the Treaty to project a form of accord and to keep a good correspondence betwixt his Master and the Tyrant but in truth to discover the intrigues of the Syracusan counsels and to be a Spy upon the affairs of Sicily to discover the easiest way of invading it and to practise the Tyrant to some destructive enterprizes Oxythemis had an handsome reception and great credit with Agathocles whose humours and inclinations he soon found and dexterously moved him to renew his attempts against Carthage and follow his pretensions in Africk This he eagerly prosecuted that so the Tyrant leaving Sicily his Master with more ease might attack it This seemed to Agathocles as the counsel of his Fortune for he was now free from any Troubles in the Island Syracuse by an open and continued Trade and some years of Peace had recovered so much Wealth as defaced all the marks of the former War He was now strengthned with the new alliance of a powerful Neighbour whose assistances Oxythemis after the Greek manner did augment and enlarge He therefore embraced the design and made preparations answerable unto it He had provided two hundred Vessels equipped with all necessary furniture for the transporting of his Forces and had begun Hostility by intercepting the Carthaginian Ships that carried provisions of Corn and other necessaries from Sicily and Sardinia to Africk But in the very beginnings of his design that Vengeance of Heaven which had been long due unto him did at last take hold of him and blasted his counsels with his Ruine which was thus effected The Tyrant being now old and doubting the chances of War and the varieties of Fortune which he had so often experienced would provide for the Succession in his ill-gotten dominion before he departed from Sicily Those whom propinquity of Blood the affections of the Tyrant and the Vulgar report marked out for the Honour were the younger Agathocles and Archagathus the Son of that Archagathus that was betraied by his Father and slain by the Souldiers in Africk Both these had great hopes and strong expectations to be the heirs of the Empire The first built his upon the indulgent Affections of the old Tyrant which he had gained by a specious observance continual presence accompanied with a quiet industry in all that was commanded though he were unfit for War and would wear out daies of action with words of Obedience Besides his late Embassie and magnificent reception in Greece had made him more splendid though they were but the arts of the Enemy not the effects of his Merits And it is not to be doubted but that Oxythemis favoured his choice whom he saw least able to hinder his Projects On the other side Archagathus founded his pretensions to the Succession because he was General of the Forces and was now with them about Aetna he had been in several Expeditions in which by his boldness and generous meen he had got the esteem of valiant and the affections of the Souldiery So that the old Tyrant seemed to hold but a precarious Empire of him which he could take away at his pleasure But the obsequiousness of the younger Agathocles did over-balance all these Merits in the judgement of his Father Therefore when Archagathus was abroad with the Army the Tyrant commends his Son Agathocles to the obedience of the Syracusans as the future hopes of all their Peace and Safety and whom he had designed for his Throne And that he might have the like reverence from the Army he sends him with a Letter to Archagathus commanding him to deliver up the charge of the Forces into the hands of his Uncle Archagathus seeing his hopes deluded and that all his glorious hazards were fruitless when the rewards of danger were conferred on him that was never near them conceives an inexpiable hatred both against his Grandfather and Rival and resolves to quench it with the blood of both To this end he sends presently a Messenger to Maenon his Correspondent at Court and with whom he had often treated of dangerous Secrets and had prepared him for any design he should advise him unto and desires him to poison the Old Tyrant and he himself would contrive the death of the Younger This Maenon was a native of Aegesta where Agathocles had acted those incredible Cruelties and in the Ruine of the City was taken with the other youth that were appointed to be sold for Slaves But the comeliness of his Person had preferred him to the Tyrant's own Lust who used him as a Bardacio This he took patiently and seemed to be well pleased with his emploiment and to gain the more Credit with the Tyrant and advantage of doing mischief did glory that he was admitted into the number of his Prince's most beloved Confidents and professed that the present Benefits had cancell'd the old Injuries But yet his soul did inwardly burn with a desire of revenge both for the abuse of his Body and the destruction of his City and therefore was watchful and studious of a fit opportunity to accomplish it Archagathus was not ignorant of his Discontents and had found him a fit engine for such attempts as his defeated hopes did stand in need of For to enterprize upon a Tyrant by a secret Conspiracy none are more proper instruments then such as have a charge about their Persons because they cannot be easily ruined but by those whom they most trust and none are fitter to be wrought to this then such as have been abused by their Masters in their bodies And therefore Aristotle saith that many of those hateful Beasts have been dispatch'd out of the world by their forced Pathicks Besides he that is to perform it must be a person of a firm spirit made so either by Nature or Passion and resolved either for Death or Revenge Maenon had all these requisites and therefore receiving the summons prepares for his work and acts it about the same time that his Correspondent had finish'd his For Archagathus not shewing any signs of Discontent but professing a ready submission to the Command of his Old and the pleasures of his New King invites his Uncle to a Sacrifice wherein he used his Grandfather's method of making Religion the preface to Villany in an Island somewhat distant from the quarters of the Army and there making him drunk he cuts his throat and casts his dead body into the Sea As if he would appease it for the pollutions of the Old Tyrant who had often defiled it with the carcasses of murdered innocents But the waves cast it back to the shore and it being known to the Inhabitants was taken up and conveyed to Syracuse there to vex the eyes and soul of his inhumane Father who by this time also felt the approaches of death For Agathocles being accustomed to pick his teeth after Supper rising from table called for his Pick-tooth which Maenon whose office it was to provide it had anointed with a most mortal poison The Tyrant using it
