The subduing impression of the wrath of the gods, under which the Carthaginians labored, arose from the fact that their defeat had been owing not less to the terrific storm, than to the arms of Timoleon. Conversely, in regard to Timoleon himself, the very same fact produced an impression of awe-striking wonder and envy. If there were any sceptics who doubted before either the reality of special interventions by the gods, or the marked kindness which determined the gods to send such interventions to the service of Timoleon—the victory of the Krimêsus must have convinced them. The storm alike violent and opportune, coming at the back of the Greeks and in the faces of the Carthaginians, was a manifestation of divine favor scarcely less conspicuous than those vouchsafed to Diomedes or Æneas in the Iliad.[376] And the sentiment thus raised towards Timoleon—or, rather previously raised, and now yet farther confirmed—became blended with that genuine admiration which he had richly earned by his rapid and well-conducted movements, as well as by a force of character striking enough to uphold, under the most critical circumstances, the courage of a desponding army. His victory at the Krimêsus, like his victory at Adranum, was gained mainly by that extreme speed in advance, which brought him upon an unprepared enemy at a vulnerable moment. And the news of it which he despatched at once to Corinth,—accompanied with a cargo of showy Carthaginian shields to decorate the Corinthian temples,—diffused throughout Central Greece both joy for the event and increased honor to his name, commemorated by the inscription attached—“The Corinthians and the general Timoleon, after liberating the Sicilian Greeks from the Carthaginians, have dedicated these shields as offerings of gratitude to the gods.”[377]
Leaving most of his paid troops to carry on war in the Carthaginian province, Timoleon conducted his Syracusans home. His first proceeding was, at once to dismiss Thrasius with the one thousand paid soldiers who had deserted him before the battle. He commanded them to quit Sicily, allowing them only twenty-four hours to depart from Syracuse itself. Probably under the circumstances, they were not less anxious to go away than he was to dismiss them. But they went away only to destruction; for having crossed the Strait of Messina and taken possession of a maritime site in Italy on the Southern sea, the Bruttians of the inland entrapped them by professions of simulated friendship, and slew them all.[378]
Timoleon had now to deal with two Grecian enemies—Hiketas and Mamerkus—the despots of Leontini and Katana. By the extraordinary rapidity of his movements, he had crushed the great invading host of Carthage, before it came into coöperation with these two allies. Both now wrote in terror to Carthage, soliciting a new armament, as indispensable for their security not less than for the Carthaginian interest in the island; Timoleon being the common enemy of both. Presently Giskon son of Hanno, having been recalled on purpose out of banishment, arrived from Carthage with a considerable force—seventy triremes, and a body of Grecian mercenaries. It was rare for the Carthaginians to employ Grecian mercenaries; but the battle of Krimêsus is said to have persuaded them that there were no soldiers to be compared to Greeks. The force of Giskon was apparently distributed partly in the Carthaginian province at the western angle of the island—partly in the neighborhood of Mylæ and Messênê on the north-east, where Mamerkus joined him with the troops of Katana. Messênê appears to have recently fallen under the power of a despot named Hippon, who acted as their ally. To both points Timoleon despatched a portion of his mercenary force, without going himself in command; on both, his troops at first experienced partial defeats; two divisions of them, one comprising four hundred men, being cut to pieces. But such partial reverses were, in the religious appreciation of the time, proofs more conspicuous than ever of the peculiar favor shown by the gods towards Timoleon. For the soldiers thus slain had been concerned in the pillage of the Delphian temple, and were therefore marked out for the divine wrath; but the gods suspended the sentence during the time when the soldiers were serving under Timoleon in person, in order that he might not be the sufferer; and executed it now in his absence, when execution would occasion the least possible inconvenience to him.[379]
