Not many days elapsed before a deputation came from Leontini begging for a force to protect their territory. This request seemed to afford a most favourable opportunity for relieving the city of a number of insubordinate and disorderly characters and getting rid of their leaders. [2] Hippocrates received orders to march the deserters to Leontini, with these and a large body of mercenaries he made up a force of 4000 men. [3] The expedition was welcomed both by those who were despatched and those who were despatching them: the former saw the opportunity, long hoped for, of effecting a revolution; the latter were thankful that the dregs of the city were being cleared out. It was, however, only a temporary alleviation of the disease, which afterwards became all the more aggravated. [4] For Hippocrates began to devastate the country adjacent to the Roman province; at first making stealthy raids, then, when Appius had sent a detachment to protect the fields of the allies of Rome, he made an attack with his entire force upon one of the outposts and inflicted heavy loss. [5] When Marcellus was informed of this he promptly sent envoys to Syracuse to say that the peace they had guaranteed was broken, and that an occasion of war would never be wanting until Hippocrates and Epicydes had been banished far away, not only from Syracuse, but from Sicily. Epicydes feared that if he remained he should be held responsible for the misdeeds of his absent brother, and also should be unable to do his share in stirring up war, so he left for Leontini, and finding the people there sufficiently exasperated against Rome, he tried to detach them from Syracuse as well. [6] "The Syracusans," he said, "have concluded a peace with Rome on condition that all the communities which were under their kings should remain under their rule; [7] they are no longer content to be free themselves unless they can rule and tyrannise over others. [8] You must make them understand that the Leontines also think it right that they should be free, and that for two reasons; it was on Leontine soil that the tyrant fell, and it was at Leontini that the cry of liberty was first raised, and from Leontini the people flocked to Syracuse, after deserting the royal leaders. Either that provision of the treaty must be struck out, or if it is insisted upon, the treaty must not be accepted." [9] They had no difficulty in persuading the people, and when the Syracusan envoys made their protest against the massacre of [10??] the Roman outpost and demanded that Hippocrates and Epicydes should go to Locri or any other place which they preferred so long as they left Sicily, they received the defiant reply that the Leontines had given no mandate to the Syracusans to conclude a treaty with Rome, nor were they bound by any compacts which other people made. [11] The Syracusans reported this to the Romans, and said that the Leontines were not [12??] under their control, "in which case," they added, "the Romans may carry on war with them without any infringement of their treaty with us, nor shall we stand aloof in such a war, if it is clearly understood that when they have been subjugated they will again form part of our dominions in accordance with the terms of the treaty."
Livy. History of Rome. English Translation by. Rev. Canon Roberts. New York, New York. E. P. Dutton and Co. 1912. 1. Livy. History of Rome. English Translation. Rev. Canon Roberts. New York, New York. E. P. Dutton and Co. 1912. 2.
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