During these transactions, the Carthaginians, who were almost always at war with the Syracusans, arrived in Sicily with a large fleet; and having made great progress there, the Sicilians, and the people of Syracuse resolved to send an embassy into Greece, to demand aid of the Corinthians, from whom the Syracusans were descended, and who had always openly declared against tyrants and in favour of liberty. Icetas, who proposed no other end from his command than to make himself master of Syracuse, and had no thoughts of setting it free, treated secretly with the Carthaginians, though in public he affected to praise the wise measures of the Syracusans, and even sent his deputies along with theirs. Corinth received the ambassadors kindly, and immediately appointed Timoleon their general. He had led a retired life for twenty years, without interfering in public affairs, and was far from believing, that, at his age, and in the circumstances he then was, he should be thought of upon such an occasion.* He was descended from one of the noblest families in Corinth, loved his country passionately, and discovered upon all occasions a singular humanity of temper, except against tyrants and bad men. He was an excellent captain; and as in his youth he had all the maturity of age, in age he had all the fire and courage of the most ardent youth. He had an elder brother, called Timophanes, whom he tenderly loved, as he had demonstrated in a battle, in which he covered him with his body, and saved his life at the great danger of his own; but his country was still dearer to him. That brother having made himself tyrant of it, so black a crime gave him the deepest affliction. He made use of all possible means to bring him back to his duty; kindness, friendship, affection, remonstrances, and even menaces. But finding all his endeavors ineffectual, and that nothing could prevail upon a heart abandoned to ambition, he caused his brother to be assassinated in his presence by two of his friends and intimates, and thought, that upon such an occasion the laws of nature ought to give place to those of his country. That action was admired and applauded by the principal citizens of Corinth, and by most of the philosophers, who looked upon it as the most noble effort of human virtue; and Plutarch seems to pass the same judgment upon it. All the world were not of that opinion; and some people reproached him as an abominable fratricide, who could not fail of drawing down the vengeance of the gods upon him. His mother, especially in the excess of her grief, uttered the most dreadful curses and imprecations against him; and when he came to console her, not being able to bear the sight of her son's murderer, she thrust him away with indignation, and shut her doors against him. He was then struck with all the horror of the most guilty; and giving himself up to the most bitter remorse, considered Timophanes no longer as a ty rant, but as a brother, and resolved to put an end to his life, by abstaining from all nourishment. It was with great difficulty his friends dissuaded him trom that fatal resolution. Overcome by their prayers and entreaties, he was at length prevailed upon to live, but he condemned himself to pass the rest of his days in solitude. From that moment he renounced all public affairs, and for several years, never came to the city, but wandered about in the most solitary and desert places, abandoned to excess of grief and melancholy: so true it is, that neither the praise of flatterers, nor the false reasonings of politicians, can suppress the cries of conscience, which is at once the witness, judge, and executioner of those who presume to violate the most sacred rights and ties of nature He passed twenty years in this condition. He did indeed return to Corinth at the latter part of that time; but lived there always private and retired, with out concerning himself with the administration of the government. It was not without great reluctance that he accepted the employment of general : but he did not think it allowable to refuse the service of his country; and his duty prevailed against his inclination A. M. 3655. While Timoleon assembled his troops, and was preparing to sail, the Corinthians received letters from Icetas, in which he told them, "that it was not necessary for them to make any farther levies, or exhaust themselves in great exigencies to come to Sicily, and to expose themselves to evident danger; the Carthaginians, apprised of their design, were waiting to intercept their squadron in its passage with a great fleet; and that their slowness in sending their troops, had obliged him to call in the Carthaginians themselves to his aid, and to make use of them against the tyrant." He had made a secret treaty with them, by which it was stipulated, that after the expulsion of Dionysius from Syracuse, he should take possession of it in his place. The reading of these letters, far from cooling the zeal of the Corinthians, only incensed them more than at first, and hastened the departure of Timoleon. He embarked on board ten galleys, and arrived safe upon the coast of Italy where the news