Plutarch: Lives of the noble Grecians and Romans
island was as it were become wild again, and was hateful to the very
natives on account of the evils and miseries they suffered there, he
so civilized and restored it, and rendered it so desirable to all
men, that even strangers now came by sea to inhabit those towns and
places which their own citizens had formerly forsaken and left
desolate. Agrigentum and Gela, two famous cities that had been
ruined and laid waste by the Carthaginians after the Attic war, were
then peopled again, the one by Megellus and Pheristus from Elea, the
other by Gorgus, from the island of Ceos, partly with new settlers,
partly with the old inhabitants whom they collected again from
various parts; to all of whom Timoleon not only afforded a secure and
peaceable abode after so obstinate a war, but was further so zealous
in assisting and providing for them that he was honored among them as
their founder. Similar feelings also possessed to such a degree all
the rest of the Sicilians, that there was no proposal for peace, nor
reformation of laws, nor assignation of land, nor reconstitution of
government, which they could think well of, unless he lent his aid as
a chief architect, to finish and adorn the work, and superadd some
touches from his own hand, which might render it pleasing both to God
and man.
Although Greece had in his time produced several persons of
extraordinary worth, and much renowned for their achievements, such
as Timotheus and Agesilaus and Pelopidas and (Timoleon's chief model)
Epaminondas, yet the lustre of their best actions was obscured by a
degree of violence and labor, insomuch that some of them were matter
of blame and of repentance; whereas there is not any one act of
Timoleon's, setting aside the necessity he was placed under in
reference to his brother, to which, as Timaeus observes, we may not
fitly apply that exclamation of Sophocles:
O gods! what Venus, or what grace divine,
Did here with human workmanship combine?
For as the poetry of Antimachus, and the painting of Dionysius, the
artists of Colophon, though full of force and vigor, yet appeared to
be strained and elaborate in comparison with the pictures of
Nicomachus and the verses of Homer, which, besides their general
strength and beauty, have the peculiar charm of seeming to have been
executed with perfect ease and readiness; so the expeditions and acts
of Epaminondas or Agesilaus, that were full of toil and effort, when
compared with the easy and natural as well as noble and glorious
achievements of Timoleon, compel our fair and unbiased judgment to
pronounce the latter not indeed the effect of fortune, but the
success of fortunate merit. Though he himself indeed ascribed that
success to the sole favor of fortune; and both in the letters which
he wrote to his friends at Corinth, and in the speeches he made to
the people of Syracuse, he would say, that he was thankful unto God,
who, designing to save Sicily, was pleased to honor him with the name
and title of the deliverance he vouchsafed it. And having built a
chapel in his house, he there sacrificed to Good Hap, as a deity
that had favored him, and devoted the house itself to the Sacred
Genius; it being a house which the Syracusans had selected for him,
as a special reward and monument of his brave exploits, granting him
together with it the most agreeable and beautiful piece of land in
the whole country, where he kept his residence for the most part, and
enjoyed a private life with his wife and children, who came to him
from Corinth. For he returned thither no more, unwilling to be
concerned in the broils and tumults of Greece, or to expose himself
to public envy (the fatal mischief which great commanders continually
run into, from the insatiable appetite for honors and authority); but
wisely chose to spend the remainder of his days in Sicily, and there
partake of the blessings he himself had procured, the greatest of
which was, to behold so many cities flourish, and so many thousands
of people live happy through his means.
As, however, not only, as Simonides says, "On every lark must grow a
crest," but also in every democracy there must spring up a false
accuser, so was it at Syracuse: two of their popular spokesmen,
Laphystius and Demaenetus by name, fell to slander Timoleon. The
former of whom requiring him to put in sureties that he would answer
to an indictment that would be brought against him, Timoleon would
not suffer the citizens, who were incensed at this demand, to oppose
it or hinder the proceeding, since he of his own accord had been, he
said, at all that trouble, and run so many dangerous risks for this
very end and purpose, that every one who wished to try matters by law
should freely have recourse to it. And when Demaenetus, in a full
audience of the people, laid several things to his charge which had
been done while he was general, he made no other reply to him, but
only said he was much indebted to the gods for granting the request
he had so often made them, namely, that he might live to see the
Syracusans enjoy that liberty of speech which they now seemed to be
masters of.
