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Updated: May 6, 2025
Hiketes, when he heard of Timoleon's arrival, in his terror sent for many of the Carthaginian ships of war; and now the Syracusans began utterly to despair of their safety, seeing the Carthaginians in possession of the harbour, Hiketes holding the city, and Dionysius still master of the promontory, while Timoleon was as it were hanging on the outskirts of Sicily in that little fortress of Tauromenium, with but little hope and a weak force, for he had no more than one thousand soldiers and the necessary supplies for them.
These were the inhabitants of a small city, sacred to Adranus, a god whose worship extends especially throughout Sicily. They were at feud with one another, as one party invited Hiketes and the Carthaginians, while the other sent for Timoleon to help them.
So the Corinthians, when they reached Rhegium, found these ambassadors, and saw the Carthaginian fleet cruising to intercept them. They were enraged at this treatment, and all were filled with anger against Hiketes, and with fear for the people of Sicily, who, they clearly saw, were to be the prize of the treachery of Hiketes and the ambition of the Carthaginians.
Do you suppose that these men have gathered together their host from the pillars of Herakles and the Atlantic coast, and risked their lives at sea, merely to support the dynasty of Hiketes?
For the Carthaginians during their endless wars in Sicily had never before taken Syracuse, but now, by the invitation of the traitor Hiketes, the city was turned into a barbarian camp.
But the most important thing of all was that Dionysius himself, who had now lost all hope of success, and was on the point of being starved out, despising Hiketes for being so shamefully beaten, but admiring Timoleon, sent to him and offered to deliver up both himself and the citadel to the Corinthians.
After these events, while Timoleon was on a campaign in the direction of Kalauria, Hiketes invaded the Syracusan territory, did much damage and insult, and retired loaded with spoil, past the very walls of Kalauria, despising Timoleon, who had but a small force with him. He, however, let him pass, but then pursued with his cavalry and light troops.
For Hiketes was the man who threw Dion's wife Arete alive into the sea, with her sister Aristomache and her little son, as is told in the Life of Dion. XXXIV. After this he marched against Mamercus at Catana. He beat him in a pitched battle near the river Abolus, routing him with a loss of two thousand men, no small part of whom belonged to the Phoenician contingent under Gisco.
IX. The Carthaginians sent twenty triremes to Rhegium, having on board ambassadors from Hiketes to Timoleon charged with instructions as bad as his deeds.
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