So Agathocles for all Tyrants live and die with the like affections would have intailed Calamities to the miserable Syracusans The Tyrant's Tortures still increasing and Vengeance pursuing him with so slow a pace as if it had intended to return his own arts of Cruelty upon himself he lived for some time Cruelty upon himself and a loathed burden to all that were about him and having no Friend to provide for the decency of his departure or by some care to alleviate his Pains when the tumours of the poisonous humour had hindred his Voice so that neither his Complaints nor Threatnings could be understood Oxythemis the Macedonian spy and the Syracusan's false Friend together with his tired Attendants laid him before he was dead upon his funeral Pile and burnt him alive As soon as he was dead the Syracusans pulled down and broke all his Statues seized upon his Goods and sold them and then did by proclamation declare themselves a free People and return to their Democratical Government Thus after he had enslaved his own City twenty eight years in the seventy second year of his age he came to such a miserable end as his hateful Crimes and Impieties deserved and not onely the Revenge of Men but the Justice of Heaven did appear in his Destruction The lineaments and proportion of his Body are not recorded by Historians onely by the sins of his youth it appears that it was a moving object of the Lusts of others and that it was too fair a fabrick for so wicked a Soul His actions give us the fullest character of the temper of his Mind He was quick and apprehensive of every expedient for his enterprizes industrious and bold in the execution fitted for Glory if he had minded Vertue powerful to perswade but without Faith in his Promises or Truth in his Asseverations adapted to reconcile the Affections of men to himself but not careful to preserve their Love or continue their Friendship any longer then he had an opportunity to injure those that embraced him insatiably greedy of Greatness but a despiser of an honest Fâ—…e of such easie and ductile Passions that he could temper and compose them according to the necessities of his Designs and put on whatsoever shape his present Interest required He was of an obstinate silence to conceal his own Projects but perspicacious of the counsels of his Enemies He was not nice of any Sin nor fearful of any Ignominy With all the methods to Tyranny he was acquainted and wanted not in an unquiet City fortunate opportunities of attaining Power But his Crimes were greater then his Power and more prodigious then his Fortune so that he seemed to be born for the destruction of men and ruine of Cities For from the time that he began to appear as considerable in the World that Age and the Scene whereon he acted was horrid with various Miseries terrible and wasted by many Battels rent in pieces with diverse Factions and even in Peace was full of Cruelty Desarts were filled with banish'd persons the Sea infected with blood and the Rocks polluted with the putrifying carcasses of slaughtered Innocents the Cities of Sicily Africk and Italy defiled with the frequent Murders of their own Citizens deformed by many Rapines and Spoils and some of them buried in their own Ashes Nor was his barbarous rage satisfied with the vexations and tortures of men in their Bodies and Fortunes but being insatiable with the Miseries of Mankind he endeavoured to deprive them of the comforts of Religion by murdering the miserable suppliants at the Altars of their Gods rasing down their Temples and sacrilegiously despoiling the Sacred treasures of the testimonies of the Piety of former Ages he discouraged the future from the worship of their God He did extirpate all sense of Vertue by imputing it for a capital Crime and the glorious acquisition of the People's love by honest arts and generous actions was esteemed by him as a mark for Ruine Treachery and Perfidiousness were the onely qualities he loved as Vertues in himself and rewarded in others He attempted the extinguishing of all Natural affection To bewail the unhappiness of a tortured Friend was accounted as a design of Revenge and practice of Revolt from the unjust commander Therefore the tears of pity were mingled with the blood of the compassionate the Children were murdered that the Father might not perish by a single death He exposed the Son to the arrow of the Father and offered the Brother to the Brother's sword As his life was spent in these hateful Crimes so was it ended in horrid tortures and he could not be said to Die but to be driven out of the world and forced from among the Living after he had lived to see his cursed Issue part miserably perish'd and part exposed to a certain destruction Two of his Sons he himself had betraied to the fury of an injured deserted Army His third Son was murdered when he had proposed him to Empire and his slaughtered carcass brought to increase the torments of his Soul His younger Children who had lived no longer then to be made sensible of the height from which they had fallen were forced with their Mother to the dangers of Exile and to perish in