ICETES TRIES TO SLAY TIMOLEON
The small band of Corinthians who now held the citadel of Syracuse was
closely besieged by Icetes. But soon he grew tired of waiting for it to
surrender and hit, as he thought, on a quicker way of driving the enemy
out of the island.
Without Timoleon he would not fear the Corinthians, so he resolved to
get rid of him without delay. He hired two foreign soldiers and sent
them to Adranum with orders to kill the general.
Timoleon went about without a bodyguard, as Icetes knew. When the
assassins reached the city, he was in the temple, sacrificing to the
gods, for it was a festival.
With their daggers hidden beneath their cloaks, the men slipped in
among the crowd of worshippers and were soon standing together, close
to the altar.
As they hesitated to strike the fatal blow, a sword flashed out behind,
and one of them fell slain to the ground.
His companion, in his terror, forgot to kill Timoleon, and laid hold of
the altar lest he too should be slain by an unseen foe.
When his terror grew a little less he did not try to obey Icetes’
orders, but begged Timoleon to spare his life and he would tell him
everything.
Timoleon promised that his life should be safe, and then the miserable
man confessed that he and his friend had been hired by Icetes to kill
the Corinthian general.
Meanwhile the stranger who had killed one of the assassins had fled to
the top of a great precipice that overlooked the city. Here he was
captured, and as he was hurried before Timoleon he told the guards that
the man he had slain was one who years before had killed his father. He
pleaded that he had done right to punish the evil-doer.
It may be that the Corinthians and the citizens of Adranum agreed with
their prisoner; in any case they were so grateful that he had saved the
life of Timoleon that they gave him a gift of money and set him free.
As the attack on Timoleon had failed, the Carthaginians thought they
would try to frighten the citadel of Syracuse into surrendering. So
they decked the masts of their ships with wreaths, and hung Grecian
shields over the sides of their vessels. Then with shouts of victory
they sailed toward the harbour.
From the citadel, the garrison saw the ships and heard the shouts,
but it was not so easily deceived as Mago, the general of the
Carthaginians, had expected. The Corinthians were sure that Timoleon
would have managed to let them know had he been defeated, so they
laughed at the enemy’s trick and stayed safe within their walls.
Soon after this the reinforcements sent from Corinth joined Timoleon,
and he then marched to Syracuse.
Mago had already begun to doubt the loyalty of Icetes. He feared that
he was trying to make terms with Timoleon. When, a little later, he
saw the soldiers of both generals talking together in a friendly way
as they fished for eels in the marshes near to the city, he grew more
suspicious. Day by day his fears grew, until at length in a panic, he
ordered his troops to embark and set sail for Africa.
The very day after Mago had deserted his post, Timoleon himself reached
Syracuse. He looked at the empty harbour. Where was the enemy? Not a
single Carthaginian vessel was to be seen.
When Timoleon learned how Mago had fled, he laughed at his cowardice,
and still laughing he offered a reward to anyone who would tell him
where the Carthaginians had hidden.
But although Mago had fled, Icetes and his men still held the city.
But the wisdom of Timoleon and the valour of his troops soon put them
to flight, and without the loss of one Corinthian soldier the city was
taken.
This wonderful success was said by everyone to be due to the good
fortune that followed all that Timoleon undertook.
The citizens of Syracuse thought that Timoleon would now make himself
tyrant. To their surprise as well as to their joy, he proclaimed that
they themselves were to govern the city. He ordered the public crier
to go through the streets, bidding all those who were willing, to come
with pickaxe and hammer to pull down the citadel which Dionysius had
built.
The people did not need to be asked twice. With right goodwill they
destroyed not only the citadel, but the palaces in which the tyrants
of Syracuse had dwelt. And while they pulled down the walls, flutes
sounded and women danced and sang. On the places where the palaces had
stood, Timoleon ordered courts of justice to be built.
So neglected and forsaken had the city been during the rule of the
tyrants, as well as during the siege, that grass was growing in the
market-place, grass enough to feed the soldiers’ horses.
All over Sicily, cities had been deserted, and in some of them deer and
wild boars wandered up and down the streets.
Timoleon saw that if the island was to grow prosperous again, those who
had fled must be brought back, and new citizens must come and settle in
the different cities.
So he sent to Corinth to ask her to send out colonists to the island.
This she did, and she also sent vessels to Asia to bring back to their
island home those who had taken refuge there. Soon sixty thousand
citizens were added to the inhabitants of Sicily.