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
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
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
too frequent and the hopes of Moderation from a Confederate made too bold For it is safer to resist then to complain of the Injustice of a Tyrant and it is more dangerous in such counsels to be understood then to attempt Therefore while their thoughts and anger languish'd in complaints onely he thought it was too great a liberty to be grieved at his commands so he pretends that they were forming a Conspiracy against him and declares that he will be avenged in the Ruine of them and their City And because he knew them to be innocent according to the practices of Tyrants he used them more cruelly that others might conjecture there was some great Crime by the bitterness of the Punishment Those that were the poorest of the people he leads out to the river Scamander and upon the very banks as if he had had a frolick to colour the streams with blood he cuts all their throats The poverty of these men made their passage out of life less irksome But those that were supposed to be rich he kills with most exquisite Tortures to make them confess what and where their Mony was and to make the terrour greater he had his several Engines of Torment Some he breaks upon the wheel others he bound upon battering Rams then forcing them off he dash'd them in pieces others he makes to die by degrees and forces death through every member First he cuts off their Legs and as their Confessions were slow or quick or answerable to his ravenous expectation so he proceeds to the rest pulling off their Hands putting out their Eyes and every degree to death was the more sharp that they might feel themselves dying and denied them the comfort of a speedy death Besides that he might outgoe all examples of Cruelty that ever the world saw before in imitation of Phalaris's Bull he made a brazen Bed proportionable to the body of a man wherein the Wretch that was to be tortured being closed with a grate and having fire under it was exceedingly tormented and by this Engine the Tyrant could feed his eyes by beholding the tortures and it was a great part of the misery of the Sufferer to be seen and see such an horrid Villain triumph in their pains and urge their Torments It is some modesty in a Tyrant if he look not upon that wickedness which he commands As for the Matrons and rich Widows he broke their Feet with burning Pincers pulled off their Breasts and upon the Loins of Women with child laid bricks to force them to cast their birth Besides those that did die at the will of the Tyrant who would rather perish by another's wickedness then by their own there were many others that scorned the ministery of such cursed hands to set at liberty their free Souls Of which some burnt themselves Wives and Children together with their Wealth that it might not be the prey of the Tyrant Others embracing the Altars of their Gods invoking their Justice and Revenge as the last comfort of dying men did there let out their own blood And others went and hanged themselves that they might escape greater miseries So that by these severall waies there was an end put to that flourishing City The whole face of the Town was ghastly even to the spoilers but it was impossible for any thing to check their Covetousness who in the sad Ruines sought for the Wealth of the destroied owners and to increase the gain of his Crimes he sold the Children and Youth of either sex to the Italians for Slaves The City being thus depopulated he appoints it as a refuge for such desperate and needy persons as should desert his Enemies and come under his subjection And lastly he changes the name of the place from Aegesta to Dicaeopolis i. e. the City of Justice This he did either to profane the sacred name of Justice and shew his Contempt of those eternal Laws of Right and Wrong by attributing so glorious a title to so horrid a Crime which is the last pleasure and delight of those that are prodigiously wicked So Polybius relates of one Ditaearchus an Aetolian who being made by Philip of Macedonia General in an Expedition to break the League that was between the Islands called Cyclades and the Cities of Hellespont a design so apparently abominable that the Undertaker could give no honest account of it to shew how his soul delighted in the greatest Crimes and to defie both the Gods and men before he took shipping he built two Altars one to Impiety and another to Injustice and sacrificed to them as to his Deities But the Historian observes that in those cruel tortures wherewith he ended his daies he met with the provoked justice both of God and Man And so also did Agathocles for from a brand pluck'd out of the fire of this City was he and his whole Family consumed Or herein the Syracusan intended no more then to practise the usual arts of Tyrants who to divert the Hatred of the present and the Infamy among future ages are wont to put the specious names of Religion and Justice upon their most detestable actions So Tacitus observes of Tiberius that he would put upon the new Crimes which his Jealousie or Covetousness objected to others those names which the Laws had appropriated to great Offences and so gild his Cruelty and Rapine with the titles of Justice And as we have seen our modern Tyrants style their attempts to ruine Piety the Propagation of Religion Such Cheats indeed do for a time quiet the Vulgar spirits who more stick upon names then things yet when discovered do so much the more increase their Hatred as they upbraided and abused their Ignorance And the nobler and more discerning minds think their miseries under Tyrants the greater by the injuries that are done to Vertue and Goodness The next Tragedy was acted at Syracuse for while Agathocles was busie in these Butcheries he receives the news of the death of his Sons He grieved not so much for them who he suspected were too near his rivals of Empire but feared lest the kindred and friends of the Souldiers whom he had betraied in Africk would be excited by their Example to attempt that upon the old Wolf which they had executed upon the Cubs Therefore by a private messenger he commands his Brother Antander speedily to murder the Friends of all those that had followed him into Africk Antander who was of a base temper and who accounted Cruelty for Valour did exactly perform the command and endeavoured to outvy his Brother in blood For he gathered together for the slaughter not onely those of their Kindred who were of an age fit to take revenge but even their aged Parents that were so near the grave as that they had long lost their Senses and the sucking Children that were not capable to know the difference betwixt Slavery and Freedome the Women also that could not be feared to overthrow the Tyranny yet if