Miseries the Sun seldome rose but he saw the ruines of that Government which he had left at his setting and the erection of a new And Peace and Quietness were set at such a distance from our hopes that they could not be expected but after a Desolation Then which effects though nothing could be more convincing of the destructiveness of such Principles and Practices that they neither proceeded from God who is the Authour of Order and Government nor agreed with Justice which is the preservative of Peace yet because they so impudently pretended to an Extract from Heaven and seemed to be owned by it in an uninterrupted Success against a Lawful Soveraign and are still importunately urged by Persons of no just hopes and whose broken Interests are impatient of a calm they are as yet received by some deluded Souls as Oracles and as the sober dictates of right Reason and the mischievous Consequences are reputed the depravations of the Actors not the legitimate Issues of the Principles But as the Divine Records do vindicate the Immaculate Purity of God from whom nothing proceeds which doth not make men happy in obedience to it from having any benigne influence on such destructive counsels and right Reason doth free Justice from any alliance with such wicked practices so the History of all Ages will testifie that these have been the artifices of Ambitious persons who seeking a criminal Greatness have devested themselves of all sense of Vertue do by these waies delude and distract the minds of men that so being weakned by their own Factions and disarmed by vitious habits they may more easily be oppressed by them And this History of Agathocles transmitted to posterity by Diodorus Siculus and Justin from whom it was gathered will evidently shew That the usual Method of overthrowing an ancient Government established by Law is to slander the actions and counsels of the present Magistrate That those that have the extremest Tyranny in projection will be the greatest pretenders of the Publick good and the most importunate assertors of the People's Rights That it is the most compendious way of imposing Slavery by raising in the Multitude too eager and passionate desires of Liberty That in a corrupted and disquiet State the most Contemptible member of that Community may without the help of a Miracle arise to Soveraignty That it is not the Indulgence of Heaven to the Usurper but the Indignation thereof to the People when Success attends the Tyrants enterprizes That Power acquired by Fraud or Violence will never be emploied in the exercise of Justice These therefore being the onely fruits that are to be expected from the unquiet Principles and deluding hopes which designing Demagogues infect the People with Wise men have constantly advised that even the Vices of Bad Princes are to be born with the like Patience as we endure Dearths and Tempests and other deviations of Nature from her usual course And this not to flatter Offending Kings who at a most dreadful Tribunal are accountable for their disobediences to their Eternal Superiour but in affection to mankind and pity of the deceivable Multititude Because though Princes as they are Men may be Vitious yet as such are not Immortal and a Pious Successour may repair all the ruines of a former Oppressour But when the People will usurp the Office of Heaven whose Prerogative it is to chastise Kings and to cut off the Fury of Princes and they themselves will correct their lawful Magistrates God most severely punishes them by suffering the basest of men to ride over their heads And the Primitive Christians thought it not onely their Duty but their Prudence by praiers and tears onely to seek the deliverance of Heaven from the injuries of a Governour rather then by opposing their lawful Soveraign to administer to a Tyrants Ambition who according to that Maxime of changing all things that were under the former Governour must deface Religion to maintain his Power and on the dishonour of Piety build his Greatness We have had experience of the Anger of Heaven for our Sins in giving us over to the delusions of men who sought and acquired Power by slandering a PRINCE whose most Eminent Worth we understood not till our ignorance had made Him and us miserable Which Power being so impiously got was not otherwise used For the Treasures and Ornaments of many Ages Peace were wasted and consumed by their Oppressions in a few years And we are now under the return of Mercy by a Lawful Soveraign Both Conditions may teach us to measure the Benefits and Inconveniences of Government as they are in their own nature and not by the sinister interpretations and seditious Harangues of Unquiet persons who will calumniate even the justest Rulers and the wisest Counsels And if the discovery of the methods of Tyranny which is made in this History may contribute any thing to effect a just hatred of such practices or establish sober Minds in a thankful acquiescence in that Gracious Providence which hath restored our ancient Government and given us a Prince instructed both by Affliction and Mercy in the best arts of Empire the Compiler hath attained his chiefest ends Farewell ERRATA PAg. 5. l. 23. r. hating p. 18. l. 5. r. for p. 89. l. 12. r. for p. 113. l. 6. r. councils p. 185. l. 14. r. impress p. 201. l. 3. r. provoke p. 234. l. 26. r. Ambicas THE General CONTENTS of the several BOOKS LIB I. THE Introduction The necessity of Government The causes of the Changes of Government The Miseries that attend those Changes Occasions to Usurpers The requisites of an Usurper A Tyrant in Title will be a Tyrant in Exercise Agathocles an Example of Usurpers Agathocles's Birth the prediction of his Cruelty and Greatness The uncertain Original of such Predictions Agathocles's abject beginnings baser Youth and infamous introduction into emploiment His Seditious practices cause a change of Government at Syracuse His flight from thence and vain attempts for Tyranny abroad His return home and another change of Government His exploits in his Command The City's Jealousie of him and his Banishment His War against Syracuse Amilcar reconciles him to his City and they revoke his Banishment He practices the arts of a Demagogue gets the office of Praetor and Keeper of the Liberty of Syracuse His plot to get an Army fit for his purpose by whom he massacres all the Senate and chief Citizens By dissimulation he prevails upon his associates in the Massacre to force the Principality upon him The Sicilians confederate against the Tyrant Acrotatus chosen General of the League by his Vices overthrows the enterprize Agathocles designs the Empire of all Sicily by fraud seizeth upon Messene The Exiles send an Embassy to Carthage The Death of Amilcar Agathocles's success against the Exiles LIB II. THE Carthaginian War Amilcar the son of Gisgo chosen General who by his wise conduct restores and heals the losses of his shipwreckt Army and raises up
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