Diodorus Siculus, Library, Book XVI, Chapter 82

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At the end of this year, Lysimachides became archon at Athens, and in Rome there were elected as consuls Quintus Servilius and Marcus Rutilius.² In this year, Timoleon returned to Syracuse and promptly expelled from the city as traitors all the mercenaries who had abandoned him under the leadership of Thrasius. [2] These crossed over into Italy, and coming upon a coastal town in Bruttium, sacked it. The Bruttians, incensed, immediately marched against them with a large army, stormed the place, and shot them all down with javelins.³ Those who had abandoned Timoleon were rewarded by such misfortune for their own wickedness. [3]

Timoleon himself seized and put to death Postumius the Etruscan,⁴ who had been raiding sea traffic with twelve corsairs, and had put in at Syracuse as a friendly city. He received the new settlers sent out by the Corinthians kindly, to the number of five thousand. Then, when the Carthaginians sent envoys and pleaded with him urgently, he granted them peace on the terms that all the Greek cities should be free,⁵ that the river Lycus⁶ should be the boundary of their respective territories, and that the Carthaginians might not give aid to the tyrants who were at war with Syracuse. [4]

After this, he concluded his war with Hicetas and put him to death,⁷ and then attacked the Campanians in Aetna and wiped them out.⁸ Likewise he overbore Nicodemus, tyrant of Centuripae, and ousted him from that city; and putting an end to the tyranny of Apolloniades in Agyrium⁹ he gave Syracusan citizenship to its freed inhabitants. In a word, all of the tyrants throughout the island were uprooted and the cities were set free and taken into his alliance. [5] He made proclamation in Greece that the Syracusans would give land and houses to those who wished to come and share in their state, and many Greeks came to receive their allotments.¹⁰ Ultimately forty thousand settlers were assigned to the vacant land of Syracuse and ten thousand to that of Agyrium, because of its extent and quality. [6]

At this time, also, Timoleon revised the existing laws of Syracuse, which Diocles had composed.¹¹ Those concerning private contracts and inheritance he allowed to remain unaltered, but he amended those concerned with public affairs in whatever way seemed advantageous to his own concept. [7] Chairman and director of this legislative programme was Cephalus the Corinthian, a man distinguished for education and intelligence. When his hands were free of this matter, Timoleon transferred the people of Leontini to Syracuse, but sent additional settlers to Camarina and enlarged the city.

1 339/8 B.C.

2 Lysimachides was archon at Athens from July 339 to June 338 B.C. The consuls of 342 B.C. were Q. Servilius Ahala and C. Marcius Rutilus (Broughton, 1.133).

3 Plut. Timoleon 30.1-2. Another group of the impious mercenaries is mentioned also in 30.4.

4 This story does not appear in Plutarch.

5 "Freedom" in Greek political terminology did not exclude the possibility of an overlord, Carthage or Syracuse. Plut. Timoleon 34.1 does not mention this feature of the treaty.

6 Diodorus usually calls this river Halycus (Books 15.17.5; 23.9.5; 24.1.8).

7 Plut. Timoleon 31.2-32.1. Since Timoleon had just accepted the aid of Hicetas against the Carthaginians (chap. 77.5), this change of policy suggests some duplicity on his part (Westlake, Timoleon and his Relations with Tyrants, 15 f).

8 This is not mentioned by Plutarch.

9 This was Diodorus's own native city.

10 Plut. Timoleon 22.3-5; 23 (where the invitation was issued when Timoleon first became master of Syracuse); 35. According to the historian Athanis, quoted by Plut. Timoleon 23.4; Jacoby, Fragm. der gr. Hist. no. 562, F 2), there were 60,000 who came. Cp. further Book 19.2.8.

11 Cp. Book 13.33 and 35.

Diodorus Siculus. Diodorus of Sicily in Twelve Volumes with an English Translation by C. H. Oldfather. Vol. 4-8. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press; London: William Heinemann, Ltd. 1989.

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Cross-references to this page (9):
- A Dictionary of Greek and Roman Antiquities (1890), TYRANNUS
- Dictionary of Greek and Roman Geography (1854), AETNA
- Dictionary of Greek and Roman Geography (1854), AGY´RIUM
- Dictionary of Greek and Roman Geography (1854), LEONTI´NI
- Smith's Bio, Gisco
- Smith's Bio, Hi'cetas
- Smith's Bio, Mamercus
- Smith's Bio, Megillus
- Smith's Bio, Nicode'mus
Cross-references in notes from this page (5):
- Plutarch, Timoleon, 23.4
- Plutarch, Timoleon, 30.1
- Plutarch, Timoleon, 34.1
- Plutarch, Timoleon, 22.3
- Plutarch, Timoleon, 31.2
Cross-references in general dictionaries to this page (1):
- LSJ, ῥιζο-λογέω

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