Page:History of Greece Vol XI.djvu/189

 FAVOR OF THE GODS. 163 For all that he had done, Timoleon took little credit to himself. In the despatch which announced to the Corinthians his Veni^ Vidi, Vici, as well as in his discourses at Syracuse, he ascribed the whole achievement to fortune or to the gods, whom he thanked for having inscribed his name as nominal mover of their decree for liberating Sicily. 1 We need not doubt that he firmly believed himself to be a favored instrument of the divine will, and that ho was even more astonished than others at the way in which locked gates flew open before him. But even if he had not believed it himself, there was great pradence in putting this coloring on the facts ; not simply because he thereby deadened the attacks of en- vy, but because, under the pretence of modesty, he really exalted himself much higher. He purchased for himself a greater hold on men's minds towards his future achievements, as the beloved of the gods, than he would ever have possessed as only a highly endowed mortal. And though what he had already done was prodigious, there still remained much undone ; new difficulties, not the same in kind, yet hardly less in magnitude, to be combated. It was not only new difficulties, but also new temptations, which rimoleon had to combat. Now began for him that moment of Trial, fatal to so many Greeks before him. Proof was to be shown, whether he could swallow, without intoxication or perver- sion, the cup of success administered to him in such overflowing fulness. He was now complete master of Syracuse ; master of it too with the fortifications of Ortygia yet standing, with all the gloomy means of despotic compression, material and moral, yet remaining in his hand. In respect of personal admiration and prestige of success, he stood greatly above Dion, and yet more above the elder Dionysius in the early part of his career. To set up for himself as despot at Syracuse, burying in oblivion all that he had said or promised before, was a step natural and feasible ; not indeed without peril or difficulty, but carrying with it chances of success equal to those of other nascent despotisms, and more than sufficient to tempt a leading Greek politician of average morality. Probably most people in Sicily actually ex- pected that he would avail himself of his unparalleled position 1 Pluta/ch, Timoleon, c. 36 ; Cornelius Nepos, Timoleon, c. 4 ; Plutarch, De Sui I aude, p. 542 E.