Plutarch's Lives, Volume 1 (of 4)

by Plutarch

XXXIII. On Timoleon's return the Syracusans brought the family and daughters of Hiketes before the public assembly for trial, and condemned them to death. And this, methinks, is the most heartless of Timoleon's actions, that for want of a word from him these poor creatures should have perished. He seems not to have interfered, and to have let the people give full vent to their desire to avenge Dion, who dethroned Dionysius. For Hiketes was the man who threw Dion's wife Arete alive into the sea, with her sister Aristomache and her little son, as is told in the Life of Dion.

XXXIV. After this he marched against Mamercus at Catana. He beat him in a pitched battle near the river Abolus, routing him with a loss of two thousand men, no small part of whom belonged to the Phoenician contingent under Gisco. Hereupon, at the request of the Carthaginians, he made peace, stipulating that they should hold the country beyond the river Lykus, and that those who wished should be allowed to have it and go to reside at Syracuse, with their families and property, and also that they should give up their alliance with the despots. In despair at this Mamercus sailed to Italy, to try to bring the Lucanians against Timoleon and the Syracusans; but he was deserted by his followers, who turned their ships back, sailed to Syracuse, and surrendered Catana to Timoleon. Mamercus now was forced to take refuge in Messina with Hippo, the despot there. But Timoleon came and besieged it both by sea and land. Hippo endeavoured to escape on a ship, and was taken. The people of Messina, to whom he was delivered up, brought every one, even the boys from school, into the theatre, to witness that most salutary spectacle, a tyrant meeting with his deserts. He was put to death with torture; but Mamercus surrendered himself to Timoleon on condition that he should have a fair trial before the people of Syracuse, and that Timoleon should say nothing against him. When he was brought to Syracuse he was brought before the people, and tried to deliver a long premeditated speech to them, but meeting with interruptions and seeing that the assembly was inexorable he flung away his cloak and rushed across the theatre, striking his head against a stone step with the intention of killing himself. However he failed, and paid the penalty of his crimes by suffering the death of a pirate.

XXXV. In this fashion the despotisms were put down by Timoleon, and the wars finished. The whole island, which had become a mere wilderness through the constant wars, and was grown hateful to the very natives, under his administration became so civilized and desirable a country that colonists sailed to it from those very places to which its own citizens had formerly betaken themselves to escape from it. For Akragas and Gela, large cities, which after the war with Athens had been destroyed by the Carthaginians, were now repeopled; the former colonists led by Megellus and Pheristus, from Elea on the south coast of Italy, and the latter by a party led by Gorgus, who sailed from Keos and collected together the former citizens.

When these cities were being reorganised Timoleon not only afforded them peace and safety, but also gave them great assistance, and showed so great an interest in them as to be loved and respected by them as their real Founder. The other cities also all of them looked upon him with the same feelings, so that no peace could be made by them, no laws established, no country divided among settlers, no constitutional changes made that seemed satisfactory, unless he had a hand in them, and arranged them just as an architect, when a building is finished, gives some graceful touches which adorn the whole.

XXXVI. There were many Greeks, in his lifetime, who became great, and did great things, such as Timotheus, and Agesilaus, and Pelopidas, and Timoleon's great model, Epameinondas. But these men's actions produced a glory which was involved in much strain and toil, and some of their deeds have incurred censure, and even been repented of. Whereas those of Timoleon, if we except the terrible affair of his brother, have nothing in them to which we cannot apply, like Timaeus, that verse of Sophocles—

"Ye gods, what Venus or what grace divine
Took part in this."

