Плутарх - Plutarch's Lives - Volume I

XIII. These portents, it seems, did not merely presage the victory, but also the subsequent events, of which this was the prosperous beginning. Immediately several cities sent ambassadors and joined Timoleon, as did also Mamercus the despot of Katana, a man of warlike tastes and great wealth, who made an alliance with him. But the most important thing of all was that Dionysius himself, who had now lost all hope of success, and was on the point of being starved out, despising Hiketes for being so shamefully beaten, but admiring Timoleon, sent to him and offered to deliver up both himself and the citadel to the Corinthians.

Timoleon, accepting this unexpected piece of good fortune, sent Eukleides and Telemachus, Corinthian officers, into the citadel, and four hundred men besides, not all together nor openly, for that was impossible in the face of the enemy, who were blockading it, but by stealth, and in small bodies. So these soldiers took possession of the citadel, and the palace with all its furniture, and all the military stores. There were a good many horses, and every species of artillery and missile weapon. Also there were arms and armour for seventy thousand men, which had been stored up there for a long time, and Dionysius also had two thousand soldiers, all of whom he handed over to Timoleon with the rest of the fortress, and then, with his money and a few of his friends, he put to sea, and passed unnoticed through Hiketes's cruisers. He proceeded to the camp of Timoleon, appearing for the first time as a private person in great humility, and was sent to Corinth in one ship, and with a small allowance of money. He had been born and bred in the most splendid and greatest of empires, and had reigned over it for ten years, but for twelve more, since the time that Dion attacked him, he had constantly been in troubles and wars, during which all the cruelties which he had exercised on others, were more than avenged upon himself, by the miserable death of his wife and family, which are more particularly dwelt upon in the life of Dion.

XIV. Now when Dionysius reached Corinth, there was no one in Greece who did not wish to see him and speak to him. Some, who rejoiced in his misfortunes, came to see him out of hatred, in order to trample on him now that he was down, while others sympathised with him in his change of fortune, reflecting on the inscrutable ways of the gods, and the uncertainty of human affairs. For that age produced nothing in nature or art so remarkable as that change of fortune which showed the man, who not long before had been supreme ruler of Sicily, now dining at Corinth at the cook's shop, lounging at the perfumer's, drinking at the taverns, instructing female singers, and carefully arguing with them about their songs in the theatre, and about the laws of music. Some thought that Dionysius acted thus from folly, and indolent love of pleasure, but others considered that it was in order that he might be looked down upon, and not be an object of terror or suspicion to the Corinthians, as he would have been if they thought that he ill brooked his reverse of fortune, and still nourished ambitious designs, and that his foolish and licentious mode of life was thus to be accounted for.

XV. But for all that, certain of his sayings are remembered, which sufficiently prove that he showed real greatness of mind in adapting himself to his altered circumstances. When he arrived at Leukas, which, like Syracuse, was a Corinthian colony, he said that he was like a young man who has got into disgrace. They associate gaily with their brothers, but are ashamed to meet their fathers, and avoid them: and so he was ashamed to go to the parent city, but would gladly live there with them. Another time in Corinth, when some stranger coarsely jeered at the philosophic studies in which he used to delight when in power, and at last asked him what good he had obtained from the wisdom of Plato, "Do you think," answered he, "that I have gained nothing from Plato, when I bear my reverse of fortune as I do." When Aristoxenus, the musician, and some others asked him what fault he had found with Plato, and why, he answered that absolute power, amongst its many evils, was especially unfortunate in this, that none of a despot's so–called friends dare to speak their mind openly. And he himself, he said, had been by such men deprived of the friendship of Plato. A man, who thought himself witty, once tried to make a joke of Dionysius by shaking out his cloak, when he came into his presence, as is the custom before despots, to show that one has no concealed weapons; but he repaid the jest by begging him to do it when he left him, that he might be sure that he had not stolen any of his property.

Philip of Macedon once, when they were drinking together, made some sneering remark about the poetry and tragedies which Dionysius the elder had written, pretending to be at a loss to know how he found time for such pursuits; but Dionysius cleverly answered, "He wrote them during the time which you and I, and all who are thought such lucky fellows, spend over our wine."

Plato never saw Dionysius at Corinth, for he was dead at that time; but Diogenes of Sinope, when he first met him, said, "How unworthily you live, Dionysius." Dionysius answered him, "Thank you, Diogenes, for sympathising with my misfortunes." "Why," said Diogenes; "do you suppose that I sympathise with you, and am not rather grieved that a slave like you, a man fit, like your father, to grow old and die on a miserable throne, should be living in luxury and enjoyment amongst us?" So, when I compare with these sayings of his the lamentations which Philistius pours forth over the daughters of Leptines, that they had fallen from the glories of sovereign power into a humble station, they seem to me like the complainings of a woman who has lost her perfumes, her purple dresses, or her jewels.

These details, I think, for readers who are at leisure, are not foreign to the design of biography, and not without value.

XVI. If the fall of Dionysius seems strange, the good fortune of Timoleon was no less wonderful. Within fifty days of his landing in Sicily, he was master of the citadel of Syracuse, and sent back Dionysius to Peloponnesus. Encouraged by his success, the Corinthians sent him a reinforcement of two thousand hoplites and two hundred horse. These men reached Thurii, but there found it impossible to cross over into Sicily, as the Carthaginians held the sea with a great fleet. As it was necessary for them to remain there for a time, they made use of their leisure to perform a most excellent action. For the Thurians made an expedition against the Bruttii, [34] The natives of Southern Italy. and meanwhile these men took charge of their city, and guarded it carefully and trustily as if it had been their own.

Hiketes meanwhile was besieging the citadel of Syracuse, and preventing corn from being brought by sea to the Corinthians. He also obtained two strangers, whom he sent to assassinate Timoleon, who, trusting in the favour shown him by the gods, was living carelessly and unsuspectingly among the people of Adranum. These men, hearing that he was about to offer sacrifice, came into the temple with daggers under their cloaks, and mingling with the crowd round the altar, kept edging towards him. They were just on the point of arranging their attack, when a man struck one of them on the head with his sword, and he fell. Neither the assailant nor the accomplice of the fallen man stood his ground, but the one with his sword still in his hand ran and took refuge on a high rock, while the other laid hold of the altar, and begged for pardon at Timoleon's hands if he revealed the whole plot. When assured of his safety he confessed that he and the man who had been killed had been sent thither to assassinate Timoleon. Meanwhile others brought back the man from the rock, who loudly declared that he had done no wrong, but had justly slain him in vengeance for his father, whom this wretch had killed at Leontini. Several of those present bore witness to the truth of his story, and they marvelled much at the ways of Fortune, how she makes the most incongruous elements work together to accomplish her purposes. The Corinthians honoured the man with a present of ten minae, because he had co–operated with the guardian angel of Timoleon, and had put off the satisfaction of his private wrong until a time when it saved the life of the general. This good fortune excited men's feelings so that they guarded and reverenced Timoleon as a sacred person sent by heaven to restore the liberties of Sicily.