Mamerkus and Hiketas, however, not adopting this interpretation of their recent successes against Timoleon, were full of hope and confidence. The former dedicated the shields of the slain mercenaries to the gods, with an inscription of insolent triumph: the latter—taking advantage of the absence of Timoleon, who had made an expedition against a place not far off called Kalauria—undertook an inroad into the Syracusan territory. Not content with inflicting great damage and carrying off an ample booty, Hiketas, in returning home, insulted Timoleon and the small force along with him by passing immediately under the walls of Kalauria. Suffering him to pass by, Timoleon pursued, though his force consisted only of cavalry and light troops, with few or no hoplites. He found Hiketas posted on the farther side of the Damurias; a river with rugged banks and a ford of considerable difficulty. Yet notwithstanding this good defensive position, the troops of Timoleon were so impatient to attack, and each of his cavalry officers was so anxious to be first in the charge, that he was obliged to decide the priority by lot. The attack was then valiantly made, and the troops of Hiketas completely defeated. One thousand of them were slain in the action, while the remainder only escaped by flight and throwing away of their shields.[380]
It was now the turn of Timoleon to attack Hiketas in his own domain of Leontini. Here his usual good fortune followed him. The soldiers in garrison—either discontented with the behavior of Hiketas at the battle of the Damurias, or awe-struck with that divine favor which waited on Timoleon—mutinied and surrendered the place into his hands; and not merely the place, but also Hiketas himself in chains, with his son Eupolemus, and his general Euthymus, a man of singular bravery as well as a victorious athlete at the games. All three were put to death; Hiketas and his son as despots and traitors; and Euthymus, chiefly in consequence of insulting sarcasms against the Corinthians, publicly uttered at Leontini. The wife and daughters of Hiketas were conveyed as prisoners to Syracuse, where they were condemned to death by public vote of the Syracusan assembly. This vote was passed in express revenge for the previous crime of Hiketas, in putting to death the widow, sister, and son, of Dion. Though Timoleon might probably have saved the unfortunate women by a strong exertion of influence, he did not interfere. The general feeling of the people accounted this cruel, but special, retaliation right under the circumstances; and Timoleon, as he could not have convinced them of the contrary, so he did not think it right to urge them to put their feeling aside as a simple satisfaction to him. Yet the act leaves a deserved stain upon a reputation such as his.[381] The women were treated on both sides as adjective beings, through whose lives revenge was to be taken against a political enemy.
Next came the turn of Mamerkus, who had assembled near Katana a considerable force, strengthened by a body of Carthaginian allies under Giskon. He was attacked and defeated by Timoleon near the river Abolus, with a loss of two thousand men, many of them belonging to the Carthaginian division. We know nothing but the simple fact of this battle; which probably made serious impression upon the Carthaginians, since they speedily afterwards sent earnest propositions for peace, deserting their Sicilian allies. Peace was accordingly concluded; on terms however which left the Carthaginian dominion in Sicily much the same as it had been at the end of the reign of the elder Dionysius, as well as at the landing of Dion in Sicily.[382] The line of separation was fixed at the river Halykus, or Lykus, which flows into the southern sea near Herakleia Minoa, and formed the western boundary of the territory of Agrigentum. All westward of the Halykus was recognized as Carthaginian: but it was stipulated that if any Greeks within that territory desired to emigrate and become inmates of Syracuse, they should be allowed freely to come with their families and their property. It was farther covenanted that all the territory eastward of the Halykus should be considered not only as Greek, but as free Greek, distributed among so many free cities, and exempt from despots. And the Carthaginians formally covenanted that they would neither aid, nor adopt as ally, any Grecian despot in Sicily.[383] In the first treaty concluded by the elder Dionysius with the Carthaginians, it had been stipulated by an express article that the Syracusans should be subject to him.[384] Here is one of the many contrasts between Dionysius and Timoleon.
