Page:History of Greece Vol XI.djvu/199

DISCONTENT .tti THE ARMY 17g merit if they were slain. Their pay being considerably in arrear Thrasius urged them to return to Syracuse for the purpose of extorting the money, instead of following a commander, whc could not or would not requite them, upon such desperate service. Such was the success and plausibility of these re- commendations, under the actual discouragement, that they could hardly be counterworked by all the efforts of Timo- leon. Nor was there ever any conjuncture in which his influ- ence, derived as well from unbounded personal esteem as from belief in his favor with the gods, was so near failing. As it was, though he succeeded in heartening up and retaining the large body of his army, yet Thrasius, with one thousand of the mercenaries, insisted upon returning, and actually did return, to Syracuse. Moreover Timoleon was obliged to send an order along with them to the authorities at home, that these men must immediately, and at all cost, receive their arrears of pay. The wonder is, that he succeeded in his efforts to retain the rest, after insuring to the mutineers a lot which seemed so much safer and more enviable. Thrasius, a brave man, having engaged in the service of the Phokians Philomelus and Onomarchus, had been concerned in the pillage of the Delphian temple, which drew upon him the aver- sion of the Grecian world. 1 How many of the one thousand seceding soldiers, who now followed him to Syracuse, had been partners in the same sacrilegious act, we cannot tell. But it is certain that they were men who had taken service with Timoleon in hopes of a period, not merely of fighting, but also of lucrative license, such as his generous regard for the settled inhabitants would not permit. Having succeeded in keeping up the spirits of his remaining army, and affecting to treat the departure of so many cowards as a positive advantage, Timoleon marched on westward into the Carthaginian province, until he approached within a short distance of the river Krimesus, a stream which rises in the mountainous region south of Panormus (Palermo), runs nearly southward, and falls into the sea near Selinus. Some mules, carrying loads of parsley, met him on the road ; a fact which called forth again the half-suppressed alarm of the soldiers, since parsley was habitually ' Plutarch, Timolcon, c. 30. 15*