with Themistus, who had married the daughter of Gelon, and a few days afterwards incautiously disclosed it to a certain tragic actor, named Ariston, to whom he was in the habit of committing other secrets.  He was a man of reputable birth and fortune, nor did his profession disgrace them, for among the Greeks no pursuit of that kind was considered dishonourable.  He therefore discovered the plot to the praetors, from a conviction that his country had a superior claim upon his fidelity.  These having satisfied themselves that his statement was not false by indubitable proofs, took the advice of the elder senators, and with their sanction, having placed a guard at the doors, slew Themistus and Andranodorus as soon as they had entered the senate-house.  A disturbance arising in consequence of this act, which, as none but the praetors knew the cause of it, wore an appearance of atrocity, the praetors, having at length procured silence, introduced the informer into the senate-house; and after he had in a regular manner detailed to the senate every particular, showing that the conspiracy owed its origin to the marriage of Harmonia, the daughter of Gelon, with Themistus; that the African and Spanish auxiliaries had been prepared to murder the praetors and others of the nobility; that it had been given out that their goods were to be the booty of the assassins; that already a band of mercenaries accustomed to obey the command of Andranodorus had been procured for the reoccupation of the island; and having then distinctly represented to them the several parts which the persons implicated in the transaction were performing, and having brought under their view the entire plot prepared for execution with men and arms; it seemed to the senate that they had fallen as justly as Hieronymus had.  A shout was raised before the senate-house by a crowd of people variously disposed and uncertain of the facts; but as they were conducting themselves in a furious and menacing manner, the bodies of the conspirators in the vestibule of the senate-house restrained them with such alarm, that they silently followed the more discreet part of the commons to an assembly.  Sopater was the person commissioned by the senate and his colleague to explain the affair.

25.  Treating them as if they stood upon their trial, he began with their past lives; and insisted that Andranodorus and Themistus were the authors of every act of iniquity and impiety which had been perpetrated since the death of Hiero.  “For what,” said he, “did the boy Hieronymus ever do of his own accord?  What could he do who had scarce as yet arrived at puberty?  His tutors and guardians had ruled, while the odium rested on another.  Therefore they ought to have been put to death either before Hieronymus or with him.  Nevertheless those men, deservedly marked out for death, had attempted fresh crimes after the decease of the tyrant; first openly, when, closing the gates of the island, Andranodorus declared himself heir to the throne, and kept that