Timoleon

Plutarch

Plutarch. Plutarch's Lives, Vol. VI. Perrin, Bernadotte, translator. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press; London: William Heinemann Ltd., 1918.

Therefore they convened an assembly and closed the gates, in order that the citizens might not engage in any other business; then they came forward and addressed the multitude in lengthy speeches, one handing over to another the same topic and coming to no conclusion, but protracting the time to no apparent purpose, until the Corinthian triremes should have put to sea, and keeping the Carthaginians in the assembly free from all suspicion, since Timoleon also was there and led them to think that he was on the point of rising to address the people.

But when some one secretly brought him word that the other triremes had put to sea, and that one only, his own, had been left behind and was waiting for him, he slipped through the crowd unnoticed, with the connivance of the Rhegians about the bema, went down to the sea, and sailed off with all speed.

And they put in at Tauromenium in Sicily, whither they had been earnestly invited some time ago, and where they were now kindly received by Andromachus, the master and ruler of the city.

Andromachus was father of Timaeus the historian, and after making himself by far the most powerful of the rulers in Sicily at that time not only led his own citizens in the ways of law and justice, but was also known to be always averse and hostile to tyrants.