For the renovation of a community thus destitute, new funds as well as new men were wanted; and the Corinthians exerted themselves actively to procure both. Their first proclamation was indeed addressed specially to Syracusan exiles, whom they invited to resume their residence at Syracuse as free and autonomous citizens under a just allotment of lands. They caused such proclamation to be publicly made at all the Pan-hellenic and local festivals; prefaced by a certified assurance that the Corinthians had already overthrown both the despotism and the despot—a fact which the notorious presence of Dionysius himself at Corinth contributed to spread more widely than any formal announcement. They farther engaged, if the exiles would muster at Corinth, to provide transports, convoy, and leaders, to Syracuse, free of all cost. The number of exiles, who profited by the invitation and came to Corinth, though not inconsiderable, was still hardly strong enough to enter upon the proposed Sicilian renovation. They themselves therefore entreated the Corinthians to invite additional colonists from other Grecian cities. It was usually not difficult to find persons disposed to embark in a new settlement, if founded under promising circumstances, and effected under the positive management of a powerful presiding city.[356] There were many opulent persons anxious to exchange the condition of metics in an old city for that of full citizens in a new one. Hence the more general proclamation now issued by the Corinthians attracted numerous applicants, and a large force of colonists was presently assembled at Corinth; an aggregate of ten thousand persons, including the Syracusan exiles.[357] [356] Compare the case of the Corinthian proclamation respecting Epidamnus, Thucyd. i. 27; the Lacedæmonian foundation of Herakleia, Thucyd. iii. 93; the proclamation of the Battiad Arkesilaus at Samos, for a new body of settlers to Kyrênê (Herodot. iv. 163). [357] Plutarch, Timoleon, c. 23. Diodorus states only five thousand (xvi. 82) as coming from Corinth. When conveyed to Syracuse, by the fleet and under the formal sanction of the Corinthian government, these colonists found a still larger number there assembled, partly Syracusan exiles, yet principally emigrants from the different cities of Sicily and Italy. The Italian Greeks, at this time hard pressed by the constantly augmenting force of the Lucanians and Bruttians, were becoming so unable to defend themselves without foreign aid, that several were probably disposed to seek other homes. The invitation of Timoleon counted even more than that of the Corinthians as an allurement to new comers—from the unbounded admiration and confidence which he now inspired; more especially as he was actually present at Syracuse. Accordingly, the total of immigrants from all quarters (restored exiles as well as others) to Syracuse in its renovated freedom was not less than sixty thousand.[358]