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ery, he only followed his inclination, and that he paffed his life in the kind of flavery into which he was fallen, as he had done upon the throne, having no other resource or confolation in his misfortunes.

(m) Some writers fay, that the extreme poverty to which he was reduced at Corinth obliged him to open a school there, and to teach children to read; perhaps, fays Cicero, without doubt jeftingly, to retain a fpecies of empire, and not abfolately to renounce the habit and pleasure of commanding. (n) Whether that were his motive or not, it is certain that Dionyfius, who had feen himself mafter of Syracufe, and of almost all Sicily, who had poffeffed immenfe riches, and had numerous fleets and great armies of horse and foot under his command; that the fame Dionyfius, reduced now almoft to beggary, and from a king become a school-mafter, was a good lefon for perfons of exalted stations not to confide in their grandeur, nor to rely too much upon their fortune. The Lacedæmonians fome time after gave Philip this admonition. (0) That prince, having wrote to them in very haughty and menacing terms, they made him no other answer, but Dionyfius at Corinth.

An expreffion of Dionyfius, which has been preserved, feems to argue, if it be true, that he knew how to make a good ufe of his adverfity, and to turn his misfortunes to his advantage; which would be very much to his praife, but contrary to what has been related of him before. (p) Whilft he lived at Corinth, a ftranger rallied him unfeafonably, and with an indecent groffnefs, upon his commerce with the philofophers during his moft fplendid fortune, and asked him by way of infult, Of what confequence all the wisdom of Plato had been to him? you believe then, replied he, that I have received no benefit from Plato, and fee me bear ill fortune as I do?

Can

(m) Cic. Tufc. Quæft. 1. iii. n. 27. (n) Val. Max. 1. vi. Phaler, de Eloq. 11. 1. viii. (p) Plut. in Timol. p. 243. • Dionyfii Corinthi pueros decebat, ufque adeo imperio carere non poterat.

SECT.

(0) Demet.

Tanta mutatione majores natu, nequis nimis fortunæ crederet, magifter ludi factus ex tyranno docuit,

SECT. VI. TIMOLEON, after feveral victories, reftores liberty to Syracufe, where he inftitutes wife laws. He quits his authority, and paffed the rest of his life in retirement. His death. Honours paid to his memory.

(2) AFTER the retreat of Dionyfius, Icetas preffed the fiege of the citadel of Syracufe with the utmost vigour, and kept it fo clofely blocked up, that the convoys fent to the Corinthians could not enter it without great difficulty. Timoleon, who was at Catana, fent them frequently thither. To deprive them of this relief, Icetas and Mago fet out together with defign to befiege that place, During their abfence, Leon the Corinthian, who commanded in the citadel, having cbferved from the ramparts, that those who had been left to continue the fiege, were very remifs in their duty, he made a fudden furious fally upon them, whilft they were difperfed, killed part of them, put the reft to flight, and feized the quarter of the city called Achradina, which was the ftrongeft part of it, and had been leaft injured by the enemy. Leon fortified it in the best manner the time would admit, and joined it to the citadel by works of communication.

This bad news caufed Mago and Icetas to return immediately. At the fame time a body of troops from Corinth landed fafe in Sicily, having deceived the vigilance of the Carthaginian fquadron pofted to intercept them. When they were landed, Timoleon received them with joy, and after having taken poffeffion of Meffina, marched in battle array against Syracufe. His army confifted of only four thousand men. When he approached the city, his first care was to fend emiffaries amongst the foldiers that bore arms for Icetas. They reprefented to them, that it was highly fhameful for Greeks, as they were, to labour that Syracute and all Sicily should be given up to the Carthaginians, the wickedeft and most cruel of all barbarians. That Icetas had only to join Timoleon, and to act in concert with him against the common enemy. Thofe foldiers, having fpread thefe infinuations throughout the whole camp, gave Mago violent fufpicions of his being betrayed; befides which, he had already for fome time fought a pretext to retire. For these reasons, notwithstanding the intreaties and warm remonstrances of Icetas, he weighed anchor, and set fail for Africa, fhamefully abandoning the conqueft of Sicily.

Timoleon's

(9) A. M. 3658. Ant. J. C. 346. Plut, in Timol, p. 243-248. Diod, 1. xvi. p. 465, & 474.

Timoleon's army the next day appeared before the place in line of battle, and attacked it in three different quarters with fo much vigour and fuccefs, that Icetas's troops were univerfally overthrown and put to flight. Thus, by a good fortune that has few examples, he carried Syracufe by force in an inftant, which was at that time one of the strongest cities in the world. When he had made himself master of it, he did not act like Dion in fparing the forts and publick edifices for their beauty and magnificence. To avoid giving the fame cause of fufpicion, which at firft decried, though without foundation, and at length ruined, that great man, he caufed proclamation to be made by found of trumpet, that all Syracufans, who would come with their tools, might employ themfelves in demolishing the forts of the tyrants. In confeqnence of which, the Syracufans confidering that proclamation and day as the commencement of their liberty, ran in multitudes to the citadel, which they not only demolished, but the palaces of the tyrant; breaking open their tombs at the fame time, which they alfo threw down and deftroyed.

The citadel being razed, and the ground made level, Timoleon caufed tribunals to be erected upon it, for the difpenfation of juftice in the name of the people; that the fame place from whence, under the tyrants, every day fome bloody edict had iffued, might become the afylum and bulwark of liberty and

innocence.