an obscure fortune Archagathus his grandchild fell not long after him by the same Instrument which he had sollicited to his destruction For Maenon proud with the success of having destroied the Old Tyrant resolved to kill the Young one also therefore applying himself to the usual arts and waies of alluring the multitude which are seldome good he got such a power in the Army that he slew Archagathus assumed his Command and would have imposed himself as a Prince upon the People But the Syracusans that had under the former Tyrant felt the extremest bondage and since his death tasted the sweetness of Liberty were tenacious of it and hoped to maintain it They therefore sent out their Praetor Nicetas with an Army to oppose Maenon Who doubting his own Forces were too weak for those of the People followed the practices of his Corruptor and called the Carthaginians to his assistance and so engaged the Syracusans in a series of Wars till Hiero did become their Prince who in his private fortune wanted no requisite of a King but a Kingdome and under him they found the benefits of a lawful Government and that Liberty is best secured under a Just Prince Fallitur egregio quisquis sub Principe credit Servitium Nunquam Libertas gratior extat Quam sub Rege pio FINIS
to be satisfied but by mutual Injuries And he that wrestles with the People's hate will find himself as born under the Starre of Hercules who when he had cut off one of the Hydra's heads had his labours renewed by the sudden production of many more and while a Tyrant seeks to secure himself by injuring one of his suspected Enemies he will provoke a multitude more eager for his ruine So that he shall find himself necessitated if he will keep what he hath wickedly got to repeat his Crimes and increase their miseries till they become uncapable of Liberty stupid under their calamities and neither desirous nor able to take revenge Of the barbarous effects of this kind of Tyrannie no place was evermore sensible then the Island of Sicily a Country continually teeming with these Monsters who endeavouring to enslave their Cities and perpetuate their Dominion made that Island the Theatre of Misery and Villany And among all those plagues of mankind and disturbers of Society whose acts Antiquity hath transmitted to posterity none have their memories branded with more eternal marks of Infamy then Agathocles whose bloody Artifices and execrable practices to raise himself from an abject and base condition to an absolute Soveraignty and from being the most contemptible part of a Community to arrive at such a power as to trample upon the Liberties of his City made the Ancient Historians never mention him without the Title of The most Impious And Machiavel the modern Criuck of Policy and grand Instructor of Tyranny singles him out of the whole Herd of antique Monsters as the singular Patern of Tyranny and Example of such that by Injustice and Impiety will acquire Principality in whose ascent to Greatness he acknowledgeth no advantage by Vertue nor any favourable assistance from Fortune but that all his Power was the sole product of a monstrous Wickedness which will appear in this History of his Life AGATHOCLES the Syracusan Tyrant was the son of Carcinus a native of Rhegium a City in Italy who being banish'd from thence had seated himself at Thermae one of the Cities in Sicily that were then under the Dominion of the Carthaginians Where taking to Wife one of the Citizens daughters and she having conceived by him he was continually disquieted in his sleep with horrid dreams concerning the child his Wife was then pregnant with To put an end to these terrors and to be assured from the Gods what the issue should be of what his Dreams did but confusedly and imperfectly represent there was presented to him this opportunity The Carthaginian Commander in Sicily was at that time dispatching some Embassadors to the Oracle at Delphos to enquire of the Event of some publick design These men Carcinus acquaints with his present inquietudes and desires them to consult the Oracle concerning his expected Issue They satisfied his desire and received from the Oracle this answer That he which should be born should be a cause of exceeding great miseries both to the Carthaginians and all Sicily Which answer allaied not but increased the disquiets of Carcinus for he was now tortured betwixt the fear of the Punick wrath if he should foster their future Enemy and his Paternal affection which disswaded him from sacrificing his own Child whom the Gods had designed to some great emploiments or otherwise he could not cause such troubles that he might secure the Carthaginian fears that were but his imperious Oppressors and for the quiet of Sicily which was but his stepdame But at last his fears as is usual prevailed over his other affections and therefore left the breeding of his Child should be the cause of both their deaths he exposed it to perish in publick and some were appointed to watch its end But it being impossible to reverse the Decrees of Fate which though foreknown are not to be avoided his life out-lasted the patience