; more great and honourable, than to let Greece see the tyrants of Sicily ma state of humiliation, and living like exiles. He returned afterwards to Syracuse, to regulate the government, and to institute such laws as should be most important and necessary, in conjunction with Cephalus and Dionysius, two legislators sent to him by the Corinthians: for he had not the weakness to desire unlimited power, and sole administration. But on his departure, that the troops in his pay might get something for themselves, and to keep them in exercise at the same time, he sent them under the command of Dinarchus and Damaratus, into all the places subject to the Carthaginians. These troops brought over several cities from the barbarians, lived always in abundance, made much booty, and returned with considerable sums of money, which were of great service in the support of the war. About this time, the Carthaginians arrived at Lilybæum, under Asdrubal and Amilcar, with an army of seventy thousand men, two hundred ships of war, a thousand transports laden with machines, armed chariots, horses, ammunition, and provisions. They proposed no less than the entire expulsion of the Greeks out of Sicily. Timoleon did not think fit to wait their advancing; and though he could raise only six or seven thousand men, so great was the people's terror, he marched with that small body of troops against the formidable ariny of the enemy, and obtained a celebrated victory near the river Crimesus; an account of which may be found in the history of the Carthaginians.* Timoleon returned to Syracuse amid shouts of joy and universal applauses.† He had before effected the conquest and reduction of the Sicilian tyrants, but had not changed them, nor taken from them their tyrannical disposition. They united together, and formed a powerful league against him. Timoleon immediately took the field, and soon put a final end to their hopes. He made them all suffer the just punishment which revolt deserved. Icetas, and his son, among others, were put to death as tyrants and traitors. His wife and daughters having been sent to Syracuse, and presented to the people, were also sentenced to die, and were executed accordingly. The people, without doubt, designed to avenge Dion their first deliverer by that decree. For it was the same Icetas who caused Arete, Dion's wife, his sister Aristomache, and his son, an infant, to be thrown into the sea. Virtue is seldom or never without envy. Two accusers summoned Timoleon to answer for his conduct before the judges: and having assigned him a certain day for his appearance, demanded sureties of him. The people expressed great indignation against such a proceeding, and would have dispensed with so great a man's observing the usual formalities, which he strongly opposed, giving for his reason, that all he had undertaken had no other principle, than that the laws might have their due course. He was accused of malversation during his command of the army. Timoleon, without giving himself the trouble to refute these calumnies, only replied, "that he thanked the gods, who had heard his prayers, and that he at length saw the Syracusáns enjoy an entire liberty of saying every thing; a liberty absolutely unknown to them under the tyrants, but which it was just to confine within due bounds.' That great man had given Syracuse wise laws, had liberated all Sicily from the tyrants who had so long infested it, had re-established peace and security universally, and supplied the cities ruined by the war with the means of reinstating themselves. After such glorious actions, which had acquired him an unbounded reputation, he quitted his authority to live in retirement. The Syracusans had given him the best house in the city in gratitude for his great ser vices, and another very fine and agreeable one in the country, where he gene rally resided with his wife and children, whom he had sent for from Corinth; for he did not return thither, and Syracuse was become his country. He had the wisdom, in resigning every thing, to abstract himself entirely also from envy, which never fails to attend exalted stations, and pays no respect to merit, • Volume I. ↑ Plut. in Timol p. 248. et 255, however great and substantial. He shunned the rock on which the greatest men, through an insatiate desire of honours and power, are often shipwrecked, that is, by engaging to the end of their lives in new cares and troubles, of which age renders them incapable, and by choosing rather to sink under, than to lay down the weight of them.* Timoleon, who knew the full value of a noble and glorious leisure,† acted in a different manner. He passed the rest of his life as a private person, enjoying the grateful satisfaction of seeing so many cities, and such a numerous people indebted to him for their happiness and tranquillity. But he was always respected and consulted as the common oracle of Sicily. Neither treaty of peace, institution of law, division of land, nor regulation of government, seemed well done, if Timoleon had not been consulted, and put the last hand to it. His age was tried with a very severe affliction, which he bore with astonishIng patience; it was the loss of sight. That misfortune, far from lessening him in the consideration and regard of the people, served only to increase their respect for him. The Syracusans did not content themselves with paying him frequent visits; they conducted all strangers, both in town and country, to see their benefactor and deliverer. When they had any important affair to deliberate upon in the assembly of the people, they called him to their assistance. He was conducted thither in a chariot drawn by two horses, which crossed the public place to the theatre, and in that manner he was introduced into the assembly, amid the shouts and acclamations of joy of the whole people. After