The Historians' History of the World 04

He began by doing what Dion had refused to do; he destroyed the fortress of Ortygia, built on its site courts of justice and restored to power the democratic legislation of Diodes. The town was half deserted; he recalled the exiles, and caused it to be proclaimed at the public games in Greece that Syracuse required colonists. Sixty thousand men answered this appeal. In order to relieve public poverty, he distributed the unoccupied lands to the poor, and sold the statues of the tyrants, except that of Gelo, the conqueror of the Carthaginians. He then turned his attention to the overthrow of tyranny in the other Siceliot towns, and began by forcing Hicetas to live simply as a private citizen. Leptines, tyrant of Engyum, consented to go to the Peloponnesus, as Dionysius had done, for Timoleon was anxious to show the Greeks the tyrants whom he had driven from Sicily. He also seized Apollonia and Entella and restored them their freedom. All the Greek towns sided with him, because he allowed them self-government according to their own inclination. Following their example, several Sican and Sicel towns asked to be admitted into alliance with him.

[343-337 B.C.]

Terrified by this commencement of a league between the towns, and by the increasing prosperity of Syracuse, the Carthaginians landed seventy thousand men at Lilybæum. Timoleon, who had only succeeded in collecting an army of eleven thousand men, advanced nevertheless against the enemy, whom he surprised on the banks of the brook Crimisus on Selinuntine territory. He established himself in a strong position, attacked the Carthaginians as they were crossing the river, and killed ten thousand of them, of whom three thousand were Carthaginian citizens. He imposed no onerous conditions, for Syracuse was not in a position to carry on a prolonged war: the limits of their territory were fixed at the river Halycus, to the west of Agrigentum, and they agreed to give no more help to the tyrants (338). Timoleon overcame those who were still left; Hicetas, who had again seized the power, was put to death, as were also Mamercus, tyrant of Catana, Hippon, tyrant of Messana, and some others. Timoleon then helped in the rebuilding and repeopling of the towns destroyed by the Carthaginians, Gela and Agrigentum, for instance, drove from Ætna a band of Campanians, Dionysius’ former mercenaries, who had made the town into a retreat for brigands. At last, his work being complete, he abdicated the power. But he always retained the great moral authority; towards the end of his life he became blind, and whenever there was an important discussion he was carried into the market place and his advice was always followed. He died eight years after his arrival in Sicily (337), and the expenses of his funeral were paid from the public treasury. The Syracusans instituted annual games in his honour, “because,” said the decree, “he drove away the tyrants, defeated the barbarians, repeopled the towns, and restored to the Siceliots their laws and institutions.”b

CHAPTER XLVIII. THE RISE OF MACEDONIA

We have seen that Greece was never a unified nation. There was even dispute, throughout the history of the Greeks as a people, as to just who were included under the caption “Greek.” In particular the question rose in reference to the Macedonians when they came to power under the leadership of King Philip, father of Alexander the Great. The Macedonians spoke a dialect of the Greek language, and Philip ardently contended that he and his people were entitled to be considered as true Greeks. The claim was hotly contested so long as the people of Greece, in the narrower sense, had the power to hold out against the man whom they regarded as a usurper; but in the end the claim of Philip received official recognition, and his subjugation of Greece was not regarded as the conquest of a foreigner, but merely as establishing the hegemony of one Greek state over the others, Macedonia now taking that leadership which had been held in turn by Athens, Sparta, and Thebes.