of the Watchers who being tired in their expectation became more negligent in their charge which afforded his Mother an opportunity to steal him away by night But not daring to bring him home lest she should renew his danger or consulting the safety of her Husband she commits him to the care of her Brother Heraclidas and calls him after her Fathers name Agathocles This is the relation of Agathocles's first coming into the world a Birth proper for a Tyrant wherein he proved terrible and dangerous to those that were the Authors of his life But such Prodigies and Predictions as these are of a dubious credit and uncertain Original For although the Longanimity of Heaven that unwillingly punishes the sins of men may and doth sometimes by means that seem most proper to its infinite Wisdome before it strikes warn the World of those plagues that shall come upon them yet most of these Oracles which we meet with in History are post-nate and after the fact invented and published and that from various beginnings For sometimes the Vulgar who are more Superstitious then Religious will either find or frame a Prediction for every great Event Because they being ignorant of the true Causes of things and not able to observe the progress of Effects but considering the Event in its full product cannot but admire it and therefore attribute it to that power which onely can work wonders and so seek or make a Decree of Heaven that should convey the Issues through so many seeming difficulties Hence also it came to pass that when men of obscure births have performed great actions in the World their descent not fully appearing when their actions were full of splendour they have imagined their Vertue was to be their Herald and so did derive their pedegree from the Gods as Hercules from Jupiter and Romulus from Mars And because the Divine Providence willing to shew that its sole power and not the prudence of Men doth make them great doth often expose such in their Infancy to great dangers whom in their riper years it intends to advance to mighty Honours thereby beginning to demonstrate its force when Prudence cannot pretend to their preservation the Vulgar likewise fits by their fancies for those whom with admiration they behold raised from low beginnings to unexpected Greatness such entertainments in the World as must require the care of the Gods for their preservation Thus the Romans formed the beginnings of their Romulus and the Persians for their Cyrus and the Inhabitants of Spain for their King Habis Nor are the rude Multitude the onely authors of such fabulous Miracles but Tyrants themselves which accommodate their designs to the Vulgar fancies are frequently the very Oracles that frame Predictions concerning their own grandeur For these either designing the change of their Republicks or being already seized of power do labour to make the world believe that Heaven is of the Plot and concerned in their preservation nothing being more prevalent upon the minds of men then Religion which Tyrants by these Oracles make use of to produce an awe in their
the hopes of the Sicilians to be delivered from Agathocles who had surprized Gela and murdered the Citizens and afterward fighting Amilcar is overthrown His counsel of transferring the War into Africk His preparations for that design The difficulties of getting forth of the Haven An Eclipse frights his Army which he dexterously interprets gets safe to the shore of Africk where he burns his Ships The Punick Fleet gather up the beaks of his Vessels and send them with the news to Carthage which before was terrified with the affrighted relations of the Africans They chuse two Generals to oppose the Sicilians The Reason of such a choice They fight Agathocles and are overthrown The Carthaginians refer their loss to their angry Gods whom they endeavour to appease send for aid from Amilcar who in vain besieges and assaults Syracuse when the news came of the Tyrants Victory Who wins more upon the Carthaginians while Amilcar intending to storm Syracuse is taken and kill'd His baffled Army divides and the Agrigentines aspire at the Empire of the Island The Tyrant's Army dangerously mutinies which he luckily appeases and turns their fury upon the Enemy whom he also follows and beats in Numidia He invites Ophellas to the War and basely murders him Bomilcar attempting the Tyranny at Carthage miscarries and is crucified Agathocles assumes the title of a King and masters the Uticenses by an inhumane Stratageme LIB III. AGathocles returns to Sicily to obstruct the Success of the Free League against which he thrives till Dinocrates declares himself for it who forces the Tyrant to retreat His fortune declines in Africk his Army beaten and besieged Agathocles preparing to return thither gets two Victories under the pretence of a Thanksgiving for which he discovers and murders all that he could not confide in at Syracuse Afterwards he sails to Africk where all was desperate From whence after some vain attempts a strange Terrour of his Army and his own Imprisonment he basely flies back to Sicily leaving his two Sons to the fury of his