Timoleon

But since, as it would seem, not only all larks must grow a crest, as Simonides says, but also every democracy a false accuser, even Timoleon was attacked by two of the popular leaders at Syracuse, Laphystius and Demaenetus.

Of these, Laphystius once tried to make him give surety that he would appear at a certain trial, and Timoleon would not suffer the citizens to stop the man by their turbulent disapproval; for he himself, he said, had of his own accord endured all his toils and dangers in order that any Syracusan who wished might avail himself of the laws.

And when the other, Demaenetus, brought many denunciations in open assembly against his conduct in the field, to him, indeed, Timoleon made no answer, but said he owed thanks to the gods, for he had prayed them that he might live to see the Syracusans gain the right of free speech.

So, then, having by general confession performed the greatest and most glorious deeds of any Greek of his time, and having been the only one to succeed in those achievements to which the rhetoricians, in their speeches at the national assemblies, were ever exhorting the Greeks;