that came from Sicily extremely perplexed him, and discou raged his troops. An account was brought that Icetas had defeated Dionysius, and having made himself master of the greatest part of Syracuse, had obliged the tyrant to shut himself up in the citadel, and in that quarter called the Isle, where he besieged him; and that he had given orders to the Carthaginians to prevent Timoleon's approach, and to come on shore, that they might make a peaceable partition of Sicily between them, when they should have compelled that general to retire. The Carthaginians, in consequence, had sent twenty galleys to Rhegium. The Corinthians, upon their arrival at that port, found ambassadors from Icetas, who declared to Timoleon, that he might come to Syracuse, and would be well received there, provided he dismissed his troops. The proposal was entirely injurious, and at the same time more perplexing. It seemed impossible to beat the vessels which the barbarians had caused to advance to intercept them in their passage, being twice their force; and to retire, was to abandon all Sicily to extreme distress, which could not avoid being the reward of the treachery of Icetas, and of the support which the Carthaginians should give the tyranny. In this delicate conjuncture, Timoleon demanded a conference with the am bassadors, and the principal officers of the Carthaginian squadron, in the presence of the people of Rhegium. It was only, he said, to discharge himself and for his own security, that his country might not accuse him of having disobeyed its orders, and betrayed its interests. The governor and magistrates of Rhegium understood his designs. They desired nothing more than to see the Corinthians in possession of Sicily, and apprehended nothing so much as the neighbourhood of the barbarians. They summoned, therefore, an assembly, and shut the gates of the city, upon pretence of preventing the citizens from going abroad, in order to their applying themselves solely to the present affair. The people being assembled, long speeches were made of little or no tendency; every body treating the same subject, and repeating the same reasons or adding new ones, only to protract the council, and to gain time. While this was doing, nine of the Corinthian galleys went off, and were suffered to pass by the Carthaginian vessels, believing that their departure had been concerted with their own officers, who were in the city, and that those nine galleys were to return to Corinth, the tenth remaining to carry Timoleon to Icetas at Syracuse. When Timoleon was informed in a whisper, that his galleys were at sea, he slipped gently through the crowd, which to favour his going off, thronged exceedingly round the tribunal. He got to the sea-side, embarked directly, and having rejoined his galleys, they arrived together at Tauromenium, a city of Sicily, where they were received with open arms by Andromachus, who commanded it, and who joined his citizens with the Corinthian troops, to reinstate the Sicilian liberties. It is easy to comprehend how much the Carthaginians were surprised and ashamed of being so deceived: but they were told, that being Phoenicians who passed for the greatest cheats in the world, fraud and artifice ought not to give them so much astonishment and displeasure. Upon the news of Timoleon's arrival, Icetas was terrified, and made the greatest part of the Carthaginian galleys advance. They had a hundred and fifty long ships, fifty thousand foot, and three hundred armed chariots. The Syracusans lost all hope when they saw the Carthaginians in possession of the port, Icetas master of the city, Dionysius blocked up in the citadel, and Timoleon without any other hold in Sicily than the small city of Tauromenium, on the coast, with little hope and less force; for his troops did not amount in all to more than a thousand soldiers, and he had scarcely provisions for their subsistence. Besides which, the cities placed no confidence in him. The ills they had suffered from the extortion and cruelty that had been practised among them, had exasperated them against all commanders of troops, especially after the horrid treachery of Callippus and Pharax; who being both sent, the one from Athens, and the other from Sparta, to free Sicily and expel the tyrants, made them conceive the tyranny gentle and desirable, so severe were the vexations with which they had oppressed them. They were afraid of experiencing the same treatment from Timoleon. The inhabitants of Adranon, a small city below Mount Etna, being divided among themselves, one party had called on Icetas and the Carthaginians, and the other had applied to Timoleon. The two chiefs arrived almost at the same time in the neighbourhood of Adranon; the former with five thousand men, and the latter with only twelve hundred. Notwithstanding this inequality, Timoleon, who justly conceived that he should find the Carthaginians in disorder, and employed in taking up their quarters and pitching their tents, made his troops advance, and without losing time, to rest them, as the officers advised him, he marched directly to charge the enemy, who no sooner saw