Page:Plutarch's Lives (Clough, v.5, 1865).djvu/276

 268 DION. An eagle, snatching a javelin from one of the guard, car- ried it aloft, and from thence let it fell into the sea. The water of the sea that washed the castle walls was for a whole day sweet and potable, as many that tasted it experienced. Pigs were farrowed perfect in all their other parts, but without ears. This the diviners declared to portend revolt and rebellion, for that the subjects would no longer give ear to the commands of their supe- riors. They expounded the sweetness of the water to signify to the Syracusans a change from hard and griev- ous times into easier and more happy circumstances. The eagle being the bird of Jupiter, and the spear an emblem of power and command, this prodigy was to denote that the chief of the gods designed the end and dissolution of the present government. These things Theopompus relates in his history. Two ships of burden carried all Dion's men; a third vessel, of no great size, and two galleys of thirty oars attended them. In addition to his soldiers' own arms, he carried two thousand shields, a very great number of darts and lances, and abundant stores of all manner of provisions, that there might be no want of any thing in then* voyage ; their purpose being to keep out at sea during the whole voyage, and use the winds, since aU the land was hostile to them, and Philistus, they had been told, was in lapygia with a fleet, looking out for them. Twelve days they sailed with a fresh and gentle breeze ; on the thirteenth, they made Pachynus, the Sicilian cape. There Protus, the chief pilot, advised them to land at once and without delay, for if they were forced again from the shore, and did not take advantage of the head- land, they might ride out at sea many nights and days, waiting for a southerly wind in the summer season. But Dion, fearing a descent too near his enemies, and desirous to begin at a greater distance, and further on in the