he had given his opinion, which was always religiously observed, his domestics re-conducted him across the theatre, followed by all the citizens, beyond the gates, with continual shouts of joy and clapping of hands. He had still great honours paid to him after his death. Nothing was wanting that could add to the magnificence of the procession which followed his bier, in which, the tears that were shed, and the blessings uttered by every body in honour of his memory, were the noblest ornaments. These tears were neither the effect of custom and the formality of mourning, nor exacted by a public decree; but flowed from a genuine source, sincere affection, lively gratitude, and inconsolable sorrow. A law was also made, that annually, for the future, upon the day of his death, the music and gymnastic games should be celebrated with horse races in honour of him. But what was still more honourable to the memory of that great man, was the decree of the Syracusan people, that whenever Sicily should be engaged in a war with foreigners, they should send to Corinth for a general. History does not perhaps contain any thing greater or more worthy of admiration than the acts of Timoleon. I speak not only of his military exploits, but the happy success of all his undertakings. Plutarch observes a characteristic in them, which distinguishes Timoleon from all the great men of his times, and makes use upon that occasion of a very remarkable comparison. "There is," says he, "in painting and poetry, pieces which are excellent in themselves, and which at the first view may be known to be the works of a master, but some of them denote their having cost great pains and application; whereas in others an easy and native grace is seen, which adds exceedingly to their value;" and among the latter he places the poems of Homer. "Something of this sort occurs," says he, "when we compare the great actions of Epaminondas and Agesilaus with those of Timoleon. In the former, we find them executed with force and innumerable difficulties; but in the latter, there is an easiness and facility, which distinguish them as the work, not of fortune, but of virtue, which fortune seems to have taken pleasure in seconding. "But not to mention his military actions," continues Plutarch," what I admire most in Timoleon, is his warm and disinterested passion for the public good, and his reserving for himself only the pleasure of seeing others happy by his services; his extreme remoteness from ambition and haughtiness, his * Maluat deficere quam desinere.Quiqui' ↑ Otium cum dignitate.—Cię honourable retirement into the country; his modesty, moderation, and indif ference for the honours paid him ; and what is still more uncommon, his aversion for all flattery, and even just praises; for, when a person extolled in his presence his wisdom, valour, and glory, in having expelled the tyrants, he made no answer, but "that he thought himself obliged to express his gratitude to the gods, who having decreed to restore peace and liberty to Sicily, had vouchsafed to make choice of him in preference to all others for so honourable a ministration: for he was fully persuaded, that all human events are guided and disposed by the secret decrees of Divine Providence."* What a treasure, what a happiness for a state, is such a minister! For the better understanding of his value, we have only to compare the condition of Syracuse under Timoleon, with its state under the two Dionysiuses. It is the same city, inhabitants, and people; but how different is it under the different governments we speak of? The two governments had no thoughts but of making themselves feared, and of depressing their subjects to render them more passive. They were terrible in effect, as they desired to be, but at the same time detested and abhorred, and had more to fear from their subjects, than their subjects from them. Timoleon, on the contrary, who looked upon himself as the father of the Syracusan people, and who had no thoughts but of making them happy, enjoyed the refined pleasure of being beloved and revered as a parent by his children; and he was remembered among them with blessings, because they could not reflect upon the peace and felicity they enjoyed, without calling to mind at the same time the wise legislator, to whom they were indebted for those inestimable blessings. Cum suas laudes audiret prædicari, nunquam aliud dixit, quam se in ea re maximas diis gratias agere et habere, quod, cum Sicilian recreare constituissent, turn setissimum ducem esse voluissent. Nibil enim rerum humanarum sine deorum numine agi putabat.-Cor. Nep. in Timol. c. 4 THE HISTORY OF THE PERSIANS AND GRECIANS, CHAPTER THIS book contains principally the history of two very illustrious generals of the Thebans, Epaminondas and Pelopidas; the deaths of Agesilaus king of Sparta, and of Artaxerxes Mnemon king of Persia. SECTION 1.-STATE OF GREECE FROM THE TREATY OF ANTALCIDES. THE peace of Antalcides, which has been mentioned in the third chapter of the ninth book, had given the Grecian states great cause of discontent and division. In consequence of that treaty, the Thebans had been obliged to abandon the cities of Boeotia, and suffer them to enjoy their liberty; and the Corinthians, to withdraw their garrison from Argos, which by that means became free and independent. The Lacedæmonians, who were the authors and executors of this treaty, saw their power extremely augmented by it, and were industrious to make farther additions to it. They compelled the Mantinæans, against whom they pretended to have many causes of complaint in the last war, to demolish the walls of their city, and to inhabit four different places, as they had done before.