him, than they fled. This occasioned their only killing three hundred, and taking twice as many prisoners; but the Carthaginians lost their camp, and all their baggage. The Adranites opened their gates at the same time, and received Timoleon. Other cities sent their deputies to him soon after, and made their submission. Dionysius himself, who renounced his vain hopes, and saw himself at the point of being reduced, as full of contempt for Icetas, who had suffered himself to be so shamefully defeated, as of admiration and esteem for Timoleon, sent ambassadors to the latter, to treat of surrendering himself and the citadel to the Corinthians. Timoleon, taking the advantage of so unexpected a good fortune, made Euclid and Telemachus, with four hundred soldiers, file off into the castle; not all at once, nor in the day-time, that being impossible, the Carthaginians being masters of the gate, but in platoons, and by stealth. Those troops having got successfully into the citadel, took possession of it, with all the tyrant's moveables, and provisions of war. For he had a considerable number of horse, all sorts of engines and darts, besides seventy thousand suits of armour, which had been laid up there long before. Dionysius had also two thousand regular troops, which with the rest he surrendered to Timoleon. And for himself, taking with him his money, and some few of his friends, he em barked, unperceived by the troops of Icetas, and repaired to the camp of Timoleon. It was the first time in his life that he had appeared in the low and abject state of a private person, and a suppliant; he who had been born and nur tured in the arms of tyranny, and had seen himself master of the most power ful kingdom that had ever been usurped by tyrants. He had possessed it ten years entire, before Dion took arms against him, and some years after, though always in the midst of wars and battles. He was sent to Corinth with only one galley, without convoy, and with very little money. He served there for a sight, every body running to gaze at him; some with a secret joy of heart, to gratify their eyes with the view of the miseries of a man whom the name of a tyrant rendered odious; others, with a kind of compassion, from comparing the splendid condition from which he had fallen, with the immeasurable depth of distress into which they beheld him plunged.* His manner of life at Corinth did not long excite any sentiments in regard to him, but those of contempt and indignation. He passed whole days in perfumers' shops, in taverns, or with actresses and singers, disputing with them upon the rules of music, and the harmony of airs. Some people have thought that he behaved in such a manner out of policy, not to give umbrage to the Corinthians, nor to discover any thought or desire of recovering his dominions. But such an opinion does him too much honour, and it seems more probable, that, nurtured and educated as he was in drunkenness and debauchery, he only followed his inclination; and that he passed his life in the kind of slavery into which he was fallen, as he had done upon the throne, having no other re. source or consolation in his misfortunes. Some writers say, that the extreme poverty to which he was reduced at Corinth, obliged him to open a school there, and to teach children to read; perhaps, says Cicero,† without doubt jestingly, to retain a species of empire, and not absolutely to renounce the habit and pleasure of commanding. Whether that were his motive or not, it is certain that Dionysius, who had seen himself master of Syracuse, of almost all Sicily, who had possessed immense riches, and had numerous fleets and great armies of horse and foot under his command; that the same Dionysius, reduced now almost to beggary, and from a king become a schoolmaster, was a good lesson for persons of exalted stations not to confide in their grandeur, nor to rely too much upon their fortune.§ The Lacedæmonians some time after gave Philip this admonition. That prince having written to them in very haughty and menacing terms, they made him no other answer but " Dionysius at Corinth." An expression of Dionysius, which has been preserved, seems to argue, if it be true, that he knew how to make a good use of his adversity, and to turn his misfortunes to advantage; which would be very much to his praise, but contrary to what has been related of him before. While he lived at Corinth, a stranger rallied him unseasonably, and with an indecent grossness, upon his commerce with the philosophers during his most splendid fortune, and asked him, by way of insult, "of what conseqence all the wisdom of Plato had been to him?" "Can you believe then," replied he," that I have received no benefit from Plato, and see me bear ill fortune as I do ?"¶ SECTION VI.