Timoleon   

own power; and having cut off many principal citizens, uncondemned
and without trial, who were most likely to hinder his designs, he
declared himself tyrant of Corinth; a procedure that infinitely afflicted
Timoleon, to whom the wickedness of such a brother appeared to be
his own reproach and calamity. He undertook to persuade him by reasoning,
that desisting from that wild and unhappy ambition, he would bethink
himself how he should make the Corinthians some amends, and find out
an expedient to remedy and correct the evils he had done them. When
his single admonition was rejected and contemned by him, he makes
a second attempt, taking with him Aeschylus his kinsman, brother to
the wife of Timophanes, and a certain diviner, that was his friend,
whom Theopompus in his history calls Satyrus, but Ephorus and Timaeus
mention in theirs by the name of Orthagoras. After a few days, then,
he returns to his brother with this company, all three of them surrounding
and earnestly importuning him upon the same subject, that now at length
he would listen to reason, and be of another mind. But when Timophanes
began first to laugh at the men's simplicity, and presently broke
out into rage and indignation against them, Timoleon stepped aside
from him and stood weeping with his face covered, while the other
two, drawing out their swords, despatched him in a moment.
On the rumour of this act being soon scattered about, the better and
more generous of the Corinthians highly applauded Timoleon for the
hatred of wrong and the greatness of soul that had made him, though
of a gentle disposition and full of love and kindness for his family,
think the obligations to his country stronger than the ties of consanguinity,
and prefer that which is good and just before gain and interest and
his own particular advantage. For the same brother, who with so much
bravery had been saved by him when he fought valiantly in the cause
of Corinth, he had now as nobly sacrificed for enslaving her afterwards
by a base usurpation. But then, on the other side, those that knew
not how to live in a democracy, and had been used to make their humble
court to the men of power, though they openly professed to rejoice
at the death of the tyrant, nevertheless, secretly reviling Timoleon,
as one that had committed an impious and abominable act, drove him
into melancholy and dejection. And when he came to understand how
heavily his mother took it, and that she likewise uttered the saddest
complaints and most terrible imprecations against him, he went to
satisfy and comfort her as to what had happened; and finding that
she would not endure so much as to look upon him, but caused her doors
to be shut, that he might have no admission into her presence, with
grief at this he grew so disordered in his mind and so disconsolate,
that he determined to put an end to his perplexity with his life,
by abstaining from all manner of sustenance. But through the care
and diligence of his friends, who were very instant with him, and
added force to their entreaties, he came to resolve and promise at
last, that he would endure living, provided it might be in solitude,
and remote from company; so that, quitting all civil transactions
and commerce with the world for a long while after his first retirement,
he never came into Corinth, but wandered up and down the fields, full
of anxious and tormenting thoughts, and spent his time in desert places,
at the farthest distance from society and human intercourse. So true
it is that the minds of men are easily shaken and carried off from
their own sentiments through the casual commendation or reproof of
others, unless the judgments that we make, and the purposes we conceive,
be confirmed by reason and philosophy, and thus obtain strength and
steadiness. An action must not only be just and laudable in its own
nature, but it must proceed likewise from motives and a lasting principle,
that so we may fully and constantly approve the thing, and be perfectly
satisfied in what we do; for otherwise, after having put our resolution
into practice, we shall out of pure weakness come to be troubled at
the performance, when the grace and godliness, which rendered it before
so amiable and pleasing to us, begin to decay and wear out of our
fancy; like greedy people, who, seizing on the more delicious morsels
of any dish with a keen appetite, are presently disgusted when they