Timoleon

“ To deliver a whole people quickly and well, to be smitten with the black affliction of blindness while still in the very zenith of his popularity—and so to add the people’s pity and love to their admiration—and then soon to die a beloved hero before the fickle public mind could forget him and the fickle public tongue learn to slander and to curse his name, was the highest fortune man could wish—though in all probability Timoleon himself never realized how kind the gods were to him! ”

“ Wherefore when Daemenetus, another demagogue, had brought the same design about again, and blamed him impertinently to the people for things which he did when he was general, Timoleon answered nothing, but raising up his hands, gave the gods thanks for their return to his frequent prayers, that he might but live to see the Syracusans so free, that they could question whom they pleased. ”

“ It happened once in the battle fought by the Corinthians against the forces of Argos and Cleonae, that Timoleon served among the infantry, when Timophanes, commanding their cavalry, was brought into extreme danger; as his horse being wounded fell forward, and threw him headlong amidst the enemies, while part of his companions dispersed at once in a panic, and the small number that remained, bearing up against a great multitude, had much ado to maintain any resistance. ”

“ Of this kind are those of Timoleon the Corinthian, and Paulus Aemilius, to write whose lives is my present business; men equally famous, not only for their virtues, but success; insomuch that they have left it doubtful whether they owe their greatest achievements to good fortune, or their own prudence and conduct.
The affairs of the Syracusans, before Timoleon was sent into Sicily, were in this posture: after Dion had driven out Dionysius the tyrant, he was slain by treachery, and those that had assisted him in delivering Syracuse were divided among themselves ”

“ This made the Corinthians so angry that they at once added two hundred soldiers to Timoleon’s small army, as well as three vessels to his fleet.
Even so, Timoleon’s task seemed hopeless. Athens, with hundreds of ships and with tens of thousands of men, had failed to take Syracuse. How then could the Corinthian hope to do so with his handful of men and his small fleet?
Before he sailed, Timoleon journeyed to Delphi to offer sacrifices to Apollo. As he prayed in the temple, a wreath slipped from its place and fell upon his head. ”

“ Whereas Timoleon, though he acted towards his brother as became a noble nature, yet could not support himself against his sorrow by reason, but was so crushed by remorse and grief that for twenty years he could not appear or speak in the public assembly. We ought indeed to shrink from and feel shame at what is base; but the nature which is over-cautious to avoid blame may be gentle and kindly, but cannot be great. ”

“ And when they were deliberating about the choice of a captain for the expedition, and the magistrates were urging the claims of various aspirants for reputation, one of the crowd stood up and named Timoleon, son of Timodemus, who had long absented himself from public business, and had neither any thoughts of, nor the least pretension to, an employment of that nature. Some god or other, it might rather seem, had put it in the man's heart to mention him ”

“ As soon, therefore, as Timoleon was aware of the accident, he ran hastily to his brother's rescue, and covering the fallen Timophanes with his buckler, after having received an abundance of darts and several strokes by the sword upon his body and his armor, he at length with much difficulty obliged the enemies to retire, and brought off his brother alive and safe. ”

“ The foreigners, serving for pay, were not above four thousand in all, and about a thousand of these grew faint-hearted by the way, and forsook Timoleon in his march towards the enemy, looking on him as frantic and distracted, destitute of the sense which might have been expected from his time of life, thus to venture out against an army of seventy thousand men, with no more than five thousand foot and a thousand horse ”

“ What we do to our enemies in war is done of necessity, but the evil we say of them seems to spring from an excess of spite.
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. ”

“ They found a good number of horses, every variety of engines, a multitude of darts, and weapons to arm seventy thousand men (a magazine that had been formed from ancient time) , besides two thousand soldiers that were then with him, whom he gave up with the rest for Timoleon's service. Dionysius himself, putting his treasure aboard, and taking a few friends, sailed away unobserved by Hicetes, and being brought to the camp of Timoleon, there first appeared in the humble dress of a private person, and was shortly after sent to Corinth with a single ship and a small sum of money. ”

