126 TIMOLEON.

their first meeting in the street there, saluted him with the ambiguous expression, " Dionysius, how little you deserve your present life ! " Upon which Dionysius stopped and replied, " I thank you, Diogenes, for your condolence." "Condole with you!" replied Diogenes; " do you not suppose that, on the contrary, I am indignant that such a slave as you, who, if you had your due, should have been let alone to grow old, and die in the state of tyranny, as your father did before you, should now enjoy the ease of private persons, and be here to sport and frolic it in our society ? " So that when I compare those sad stories of Philistus, touching the daughters of Le- ptines, where he makes pitiful moan on their behalf, as fallen from all the blessings and advantages of powerful greatness to the miseries of an humble life, they seem to me like the lamentations of a woman who has lost her box of ointment, her purple dresses, and her golden trin- kets. Such anecdotes will not, I conceive, be thought either foreign to ray purpose of writing Lives, or un- profitable in themselves, by such readers as are not in too much haste, or busied and taken up with other concerns. But if the misfortune of Dionysius appear strange and extraordinary, we shall have no less reason to won- der at the good fortune of Timoleon, who, within fifty days after his landing in Sicily, both recovered the cita- del of Syracuse, and sent Dionj'sius an exile into Pelo- ponnesus. This lucky beginning so animated the Corin- thians, that they ordered him a supply of two thousand foot and two hundred horse, who, reaching Thurii, in- tended to cross over thence into Sicily ; but finding the whole sea beset with Carthaginian ships, which made their passage impracticable, they were constrained to stop there, and watch their opportunity : which time, however, was employed in a noble action. For the Thu-