Besides these, there was the paid
force, four thousand in number; and of these again about a thousand were
overcome by their fears on the march, and went back, declaring that
Timoleon could not be in his right senses, but must be insane to march
with five thousand foot and a thousand horse to attack seventy thousand
men, and to separate his force eight days' journey from Syracuse, in a
place where there was no hope of shelter for the fugitives or of
honourable burial for the dead. Timoleon treated it as an advantage that
these men disclosed their cowardice before the day of battle. He
encouraged the rest, and led them with all haste to the river Krimesus,
where he heard that the Carthaginians were concentrating.
XXVI. As he was mounting a hill, beyond which he expected to see the
camp and army of the enemy, there met him some mules loaded with
parsley. It occurred to the soldiers that this was a bad omen, for we
generally use parsley for wreathing tombs; indeed from this practice
arises the proverb, when a man is dangerously ill, that he is ready for
his parsley. Wishing to rid them from this superstition and to stop
their fears, Timoleon halted them, and made a suitable speech, pointing
out that their crown of victory had come of its own accord into their
hands before the battle, for this is the herb with which the Corinthians
crown the victors at the Isthmian games, accounting it sacred and
peculiar to their own country.
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