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 full liberty of speech. Timoleon, therefore, having by confession of all done 38 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in their harangues and panegyrics at their national assemblies, used to exhort and incite the Greeks, and being withdrawn beforehand by happy fortune, unspotted and without blood, from the calamities in which ancient Greece was involved; having also given full proof, as of his capacity and 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 tears shed or mourning worn by his fellow-citizens, and having within less than eight years' space delivered Sicily from its inveterate grievances and intestine distempers, and placed it free in the hands of the inhabitants, began, as he was by this time an elderly man, to find his eyes fail, and soon after became perfectly blind. Not however by anything that he had done himself to occasion it, nor yet by any outrage of fortune; it seems rather to have been some original defect of natural constitution, increasing with the lapse of years. Several of his family, it is said, suffered the like decay, and lost their sight as he did, in their declining years. Athanis tells us that a white speck in his eye appeared during the 39 war against Hippo and Mamercus, while he was in his camp at Mylæ, from whence all could foresee what was coming; this, however, did not hinder him from continuing the siege; he prosecuted the war till he took the tyrants; but upon coming back to Syracuse, at once resigned his place as sole commander, and excused himself to the citizens from further service, so fair an issue having already been attained. Nor is it so great a wonder that he himself should bear the misfortune without complaining; but the respect and gratitude which the Syracusans showed him when he was entirely blind, may justly excite our admiration. They used to go in numbers to visit him themselves, and brought the strangers that travelled in their country to his house and land, that they also might see their 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 great glory into Greece, he should disregard these honours that awaited him, and choose rather to stay and end his days among them. Of the various things decreed and done in his honour, one most signal testimony was the vote which they passed, that, whenever they should be at war with a foreign nation, they should make use of a Corinthian general. Their method, also, of proceeding in council, was a noble demonstration of their deference for him. For, determining matters of less consequence themselves, they called in him to advise in difficult and important cases. He was carried through the market-place in a carriage, and brought sitting in it, as he was, into the theatre, where the people with one voice saluted him by his name; and 'then, after HIS DEATH AND FUNERAL HONOURS. 329 returning the courtesy, and pausing for the noise of their gratulations and blessings to cease, he heard the question in debate, and delivered his opinion. This being confirmed by show of hands, his servants went back with the carriage through the theatre, the people following him out with acclamations and applause, and then returning to consider other public matters, which they could despatch in his absence. Death moleon Being thus cherished in his old age, with all the 40 respect and affection due to a common father, he was of Tiseized with a very slight indisposition, which however B.C. 337 was sufficient, with his years, to end his life. There or 336. was an allotment then of certain days given, within which the Syracusans were to provide whatever should be necessary for his burial, and the neighbouring country people and strangers were to make their appearance in a body; after which ensued a splendid funeral ceremony, and the bier, decked with ornaments, was borne by a select body of young men over the ground where the palace and castle of Dionysius stood, before they were demolished by Timoleon. There attended on the solemnity many thousands of men and women, all crowned with flowers, and arrayed in clean attire, making 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, showed that it was not any formal honour, or any commanded homage, which they paid him, but the testimony of a just sorrow for his death, and the expression of a true affection. The bier at length being placed upon the pile of wood that was kindled to consume his corpse, Demetrius, the loudest crier of the time, proceeded to read a proclamation to the following purpose: "The people of Syracuse performs the funeral rites of Timoleon, the son of Timodemus, the Corinthian, at the common expense of two hundred minas, and will do honour to his memory for ever, by annual prizes to be competed for in music, and horse races, and all sorts of bodily exercise; because he suppressed the tyrants, overthrew the barbarians, repeopled the largest of the deserted cities, and restored the Sicilian Greeks to the enjoyment of their own laws." Besides this, they made his tomb in the market-place, 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 of civil polity and observing those laws and constitutions which he left them, they lived for a considerable time in prosperity. |