sovereignty of which he had been appointed
guardian, that he would recommend that their liberty be recovered more
energetically from Andranodorus than it had been from Hieronymus."
From this assembly ambassadors were despatched. The senate began now
to meet, which though during the reign of Hiero it had continued to be
the public council of the state, from the time of his death up to the
present had never been assembled or consulted upon any subject. When
the ambassadors came to Andranodorus, he was himself moved by the
unanimous opinion of his countrymen, by their having possession of
other parts of the city, and by the fact that the strongest part of
the island was betrayed and placed in the hands of others; but his
wife, Demarata, the daughter of Hiero, still swelling with the pride
of royalty and female presumption, called him out from the presence of
the ambassadors, and reminded him of the expression so often repeated
by the tyrant Dionysius, "that a man ought only to relinquish
sovereign power when dragged by the feet, and not while sitting on
horseback. That it was an easy thing, at any moment one pleased, to
give up possession of grandeur, but that to create and obtain them was
difficult and arduous. That he should obtain from the ambassadors a
little time to deliberate, and to employ it in fetching the soldiers
from the Leontines; to whom, if he promised the royal treasure, every
thing would be at his disposal." This advice, suggested by a woman,
Andranodorus neither entirely rejected nor immediately adopted,
considering it the safer way to the attainment of power to temporize
for the present. Accordingly he told the ambassadors to carry word
back, that he should act subserviently to the senate and the people.
The next day, as soon as it was light, he threw open the gates of the
island, and came into the forum of the Achradina; then mounting the
altar of Concord, from which Polyaenus had delivered his harangue the
day before, he commenced a speech by soliciting pardon for his delay.
"He had kept the gates closed," he said, "not as separating his own
from the public interest, but from fear as to where the carnage would
stop when once the sword was drawn; whether they would be satisfied
with the blood of the tyrant, which was sufficient for their liberty,
or whether all who were connected with the court, by consanguinity,
affinity, or any offices, would, as implicated in another's guilt, be
butchered. After he p