Regum et imperatorum apophthegmata

Plutarch

Plutarch. Moralia, Vol. III. Babbitt, Frank Cole, translator. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press; London: William Heinemann Ltd., 1931 (printing).

Gelon, the despot, after vanquishing the Carthaginians off Himera, forced them, when he made peace with them, to include in the treaty an agreement to stop sacrificing their children to Cronus, [*](Cf. Moralia, 171 (and the note), and 552 A. According to Diodorus, xx. 14, the practice was revived in 310 B.C., even if it had not persisted during the intervening years. Cf. G.F. Moore in the Journal of Biblical Literature, xvi. (1897), p. 161. Cronus is the Semitic El, Moloch, or Baal.)

He often led out the Syracusans to plant their fields, as if it had been for a campaign, so that the land should be improved by being worked, and the men should not deteriorate by being idle.

He asked for money from the citizens, and, when they began to murmur, he said that he was asking for it with the intent to repay, and he did repay it when the war was over.

At a party a lyre was passed around, and the

others, one after the other, tuned it and sang, but the king ordered his horse to be led in, and nimbly and easily leapt upon its back.[*](Cf. Themistocles’ boast, to which he resorted in self-defence under similarly embarrassing circumstances, in Plutarch’s Life of Themistocles, chap. ii. (112 C).)