deserted Army who when they had slain them make Peace with the Carthaginians The Tyrant landing in Sicily destroyes Aegesta commands another Massacre at Syracuse Pasiphilus revolts from him which frights him into a Treaty with Dinocrates in which he offers to relinquish the Tyranny The Treaty not taking effect he fights the Army of the League and by treachery overthrows them and murders seven thousand that did surrender upon composition He receives Dinocrates into favour and employes him He takes away the consecrated Treasure at the Isle of Lipara invades the Brutii and is beaten surprizes Croton associates with Pirates and confederates with Demetrius by whom he is perswaded to renew his War with Carthage He is prevented by death through the Conspiracy of Maenon and Archagathus his Grandchild because he had made his younger Son Agathocles his Successour in the Tyranny Maenon poisons the Old Tyrant and Archagathus kills the Young one His Tortures End and Character The state of Syracuse after his Death TYRANNVS Perfidia Crudelitas THE TYRANT OR The Life of AGATHOCLES LIB I. THE security and comforts of humane life consist in Society Society cannot be preserved without Order For although by it men are secured from a forein force yet in it are they subject to intestine injuries and when Necessity makes no warre abroad Ambition and Covetousness will raise some at home These being so impetuous and restless affections in the breasts of men that they never leave them even after the largest acquisitions For man naturally is greedy of every thing yet so weak that he can acquire but few so that the desire being too great for the power of acquisition there arises a dissatisfaction with the present condition when it is secure and an endeavour of altering it though with the ruine of another's fortune This immoderate desire in some men of more then they have produces a fear in others of losing what they doe enjoy and from both these arise Jealousies Enmities and Injuries which in the issue undermine Societie and render it more dangerous then Solitude and make Communities of men more obnoxious to ruine then heards of Beasts Therefore Order must set bounds to some mens Lusts and fences for the security of others Order cannot be observed without Government which is the Intrusting some persons with the care and power of maintaining this Order And that it may the more effectually attain its End Heaven hath declared it as its own Institution and impressed upon it the lustre of Divine Authority But as Pearls though they have their Original from the dew of Heaven yet must be formed and solidated in the Sea and the wombe of a Shel fish which as it is more or less disposed by Nature for such a production renders the Jewels proportionably great and orient So Government though it derives its extract from a Divine Institution yet because it is to be managed by Men which are subject to Corruption doth often prove too uncertain a guard for so great a treasure as is the publick good and common safety Because the Trustees of this power may either through the depravedness of their affections distort it to the satisfaction of their private lusts or by an imprudent menage give umbrages of suspicion that they will pervert it to the common ruine So that such impotent persons being in Government bewitched with the sweetness of Command and passionate to inlarge or preserve that power in the unlawful exercise thereof make frequent invasions upon the Liberty of others And those that are under Government pinched with the difficulties of obeying such unequal Commands and labouring to keep their liberty entire strive to extend it even to Licence till it becomes inconsistent with Government Hence arise Discontents Jealousies and Changes of Government which to sick minds like the turnings in bed to sick bodies are hoped for remedies and what men cannot find under one kind of Magistracy they will seek in another and therefore do either contract or enlarge the subject of their trust of Power according to the sense of their present Grievances If a Community at first either by Choice or Necessity are united under one Head in a Monarchy while He or his Successors intend the publick good for which they were designed the memorie of their first Institution and the sense of the present Benefits provoke from their Subjects not corrupted with too much Felicity nor debauched with the subtle Slanders which Seditious persons cast on their Prince a Veneration next to that which is due to Heaven an Universal Love and a delight to obey being the constant Returns to their Cares and Hazards for the publick Security But because all worldly things are in a continual Motion and there is either a progress to perfection in that which is good or else a precipitate declination to evil and men are most easily corrupted in the supremest Fortunes where Lusts may have the advantage of being armed with