* The two kings of Sparta, Agesipolis and Agesilaus, were of quite different characters, and as opposite in their opinions upon the present state of affairs. The first, who was naturally inclined to peace, and a strict observer of justice, desired that Sparta, already much exclaimed against for the treaty of Antalci des, would suffer the Grecian cities to enjoy their liberties, according to the tenor of that treaty, and not disturb their tranquillity, through an unjust desire of extending their dominions. The other, on the contrary, restless, active, and full of great views of ambition and conquest, breathed nothing but war.f At the same time deputies arrived at Sparta from Acanthus and Apollonia. two very considerable cities of Macedonia, in respect to Olynthus, a city of Thrace, inhabited by Greeks, originally of Chalcis in Eubœa. Athens, after the victories of Salamin and Marathon, bad conquered many places on the side of Thrace, and even in Thrace itself. Those cities threw off the yoke, as soon as Sparta, at the conclusion of the Peloponnesian war, had ruined the power of Athens. Olynthus was of this number. The deputies of Acanthus and Apollonia represented, in the general assembly of the allies, that Olynthus, situated in the neighbourhood, daily improved in strength in an extraordinary manner that she continually extended her dominions by new conquests; that she obliged all the cities round about to submit to her, and to enter into her measures, and was on the point of concluding an alliance with the Athenians and the Thebans. The affair being taken into consideration, it was unanimously resolved. that it was necessary to declare war against the Olynthians. It was ↑ Died. 1. sv. p. 341 A. M. 3617. Ant. J. C. 387 Xenoph. Hist. Græc. I. v. p. 550, 553. † A. M. 3621. Ant J. C. 363. Diol. 1. xv. p. 554, 550 agreed, that the allied cities should furnish ten thousand troops, with liberty, to such as desired it, to substitute money, at the rate of three oboli a-day for each foot-soldier, and four times as much for the horse. The Lacedæmonians, to lose no time, made their troops march directly, under the command of Eudamidas, who prevailed with the ephori, that Phæbidas, his brother, might have the command of those which were to follow, and to join him soon after. When he arrived in that part of Macedonia, which is also called Thrace, he garrisoned such places as applied to him for that purpose, seized upon Potidæa, a city in alliance with the Olynthians, which surrendered without making any defence, and began the war against Olynthus, though slowly, as it was necessary for a general to act before his troops were all assembled. Phæbidas began his march soon after, and having arrived near Thebes, encamped without the walls, near the Gymnasium or public place of exercise. Ismenius and Leontides, both polémarchs, that is, generals of the army, and supreme magistrates of Thebes, were at the head of two different factions. The first, who had engaged Pelopidas in his party, was no friend to the Lacedæmonians, nor they to him; because he publicly declared for popular government and liberty. The other, on the contrary, favoured an oligarchy, and was supported by the Lacedæmonians with their whole interest. I am obliged to enter into this detail, because the event I am about to relate, and which was a consequence of it, occasioned the important war against the Thebans and Spartans.* This being the state of affairs at Thebes, Leontides applied to Phæbidas, and proposed to him to seize the citadel, called Cadmea, to expel the adherents of Ismenius, and to give the Lacedæmonians possession of it. He represented to him, that nothing could be more glorious for him than to make himself master of Thebes, while his brother was endeavouring to reduce Olynthus; that he would thereby facilitate the success of his brother's enterprise; and that the Thebans, who had prohibited their citizens by decree to bear arms against the Olynthians, would not fail, upon his making himself master of the citadel, to supply him with whatever number of horse and foot he should think proper, for the reinforcement of Eudamidas. Phæbidas, who had much ambition and little conduct, and who had no other view than to signalize himself by some extraordinary action, without examining the consequences, suffered himself to be easily persuaded; while the Thebans, perfectly secure under the treaty of peace lately concluded by the Grecian states, celebrated the feasts of Ceres, and by no means expected such an act of hostility. Phæbidas, conducted by Leontides, took possession of the citadel. The senate was then sitting. Leontides went to them, and declared, that there was nothing to be feared from the Lacedæmonians, who had entered the citadel; that they were only the enemies of those who were for disturbing the public tranquillity; that as for himself, by the power which his office of polemarch gave him of confining whoever caballed against the state, he should put Ismenius into a place of security, who factiously endeavoured to break the peace. He was seized accordingly, and carried to the citadel. The party of Ismenius, seeing their chief a prisoner, and apprehending the utmost violence for themselves, quitted the city with precipitation, and retired to Athens, to the number of four hundred and upwards. They were soon after banished by a public decree. Pelopidas was of the number; but Epaminondas remained at Thebes unmolested, being disregarded, as a man entirely devoted to the study of philosophy, who did not intermeddle in affairs of state; and also from his poverty, which left no room to fear any thing from him. A new polemarch was nominated in the room of Ismenius, and Leontides went to Lacedæmon. The news of the enterprise of Phæbidas, who at a time of general peace had taken possession of a citadel by force, upon which he had no claim or Ant. . C. 32. Xenoph. p. 556-558, Plut, in Agesil, p. 608, 609. Id. in Pelup. 200. A. M. 3622. |
