“The Syracusan people solemnise, at the cost of two hundred minae, the funeral of this man, the Corinthian Timoleon, son of Timodemus.  They have passed a vote to honour him for all future time with festival matches in music, horse and chariot races, and gymnastics, because, after having put down the despots, subdued the foreign enemy, and recolonized the greatest among the ruined cities, he restored to the Sicilian Greeks their constitution and laws."[A]

[Footnote A:  Grote.]

They buried him in the market-place, and afterwards surrounded the spot with a colonnade, and built a palastra in it for the young men to practise in, and called it the Timoleonteum; and, living under the constitution and laws which he established, they passed many years in prosperity.

LIFE OF AEMILIUS.

II.[A] Most writers agree that the Aemilian was one of the most noble and ancient of the patrician families of Rome.  Those who tell us that King Numa was a pupil of Pythagoras, narrate also that Mamercus, the founder of this family, was a son of that philosopher, who for his singular grace and subtlety of speech was surnamed Aemilius.  Most of the members of the family who gained distinction by their valour, were also fortunate, and even the mishap of Lucius Paullus at Cannae bore ample testimony to his prudence and valour.  For since he could not prevail upon his colleague to refrain from battle, he, though against his better judgment, took part in it, and disdained to fly; but when he who had begun the contest fled from it, he stood firm, and died fighting the enemy.  This Aemilius had a daughter, who married Scipio the Great, and a son who is the subject of this memoir.  Born in an age which was rendered illustrious by the valour and wisdom of many distinguished men, he eclipsed them all, though he followed none of the studies by which young men were then gaining themselves a reputation, but chose a different path.  He did not practise at the bar, nor could he bring himself to court the favour of the people by the greetings, embraces, and professions of friendship to which most men used to stoop to obtain popularity.  Not that he was by nature unfitted for such pursuits; but he considered it better to gain a reputation for courage, justice, and truth, in which he soon outshone his contemporaries.

[Footnote A:  In Sintenis’s text the chapter with which this life usually begins is prefixed to the Life of Timoleon.]

III.  The first honourable office for which he was a candidate was that of aedile, for which he was elected against twelve others, who, they say, all afterwards became consuls.  When chosen a priest of the college of Augurs, whom the Romans appoint to watch and register the omens derived from the flight of birds, or the signs of the heavens, he so carefully applied himself to learning the ancient customs and religion of his ancestors, that the priesthood, hitherto