Page:History of Greece Vol XII.djvu/483

 SiCILY BECOMES DEPENDENT. 451 witliia his knowledge.^ Apart from this enter[)rising genius, employed in the service of unmeasured personal ambition, we know nothing of Agathokles except his sanguinary, faithless, and nefarious dispositions ; in which attributes also he stands pre- eminent, above all his known contemporaries, and above nearly ill predecessors.^ Notwithstanding his often-proved perfidy, he seems to have had a joviality and apparent simplicity of manner (the same is recounted of Caesar Borgia) which amused men and put them off their guard, throwing them perpetually into his trap.3 Agathokles, however, though among the woi-st of Greeks, was yet a Greek, During his government of thirty-two years, the course of events in Sicily continued under Hellenic agency, without the preponderant intervention of any foreign power. The power of Agathokles indeed rested mainly on foreign mer- cenaries ; but so had that of Dionysius and Gelon before him ; 1 Polyb. XV. 35. See above in this History, Vol. XL Civ Ixxxiii. p. 46. the beginning the his career, and in the establishment of his power, yet became the mildest of men after his power was once established. The lat- ter half of this statement is contradicted by all the particular facts which we know respecting Agathokles. As to Timteus the historian, indeed (who had been banished from Sicily by Agathokles, and who wrote the history of the latter in five books), Polybius had good reason to censure him, as being unmeasured in his abuse of Agathokles. For Timaeus not only recounted of Agathokles numerous acts of nefarious cruelty — acts of course essentially public, and therefore capable of being known — but also told much scandal about his private habits, and represented him (which is still more absurd) as a man vulgar and despicable in point of ability. See the Fragments of TimfEus ap. Histoi. Graec. cd. Didot, Frag. 144-150. All, or ncarlj' all, the acts of Agathokles, as described in the preceding pages, have been copied from Diodorus ; who had as good authorities before him as I'olybius possessed. Diodorus does not copy the history of Agatho- kles from Tima;us ; on the contrary, he censures Timaus for his exaggerat- ed acrimony and injustice towards Agathokles, in terms not less forcible than those which Polybius employs (xxi. Frngm. p. 279). Diodorus cites TimoDus by name, occasionally and in particular instances : but he evidently did not borrow from that author the main stream of his narrative. Ha seems to have had before him other authorities — among them some highly favorable to Agathokles — the Sj-racusan Kallias — and Antander, brother of Agathokles (.xxi. p. 278-282). a Diodor. xx. G3.
 * Polybius (ix. 23) says tiiat Agathokles, though cruel in the extreme at