according to law and
justice, and never concealed his dislike and hatred of the despots. For
this reason he permitted Timoleon to make his city his headquarters, and
prevailed on the citizens to cast in their lot with the Syracusans and
free their native land.

XI. At Rhegium meanwhile, the Carthaginians, when the assembly broke up
and Timoleon was gone, were infuriated at being outwitted, and became a
standing joke to the people of Rhegium, because they, although they were
Phoenicians, yet did not seem to enjoy a piece of deceit when it was at
their own expense. They then sent an ambassador in a trireme to
Tauromenium, who made a long speech to Andromachus, threatening him in a
bombastic and barbarian style with their vengeance if he did not at once
turn the Corinthians out of his city. At last he pointed to his
outstretched hand, and turning it over threatened that he would so deal
with the city. Andromachus laughed, and made no other answer than to
hold out his own hand in the same way, now with one side up, and now
with the other, and bade him sail away unless he wished to have his ship
so dealt with.

Hiketes, when he heard of Timoleon's arrival, in his terror sent for
many of the Carthaginian ships of war; and now the Syracusans began
utterly to despair of their safety, seeing the Carthaginians in
possession of the harbour, Hiketes holding the city, and Dionysius still
master of the promontory, while Timoleon was as it were hanging on the
outskirts of Sicily in that little fortress of Tauromenium, with but
little hope and a weak force, for he had no more than one thousand
soldiers and the necessary supplies for them. Nor had the cities of
Sicily any trust in him, as they were in great distress, and greatly
exasperated against those who pretended to lead armies to their succour,
on account of the treachery of Kallippus and Pharax; who, one an
Athenian and the other a Lacedaemonian, but both giving out that they
were come to fight for freedom and to put down despotism, did so
tyrannise themselves, that the reign of the despots in Sicily seemed to
have been a golden age, and those who died in slavery were thought more
happy than those who lived to see liberty.

XII. So thinking that the Corinthian would be no better than these men,
and that the same plausible and specious baits would be held out to lure
them with hopes and pleasant promises under the yoke of a new master,
they all viewed the proposals of the Cori