Power such as received the highest Command as a reward of Vertue either in themselves or Ancestors do sometimes abuse it to license the most horrid Crimes imagining Rapines Adulteries and Capricioes of Power the rewards of Principality wherein they onely receive but a fading Pleasure and leave to their Subjects a perpetual sense of Loss and Dishonour Hence comes it to pass that those who by Vertuous Practices might have maintained the reputation of Earthly Gods by these wicked Courses degenerating beneath the nature of Beasts become hateful and terrible to mankinde Hate and Fear are alwaies pregnant with Conspiracies Conspiracies that prove successfull for otherwise they advantage him whom they design to ruine are soonest formed and most dexterously managed not by such as are fearful and weak but by persons of generous spirits and active Souls who are most tenderly sensible of injuries and most impatient under them These being exalted above the rest of the injured Multitude by the greatness of their Minds and made more powerful to accomplish the design by the riches of their Patrimonies the liberality of their Education and the Nobility of their Families become the Chiefs of the Community for Security and Revenge on their unjust Monarch He being extinguished the People translate the Reverence which before they were wont to pay to a single Prince on these persons whom they look upon as their Deliverers These having the Government of a single Person and fearing the return of the same Miseries from another Monarch or else pleased with the present Adorations of the Multitude do retain the Government among themselves which seated in such and so many persons is called Aristocracy These in their beginnings bound their power with such Laws as being made in the fresh memorie of the former Tyrannie appear very tender of the Common liberty and preferre the Publick to the Private Interest Which administration of Justice partly through the Novelty which alwaies hath much of the People's hopes and partly through the Cares of the New Governours which are commonly most strict in their first undertakings to manage all concernments with the most exact moderation is entertained some time with honour and conformable obedience But men seldome use Dignities with the same good arts whereby they acquired them and assume another heart in the Palace then what they wore in their private families So that corruption either assaults their very persons or in a short time seizeth upon their Successors who unacquainted with the Instability of Fortune and insensible of the dismal Consequences of publick Injuries grow insolent with their present state discontent with equality and forming Factions among themselves reduce all power into a few hands and change the Optimacie into an Oligarchie Thence falling into the debaucheries of the former Tyrant and their Number making them less tolerable they incur the same hatred and meet with the like ruine For the People haraffed by so many importunate Oppressors will soon offer its ministery to any bold hand that will offend their detested Governours Neither will there want unquiet Spirits that will take advantage of the People's anger and assistance both to ruine them and raise themselves in the Popular esteem When the Oligarchie hath lost that power which they knew not how to use and the People are free to another choice the memory of injuries by a Prince being not yet dead and the brands of slavery by more numerous Tyrants yet fresh the People are unwilling any more to trust after so many abuses and therefore reserve the Government in themselves which then receives the name of Democracie This form of Government after it hath spent that stock of Vulgar affection which is used to be given to every thing in its first beginnings discovers that they have embraced Licence instead of Liberty and whereas all Government should be the preservative of Order this fills all with Confusion The body of the Society is torn into several Factions and of one Community it becomes many The Laws are neither framed nor executed for the publick Utility but for the advantage of the several parties each by its course in Magistracie endeavouring to depress the contrary and elevate it self In this State as in routed Armies every one commands and none obeyes the most prudent must be directed by those that have no skil to command and the wisest follow the dictates of the ignorant rabble those that are fittest to give the safest counsels must by a simple obedience be the instruments to perform the decrees of ruine Heroick Vertues and brave Examples are as dangerous here as under the worst of Tyrants and both the Love and the Hate of the People are equally dangerous So that this Government lasts no longer then till the universal calamities which come speedily dissolve it or some ambitious Officer takes from the Multitude that Liberty which they could not long keep or some discreeter Citizen perswades them to seek for peace and safety in the paths they have forsaken and to return to Principality again These are the usual stages which Government treads and as the Persons are qualified in each state it makes the shorter or longer abode But in every change as the Sun in his removal to the several Tropicks leaves the last squallid and deformed with cold and