Hide browse bar Your current position in the text is marked in blue. Click anywhere in the line to jump to another position:
book:
chapter:
Contents of the Sixteenth Book of Diodorus
chapter 1chapter 2chapter 3chapter 4chapter 5chapter 6chapter 7chapter 8chapter 9chapter 10chapter 11chapter 12chapter 13chapter 14chapter 15chapter 16chapter 17chapter 18chapter 19chapter 20chapter 21chapter 22chapter 23chapter 24chapter 25chapter 26chapter 27chapter 28chapter 29chapter 30chapter 31chapter 32chapter 33chapter 34chapter 35chapter 36chapter 37chapter 38chapter 39chapter 40chapter 41chapter 42chapter 43chapter 44chapter 45chapter 46chapter 47chapter 48chapter 49chapter 50chapter 51chapter 52chapter 53chapter 54chapter 55chapter 56chapter 57chapter 58chapter 59chapter 60chapter 61chapter 62chapter 63chapter 64chapter 65chapter 66chapter 67chapter 68chapter 69chapter 70chapter 71chapter 72chapter 73chapter 74chapter 75chapter 76chapter 77chapter 78chapter 79chapter 80chapter 81chapter 82chapter 83chapter 84chapter 85chapter 86chapter 87chapter 88chapter 89chapter 90chapter 91chapter 92chapter 93chapter 94chapter 95
This text is part of:
Search the Perseus Catalog for:
The
mercenaries received his speech with enthusiasm and were on the point of mutiny, but Timoleon
with some difficulty quieted the disturbance by urgent pleading and the offer of gifts. Even
so, a thousand men did go off with Thrasius,1 but he put off their punishment till
a later time, and by writing to his friends in Syracuse to receive them kindly and to pay them
their arrears he brought the unrest to an end, but also stripped the disobedient men of all
credit for the victory.
[2]
With the rest, whose loyalty he had
regained by tactful handling, he marched against the enemy who were encamped not far away.
Calling an assembly of the troops, he encouraged them with an address, describing the cowardice
of the Phoenicians and recalling the success of Gelon.2
[3]
Just at the moment when all as
with one voice were clamouring to attack the barbarians and to begin the battle, it chanced
that pack animals came carrying wild celery3 for their bedding, and Timoleon declared that he accepted the omen of his
victory, for the crown at the Isthmian games is woven of this.
[4]
On his suggestion, the soldiers plaited crowns out of celery and with their heads wreathed
advanced cheerfully in the confidence that the gods foretold their victory. And that, as a
matter of fact, is how it was,
[5]
for unpredictably, incredible
to tell, they got the better of the enemy not only through their own valour but also through
the gods' specific assistance.Timoleon deployed his forces and
advanced down from a line of little hills to the river Crimisus,4 where ten thousand of the enemy had already crossed. These he shattered at
the first onset, taking his own position in the centre of his line.5
[6]
There was a sharp fight, but as the Greeks were superior both
in bravery and in skill, there was great slaughter of the barbarians. The rest began to flee,
but the main body of the Carthaginians crossed the river in the mean time and restored the
situation.
2 That is, at the battle of Himera, 480 B.C. Polybius reproaches Timaeus for placing in the mouth of Timoleon derogatory remarks concerning the Carthaginians, but not advancing proof that Timoleon did not actually speak in this way (12.26a; Jacoby, Fragmente der griechischen Historiker, no. 566, F 31).
3 This was the apium graveolens which is also frequently called parsley. It is fragrant (cp. Olck, Real-Encyclopädie, 6 (1909), 255 f.). This anecdote was told by Timaeus (Jacoby, Fragmente der griechischen Historiker, no. 566, F 118) and appears in Plut. Timoleon 26.
4 The river is variously spelled Crimesus (Plut. Timoleon 25.4) and Crimissus (Nepos Timoleon 2.4).
5 The story of the battle is told more circumstantially in Plut. Timoleon 27-29. The time was just before the summer solstice of 339 B.C. (Plut. Timoleon 27.1).
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.
The Annenberg CPB/Project provided support for entering this text.
Purchase a copy of this text (not necessarily the same edition) from Amazon.com
This work is licensed under a
Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 United States License.
An XML version of this text is available for download, with the additional restriction that you offer Perseus any modifications you make. Perseus provides credit for all accepted changes, storing new additions in a versioning system.
show
Browse Bar
hide
Places (automatically extracted)
View a map of the most frequently mentioned places in this document.
Download Pleiades ancient places geospacial dataset for this text.
hide
Dates (automatically extracted)
Sort dates
alphabetically,
as they appear on the page,
by frequency
Click on a date to search for it in this document.
1909 AD (1)Click on a date to search for it in this document.
480 BC (1)
339 BC (1)
hide
References (7 total)
hide
Search
hideStable Identifiers
hide
Display Preferences