XXXII.  Soon after this, while Timoleon was campaigning in the Leontine country, he took Hiketes alive, with his son Eupolemus, and Euthymus, the commander of his cavalry.  The soldiers seized and bound them, and led them into Timoleon’s presence.  Hiketes and his son were put to death as despots and traitors; nor did Euthymus meet with compassion, though he was a man of renown in athletic contest, and of great personal bravery, because of a scoffing speech of which he was accused against the Corinthians.  The story goes that he was addressing the people of Leontini on the subject of the Corinthian invasion, and told them that there was nothing to be alarmed at if

     “Corinthian ladies have come out from home."[A]

Thus it is that most people seem to suffer more from hard words than hard deeds, and are more excited by insult than by actual hurt.  What we do to our enemies in war is done of necessity, but the evil we say of them seems to spring from an excess of spite.

[Footnote A:  A line in the Medea of Euripides.  The point of the joke depends on the punctuation, but cannot be kept in translation.]

XXXIII.  On Timoleon’s return the Syracusans brought the family and daughters of Hiketes before the public assembly for trial, and condemned them to death.  And this, methinks, is the most heartless of Timoleon’s actions, that for want of a word from him these poor creatures should have perished.  He seems not to have interfered, and to have let the people give full vent to their desire to avenge Dion, who dethroned Dionysius.  For Hiketes was the man who threw Dion’s wife Arete alive into the sea, with her sister Aristomache and her little son, as is told in the Life of Dion.

XXXIV.  After this he marched against Mamercus at Catana.  He beat him in a pitched battle near the river Abolus, routing him with a loss of two thousand men, no small part of whom belonged to the Phoenician contingent under Gisco.  Hereupon, at the request of the Carthaginians, he made peace, stipulating that they should hold the country beyond the river Lykus, and that those who wished should be allowed to have it and go to reside at Syracuse, with their families and property, and also that they should give up their alliance with the despots.  In despair at this Mamercus sailed to Italy, to try to bring the Lucanians against Timoleon and the Syracusans; but he was deserted by his followers, who turned their ships back, sailed to Syracuse, and surrendered Catana to Timoleon.  Mamercus now was forced to take refuge in Messina with Hippo, the despot there.  But Timoleon came and besieged it both by sea and land.  Hippo endeavoured to escape on a ship, and was taken.  The people of Messina, to whom he was delivered up, brought every one, even the boys from school, into the theatre, to witness that most salutary spectacle, a tyrant meeting with his deserts.  He was put to death with torture; but Mamercus surrendered himself to