darkness so Government leaves the last intrusted with it in ruine and desolation And the quicker the motion is the more pregnant it is with destruction For Ambulatorie Government is like the Planets which observation tells us both at their rising and setting bring Storms and Tempests so the ruine of the old and the erection of a new form wast and tire those unhappy people that live under them Bad Governors being like Malignant spirits which when they are exorcised torture more eagerly the wretches they are to forsake and these are industrious to ruine all with their fall and that an universal flame might be kindled by their Funeral Pile On the other side new and hopeful frames of Government though they are as desirable as Children to less-fruitful wombs yet like such come not into the world without pangs and throes and sometimes begin their lives with the death of their Authors But in nothing are changes and corruptions of Government more noxious to a Community then in that they are often inlets and occasions to Usurpation administring opportunities to ambitious spirits of usurping Magistracie against the Peoples consent and contrary to the just pretensions which other Persons may have to the same For from all these several forms of Government declining to a dissolution do Tyrannical Usurpers like Prodigies that are generated of Corruption arise And when such do prevail and attain to power that wretched people that are subject to it must expect the worst of miseries which are derived from Impiety and Injustice For Usurpers being the products of such are as every thing is to be preserved by its Principles to be maintained by the same To an Usurper no
difficult passage Then they commanded their Numidians that were in arms for them after their manner of fighting still to follow the Sicilians and by many sudden assaults to retard their march But Agathocles sending out his Slingers and Archers to encounter with them leads his other Forces forward to find the Enemy who being certified of his approach sent out a party to hinder his passage at the River where they slew many of his men But the Sicilians though less in number yet greater in resolution and heightned with many Victories forced their passage and stoutly maintained the fight with the Carthaginians In the mean time those Numidians that were on either side forbore the fight being of an unsteady Faith like their sandy soil neither united among themselves nor constant adherers unto others and standing like Spectators of the Combate and as so many Vultures watching to prey upon the falling Carcasses they determined to rifle the Camp and luggage of which party soever was worsted At last the day inclining to Agathocles he pursued the Africans to their Camp which being well fortified they bravely defended and returned more wounds then they did receive yet was the Tyrant obstinate to force them within their defences hoping to compleat the Victory so happily begun The Numidians seeing the Carthaginians so well preserving their Camp though they lost the field immediately turn their hopes upon Agathocles's Tents where killing those few that were left for the guard of them they took all the Prisoners and spoil and like birds of prey when they had got the spoil made no delay but hasted away The Tyrant hearing of this drew off from the Carthaginians to succour his own Camp but their haste and the approaching Night delivered them from his revenge and they escaped with the greatest part of the spoil Agathocles therefore to supply the loss his Army had sustained by the Numidians did equally divide among the Souldiers his own booties lest they should mutiny In this Battel were taken a thousand Greeks whereof five hundred were Syracusans who in hatred of the Tyrant had served the Carthaginians These being all imprisoned in a Garrison fearing the Cruelty of the Tyrant by night set upon the guards but being worsted retired into a strong place which they intended to defend till they might have good Articles Agathocles hearing of it draws up his whole Army against them whom the fear of present death made forgetful of the Perfidiousness of the Tyrant and so they yielded up themselves upon his Oath that he would spare their Lives which they had no sooner done but he kills them every man Notwithstanding all these Overthrows the Carthaginians were not broken in their Courage and Resolution for Empire which is alwaies the guise of great spirits not to vary with their fortunes and therefore did so little repent of their unhappily-defended Liberty that they chose rather to be overcome then not to attempt at Victory A temper they retained as long as they had a City For in their last War with the Romans before ever they would yield to quit their City they pulled down their Houses for timber to build a Navy and when they wanted Iron and Brass they melted their Gold and Silver for the same uses and their Matrons cut off their Hair to make cordage for their Engines This undaunted resolution their sending forth fresh Armies their wariness of engaging the hardiness and experience which by their continual Conflicts