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Timoleon, however, reckoned it some kind of advantage, that these had thus discovered themselves before the battle, and, encouraging the rest, led them with all speed to the river Crimesus, where it was told him the Carthaginians were drawn together.
The river Crimesus, too, swollen partly by the rain, and partly by the stoppage of its course with the numbers that were passing through, overflowed its banks; and the level ground by the side of it, being so situated as to have a number of small ravines and hollows of the hill-side descending upon it, was now filled with rivulets and currents that had no certain channel, in which the Carthaginians stumbled and rolled about, and found themselves in great difficulty.
Such liberty and prosperity as now ruled in Sicily had not for a century been known, and when, three or four years after the great victory of the Crimesus, Timoleon suddenly died, the grief of the people was universal and profound. His funeral obsequies were splendidly celebrated at the public cost, his body was burned on a vast funeral pile, and as the flames flashed upward a herald proclaimed,
The opinion which he pronounced was usually ratified by the vote of the assembly; and he then left the theatre amidst the same cheers which had greeted his arrival. In this happy and honoured condition he breathed his last in B.C. 336, a few years after the battle of Crimesus.
Such was the dread that one division of the army, one thousand strong, mutinied and deserted, and it needed all his personal influence to keep the rest together. Yet Timoleon had in him the spirit that commands success. He pushed on with his disheartened force until near the river Crimesus, beyond which was encamped the great army of Carthage.
When the Corinthians had mounted, and stood on the top, and had laid down their bucklers to take breath and repose themselves, the sun coming round and drawing up the vapors from below, the gross foggy air that was now gathered and condensed above formed in a cloud upon the mountains; and, all the under places being clear and open, the river Crimesus appeared to them again, and they could descry the enemies passing over it, first with their formidable four horse chariots of war, and then ten thousand footmen bearing white shields, whom they guessed to be all Carthaginians, from the splendor of their arms, and the slowness and order of their march.
With these encouraging words he restored the spirits of the army, and led them on to the top of the hill overlooking the Crimesus. It was a misty May morning. Nothing could be seen; but from the valley a loud noise and clatter arose. The Carthaginians were on the march, and had begun to cross the stream. Soon the mist rose and the formidable host was seen.
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