“ Without Timoleon he would not fear the Corinthians, so he resolved to get rid of him without delay. He hired two foreign soldiers and sent them to Adranum with orders to kill the general.
Timoleon went about without a bodyguard, as Icetes knew. When the assassins reached the city, he was in the temple, sacrificing to the gods, for it was a festival. ”

“ These were inhabitants of a small city, consecrated to Adranus, a certain god that was in high veneration throughout Sicily, and, as it happened, they were then at variance among themselves, insomuch that one party called in Hicetes and the Carthaginians to assist them, while the other sent proposals to Timoleon. It so fell out that these auxiliaries, striving which should be soonest, both arrived at Adranum about the same time; Hicetes bringing with him at least five thousand fighting men, while all the force Timoleon could make did not exceed twelve hundred. ”

“ IV. Now in the battle which the Corinthians fought against the Argives and Kleoneans, Timoleon was ranked among the hoplites, [30] and his brother Timophanes, who was in command of the cavalry, fell into great danger. His horse received a wound, and threw him off among the enemy. Of his companions, some at once dispersed in panic, while those who remained by him, being a few against many, with difficulty held their own. ”

“ And when actions are equally glorious, and the means to compass them unequal, the greatest esteem is certainly due to that general who conquers with the smaller power.
Both have the reputation of having behaved themselves with an uncorrupted integrity, in all the affairs they managed: but Aemilius had the advantage of being, from his infancy, by the laws and customs of his country, brought up to the proper management of public affairs, which Timoleon brought himself to by his own efforts. ”

“ If you had no rabbits, or if you were in a country where rabbits had no hair, painting could not be thought of." She never melts, except when he presents her with a rivière of diamonds, and, after finding a leisure moment to give birth to a little girl, rushes off to Italy with Count Vaugirau, followed promptly by a certain Timoleon. This Timoleon, who loves her unsuccessfully, is the beneficiary of poor Babolain, borrowing his money at the same time that he tries to borrow his wife, and returning with outrageous reproaches to the hero impoverished and desolate. ”

“ Timoleon treated it as an advantage that these men disclosed their cowardice before the day of battle. He encouraged the rest, and led them with all haste to the river Krimesus, where he heard that the Carthaginians were concentrating.
XXVI. As he was mounting a hill, beyond which he expected to see the camp and army of the enemy, there met him some mules loaded with parsley. It occurred to the soldiers that this was a bad omen, for we generally use parsley for wreathing tombs; indeed from this practice arises the proverb, when a man is dangerously ill, that he is ready for his parsley. ”

“ Among the rest, Mamercus, the tyrant of Catana, an experienced warrior and a wealthy prince, made proposals of alliance with him, and, what was of greater importance still, Dionysius himself being now grown desperate, and wellnigh forced to surrender, despising Hicetes who had been thus shamefully baffled, and admiring the valor of Timoleon, found means to advertise him and his Corinthians that he should be content to deliver up himself and the citadel into their hands. ”

“ As he passed his time in this manner, admired and honored by mankind, Laphistius, an envious demagogue, going to summon him upon some pretence or other to answer for himself before the assembly, the people fell into such a mutiny as could not be appeased but by Timoleon, who, understanding the matter, reproved them, by repeating the pains and travel which he had gone through, to no other end than that every man might have the free use of the laws. ”

“ He, suffering Hicetes to pass forward, pursued him with his horsemen and light infantry, which Hicetes perceiving, crossed the river Damyrias, and then stood in a posture to receive him; the difficulty of the passage, and the height and steepness of the bank on each side, giving advantage enough to make him confident. A strange contention and dispute, meantime, among the officers of Timoleon, a little retarded the conflict; no one of them was willing to let another pass over before him to engage the enemy; each man claiming it as a right, to venture first and begin the onset ”

