or pardon at
Timoleon's hands if he revealed the whole plot. When assured of his
safety he confessed that he and the man who had been killed had been
sent thither to assassinate Timoleon. Meanwhile others brought back the
man from the rock, who loudly declared that he had done no wrong, but
had justly slain him in vengeance for his father, whom this wretch had
killed at Leontini. Several of those present bore witness to the truth
of his story, and they marvelled much at the ways of Fortune, how she
makes the most incongruous elements work together to accomplish her
purposes. The Corinthians honoured the man with a present of ten minae,
because he had co-operated with the guardian angel of Timoleon, and had
put off the satisfaction of his private wrong until a time when it saved
the life of the general. This good fortune excited men's feelings so
that they guarded and reverenced Timoleon as a sacred person sent by
heaven to restore the liberties of Sicily.

XVII. When Hiketes failed in this attempt on Timoleon, and saw that many
were joining him, he began to blame himself for only using the great
Carthaginian force that was present by stealth, and as if he was ashamed
of it, concealing his alliance and using them clandestinely, and he sent
for Mago, their General, to come with all the force at his disposal. He
sailed in with a formidable fleet of a hundred and fifty ships, and took
possession of the harbour, disembarked sixty thousand troops, and
encamped with them in the city of Syracuse, so that all men thought that
the long-talked-of and expected subjugation of Sicily to the barbarian
was imminent. For the Carthaginians during their endless wars in Sicily
had never before taken Syracuse, but now, by the invitation of the
traitor Hiketes, the city was turned into a barbarian camp. The
Corinthians in the citadel were in a position of great danger and
difficulty, as they no longer had sufficient provisions, because the
harbours were blockaded, and they perpetually had to divide their forces
for skirmishes and battles at the walls, and to repel every device and
method of attack known in sieges.

XVIII. Timoleon, however, relieved them by sending corn from Katana in
small fishing-smacks and boats, which, chiefly in stormy weather, stole
in through the triremes of the barbarians when they were scattered by
the roughness of the sea. Mago and Hiketes, perceiving this, determined
to take Katana, from which place the besieged