Page:History of Greece Vol XI.djvu/219

 INFLUENCE OF TLMOLhON. li/.j presents a model of genuine and intelligent public spirit, such as is associated with few other names except that of Timoleon. That the Syracusan people should have yielded tc such conduct and obedience not merely voluntary, but heartfelt and almost reveren tial, is no matter of wonder. And we may be quite sure that the opinion of Timoleon, tranquilly and unostentatiously con suited, was the guiding star which they followed on most points of moment or difficulty ; over and above those of excep- tional cases of aggravated dissent where he was called in with such imposing ceremony as an umpire. On the value of such an oracle close at hand it is needless to insist ; especially in a city which for the last half century had known nothing but the domin ion of force, and amidst a new miscellaneous aggregate composed of Greek settlers from many different quarters. Timoleon now enjoyed, as he had amply earned, what Xeno phon calls " that good, not human, but divine command over willing men given manifestly to persons of genuine and highly trained temperance of character. 1 " In him the condition indi- cated by Xenophon was found completely realized temperance in the largest and most comprehensive sense of the word not simply sobriety and continence (which had belonged to the elder Dionysius also), but an absence of that fatal thirst for coercive power at all price, which in Greece was the fruitful parent of the greater crimes and enormities. Timoleon lived to see his great work of Sicilian enfranchise- ment consummated, to carry it through all its incipient difficulties, and to see it prosperously moving on. Not Syracuse alone, but the other Grecian cities in the island also, enjoyed under their revived free institutions a state of security, comfort, and affluence, to which they had been long strangers. The lands became again industriously tilled ; the fertile soil yielded anew abundant ex- ports ; the temples were restored from their previous decay, and adorned with the votive offerings of pious munificence. 2 The same 1 Xenoph. (Economic, xxi. 12. Ov yap TTUVV uot <5oft oAov Tovrl rd uyadbv av&puTnvov elvai, aAAa ^eloi 1, TO kftehovT uv ap%iv aau di AidoTai Toii; uTirfdLvuq cu^pocvvij TSTE^ea^evoLf. To 6 UKOVTUV rvpavveli, 3i66acnv, wf e/j.ol tioicei, ovf uv r/juvraL u^iovf elvai j3ioTEvetv, uairep d Tav- ra/oc tv <z<?oti Myerai TOV uei %p6:-ov diarpipetv, (jxipovuEVOf II.TJ die anoduTy VOL. XI. 17
 * Dioclor. xvi. 83.