As it
was necessary for them to remain there for a time, they made use of
their leisure to perform a most excellent action. For the Thurians made
an expedition against the Bruttii,[A] and meanwhile these men took
charge of their city, and guarded it carefully and trustily as if it had
been their own.
[Footnote A: The natives of Southern Italy.]
Hiketes meanwhile was besieging the citadel of Syracuse, and preventing
corn from being brought by sea to the Corinthians. He also obtained two
strangers, whom he sent to assassinate Timoleon, who, trusting in the
favour shown him by the gods, was living carelessly and unsuspectingly
among the people of Adranum. These men, hearing that he was about to
offer sacrifice, came into the temple with daggers under their cloaks,
and mingling with the crowd round the altar, kept edging towards him.
They were just on the point of arranging their attack, when a man struck
one of them on the head with his sword, and he fell. Neither the
assailant nor the accomplice of the fallen man stood his ground, but the
one with his sword still in his hand ran and took refuge on a high rock,
while the other laid hold of the altar, and begged for pardon at
Timoleon's hands if he revealed the whole plot. When assured of his
safety he confessed that he and the man who had been killed had been
sent thither to assassinate Timoleon. Meanwhile others brought back the
man from the rock, who loudly declared that he had done no wrong, but
had justly slain him in vengeance for his father, whom this wretch had
killed at Leontini.
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