Diodorus Siculus, Library

Contents of the Sixteenth Book of Diodorus

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¹

When Lyciscus was archon at Athens, the Romans elected as consuls Marcus Valerius and Marcus Publius, and the one hundred and ninth Olympiad was celebrated, in which Aristolochus the Athenian won the foot-race.² In this year the first treaty was concluded between the Romans and the Carthaginians.³ [2] In Caria, Idrieus, the ruler of the Carians, died after ruling seven years, and Ada, his sister and wife, succeeding him, ruled for four years.⁴

[3] In Sicily, Timoleon took the Adranitae and the Tyndaritae into his alliance and received not a few reinforcements from them. Great confusion reigned in Syracuse, where Dionysius held the Island, Hicetas Achradina and Neapolis, and Timoleon the rest of the city, while the Carthaginians had put in to the Great Harbour with a hundred and fifty triremes and encamped with fifty thousand men on the shore.⁵ Timoleon and his men viewed the odds against them with dismay, but the prospect took a sudden and surprising change for the better. [4] First Marcus,⁶ the tyrant of Catania, came over to Timoleon with a considerable army, and then many of the outlying Syracusan forts declared for him in a move to gain their independence. On top of all this, the Corinthians manned ten ships, supplied them with money, and dispatched them to Syracuse.⁷ [5] Thereupon Timoleon plucked up courage but the Carthaginians took alarm and unaccountably sailed out of the harbour, returning with all their forces to their own territory.⁸ [6] Hicetas was left isolated, while Timoleon victoriously occupied Syracuse.⁹ Then he proceeded to recover Messana, which had gone over to the Carthaginians.¹⁰

[7] Such was the state of affairs in Sicily.

In Macedonia, Philip had inherited from his father a quarrel with the Illyrians and found no means of reconciling the disagreement. He therefore invaded Illyria with a large force, devasted the countryside, captured many towns, and returned to Macedonia laden with booty.¹¹ [8] Then he marched into Thessaly, and by expelling tyrants from the cities won over the Thessalians through gratitude. With them as his allies, he expected that the Greeks too would easily be won over also to his favour; and that is just what happened. The neighbouring Greeks straightway associated themselves with the decision of the Thessalians and became his enthusiastic allies.¹²

¹  LXIX. 344/3 B.C.

² Lyciscus was archon at Athens from July 344 to June 343 B.C. The Olympic Games were celebrated in mid-summer of 344 B.C. M. Valerius Corvus and M. Popilius Laenas were consuls in 348 B.C. (Broughton, 1.129).

³ This treaty is mentioned also by Livy 7.27.2, and Polybius 3.24. Diodorus does not know of the earlier treaty given by Polybius 3.22 (cp. H. M. Last, Cambridge Ancient History, 7 (1928), 859 f.; A. Aymard, Revue des Etudes Anciennes, 59 (1957), 277-293).

⁴ Continued from chap. 45.7.

⁵ Plut. Timoleon 17.2, gives the same number of ships, but 60,000 men. Tyndaris was a city on the north coast of Sicily thirty miles from Tauromenium.

⁶ Plut. Timoleon 13.1, and elsewhere, calls him "Mamercus," and Diodorus's name may be due to a scribal error. On the other hand, as an Italian, Mamercus may well have borne the praenomen Marcus.

⁷ According to Plut. Timoleon 16.1-2, the Corinthians sent 2000 hoplites and 200 cavalry to Thurii, but the force made its way to Sicily only somewhat later (Plut. Timoleon 19).

⁸ Plut. Timoleon 20 tells a different and more circumstantial and picturesque account of the Carthaginian withdrawal.

⁹ Plut. Timoleon 21.3.

¹⁰ Plut. Timoleon 20.1 places this event earlier.

¹¹ This campaign may be the one referred to below, chap. 93.6. The narrative of Philip's activities is continued from chap. 60.

¹² This operation continued earlier movements of Philip in Thessaly (chaps. 35.1; 38.1; 52.9). For Philip's relations with the tyrants of Pherae cp. H. D. Westlake, Thessaly in the Fourth Century B.C. (1935), 191-193; Marta Sordi, La Lega Tessala fino al Alessandro Magno (1958), 275-293.

This text is based on the following book(s):
Diodorus Siculus. Diodorus of Sicily in Twelve Volumes with an English Translation by C. H. Oldfather. Vol. 4-8. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press; London: William Heinemann, Ltd. 1989.
OCLC: 24758311
ISBN: 0674994132, 0674994221, 0674994396, 0674994280, 0674994647

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