Timoleon   

IT was for the sake of others that I first commenced writing biographies;
but I find myself proceeding and attaching myself to it for my own;
the virtues of these great men serving me as a sort of looking-glass,
in which I may see how to adjust and adorn my own life. Indeed, it
can be compared to nothing but daily living and associating together;
we receive, as it were, in our inquiry, and entertain each successive
guest, view-
"Their stature and their qualities," and select from their actions
all that is noblest and worthiest to know.
"Ah, and what greater pleasure can one have?" or what more effective
means to one's moral improvement? Democritus tells us we ought to
pray that of the phantasms appearing in the circumambient air, such
may present themselves to us as are propitious, and that we may rather
meet with those that are agreeable to our natures and are good than
the evil and unfortunate; which is simply introducing into philosophy
a doctrine untrue in itself, and leading to endless superstitions.
My method, on the contrary, is, by the study of history, and by the
familiarity acquired in writing, to habituate my memory to receive
and retain images of the best and worthiest characters. I thus am
enabled to free myself from any ignoble, base, or vicious impressions,
contracted from the contagion of ill company that I may be unavoidably
engaged in; by the remedy of turning my thoughts in a happy and calm
temper to view these noble examples. Of this kind are those of Timoleon
the Corinthian and Paulus Aemilius, to write whose lives is my present
business; men equally famous, not only for their virtues, but success;
insomuch that they have left it doubtful whether they owe their greatest
achievements to good fortune, or their own prudence and conduct.
The affairs of the Syracusans, before Timoleon was sent into Sicily,
were in this posture; after Dion had driven out Dionysius the tyrant,
he was slain by treachery, and those that had assisted him in delivering
Syracuse were divided among themselves; and thus the city by a continual
change of governors, and a train of mischiefs that succeeded each
other, became almost abandoned; while of the rest of Sicily, part
was now utterly depopulated and desolate through long continuance
of war, and most of the cities that had been left standing were in
the hands of barbarians and soldiers out of employment, that were
ready to embrace every turn of government. Such being the state of
things, Dionysius takes the opportunity, and in the tenth year of
his banishment, by the help of some mercenary troops he had got together,
forces out Nysaeus, then master of Syracuse, recovers all afresh,
and is again settled in his dominion; and as at first he had been
strangely deprived of the greatest and most absolute power that ever
was by a very small party, so now, in a yet stranger manner, when
in exile and of mean condition, he became the sovereign of those who
had ejected him. All therefore that remained in Syracuse had to serve
under a tyrant, who at the best was of an ungentle nature, and exasperated
now to a degree of savageness by the late misfortunes and calamities
he had suffered. The better and more distinguished citizens, having
timely retired thence to Hicetes, ruler of the Leontines, put themselves
under his protection, and chose him for their general in the war;
not that he was much preferable to any open and avowed tyrant, but
they had no other sanctuary at present, and it gave them some ground
of confidence he was of a Syracusan family, and had forces able to
encounter those of Dionysius.
In the meantime the Carthaginians appeared before Sicily with a great
navy, watching when and where they might make a descent upon the island;
and terror at this fleet made the Sicilians incline to send an embassy
into Greece to demand succours from the Corinthians, whom they confided
in rather than others, not only upon the account of their near kindred,
and the great benefits they had often received by trusting them, but
because Corinth had ever shown herself attached to freedom and averse
from tyranny and had engaged in many noble wars, not for empire or
aggrandizement, but for the sole liberty of the Greeks, But Hicetes,