lutions of his life, could not but see in them a proof of the strength and potency, with which divine and unseen causes operate amidst the weakness of human and visible things. For neither art nor nature did in that age produce any thing comparable to this work and wonder of fortune, which showed the very same man, that was not long before supreme monarch of Sicily, loitering about perhaps in the fish-market, or sitting in a perfumer's shop, drinking the diluted wine of taverns, or squabbling in the street with common women, or undertaking to instruct the singing women, and seriously disputing with them about the measure and harmony of pieces of music played in the theatres. Such behaviour on his part was variously criticised. He was thought by many to act thus out of pure compliance with his own natural indolent and vicious inclinations; while finer judges were of opinion, that he was playing a politic part, with a design to be contemned among them, and that the Corinthians might not feel any apprehension or suspicion of his being uneasy under his reverse of fortune or solicitous to retrieve it; to avoid which dangers, he purposely and against his nature affected an appearance of folly and want of spirit in his private life and amusements.

stances.

However it be, there are sayings and repartees of his 15 left still upon record, which seem to show that he not ignobly accommodated himself to his present circumAs may appear in part from the ingenuousness of the avowal he made on coming to Leucas, which as well as Syracuse was a Corinthian colony, where he told the inhabitants, that he found himself not unlike boys who have been in fault, who can talk cheerfully

with their brothers, but are ashamed to see their father; so likewise he, he said, could gladly reside with them in that island, whereas he felt a certain awe which made him averse to the sight of Corinth, the common mother to them both. And there is further evidence in the reply he once made to a stranger in Corinth, who deriding him in a rude and scornful manner about the conferences he used to have with philosophers, whose company had been one of his pleasures while yet a monarch, and demanding in fine, what he was the better now for all those wise and learned discourses of Plato: "Do you think," said he, "I have had no profit from his philosophy when you see me bear my change of fortune as I do?" And when Aristoxenus the musician and several others desired to know how Plato offended him, and what had been the ground of his displeasure with him, he made answer, that of the many evils attaching to the condition of sovereignty the one greatest infelicity was, that none of those who were accounted friends would venture to speak freely or tell the plain truth; and that by means of such he had been deprived of Plato's kindness. At another time, when some one, desirous to show his wit, in mockery to Dionysius, as if he were still the tyrant, shook out the folds of his cloak, as he was entering the room where he was*, Dionysius by way of retort observed, that he would prefer he should do so on leaving the room, as a security that he was carrying nothing off with him. And when Philip of Macedon at a drinking party began to speak in banter about the verses and tragedies which his

To show he had no concealed arms upon his person, and had no intention of playing the assassin. Dionysius retorts that he would do better to prove that he was not a thief.

father Dionysius the elder, had left behind him, and pretended to wonder how he could get any time from his other business to compose these pieces, he replied very much to the purpose, "It was at those leisurable hours, which you and I and other happy livers bestow upon our cups." Plato had not the opportunity to see Dionysius at Corinth, being already dead before he came thither; but Diogenes of Sinope, at their first meeting there, saluted him with the ambiguous expression, "O Dionysius, how little you deserve your present life!" Upon which Dionysius stopped and replied, "I thank you, Diogenes, for your condolence." "Condole with you," replied Diogenes; "do you not suppose that on the contrary I am indignant that such a slave as you, who, if you had your due, should have been let alone to grow old, and die in the state of tyranny, as your father did before you, should now enjoy the ease of private persons, and be here to sport and play in our society." So that when I compare these stories on the one side, with the mournful tales of Philistus about the daughters of Leptines*, where he makes his lament upon their fall from all the blessings and advantages of greatness to the miseries of an humble life, they seem to me like the outcries of a woman who has lost her box of ointment, her purple dresses, and her golden trinkets. Such anecdotes will not, I conceive, be thought out of place in a biography, or unprofitable in themselves, by readers who are not pressed for time, or much occupied with business.

*This Leptines was the brother of Dionysius the elder, who sent him into exile. Philistus, the Silician historian, who was killed fighting for the younger Dionysius against Dion, had himself married one of the daughters.

16

But if the disaster of Dionysius appear strange and extraordinary, we shall have no less reason to wonder at the good fortune of Timoleon, who, within fifty days after his landing in Sicily, both recovered the citadel of Syracuse and sent Dionysius an exile into Peloponnesus. This happy beginning so animated the Corinthians, that they ordered him a supply of two thousand foot and two hundred horse, who, reaching Thurii, intended to cross over thence into Sicily. But finding the whole sea beset with Carthaginian ships, which made their passage impracticable, they were constrained to stop there and watch their opportunity: which time however was employed in a noble action. For the Thurians, going out to war against their Bruttian enemies, left their city in charge with the Corinthian strangers, who defended it as carefully as if it had been their own country, and faithfully resigned it up again. Hicetes in the interim continued still to besiege the castle of Syracuse, and hindered all provisions from coming in by sea to relieve the Corinthians that were in it. He had engaged also and despatched to Adranum, two foreigners to assassinate Timoleon, who at no time kept any standing guard about his person, and was then altogether secure, diverting himself without any apprehension among the citizens of the place, it being a festival in honour of their god. The two men that were sent, having casually heard that Timoleon was about to sacrifice, came into the temple with daggers under their cloaks, and pressing in among the crowd, by little and little got up near the altar; but, as they were just looking for a sign from each other to begin the attempt, a third person struck one of them over the head with a sword. Upon whose sudden fall,

neither he that gave the blow, nor the companion of him that received it, kept quiet any longer; but the the one, making off with his sword, put no stop to his flight, till he gained the top of a high rock, while the other, laying hold of the altar, besought Timoleon to spare his life, and he would reveal to him the whole conspiracy. His pardon being granted, he confessed that both himself and his dead companion were sent thither purposely to slay him. While this discovery was made, he that killed the other conspirator had been fetched down from his sanctuary of the rock, loudly protesting, as he came along, that there was no injustice in the fact, as he had only taken righteous vengeance for his father's blood, whom this man had murdered before in the city of Leontini; the truth of which was attested by several there present, not without wonder too at this strange dexterity of fortune's operations, the facility with which she makes one event the spring and motion to something wholly different, collecting the most scattered accidents and remote particulars, and interweaving them together to serve her purposes: so that things that in themselves seem to have no connection or interdependence whatsoever, become in her hands the end and beginning of each other. The Corinthians, satisfied as to the innocence of the act, honoured and rewarded the author with a present of ten minæ, since he had, as it were, lent the use of his just resentment to the tutelar genius that seemed to be protecting Timoleon, and had not pre-expended this anger, so long ago conceived, but had reserved and deferred, under fortune's guidance, for his preservation, the revenge of a private quarrel.