TIMOLEON SAILS FOR SICILY. 14JS tion of the Delphian temple, that they were glad to ta.se foreign service anywhere. 1 Some enthusiasm was indeed required to determine volunteer! m an enterprise of which the formidable difficulties, and the doubtful reward, were obvious from the beginning. But even be- fore the preparations were completed, news came which seemed to render it all but hopeless. Hiketas sent a second mission, re- tracting all that he said in the first, and desiring that no expedi tion might be sent from Corinth. Not having received Corinthian aid in time (he said), he had been compelled to enter into alliance with the Carthaginians, who would not permit any Corinthian soldeirs to set foot in Sicily. This communication, greatly exas- perating the Corinthians against Hiketas, rendered them more hearty in votes to put him down. Yet their zeal for active ser- vice, far from being increased, was probably even abated by the aggravation of obstacles thus revealed. If Timoleon even reach- ed Sicily, he would find numberless enemies, without a single friend of importance : for without Hiketas, the Syracusan peo- ple were almost helpless. But it now seemed impossible that Timoleon with his small force could ever touch the Sicilian shore, in the face of a numerous and active Carthaginian fleet. 2 While human circumstances thus seemed hostile, the gods held out to Timoleon the most favorable signs and omens. Not only did he receive an encouraging answer at Delphi, but while he was actually in the temple, a fillet with intertwined wreaths and sym- bols of victory fell from one of the statues upon his head. The priestesses of Persephone learnt from the goddess in a dream, that she was about to sail with Timoleon for Sicily, her own fa- vorite island. Accordingly he caused a new special trireme to be fitted out, sacred to the Two goddesses (Demeter and Persepho- ne) who were about to accompany him. And when, after leaving Korkyra, the squadron struck across for a night voyage to the Italian coast, this sacred trireme was seen illumined by a blaze of light from heaven ; while a burning torch on high, similar to that 1 Plntarch, Timoleon, c. 8, 11, 12, 30; Diodor, xvi. 66; Plutarch, Ser Num. Vinci, p. 552. In the Aristotelian treatise, Rhetorica ad Alcxandrum, . 9, Timoleon is said to have had nine ships. 1 Plutarch, Timoleon, c. 7.
