Timoleon

After this, Timoleon made an expedition against Mamercus to Catana, conquered and routed him in a pitched battle near the stream of the Abolus, and slew above two thousand of his soldiers, a large part of whom were the Carthaginians sent him as auxiliaries by Gisco.

Thereupon the Carthaginians made a peace with him which they sought themselves; the terms were that they should keep the territory within the river Lycus, restoring their families and property to all who wished to change their homes from there to Syracuse, and renouncing their alliance with the tyrants.

Then Mamercus, despairing of success, took ship for Italy with the purpose of bringing the Lucanians against Timoleon and Syracuse; but his companions on the voyage turned their triremes back, sailed to Sicily, and handed Catana over to Timoleon, whereupon Mamercus himself also was compelled to seek refuge in Messana with Hippo the tyrant of that city.

But Timoleon came up against them and besieged them by land and sea, and Hippo was caught as he was trying to steal away on board a ship. Then the Messanians took him into the theatre, brought their children thither from their schools to behold, as a glorious spectacle, the tyrant’s punishment, and put him to torment and death.

As for Mamercus, he gave himself up to Timoleon on condition that he should undergo trial at Syracuse, and that Timoleon should not denounce him.

So he was brought to Syracuse, and when he came before the people, attempted to rehearse a speech composed by him a long time before; but being received with noise and clamour, and seeing that the assembly was inexorable, he flung away his mantle, ran right across the theatre, and dashed head foremost against one of the stone steps, hoping to kill himself.

However, he was not so fortunate as to die in this way, but was taken away, still living, and crucified like a robber.

In this manner, then, did Timoleon extirpate the tyrannies and put a stop to their wars. He found the whole island reduced to a savage state by its troubles and hated by its inhabitants, but he made it so civilized and so desirable in the eyes of all men that others came by sea to dwell in the places from which their own citizens used to run away before.

Agrigentum and Gela, for instance, great cities which had been ruined and depopulated by the Carthaginians after the Attic war, were repeopled at this time, one by Megellus and Pheristus from Velia, the other by Gorgus, who sailed from Ceos and brought with his company the old citizens.

To these settlers Timoleon not only afforded safety and calm after so long a storm of war, but also supplied their further needs and zealously assisted them, so that he was revered by them as a founder.

All the other inhabitants also cherished like feelings towards him, and no conclusion of war, no institution of laws, no settlement of territory, no arrangement of civil polity seemed satisfactory, unless he gave the finishing touches to it, like a master builder adding to a work that is drawing to completion some grace which pleases gods and men.

At any rate, though in his time Greece produced many men who were great and wrought great things, such as Timotheus, Agesilaüs, Pelopidas, and Epaminondas (whom Timoleon most emulated), still, the lustre of their achievements was tarnished by a certain degree of violence and laborious effort, so that some of them were followed by censure and repentance;