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 resource 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, and of almost ali 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 beg gary, 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.' 57 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 his advantage; which would be very much to his praise, but contrary to what has been related of him before. Whilst he lived at Corinth, a stranger rallied him unseasonably, and with an indecent grossness, upon his commerce which the philosophers during his most splendid fortune, and asked him by way of insult, of what consequence 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 INSTI TUTES WISE LAWS.-HIS DEATH. AFTER the retreat 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, *Cic. Tusc. Quæst. l. iii. n. 27. Demet. Phaler. de eloq. 11. 1. viii. || A. M. 3658. Ant. J. C. 846. Plut, in 1. xvi. p. 465, et 474, + Val. Max. 1. vi. c. 9. $ Plut. in Timol. p. 243. Timol. p. 243-248. Diod 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, whilst 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. This bad news caused Mago and Icetas to return immediately. At the same time a body of troops from Corinth landed safe in Sicily, having deceived 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 battle array against Syracuse. His army consisted of only 4000 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 he given up to the Carthaginians, the wickedest and most cruel of all barbarians that Icetas had only to join Timoleon, and to act in concert with him against the common enemy. Those soldiers, having spread these 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, notwithstanding 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 Icetas's troops were universally 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, ran in multitudes to the cita del, which they not only demolished, but the palaces of the tyrant; breaking open their tombs at the same time, which: they also threw down and destroyed. 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 of Sicily 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 besides 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 numerous army, than at the beginning of the year. Those letters being arrived with ambassadors from Syracuse, who conjured the Corinthians to take compassion of 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 aggrandising themselves, and of making themselves masters of the city, according to the maxims of a base and infamous poHicy, 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 just distribution of the lands amongst them. At the same time they dispatched couriers into Asia, and into all the isles, whither great numbers of fugitives had retired, to invite them to come as soon as possible to Corinth, which would provide them vessels, commanders, and a safe convoy, to transport them into their country at its own expence. Upon this publication Corinth received universal praises and blessings, as it justly deserved. It was every-where proclaimed, that Corinth had delivered Syracuse from the tyrants, had preserved it from falling into the hands of the barbarians, and restored it to its citizens. It is not necessary to insist here upon the grandeur of so noble and generous an action: the mere relation of it must make the impression that always results from the great and noble ; and every body owned, that never conquest nor triumph equalled the glory which the Corinthians then acquired by so perfect and magnanimous a disinterested ness. Those who came to Corinth, not being sufficiently numerous, demanded an addition of inhabitants from that city and from all Greece to augment this kind of colony. Having obtained their request, and finding themselves increased to 10,000, they embarked for Syracuse, where a multitude of people from all parts of Italy and Sicily had joined Timoleon. It was said their number amounted to 60,000 and upwards. Timoleon distributed the lands amongst them gratis; but sold them the houses, with which he raised a very great sum; leaving it to the discretion of the old inhabitants to redeem their own: and by this means he collected a considerable fund for such of the people as were poor and unable to support either their own necessities or the charges of the war. The statues of the tyrants, and of all the princes who had governed Sicily, were put up to sale; but first they were cited, and sentenced in the forms of law. One only escaped the rigour of this inquiry, and was preserved; which was Gelon, who had gained a celebrated victory over the Carthaginians at Himera, and governed the people with lenity and justice; for which his memory was still cherished and honoured. If the same scrutiny were made into all statues, I do not know whether many would continue in being. * History has preserved another sentence passed also in regard to a statue, but of a very different kind. The fact is curious, and will excuse a digression. Nicon, a champion of Thasus, an island in the gean sea, had been crowned 1400 times victor in the solemn games of Greece. A man of that merit could not fail of being envied. After his death, one of his competitors insulted his statue, and gave it several blows; to revenge perhaps those he had formerly received from him it represented. But the statue, as if sensible of that outrage, fell from its height upon the person that insulted it, and killed him. The son of him who had been crushed to death, proceeded juridically against the statue, as guilty of homicide, and punishable by the law of Draco. That famous legislator, of Athens, to inspire a greater horror for the guilt of murder, had ordained that even inanimate things should be destroyed which should occasion the death of a man by their fall. The Thasians, conformable to this law, decreed that the statue should be thrown into the sea. But some years after, being * Suidas in Nixav Pausan 1. vi. p. $46. afflicted with great famine, and having consulted the oracle of Delphos, they caused it to be taken out of the sea, and rendered new honours to it. Syracuse being raised in a manner from the grave, and people flocking from all parts to inhabit it, Timoleon, desirous of freeing the other cities of Sicily, and finally to extirpate tyranny and tyrants out of it, began his march with his army. He compelled Icetas to renounce his alliance with the Carthagi nians, obliged him to demolish his forts and to live as a private person in the city of the Leontines. Leptinus, tyrant of Apollonia, and of several other cities and fortresses, seeing himself in danger of being taken by force, surrendered himself. Timoleon spared his life, and sent him to Corinth; for he thought nothing more great and honourable, than to let Greece see the tyrants of Sicily in a state of humiliation and living like exiles. He returned afterwards to Syracuse, to regulate the government, and to institute such laws as should be most important and necessary, in conjunction with Cephalus and Dionysius, two legislators sent to him by the Corinthians: for he had not the weakness to desire unlimited power, and sole administra tion. But on his departure, that the troops in his pay might get something for themselves, and to keep them in exercise at the same time, he sent them, under the command of Dinarchus and Demaratus, into all the places subject to the Carthaginians. These troops brought over several cities from the barbarians, lived always in abundance, made much booty, and returned with, considerable sums of money, which was of great service in the support of the war. *About this time the Carthaginians arrived at Lilybæum, under Asdrubal and Imilcar, with an army of 70,000 men, 200 ships of war, 1000 transports laden with machines, armed chariots, horses, ammunition, and provisions. They proposed no less than the entire expulsion of the Greeks out of Sicily. Timoleon did not think fit to wait their advancing; and though he could raise only 6 or 7000 men, so great was the people's terror, he marched with that small body of troops against the formidable army of the enemy, and obtained a celebrated victory near the river Crimesus; an account of which may be found in the history of the Carthaginians. Timoleon returned to Syracuse amidst shouts of joy and universal applauses. He had before effected the conquest and reduction of the Sicilian tyrants, but had not changed them, nor taken from them their tyrannical disposition. They united together, and formed a powerful league against him. Timoleon immediately took the field, and soon put a final end to their hopes. He *Plus in Timol. p. 248, et 255, |