Timoleon

Tidings of this coming quickly to Syracuse, the Syracusans were so terrified at the magnitude of the enemy’s forces that only three thousand out of so many tens of thousands could with difficulty be brought to pluck up courage, take their arms, and go forth with Timoleon.

Furthermore, the mercenaries were only four thousand in number; and of these, again, about a thousand played the coward on the march and went back to Syracuse, declaring that Timoleon was not in his right mind, but was more crazy than his years would lead one to expect, and was marching against seventy thousand of the enemy with five thousand foot and a thousand horse, and was taking his force a march of eight days away from Syracuse, so that those of them who fled from the field would find no safety, and those who fell upon it would have no burial.

As for these men, then, Timoleon counted it gain that they had shown what they were before the battle; the rest he encouraged and led them with all speed to the river Crimesus, where he heard that the Carthaginians also were concentrating.

As he was marching up a hill, from the crest of which they expected to look down upon the camp and the forces of the enemy, there met them by chance some mules laden with parsley;

and it occurred to the soldiers that the sign was a bad one, because we are generally accustomed to wreath the tombs of the dead with parsley; and this has given rise to a proverb, namely, that one who is dangerously sick needs only parsley.