XXIX.  The Greeks discovered the rank of the dead by the richness of their spoil; for when they collected the booty no account was taken of iron or brass, such an abundance was there of silver and gold; for they crossed the river and captured the enemy’s camp.  Of the captives, the greater part were stolen by the soldiers, and sold privately, but a body of five thousand was brought into the common stock.  Two hundred chariots also were taken.  The most glorious and magnificent spectacle of all was the tent of Timoleon, round which booty of every kind was piled up in heaps, among which were a thousand corslets of exquisite workmanship, and ten thousand shields.  As they were but few to gather the plunder of so many, and as they fell in with such riches, it was only on the third day that they managed to erect a trophy of their victory.  Together with the despatch announcing his success, Timoleon sent home to Corinth the finest of the arms and armour, desiring to make his country envied by all men, when they should see, in that alone of all Greek cities, that the most important shrines were not adorned with Grecian spoils, nor with offerings obtained by the slaughter of men of their own race and blood, dismal memorials at best, but with spoils of the barbarian, whose inscriptions bore noble testimony to the justice, as well as the courage of the victors, telling how the Corinthians and their general, Timoleon, having freed the Greeks who dwell in Sicily from the yoke of Carthage, set up these thank-offerings to the gods.

XXX.  After the victory he left the paid force in the enemy’s country, to ravage and plunder the Carthaginian dominions, and himself proceeded to Syracuse.  He now ordered out of the island those mercenary troops by whom he had been deserted before the battle; and even forced them to quit Sicily before sunset.  These men crossed into Italy and perished there at the hands of the Bruttians, who broke their word to them and betrayed them.  This was the penalty which Heaven imposed on them for their desertion.  But Mamercus, the despot of Catana, and Hiketes, either through disgust at Timoleon’s successes, or else fearing him as a man not likely to keep faith with despots, made an alliance with Carthage, as they said that the Carthaginians, unless they wished to be utterly driven out of Sicily, must send a competent force and a general.  Gisco the son of Hanno sailed thither with seventy ships, and also with a force of Greek mercenary soldiers, whom the Carthaginians had never used before; but now they were full of admiration for the Greeks, as being the most warlike and invincible of men.  Having effected a junction of their forces in the territory of Messina, they cut to pieces a body of four hundred foreign soldiers whom Timoleon sent against them; and in the Carthaginian dominion they laid an ambush near the place called Hietae, and cut off the hired troops of Euthymus the Leukadian.  Both these circumstances made the good fortune of