Page:Dictionary of Greek and Roman Biography and Mythology (1870) - Volume 3.djvu/1153

 was their alarm that Tiraoleon, according to Diodorus (xvi. 78), could only induce twelve thousand men to march with him against the Carthaginians, including in that number his mercenaries, and even of them one thousand deserted him on the march. Timoleon hastened to meet the enemy with this small force, knowing that any delay, in the divided condition in which the Sicilians still were, might prove fatal to him. The Carthaginian commanders were equally anxious to bring matters to a speedy decision, confident of victory from their superior numbers. The Greeks found the Carthaginians encamped on one side of the Cri- mesus or Cnmissus, a river which flows into the Hypsa, on the south-western coast of Sicily. Ti- moleon drew up his troops on the brow of a hill overlooking the Carthaginian army, who were on the further bank of the river. The Carthaginian commanders, impatient for the victory, began to cross the river in presence of the enemy. This favourable circumstance determined the movements of Timoleon. As soon as the Carthaginian army was divided by the stream, he charged them with all his forces. The Carthaginians resisted bravely, but in the hottest of the fight a dreadful storm came on, attended with lightning, hail, and rain, which beat full in the faces of the Cartha- ginians. Unable to bear up against the storm, and to hear the commands of their officers amidst the roar of the thunder, and the clattering of the rain and hail upon their arms, the Carthaginians began to retreat and make for the river ; but pursued by the Greeks, their retreat soon became a rout ; a panic spread through their ranks ; and the different nations of which the vast army was composed, igno- rant of one another's language, and maddened by fear, used their swords against one another, each eager to gain the stream. Numbers were killed, and still more were drowned in the river. The victory was complete, and justly ranks as one of the greatest gained by Greeks over barbarians. It was fought in the middle of summer, B. c. 339. The booty which Timoleon and his troops gained was prodigious ; and some of the richest of the spoils he sent to Corinth and other cities in Greece, thus diffusing the glory of his victory throughout the mother country. The victory of the Crimesus brought Timoleon such an accession of power and influence, that he now resolved to carry into execution his project of expelling all the tyrants from Sicily. Of these, two of the most powerful, Hicetas of Leontini, and Mamercus of Catana. had recourse to the Cartha- ginians for assistance, who sent Gisco to Sicily with a fleet of seventy ships and a body of Greek mercenaries. Although Gisco gained a few suc- cesses at first, the war was upon the whole favour- able to Timoleon, and the Carthaginians were therefore glad to conclude a treaty with the latter in B. c. 338, by which the river Halycus was fixed as the boundary of the Carthaginian and Greek dominions in Sicily. It was during the war with Gisco that Hicetas fell into the hands of Timoleon. He had been completely defeated by Timoleon at the river Daraurias, and was taken prisoner a few days afterwards, with his son Eupolemus. They were both slain by Timoleon's order. His wife and daughters were carried to Syracuse ; where they were executed by command of the people, as a satisfaction to the manes of Dion, whose wife Arete and sister Aristomache had both been put to death by Hicetas, This is one of the greatest stains upon Timoleon's character, as he might easily have saved these unfortunate women, if he had chosen. After the death of Hicetas. and the treaty be- tween the Carthaginians and Timoleon, Mamercus, being unable to maintain himself in Catana, fled to Messana, where he took refuge with Hippon, tyrant of that city. Timoleon quickly followed, and besieged Messana so vigorously by sea and land, that Hippon, despairing of holding out, at- tempted to escape by sea, but was taken and put to death in the public theatre. Mamercus now surrendered, stipulating only for a public trial before the Syracusans, with the condition that Timoleon should not appear as his accuser. But as soon as he was brought into the assembly at Syracuse, the people refused to hear him, and unanimously condemned him to death. Thus almost all the tyrants were expelled from the Greek cities in Sicily, and a democratical form of government established in their place. Timo- leon, however, was in reality the ruler of Sicily, for all the states consulted him on every matter of importance ; and the wisdom of his rule is at- tested by the flourishing condition of the island for several years even after his death. He re- peopled the great cities of Agrigentum and Gela, which had been laid desolate by the Carthaginians, and also settled colonies in other cities. He did not, however, assume any title or office, but resided as a private citizen among the Syracusans, to whom he left the administration of their own aff'airs. Once, when his public conduct was at- tacked in the popular assembly by a demagogue of the name of Demaenetus, Timoleon is reported to have thanked the gods for answering his prayer that the Syracusans might enjoy freedom of speech ; and when Laphystius, another demagogue, de- manded that Timoleon should give sureties to answer an indictment that was brought against him, and some of Timoleon's friends began thereupon to raise a clamour, Timoleon himself restrained them by saying, that the great object of all his toils and exertions had been to make the law the same for all the Syracusans. A short time before his death Timoleon became completely blind, but the Sy- racusan people notwithstanding continued to pay him the same honour as they had done before, and took his advice on all difficult cases. He died, ac- cording to Diodorus, in B. c. 337, in the eighth year after his first arrival in Sicily. He was buried at the public expense in the market-place at Syra- cuse, where his monument was afterwards sur- rounded with porticoes and a gymnasium, which Aas called after him the Timoleonteium. Annual games were also instituted in his honour. Timo- leon certainly deserves to be regarded as one of the greatest men of Greece, and it is not the slightest eulogium paid to him, that Mitford, with all his prejudices against the destroyer of his fa- vourite tyrants, is able to detract so little from the virtues and merits of Timoleon. (Plutarch and Cornelius Nepos, Life of Timoleon ; Diod. xvi. 65—90 ; Polyaen. v. 3. § 8 ; Mitford, History of Greece, c. xxxiii.)

TIMO'MACHUS (TifiSfiaxos), an Athenian, of the demus of Achaniae. In B, c. 366, he commanded a body of Athenian troops, which, in conjunction with a Iiacedaemonian force, had been appointed to guard the Isthmus of Corintli against