HOW TIMOLEON DEALT WITH CENSURE. 191 assembly was a solemn scene. Having been brought in his cai drawn by mules across the mai-ket-place to the door of the theatre wherein the assembly was held, attendants then led or drew the car into the theatre amidst the assembled people, who testified their affection by the warmest shouts and congratulations. As soon as he had returned their welcome, and silence was restored, the discussion to which he had been invited took place, Timoleon sitting on his car and listening. Having heard the matter thus debated, he delivered his own opinion, which was usually ratified at once by the show of hands of the assembly. He then took leave of the people and retired, the attendants again leading the car out of the theatre, and the same cheers of attachment accom panying his departure ; while the assembly proceeded with its oth er and more ordinary business. 1 Such is the impressive and picturesque description given (doubt- less by Athanis or some other eye-witness 2 ) of the relations be- tween the Syracusan people and the blind Timoleon, after his power had been abdicated, and when there remained to him noth- ing except his character and moral ascendency. It is easy to see that the solemnities of interposition, here recounted, must have been reserved for those cases in which the assembly had been disturbed by some unusual violence or collision of parties. For such critical junctures, where numbers were perhaps nearly bal- anced, and where the disappointment of an angry minority threat- ened to beget some permanent feud, the benefit was inestimable, of an umpire whom both parties revered, and before whom nei- ther thought it a dishonor to yield. Keeping aloof from the de- tails and embarrassments of daily political life, and preserving himself (like the Salaminian trireme, to use a phrase which Plu- tarch applies to Perikles at Athens) for occasions at once momen- tous and difficult, Timoleon filled up a gap occasionally dangerous to all free societies ; but which even at Athens had always re- mained a gap, because there was no Athenian at once actually worthy, and known to be worthy, to fill it. We may even wonder how he continued worthy, when the intense popular sentiment in 1 Plutarch, Timoleon, c. 38 ; Cornel. Nepos, Timoleon, c. 4.
- It occurs in Cornelius Nepos prior to Plutarch, and was probably copied
by both from the same authority.
