d begged
Timophanes, by all he held sacred, to renounce his ambitious projects.
The new despot repelled his appeal with contempt. Timoleon went again,
this time with three friends, but with no better effect. Timophanes
laughed them to scorn, and as they continued their pleading he grew
angry and refused to hear more. Then the three friends drew their swords
and killed the tyrant on the spot, while Timoleon stood aside, with his
face hidden and his eyes bathed in tears.

He who had saved his brother's life at the risk of his own had now
consented to his death to save his country. But personally, although all
Corinth warmly applauded his patriotic act, he was thrown into the most
violent grief and remorse. This was the greater from the fact that his
mother viewed his deed with horror and execration, invoked curses on his
head, and refused even to see him despite his earnest supplications.

The gratitude of the city was overcome in his mind by grief for his
brother, and he was attacked by the bitterest pangs of remorse. The
killing of the tyrant he had felt to be a righteous and necessary act.
The murder of his brother afflicted him with despair. For a time he
refused food, resolving to end his odious life by starvation. Only the
prayers of his friends made him change this resolution. Then, like one
pursued by the furies, he fled from the city, hid himself in solitude,
and kept aloof from the eyes and voices of men. For several years he
thus dwelt in self-afflicting solitude, and when at length time reduced
his grief and he returned to the city, he shunned all prominent
positions, and lived in humility and retirement. Thus time went on until
twenty years had passed, Timoleon still, in spite of the affection and
sympathy of his fellow-citizens, refusing any office or place of
authority.

But now an event occurred which was to make this grieving patriot famous
through all time, as the favored of the gods and one of the noblest of
men,--the Washington of the far past. To tell how this came about we
must go back some distance in time. Corinth, though it played no leading
part in the wars of Greece, like Athens, Sparta, and Thebes, was still
a city of much importance, its situation on the isthmus between the
Peloponnesus and northern Greece being excellent for commerce and
maritime enterprise. Many years before it had sent out a colony which
founded the city of Syracuse, in Sicily. It was in aid of this city of
Syracuse that