Page:History of Greece Vol XI.djvu/194

 168 HISTORY OF GREECE. same time the public exigencies were considerable, since it wa* e* sential, among other things, to provide pay for those very soldiers of Timoleon to whom they owed their liberation. The extent of poverty was painfully attested by the fact that they were con- strained to sell those public statues which formed the ornaments of Syracuse and its temples ; a cruel wound to the sentiments of every Grecian community. From this compulsory auction, how- ever, they excepted by special vote the statue of Gelon, in testi- mony of gratitude for his capital victoiy at Himera over the Car- thaginians. 1 For the renovation of a community thus destitute, new funds as well as new men were wanted ; and the Corinthians exerted them- selves actively to procure both. Their first proclamation was in- deed addressed specially to Syracusan exiles, whom they invited to resume their residence at Syracuse as free and autonomous citizens under a just allotment of lands. They caused such proc- lamation to be publicly made at all the Pan-hellenic and local fes- tivals ; prefaced by a certified assurance that the Corinthians had already overthrown both the despotism and the despot a fact which the notorious presence of Dionysius himself at Corinth contributed to spread more widely than any formal announcement. They farther engaged, if the exiles would muster at Corinth, to provide transports, convoy, and leaders, to Syracuse, free of all cost. The number of exiles, who profited by the invitation and came to Corinth, though not inconsiderable, was still hardly strong enough to enter upon the proposed Sicilian renovation. They themselves therefore entreated the Corinthians to invite addition- al colonists from other Grecian cities. It was usually not difficult to find persons disposed to embark in a new settlement, if founded under promising circumstances, and effected under the positive management of a powerful presiding city. 2 There were many opulent persons anxious to exchange the condition of metics in an >ld city for that of full citizens in a new one. Hence the more general proclamation now issued by the Corinthians attracted 1 Plutarch, Timoleon, c. 23 ; Dion, Chrysostom, Orat. xxxvii. p. 460. nus, Thucyd. i- 27 ; the Lacedaemonian foundation of Herakleia, Thucyd. iii 93 the pioclamation of the Battiad Arkesilaus at Samos, for a new bodj >f settlers to Kyrene (llerodot. iv. 1 S3).
 * Compare the case of the Corinthian proclamation respecting Epidam-