He was now a private citizen of Syracuse, having neither paid soldiers under his command nor any other public function. As a reward for his splendid services, the Syracusans voted to him a house in the city, and a landed property among the best in the neighborhood. Here he fixed his residence, sending for his wife and family to Corinth.[392] [392] Plutarch, Timoleon, c. 36. Yet though Timoleon had renounced every species of official authority, and all means of constraint, his influence as an adviser over the judgment, feelings and actions, not only of Syracusans, but of Sicilians generally, was as great as ever; perhaps greater—because the fact of his spontaneous resignation gave him one title more to confidence. Rarely is it allowed to mortal man, to establish so transcendent a claim to confidence and esteem as Timoleon now presented; upon so many different grounds, and with so little of alloy or abatement. To possess a counsellor whom every one reverenced, without suspicions or fears of any kind—who had not only given conspicuous proofs of uncommon energy combined with skilful management, but enjoyed besides, in a peculiar degree, the favor of the gods—was a benefit unspeakably precious to the Sicilians at this juncture. For it was now the time when not merely Syracuse, but other cities of Sicily also, were aiming to strengthen their reconstituted free communities by a fresh supply of citizens from abroad. During the sixty years which had elapsed since the first formidable invasion wherein the Carthaginian Hannibal had conquered Selinus, there had been a series of causes all tending to cripple and diminish, and none to renovate, the Grecian population of Sicily. The Carthaginian attacks, the successful despotism of the first Dionysius, and the disturbed reign of the second,—all contributed to the same result. About the year 352-351 B. C., Plato (as has been already mentioned) expresses his fear of an extinction of Hellenism in Sicily giving place before Phenician or Campanian force.[393] And what was a sad possibility, even in 352-351 B. C.—had become nearer to a probability in 344 B. C., before Timoleon landed, in the then miserable condition of the island. [393] Plato, Epistol. viii. p. 353 F.