Timoleon

So prosperous was the course of his enterprises, and such was the speed with which Fortune crowned the beauty of his achievements.

When he had become master of the citadel, he did not repeat the experience of Dion,[*](See the Dion, chapter liii. 1. ) nor did he spare the place on account of the beauty and great cost of its architecture, but guarding against the suspicions which had brought calumny and then destruction upon his predecessor, he made proclamation that all Syracusans who wished should come with implements of iron and help in the demolition of the tyrants’ bulwarks.

And when they had all come up, considering that day with its proclamation to be a most secure beginning of freedom, they overthrew and demolished, not only the citadel, but also the palaces and the tombs of the tyrants.

Then, as soon as he had levelled off the place, Timoleon built the courts of justice there, thus gratifying the citizens by making their democracy triumphant over tyranny.

But the city which he had taken had not citizens enough, since some had perished in their wars and seditions, while others had gone into exile from tyrannical governments. Indeed, for lack of population the market place of Syracuse had produced such a quantity of dense herbage that horses were pastured in it, while their grooms lay down in the grass;

and the other cities, with almost no exceptions, were full of deer and wild swine, while in their suburbs and around their walls those who had leisure for it went hunting,

and not one of those who were established in fortresses and strongholds would hearken to any summons, or come down into the city, but fear and hatred kept all away from market place and civic life and public speaking, which had produced the most of their tyrants.

Therefore Timoleon and the Syracusans decided to write to the Corinthians urging them to send settlers to Syracuse from Greece.

For otherwise the land was likely to lie uncultivated, and they expected a great war from Africa, since they learned that the Carthaginians, after Mago’s suicide, had impaled his dead body, in their rage at his conduct of the expedition, and that they were assembling a great force with the intention of crossing into Sicily in the summer.

When these letters from Timoleon had been delivered and were accompanied by Syracusan envoys who begged them to take thought for their city and to become anew its founders, the Corinthians did not seize the opportunity for their own aggrandizement, nor did they appropriate the city for themselves,