Volume 11 — CHAPTER LXXXV. SICILIAN AFFAIRS DOWN TO THE CLOSE OF THE EXPEDITION OF TIMOLEON. B. C. 353-336. (continued 2)

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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