The game which Hiketas was playing with the Carthaginians now stood plainly revealed, to the vehement indignation of the armament. Instead of being their friend, or even neutral, he was nothing less than a pronounced enemy, emancipating Syracuse from Dionysius only to divide it between himself and the Carthaginians. Yet with all the ardor of the armament, it was impossible to cross the strait in opposition to an enemy’s fleet of double force. Accordingly Timoleon resorted to a stratagem, in which the leaders and people of Rhegium, eagerly sympathizing with his projects of Sicilian emancipation, coöperated. In an interview with the envoys of Hiketas as well as with the Carthaginian commanders, he affected to accept the conditions prescribed by Hiketas; admitting at once that it was useless to stand out. But he at the same time reminded them, that he had been intrusted with the command of the armament for Sicilian purposes,—and that he should be a disgraced man, if he now conducted it back without touching the island; except under the pressure of some necessity not merely real, but demonstrable to all and attested by unexceptionable witnesses. He therefore desired them to appear, along with him, before the public assembly of Rhegium, a neutral city and common friend of both parties. They would then publicly repeat the communication which they had already made to him, and they would enter into formal engagement for the good treatment of the Syracusans, as soon as Dionysius should be expelled. Such proceeding would make the people of Rhegium witnesses on both points. They would testify on his (Timoleon’s) behalf, when he came to defend himself at Corinth, that he had turned his back only before invincible necessity, and that he had exacted everything in his power in the way of guarantee for Syracuse; they would testify also on behalf of the Syracusans, in case the guarantee now given should be hereafter evaded.[309] [309] Plutarch, Timoleon, c. 10.