Timoleon

Plutarch

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

Expecting, therefore, that the Corinthian leader would be no whit better than those who had preceded him, but that the same sophistries and lures were come to them again, and that with fair hopes and kind promises they were to be made docile enough to receive a new master in place of an old one, they all suspected and repulsed the appeals of the Corinthians except the people of Adranum.

These dwelt in a city that was small, but sacred to Adranus, a god highly honoured throughout all Sicily, and being at variance with one another, one party invited in Hicetas and the Carthaginians, while the other sent an invitation to Timoleon.

And by some freak of fortune, both generals hastening to answer the summons, both arrived at one and the same time.

But Hicetas came with five thousand soldiers, while Timoleon had no more than twelve hundred all told.