150 HISTORY OF GREECE. Hiketas was still master of all Syracuse except Ortygia, against which he had constructed lines of blockade, in conjunction with the Carthaginian fleet occupying the harbor. Tirnoleon was in no condition to attack the place, and would have been obliged speedily to retire, as his enemies did not choose to come out. But it was soot seer, that the manifestations of the Two goddesses, and of the god Adranus, in his favor, were neither barren nor delusive. A real boon was now thrown into his lap, such as neither skill nor valor could have won. Dionysius, blocked up in Ortygia with a scanty supply of provisions, saw from his walls the approaching army of Timoleon, and heard of the victory of Adranum. lie had already begun to despair of his own position of Ortygia ; l where indeed he might perhaps hold out by bold effort and steady endurance, but without any reasonable chance of again becoming master of Syracuse ; a chance which Timoleon and the Corinthian intervention cut off more decidedly than ever. Dionysius was a man not only without the energetic character and personal ascen- dency of his father, which might have made head against such dif- ficulties but indolent and drunken in his habits, not relishing a sceptre when it could only be maintained by hard fighting, nor stubborn enough to stand out to the last merely as a cause of war. 2 Under these dispositions, the arrival of Timoleon both suggested to him the idea, and furnished him with the means, of making his resignation subservient to the purchase of a safe asy- lum and comfortable future maintenance : for to a Grecian despot, with the odium of past severities accumulated upon his head, abnegation of power was hardly ever possible, consistent with personal security.3 But Dionysius felt assured that he might trust to the guarantee of Timoleon and the Corinthians for shel- Next, it will appear from subsequent operations, that Timoleon did not, on this occasion, get possession of any other portion of Syracuse than the Islet Ortygia, surrendered to him by Dionysius. He did not enter Epipola until afterwards. 1 Plutarch, Timolecn, c. 13. uTmp^/cwf r/d// ralg sXmai nal fj.LK.pbv UKQ- AITTUV eKTrohiopneiafiai, etc.
- Tacitus, Histor. iii. 70. Respecting the last days of the Emperor Vi-
lellius, " Ipse, noque jubendi neque vctandi potens, non jam Imperator, scd tantum belli causa erat."
- Sec, among other illustrations of this fact, the striking remark of Solot
(Plutarch, Solon, ?. 14).