“ For he led all his greatest battles on his birthday, as a result of which the whole of Sicily celebrated his birthday as a festival. When Laphystius, an impudent and ungrateful man wanted to impose bail on him, because he intended to take him to court, and a large number of people ran forward to punish the impudence of the man by force, Timoleon begged them all not to do it, since he had faced the largest labours and greatest dangers so that Laphystius and anyone else might be allowed to do this. ”

“ Perikles, ch. 20. 670 Timesitheus, i. Camillus, ch. 8. Timodemus, father of Timoleon, i. Timoleon, chs. 3, 39. Timoklea, a Theban lady, iii. Alexander, ch. 12. Timokleides, a Sikyonian, iv. Aratus, ch. 2. Timokrates, an Athenian, iv. Demosthenes, ch. 15. ——, married to Dion’s wife, Arete, iv. Dion, chs. 21, 26, 28. ——, envoy of Artaxerxes, iv. Artaxerxes, ch. 20. Timokreon of Rhodes, the poet, i. Themistokles, ch. 21. Timolaus, a Spartan, ii. Philopœmen, ch. 15. Timoleon, i. Life and Comparison with Æmilius Paulus; Camillus, ch. 19; iv. Dion, ch. 58. Timon, the misanthrope, i. Alkibiades, ch. ”

“ Whether he finished his life by violence, or whether mere distaste of life and the loathing he had for mankind brought Timon to his conclusion, was not clear, yet all men admired the fitness of his epitaph, and the consistency of his end; dying, as he had lived, a hater of mankind: and some there were who fancied a conceit in the very choice which he had made of the sea-beach for his place of burial, where the vast sea might weep for ever upon his grave, as in contempt of the transient and shallow tears of hypocritical and deceitful mankind. ”

“ Timon's money had gone to pay the wages of his servants, to pay the hire of the labourers who had sweat to build the fine houses which Lucius's pride had made necessary to him: yet, oh! the monster which man makes himself when he proves ungrateful! this Lucius now denied to Timon a sum, which, in respect of what Timon had bestowed on him, was less than charitable men afford to beggars.
Sempronius and every one of these mercenary lords to whom Timon applied in their turn, returned the same evasive answer or direct denial ”

“ St. Timothy left him at Philippi, but rejoined him at Troas. The apostle on his return to Palestine was imprisoned, and after two years custody at Cæsarea, was sent to Rome. Timothy seems to have been with him all or most of this time, and is named by him in the titles of his epistles to Philemon, and to the Philippians and Thessalonians, in the years 61 and 62. St. Timothy himself suffered imprisonment for Christ, and gloriously confessed his name, in the presence of many witnesses; but was set at liberty. [10] He was ordained bishop by a prophecy, and a particular order of the Holy Ghost. ”

“ In this way Timon but the other day had given to one of these mean lords the bay courser which he himself rode upon, because his lordship had been pleased to say that it was a handsome beast and went well; and Timon knew that no man ever justly praised what he did not wish to possess. For lord Timon weighed his friends' affection with his own, and so fond was he of bestowing, that he could have dealt kingdoms to these supposed friends, and never have been weary. ”

“ He stripped himself naked, that he might retain no fashion of a man, and dug a cave to live in, and lived solitary in the manner of a beast, eating the wild roots, and drinking water, flying from the face of his kind, and choosing rather to herd with wild beasts, as more harmless and friendly than man.
What a change from lord Timon the rich, lord Timon the delight of mankind, to Timon the naked, Timon the man-hater! ”

“ But Timon begged them not to give such trifles a thought, for he had altogether forgotten it. And these base fawning lords, though they had denied -him money in his adversity, yet could not refuse their presence at this new blaze of his returning prosperity. For the swallow follows not summer more willingly than men of these dispositions follow the good fortunes of the great, nor more willingly leaves winter than these shrink from the first appearance of a reverse; such summer birds are men. ”