for neighbours.  Accordingly they called together an assembly and shut the city gates, that the citizens might not attend to anything else, and then, coming forward, they made speeches of great length, one man treating the subject after another without coming to any conclusion, but merely wasting the time, until the Corinthian triremes had put to sea.  The Carthaginians were kept at the assembly without suspecting anything, because Timoleon himself was present and gave them to understand that he was just upon the point of rising and making them a speech.  But when news was secretly conveyed to him that the fleet was under way, and that his ship alone was left behind waiting for him, he slipped through the crowd, the Rhegines who stood round the bema[A] helping to conceal him, and, gaining the seashore, sailed off with all haste.

[Footnote A:  Bema, the tribune from which the orators spoke.]

They reached Tauromenium in Sicily, where they were hospitably received by Andromachus, the ruler and lord of that city, who had long before invited them thither.  This Andromachus was the father of Timaeus, the historian, and being as he was by far the most powerful of the legitimate princes of Sicily, ruled his subjects according to law and justice, and never concealed his dislike and hatred of the despots.  For this reason he permitted Timoleon to make his city his headquarters, and prevailed on the citizens to cast in their lot with the Syracusans and free their native land.

XI.  At Rhegium meanwhile, the Carthaginians, when the assembly broke up and Timoleon was gone, were infuriated at being outwitted, and became a standing joke to the people of Rhegium, because they, although they were Phoenicians, yet did not seem to enjoy a piece of deceit when it was at their own expense.  They then sent an ambassador in a trireme to Tauromenium, who made a long speech to Andromachus, threatening him in a bombastic and barbarian style with their vengeance if he did not at once turn the Corinthians out of his city.  At last he pointed to his outstretched hand, and turning it over threatened that he would so deal with the city.  Andromachus laughed, and made no other answer than to hold out his own hand in the same way, now with one side up, and now with the other, and bade him sail away unless he wished to have his ship so dealt with.

Hiketes, when he heard of Timoleon’s arrival, in his terror sent for many of the Carthaginian ships of war; and now the Syracusans began utterly to despair of their safety, seeing the Carthaginians in possession of the harbour, Hiketes holding the city, and Dionysius still master of the promontory, while Timoleon was as it were hanging on the outskirts of Sicily in that little fortress of Tauromenium, with but little hope and a weak force, for he had no more than one thousand soldiers and the necessary supplies for them.  Nor had the cities of Sicily any trust in him, as they were in great distress, and greatly exasperated