For as in the poetry of Antimachus, and the paintings of Dionysius, the Kolophonians, we find a certain vigour and power, yet think them forced in expression, and produced with much labour, while the paintings of Nikomachus and the verses of Homer, besides their other graces and merits, have the charm of seeming to have been composed easily and without effort, so also the campaigns of Timoleon, when compared with the laborious and hardly contested ones of Epameinondas or Agesilaus, seem to have, besides their glory, a wonderful ease, which property is not so much to be attributed to good luck as to prosperous valour. He, however, ascribed all his successes to Fortune, for in writing to his friends at home, and in his public speeches to the Syracusans, he frequently expressed his thankfulness to this goddess, who, having determined to save Sicily, had chosen to ascribe to him the credit of doing it. In his house he built a chapel to Automatia,—the goddess under whose auspices blessings and glory came as it were of themselves. To her he offered sacrifices, and consecrated his house to her. He lived in a house which the Syracusans had bestowed upon him as a special prize for his successes as general, and also the most beautiful and pleasant country seat, where indeed he spent most of his leisure time with his wife and children, whom he had sent for from Corinth. For he never returned to Corinth, nor mixed himself up in the troubles of Greece, nor did he expose himself to the hatred of political faction, which is the rock upon which great generals commonly split, in their insatiate thirst for honour and power; but he remained in Sicily, enjoying the blessings of which he was the author; the greatest of which was to see so many cities, and so many tens of thousands, all made happy and prosperous by his means.

XXXVII. But since, as Simonides says, all larks must have crests, and all republics sycophants, so two of the popular leaders, Laphystius and Demaenetus, attacked Timoleon. When Laphystius was insisting on his giving bail for some lawsuit, he would not permit the people to hoot at him or stop him; for he said that all his labours and dangers had been endured to obtain for every Syracusan the right of appealing to the laws. Demaenetus made many attacks in the public assembly on his generalship; but he made him no answer except to declare his thankfulness to the gods for having granted his prayer that he might see all Syracusans in possession of liberty of speech.

Though he confessedly had performed the greatest and most glorious actions of any Greek of his time, and though he had gained the glory of having alone done that which the orators in their speeches at great public meetings used to urge the entire nation to attempt, he was fortunately removed from the troubles which fell upon ancient Greece, and saved from defiling his hands with the blood of his countrymen. His courage and conduct were shown at the expense of barbarians and despots; his mildness of temper was experienced by Greeks; he was able to erect the trophies for most of his victories, without causing tears and mourning to the citizens; but nevertheless, within eight years, he restored Sicily to its native inhabitants, freed from the scourges which had afflicted it for so long a time and seemed so ineradicable. When advanced in years he suffered from a dimness of sight, which soon became total blindness. He had done nothing to cause it, and had met with no accident, but the disease was congenital, and in time produced a cataract. Many of his relatives are said in a similar fashion to have lost their sight when advanced in years. But Athanis tells us that during the war with Hippo and Mamercus, at the camp at Mylae, his eyesight became affected, and that this was noticed by all, but that he did not on that account desist from the siege, but persevered in the war, till he captured the two despots; but as soon as he returned to Syracuse he resigned his post of commander-in-chief, begging the citizens to allow him to do so, as the war had been brought to a happy conclusion.

XXXVIII. That he endured his misfortune without repining is not to be wondered at; but one must admire the respect and love shown him when blind by the people of Syracuse. They constantly visited him, and brought with them any strangers that might be staying with them, both to his town and country house, to show them their benefactor, glorying in the fact that he had chosen to spend his life amongst them, and had scorned the magnificent reception which his exploits would have ensured him, had he returned to Greece. Of the many important tributes to his worth none was greater than the decree of the Syracusans that whenever they should be engaged in war with foreign tribes, they would have a Corinthian for their general. Great honour was also reflected upon him by their conduct in the public assembly; for, though they managed ordinary business by themselves, on the occasion of any important debate they used to call him in. Then he would drive through the market-place into the theatre; and when the carriage in which he sat was brought in, the people would rise and salute him with one voice. Having returned their greeting, and allowed a short time for their cheers and blessings, he would hear the disputed point debated, and then give his opinion. When this had been voted upon his servants would lead his carriage out of the theatre, while the citizens, cheering and applauding him as he went, proceeded to despatch their other business without him.