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 perceived that those who had liberated their country were desirous of preserving it when liberated, and that the counsels of all were directed towards the public good, he had not hesitated to restore to his country his own person and every thing else which had been committed to his honour and guardianship, since the person who had intrusted him with them had fallen a victim to his own madness.”  Then turning to the persons who had killed the tyrant, and calling on Theodotus and Sosis by name, he said, “You have performed a memorable deed, but believe me, your glory is only beginning, not yet perfected; and there still remains great danger lest the enfranchised state should be destroyed, if you do not provide for its tranquillity and harmony.”

23.  At the conclusion of this speech, he laid the keys of the gates and of the royal treasure at their feet; and on that day, retiring from the assembly in the highest spirits, they made supplication with their wives and children at all the temples of the gods.  On the following day an assembly was held for the election of praetors.  Andranodorus was created among the first; the rest consisted for the most part of the destroyers of the tyrant; two of these, Sopater and Dinomenes, they appointed in their absence.  These, on hearing of what had passed at Syracuse,