they had acquired the difficulties of this last Skirmish and the much blood the Victory cost him made the Tyrant see how unequal such a petit Prince as he and a single City that was blocked up and could afford him no support for so vast designs were to so mighty a Commonwealth that seemed inexhaustible in her Treasures and store of men and that at this rate they could longer hold out with their Overthrows then he with his Victories for his Forces were worn out with the Successes and there could be little trust in the Souldiers he gathered from the conquered people He therefore casts about to get those succours somewhere else that he could not expect from home Among those whom he thought on none appeared so fit for his design as Ophellas who having been one of the Commanders of Alexander in the partage of that Empire had seized upon Cyrene in Libya and had made himself Prince thereof with which it was known that he was not contented and therefore had many projects to enlarge his Dominion and make himself eminent This man Agathocles judged fittest for his purpose and easiest to be imposed upon For Ambition infatuates and while it presents the lustre of Greatness dazles the Reason that it cannot see the dangers and difficulties in the acquisition nor look into the practices of those that tempt them To him therefore the Tyrant sent Ortho a Syracusan as Ambassadour to cajole him into this war and as a reward of his dangers makes profer of all the acquisitions he had already made or should hereafter make by their joint Forces in Africk For he conceived Sicily an Empire large enough for his ambition who modestly thought too great a Command was dangerous and in great possessions men made themselves too obnoxious to the strokes of Fortune He had made this war upon the Continent onely to divert the Africans from the Island and to blot out the ignominy of his overthrow at Himera not to settle a Kingdome there which was divided by so vast a Sea from his principality of Syracuse If hereafter his desires should be enlarged with his Fortunes he had Italy nearer him a place fitter for his designs and where he had better pretensions and there he should exercise his valour and enlarge his Empire but all Africk he would leave to Ophellas as fittest for the King of Cyrene This wrought the desired effect on Ophellas who having been long waiting for such an opportunity greedily swallowed the bait For men are more desirous of acquiring that which is anothers then careful to preserve their own This made him not reflect upon the party with whom he had to doe but as one of the lesser birds of prey who are eager to seize on that which their nature incites them to but do not look unto a greater fowl which is above them and seeks to swallow them with their spoil so he onely considering the Empire of Carthage did not mind the infamous Perfidy of Agathocles but hastily concludes a League with him and provides for the Expedition To this end he sends Mony and Officers to Athens from whence he had married a Wife of the stock of the famous Miltiades that by the favour of her Friends they might levy Souldiers there and gather up some other un-emploied Grecians who were easily perswaded to this enterprize for they found Greece a most troublesome place wasted and harrassed by the several pretensions and wars of Alexander's Commanders and therefore hoped for a more safe and easie
their faithless Leader the perfidious Agathocles The Guard that was upon the Tyrant no less amazed then the rest hearing him named and imagining that the multitude did call upon them to bring their Prisoner forth did immediately lead him into the midst of the Army loaden with chains This sudden spectacle did strangely affect the minds of the multitude Some were moved with Pity and Reverence of him who had so long commanded them For great emploiments leave a lustre even upon that person that hath lost them and Majesty doth accompany those in their distresses whom Fortune hath before proposed to admiration And sometimes if they be vertuous persons they like the Sun appear greatest at their setting and the refraction of a moist cloud of tears doth serve to enlarge their Greatness Marius's glory in his former commands could not be stifled in the Dungeon at Minturnae but once more overcame the Cimbrian Slave that was appointed to be his Executioner Mithridates's imprisonment had not so disarmed him but that the authority of his looks and the memory of his former Empire did affright the Gaul that was sent to murder him till by his own hands he confirmed the trembling Slave to execute the wicked commands of his perfidious Son Though Agathocles had no Vertues that deserved Pity yet his fortunes did excite a Reverence Others moved with the fear of the Enemy and hope of his Conduct joined with the rest and together cried out that they should take off his Chains and set him free This unexpected mercy and deliverance together with the miserable sight of the Army's fears and confusions would have wrought a commiseration in any breast that had had the least sense of humanity to have provided for the