with this small force, Timoleon set out to conquer a city and
kingdom on whose conquest Athens, years before, had lavished hundreds of
ships and tens of thousands of men in vain. The effort seemed utterly
puerile. Was the handful of Corinthians to succeed where all the
imperial power of Athens had failed? Yet the gods fought with Timoleon.

In truth, from the day he left Corinth, those presages of fortune, on
which the Greeks so greatly depended, gathered about his path across the
seas. The signs and tokens were all favorable. While he was at Delphi,
seeking the favor of Apollo, a fillet with wreaths and symbols of
victory fell from a statue upon his head, and the goddess Persephone
told her priestess in a dream that she was about to sail with Timoleon
to Sicily, her favorite island. He took, therefore, a special trireme,
sacred to the goddesses Demeter and Persephone, both of whom were to
accompany him. While at sea this sacred trireme was illumined by a light
from heaven, while a burning torch on high seemed to guide the fleet to
a safe harbor. All these portents filled the adventurers with hope and
joy.

But Timoleon had himself to depend on as well as the gods. At the
Italian port of Rhegium he found Hicetas, the despot of a Sicilian city,
who had invited him to Sicily, but was now allied with the
Carthaginians. He had there twenty of the war-ships of Carthage, double
the force of Timoleon. Yet the shrewd Corinthian played with and tricked
him, set him to talking and the people of Rhegium to talking with him,
and slipped slyly out of the harbor with his ships while the
interminable talk went on.

This successful stratagem redoubled the spirit of his followers. Landing
at a small town on the Sicilian coast, a new enterprise presented
itself. Forty miles inland lay the town of Adranum, sacred to the god
Adranus, a deity worshipped throughout Sicily. There were two parties in
Adranum, one of which invited Timoleon, the other Hicetas. The latter at
once started thither, with a force of five thousand men, an army with
which that of Timoleon seemed too small to cope. But heedless of this
discrepancy Timoleon hastened thither, and on arriving near the town
perceived that the opposing army had outstripped him in speed. Hicetas,
not aware of the approach of a foe, had encamped, and his men were
disarmed and at their suppers.

The small army of Timoleon, worn out with their long and rapid march,
and in sight of an enemy