the general Timoleon, after liberating the Sicilian Greeks from the Carthaginians, have dedicated these shields as offerings of gratitude to the gods.”[377] [376] Claudian, De Tertio Consulatu Honorii, v. 93. “Te propter, gelidis Aquilo de monte procellis Obruit adversas acies, revolutaque tela Vertit in auctores, et turbine reppulit hastas. O nimium dilecte Deo, cui fundit ab antris Æolus armatas hyemes; cui militat æther, Et conjurati veniunt ad classica venti.” Compare a passage in the speech of Thrasybulus, Xenoph. Hellen. ii. 4, 14. [377] Plutarch, Timoleon, c. 29; Diodor. xvi. 80. Leaving most of his paid troops to carry on war in the Carthaginian province, Timoleon conducted his Syracusans home. His first proceeding was, at once to dismiss Thrasius with the one thousand paid soldiers who had deserted him before the battle. He commanded them to quit Sicily, allowing them only twenty-four hours to depart from Syracuse itself. Probably under the circumstances, they were not less anxious to go away than he was to dismiss them. But they went away only to destruction; for having crossed the Strait of Messina and taken possession of a maritime site in Italy on the Southern sea, the Bruttians of the inland entrapped them by professions of simulated friendship, and slew them all.[378] [378] Plutarch, Timoleon, c. 30; Diodor. xvi. 82. Timoleon had now to deal with two Grecian enemies—Hiketas and Mamerkus—the despots of Leontini and Katana. By the extraordinary rapidity of his movements, he had crushed the great invading host of Carthage, before it came into coöperation with these two allies. Both now wrote in terror to Carthage, soliciting a new armament, as indispensable for their security not less than for the Carthaginian interest in the island; Timoleon being the common enemy of both. Presently Giskon son of Hanno, having been recalled on purpose out of banishment, arrived from Carthage with a considerable force—seventy triremes, and a body of Grecian mercenaries. It was rare for the Carthaginians to employ Grecian mercenaries; but the battle of Krimêsus is said to have persuaded them that there were no soldiers to be compared to Greeks. The force of Giskon was apparently distributed partly in the Carthaginian province at the western angle of the island—partly in the neighborhood of Mylæ and Messênê on the north-east, where Mamerkus joined him with the troops of Katana. Messênê appears to have recently fallen under the power of a despot named Hippon, who acted as their ally. To both points Timoleon despatched a portion of his mercenary force, without going himself in command; on both, his troops at first experienced partial defeats; two divisions of them, one comprising four hundred men, being cut to pieces. But such partial reverses were, in the religious appreciation of the time, proofs more conspicuous than ever of the peculiar favor shown by the gods towards Timoleon. For the soldiers thus slain