Having thus relieved himself from his most formidable enemy, Timoleon put a speedy end to the war in other parts of the island. Mamerkus in fact despaired of farther defence without foreign aid. He crossed over with a squadron into Italy to ask for the introduction of a Lucanian army into Sicily;[385] which he might perhaps have obtained, since that warlike nation were now very powerful—had not his own seamen abandoned him, and carried back their vessels to Katana, surrendering both the city and themselves to Timoleon. The same thing, and even more, had been done a little before by the troops of Hiketas at Leontini, who had even delivered up Hiketas himself as prisoner; so powerful, seemingly, was the ascendency exercised by the name of Timoleon, with the prestige of his perpetual success. Mamerkus could now find no refuge except at Messênê, where he was welcomed by the despot Hippon. But Timoleon speedily came thither with a force ample enough to besiege Messênê by land and by sea. After a certain length of resistance,[386] the town was surrendered to him, while Hippon tried to make his escape secretly on shipboard. But he was captured and brought back into the midst of the Messenian population, who, under a sentiment of bitter hatred and vengeance, planted him in the midst of the crowded theatre and there put him to death with insult, summoning all the boys from school into the theatre to witness what was considered an elevating scene. Mamerkus, without attempting to escape, surrendered himself prisoner to Timoleon; only stipulating that his fate should be determined by the Syracusan assembly after a fair hearing, but that Timoleon himself should say nothing to his disfavor. He was accordingly brought to Syracuse, and placed on his trial before the assembled people, whom he addressed in an elaborate discourse; probably skilfully composed, since he is said to have possessed considerable talent as a poet.[387] But no eloquence could surmount the rooted aversion entertained by the Syracusans for his person and character. Being heard with murmurs, and seeing that he had no chance of obtaining a favorable verdict, he suddenly threw aside his garment and rushed with violent despair against one of the stone seats, head foremost, in hopes of giving himself a fatal blow. But not succeeding in this attempted suicide, he was led out of the theatre and executed like a robber.[388]
Timoleon had now nearly accomplished his confirmed purpose of extirpating every despotism in Sicily. There remained yet Nikodemus as despot at Kentoripa, and Apolloniades at Agyrium. Both of these he speedily dethroned or expelled, restoring the two cities to the condition of free communities. He also expelled from the town of Ætna those Campanian mercenaries who had been planted there by the elder Dionysius.[389] In this way did he proceed until there remained only free communities, without a single despot, in the Grecian portion of Sicily.
Of the details of his proceedings our scanty information permits us to say but little. But the great purpose with which he had started from Corinth was now achieved. After having put down all the other despotisms in Sicily, there remained for him but one farther triumph—the noblest and rarest of all—to lay down his own. This he performed without any delay, immediately on returning to Syracuse from his military proceedings. Congratulating the Syracusans on the triumphant consummation already attained, he entreated them to dispense with his farther services as sole commander; the rather as his eyesight was now failing.[390] It is probable enough that this demand was at first refused, and that he was warmly requested to retain his functions; but if such was the fact, he did not the less persist, and the people, willing or not, acceded. We ought farther to note, that not only did he resign his generalship, but he resigned it at once and immediately, after the complete execution of his proclaimed purpose, to emancipate the Sicilian Greeks from foreign enemies as well as from despot-enemies; just as, on first acquiring possession of Syracuse, he had begun his authoritative career, without a moment’s delay, by ordering the demolition of the Dionysian stronghold, and the construction of a court of justice in its place.[391] By this instantaneous proceeding he forestalled the growth of that suspicion which delay would assuredly have raised, and for which the free communities of Greece had in general such ample reason. And it is not the least of his many merits, that while conscious of good intentions himself, he had also the good sense to see that others could not look into his bosom; that all their presumptions, except what were created by his own conduct, would be derived from men worse than him—and therefore unfavorable. Hence it was necessary for him to be prompt and forward, even to a sort of ostentation, in exhibiting the amplest positive proof of his real purposes, so as to stifle beforehand the growth of suspicion.
He was now a private citizen of Syracuse, having neither paid soldiers under his command nor any other public function. As a reward for his splendid services, the Syracusans voted to him a house in the city, and a landed property among the best in the neighborhood. Here he fixed his residence, sending for his wife and family to Corinth.[392]