Timoleon

But the people of Syracuse were vexed at the insults heaped upon them by the tyrants. For Mamercus, who valued himself highly as a writer of poems and tragedies, boasted of his victory over the mercenaries, and in dedicating their shields to the gods wrote the following insolent couplet:—

1. These bucklers, purple-painted, decked with ivory, gold, and amber,
2. We captured with our simple little shields.

And after this, when Timoleon was on an expedition to Calauria, Hicetas burst into the territory of Syracuse, took much booty, wrought much wanton havoc, and was marching off past Calauria itself, despising Timoleon, who had but few soldiers.

But Timoleon suffered him to pass on, and then pursued him with cavalry and light-armed troops. When Hicetas was aware of this, he crossed the river Damurias, and halted on the farther bank to defend himself; for the difficulty of the passage, and the steepness of the banks on either side, gave him courage.

Then among Timoleon’s cavalry officers an astonishing strife and contention arose which delayed the battle.

For not one of them was willing to cross the river against the enemy after another, but each demanded to begin the onset himself, and their crossing was likely to be without order if they crowded and tried to run past one another.

Timoleon, therefore, wishing to decide their order by lot, took a seal-ring from each of the leaders, and after casting all the rings into his own cloak and mixing them up, he showed the first that came out, and it had by chance as the device of its seal a trophy of victory.

When the young men saw it, they cried aloud for joy and would no longer wait for the rest of the lot, but all dashed through the river as fast as they could and closed with the enemy.