-TIMOLEON RESTORES LIBERTY TO SYRACUSE, AND INSTITUTES WISE LAWS. HIS DEATH. AFTER the treaty of Dionysius, Icetas pressed the siege of the citadel of Syracuse with the utmost vigour, and kept it so closely blocked up, that the convoys sent to the Corinthians could not enter it without great difficulty. Timoleon, who was at Catana, sent them frequently thither. To deprive them of this relief, Icetas and Mago set out together with design to besiege that place. During their absence, Leon the Corinthian, who commanded in the citadel, having observed from the ramparts, that those who had been left to continue the siege, were very remiss in their duty, he made a sudden furious sally upon them while they were dispersed, killed part of them, put the rest to flight, and seized the quarter of the city called Achradina, which was the strongest part of it, and had been least injured by the enemy. Leon fortified it in the best manner the time would admit, and joined it to the citadel by works of communication.** * A. M. 3657. Ant. J. C. 347. † Dionysius Corinthi pueros, docebat, usque adeo imperio carere non poterat. Tanta mutatione majores natu, nequis nimis fortunæ crederet, magister ludi factus ex tyranno dosuit. || Demet. Phaler. de Eloq. 1. viii. This bad news caused Mago and Icetas to return immediately. At the same time a body of troops from Corinth landed safely in Sicily, having de ceived the vigilance of the Carthaginian squadron posted to intercept them. When they were landed, Timoleon received them with joy, and after having taken possession of Messina, marched in order of battle against Syracuse. His army consisted only of four thousand men. When he approached the city, his first care was to send emissaries among the soldiers that bore arms for Icetas. They represented to them, that it was highly shameful for Greeks, as they were, to labour that Syracuse and all Sicily should be given up to the Carthaginians, the most faithless and cruel of all barbarians: that Icetas had only to join Timoleon, and to act in concert with him against the common enemy. These soldiers, having spread those insinuations throughout the whole camp, gave Mago violent suspicions of his being betrayed; besides which, he had already for some time sought a pretext to retire. For these reasons, not withstanding the entreaties and warm remonstrances of Icetas, he weighed anchor and set sail for Africa, shamefully abandoning the conquest of Sicily. Timoleon's army the next day appeared before the place in line of battle, and attacked it in three different quarters with so much vigour and success, that the troops of Icetas were totally overthrown and put to flight. Thus, by a good fortune that has few examples, he carried Syracuse by force in an instant which was at that time one of the strongest cities in the world. When he had made himself master of it, he did not act like Dion, in sparing the forts, and public edifices for their beauty and magnificence. To avoid giving the same cause of suspicion, which at first decried though without foundation, and at length ruined that great man, he caused proclamation to be made by sound of trumpet, that all Syracusans, who would come with their tools, might employ themselves in demolishing the forts of the tyrants. In consequence of which, the Syracusans, considering that proclamation and day as the commencement of their liberty, and ran in multitudes to the citadel, and not only demolished that, but also the palaces of the tyrants, at the same time breaking open and destroying their tombs. The citadel being razed, and the ground made level, Timoleon caused tribunals to be erected upon it, for the dispensation of justice, in the name of the people; that the same place, from whence, under the tyrants, every day some bloody edict had issued, might become the asylum and bulwark of liberty and innocence. Timoleon was master of the city, but it wanted people to inhabit it; for some having perished in the wars and seditions, and others having fled to avoid the power of the tyrants, Syracuse was become a desert, and the grass was grown so high in the streets, that horses grazed in them. All the cities in Si cily were almost in the same condition. Timoleon and the Syracusans therefore found it necessary to write to Corinth, to desire that people might be sent from Greece to inhabit Syracuse; that otherwise, the country could never recover itself, and was beside threatened with a new war. For they had received advice, that Mago having killed himself, the Carthaginians, enraged at his having acquitted himself so ill of his charge, had hung up his body upon a cross, and were making great levies to return into Sicily with a more nume. rous army than at the beginning of the year. Those letters being arrived with ambassadors from Syracuse, who conjured the Corinthians to take compassion on their city, and to be a second time the founders of it; the Corinthians did not consider the calamity of that people as an occasion of aggrandizing themselves, and of making themselves masters of the city, according to the maxims of a base and infamous policy; but sending to all the sacred games of Greece, and to all public assemblies, they caused proclamation to be made in them by heralds, that the Corinthians having abolished the tyranny, and expelled the tyrants, they declared free and independent the Syracusans, and all the people of Sicily, who should return into their own country; and exhorted them to repair thither, to partake of an equal and |