Timoleon

Plutarch

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

Meanwhile others brought down the man who had fled to the rock, who kept crying out that he had done no wrong, but had justly slain the man on behalf of his dead father, who had been murdered by him some time ago in Leontini.

Some of the bystanders bore witness also to the truth of his words, and wondered, too, at the dexterity of Fortune, seeing how she makes some things lead up to others, brings all things together from afar, weaves together incidents which seem to be most divergent and to have nothing in common with one another, and so makes use of their reciprocal beginnings and endings.

To this man, then, the Corinthians gave a reward of ten minas, because he had put his just resentment at the service of the deity who was guarding Timoleon, and had not at an earlier time expended the wrath which had long been in his heart, but with a personal motive had reserved it, under Fortune’s guidance, for the preservation of that general.

Moreover, their good fortune in the present crisis raised their hopes for the future also, and they anticipated that men would revere and protect Timoleon, looking upon him as a sacred personage, and one who had come under divine guidance to avenge the wrongs of Sicily.[*](The Greek of this sentence is obscure, and has thus far defied emendation.)