common safety or obliged to the same fate But Perfidiousness acknowledges no Merits and every Tyrant doth abjure Gratitude and Justice Therefore Agathocles was no sooner out of his Chains but while the Army was yet in confusion and none at leisure to observe him he makes hast to the shore And because he had before indangered his own preservation by endeavouring to save one of his Sons he now hates that natural Affection and leaves them both to endure the punishments of his Villany and with some few of his servants gets into a Ship and undiscovered sails away The Souldiers hearing of his escape seize upon both his Sons with their blood to satisfie for their Father's Crimes Archagathus thought to stop the execution by asking Arcesilaus that was the Tyrant's friend whom grief and indignation had now made the forwardest to revenge What Agathocles would doe to his Children that should murder his Sons The Syracusan answered it was enough for him that his Children did live some time after Agathocles's were slain And therefore to reap this comfort he speedily sheaths his sword in Archagathus's body Heraclidas was killed by those that had been the Souldiers of Ophellas The Greeks observed in this execution the exact Justice of Heaven that in the same moneth and on the same day that Agathocles had contrary to all faith and rites of Hospitality murdered Ophellas and seized upon his Army did he lose his own Army and had both his Sons slain Providence like a just Law-giver exacting double punishment for so great a Crime for he that had wickedly killed one Friend had two Sons justly destroied Thus having satisfied their Revenge they provide for their Safety and therefore chusing new Officers by them they treat with the Carthaginians and conclude a Peace upon these Articles That the Sicilians should deliver up all those places which had been taken in Africk That for the surrender they should receive three hundred talents That such of them as would serve the State of Carthage should be taken into pay That those who desired to return to Sicily should be transported thither and have houses and places to live in assigned to them at Soluns which was a City of their Dominion in the Island This Composition was faithfully observed to those that did submit unto it but such as were left in Garrisons and would not surrender vainly hoping the deceitful Tyrant would shortly relieve them were soon reduced by force The Captains whereof they crucified but yoked the common Souldiers like beasts to plough that ground and repair by their labours that Country which they had wasted by their arms This was the issue of the African War which had continued four years all which time Carthage with undaunted courage and various success maintained her Liberty and laboured to preserve her Empire against a subtle industrious and bloody Tyrant And Agathocles had the trial of the vicissitudes of all humane affairs having a long time been the terrour of Africk He had broken many Armies ruined great Cities depopulated large Countries moistned the parching Sands with blood humbled the Pride of Carthage and scarce left them any thing but their own walls yet was twice a Prisoner to his own Souldiers and in danger of death from his own Army and at last blotted out all the honour of his Atchievements by a most cursed Perfidiousness and too great a desire of Life deserting a brave Army betraying his own Sons ignominiously flying with one Ship and few attendants trembling in the memory of his Chains and the terrours of his Enemies as if he had been designed to be the example not onely of the Crimes but also of the Punishments of a Tyrant Stripped of all his forces with shame and fury Agathocles lands in Sicily where like a dying Viper his last bites were most fierce Ruine and destruction of others being the last pleasures of a falling Tyrant And as if the air and soil of Africk that is fertile of Monsters had made him more Monster then he was before that miserable Island felt a sharper fit of Cruelty when he was thus half destroied then when he was in his more flourishing fortune He seemed now not so greedy of the Rewards of Wickedness as delighted with Wickedness it self not being more angry that he had lost his own then that he had not got another's substance or that every one had not lost as well as he The first that felt his Inhumanity was the City of Aegesta towards which he leads out those Forces he had and demands a contribution so heavy as would wholly have impoverished the City though it was great and populous and had ten thousand families in it This Injustice did so exasperate the Aegestans that they often met among themselves to complain of such usage That though they were in Confederacy with him and so should be willing to relieve the necessities of their Associate yet were they not his Slaves that he should conceive all their goods to be his own They acknowledged that a League with a more potent party was but a kind of Subjection yet were they not so absolutely to obey as if they had been conquered by him The Tyrant was not ignorant of these complaints which their Grief made