatia, and consecrated the house itself to the Good Daimon. He lived in a house which the Syracusans had chosen out for him as the prize of his generalship, and in the pleasantest and finest of the country estates, where he spent most of his time, having sent for
his wife and children from home. Since he never went back to Corinth, and he did not mix himself into the turmoils of Greece, nor did he give himself over to political envy, into which most generals run aground through insatiable desire for honors and power; but he remained there, enjoying the good things he himself had contrived — the greatest of which was to look, because of himself, upon so many cities and tens of thousands of people living in happiness.
But since it was necessary, it seems, not only that every lark should grow a crest, as Simonides says, but that every democracy should breed a sycophant, two of the popular leaders, Laphystius and Demaenetus, made an attempt even against Timoleon. Of these, when Laphystius was binding him over to some lawsuit, Timoleon would not let the citizens raise an uproar or hinder it, saying that he himself had willingly undergone so many toils and dangers for the sake of this — that any Syracusan who wished might have recourse to the laws.
And when Demaenetus, in the assembly, made many accusations against his generalship, Timoleon said nothing in reply to him, but replied only that he was grateful to the gods, to whom he had prayed that the Syracusans might come to have the right of free speech. Having, then, by common agreement accomplished the greatest and finest deeds of the Greeks of his time, and being alone in achieving those actions to which the sophists were always
summoning the Greeks through their festival orations, having distinguished himself in these, and having been brought forth from the evils that had gripped ancient Greece by fortune, untainted and pure, having displayed terrible force and courage against barbarians and tyrants, and justice and gentleness toward Greeks and friends, and having set up for his fellow citizens most of his trophies of contest without tears and without grief,
and having handed Sicily over, purged in not even eight full years, to its inhabitants free of the everlasting and inbred evils and diseases — already an old man, he grew dim in his sight, and then soon after was completely blinded, neither having given himself any cause nor having been abused by fortune, but from some hereditary condition and affliction, it seems, that combined with the passage of time. For it is reported that quite a number
of those related to him by blood likewise lost their sight, worn down by age. But Athanis reports that his sight had already begun failing him while the campaign against Hippo and Mamercus was still under way, at Mylae, in camp, and the impairment became visible to all, yet he did not for this reason abandon the siege, but carried the war through to its end and took the tyrants captive; and that when
he returned to Syracuse, he at once laid down his sole rule and asked to be released by the citizens, since affairs had come to their finest conclusion. That he himself bore this misfortune without grief one might admire the less; but the honor and gratitude that the Syracusans showed toward the man once he was blind is worthy of wonder — they themselves going to his door and bringing the foreign visitors who were staying in the city
to his house and estate, so that they might behold their benefactor, exulting and taking great pride that he had chosen to live out his life among them, thus disdaining, for the sake of their good fortune, so brilliant a return to Greece as had been prepared for him. And of the many great things written and done in his honor, none was less than this: that the assembly of the Syracusan people voted
that whenever war should befall them against foreign peoples, they should employ a Corinthian as general. And a fine sight too was that which took place at the assemblies in his honor: for on lesser matters they reached decisions on their own, but for the weightier deliberations they would call him in. And he, being conveyed through the marketplace on a yoked carriage, would proceed to the theater, and as the cart was brought in, with him sitting just as he happened to be, the people
would greet him, hailing him with one voice, and he, returning the greeting and giving some time to their acclamations and praises, would then listen to the matter in question and declare his opinion. When this had been ratified by show of hands, the attendants would lead the carriage back again through the theater, and the citizens, having escorted him out with shouting and clapping, would then transact by themselves the rest of the public business. Living in such
honor, cared for in his old age with goodwill, like a common father, he died from some slight cause that joined with time. And when days had been granted to the Syracusans to prepare the funeral, and to the surrounding peoples and foreign visitors to gather, he obtained a splendid provision in all respects, and the bier, chosen by vote of the young men, they carried, adorned, through the very tyrannical strongholds of Dionysius,
which were then being demolished. Many tens of thousands of men and women escorted it, whose appearance was fitting for a festival, all crowned with garlands and wearing clean clothing, while their voices and tears, mingled with the blessing pronounced upon the dead man, showed not a discharge of honor nor a public service performed from formal decree, but a rightful longing and the gratitude of genuine goodwill. Finally, when the bier had been set upon the pyre, Demetrius, who
was the loudest-voiced of the heralds of that time, proclaimed a written proclamation to this effect: 'The people of the Syracusans bury this man, Timoleon son of Timodemus, a Corinthian, at the cost of two hundred minae, and have honored him for all time to come with contests in music, horsemanship, and athletics, because, having put down the tyrants, and having conquered the barbarians in war, and having resettled the greatest of the devastated cities, he restored their laws to the Sicilian Greeks.' They made the burial
of his body in the marketplace, and later, enclosing it with colonnades and building wrestling-schools within, they dedicated it as a gymnasium for the young men, and called it the Timoleonteum. And they themselves, living under the constitution and the laws which he had established, continued for a long time in prosperity.