¶ Hicetes sends assassins to slay Timoleon but the plot goes awry
when one of the assassins is himself killed in an unrelated act
of private vengence.
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Hicetes, in the interim, continued still to besiege the castle of
Syracuse, and hindered all provisions from coming in by sea to
relieve the Corinthians that were in it. He had engaged also, and
dispatched towards Adranum, two unknown foreigners to assassinate
Timoleon, who at no time kept any standing guard about his person,
and was then altogether secure, diverting himself, without any
apprehension, among the citizens of the place, it being a festival in
honor of their gods. The two men that were sent, having casually
heard that Timoleon was about to sacrifice, came directly into the
temple with poniards under their cloaks, and pressing in among the
crowd, by little and little got up close to the altar; but, as they
were just looking for a sign from each other to begin the attempt, a
third person struck one of them over the head with a sword, upon
whose sudden fall, neither he that gave the blow, nor the partisan of
him that received it, kept their stations any longer; but the one,
making way with his bloody sword, put no stop to his flight, till he
gained the top of a certain lofty precipice, while the other, laying
hold of the altar, besought Timoleon to spare his life, and he would
reveal to him the whole conspiracy. His pardon being granted, he
confessed that both himself and his dead companion were sent thither
purposely to slay him. While this discovery was made, he that killed
the other conspirator had been fetched down from his sanctuary of the
rock, loudly and often protesting, as he came along, that there was
no injustice in the fact, as he had only taken righteous vengeance
for his father's blood, whom this man had murdered before in the city
of Leontini; the truth of which was attested by several there
present, who could not choose but wonder too at the strange dexterity
of fortune's operations, the facility with which she makes one event
the spring and motion to something wholly different, uniting every
scattered accident and lose particular and remote action, and
interweaving them together to serve her purposes; so that things that
in themselves seem to have no connection or interdependence
whatsoever, become in her hands, so to say, the end and the beginning
of each other. The Corinthians, satisfied as to the innocence of
this seasonable feat, honored and rewarded the author with a present
of ten pounds in their money, since he had, as it were, lent the use
of his just resentment to the tutelar genius that seemed to be
protecting Timoleon, and had not preexpended this anger, so long ago
conceived, but had reserved and deferred, under fortune's guidance,
for his preservation, the revenge of a private quarrel.
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