Timoleon was mafter of the city; but it wanted people to inhabit it: For fome having perifhed in the wars and feditions, and others being fled to avoid the power of the tyrants, Syracafe was become a defart, and the grafs was grown fo high in the kreets, that hories grazed in them. All the cities of Sicily were almoft in the fame condition. Timoleon and the Syracafans therefore found it neceffary to write to Corinth, to defire that people might be fent from Greece to inhabit Syracufe; that otherwife the country could never recover itself, and was befides threatened with a new war. For they had received advice, that Mago having killed himself, the Carthaginians, enraged at his having acquitted himself fo ill of his charge, had hung up his body upon a crofs, and were making great levies to return into Sicily with a more numerous army than at the beginning of the year.

Thofe letters being arrived with ambaffadors from Syracufe, who conjured the Corinthians to take compaffion of their city, and to be a fecond time the founders of it; the Corinthians did not confider the calamity of that people as an occafion of aggrandizing themfelves, and of making themfelves mafters of

the

the city, according to the maxims of a bafe and infamous pelicy, but fending to all the facred games of Greece, and to all publick affemblies, they caufed proclamation to be made in them by heralds, that the Corinthians having abolished the tyranny, and expelled the tyrants, they declared free and independent the Syracufans, and all the people of Sicily, who Thould return into their own country, and exhorted them to repair thither, to partake of an equal and juft diftribution of the lands amongst them. At the fame time they dispatched couriers into Afia, and into all the isles, whither great numbers of fugitives had retired, to invite them to come as foon as poffible to Corinth, which would provide them veffels, commanders, and a fafe convoy to transport them into their country at its own expence.

Upon this publication Corinth received univerfal praises and bleffings, as it juftly deserved. It was every where proclaimed, that Corinth had delivered Syracuse from the tyrants, had preferved it from falling into the hands of the Barbarians, and reftored it to its citizens. It is not neceffary to infist here upon the grandeur of fo noble and generous an action: The mere relation of it must make the impreffion that always refults from the great and noble; and every body owned, that never conqueft or triumph equalled the glory which the Corinthians then acquired by fo perfect and magnanimous a difinterestedness.

Those who came to Corinth, not being fufficiently numerous, demanded an addition of inhabitants from that city and from all Greece to augment this kind of colony. Having obtained their requeft, and finding themselves increased to ten thousand, they embarked for Syracufe, where a multitude of people from all parts of Italy and Sicily had joined Timoleon. It was faid their number amounted to fixty thousand and upwards. Timoleon diftributed the lands amongst them gratis; but fold them the houses, with which he raised a very great fum; leaving it to the discretion of the old inhabitants to redeem their own: And by this means he collected a confiderable fund for fuch of the people as were poor, and unable to fupport either their own neceffities or the charges of the war.

The statues of the tyrants, and of all the princes who had governed Sicily, were put up to fale; but first they were cited, and fentenced in the forms of law. One only escaped the rigour of this enquiry, and was preferved; which was Gelon, who had gained a celebrated victory over the Carthaginians at Himera, and governed the people with lenity and juftice; for which his memory was ftill cherished and honoured. If the fame

fame fcrutiny were made into all statues, I do not know whether many would continue in being.

(r) Hiftory has preferved another fentence paffed alfo in regard to a ftatue, but of a very different kind. The fact is curious, and will excufe a digreffion. Nicon, a champion of *Thafos, had been crowned fourteen hundred times victor in the folemn games of Greece. A man of that merit could not fail of being envied. After his death, one of his competitors infulted his ftatue, and gave it feveral blows; to revenge perhaps thofe he had formerly received from him it reprefented. But the ftatue, as if fenfible of that outrage, fell from its height upon the perfon that infulted it, and killed him. The fon of him who had been crushed to death, proceeded juridically against the ftatue, as guilty of homicide, and punishable by the law of Draco. That famous legiflator of Athens, to infpire a greater horror for the guilt of murder, had ordained that even inanimate things fhould be destroyed, which fhould occafion the death of a man by their fall. The Thafians, conformable to this law, decreed that the ftatue fhould be thrown into the fea. But fome years after, being afflicted with great famine, and having confulted the oracle of Delphos, they caufed it to be taken out of the fea, and rendered new honours to it.

Syracufe being raised in a manner from the grave, and people flocking from all parts to inhabit it, Timoleon, defirous of freeing the other cities of Sicily, and finally to extirpate tyranny and tyrants out of it, began his march with his army. He compelled Icetas to renounce his alliance with the Carthaginians, obliged him to demolish his forts, and to live as a private perfon in the city of the Leontines. Leptinus, tyrant of Apollonia, and of feveral other cities and fortreffes, feeing himfelf in danger of being taken by force, furrendered himfelf. Timoleon fpared his life, and fent him to Corinth. For he thought nothing more great and honourable, than to let Greece fee the tyrants of Sicily in a state of humiliation, and Living like exiles.

He returned afterwards to Syracufe, to regulate the government, and to inftitute fuch laws as fhould be most important and neceffary, in conjunction with Cephalus and Dionyfius, two legiflators fent to him by the Corinthians: For he had not the weaknefs to defire unlimited power, and fole adminiftration. But on his departure, that the troops in his pay might get fomething for themfelves, and to keep them in exercife at VOL. IV.

(r) Suidas in Nisy Paufan. 1. vi. p. 364. An ifland in the Agean sea,

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