Timoleon

Upon this, Dionysius stopped and said: It is good of thee, O Diogenes, to sympathize with me in my misfortunes. How is that? said Diogenes; Dost thou suppose that I am sympathizing with thee? Nay, I am indignant that such a slave as thou, and one so worthy to have grown old and died in the tyrant’s estate, just as thy father did, should be living here with us in mirth and luxury.

Wherefore, when I compare with these words the mournful utterances of Philistus about the daughters of Leptines, how from the great blessings of the tyranny they fell to a lowly life, they seem the lamentations of a woman who pines for her alabaster caskets and purple gowns and golden trinkets.

These details, then, will not seem foreign to my biography, I think, nor without usefulness, to readers who are not in haste, and are not occupied with other matters.

But though the misfortune of Dionysius seemed extraordinary, none the less did the good fortune of Timoleon have something marvellous about it.