Timoleon, therefore, having by confession of all done the greatest
and the noblest things of any Greek of his age, and alone
distinguished himself in those actions to which their orators and
philosophers, in their harangues and panegyrics at their solemn
national assemblies, used to exhort and incite the Greeks, and being
withdrawn beforehand by happy fortune, unspotted and without blood,
from the calamities of civil war, in which ancient Greece was soon
after involved; having also given full proof, as of his sage conduct
and manly courage to the barbarians and tyrants, so of his justice
and gentleness to the Greeks, and his friends in general; having
raised, too, the greater part of those trophies he won in battle,
without any tears shed or any mourning worn by the citizens either of
Syracuse or Corinth, and within less than eight years' space
delivered Sicily from its inveterate grievances and intestine
distempers, and given it up free to the native inhabitants, began, as
he was now growing old, to find his eyes fail, and awhile after
became perfectly blind. Not that he had done anything himself which
might occasion this defect, or was deprived of his sight by any
outrage of fortune; it seems rather to have been some inbred and
hereditary weakness that was founded in natural causes, which by
length of time came to discover itself. For it is said, that several
of his kindred and family were subject to the like gradual decay, and
lost all use of their eyes, as he did, in their declining years.
Athanis the historian tells us, that even during the war against
Hippo and Mamercus, while he was in his camp at Mylae, there appeared
a white speck within his eye, from whence all could foresee the
deprivation that was coming on him; this, however, did not hinder him
then from continuing the siege, and prosecuting the war, till he got
both the tyrants into his power; but upon his coming back to
Syracuse, he presently resigned the authority of sole commander, and
besought the citizens to excuse him from any further service, since
things were already brought to so fair an issue. Nor is it so much
to be wondered, that he himself should bear the misfortune without
any marks of trouble; but the respect and gratitude which the
Syracusans showed him when he was entirely blind, may justly deserve
our admiration. They used to go themselves to visit him in troops,
and brought all the strangers that traveled through their country to
his house and manor, that they also might have the pleasure to see
their noble benefactor; making it the great matter of their joy and
exultation, that when, after so many brave and happy exploits, he
might have returned with triumph into Greece, he should disregard all
the glorious preparations that were there made to receive him, and
choose rather to stay here and end his days among them. Of the
various things decreed and done in honor of Timoleon, I consider one
most signal testimony to have been the vote which they passed, that,
whenever they should be at war with any foreign nation, they should
make use of none but a Corinthian general. The method, also, of
their proceeding in council, was a noble demonstration of the same
deference for his person. For, determining matters of less
consequence themselves, they always called him to advise in the more
difficult cases, and such as were of greater moment. He was, on
these occasions, carried through the market-place in a litter, and
brought in, sitting, into the theater, where the people with one
voice saluted him by his name; and then, after returning the
courtesy, and pausing for a time, till the noise of their
gratulations and blessings began to cease, he heard the business in
debate, and delivered his opinion. This being confirmed by a general
suffrage, his servants went back with the litter through the midst of
the assembly, the people waiting on him out with acclamations and
applauses, and then returning to consider other public matters, which
they could dispatch in his absence. Being thus cherished in his old
age, with all the respect and tenderness due to a common father, he
was seized with a very slight indisposition, which however was
sufficient, with the aid of time, to put a period to his life. There
was an allotment then of certain days given, within the space of
which the Syracusans were to provide whatever should be necessary for
his burial, and all the neighboring country people and strangers were
to make their appearance in a body; so that the funeral pomp was set
out with great splendor and magnificence in all other respects, and
the bier, decked with ornaments and trophies, was borne by a select
body of young men over that ground where the palace and castle of
Dionysius stood, before they were demolished by Timoleon. There
attended on the solemnity several thousands of men and women, all
crowned with flowers, and arrayed in fresh and clean attire, which
made it look like the procession of a public festival; while the
language of all, and their tears mingling with their praise and
benediction of the dead Timoleon, manifestly showed that it was not
any superficial honor, or commanded homage, which they paid him, but
the testimony of a just sorrow for his death, and the expression of
true affection. The bier at length being placed upon the pile of
wood that was kindled to consume his corpse, Demetrius, one of their
loudest criers, proceeded to read a proclamation to the following
purpose: "The people of Syracuse has made a special decree to inter
Timoleon, the son of Timodemus, the Corinthian, at the common expense
of two hundred minas, and to honor his memory forever, by the
establishment of annual prizes to be competed for in music, and horse
races, and all sorts of bodily exercise; and this, because he
suppressed the tyrants, overthrew the barbarians, replenished the
principal cities, that were desolate, with new inhabitants, and then
restored the Sicilian Greeks to the privilege of living by their own
laws." Besides this, they made a tomb for him in the marketplace,
which they afterwards built round with colonnades, and attached to it
places of exercise for the young men, and gave it the name of the
Timoleonteum. And keeping to that form and order of civil policy and
observing those laws and constitutions which he left them, they lived
themselves a long time in great prosperity.
AEMILIUS PAULUS
Almost all historians agree that the Aemilii were one of the ancient and
patrician houses in Rome; and those authors who affirm that king Numa was
pupil to Pythagoras, tell us that the first who gave the name to his
posterity was Mamercus, the son of Pythagoras, who, for his grace and