Timoleon

For repentance makes even the noble action base; whereas the choice which springs from a wise and understanding calculation does not change, even though its results are unsuccessful.

For this reason Phocion the Athenian,[*](See the Phocion, xxiii. 4.) after having opposed the activities of Leosthenes, when Leosthenes was thought to be successful and the Athenians were seen sacrificing and exulting over the victory,[*](Won by the allied Greeks under Leosthenes over Antipater of Macedonia, in 323 B.C. The victory was soon followed by the defeat of the Greeks at Crannon.) said he could have wished that the achievement were his own, but was glad that he counselled as he did.

And with more force Aristides the Locrian, one of Plato’s companions, when Dionysius the Elder asked him for one of his daughters in marriage, said he would be more pleased to see the maid dead than living with a tyrant;

and when, after a little while, Dionysius put his children to death and then asked him insultingly whether he was still of the same mind about giving his daughters in marriage, answered that he was afflicted by what had been done, but did not repent him of what had been said. Such utterances as these, then, betoken perhaps a larger and more consummate virtue.

But the grief of Timoleon over what had been done, whether it was due to pity for his dead brother or to reverence for his mother, so shattered and confounded his mental powers that almost twenty years passed without his setting his hand to a single conspicuous or public enterprise.

Accordingly, when he had been nominated general, and the people had readily approved of it and given him their votes, Telecleides, who was at that time the foremost man in the city for reputation and influence, rose up and exhorted Timoleon to be a noble and brave man in his enterprises. For if, said he, thou contendest successfully, we shall think of thee as a tyrannicide; but if poorly, as a fratricide.

But while Timoleon was getting ready for his voyage and collecting soldiers, a letter was brought to the Corinthians from Hicetas which disclosed his treacherous change of sides.

For as soon as he had sent out the embassy, he openly attached himself to the Carthaginians and acted with them in order to expel Dionysius from Syracuse and become its tyrant himself.

And fearing lest his opportunities for action should escape him if a general and an army came from Corinth in advance, he sent a letter to the Corinthians telling them that there was no need of their putting themselves to the trouble and expense of a voyage to Sicily with all its perils,

especially since the Carthaginians, with whom their delay had forced him to make an alliance against the tyrant, forbade their expedition and were on the watch for it with a large fleet.