Timoleon

So the Carthaginians sent twenty triremes to Rhegium, on board of which were envoys from Hicetas to Timoleon carrying proposals which conformed to his proceedings.

For they were specious and misleading suggestions covering base designs, the envoys demanding that Timoleon himself, if he wished, should come to Hicetas as counsellor and partner in all his successes, but that he should send his ships and his soldiers back to Corinth, since, as they claimed, the war was almost finished, and the Carthaginians were ready to prevent their passage and to fight them if they tried to force one.

When, therefore, the Corinthians, after putting in at Rhegium, met these envoys, and saw the Carthaginians riding at anchor not far off they were indignant at the insult put upon them, and were all of them filled with rage at Hicetas and fear for the Sicilian Greeks, who, as they clearly saw, were left to be a prize and reward, to Hicetas on the one hand for his treachery, and to the Carthaginians on the other for making him tyrant.

Moreover, it seemed impossible to overcome both the ships of the Barbarians confronting them there with twice their numbers, and the force under Hicetas in Syracuse, where they had come to take command.

However, after Timoleon had met the envoys of Hicetas and the commanders of the Carthaginians, he calmly said that he would obey their commands (for what would he accomplish by refusing?), but he wished that, before he went away, their proposals and his reply should be made in the presence of the people of Rhegium, a Greek city and a friend of both parties;

for this would conduce to his own safety, and they, on their part, would abide more firmly by their promises regarding the Syracusans if they made a people witness to the agreements into which they entered.

In making this overture to them he was contriving a deceit which should secure his safe passage across the strait, and the leaders of the Rhegians helped him contrive it, since they were all desirous that the affairs of the Sicilian Greeks should be in the hands of the Corinthians, and feared to have the Barbarians as neighbours.

Therefore they convened an assembly and closed the gates, in order that the citizens might not engage in any other business; then they came forward and addressed the multitude in lengthy speeches, one handing over to another the same topic and coming to no conclusion, but protracting the time to no apparent purpose, until the Corinthian triremes should have put to sea, and keeping the Carthaginians in the assembly free from all suspicion, since Timoleon also was there and led them to think that he was on the point of rising to address the people.

But when some one secretly brought him word that the other triremes had put to sea, and that one only, his own, had been left behind and was waiting for him, he slipped through the crowd unnoticed, with the connivance of the Rhegians about the bema, went down to the sea, and sailed off with all speed.