Плутарх - Plutarch's Lives - Volume I

XXXI. The people of Syracuse were much nettled by the insulting jests passed upon them by the despots. Mamercus, who plumed himself on his poems and tragedies, gave himself great airs after conquering the mercenaries, and when he hung up their shields as offerings to the gods, he inscribed this insolent elegiac couplet upon them.

After these events, while Timoleon was on a campaign in the direction of Kalauria, Hiketes invaded the Syracusan territory, did much damage and insult, and retired loaded with spoil, past the very walls of Kalauria, despising Timoleon, who had but a small force with him. He, however, let him pass, but then pursued with his cavalry and light troops. Hiketes, perceiving this, halted after crossing the river Damyrias, and drew up his troops along the farther bank to dispute the passage, encouraged to do so by the different nature of the ford, and the steepness of the hills on either hand. Now a strange rivalry and contest arose among Timoleon's captains, which delayed their onset. No one chose to let any one else lead the way against the enemy, but each man wished to be first; so that their crossing was conducted in a disorderly fashion, each man trying to push by and outstrip the rest. Hereupon Timoleon, wishing to choose the leaders by lot, took a ring from each. These he threw into his own cloak, mixed them up, and showed the first which he drew out, which happened to be engraved with the figure of a trophy of victory. When the young men saw this they raised a shout of joy, and would not wait for the rest to be drawn, but each man, as fast as he could, rode through the river and set upon the enemy. Their assault was irresistible; the enemy fled, all of them throwing away their shields, and with the loss of a hundred men.

XXXII. Soon after this, while Timoleon was campaigning in the Leontine country, he took Hiketes alive, with his son Eupolemus, and Euthymus, the commander of his cavalry. The soldiers seized and bound them, and led them into Timoleon's presence. Hiketes and his son were put to death as despots and traitors; nor did Euthymus meet with compassion, though he was a man of renown in athletic contest, and of great personal bravery, because of a scoffing speech of which he was accused against the Corinthians. The story goes that he was addressing the people of Leontini on the subject of the Corinthian invasion, and told them that there was nothing to be alarmed at if

"Corinthian ladies have come out from home." [36] A line in the Medea of Euripides. The point of the joke depends on the punctuation, but cannot be kept in translation.

Thus it is that most people seem to suffer more from hard words than hard deeds, and are more excited by insult than by actual hurt. What we do to our enemies in war is done of necessity, but the evil we say of them seems to spring from an excess of spite.

XXXIII. On Timoleon's return the Syracusans brought the family and daughters of Hiketes before the public assembly for trial, and condemned them to death. And this, methinks, is the most heartless of Timoleon's actions, that for want of a word from him these poor creatures should have perished. He seems not to have interfered, and to have let the people give full vent to their desire to avenge Dion, who dethroned Dionysius. For Hiketes was the man who threw Dion's wife Arete alive into the sea, with her sister Aristomache and her little son, as is told in the Life of Dion.

XXXIV. After this he marched against Mamercus at Catana. He beat him in a pitched battle near the river Abolus, routing him with a loss of two thousand men, no small part of whom belonged to the Phoenician contingent under Gisco. Hereupon, at the request of the Carthaginians, he made peace, stipulating that they should hold the country beyond the river Lykus, and that those who wished should be allowed to have it and go to reside at Syracuse, with their families and property, and also that they should give up their alliance with the despots. In despair at this Mamercus sailed to Italy, to try to bring the Lucanians against Timoleon and the Syracusans; but he was deserted by his followers, who turned their ships back, sailed to Syracuse, and surrendered Catana to Timoleon. Mamercus now was forced to take refuge in Messina with Hippo, the despot there. But Timoleon came and besieged it both by sea and land. Hippo endeavoured to escape on a ship, and was taken. The people of Messina, to whom he was delivered up, brought every one, even the boys from school, into the theatre, to witness that most salutary spectacle, a tyrant meeting with his deserts. He was put to death with torture; but Mamercus surrendered himself to Timoleon on condition that he should have a fair trial before the people of Syracuse, and that Timoleon should say nothing against him. When he was brought to Syracuse he was brought before the people, and tried to deliver a long premeditated speech to them, but meeting with interruptions and seeing that the assembly was inexorable he flung away his cloak and rushed across the theatre, striking his head against a stone step with the intention of killing himself. However he failed, and paid the penalty of his crimes by suffering the death of a pirate.

XXXV. In this fashion the despotisms were put down by Timoleon, and the wars finished. The whole island, which had become a mere wilderness through the constant wars, and was grown hateful to the very natives, under his administration became so civilized and desirable a country that colonists sailed to it from those very places to which its own citizens had formerly betaken themselves to escape from it. For Akragas and Gela, large cities, which after the war with Athens had been destroyed by the Carthaginians, were now repeopled; the former colonists led by Megellus and Pheristus, from Elea on the south coast of Italy, and the latter by a party led by Gorgus, who sailed from Keos and collected together the former citizens.

When these cities were being reorganised Timoleon not only afforded them peace and safety, but also gave them great assistance, and showed so great an interest in them as to be loved and respected by them as their real Founder. The other cities also all of them looked upon him with the same feelings, so that no peace could be made by them, no laws established, no country divided among settlers, no constitutional changes made that seemed satisfactory, unless he had a hand in them, and arranged them just as an architect, when a building is finished, gives some graceful touches which adorn the whole.

XXXVI. There were many Greeks, in his lifetime, who became great, and did great things, such as Timotheus, and Agesilaus, and Pelopidas, and Timoleon's great model, Epameinondas. But these men's actions produced a glory which was involved in much strain and toil, and some of their deeds have incurred censure, and even been repented of. Whereas those of Timoleon, if we except the terrible affair of his brother, have nothing in them to which we cannot apply, like Timaeus, that verse of Sophocles—

For as in the poetry of Antimachus, and the paintings of Dionysius, the Kolophonians, we find a certain vigour and power, yet think them forced in expression, and produced with much labour, while the paintings of Nikomachus and the verses of Homer, besides their other graces and merits, have the charm of seeming to have been composed easily and without effort, so also the campaigns of Timoleon, when compared with the laborious and hardly contested ones of Epameinondas or Agesilaus, seem to have, besides their glory, a wonderful ease, which property is not so much to be attributed to good luck as to prosperous valour. He, however, ascribed all his successes to Fortune, for in writing to his friends at home, and in his public speeches to the Syracusans, he frequently expressed his thankfulness to this goddess, who, having determined to save Sicily, had chosen to ascribe to him the credit of doing it. In his house he built a chapel to Automatia,—the goddess under whose auspices blessings and glory came as it were of themselves. To her he offered sacrifices, and consecrated his house to her. He lived in a house which the Syracusans had bestowed upon him as a special prize for his successes as general, and also the most beautiful and pleasant country seat, where indeed he spent most of his leisure time with his wife and children, whom he had sent for from Corinth. For he never returned to Corinth, nor mixed himself up in the troubles of Greece, nor did he expose himself to the hatred of political faction, which is the rock upon which great generals commonly split, in their insatiate thirst for honour and power; but he remained in Sicily, enjoying the blessings of which he was the author; the greatest of which was to see so many cities, and so many tens of thousands, all made happy and prosperous by his means.