276 HISTORICAL TALES,

Athens had failed? Yet the gods fought with
Timoleon.

In truth, from the day he left Corinth, those pre-
sages of fortune, on which the Greeks so greatly
depended, gathered about his path across the seas.
The signs and tokens were all favorable. While he
was at Delphi, seeking the favor of Apollo, a fillet with
wreaths and symbols of victory fell from a statue
upon his head, and the goddess Persephone told her
priestess in a dream that she was about to sail with
Timoleon to Sicily, her favorite island. He took,
therefore, a special trireme, sacred to the goddesses
Demeter and Persephone, both of whom were to ac-
company him. While at sea this sacred trireme
was illumined by a light from heaven, while a burn-
ing torch on high seemed to guide the fleet to a safe
harbor. All these portents filled the adventurers
with hope and joy.

But Timoleon had himself to depend on as well as
the gods. At the Italian port of Rhegium he found
Hicetas, the despot of a Sicilian city, who had in-
vited him to Sicily, but was now allied with the
Carthaginians. He had there twenty of the war-
ships of Carthage, double the force of Timoleon.
Yet the shrewd Corinthian played with and tricked
him, set him to talking and the people of Rhegium
to talking with him, and slipped slyly out of the
harbor with his ships while the interminable talk
went on.

This successful stratagem redoubled the spirit
of his followers. Landing at a small town on the
Sicilian coast, a new enterprise presented itself.